The Face Towards Jerusalem

“Tjyery step of the Lord Jesus Christ left -” a footprint for his followers to study. We should be looking for these footprints of our Master and endeavor to tread in them ourselves. Every word and act of Jesus has a spiritual significance for us. For example, we find a vitally important truth — yes, several of them — wrapped up in that incident recorded in the ninth chapter of St. Luke. Jesus had just bade farewell to Galilee and set out on his final journey to Jerusalem. The time for him to be offered and to “be received up” was at hand. So he steadfastly set his face toward Jerusalem, although he knew that for him were being prepared a cruel mockery and an ignominious, bloody death. As soon as he had crossed the hills on the southern border of Galilee he reached the pretty Samaritan village of El-Gannim (or “Fountain of Gardens’’). He comes attended by a multitude of followers, and asks for food and lodging over night in the village. But the bitterly bigoted Samaritans of the little town insultingly refuse him shelter, because” his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem.11 Rudely repulsed, he leaves the churlish inhabitants on his flank and moves on, by another route, toward the” City of the Great King.77

Now this incident, which is too often overlooked as unimportant, has some suggestive lessons to the Christian. It teaches us, in the first place, that we should never shrink from a path of duty, however many be the obstacles we may encounter. Jesus had an errand of sublime self-sacrifice to be performed at Jerusalem, and he was not to be diverted from it by any obstruction that human enmity could lay across his path. Brethren, you and I often find the line of duty made harder by irritating oppositions — often, too, from the very people whom we aim to benefit. The temptation is strong to invoke a malediction on our opposers (as John and James did upon the foolish bigots of the Samaritan village). The Master’s example teaches us to march unflinchingly forward in the path of duty, with our faces steadfastly set toward God. This is not an age of heroic Christianity. There is more pulp than pluck in the average Christian professor, when self-denial is required. The men and women who not only rejoice in doing their duty for Christ, but even rejoice in overcoming uncomfortable obstacles in the doing it, are quite too scarce. The piety that is most needed is a piety that will stand a pinch; a piety that would rather eat an honest crust than fare sumptuously on fraud; a piety that can work up stream against currents; a piety that sets its face like a flint in the straight, narrow road of righteousness. 2. Such an uncompromising religion must not expect any help or hospitality from the world. Jesus found himself on hostile soil as soon as he set foot in Samaria. The Christian also must reach the New Jerusalem by a straight march through an enemy’s country.

“This world is not a friend to grace, To help us on to God.”

This world has hated me, and it will hate you, was Christ’s fair warning to his disciples. It is as true now as it was then that whosoever will be the uncompromising friend of Christ will be treated as an enemy by those who despise the religion of the Cross. The piety that is not ashamed to be nicknamed “Puritanical” is not popular in this world, and never will be until the Millennium. Yet, to keep on good terms with the world and at the same time not to “break” with the Lord Jesus Christ is the absurd ‘and abortive endeavor of too many who profess and call themselves Christians. Bunyan describes this style of character in “Mr. Facing-both-ways.” This class hanker after all the fashions and follies of Vanity Fair, aim to get their fill of sinful enjoyments, that can be indulged in without too much public scandal; and yet claim to be the Lord’s pilgrims, bound toward the Celestial City. This wretched attempt at compromise and conformity only provokes the contempt of the world’s people and the holy indignation of God. A Christian never wins the world by going over to it. “Come out and be ye separate! “is Christ’s solemn injunction. True godliness of life and the true enjoyment of life both depend upon a hearty, conscientious obedience to Christ’s commandments. No man can possibly serve two opposing masters. Now, if there be a single backsliding reader of this article, who has got himself entangled in sinful compliances and has drifted off into conformity with the world, let me exhort him to begin this new year by setting his face like a flint toward Jerusalem. Backsliding always begins with getting our faces away from Jesus. Whither the face looks the footsteps tend. While Paul was “looking unto Jesus” he kept on pressing toward the heavenly prize. As soon as we cease to keep our eye on God’s Word as our rule of daily conduct, on Christ’s cross as our only hope of salvation, and on Christ’s service as our chief end of life, we begin to backslide. No Christian’s countenance can shine when it is turned away from his Saviour. No awakened sinner ever can hope to obtain peace and divine help for a better life as long as he looks back longingly toward the sins of Sodom. “Remember Lot’s wife.” 3. It was probably about the time of his repulse by the Samaritans that Jesus delivered those solemn injunctions to his followers about taking up their cross daily, if they would be his disciples. He drew a sharp line and made a clean issue. Whoever did not care more for him and his Gospel than for kindred and property, for houses and lands and popularity, was not worthy of a place in his Kingdom. There was to be no wavering. The man who put his hand to the plough and looked back was not fit for the Kingdom of God. In the original Greek the word is “not well put11 for the Kingdom. This implies that his feet are on the solid rock, and that he stands well in his shoes, with his face set like a flint toward God. All the most effective characters in the Bible — Daniel in Babylon, Elijah before Ahab, Peter before the council, and Paul at Nero’s bar — were men of this fibre. Their eyes looked only one way, and they looked clearly. They could not be cajoled or frightened. Their countenances — like the countenance of Stephen when it was upturned toward Heaven — shone as an angel’s, in the light of God.

It is a religion of this fibre that the times demand. We need more of the Christianity that steadfastly sets its face toward Christ’s Word and holy will. An ungodly world will be compelled to look at such Christly living as at “the sun shining in its strength.” God loves to look at those who carry Jesus in their faces. Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Such living brings happy dying. Good Dean Alford asked that it might be inscribed on his tombstone: “This is the inn of a traveller on his way to Jerusalem.” To many of us this may be the last year on earth. Let us determine to so live that, when Death calls our names on his roll, we may be found with our faces steadfastly set toward “Jerusalem the Golden.”