My Teacher, My Master

After our blessed Saviour had washed his apostles’ feet, he uttered this memorable saying: “Ye call me Master and Lord; and ye say well, for so I am.” All careful students of Scripture know that in this, and many parallel places, the word “Master” is old-English for Teacher; and that the word “Lord” is equivalent to Kuler, Commander, Prince, or Master. Without changing our excellent translation, we may then regard Jesus as saying: “Ye call me Teacher and Master, and ye do well; for so I am.” In every revival of religion, in every sound conversion, the repentant soul takes Christ as his Teacher and his Master. Reader, is it so with thee?

At a time when thousands are openly confessing Christ, it is of infinite moment that every one should see to it that lie receives the Lord just as he is offered in the Gospel. Do not here mistake the drift of the caution. In order to justification, remission of sins, absolution, or acceptance with God, you receive the Lord Jesus in his character of Substitute, Vicarious Sacrifice, Lamb of God, and Atoning Priest. But Christ is not merely Priest, he is also Prophet and King. Christ means Anointed; and there are three anointings; mark them well. The Prophet is anointed, the Priest is anointed, the Ejng is anointed. The Christ whom you have received, at your believing, is all three at once. This is no nice point of the theological schools, but a plain, simple lesson of Scripture. You think yourself converted; do you receive Jesus, saying to him from the heart: “My Teacher, my Master?”

My Teacher I

“Mary I” said the risen Lord to his weeping disciple.^ “She turned herself, and saith unto him, Eabboni, which is to say. Master,” (or in the original Greek,) MY Teacher I Have

1 John 20: IG.

you, 0 sinful, but hopeful soul! taken this great teacher, as such, to you? Formerly, you were blind. If you have been made to see, it is He who opened your eyes. He is the “true light.” Predicted in the Old Testament as the great Prophet of His people, He is. the giver of all their spiritual knowledge. Until He touched your eyes, you were in gross darkness as to the very elements of saving truth. This ignorance did not appear so great, till the time when the Law entered your soul and made you tremble. Then, almost wildly, you went to and fro, asking: “Men and brethren, what must I do?” Yoitr former knowledge was now turned into foolishness. You were willing to be taught as a babe. The language of your thoughts was: “Who will tell me the meaning of these rnysterious words: ‘Kepent,” Believe,” Come to Christ,’ ‘Look unto Christ,’ ‘Yield yourselves to God’?” At length you were illuminated, as to the import f these terms, by being made to experience the blessed reality. Old things passed away, all things became new. You learned what repentance is, by repenting; what faith is, by believing; and what coming to Christ is, by casting your 139 guilty soul upon his propitiation. In all this, it was your Prophet who enlightened; and he must enlighten still.

‘’ Never man spake like this man;” so they said during his ministry on earth. His followers were called “disciples,” that is, scholars or learners. He was a condescending teacher. “Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly.”^ Tens of thousands were taught by him then; millions have been taught by him since; for his school is open to this day.

Your blessed Teacher, 0 disciple I instructs by the Spirit and the Word. These two, which God hath joined, let not man put asunder. Seek not light of the Spirit without the “Word. Rely not on the letter of the Word without the Spirit.^ Come to Jesus for both. Though in his humanity Christ is in heaven, he is on earth in his divinity, and by his Spirit; as he promised:” When he, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth’^ Delay not, amidst the excitements of early love, to place yourself at the feet of Jesus, and to learn holy wisdom from his gracious lips.

1 Matt. 11: 29. 2 Read Isaiah 59: 21- My Master!

If your supposed turning to God has made you easy in your sins, your conversion is counterfeit. “Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?”^ The very instant that you took Christ for your Kedeemer, you took him for your Lord and Master. Faith and Obedience, it is true, are not the same. Faith, and not Obedience, is the instrument of justification.^ Nevertheless, Faith and Obedience are sisters who always walk hand in hand. When your pained heart, looking to Christ bleeding on the cross, said, My Saviour! it said equally, My Master I This 13 obedience in the bud. Faith worketh by love, and love realizes itself in obedience.

