How God Forgives

Walking With God by Costen J. Harrell (1928)

“Bring forth the best [first] robe and put it on him.” Luke 15: 22.

The prodigal son had taken his fling at the world and had returned to his father. “I am no more worthy to be called thy son,” sobbed the lad as his father embraced him and kissed him repeatedly. The boy had barely begun his confession when his father called his servants to bring a certain robe and put it on him. Our English Bible translates the command, “Bring forth a robe, the first,” and so it is translated by the excellent scholar, Dr. David Smith¹. Not a few interpreters of the Scriptures have understood this robe to be none other than the old coat which the prodigal had left behind when he left home for the far country. The father had lost his boy, but he had kept his boy’s coat. “It is the robe he wore before he ran his ramble,” says Matthew Henry. This throws a new light on the old parable.
There is a scene in Dickens’s “David Copperfield” which beautifully illustrates the meaning of the robe in our Lords parable. In Dickens’s great novel poor Dan’el Peggotty’s little Emily ran away from home. Every night he searched for her in the wicked haunts of the city. One day David went to Dan’el’s modest lodging, and there he witnessed the yearning love of poor Dan’el as he waited for the return of his prodigal Emily. “The room was very neat and orderly. I saw in a moment that it was always kept prepared for her reception, and that he never went out but that he thought it possible he might bring her home…. I saw how carefully he adjusted the little room, put a candle ready and the means of lighting it, arranged by the bed, and finally took out of her drawer one of her dresses (I remember to have seen her wear it) neatly folded with some other garments, and a bonnet, which he placed upon a chair…. There they had waited for her many and many a night, no doubt.” Dan’el was waiting to put on Emily the dress of her innocent girlhood and receive her again into her home!
“Here is the very picture which our Lord portrays in the parable,” says Dr. David Smith. “The prodigal had forgotten his father in the far country, but the father had never forgotten him. He had preserved his lost son’s old robe and laid it by as a precious memorial. ‘bring forth a robe,’ he cries; but not any robe, not the best robe in the house, but ‘the first,’ his old robe. And the servants would understand. Many a time they had seen their master take that old robe and unfold it tenderly with trembling hands and survey it wistfully with dim eyes. No other robe would serve. The past was forgiven, and the father would banish it forever from his remembrance as though it had never been. The sweet old days had returned, and his hungry heart was satisfied.”
By one little word in the story Jesus tells us how God receives us, when we, repentant, turn to him. He forgives – and more, he restores. Some human fathers forgive, but they do not forget. David forgave Absalom, but after that “Absalom dwelt two full years in Jerusalem and saw not the King’s face” (2 Sam. 14:28). When God forgives he restores us as well to all the privileges of sonship, as though we had never broken covenant with him. Wonderful grace is this.

“Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.”

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¹ “The Atonement in the Light of History and the Modern Spirit,” Smith, page 145ff.

Our Debt To Missions

Walking With God by Costen J. Harrell

"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tiding!" Isaiah 52: 7.

