The Quiet Corner
The Quiet Corner
The Quiet Corner
by
S.D. Gordon
1906
"He that goeth aside out of the busy round of his daily task
Into The Quiet Corner, to sit down with the Most High, he will find the Most High coming
over so close that this man will find himself lodging under the very shadow of the Almighty"
(Psalm 91:1). -- A paraphrase, putting the real meaning of the words underneath into simple
homely English.
"I sat down under His shadow with great delight" (Song of Solomon 2:3).
"Come ye yourselves apart into a quiet corner [i.e., a solitary place, shut away from the crowd,
where you can be alone]" (Mark 6:31).
"When He giveth quietness who then can make trouble" (Job 34:29).
"I will go off, and take my stand upon my look-out corner, and will set me upon the lone
elevated watching place, and will look forth to see what He will speak" (Habakkuk 2:1).
Contents
Preface
1. Comrades of The Quiet Corner
2. Things Seen In One Quiet Corner
3. The Quiet Corner -- God's Soundingboard
4. How The Quiet Corner Has Changed Things
Preface
Was the traffic ever quite so thick, and so tensely on the move! Wherever you go, in
the city street, or country road, it's the same, with occasional breathing spaces in
between.
The most experienced man is put on duty where the traffic is thickest. There he
stands quite alone, very quiet, very decided.
His very value lies in his quietness, trained quietness, strong deliberate
quietness. Alert, nervously tense, keenly alive to the possible danger lurking at
every angle and turn, he is so quiet. That is his strength.
The seasoned driver at the wheel sits very quiet, but sharply alert. Nothing
escapes his quiet eye. His grip on the wheel must be firm, the decision breathlessly
quick, and must be right. His nerves are tense, but they must be quiet, all the
quieter because so tense.
The huge ocean liner is out on the high seas battling some terrific gale.
Hammered and battered by wind and wave, merciless whirlwind and mountain
wave, it keeps steadily on.
Day and night the Captain sticks to the bridge. All alone, in a quietness painfully
tense at times he keeps the sharp lookout. His quick, quiet, steady hand on a brass
knob gives a signal.
The engineer down in the bowels of the boat instantly, quietly, blindly, obeys the
signal. Its significance he is quite ignorant of. His one task is to be quiet, so as to
get the signal true, and to obey it implicitly, unquestioningly, unfalteringly.
Inner quiet is the essential thing with both captain and engineer. Only so can the
boat be kept steady, and outride the tempest.
Our Lord Jesus, as a Man down here, knew all about congested traffic and traffic
jams, both kinds, actual, and in the spirit world.
Those crowded, crooked, narrow Jerusalem streets He threaded. He knew the
thing by sight and feel, by sound and quick move.
And the terrific drive and push, subtle drive and stormy push, of the unseen
spirit atmosphere He clearly knew, too, by the feel of His keenly alert, inner, spirit
sensitiveness. And, of the two, this latter was the tenser and subtler, by far.
To-day's spirit traffic intensifies tremendously the need of the Quiet Corner. The
key to its door needs polishing with the friction of constant use. The hinges of its
door must be kept in good condition by the steady rhythmic awing.
There are three sorts of Quiet Corners, of place, of time, and of spirit. The quiet
place, even though it changes, and the reserved bit of time, help to preserve the
Quiet Corner inner spirit, out in the thick of things.
One needs to use all three for inner peace, and outer power, and keen
discernment, and steady footing.
S.D.G. New York City, March, 1932
It was what we would call a human voice. In Moses' mother-tongue, likely with
the vocal intonation Moses knew and used, the voice came.
That quiet human voice, in simple language easily understood, would talk with
Moses about that thing, and explain just what should be done.
And if the answer was not quite clear in detail to Moses' understanding he would
say, what one would naturally say under such circumstances, "Yes, but what about
this, and this?" And back would come the Voice talking quietly, patiently, as a
mother with child, a teacher with scholar.
And this didn't happen once. It happened repeatedly. Indeed I am able to tell you
just how many times it happened. Now, I don't use statistics in speaking, or very,
very rarely. They are valuable in a book Where you can consult them. But it is
usually wearisome to be obliged to listen to a long statement of statistics.
But I have the exact statistics here. And they will not bother or tire you a bit.How
many times did this thing, we're talking about, happen?
Listen, just as many times, running through almost if not quite forty years, as
Moses went out to ask God a question. God never failed him once.
And can you feel, as I know I cannot put into words, just how Moses felt about
God ? He knew that any time he would go out to that Tent with a question God
would come down nearer, and talk the thing out with him. He knew it by
experience, long repeated blessed experience.
And so when Moses got to be an old man he said to himself, "I must write that
down. People don't know what a wonderful, real God, God is." And so he wrote
this Ninety-first Psalm.
Will you listen again to that free reading of its first verse? And I am making bold
to say that though it is free, and in very simple, homely English, it is strictly
accurate to what Moses is thinking, and is saying in his own mother-tongue
underneath our English translation.
Listen then, with hushed heart, and look as you listen: "He that goeth aside out
of the busy round of his daily life into some quiet corner, to sit down with the Most
High, he will find the Most High coming over so close that this man shall be
lodging under the very shadow of the Almighty."
And this is still true. God doesn't change. There is no variableness in God. He
never changes. Everything else changes. Every one else changes. God is the one
dependable quantity (if I may put it that way with utmost reverence), the one
dependable quantity in all life.
By the time you get a four in your age at the beginning of the figures you find
every plan ever you made slipped a bit somewhere.
You find every one ever you leaned on failed you somewhere, for lack of strength
when not for lack of devotion. But God! He is the one unchanging, unchangeable
Person in all life.
And I have put over that first verse of this Ninety-first Psalm three words, for
present day use, for every day help.
Act -- He Comes
The first word is act. That simply means this: When a man "goeth aside" out of the
old life, away from the old habit of things, and comes over to Jesus as Saviour,
something happens.
Some One (with a capital 0) comes over and moves inside that man. What does
it mean to be a Christian? Does it mean to believe the Bible? Oh! no. It's far
simpler than that. It's far more radical than that.
Does it mean believing a list of things called a creed, called Christianity? Oh!
no. It's far more radical than that, far simpler.
It means this: you open the door of your life to Jesus the Saviour. He is all the
time standing, with the toe of boot at the door of every man's life.
And the moment you open your door to Him in He comes. In the person of His
Other Self, the Holy Spirit, He comes in.
Then, you listen to Him, you keep in touch with Him. You do as He wishes. This
is what it means to be a Christian.
Then you will believe the Bible from cover to cover because you have Jesus in
your heart. When you have Him you've no bother about it. He is the key to it.
Jesus is the simple Master-key to the Bible, opening every door into its pages
and truths. When you are in touch of heart with Jesus you believe it. You love it.
And you begin to understand it.
And then you believe Christianity, the real thing of Christianity. For Christ is
Christianity. He is, not the thing commonly labelled Christianity, but the real
simon-pure thing. When you have Him you believe it.
That's the first word, act. When we come He comes. We come to Him for
cleansing and saving. He comes to us as Saviour. He enters into us by His Holy
Spirit.
That wondrous Holy Spirit does in us, as we yield habitually and intelligently to
Him, He does in us what Jesus did for us, and is doing all the time for us. He
makes real in our lives, daily, the salvation Jesus worked out for us.
The Day-by-Day Habit
Then there is the second word, and that leads us straight, by the shortest way, to the
particular thing we are talking about just now.
That second word is habit. And that simply means this: When you go off alone,
with the door shut, and the Book open, and the knee bent, and the will bending
anew to the higher will, there is Some One else there.
He comes. In a distinctive way, with the added emphasis of his own Personal
Presence, He comes to open the Book.
He comes to open your mind to its simple clear practical meaning. He comes to
pull you up wherein you haven't been quite true, perhaps.
He comes to teach your conscience, to answer your questions, to steady your
feet, to gentle your spirit, to guide your petitions, to start the song anew in your
heart, to tune your voice to joyous praise.
The daily habit of getting alone with the Book opens the door for Him to come.
And He does. When you're alone you're not alone.
You are alone so far as other humans are concerned, you are not alone so far as
He, the Holy Spirit, Jesus' Other Self, is concerned. We go, He comes. We go aside
into the Quiet Corner. He comes over to meet with us.
And the great blessedness of the Quiet Time in the Quiet Corner, is this: not that
we read in the Book, though we will. Not that we pray, though there will be the
fresh impulse to do that, and simpler praying too, and praise.
But this: He is there! And to thank Him for His presence, to praise Him for
dying for you, this, this is the great blessing of the Quiet Corner.
