AT BETHEL A LADDER

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 154, 17 July 1937, Page 12

AT BETHEL A LADDER

v ■ "^lyery man has his own Bethel— sqmevhalh)wod-. moment of his . youth r-when he 'ielt ,the breath of God on his iface^yorihe became. aware of the nearmess. of. God-in..sonae scene of natural (beauty, Tor;;in'the,face of his mother r'orjbf a.friend, .Perhaps a word of God / came- to him^on' the pages of & book, fOE-'.feH .upon' ; him from a preacher's ^jEaouth. jpr.itimay have been an hour in ^. which*- he saw the glory of Jesus Christ^and pledged his soul to Hioi. If you will look back through the years, your Bethel is still there. And the word ;of God to me, to you, to every man who has left his Bethel far behind him, is the word that came to jacob: • "Arise, go up to Bethel — aud stay there!" Or, to vary the figure: Pick up your ladder again and carry it with you wherever you go. At Bethel, what shall we find? We shall find the ladder. It may take us a little time to see it clearly, to get used to its traffic, to feel at home; But — have no doubt! — it will all come back. t, About the ladder. ' At the lower end of it there is you and I and all of us; and at the upper end, God. On the ladder there is a busy coming and going, *a coming down and going up. The point is that a man's life with God is an affair of coming and going. And • the going up— what is that? It is your prayer, your aspiration, your longing, yoiir penitenee ascending to God. And the coming down? It is the word of God descending on you, in blessed quickening, in light and peace. Herc is the inmost secret of the religious . life— -it consists q£ two coefficient mov'einents, " the human aspiration to God, the divine revelation to, man". These two are never sepaTated. Where the oue is, there is the other, Never a prayer but provokes a revolation: never a revelation but starts a prayer.