A Christian layman, and a man of considerable ability, was the speaker, and the writer was a listener. "I do not believe in foreign missions," he said with manifest emphasis. "Every nation has its own religion, suited to its particular disposition and traditions, it is folly to try and convert foreigners to our faith. Confucianism is the religion of China, sprung out of Chinese soil and suited to the Chinese people. Christianity is the religion of the Anglo-Saxon and agreeable to our type of mind. Let us keep our religion and let other people keep theirs." Many another person who has not been so outspoken has persuaded himself that the Christian faith is our peculiar possession and that we are under no obligation to give it to the rest of the world.
But really, is Christianity an Anglo-Saxon religion? It did not begin with us, for Christ was neither an American nor an Englishman nor a European. He was born on the other side of the world, the son of a woman of alien blood. He lived amid scenes that are foreign to us and spoke a language that is unintelligible to us. He died for our sins on a hill many thousands of miles from American shores. Christianity is not an Anglo-Saxon religion: speaking after the manner of the flesh, it is an Asiatic religion. Our fathers were foreigners to Christ and his disciples, and they would never have heard the gospel of the Nazarene had not the missionaries of the Church crossed mountains and sea and brought to them the glad tidings of salvation.
When Christ lived in Galilee the Angles and Saxons and Britons-our fathers-were veriest heathen and among the most backward people on the earth. The first volume of Hume's history of England should prove an effective antidote to our racial pride. He says, "No idolatrous worship ever attained such ascendence over mankind as that practiced by the Gauls and Britons." Our Fathers worshiped Woden, the god of victory, and Thor the god of thunder. All the days of the week are named for heathen gods whom our fathers worshiped and should be a daily reminder of our heathen ancestry. With all our mania for family trees, no intelligent person finds any satisfaction in running his family tree back of the time when Christian missionaries came to our fathers with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Portraits of those half-naked, painted savages would be no adornment to our handsomely appointed living rooms and no matter of pride to us their children.
Things have been different with the Anglo-Saxon since the advent of missionaries. In the sixth century Augustine came to England, a foreign missionary to our fathers. He started a mission at Canterbury, which was the beginning of the Canterbury Cathedral. After a life of sacrificing toil, he was buried there, and over his tomb in the cathedral one may read to this day his epitaph, "Here lies the Lord Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, who reduced this nation from the worship of idols to the faith of Christ." Boniface went to Germany, Columbia to Scotland, and Patrick to Ireland. The light of the gospel shone in the darkness of Britain and Germany, and we emerged. We have been out of heathenism for about forty generations only, and "a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it passed and as a watch in the night."


"From depths of night to plains of light, O praise His name, he lifted us."

In so far as we are saved people, we are sinners and barbarians saved by grace. The greatest apologetic for Christian missions on earth is the Anglo-Saxon people. What Christ has done for us he can do for all men. It was a long and weary way from Jerusalem to Canterbury, and the foreign missionary was the connecting link between our ancestral home and the cross outside Jerusalem's gate. Not only for love of man and in response to our Lord's commission should we be a missionary people, but out of sheer gratitude and in recognition of our dept to missions.

Purity Is Dearer Than Life

Walking With God by Costen J. Harrell (1928)

“Keep thyself pure.” 1 Timothy 5: 22.

In the forests of northern Europe and Asia a little animal called the ermine lives. He is mostly known among us by his snow-white fur, a thing than which there is nothing more beautiful on the fur markets of the world. In some countries the state robes of judges are lined with it, the white being emblematic of purity and honor. The ermine has a peculiar pride in his white fur coat. At all hazards he protects it against anything that would spoil it.
It is said that the fur hunters take cruel advantage of the ermine’s care to keep his coat clean. They do not set a snare to catch him at some unwary moment, but instead find his home, a cleft in the rock or the hollow of a decaying tree, and daub the entrance and interior with filth. Then their dogs start the chase. Frightened, the ermine flees toward his home, his only place of refuge. He finds it daubed with uncleanness, and he will not soil his pure white coat. Rather than go into the unclean place, he faces the yelping dogs and preserves the purity of his fur at the cost of his life¹. It is better that he be stained by blood than spoiled by uncleanness.
Little beast of the forest, what a lesson you teach! Purity is dearer than life. If the judges who wear the ermine and the women who decorate themselves with your pure white coat knew your story, would they not be touched to the heart with pity, and would they not be moved to love purity as you? Your example condemns us all, for we have not been half so careful as you to keep clean that which God has entrusted to us. He has given you only a white coat and you give your life to keep it so. He has given us minds and immortal spirits, and we let every vile and unworthy thing to spoil them. Far from surrendering our lives to preserve our purity, we sacrifice character for unseemly pleasures, and dishonest gain, and selfish ambitions. We are not so careful where we go as you. We expose our souls to the stains of evil to get the thing we want.
The ermine is right – purity is dearer than life. It is dearer than aught else, because it is the soul of character. When it is lost, all is lost. Deeds so pure that we have nothing to hide, thoughts so pure that they may be spoken aloud, motives so pure that the world can see through them – when we live by these standards we have an ermine-white character. One must not besmirch it for any consideration. At all hazards “keep thyself pure.” “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.” If disaster threatens life, come what may. Purity overcomes at last and shines as the stars forever.