You sing a bit of song, a song of praise, praise to Him for what He is, and for
what He did when He died, and for what He is now that He lives. This will start the
joy bells ringing in your heart. It will lighten your feet, and the way, and the cloudy
sky overhead.
Atmosphere
Then the third word you will discover for yourself, the word atmosphere. You will
come to recognize a gracious presence all the time.
You may not always realize His presence ; that's apt to be a matter of mood, of
bodily condition, sometimes. But you can come to recognize His presence.
Realizing is blessed, but sometimes like the thermometer, subject to the outside
temperature. Recognizing is yet more blessed. It reckons on Him, not on our
feelings.
The North Star is always up there in spite of clouds and fogs. He is like that.
Even if we are faithless, He abides faithful. He cannot deny Himself.
Realizing is a matter of your feelings ; recognizing is a matter of fact, the fact
about Him, His unfailing faithfulness.
Comrades
Now this Quiet Talk is called Comrades of the Quiet Corner. And that Word
comrade contains in itself the very thing we are talking about.
For, of course, that word comes from the old tongue of the Latins. And it means
literally simply this: One Who is in the same place, in the same chamber, or shut-
away room with you.
It has come to mean a close companion, an intimate associate. It means now one
who shares the common experiences of life with you.
And it gives one a solemn hush to recall that comrade is the accurate word here,
in the first and finest meaning of the Quiet Corner. It brings to us at once the heart
meaning, the original meaning.
One hushes his heart as he remembers that the first meaning here is this: Our
Lord Jesus Himself is our Comrade in the Quiet Corner. And so we are comrades
with Him.
This is the way He Himself puts it. In that betrayal night talk He gives us that
word comforter. Comforter and comrade are close kin. Comrade means one with
you, sharing the same place. Comforter means one Who is at your side, devoting
himself to you.
In that talk Jesus says, "I will send you another Comforter". He Himself was
one ; this other One coming, the Holy Spirit, is to be to them, and to us, all that
Jesus Himself was those human years of closest fellowship.
And He is to be yet more. For Jesus is now more, up in glory at the Father's right
hand. And this Comforter, the Holy Spirit, is the Other Self of the glorified,
enthroned Jesus.
And then to make this yet clearer to them, and to us, Jesus adds a further bit. He
says, speaking of the Holy Spirit, "I come to you."
And yet further emphasis is given in the other word spoken, "My Father... and
we will come unto him (who keeps His Word) and make Our abiding place with
him". That word "abode," abiding place, has in it the whole meaning of the word
comrade.
And if this seem overbold for us to be talking this way, we remember that it is
Jesus' own way of putting the thing.
It surely is a tremendous pull up for us in our lives. We will want to be, we will
quietly, steadily aim to be like Him, pure and holy and unselfish. So we shall be
real comrades with Him.
And then one quickly thinks back to the Eden ideal, and the Eden habit, before
man's wrong choice broke in. God and the man walked and worked together in the
Garden.
And again one swings forward in thinking to the other end of the Book. There
the garden of the Eden days has become a garden city.
All the rare natural beauty of God's own garden, and all the rare human culture
of the city, ideally, are blended.
The Calvary Man has enriched the early garden life. That same One who made
the garden, and walked in it with the man in his own image, He has been in action
to mend man's bad Eden break.
He gave His breath in Eden, creatively. He gave His blood on Calvary,
redemptively. He gives His breath again, His Holy Spirit, with us now for our daily
life. Under His gracious touch the rarest human culture grows, and enriches, and
matures, and mellows.
"And they see His face. And His name (His character, His likeness) is in their
faces". The comradeship at last is rhythmically completed and complete.
Fellow Comrades
And, then, one recalls quickly other fellow-comrades of the Quiet Corner. This sort
of thing was the dominant trait in those two outstanding men, Enoch and Noah.
The first man had gone away. These two men, seven generations after, and ten,
went back and picked up the walk step. They returned to that blessed comradeship
with Jehovah.
And time would fail me to tell of princely Abraham, of Isaac the giant of
gentleness, and David the sweet Psalmist-King. And Isaiah the counsellor of Kings,
and of Ezekiel and Daniel, the twin Johns of the Old Testament-Revelation-pages.
These, with countless others, have kept the light shining through the fog and
storm of the long years. They have sent out the sweet fragrance of the Quiet
Corner, and its rare blessed comradeship.
Let us join their goodly fellowship.
Plainly this takes great hold of the heart of this young exile in the little Chebar-
fertilized garden. It takes great hold of one's heart to-day.
And there are the simple touches of the human in this man. He begins talking.
There is a voice. One can think of a quiet, clear, human voice talking.
And the young fellow, listening, understands at once just what is said. So the
Man was talking in this young man's cradle tongue, learned from his mother, likely
with the vocal intonation so intimately familiar.
And the mere fact that the Man on the throne, up there in the clear, is talking
with this young man down in the storm, is immensely suggestive. He was
apparently sitting on the edge of the throne, bending over, with eager eyes intent on
the things happening down on the storm-befogged earth.
There's an overpowering sense of the glory of this Man. And yet, through it all,
there is heard quite distinctly the voice talking. In simple language instanty and
easily understood, he begins talking.
There is an errand to be done. And the Man makes quite clear just what he needs
to have this young man down in the storm, just what he needs to have him do. This
is the fifth bit in the spirit vision, the man.
The Rainbow
Then there's a sixth bit. There's a rainbow. This is of intense significance. The
rainbow is mentioned three times in this Book of God, near the beginning, clear
over at the end, and here in Ezekiel, in what is practically about the middle of the
Book, as it falls evenly open.
Near the beginning it is after the flood. That terrible catastrophe had swept away
the rare civilization of seventeen centuries.
It is striking in our day, when this event is so discredited, to note that the surface
of the entire earth tells, in geological language, a story identical with the Book's
account.
As the new start was made on the earth, after the Flood, there was urgent need of
some absolute assurance that such an event would never occur again.
The bare possibility would be a nightmare dread, stifling all human endeavour. A
cloud appearing in the sky would naturally cause a dread of another flood.
And so God takes pains, at considerable length, in the record, to give this
assurance. He makes a solemn covenant that there would never again be such a
flood.
And the token of the covenant is given, an open token, plain before the eyes of
all, the rainbow. Following every storm would be a rainbow. Always, whenever
there is a storm clearing there is a rainbow, even though oftimes, most times, not
seen by human eyes, but always seen by His eyes.
Clear at the end of the Book it is spoken of twice, in chapters four and ten of
John's Revelation. In the first of these the rainbow is mentioned in connection with
the throne set in heaven.
The whole scene is in the upper world of God's own immediate presence. The
time is some day in the future, when our Lord Jesus is stepping into the direct
action of the race again.
The purpose of His action is two-fold. It is to clear up the crisis heading up on
the earth, endangering the very integrity, the existence of the race. And then it is to
start things going on the earth in His own way.
The Creator-Jehovah is pictured in chapter four. He "was", before the creation;
He "is", in His continued Creator touch on all life; and He is now about "to come",
into the direct immediate action of earth.
Then this same One is pictured, in chapter five, as Jehovah-Jesus, the Redeemer,
the "Lamb" that "had been slain". As He steps into action on the earth He is seen as
"in the midst of the throne".
This identifies Him with the One sitting upon the throne in chapter four. It is
here that again, the rainbow is seen, "round about the throne".
Then it is significant that, in the tenth chapter of Revelation, the rainbow is seen
differently placed. There an "angel", or messenger, is seen stepping into the action
of earth.
The description leaves no question as to the personality of this One. He is
"arrayed with a cloud, and the rainbow was upon His head, and His face was as the
sun".
The description here is of His stepping into a final decisive action. There is to be
"delay" no longer. The purpose of God regarding things on earth is now at length to
be actually carried through. It will now be as it has been revealed to, and by, the old
prophetic writers.
Now, here, in Ezekiel, mid-way between these other two, the rainbow is seen
again. Here the rainbow is described in rather full detail. It is round both the throne
and the Man.
The brilliance of the rainbow is intense. It seems to be round about, and shining
out of, the very person of the Man on the throne.
And the rare halo of it completely enveloped the throne on which He is sitting. It
is the most full and brilliant description of the rainbow, in all these three places.
And the young Ezekiel attempts to describe the rainbow-enveloped enthroned
Man, or the Man whose mere presence was as an indescribable rainbow,
enveloping the throne, and dominating the whole scene. He says "this was the
appearance of the likeness of the glory of Jehovah".
It is worth while noting just how the rainbow was caused in each instance. At the
Flood time it appears as the natural phenomenon so familiar.
The air is full of moisture thinning out, becoming less, to the extent of the sun
shining on innumerable drops of water held in the air.
