“The Grass Withereth, the Flower Fadeth”

A ore Spirit blows upon the flesh, and that which

seemed vigorous becomes weak, that which was fair to look upon is smitten with decay; the true nature of the flesh is thus discovered, its deceit is laid bare, its power is destroyed, and there is space for the dispensation of the ever-abiding Word, and for the rule of the Great Shepherd, whose words are spirit and life. There is a withering wrought by the Spirit which is the preparation for the sowing and implant-

.. ing by which salvation is wrought.

The withering before the sowing was very marvellously fulfilled in the preaching of John the Baptist. Most appropriately he carried on his ministry in the desert, for a spiritual desert was all around him; he was the voice of one crying in the wilderness. It was not his work to plant, but to hew down. The fleshly religion of the Jews was then in its prime. Pharisaism stalked through the streets in all its pomp; men complacently rested in outward ceremonies only, and spiritual religion was at the lowest conceivable ebb. Here and there might be found a Simeon and an Anna, but for the most part men knew nothing of spiritual religion, but said in their hearts: “We have Abraham to our father,” and this is enough. What a stir he made when he called the lordly Pharisees a

* Isaiah xl.6 — 8; 1 Peter i. 23-25.

generation of vipers! How he shook the nation with the declaration, “Now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees”! Stern as Elias, his work was to level the mountains, and lay low every lofty imagination. That word, “Repent,” was asa scorching wind to the verdure of self-righteousness, a killing blast for the confidence of ceremonialism. His food and his dress called for fasting and mourning. The outward token of his ministry declared the death amid which he preached, as he buried in the waters of Jordan those who came to him. “Ye must die and be buried, even as He who is to come will save by death and burial.” This was the meaning of the emblem which he set before the crowd. His typical act was as thorough in its teaching as were his words; and as if that were not enough, he warned them of a yet more searching and trying baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire, and of the coming of One whose fan was in His hand, thoroughly to purge His floor. The Spirit in John blew as the rough north wind, searching and withering, and made him to be a destroyer of the vain gloryings of a fleshly religion, that the spiritual faith might be established.

When our Lord Himself actually appeared, He came into a withered land, whose glories had all departed. Old Jesse’s stem was bare, and our Lord was the Branch which grew out of his root. The sceptre had departed from Judah, and the lawgiver from between his feet, when Shiloh came. An alien sat on David’s throne, and the Roman called the covenant-land his own. The lamp of prophecy burned but dimly, even if it had not utterly gone out. No Isaiah had arisen of late to console them, nor even a

Jeremiah to lament their apostasy. The whole economy of Judaism was as a worn-out vesture; it had waxed old, and was ready to vanish away. The priesthood was disarranged. Luke tells us that Annas and Caiaphas were high priests that year — two in a year or at once, a strange setting aside of the laws of Moses. All the Dispensation which gathered around the visible, or as Paul calls it, the “worldly” sanctuary, was coming to a close; and when our Lord had finished His work, the veil of the Temple was rent in twain, the sacrifices were abolished, the priesthood of Aaron was set aside, and cardinal ordinances were abrogated, for the Spirit revealed spiritual things. When He came who was made a priest,“not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life,” there was “a disannulling of the commandment

going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof.”