¹For this fact concerning the habits of the ermine the author is indebted to his old teacher, Dr. W.F. Tillett, of Vanderbilt University.

A Bridle For The Tongue

Walking With God by Costen J. Harrell (1928)

“I will take heed to my ways that I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle.” Psalm 39:1

The first verses of the thirty-ninth Psalm were no doubt very familiar to the apostle James, and it is very likely that he had them in mind when he wrote his classic passage on the tongue in his Epistle (James, chapter 3). Psalmist and apostle knew whereof they wrote when they spoke of the tongue as an instrument of evil. Through it the unruly passions of our hearts are turned loose in the world. Like a poisoned dagger, it stabs the reputation and happiness of others. Like a firebrand, it sets our minds on fire with hates and contentions. It sows discord and reviling and bitterness among men. No other member of the body is so difficult to control. Like an untamed horse, it gets beyond one’s control at an unexpected moment. Therefore psalmist and apostle agree that it must be held as with a bridle.
What bridle may be put on our unruly tongues? Let us at least stop long enough to ask ourselves three questions before we repeat any report or turn our tongues loose in an matter.
Is it true? We are too hasty to believe every evil report. Many as innocent person has been injured by a tale that was without foundation. It is a serious matter to do an injustice to a fellow man by a report that we spread. The first thing, the least thing that one can do before he passes on a story that has come to him, is to stop long enough to ask if it is true. One of the ten fundamental laws of character is, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”
Is it kind? It is not always kind to repeat what is true. The meanness which finds a secret pleasure in another’s fall or failure is a most despicable vice. Some one has called it “an innate vulgarity which loves to trample on fallen greatness.” To find such a thing in our hearts should bring us to our knees, for it is most unkind and un-Christly. We are not here to play the rôle of detectives, but rather are we to be brothers. There is nothing more unkind than gossip.
Is it necessary? In repeating an evil tale we should ask what is our motive in so doing. Is it that we hope to remedy the situation, or is it merely for the satisfaction of telling the thing/ If we repeat a story because it is necessary for the well-being of another, we are not gossipers, but helpers. If, however, it be for no good purpose, we should leave it untold. Under no conditions should we permit ourselves to be advertisers of another’s faults.
If we should leave unsaid the things that we are untrue and unkind and unnecessary, gossip would be at an end. Put that bridle on your tongue and buckle it tight. It will tame the tongue’s unruly disposition. “If any man thinketh himself to be religious, while he bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his heart, that man’s religion is vain.”

Where is God?

Walking With God by Costen J. Harrell (1928)

“For in him we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17: 28

Where is God? –this is no new question. In the long ago Job cried in distress of soul, “O, that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat!” As men of adventurous spirit have sailed the seas to find where the world’s hidden treasures are, so the universal soul of man has ever sought to discover God’s dwelling place. As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth our soul to know where God may be found. The heathen say that he may be found in stocks and stones. The ancient Israelites believed that his spirit dwelt in the Ark of the Covenant between the cherubim. The atheist says that he is found nowhere. In our childish fancies we thought of him as one dwelling in the far-off heavens, and even yet, in manhood’s full estate, we are prone to think of him as a distant God. Because we cannot see him we think that he is far away, hidden in some undiscovered place.
It is not the distance that hides God from our view. The truth is─ wonderful to contemplate─ God is so near that we cannot see him!

“O where is the sea? the fishes cried,
As they swam the crystal waters through;
We have heard from old of the ocean’s tide,
And we long to look on the waters blue.
The wise ones speak of an infinite sea;
O! who can tell if such there be?”