These drops of water act as prisms. The sunlight shining on, and through, them
is refracted, or broken up, or separated into the varying colors of which light is
composed.
These are the three distinct original colors, red, and green and violet. These
again blend in such a way that other colors are seen, orange and yellow and blue.
These are what Newton arbitrarily called the "primary" colors.
The sunlight shining out, in an even circle, is separated into these colors, and so
displays the colors in circular form called the rainbow.
This simple natural phenomenon, of course, had always been there in the
atmosphere under these conditions. Now God takes a familiar thing in the heavens,
and uses it as a token or sign of the Covenant He voluntarily enters into with man.
He says "I have set my bow in the Cloud, and I will look upon it and... I will
remember my covenant". And this is repeated in careful detail, over and over, that
man might be comforted, and assured, and at rest in his future activity.
The Centre of The Rainbow
We shall see in a moment the significance to us men to-day, of the rainbow, the
intense singular practical significance.
It will add to that significance to note how the rainbow is produced each time,
that is, its source. At the Flood time it is seen as a simple, natural phenomenon in
the sky. The sunlight shining through the thinning vapor causes the familiar sight.
In the Revelation description it is seen round about the throne and the One
sitting there, as though caused by the light shining out from the throne.
Then it becomes most striking, that, in the second description in the Revelation
(chapter ten), the rainbow is seen upon the head of the One there, whose face is as
the sun. That is to say, the light shining out from His very presence, His person, is
seen as the cause of the rainbow.
And here in Ezekiel's vision, it is plainly the indescribable glory light, shining
out from the person of the Man on the throne, that gives the effect of a rainbow,
quite too much for description in common human language.
There is one unusual thing in the description of the rainbow round about the
throne in the fourth of Revelation. It is like an emerald to look upon.
This seems strange at first. Emerald, of course, is green. The common rainbow
has all the original colors and blends, variously seen, according to the degree of
brilliance each time.
And some one, who had acquired some little knowledge of such things, might
think, "what a blunder! This is scientifically inaccurate!" and so on.
It becomes most striking that, when all the facts are got regarding any one
passage, this distinctive Book of God is found always to fit exactly into all the
findings of both accurate history and true science.
It is written in the simple language of the common man, and yet it never runs
counter to any ascertained facts of any careful research.
So here, the emerald coloration of the rainbow encircling the throne is both
easily explained from the scientific point of view, and it comes to have most
striking significance. Clearly there is a purpose in this apparently singular
description.
It is a commonplace to-day that the different colors are a result of the varying
wave-lengths of light as it passes through some refraction medium. One wave-
length gives the effect to the eye of red, another different wave-length of green, and
so on. Here from the science point of view, the emerald color of the rainbow is a
mere detail of the wavelength of the light shining out from the throne and the One
sitting there. And clearly there is a significance. It is a most striking significance
just now, in the midst of the unrest and confusion everywhere in the world.
No one worth while, in the thick of things, need be reminded how the feverish
unrest and uncertainties in all life to-day wears on one's nerves.
Now green is the most restful of all colors. It has the least intense luminosity of
any color, and so is most restful to both eye and nerves.
At once one thinks of the gracious, thoughtful touch in all the outer world of
growing things. Everywhere the dominant coloration is green, in its varying
shades.
The minor touches of blue and red and yellow and so on emphasize the dominant
green. We shall see in a moment the peculiarly striking significance of this.
Now, here, the throne, and the Man on the throne, and the rainbow round about,
are inseparably connected. The Man is the intense centre of the scene. The throne
speaks of the limitless power of the Man sitting there.
The rainbow round about tells of the unspeakable, indescribable glory of the
mere person, the presence of the man. The Man dominates all. The throne and the
rainbow spell out His glory and power.
We will come back to this. For the whole meaning is here, for us, and for to-day,
and for a near future, likely quite near.
That rare half arch of beauty in the misty air after a storm is prophetic. It tells of
a coming clearing of earth's racial storm, so rough, just now.
There are really two prophetic touches in all our common life. We may not
recognize them, but they are there. One is in human life, the other in nature.
The Jew is God's gracious prophetic touch everywhere in evidence among all the
nations. Whether dealing in bonds or gathering bones, in rank unbelief in his
Messiah, he yet is, even though unconsciously, God's prophecy of the unfailing
outcome of his love and plan. Even so the rainbow speaks to us of God's
unchanging purpose.
But yet, more than the voice, with the voice, there comes the distinct
consciousness of a personal touch.
Repeatedly in the narrative the phrase is used "the hand of the Lord". There was
the intimate sense of a hand, an unseen hand, reaching down and touching him. It
gave the peculiar sense of personal actual touch.
Every one knows how comforting such touch is with some one loved and
venerated. It answers to that innate longing in every human for personal touch with
another human in full warm sympathy.
With this was something else, something more. There was the distinct
consciousness of a presence, a spirit presence, within, within himself. Twice,
Ezekiel says "the Spirit entered into me and set me upon my feet".
There was the sense of peace, of inner quiet, an exquisite stillness. It took away
any sense of being afraid that may have been there when he fell upon his face.
And with that was the consciousness of power, strengthening him, so that now
he was standing again upright on his feet.
This is all of great practical interest to us to-day. It calls to mind how our Lord
Jesus habitually reached out his hand and touched those whom he healed and
helped in various ways.
It brings to mind again the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and after.
There was the sense of a gracious presence, an exquisite peace within, and a
strengthening touch. Many a one of us has been conscious of such gracious
experience through the Holy Spirit's incoming.
And here is an experience, quite akin to this, away back in the midst of this old
Hebrew story, in the Captivity time. Here is a bit of the personal experience that
Calvary has made possible for every one of us to-day.
The Errand
Then he is told about the errand he is being sent on. The Man on the throne wants
something done down on the storm-swept earth. He needs a messenger, a man, to
do something for Him, down in the thick of the befogging storm.
That personal touch, so intimate, so subtle, so real, is for a purpose. It is to
qualify him for the errand. The bit of service he is to do grows out of this personal
intimate touch with that Man on the glory-encircled throne. It is most significant.
The errand to be done would be a very hard one to do. The extreme difficulty is
the thing stressed in a most marked way. Over and over again this is emphasized.
A message was to be given. It was to be given to leaders of this exiled nation.
These leaders were strong mature men. Many of them old, practically all of them
were this messenger's senior in years.
They had all the racial intensity peculiar to the Jew and the Oriental. They were
proud, egotistical, opinionated, dogmatic, unreasoning, and with it all, intensely
bitter into the very marrow, over their forced exile.
All this is taken account of in the instructions being given this young messenger.
From every human point of view his task was impossible, simply, absolutely
impossible to the last degree.
Yet, yet, it was done! It was thoroughly done. Nothing could exceed the
thoroughness, in fact and in spirit, with which this young messenger's seemingly
impossible task was actually done.
It meant the most vigorous self-discipline for this young, studious, scholarly,
cultured, hesitant, Ezekiel, the God-strengthened man, as his name means.
The Cherubim Musical Obedience
But, but, before we come to that, we must take a bit of a thoughtful look at
something else. It is a something else that has to do most intimately with his
preparation for his humanly-impossible task.
It is a bit of realistic, intense, pictured preparation. He is made to look upon a
swiftly moving scene, an absorbing, fascinating panorama, which floods his eyes
and grips his very being.
And this pictured presentation comes both before, and after, the vision of the
glorified throne-Man, and that unforgettable personal touch, and the description of
the errand to be done.
It is regarding the Cherubim. Now the Cherubim have been an unexplained
puzzle to most people, both scholars and us common folk. One reads about the
wheels on this Ezekiel page, wheels within wheels.
And it usually leaves a vague, confused, blurred impression. This is simply, of
course, because we do not take time to prayerfully brood over what is here. There is
very simple and significant teaching here for all of us.
The Cherubim are mentioned five times, under different names, at Eden, in
connection with the Tabernacle, and again with the Solomon Temple, in Ezekiel,
and at the end in John's Revelation.
In the Tabernacle and the Temple representations of them are in the Holy of
Holies, and in the weavings and carvings.
Three different words are used as names. The name used most times, Cherubim,
means those set to guard or keep something safe.
The name Isaiah uses twice, Seraphim, seems to mean simply that they are of
princely rank. The word used in Ezekiel and again in John's Revelation, living
creature or beast, means embodying fullness of life.
They are always associated with the presence of God. The frequent references to
God, as sitting between the Cherubim, refer to the Tabernacle and Temple, in
which centred the Hebrew worship.
Ezekiel gives a rather full description of them. In a brief word, they have each,
the form of a man, with added features of a lion, an ox, and an eagle, and they have
the general appearance or substance of fire, burning, flashing flames of fire, the
general hues and indescribable brilliance of ceaseless flashing fire.
