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| Post-Resurrection Appearing Today we are living in post-resurrection days in the fullest sense; in days when we no longer have the presence of our Lord as to the physical fact, but when we know He is night at hand, in the midst of every assembly of His people, the close, personal companion of every pilgrim of faith, the constant comrade of every trusting soul. . . . He was preparing men to do without His bodily presence, and we feel there is in it great value for us. After He had vanished; they knew that although they could not see Him, He was with them. Talking over their experience they said: When He talked to us by the way the old fire burned, the old enthusiasm returned, the vision which had faded from the glowing sky was restored; "Was not our heart burning within us, while He spake to us in the way." . . . . He was seeking love, and the bursting of it into a flame, into passion, the rekindling of it into a fire! He knew it was there, overshadowed; He knew there was faith in Him, loyalty to Him, and that is but another way of saying that love for Him still remained. They had lost their confidence in His ability. They were disappointed. They felt He had been defeated, but in their heart there was love, and He was seeking that; to bring it again from underneath the shadow, and to fan it into the flame of great devotion. . . . He did not make Himself known in order to kindle that love. He brought them back to the things they knew full well, to the old, familiar things. . . They listened in astonishment, and as they listened, to employ their own word, their hearts burned within them. Coolness gave way to heat, despair to hope, disappointment to certainty; and there flamed within them the fire, not merely of the old and lost enthusiasm, but of a new passion for this very Christ in Whom they believed and Whom they loved, as they learned by interpretation of their own Scriptures at the lips of the Stranger, that all the things which had filled them most with fear, were according to the predictions of those Scriptures. Thus their burning of heart was the thrill of a new discovery of the old things. It was the shame of past failure. It was the passion of a new endeavor. . . They were so familiar with them that they had ceased to make themselves familiar with them. . . . We need exactly what happened to these men on the way to Emmaus, a new understanding of the Scriptures of truth, a new discovery of them as the Scriptures that set forth the things concerning Christ. . . . The church supremely needs to learn the secret of listening to the voice of the Master. . . . It is not a question as to whether He will come; He does come; He is always present to teach; but we do not take time to listen. It is true of our personal life and study of the Word; it is true of the assemblies of the saints; we do not listen to Him. . . . Not by the things we say to each other about Him; nor by the words we speak to Him in praise or prayer; but by the word He speaks to us about His Word is the fire kindled. . . . . How much time have we given, not to prayer, not to fellowship with each other, not even to technical study of the Bible; but to listening for His voice? Is it not almost a lost art of Christian experience, this ability to sit still and wait? ("The Rekindled Fire," Great Sermons of the Resurrection of Christ, compiled by Wilbur M. Smith, 98-106). |
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