And all the while they are so submerged in the ocean’s tide that they cannot see “the waters blue.” At some happy hour in the soul’s quest for God the truth dawns upon us that creation is aglow with his presence and that verily “in him we live and move and have our being.”
The most real fact in this universe is God. The whole creation bears witness to his presence. The sunlight that floods the earth, the glories of the firmament, night and day, winter and spring, all declare that the Creator is everywhere in his world. The rose that was blooming one morning in my garden, with colors more delicate than the brush of a Turner could paint, told me that the great Artist was there. The laughter of little children, the love of friends, the upward march of the races of men proclaim that God is about us and within us richly imparting his grace. The unsatisfied aspiration of the heart, its pain, its joy, its penitence, its thoughts too deep for words tell us how near God is.
He is so near that no one can overhear him when in the secret places of the soul he speaks. He is so near that he can understand our inmost thoughts before we have given utterance to them. He knows our guilt, our sorrows, our hopes, our unexpressed longings. A friend must be very near to hear us when out of our hearts we whisper to him a secret. God is nearer than that. He alone is near enough to hear us when we think. He is too near to be seen, “guiding every instinct, creating every intuition, vibrating in every emotion, and glowing in every thought.” Wherever we are, there is God. The awakened soul discerns him everywhere and lives and rejoices in him always.

Our Unavoidable God

Walking With God by Costen J. Harrell (1928)

“The wrath of man shall praise thee.” Psalm 76: 10

God rules! Man may labor to set at naught his law, but notwithstanding, his providence orders the world. Sometimes when men sin most shamefully he turns their sin to his own glory. No crime among men can for dastardly meanness quite equal Judas’s betrayal of his Lord. Yet through the treachery of a disciple the depths of divine love were revealed on Calvary, and the fountains of grace opened wide for all mankind. God made the most dastardly crime to serve his end. We have often thought of how the goodness of man praises God, but we have not so often thought that he is so securely on his throne that he turns the wrath of man to his glory.
One of the persistent facts in the history of nations is that God is always taking control of the godless plans of men and using them to serve his purposes. The Romans built some twenty centuries ago an empire around the Mediterranean. They did it for no holy purpose. The empire was stupidly wicked. But the fact that the Western World, as it was then known, was unified under one government made it possible for the first missionaries of Christianity to reach the whole of the civilized world. Through the unity of the Roman Empire the Christian faith gained a foothold in the western World from which it has never been shaken. Down the highways, built for the swift movement of Roman legions, went the preachers of the cross proclaiming the gospel of the Nazarene. God used Caesar’s military map to spread the reign of the Prince of Peace.
The Mayflower which brought the Pilgrim Fathers to America “went on her next trip for a load of slaves.” Nevertheless, God through the iniquity of the slave-trade brought the black man under the influence of the gospel. Through his unchristian bonds the bondman learned of our liberty in Christ, and he may yet be the instrument of grace for the redemption of the Dark Continent.
The godless man suffers the consequences of his sin; he falls out of the line of God’s triumphant hosts. But our sovereign God will not let the sins of men prevent him from carrying out his purpose for mankind.
“Through the ages one increasing purpose runs,” and our wickedness cannot stop it. Alas for the man who rebels against God! His rebellion avails nothing except the loss of his soul, while the kingdom goes marching on. Nothing can dim God’s glory! Nothing can overrule his final purpose for mankind. He makes even the wrath of man to praise him. “Therefore will we not fear, though the earth be removed, and thought the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.” And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!”

WALKING WITH GOD / FOREWARD

Walking With God by Costen J. Harrell (1928)

This volume is not a plea for or an illustration of abbreviated pulpit discourses. Its genesis will best explain its purpose.
For some years it has been the custom of the author to prepare for his Church bulletin each Sunday a short interpretation of some phase of our Christian faith. Three purposes have guided him from week to week: to write briefly, so that the busiest might find time to read what had been written; to write simply, so that any reader might understand; to write vitally, so that every reader might be helped to a more intimate walk with God. From a much larger collection of material sixty selections have been made and sent forth in this little volume with the hope that they may do for a wider circle of readers what they were originally meant to do for the writer’s congregation.
The author acknowledges his indebtedness to his long-time friend, Dr. Alfred Allan Kern, of Randolph-Macon Women’s College, Lynchburg, who read the manuscript and made not a few suggestions as to forms of expression.
Costen J. Harrell.
The Study, Epworth Church,
Norfolk, Va., November 18, 1927.