They move with incredible swiftness, and with utmost harmony, under the
ceaseless control of the Spirit of God within, animating and inspiring them.
It seems quite clear that they simply represent God's ideal for His living creation
on the earth. That ideal includes all created life.
That ideal is ever in His presence, and suggests that He never loses sight of His
gracious ideal for man and the whole living creation. He will not fail nor be
discouraged until that ideal has become a blessed reality.
And, furthermore, these ideals of full life are ever serving as guardians down in
the storm-swept earth. At the very beginning they are guarding the Tree of
Fullness-of-Life in Eden, for man's return there some glad day. They are ever
guarding God's ideal for man and for the whole living creation.
But, but, the thing that stands out most sharply and prominently in Ezekiel's
description is intensely practical. Ezekiel's spirit-eyes are opened, for his own sake,
for the sake of the errand he is sent on, to see them in action.
The almost impossible task he is given to do, humanly impossible, is the one
explanation of this description of these rare living creatures.
The thing that stands out is this: the passion of their hearts is to please that Man
on the throne, up there in the clear.
They are down in the thick of the storm that engulfs the earth. They represent
fullness of life. The eyes, as described, indicate perfect intelligence. The wheels
indicate swiftness of movement, and a perfect rhythm of movement.
The living Spirit animating them indicates the full perfect yielding of all their
intelligence and power to the gracious mastery of the Man on the throne.
They are a rare illustration of the old fact that perfect freedom is in perfect
obedience to a perfect will. They stand for full intelligence and full power in full
ryhthmic obedience.
Now rhythm is a music word. And twice over in this exquisite description of
their activity it is said that their movement makes perfect music.
Their very action is rarest symphony. The very air is vibrant with the rhythmic
harmony of their every move.
So often a paraphrase is the only way of putting into English the rare meaning of
the words underneath our common English version.
As these living creatures moved in their appointed task their very movements
made a great volume of sweet rhythmic sound. And it was really like the voice of
the Man on the throne making perfect music. This is -the real meaning of the
language under chapter one, verses twenty-four and twenty-five.
And again this is the exquisite meaning of the almost indescribable music of
action in chapter three, verses twelve and thirteen. No paraphrase could do it justice
in its abundant description of the music of their action.
In the description it is vocalized into an exuberant outburst of praise. "Blessed,
glorious, wondrous, is the glory of the very person of Jehovah, as we know Him
who know Him most intimately of any."
A Bitter Bit of Work
All this description of these living creatures, and the music of their perfect action
or movements, in doing what the throne Man wants done, all this comes before,
and then after, the telling to Ezekiel of the errand entrusted to him.
It becomes quite clear that this detailed Cherubim scene is for Ezekiel's sake. His
spirit eyes are open to see them in action. There is a most practical meaning in it
for him.
It is this: in the thick of this wild befogging fire-wind storm enswamping the
earth these Cherubim go steadily on, doing the errand entrusted to them.
The storm fights them. It would naturally stop them. Its befogging atmosphere
would stifle their breathing, bitterly, stubbornly opposing them, speaking in a
simple, natural way of the thing. And they would be quite conscious of this bitter,
stubborn, opposition to them.
But, in it all, they are true to the errand entrusted to them, down on. the earth, by
the Man on the throne. This is the one pictured meaning to this young Hebrew by
the Chebar.
And there's yet more : it tells us how stubborn, bitterly stubborn, would be the
opposition to him among his people. The errand he was being sent on would mean
sorest, bitterest fighting, by those dearest to him, and those of highest standing, and
those in most intimate touch.
And this fact of bitterest opposition is seen in the mingled conflicting emotions
frankly spoken of. After the whole vision is over, and Ezekiel is brooding over
what it means for him, he says "I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit, and ...
I sat overwhelmed ... seven days."
The language used underneath simply means a mingling of bitterest grief and of
vehement protest over the wrongs he was to rebuke, and the apparent hopelessness
of the task given him.
It is most striking that at the end of that intense seven days of overwhelmed
brooding, a further message came to him.
It intensifies his own personal responsibility to do as he was told. Failure on his
part to do the errand would make him personally responsible for the outcome to his
people, the exiled nation.
The doing of the errand entrusted to him involved his personal life in the most
intimate way imaginable. It affected his food in a most repugnant way, even after
the prescribed diet had been modified.
It affected his personal comfort in the most drastic sort of way, and even his
personal appearance in a way offensive to a proper self-esteem.
It involved his reputation, and his personal touch with his loved ones, and with
the inner intimate circle of friends, as well as in the widest exile circles.
There was to be a sort of mute pantomime, long continued, out in the open
public gaze, day after day, with the ridicule and jeering, the scorn and contempt,
the pointing of coarse jest, natural to such a situation.
Before the errand was accomplished it actually came to mean the personal loss
of her who was dearest to him, his other self, the most intimate sharer of all his
heart-life and personal life.
The Far-reaching Outcome
The outcome of Ezekiel's life-long errand affected radically the whole future life of
his nation clear up to the coming of the Messiah.
This gives utmost significance to his exceptional personal experiences. It was an
exceptional preparation for an exceptional and outstanding mission. God's plan for
the re-nationalizing of the Jew, and for the coming of the Messiah, and for the
redemption of the whole race, centres in this man.
One never knows how wide reaching may be his "yes" to God's plan for his life.
The plan always hinges on someone's "yes" to God.
God always works on the human level, through the human channel. Ezekiel's
consent to God's plan was an essential part of the whole racial plan being worked
out.
Ezekiel's mission was a link in a chain, a human chain of human links, being
forged out in the tense fire of God's great heart.
Jonah and Esther and Ezekiel were used to play a big part in God's plan for the
Jew during the long exile.
Earlier Jonah prepared Nineveh morally for the coming exile residence of the
traitor Jew. Later Esther was used, dramatically and heroically, to preserve the Jew
racially from complete violent extinction during the captivity period.
Ezekiel has the most difficult and yet most gracious task of preparing the Jew
himself morally for the return to Palestine, and so for the coming of their Messiah,
Jesus.
Ezekiel is the forerunner of Ezra and Nehemiah, the national leaders of the
return movement to Palestine and Jerusalem. He ploughed the ground for the
sowing of Haggai and Zechariah.
Because of Ezekiel's faithful doing of his humanly impossible task the later
Isaiah found a different moral tone among the captive people, as he made his
pleading preaching journeys, back and forth between Palestine and the Euphrates.
Earlier links in the long chain were the earlier Isaiah with Amos and Hosea and
Micah. The giant Jeremiah, with his rare heroism, and his sobbing, limping verse,
exerted an inestimable influence through the ebbing flooding tide of events,
national strength at ebb, national traitory at flood.
Intense Habakkuk and Zephaniah and Joel are minor but very intense links in the
chain being forged. Obadiah, Nahum and Malachi are like cracks in the national
fence.
They let us see through into the life of the returned exiles before the long silence
that precedes the Messiah's coming.
Really, Ezekiel is the first John-the-Baptist, preparing the way of the Lord, far,
far in advance. He kept the Hebrew moral soil from hardening, and choking with
weeds, quite beyond the edge of the plough.
And He really comes nearer us than that. For the Jew was re-nationalized that
the Messiah might come. And when He did come He was rejected. And again they
were scattered, and so remain until this day.
But love never faileth. The rejected Messiah became the world's Saviour, and
ours. The Cross of rejection became the blessed doorway into salvation and
fullness of life for all of us who will accept Christ.
And there's more yet beyond. For the Book plainly indicates that the scattered
Jew will be re-nationalized again, for the second coming of their Messiah. And
then will come the blessed New Order of Things on this old earth.
Ezekiel never dreamed how much his "yes" to God would mean. His imagination
never took in how much the Quiet Corner would mean to himself and to the world.
But then no one ever does.
If we will wear down the doorsill into the Quiet Corner, we will find there our
Lord's plan for our lives, each of them.
And we shall find out, some day, how much may grow out of that sacred simple
Quiet Corner of daily comradeship with our Lord Jesus.
3. The Quiet Corner -- God's
Soundingboard
• In a Garden
• Five Voices of God
• Learning to Hear
• The Standard Voice
• Learning to Read
• The Man of the Book
• The Quiet Corner Book
In a Garden
God is talking to us men, and we can understand what He is saying. This is
immensely suggestive. Talking means intelligence. It means thinking, and ability to
put one's thoughts into speech.
Man alone of all creation has the power of speech. In this he is like God. It is a
bit of the creative image, part of God's plan in creation, of His purpose, yes of His
desire, His longing. He wanted a man with whom he could have fellowship.
Talking at once suggests companionship. The two talking together are
companions, thus far. And companion itself is a very suggestive word. It really
means, in its origin, eating together.
