on.

But if Jesus was to lead man back He must first get alongside, close up,
on the same level. This was the toughest part of the whole thing. The
hardest part in saving a man is getting the man's consent to be saved.
There is no task tougher than trying to help a man who thinks he doesn't
need help, even though his need may be extreme. You may throw a blanket
over a horse's head and get it out of a burning stable or barn; or a lasso
over a bull's head to get it where you want, but man cannot be handled
that way. He must be _led_. The tether that draws must be fastened inside,
his _will_. He must be lifted from inside. That is a bit of the God-image
in him. And so God's most difficult task was getting _inside the man_ that
had shut Him out.

<u>Fastening a Tether Inside.</u>

And a long time it took. That it took so long, measured by the calendar,
suggests how great was the resistance to be overcome. A long round-about
road it does seem that God took. Yet it was the shortest. The circle route
is always the shortest. It is nature's way. Nature always follows the line
of least resistance. The eagle, descending, comes in circles, the line of
least resistance. Water running out of a bowl through the hole in the
bottom follows the circuitous route--the easiest.

God's longest way around was the shortest way into man's heart. Standards
had to be changed. New standards made. Yet in making a standard there must
be a starting point. God's bother was to get a starting point. When man
was too impure in his ingrained ideas to receive any idea of what purity
meant, things were in bad shape. When he was grubbing content in the
gutter, how was he ever to be gotten up to the highlands, when you
couldn't even lift his eyes over the curbstone? All the prohibitions of
the Mosaic code are but faithful mirrors of man's condition. A wholly new
standard had to be set up. That was God's task. It must be set up
_through_ men if they were to be attracted to it. So God started on His
longest-way-around-shortest road into man's heart.

A man is chosen. Through this man, by the slow processes of generations, a
nation is grown. Yet a nation only in numbers at first; in no other sense;
a mob of men. Then this mob is worked upon. They are led through
experiences that will make them soft to new impressions. Then slowly,
laboriously, by child-training methods, the new standard is brought to
them. Yet after centuries the best attained is only