There is something inexpressibly dehghtful in exchanging that old legal bondage, under which duties were rendered to an unreconciled God, amidst groans and weakness, for a willing service, a gospel liberty, in which obligation is swallowed up in grateful, admiring acquiescence. Who that beholds, by faith,

1 Luke G: ‘IG. 2 Rom. 3: 20-28.

the loveliness of such a Lord, can fail to obey him? Precious is the relation to Jesus, by which we receive the law out of his hands. Thus the tables of stone were sacredly laid away under the golden propitiatory !^ “Ye serve the Lord Christ.”^ ISTever can you obey so sweetly as when you render even the smallest service of menial life to him; as if you said in your heart. Though working late with axe or needle, in factory or kitchen, “I do this for my Master P Is not the very title welcome to’ thine ear, O converted soul? “Where wouldst thou go to find a better service I

“How sweetly doth My Master sound; my MASTEi. ]
As ambergris leaves a rich scent
Unto the taster
So do these words a sweet content,

An oriental fragrancy: my Master I My Master, shall I speak? Oh! that to Thee, My servant were a little so, As flesh may be; That these two words might creep, and grow

To some degree of spiciness to Thee 1 For when My Master (which alone is sweet And e’en in my un worthiness pleasing) Shall call and meet

1 Deut 10: 5. 2 CoL 3: 24.

My servant, as Thee not displeasing;

Thy call is but the breathing of the sweet This breathing* would with gains by sweet’ning me,

(As sweet things traffic when they meet,) Return to Thee; And so this new commerce and sweet

Should, all my life, employ and busy me.”

So sang the liol j poet, of whom Izaak Walton writes thus: “He seems to rejoice in the thoughts of that word Jesus, and say that the adding of these words, ‘My Master,’ to it, and the often repetition of them, seemed to perfume his mind, and leave an oriental fragrancy in his very breath.” Distrust that sort of experience, dear reader, which is unaccompanied with a fresher purpose to please Christ. Kejecting, with indignation and loathing, all works of your own, considered as the procuring cause of your justification, at the same time perform all the works you can, as a service of love to Him whom you call Master and Lord.

There are those who dream of being saved in their sins. By a horrible abuse, they talk loudly of being washed in the blood of Christ and placed in gospel liberty, “while they themselves are the servants of corruption.”^

1 2 Pet. 2: 19.
14:3

What is this but to cast defilement over the sacred tree on which the immaculate Jesus died? By this name is he called, because he saves his people ‘’’’from their sins Though, therefore, you trusted in his righteousness, and not in jour own, for acceptance and pardon, you accepted him as your commander and king, to obey him forever. At the blessed moment when you received him as your satisfying Priest and bleeding sacrifice, you uttered with one and the same breath, if we may so speak, the aspiration, “Lord, I give myself to thee to be justified;” and, “Lord, I give myself to thee to be sanctified.” I believe — I love! My new life, of trust and obedience, begins here. My Saviour — my Master!

My Teacher I My Master I

Let us take them both together, for the Lord Jesus is both. In both characters let us draw nigh to him. We are both ignorant and sinful, and the ignorance and sin act and re-act on each other. The connection between light and love, between truth and holy living, is often set forth in Scripture: “If we say that we tave fellowship in him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.“^ Be it our daily business to resort to the Lord Jesus, as a present Saviour, for spiritual instruction and commandments to be obeyed. O young Christian! enter at once into this confidential relation to the Lord. Ask him. for teaching, ask him for holiness. Who was it that said to Paul:” My grace is sufficient for thee?” It was ‘’the Lord,” it was Jesus. For, hear the apostle’s boast: “Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”^

Adorable Jesus [ I am dark with sin; I am laden with iniquity. Be thou my light and my salvation. Teach me truth; teach me duty. For thine am I forever. Amen.

1 1 John 1:6. 2 2 Cor. 12:9.

Entire Consecration.

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
One in Three, and Three in One,

As by the celestial host,

Let thy will on earth be done;

Praise by all to thee be given.

Glorious Lord of earth and heaven.

Vilest of the sinful race,

Lo 1 I answer to thy call:
Meanest vessel of thy grace,

Grace divinely free for all;
Lo 1 I come to do thy will,
All thy counsel to fulfill.

If so poor a worm as I

May to thy great glory live,

All my actions sanctify.
All my words and thoughts receive:

Claim me for thy service, claim

All I have, and all I am.

Take my soul and body’s powers;

Take my mem’ry, mind, and will j
All my goods, and all my hours;

All I know, and all I feel,
All I think, or speak, or do;
Take my heart, but make it new