And that itself, characteristically, means the closest friendship, the most intimate
fellowship. Eating together was regarded, in early times, as a covenant of
friendship.
"In a garden
Was a shade,
There the heart of Christ was riven.
Clasped hands in agony,
Plead: Thy will be done by Me
In a garden.
"In a garden
Was a tomb,
In the Quiet Corner
Jesus sleeps, the Lord from Heaven
Pierced hands together laid
Prove the ransom wholly paid;
In a garden.
"In a garden
Was a stone,
Rolled away on Easter morning.
Christ is risen, angels sing.
Sin and death have lost their sting,
In a garden." -- C.M.C. altered.
And ever since then, as before, God has been talking, calling, wooing, beckoning,
insistently talking to us; and, where and when we come back into touch, talking
with us. That's the real meaning of the Quiet Corner.
He is talking to us men. He is talking to all men. He is talking in every man's
mother-tongue.
Five Voices of God
In His great eagerness He talks in five quite distinct ways. There are five voices of
God. That is to say He talks in five different ways.
There is the outer voice of nature. The heavens are telling the glory of God, that
is, His character, His love. For glory is the character of goodness, the shining light
of love.
"The invisible things of Him since the creation of the world are clearly seen,
being perceived through the things that have been made, even His everlasting
power and deity" (Romans 1:20).
There is the inner voice of conscience. "That which is known of God is manifest
in them, for God (Himself) manifested it unto them" (Romans 1:19).
And the striking thing is that all men this, we are told. "They show the teaching
of God's love written in their hearts, their consciences bearing witness therewith"
(Romans 2:15).
John tells us plainly that our Lord Jesus was the real thing of light "which
lighteth every man as he cometh into the world" (John 1:9).
There is the intimate voice of circumstances and happenings commonly called
Providence. There is the tender voice of the babe. For every babe is a fresh creative
act of God. And there is the definite distinctive voice of the Book.
And all men hear God talking. Every man hears the first four of these voices.
About a third of men may, can, hear the fifth voice of the Book, if they choose to
listen. It is within earshot and eyesight. It is at their finger tips, if they choose to
tune in and listen.
All these voices agree, of course. God agrees with Himself. There is no
variableness with God, neither shadow cast by His turning from His purpose or
changing His mind (James 1:17; Malachi 3:6; Numbers 23:19).
Learning to Hear
But the bother is with our ears. There are so many untrained, unhearing ears. For
the hinge of the ear is in the will. Stubbornness dulls and deafens the ears. You
don't hear if you won't hear.
You hear only as much as you want to. And, if you are a bit set in your own way,
then you don't want to hear what you don't like to hear.
And then, too, there is another voice; the evil one's voice. It imitates God's voice,
in unctuous tone, and religious phraseology. And so there is greatest confusion
because of our ears, our inaccurate hearing, our not wanting to hear what we don't
like.
This is the one adequate explanation of the endless isms, the almost endless list
of religions, and religious systems and groups.
There are three sorts of ears, or three degrees of partial or inaccurate hearing.
There is a most striking illustration of this in an incident that occurred during the
last week of our Lord's life on earth (John 12:28-30).
The Greeks came seeking an interview. The Father spoke out of the heavens in
an audible voice. There were three distinct, differing impressions of what He said.
One set of ears listening said that it had thundered. That was all they heard. A
second set of ears said that an angel spoke.They got more, and less; more than
those first indicated, less than our Lord. He had trained ears. He was in tune with
the Father. He heard a voice, clear, simple, plain. John tells us the words which
Jesus heard.
And, so, because of men's ears, there must be a standard by which to measure
and judge these voices of God that come to us. It must be a fixed standard,
invariable, unmistakable, dependable.
The Standard Voice
Of course, there must be a standard. In everything there must be a standard,
commonly recognized and accepted. All life moves by standards, savage as well as
civilized life.
In trade there is a standard, sixteen ounces to the pound; twelve inches to the
foot, and so on. In traffic the hand of the traffic-policeman at the of roads, out, or
up, or waving. And the man at the wheel of the automobile controls his movements
by that standard. His driver's licence, safety, maybe life, depend on going by the
recognized standard.
In finance...! Well, things have been a bit wobbly of late. When the daily
newspaper speaks of the dollar being now cheaper, now dearer, it gives a queer
feeling to an American. He thought that was a fixture.
Yet after all there is really a fixed standard in finance. The exchanges of trade, of
barter, of imports and exports, of supply and demand, make the real standard of
value.
That's the puzzle just now in all world-trade circles, to find just what that
standard is. Some claim that the gold standard is an arbitrary thing; not a natural
standard. That seems startling.
It is a matter of finding the standard. What is it? The price-index? The value of
gold bullion? or silver? There is a standard. They're all trying to find what it really
is, just now.
In social intercourse there is a standard, very inflexible. In law there's Blackstone
and Coke, and back of both Moses, and at the present time the highest judicial
tribunal.
And in morals there is a standard. And it is a fixed standard, commonly
recognized, even where flouted and violated. This old Book of God is the
commonly accepted standard of morals in Christendom, and even in non-
Christendom, to a marked degree.
And, so, there is a standard voice by which to measure and test our hearing of
these voices of God. It really becomes an ear test, by which to test our ears in
hearing these voices.
That standard is this Book of God.It is in plain black ink on white paper. It is in
one's mother-tongue.
Even if you belong to any one of about seven hundred different peoples, each
speaking a different language, yet it comes in one's mother-tongue.
English scholarship and Christian enterprise see to that. It is in the simplest
language, story language, understood by the child and by the simplest mentality.
Our common English Bible, commonly known as the King James or the
Authorised Version, is, without doubt, the outstanding version of all.
It is really the world's Bible. It can be read by more peoples, of different
nationalities, around the world, than any other.
For the English language is to-day the one most commonly known and spoken
by men of all nations and languages.
The two revisions have certain advantages, of later manuscripts, and of the
manner of paragraph printing. But the common Authorised Version remains the
one most used, and a most remarkable translation as to all the dominant
characteristic teachings.
And, so, there is a standard by which to judge these other voices in which God
speaks, this rare sacred old English Bible of ours.
Learning to Read
And, then, it becomes a matter of finding just what the Bible does say. If we may
get what God is saying to us in this Book, we can train our ears to hear accurately
what he is saying in these other four ways.
It is really a matter of learning to read the Book. There are three things in
reading, just common reading. There must be eyes to see. There must be the print
in the language you know.And you must know your letters, know how to read.
And there are three as simple things in reading this Book. Three things: the
Book; the Holy Spirit giving light on the Book; and a man, a reader eager to do the
love-will of God, recorded in the Book.
Not the Book alone without the Spirit, and the bended, eager will. That may lead
to rankest superstition. Not to say the Holy Spirit alone without the Book, if that
were possible. That may lead to rankest fanaticism. And not the man alone without
the Book and the Holy Spirit. That may lead to rankest stubbornness.
For this Book of God is different from every book in this: it deals with morals,
with conduct, with a man's manner of life.
And so there must needs be a willingness, an eager willingness, to shape one's
conduct to what is here. One must be in sympathy with the Book to get its
meaning. And that means changing one's conduct to its standard.
The Book of God, under the clear light of the Holy Spirit, read by a man eagerly
willing to shape his life to its teachings, this leads to accurate hearing.
This trains the judgment. And so you come to hear accurately what God is
saying in these other four ways.
Jesus gives us a very simple word about this. If I may put what he says into very
simple words, here it is. He that is eagerly willing to do the love-will of God, he
shall know just what that will is (John 7:17).
These three things, the Book, the Holy Spirit, the willing man, this makes the
three-sided prism through which the light will shine, clearly, and with rarest beauty.
The Man of the Book
For this Book is not alone. There are two. The Book and the Man. Take the Man,
Jesus, out of the Book! You can't! It would be taking the blood out of the heart, the
air out of the lungs, the life out of life, the light out of the sun, the heat out of the
fire. Take the Book without the Man! It becomes a meaningless bundle of paper.
Even then it is full of the rarest wisdom, in trenchant sentences and paragraphs
which men use.
But the simple essential meaning of the Book as one unified whole is quite lost.
No wonder so many flounder around in its pages. They haven't the key, Jesus!
Jesus is the hinge of the Book. It opens on Him. He is the fulfillment of the Old
Testament. He made the New Testament, by His presence down here.
He is the throbbing heart of both, and makes them into one connected Book.
When He returns to finish up the racial end of His earth task this will be clear, at
once, to all.
Now, it is most striking and significant that from the earliest times the Quiet
Corner had been God's sounding-board. There He has spoken. He has spoken to the
men that went into the Quiet Corner to meet Him. He has used the Quiet Corner to
send His messages out into the ears of the race.
