Mark 4:34

ALONE WITH CHRIST

‘And when they were alone, He expounded all things to His disciples.’

Mark 4:34

There is nothing like the direct teaching of Christ. It makes everything so very plain, so individual, so precious. And the ordinance of the pulpit will be to very little good if it do not send you into the privacy of your own room, there to have it all over again from Him to your separate and salient heart.

I. The disciple’s privilege.—Let us take care that we lay its proper and comforting stress on that one full word: ‘When they were alone, He expounded all things to His disciples.’ Whenever you come to complicated things which you cannot untie, within you or about you—an involved truth, a baffling Providence, an unintelligible condition of your own soul—take it to that great Expositor. And this is one great privilege of being a disciple: all things shall be made clear to you. The world has its messages, but ‘He manifests Himself to you as He does not unto the world.’ Others may have the words of Christ, but you shall have His mind.

II. ‘Alone with Christ.’—To be alone with Christ there must be—

(a) A calm, quiet mind; it must not be pre-occupied; the inner life must not be a crowd of thought; but stillness, with room, free room enough for Christ. I am not ‘alone’ with a person, if a thousand other presences, as real as his, are there. It must be, to have Christ, a perfectly vacant place.

(b) A realisation that Christ is there with you. Why should you hesitate to accept it? He has said that He will be there; and His being, and therefore His presence, is spiritual, and consequently invisible. Therefore, simply believe it: ‘Christ is here; He takes a personal interest in me; because He takes the interest in me, He is now here to speak to me. I will shut my ears to all other things, that I may hear Him. I will close my eyes and see Him only. Now, my own loving Saviour and I are by ourselves.’

(c) Confidential communications. Tell Him confidentially all you have in your mind, and expect Him to tell you confidentially all He has in His mind for you. Whatever be the difficulty, the trouble, the fear, the question, the sin, name it, spread it, and whatever answer comes in return—and it will come, silently but consciously—take it as whispered to you and intended for you only. For you must meet Christ as your own personal friend, or you will not meet Him at all.

III. With Christ everywhere.—You will have been ‘alone’ with Christ in your room to very small purpose, if you have not learnt there the happy art of so carrying Him with you everywhere, that you can often be as ‘alone’ with Him in the crowd as you were in your privacy. Practise yourself to get apart from the busy scene about you, and to go down into the sanctuary of your own soul, and try to find and meet Christ only. No one can say how it elevates, and refines, and sanctifies, and sweetens the day. It is the thing which makes it heaven to live, to have learnt the secret how to be ‘alone’ with the Lord Jesus Christ anywhere.

Rev. James Vaughan.

Illustration

‘Our Lord justifies the parabolic form of teaching, which often served to veil the truth, on the ground that immediate revelation is not always desirable. Many things are concealed, both in nature and by art, though the concealment is by no means designed to be permanent. What striking illustrations of the principle are furnished in geology! Look at the almost measureless bed of coal, hidden for ages in the bowels of the earth, but designed by Providence to be revealed when necessity should arise. The precise time for the unveiling is not always easy to decide, because man’s knowledge is finite, but we rest assured that it will coincide with the need for its use. It is a principle worth bearing in mind when human efforts fail; for it is encouraging to know that such a result may be due simply to the fact that we have tried unconsciously to anticipate the pre-appointed time.’