ur wills to be guided by Him, and give our lives for
His service, then He will write our names in His book. If we trust Him
we shall be citizens of the City of God; shall be filled with the life
of Christ; shall be objects of an individualising love and care; shall
be accepted in that Day; and shall enter in through the gates into the
city. 'They that forsake me shall be written on the earth'; and there
wiped out as are the children's scribbles on the sand when the ocean
come up. They that trust in Jesus Christ shall have their names written
in the Book of Life; graven on the High Priest's breastplate, and
inscribed on His mighty hand and His faithful heart.

REJOICE EVERMORE

'Rejoice in the Lord alway; and again I say,
rejoice!'--PHIL. iv. 4.

It has been well said that this whole epistle may be summed up in two
short sentences: 'I rejoice'; 'Rejoice ye!' The word and the thing crop
up in every chapter, like some hidden brook, ever and anon sparkling out
into the sunshine from beneath the shadows. This continual refrain of
gladness is all the more remarkable if we remember the Apostle's
circumstances. The letter shows him to us as a prisoner, dependent on
Christian charity for a living, having no man like-minded to cheer his
solitude; uncertain as to 'how it shall be with me,' and obliged to
contemplate the possibility of being 'offered,' or poured out as a
libation, 'on the sacrifice and service of your faith.' Yet out of all
the darkness his clear notes ring jubilant; and this sunny epistle
comes from the pen of a prisoner who did not know but that to-morrow he
might be a martyr.

The exhortation of my text, with its urgent reiteration, picks up again
a dropped thread which the Apostle had first introduced in the
commencement of the previous chapter. He had there evidently been
intending to close his letter, for he says: 'Finally, my brethren,
rejoice in the Lord'; but he is drawn away into that precious personal
digression which we could so ill spare, in which he speaks of his
continual aspiration and effort towards things not yet attained. And now
he comes back again, picks up the thread once more, and addresses
himself to his parting counsels. The reiteration in the text becomes the
more impressive if we remember that it is a repetition of a former
injunction. 'Rejoice in the Lord alway'; and then he seems to hear one
of his Philippian readers saying: 'Why! you told us that once be