The Quiet Corner Book
It is most significant that God's messages have come out of the inner chamber of
sacred spirit comradeship with Himself.
Hebrew rabbi scholarship is quite clear that six of these books came from Moses'
pen. And it is distinctly Hebrew literature. So these men rank as competent
authority on such a question.
The book of Job, the earliest of all, was written in the wind-swept sands of the
Arabian Peninsula. It was written by an exile, suffering in heart over the sore
problem of human suffering. He felt that problem. Its biting teeth cut into his own
inner heart cockles.
The first five books come from his [Moses'] pen in that rare University of
Arabia. They were a big part of the training of this missionary nation, for its racial
mission.
And it is clear, practically to the point of certainty, that the writing and dictation
were done in that little peaked-top tent. There Joshua, Moses' right-hand man,
amanuensis, secretary, abode, we are told. That precious Ninety-first Psalm seems
quite conclusive here.
And so one could trace through the Old Testament, step by step. The evidence
seems quite clear that the Quiet Corner of fellowship with God, was the sounding-
board whence the messages went out to the very ends of the earth.
David's psalms and the later ones, Solomon's Song of his early tender spirit
touch with God, and his Proverbs personifying God as Wisdom, and so on.
And pretty plainly the minor wail of Ecclesiastes was penned before the door of
his Quiet Corner hung unhinged, and told of his badly unhinged moral character.
Or was it after that unhinged door was hung true again, at the last?
The prophetic pages bear the Quiet Corner marks very, very plainly, page after
page. The imprint is peculiarly in evidence at every turn.
So one could trace his way with hushed heart through the newer leaves. That
loved man, who lived closest to Jesus and leaned on His bosom, lets us closest into
the heart of our Lord. And his Patmos prison house became a rare sounding-board
of events yet to come, likely rather soon now.
The touches of this in Paul's letters are unmistakable. His tent-stitching shop was
a study shop, too, and intercession room, as well as a rarely resonant sounding-
board for the messages entrusted to him.
And if we may carpenter down smoother the door-sill into the Quiet Corner, we,
too, the humblest of us, may be in our very lives, God's sounding-boards, even
though unconscious of it all, for the greater part.
Let us let our wondrous Jehovah-Jesus have the use of us, for His pleading,
wooing messages.
These Gospel pages are largely stories of this sort men touched and changed by
our Lord Jesus, and then touching and changing others, under Jesus' guiding,
controlling touch.
And this blessed chain of influence has continued through all the years and
centuries. Most times it cannot be traced. But it is there, like the gold hidden in the
ground.
There is one very striking illustration of this I want to speak of here. It is a most
significant illustration of the power of the Quiet Corner, and the wide reach of its
power.
And it is, of course, simply an illustration of the fact that a close controlling
touch of will and life with Jesus is the very centre and heart of all service. And this
is what the Quiet Corner stands for, characteristically.
This chain of events and influences runs through several hundred years. Yet the
touch is quite clear. It reveals the truly remarkable reaction or interplay of events.
It begins in old England, runs out to the Continent of Europe, back again to
England, and thence out to the very ends of the earth.
And it is all an illustration of this: that Jesus touches a man, changes him
through that touch, and then uses him in touching and changing other men. And the
Quiet Corner is the throbbing heart-beat of all.
It is a simple chain of quite clear links, connecting the Reformation movement
with to-day, and with the common familiar civilization of to-day.
And it reveals in a most striking way the inter-action between England and
Europe, and the farthest reaches of the race.
The Reformation stands out in history as a religious movement. But it had most
marked and remarkable intellectual, political, social, industrial, and humanitarian
phases.
It was the greatest event in the history of the civilization of the Western
Hemisphere. It is the connecting stage between the "Dark Ages," so-called, and
modern times. It ends the "middle-ages," and is the beginning of modern Europe.
The Wyckliffe Link
This fascinating chain has seven links, John Wyckliffe of England, John Huss of
Bohemia, Zinzendorf and the Moravians, the Evangelical Revival of the Eighteenth
Century in England, Peter Boehler of Germany, and John Wesley. Spurgeon and
Moody, and the University world are in close spirit-touch. And at every step you
feel the heart-beat of the Quiet Corner, clear, distinct and warm.
John Wyckliffe has been called the "morning star of the Reformation". It is a
most apt description. The morning star appears in the sky while it is still night.
Darkness broods over all nature.
But its appearance is prophetic. It tells the student of the heavens that though it
is still night there's a new day coming, and its dawn is just at hand.
It was surely dark night, back there in the fourteenth century when Wyckliffe
came into the action of the religious, political, intellectual life of England.
The political claims of the ecclesiastical system of the day in all Europe
combined, mixed, the two phases inextricably. And both affected the intellectual
life.
Wyckliffe's early life is shrouded in obscurity, even his date of birth being
uncertain. He was at various times principal of Balliol College (one of the oldest
colleges at Oxford), a rector in several important churches, a royal ambassador at
Church conferences, a popular preacher in London, a tireless writer against the
Church system of the day, and bitterly fought by the Church high officials.
The last ten years of his life were spent in little quaint picturesque Lutterworth,
where, in addition to his Church work, he made the first complete, translation of
the Bible into the English language.
His translation was done from the Latin. For the fall of Constantinople had not
yet driven the Greek scholars into the West to begin the historic renaissance. Greek
was as yet an unknown tongue in England.
Wyckliffe was not only a classical scholar, but he had rare mastery of English.
He wrote small tracts in the language of the common people, rare, vigorous,
idiomatic, biting, homely English.
It is with a deepening sense of awe that one visits the Lutterworth Church, dating
back to the twelfth century, where he ministered, with the restored rectory where
the epochal translation was worked out.
It is surely a sacred shrine. Here the light of the English Bible, and of the
Reformation first began its bright shining out to all the earth. Here is the sounding-
board whose blessed echoes have reached to the farthest rim of the horizon.
And it becomes quite plain, and then yet clearer and more emphatic, that the
Quiet Corner in Wyckliffe's life was the very heart of all he was, and did, and
dared. The ear marks are all there in plain sight. The tell-tale echoes are distinct to
every listening ear.
The Quiet Corner touches are unmistakable, and in open evidence, in all
Wyckliffe's writings, and preachings, and actions. What are these?.
The sole authority of the Book of God, standing alone above every other source
of authority, this comes first always.
Loyalty to Jesus Christ as Saviour through whose blood alone is there salvation
and cleansing and peace, this is practically a twin with that first.
And the warm, tender, ever fresh personal devotion to the Saviour, this is the
answering heart-throb to the Book and the Saviour.
Wyckliffe clearly knew well the rare intimacies of the Quiet Corner, with the
Book and the gracious presence of the Holy Spirit, and long unclocked intercourse.
His spare, emaciated form told of the long hours of study, and the scholar's
habits of asceticism. His piercing, very gentle eye told of the intensity of rain and
heart, and will and spirit passion.
John Wyckliffe's active personal leadership ran through a quarter of a century,
and dominated all England, both in the intelligent, earnest following, and the bitter
criticism and hatred and enmity aroused.
The Huss Link
Wyckliffe touched another great scholar and preacher and outstanding leader, John
Huss, of Prague in Bohemia. They didn't touch personally but most intimately in
every other way.
Huss was forty-odd years younger than Wyckliffe. The relationship was like that
of the eager student-pupil to the revered, loved, professor.
Wyckliffe kindled the fires in John Huss. The inflammable kindling was carried
by Jerome, also of Prague, a fellow student and fellow worker with Huss.
He had been one of Wyckliffe's group of foreign students at Balliol, Oxford. The
fires caught quickly, and burned fiercely and tenderly in Huss.
Huss was a graduate of the University of Prague, a young man of rare charm of
manner, eloquent, with striking abilities, sincerity of faith, scholarly instincts, and
an honest steadiness of conviction.
He early began lecturing on Wyckliffe's teachings at the University of Prague to
large numbers, became dean of the philosophical faculty, then rector of the
University. He became confessor or chaplain to the Queen of Bohemia, and
preacher in the common tongue to the people to great crowds in a famous chapel in
Prague.
But while Huss is the leader of the great Reformation movement in Bohemia, the
ground had been well prepared for his remarkable ministry both in Court circles
and among the populace.
Wandering Oxford scholars eagerly carried the Wyckliffe message everywhere.
The first Queen of Richard the Second of England was Anne of Bohemia. She was
called "Anne the Good." She became an ardent disciple of Wyckliffe's.
She read the Gospels in her native Bohemian tongue. Through her influence the
writings of Wyckliffe and his Bible were introduced into Bohemia.
