Article January 3, 1948 Issue

"FROM GLORY UNTO GLORY"

PETER J. HENNIKER HEATON

"Once I get over this difficulty, I'II be all right." We have often heard this said; perhaps we have said it ourselves. But sometimes when we have got over the difficulty, we have at once been faced by another. And then we have been tempted to say despairingly, "Life is just one difficulty after another."

When David was still a shepherd boy he destroyed a lion and a bear which attacked his flocks. Later, the freedom of Israel was threatened by the Philistine giant, Goliath. David did not complain that he had already had a hard time defeating the lion and the bear, or that he had done his bit; he cheerfully accepted the new and greater challenge. "The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear," he said, "he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine" (I Sam. 17:37). And he slew Goliath. This was only the prelude to the meeting of still greater calls made on him as a king.

The demands made on Jesus were also progressive, and he met each one with the same vigorous and affirmative response. After he had restored the sick and the sinning, he was called upon to raise the dead. The power of his words and works aroused such opposition that his enemies conspired to crucify him, but he prayed (Luke 22:42), "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done." And he went forward to vanquish death in his own experience and finally by ascending to triumph over all materiality.

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