s it his highest joy to
contribute in every possible way to the enlargement of the bounds of
the Kingdom of God. So there is deliverance from every form of sin if
we will but move in God's way.

DEFINITENESS OF PURPOSE IN CHRISTIAN WORK

TEXT: "_Salute no man by the way._"--Luke 10:4.

Luke is the only one of the Evangelists giving us the account of the
sending out of the seventy. The others tell us that Christ called
certain men unto him and commissioned them to tell his story; but in
this instance after Jesus had said, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the
air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head," he
calls the seventy and sends them forth prepared to endure any sacrifice
or suffer any affliction if only they may do his will. And when he had
said unto another, "Follow me," but he answered, "Suffer me first to go
and bury my father," Jesus said unto him (Luke 9:60-62), "Let the dead
bury their dead; but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. And
another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid
them farewell which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him,
No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for
the kingdom of God." From this expression of the Master we quite
understand that no other service, however important it may seem to us,
is to come between us and our devotion to him. And in the expression
concerning the man having put his hand to the plow and looking back we
have one of the strongest illustrations that Jesus ever used. He does
not say that if any one puts his hand to the plow and turns back to
some other form of service he is not fit for the Kingdom of God, but
what he says is this: If any man has his hands to the plow and simply
looks back he is not fit for the Kingdom; and this for two reasons:

First: Because no man could plow as he ought to unless he would keep
his eyes straight ahead of him, and

Second: No man could plow if he has his mind fixed upon something else.
Jesus wants his disciples to know that his work is the important work,
that nothing can surpass it. Not only is it wrong for us to turn away
from him to any other service but it is a sin even to take our eyes off
of him to gaze upon anything else. Under such sharp teaching as this
he sends forth the seventy.

Let it be noted, first, that he sent them forth two by two. Perhaps
one was sent because he was strong in the opposite direction from