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Rev. Gustaf F. Johnson 43
preached, too—with how much grace I do not know. After he had
done what he considered his duty, he went outside the city to see what
came of it all. The Lord felt bad for the prophet and prepared a
gourd that shot up out of the earth and shielded the prophet from the
hot sun.
By and by a worm came and smote the gourd so it withered. That
made the prophet angry and he wished to die. And God said to
Jonah, "Dost thou well to be angry for the gourd?" And the prophet
thought he had a very good reason for his anger. Now the Lord sent
the lesson home:
It is this: You are very much concerned over the gourd, a plant of
a night or two; should I not then be concerned over a great city, with
its teeming millions of beings, who are capable of eternal misery or
eternal glory? And that ends the conversation! Jonah could find no
more argument.
Oh, how we are concerned over small things! Thank God that our
President appointed a day for humiliation and prayer. But why should
it have taken a world war to show us the curse of forgetting God?
Why were not days of humiliation and confession appointed in all the
so-called Christian nations years ago? Then maybe this war could
have been averted. When the terrible results of sin overwhelm the
nations, we can see that, but why could we not see the curse of sin
itself? When the waves of iniquity were surging over our land we
thought lightly of it. It takes the wages of sin, death, to arouse us
from our lethargy.
Sorrow That Is Sweeter than the World’s Joy
"And He went a little farther" (Matt. 26:39). You do not find the
Master with the crowd now—not even among the disciples. He goes
"farther"—into a sorrow deeper than they can fathom. "My soul is
exceeding sorrowful." Wliat is it that is casting this awful gloom over
His holy soul? The sin of the world.
What has caused your sorrows, my brother? Reverses in business?
Financial losses? The death of friends? Broken family ties? Is that
as far as you have gone with the Master? Will you not go "a little
farther" today? Will fon enter into holy fellowship with His suffer-
ing and weep for the world? Love the fallen ones until their burdens
become your own?
Then shall you know a sorrow that is far sweeter than the world’s
joys, because you are with Him. That will mean an end of shallow
worries and empty joys. And the mind of Christ in you will causej y
you to brood in loving compassion over suffering cities, godless con-
tinents and a lost world.
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