How easily the great apostle could have argued that it was of the devil for him to be in prison.  Surely Nero was of the devil.  But Paul never hints that Nero is aught but the jailor.  He himself is "Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ." And it was under Nero that Paul wrote, "There is no power but of God." All of which reminds us of Samuel Rutherford, that unique and happy sufferer, who once said, "I go soon to my King's palace at Aberdeen." At Aberdeen he was imprisoned.  And from that prison he wrote to a friend, "The Lord is with me, I care not what man can do.  No person is provided for better than I am.  My chains are even gilded with gold.  No pen, no words; nothing can express the beauty of Christ." What could the devil do, pray tell, with such a yielded soul?  Surely he would drop him like a hot coal.  Such utter submission to Christ as the "Lord of all," (and therefore of every circumstance) is the surest way, the way all divine, to overcome the enemy.

In order to be more than conqueror in all such things, let me be utterly. abandoned to my Master.  With my ear fastened to His doorpost let me say, "I love my master ... I will not go out free."

Real consecration must be able to abide the testing.  Madame Guyon'. the triumphant mystic of the Middle Ages, puts it thus:

No man can be wholly the Lord's unless he is wholly consecrated to the Lord; and no man can know whether he is thus wholly consecrated except by tribulation.  That is the test.  To rejoice in God's will, when that will imparts nothing but happiness, is easy even for the natural man.  But no one but the renovated man ... can rejoice in the Divine will when it crosses his path, disappoints his expectations, and overwhelms him with sorrow.  Trial therefore, instead of being shunned, should be welcomed as the test--and the only true test--of a true state.  Beloved souls, there are consolations which pass away, but true and abiding consolation ye will not find except in entire abandonment, and in that love which loves the Cross.  He who does not welcome the Cross does not welcome God.

This last phrase, "He who does not welcome the Cross of Christ does not welcome God," brings us face to face with the mystery of the sufferings of Christ.  No sooner had Adam rebelled against King El Shaddai and plunged out into the far country of his own self-will than God held up before him the bruised Redeemer as the only remedy for the rebellion, the ruin and the wretchedness of sin.  For what is sin but "the erection of self unto the supreme power within us?  And self will reign, until a Mightier One occupy the throne it has usurped." "I was quite willing," said one, "that Jesus Christ should be King, so long as He allowed me to be Prime Minister." But self-will in its very nature--it is inexorable law--is self destructive.  "He who will not be sweetly ruled by the divine will," said Bernard of Clairvaux, "is penally governed by himself; and he who casts off the easy yoke and light burden of love, must suffer the intolerable load of self-will."

With the Almighty dethroned and with self enthroned, God had to begin again with a new Adam as the new Head of a new race.  The last Adam came to undo the work of the first and to crush the head of the serpent.  Did the first Adam exalt himself?  The last Adam emptied Himself.  Did pride drive God from the heart of the first Adam?  Christ chose not the palace of a Solomon but an oriental stall for the place of His birth, despised Nazareth for His earthly life.  Was the first Adam tested with a paradise of plenty with no need of denial?  The last Adam chose to be tested in all points like unto His brethren: in a wilderness, with the wild beasts, forty days without food, "then cometh the devil." His whole life was a total self-denial.  He had not where to lay His head.  Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered.  Finally, after that