Rooted In the Shadows

Walking With God by Costen J. Harrell (1928)

“He went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was to come, he was there alone.” Matthew 14:23


Some months ago, in the late autumn, the writer was in the hothouse of one of our florist. We were in the cellar, and in the dimly lighted place one could see arranged in regular file long rows of flower pots. The florist explained that in these pots had been planted the bulbs for their winter flowers. It was best for them, he said, that they be rooted in the dark. Not in the glaring sunlight, but in the subdued shadows their life-giving roots were putting forth. They would be ready for the open day a little later. Then their gay colors would cheer many hearts. Then their sweet perfumes would laden the winter air. Rooted in the shadows to bloom in the light!
It is with human life as with flowers. How often it is recorded by the evangelists that Jesus retired from the multitude to a secluded place! He loved men and found joy in their companionship. He never wearied of ministering to their necessities. Matthew records that the Lord had spent a busy day. A great throng had followed him — five thousand in number, besides women and children. He healed them and taught them, and as the day was drawing to its close he miraculously fed them. What a wonderful ministry! “And when he had sent the multitude away, he went up into the mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.” Here is written one of the sweetest secrets of his life and labors. In the shadows of the evening the Divine Son was alone with his Father. Through retirement in the secret place he kept his life in tune with his Father’s will. In the quiet hour he prepared himself for the busy hour.
This same Jesus saith to us, “Enter into thy closet and … shut the door.” Life cannot come to its best if it is spent always in the rush of things. Every one needs to be alone at some time during every day. The needs of the spirit require a secret place where we may calm our souls in the presence of God, meditate on things worth while, think through our problems, sweeten our tempers, and warm our hearts in the love of God. Have a trysting place with God, and let it be said of you, “When the evening was come he was there alone.” Faith puts forth her tender shoots in the secret place.
There is reason to fear that we are forgetting how to meditate. The haste of our modern life militates against it. We love the garish day. Much of our Christianity is a sickly bloom because we have no quiet place in which the root of faith may grow. We meet the day’s temptations before we are ready for them. We undertake to lead others before we have mastered ourselves. We try to force the bloom before we have rooted ourselves in Jesus Christ. Return, O soul, to the secret place and linger there. A godly life, like the flowers, is rooted in the shadows to bloom in the light.

The Triumph of Wings

Walking With God by Costen J. Harrell (1928)

"They shall mount up with wings as eagles." Isaiah 40:31


"Let us learn like a bird for a moment to take Sweet rest on a branch that is ready to break; She feels the branch tremble, yet gaily she sings. What is it to her? She has wings, she has wings!"
-Victor Hugo.

On many a fine spring morning I have seen one of God’s little creatures of the sky standing upon a flimsy branch pouring forth his sweetest melodies. What a wonderful chorister is he, and an equally wonderful preacher! Unmindful of the frailty of his perch, he merrily sings. He is quite independent of the limb on which he stands. If it should break beneath his feet, his wings will lift him into the broad expanses of the sky. The happy songster preaches to us a most excellent sermon on the triumph of wings.

The things of this world on which we rest our earthly hopes are all of them like “a branch that is ready to break.” Earthly security is very insecure. Our sweetest temporal happiness may at any moment be shattered. Every day the branches are breaking beneath somebody’s feet. Our hearts are frequently oppressed for the branches that have broken beneath us and fearful of the time when others will break. But there is a better way. The bird that sings on a trembling branch tells us of it. Enjoy life’s blessings while you have them. Though you feel the branch tremble, stand on it and gaily sing your sweetest song. Only do not put your chiefest trust in the branch, but in your wings. You have wings ― a capacity of soul that enables you to soar far above the broken branches of earth into the infinitude of God. Keep strong the wings of faith. If loss or sorrow befalls you, do not fall dispirited to the earth. To your wings! They will lift you into the heights where hope never dies. If the frail limb that supports your earthly life breaks, and death overtakes you, fear not. Stretch your pinions of faith, and they will bear you aloft to fly forever in the greatness and goodness of God.

The greatest fact in the nature of man is the wings of his spirit. They lift him above things transitory unto the eternal God. They make him an immortal. No loss or sorrow of earth can trim the spirits wings. Sing on, beloved! Sing the happiest and sweetest notes that your heart knows, and in the face of every disaster cry, "I have wings! I have wings!”