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The Friend on the Road and Other Studies in the Gospels: Chapter 16 - The Truly Sensational Life

By John Henry Jowett


      "They were all amazed and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion."--Mark ii. 12.

      WHAT made them talk in this way? What had happened A paralysed man had found his freedom. He was carrying his bed, the bed on which he had been carried to the Lord. He who was burdensome has become the burden-bearer. There he was, erect, strong and contagiously glad, striding down the street! How can you get over that? Who could miss the force of that happening? It stares upon the crowd like a placard in the street. A miracle of that kind is more than a word, it is a word made flesh. Anybody can see it. It is an incarnate wonder. It is walking about, and every step is a word in the convincing witness. And the crowds were amazed, as well they might be, and they glorified God. If the wonder had ended in wonder it might have ended with the day. It would have been as transient as a photographic film which has been brought into the light of the sun. The film which has received the impression requires fixing, and then it becomes secure. And how is a transient wonder to be fixed except in praise? Praise is the soul's fixing solution, and it gives permanency to ephemeral impressions. These people were amazed, and they glorified God, and thousands of them retained their holy wonder through their life.

      Well, now, in some way or other we have to arrest the world's attention to-day. How can we stir the outside world to wonder and praise? We must first of all arouse their attention. Men's minds must be compelled to turn their eyes, and look, and think. And how is it to be done? They must be made to see something very extraordinary in the commonplace street. The great constraint must be a thing of life. Out of the Church of Christ must go forth vigorous, healthy men and women, who went in paralysed. There must be the consummate sensation of a transformed and transfigured life. Things must be done in the Church which are done nowhere else. The world must be compelled to offer the witness, "we never saw it on this fashion." Broken things, which nobody could mend, must be seen to be whole again. What can Christ do with broken things? The streets must carry the witness. Lives which were broken and defiled by passion must walk along the streets sweet and whole again. Broken wills must be restored, and men must be seen who were like bending reeds, who are now like iron pillars. Aye, and broken hearts must witness to the wonderful healing power of the Saviour's love and grace. The world must be compelled to ask, "How did it happen? The man has been broken for years, and look at him now!" That is the kind of sensation which startles and wins, the sensational spectacle of men and women who were once paralysed marching along the streets as to the beat of drums.

      We must pray for the multiplication of these living witnesses. Let every Church pray that there may be in its midst a well-known Lazarus, whom Christ has raised from the dead, and it may be that the crowd will go to "see Lazarus also whom He raised from the dead." Let the Church of the living God, through the power of His mighty grace, multiply its miracles of healing. Let us send out epistles which can be read by anybody and everybody, epistles which wayfaring men, though fools, will be able to understand. These are the real sensations, and they are the only sensations we need to seek.

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See Also:
   Chapter 1 - Critics and Surgeons
   Chapter 2 - The Challenge of the Closed Door
   Chapter 3 - How the Best Things Become Ours
   Chapter 4 - Sixpennyworth of Miracle
   Chapter 5 - The Peace of the Larger Life
   Chapter 6 - Education by Contagion
   Chapter 7 - The Tares Among the Wheat
   Chapter 8 - Things New and Old
   Chapter 9 - The Buoyancy of Faith
   Chapter 10 - Sound the Great Recall
   Chapter 11 - The Bright Cloud
   Chapter 12 - Mercy and Obligation
   Chapter 13 - The Simplification of Life
   Chapter 14 - Life's Perilous Heats
   Chapter 15 - Feverishness
   Chapter 16 - The Truly Sensational Life
   Chapter 17 - The Dominant Passion
   Chapter 18 - Doing the Impossible
   Chapter 19 - The Life I Should Live
   Chapter 20 - The Blessing and Discipline of Retirement
   Chapter 21 - Endless Possibilities
   Chapter 22 - The Price of Liberty
   Chapter 23 - The Dynamics of Expulsion
   Chapter 24 - Evils That Never Arrive
   Chapter 25 - Returning in Power
   Chapter 26 - The Old Tackle and the New Presence
   Chapter 27 - The Noble Dissatisfaction
   Chapter 28 - The Malady of Not Wanting
   Chapter 29 - Sentimentaltsm
   Chapter 30 - The Pedantic Conscience
   Chapter 31 - A Receiver of Wrecks
   Chapter 32 - The Supreme Test
   Chapter 33 - Fainting
   Chapter 34 - Doing the Impossible
   Chapter 35 - Divine Visitations
   Chapter 36 - Self-Possession
   Chapter 37 - The Treacherous Kiss
   Chapter 38 - The Friend on the Road
   Chapter 39 - Dull Scholars
   Chapter 40 - The Unknown Christ
   Chapter 41 - The Worst and the Best
   Chapter 42 - Increase and Decrease
   Chapter 43 - Hating the Light
   Chapter 44 - Heroic Goodness
   Chapter 45 - Living Words
   Chapter 46 - The Last Bridge
   Chapter 47 - The Ministry of Infusion
   Chapter 48 - Breaking the Awful Silence
   Chapter 49 - Preparing for the Miracle
   Chapter 50 - The Inner Door
   Chapter 51 - The Revelation in the After Days
   Chapter 52 - The Troubled Heart
   Chapter 53 - The Gift of Peace
   Chapter 54 - Settling Down in Christ
   Chapter 55 - The Joy of the Lord
   Chapter 56 - The Joy of Christian Life
   Chapter 57 - The Sense of Mission
   Chapter 58 - Living at Second Hand
   Chapter 59 - The Great Act of Receiving

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