June 4

Who gave himself for our sins. — GAL. i. 4.

Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him; and the third day he shall rise again. — MATT. xx. 18, 19.

NEVER had there been such a going up to Jerusalem as that which Jesus here proposes to his disciples. Jesus goes up voluntarily. The act was not enforced by any external compulsion. Jerusalem might at this time have been avoided. It was deliberately sought. Jesus was hereby fulfilling the Father's will, executing the mission upon which he had been sent. It was after this journey that he said, "I have finished the work thou gavest me to do." His going up was a part of that work. Hence it was right for him to go up, although he knew that betrayal, arrest, condemnation, and crucifixion awaited him. It was a going up to a triumph to be reached through defeat, a coronation to be attained through ignominy and humiliation (Heb. ii. 9).

O believer, in your walk through the world to-day, be strengthened, be comforted, be inspired, by the spectacle of the Captain of your salvation thus going up to Jerusalem! And remember in all those apparently downward passages of life where sorrow, and it may be death, lie before you, that all such descents made or endured in the spirit of Jesus are really upgoings, steps leading you to the mount of God and the resurrection-glory.

Joseph D. Stratton

E'en though it be a cross

That raiseth me!

Still all my song shall be,

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer to thee!

MRS. S. F. ADAMS.