After her death some of the Bohemian nobles and ladies, who had formed her
inner circle, brought back to Prague copies of Wyckliffe's Bible and writings.
These were eagerly read and discussed and accepted. The famous Bethlehem
Chapel in Prague was so crowded that Huss preached in the open square to the
crowd gathered there.
And Huss himself revealed all the Quiet Corner traits. The Wyckliffe fires
burned true as rekindled on the Huss hearth, and in the Huss life.
Absolute loyalty to the Bible itself as the highest source of authoritative
teaching, a warm personal allegiance to the Saviour Himself, these were the
unmistakable marks.
There was in Huss the earnestness of speech and spirit, the modesty of manner,
the gracious mildness and affability, the rare poise of judgment, and the utter
unselfishness.
And there was the heroism, even at the last to imprisonment and want and
martyrdom. These are plainly the Quiet Corner traits. The Wyckliffe touch on Huss
was unmistakable. Shall we not better say the Jesus touch on both.
Within a few years from the beginning of Huss's preaching to the populace in
Bethlehem Chapel, the bulk of Bohemia had embraced his teachings. Preaching in
the common Czech language spread.
The first Christianizing of Bohemia had been by Greek Church missionaries.
The aggressiveness of the Western Church, centering at Rome, had been resented.
There was an intense opposition to the customs being introduced, clerical
celibacy, observing the Lord's supper with the use of bread only among the
congregation without the wine, and the service of worship conducted in the
unknown Latin language.
By the thirteenth century, protests, conscious and unconscious, against the
system centering in the Pope at Rome, had become common everywhere
throughout Bohemia, and indeed all Europe.
This itself was a preparation for the Evangelical teachings of Wyckliffe and
Huss. There was a natural preparation among the populace.
The simplicity and earnestness and Bible-quality of the Wyckliffe-Huss teaching
fitted into the longings of the common people thus prepared.
The Moravian Link
Then there's a third link in this remarkable chain. That is the Huss touch on the
people, commonly known later and to-day, as Moravians. They called themselves
the United Brethren, Unitas Fratrum, and still do.
The Moravians are a distinct, strong link in this chain of contacts that leads us
straight back again to old England.
They are, relatively, small in numbers, but they stand out peculiarly in Church
history, for their dominant traits. Historically, characteristically, they have all the
Quiet Corner traits.
There was a passion for the Bible, for the Saviour, and for making the Saviour
known to the very ends of the earth. Modern missions date back to the Moravians'
activity as the earliest beginning.
And with this go the personal traits of sacrificial heroism, and the deep, tender,
warm spirit of devotion to Jesus.
The connection between John Huss and the Moravians is quite distinct. After
Huss was burned at the stake in Constance his teachings really overspread all
Europe. The actual fire that burned Huss to death kindled sacred, hot spirit fires
everywhere.
His followers became commonly known as Hussites. Hussite literature and
representatives flooded all Europe, and even reached out to Scotland, Spain, the
Netherlands, and into East Russia.
The movement reached forward to Luther's time. It became the strong, popular
movement which headed up in the Luther leadership.
The Moravians trace their Church back to the ancient Church of the Bohemian
Brethren, instituted in Prague, in the middle of the Fifteenth Century.
Remnants of these Hussites had settled in the borders of Moravia and Silesia,
driven by persecution. Bitter persecution, and then quiet, alternated in their
experience. Finally their organization was completely wiped out, and the
Moravians individual members were scattered.
Later, roused by the intense preaching of one of their number, a carpenter-
preacher (interesting reminiscent touch of Nazareth and Galilee!), they emigrated,
and at last, found refuge on the estate of young Count Zinzendorf.
They expressed their faith in God's watchful care over them in the name they
gave their new settlement "Hernhut", "the Lord's watch". It had previously been
known as Hutberg, the Watch Hill.
And here, with their numbers greatly increased by the coming of others of like
faith and zeal, the Moravian Church was literally born again of the Spirit.
There was a truly outstanding Pentecostal Baptism of the Holy Spirit upon them.
August 13th, 1727, was their spiritual birthday, when the remarkable effusion of the
Holy Spirit was experienced, as they were gathered about the Lord's table.
They were filled with an unquenchable passion for Christ, and for making His
Cross known to all men. And this became their controlling passion. All this was
under the leadership of young Count Zinzendorf.
The Zinzendorf Link
Count Louis von Zinzendorf came of an old noble Austrian family. He was a man
of wide natural gifts, great capacity for work, extensive learning, a genius for
organization, a veritable born leader.
And with all this from his early years, there was a deep piety, and intense rare
devotion to the person of Christ. Learning of the hardships of these Moravian
fugitives he had invited them to settle on his estate in Saxony. Mingling freely
among them, he became their leader, composing the differences between these
earnest but undisciplined men.
Hernhut became a world centre. And from its simple homes and place of
worship, men and women went out to the farthest places, to proclaim the Saviour,
crucified, risen, and coming again.
Here, then, in this little but intense Moravian Church group is the unmistakable
imprint. Huss had the Wyckliffe imprint, plainly made by the same Piercéed Hand
that touched and moulded the Englishman of Oxford and Lutterworth.
And these early Moravians under saintly Zinzendorf, had the Huss imprint. It
traces clearly back to the Prague preaching, and it traces as clearly up to that same
Piercéed Hand that dominated the Jerusalem Pentecostal Church.
It is plainly the Quiet Corner imprint, the passion for the Bible, for Jesus, His
distinctive personality and sacrificial death, and His living again.
And with these is the tender, warm, personal devotion to Jesus, and the passion
for making Him known, regardless of any sacrificial effort involved.
The Quiet Corner imprint, aye, the imprint of the Piercéed Hand, is the
unvarying, unmistakable touch and link throughout. The Moravians and Zinzendorf
are the third and fourth links in this fascinating chain we are tracing out afresh.
4. How the Quiet Corner Has Changed Things,
cont.
• The Far Reaching Touch
• The Wyckliffe Link
• The Huss Link
• The Moravian Link
• The Zinzendorf Link
• The Wesley Link
• The Broad Influence
• Another Chain of Links
• Another Trail
The Wesley Link
Then the succeeding links are of peculiar interest, taking hold of the English heart
anew, for they bring us back again to this rare old English land.
These Moravian missionaries came to England, on their way to other lands, and
the Holy Spirit used them in England, and Scotland, and Ireland, and Wales, in a
most remarkable way.
It was the real beginning, almost forgot now, of the Evangelical Revival of the
Eighteenth Century which made such profound changes, continuing to this day.
This group of Moravians in England contained some most remarkable men.
There were men of rank and position, like Count Zinzendorf, who had access to
English court circles.
There were university men like Peter Boehler of the University of Jena,
including some who had also taken Oxford degrees.
There were also men of rare distinctive evangelistic gifts like John Cennick, a
name almost unknown now, though it can be found in old hymn books.
He was used in a most exceptional way in kindling the holy fires throughout all
England and Ireland and Wales. His career is astonishing to read about to-day when
he is almost forgot.
These men were used to leave, on the national life of these British Isles, an
impress that can never be wiped out, though so unknown by the present generation.
They did a work wholly unplanned by themselves, and done amid the greatest
difficulties and hardships. They spoke broken English, and were ignorant of
idiomatic expressions. And they were foreigners, unacquainted with English
customs and views.
Yet their simple intense preachings held the crowds spellbound, and had the
most profound and widespread permanent moral results, of a most practical sort.
The outstanding link at this point in this most rare chain, is Peter Boehler, who
touched John Wesley so intimately, with such deep and wide-reaching results.
Peter Boehler had joined the Moravian group at Hernhut through the personal
influence of Zinzendorf. He was a graduate of the University of Jena, familiar with
many languages even including Arabic, and was well versed in arts and sciences.
He was eloquent, and mighty in the Scriptures, and with an unusually warm,
tender devotion to Christ and had a radiant Christly disposition.
He had stopped in London on his way as a voluntary missionary to the negroes
of South Carolina. It seemed like a chance meeting between these two men, at the
home of a Dutch merchant, down in the city of London.
Boehler, the young University man of the Continent, and Wesley the earnest
young University man of Oxford, came together.
It was like two intense flames and two bits of dry tinder in contact. The fires,
tender and tense, of an intimate friendship kindled at once.
Each represented a sort of Christianity quite new to the other. Each one enlarged
the other's mental outlook and understanding.
But Boehler had a spirit experience, a clearness of the Saviour's sacrificial death,
an assurance of his own acceptance and a joyous faith, quite new to Wesley.
And there was quite an unmistakable spirit power as Boehler preached of the
redeeming Blood of Calvary, and the assurance of forgiveness through that Blood.
