John 14

John 14:6

The Highway To God An highway shall be there.—Isaiah 35:8 (AV). I am the way.—John 14:6. Did you ever think what a wonderful thing a road is? The story of a road is as fascinating as a fairy-tale. The earliest roads were not roads at all. They were not even paths, they were just tracks. Some of them were tracks beaten down by wild beasts, and afterwards trodden by the foot of man. Today in Central and East Africa such tracks are still to be seen. They are so like goat or antelope tracks that you can barely tell the one from the other. Travelers say that in Bechuanaland the main roads consist, not of one broad track, but of many single tracks running side by side and occasionally crossing or overlapping each other.

Such tracks are so crooked and wandering that a distance which should be only two miles becomes three.Just think of roads like that, and then think of one of our great roads, broad and evenly paved. Or think of one of our city streets with its pavements, its gutters, its subways and railroads, its electric power grid, and its elaborate system of underground pipes and conduits.It was from the Romans that we first learned how to make roads. The Romans were the great road- makers of history. They saw that the secret of making their great Empire one was to have communication, and you can’t have communication between one place and another without a road or way. So they planned these long magnificent roads of theirs, each of which counted its mileage from Rome. That is why we hare the proverb, “Every road leads to Rome.”So well were these roads made that a thousand years after some of them were in as good condition as when they were laid.

We have the remains of some of them in Great Britain to this day. Watling Street, from Kent to Cardigan Bay, Ikenild Street, from St.

David’s to Tynemouth, Fosse Way, from Cornwall to Lincoln, Ermin Street, from St. David’s to Southampton—were old Roman roads.The most famous of all Roman roads was the Appian Way, the Great South Road which ran from the Porta Capena at Rome to Capua. It was known as “the Queen of Roads.” It was a triumph of Roman labor and engineering skill. It crossed marshes, bridged ravines, and cut into the solid rock of the cliffs. It was along this white ribbon of a pavement that St. Paul travelled a prisoner to Rome.I said that the Romans made roads because they stood for communication and interaction. That is just what a road stands for today. It is a way to somebody or something.

The highway of our text is that. The prophet Isaiah is talking of a way to God. Some people say that he was speaking to the Jews in exile and telling them how God would make a way of return for them across the desert to Jerusalem and its Temple. To the Jews the Temple was the place where God was. And going home to Jerusalem meant going home to God.Years after Isaiah gave this message to the Jews there came to Jerusalem One who said of Himself, “I am the way.” The way to what or whom? The way to God. Christ came to the world to show men the one true way to God. The prophets whom God had sent into the world before this to lead men to Him were like the feeble wandering footpaths of Bechuanaland.

But Christ, God’s own Son, was the great direct Way to the Father.Have you ever heard of the walled-up door, the Porta Santa, of St. Peter’s at Rome? It is walled up except during Holy Year, which comes once in twenty- five years. Every quarter of a century, at a touch from the reigning Pope the door is opened, and the people enter by a new way into the great church. Only one year out of twenty-five! Only once in the lifetime of most people, twice in the lifetime of some, and thrice in the lifetime of the very few is that way to the Holy Place open.But Christ’s way to God is never closed. By that Living Way we can reach God at any time and in a moment. God sent us that way, for use.

Let us see then, dear children, that we follow the way of Christ to God.

John 14:15

The Secret Of Obedience If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments.—John 14:15.A small boy of my acquaintance has a wonderful toy. It is a motor wagon which runs upon a circle of rails. On the driver’s box sits a little man who, when the toy is wound up, raises his right hand to his cap. Then my young friend lays a tiny parcel beside him and says, “Take that to Mr. So-and-so.” A companion stands at the other side of the circle. The motor stops beside him; he lifts the parcel off. The little driver again raises his hand and is soon back to the point at which he started. Again he salutes; again he is sent on an errand; again he shows the same obedience.The obedience of the little man is only an example of clockwork.

When the toy is wound up, he obeys orders because he cannot do otherwise. He does not think: he has no feelings: his little master is nothing to him. His is the obedience of mechanism—the poorest obedience of all.Now, I feel sure that some of you have at one time or other asked yourselves, “Why does not God make us always want to do the right thing? Here we are put into the world, and left to do as we like. Just think for a moment. Have you seen a wind up toy that does the same thing over and over? Wouldn’t you get tired of doing the same thing over and over? Wouldn’t you want to have some living creature that you could train to do things?

Some of you have a dog of your very own. You have taken a great deal of pains to train him to obedience. You punish him if he does anything wrong; yet he loves you all the time. Isn’t he really much better than the a wind up toy?I have met boys and girls—not many, however—who seemed just like the mechanical toy. They always behaved well; but it was as if they had never wanted to do wrong. They had been trained to do the right thing without thinking.There is a kind of boy, and a kind of girl, that I like better. Once a little fellow went to Jesus when he was called. Somebody wrote that little story down.

The boy never dreamed that he would be mentioned in the greatest book in the world, and that thousands on thousands of people would read about his obedience and be better for doing it.Jesus may call you by using your mother’s voice. He may say, “Tom, I want you to go an errand.” I read the other day of a boy who had been hoeing weeds all day. His mother called him to go an errand. Now, the little boy was so tired that the tears would come at the thought of trudging off on an errand when he wanted to go and lie on the grass in one of the parks. But he wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his poor jacket and said, “Yes, Mother.”“If ye love me,” said Christ, “ye will keep my commandments.” A love to Christ that does not keep His commandments is not worthy of the name of love at all; and an obedience without love is like the obedience of the little wind up toy. Jesus would not count it as obedience at all.“How can I keep Christ’s commandments?” you ask.

The answer is, Take Christ for your Friend and Savior first of all. Bead the story of His life over and over again.

Get to know Him better than you know the characters in your history books. You will love Him; you will want to trust Him; you will not be able to disobey Him, because you feel it would hurt Him. To obey Him will come to you naturally.“Did you get tired today?” said a minister to his little daughter on the way home from church.“Yes, father, but I beared it because I love you.” That little girl had found the secret. Love makes hard things easy and obedience a joy.