And John Wesley was a man of rare ability, scholar, saint, preacher,
administrator, and statesman in his broad outlook and reach. He combined patience
and moderation, cool judgment with an imperious intensity, and a tireless activity.
He is peculiarly the dominant spiritual personality and influence of the
Eighteenth Century in all England, and thence out to the farthest horizon.
The Broad Influence
The profound moral influence of the Wesley-Methodist Movement has not simply
gone out to the whole world, it has exerted a profound influence on the English
National Church and the English nation.
Modern missions are commonly traced, and rightly so, to Carey's cramped,
scholarly, cobbler's study in Leicester, the geographical centre of England. But
Carey was part of a larger movement.
The beginnings of common education, the humanitarianism of Wilberforce and
Elizabeth Fry and Howard, the new mental life revealed in the industrial revolution,
all these outstanding features of that outstanding Eighteenth Century are but a
piece of the new spirit, awakened by the gracious Evangelical Revival.
And that revival centred peculiarly in John Wesley and the Holy Spirit used the
torch in Peter Boehler's hand to kindle the holy fires in John Wesley.
There are other blessed links in this sacred chain. The influences of the
Evangelical Revival of the Eighteenth Century in England, literally overspread the
earth.
Finney in America and London, Spurgeon in London and, through the printed
page, in all the world, Moody in America and England, the Studds, the Cambridge
Seven, and the whole University world with its intense impact.
All these are but a bit of the same movings of the Holy Spirit. And they, all and
each, trace back to the Quiet Corner.
Step by step as one digs into the sacred gold mine of each of these names, he
comes across the same gold. In nuggets, in grains, and in connecting veins, the
gold is there, the same precious gold.
The veins of actual gold in the earth are sometimes lost by the miner. They seem
to lose themselves. Then the miner's spade digs into a vein of gold that bears
unmistakable evidence of being a bit of the lost vein cropping up again within
reach and touch. Even so it is here. The unmistakable Quiet Corner imprint is
unfailing. That Quiet Corner imprint itself is unfailing. It always runs true to form.
The distinctive Book of God, the one authoritative reliable source of authority,
the distinctive personality of the Man Jesus, the one God-Man, His distinctive
sacrificial death for others, the distinctive damnable badness of self-willed sin that
necessitates such a death, the absolute certainty of cleansing and of personal
salvation, the joyous assurance, the passion for Jesus, and for making Him known
regardless of sacrifice involved -- these, these, are the unfailing, unmistakable
Quiet Corner imprint.
Another Chain of Links
There's another chain of blessed personal links that connects with all this. The
direct connection has not been traced. Perhaps it cannot be.
Yet the gold miner, turning up with pick and spade, a vein of rare rich gold, can
quickly recognize the vein worked before, even though the connection is quite
covered up far underneath the surface.
And here the impress is unmistakable. The earmarks are clear, and in full view.
The same symphony rings its resonance out, loud and joyous. The connection is
beyond question even though not directly traceable.
One day a tall, slender young man with fine, strongly marked face, went into a
shoe shop in our American city of Boston.
He found a ruddy faced, sturdily built, country lad in the back end of the shop,
wrapping up a pair of shoes.
The boy was in this young man's Sunday-school class, a recent comer. And the
teacher gently put his arm on the lad's shoulder, and spoke a simple word.
"You know Jesus died for you as your Saviour, Dwight," he said, with quiet
earnestness, "and the manly thing is to thank Him, and accept Him as your Saviour,
and live for Him. Won't you do this, my boy?"
That was something new to the boy, to have the thing brought so close, and in
such a warm, gentle way.
It touched his heart that somebody cared like that. And he blurted out that he
would. And after a few words more the teacher left.
And that teacher has told me that he had quite forgot the incident. I suppose it
was a commonplace incident in his habits, a blessed commonplace.
But I have heard the boy say he never could forget. He could still feel that hand
on his shoulder years after. He could never lose the sound of that quiet earnest
living voice talking to him all by himself.
He was changed through and through because of that gracious human touch.
And, when he grew to manhood, he was used by our Lord to touch and change the
lives of more men and woman than any other man.
I think that would be quite an accurate thing to say of old Dwight Moody. For he
was the boy in the Boston Shoe Shop.
And Moody was used to touch a man in old London, one of the countless
thousands, a man named Studd, and three of his four sons.
And they were changed blessedly through that touch. It seemed like a chance
touch, but there was a purpose of God at work.
One of Studd's horse trainers had been blest and had set himself to get his
employer. His earnest effort brought the worldly sporting man to the huge crowded
building in the north of London, and managed with difficulty to get him a good
seat. The spirit of God did the blessed rest.
One of the Studd boys known familiarly in those days, among his fellow
University men, as "J.E.K.," came over to our American side of the salt water.
In the course of his touring among our Universities, he spoke one morning in
one of our larger Eastern Universities.
Quite unconsciously he was used to touch a tall brown-eyed young fellow from
one of our Western States.
The young fellow had come to this Eastern School to get away from the earnest
Christian atmosphere that disturbed his ambitious plans for his life.
He had come into the hall rather late, idly curious to hear this English University
man. A single sentence being spoken as he entered the hall aroused him at once.
He heard no more. That sentence was a winged arrow sped by the Holy Spirit.
The upshot was that he was changed, through and through, by that so-called chance
touch.
And, in our Lord's gracious leading, he was used in the touching and changing of
countless University students in all the six continents, and in organizing their
efforts in Christian service.
And John Mott, that young man, was used in the touching and changing, among
the thousands, of one young fellow in a little Pennsylvania College.
Hugh Beaver was the son of the one-time Governor of Pennsylvania, a Federal
General in the American civil war of the northern and southern states.
He went up and down among the Colleges of his native State, and other States,
burning like a tender intense flame for his Master. And that tense personal touch
was graciously used in touching and changing untold numbers of young
Collegians.
Another Trail
But there's yet another trail leading out from that Moody-Studd contact. The sacred
fires set a-burning in old England at that time reached their insistent tongues of
flame into the English University world.
Another of those Studd boys, familiarly known as "C.T." had caught fire at the
Moody torch. He went with his intense earnestness to far China, and then to India,
and after that into the heart of Africa.
Only the statistics kept at the Throne can tell of the vast numbers, in those three
great lands, and also in America, blessedly touched and changed, and touching and
changing yet others in an ever widening circle.
He was one of the famous Cambridge Seven that went into inland China, with
the tender, tense story of a Christ crucified and risen and at work in men's lives to-
day.
And that band was but one group of the far larger number that went out under
the holy impulse of the Moody movement, out to the ends of the race.
Moody, himself, of course, was not a University man, though rarely gifted. He
was a diamond in the rough, that became rarely polished by grace, and by study of
the Book, and in the experience of his most remarkable career.
Back in his native new England, for a breathing spell, he became the centre of
one of the most remarkable movements among University men that has touched
vitally the race to its farthest horizon.
At his invitation University men gathered at Mount Hermon, back in the 1880s.
There the Student Volunteer Movement was born. It had been brooded over for
long in the Quiet Corner of a young woman, born in India of missionary parents,
then resident in the United States, Grace Wilder. Her brother, Robert Wilder,
became one of the early leaders of the Movement.
The Student Volunteer Movement spread quickly into the Universities and
Colleges of America, and overseas. It was graciously used in the revival of interest
in the carrying of the Gospel message out to the farthest corners of the earth.
Thousands of missionaries went out under its inspiring spur. The home Churches
knew a new intelligent zeal, for evangelizing the non-Christian world. The
Layman's Missionary Movement spread the fire and loosened out vast sums of
gold.
All these gracious movements have later taken on much of the coloring of this
so-called modernistic generation. But that's another story.
The bit to mark just now is this: they were all conceived and born and grown
lusty in the womb of the Quiet Corner.
In their beginnings, and fine flush of vigorous life, they had all the Quiet Corner
traits. The One Book of God, the God-Man Saviour, His sacrificial death, His
living again.
The warm heart-throb of devotion to Him, and the fine passion to make Him
known as Redeemer, out to all men, these are the unfailing unmistakable marks of
the Quiet Corner, and of the Quiet Corner trail running through all these
movements.
Truly the Jesus passion burns in the Quiet Corner. The pulse beat of the race can
be heard and felt in the Quiet Corner.
The heart-beat of God can be felt in the Quiet Corner. The human will is put into
rhythmic swing with the love-will of God in the Quiet Corner.
The ear is attuned to the voice of God in the Quiet Corner. The vision is
broadened, the judgment poised, the purpose stiffened, and the spirit gentled and
made unselfish, in the Quiet Corner.
Let us carpenter down flatter the door-sill into the Quiet Corner with the daily
friction of our feet.