And some of us who live in that day shall be changed instead of dying, and shall be caught up to meet Him and our own loved ones in the air.  That’s His true tryst with us up in the blue, some day.  And He will keep it.

And meanwhile everything He has promised us in the Book is sure, as being His plighted word.  His resurrection is our bond, our guarantee.  As surely as He rose on that third morning He will keep His word regarding every matter to you and me.

His appointments never fail, whether of guidance, of bodily health and strength, of supplies for every sort of need, of peace, of power, of victory.  The power that raised Jesus up from out the dead is pledged to us for every promise of this Book for to-day’s life.  He will do an act of creation before He will let His Word fail.  He will leave no power unused to keep the appointment of His Word with us.

Let us trust His Word to us fully.  And let us live our trust.

VII

Another Tryst

     A Story of Fishing, of Guests at Breakfast, and of a Walk and Talk
     by the Edge of Blue Galilee

     “I come unto you.”—­John xiv. 18.

     “Lo, I am with you all the days.”—­Matthew xxviii. 20.

VII

Another Tryst

(John xxi.)

Jesus Unrecognised.

John’s story is done.  And it is well done.  With the skill of a tried jurist he has drawn up a clear full line of evidence and presented it in a vigorous straightforward way.  And he plainly states his case.  His whole purpose is that those who read his little book shall come into warm personal touch of life with the Lord Jesus.  That ties the knot on tight at the end of chapter twenty.  John’s case has gone to the jury of his readers.

But now John reaches for his pen again.  The guiding Spirit has put another bit into his heart to write down.  This time it is a special bit, not for all to whom the book is sent, but for a selected class of his readers, namely, for those of them who have given John a favourable verdict on the evidence presented.  It grows out of chapter xx. 31 as rose out of bud, and fruit out of blossom.  It is for those who “believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God,” and so “have life in His Name.”

And a very tender precious bit it is, more wondrous in its sheer simplicity than any of us seem to suspect.  It is simply this:  this Jesus is with us all the time.  This same Jesus who was so swayed by the need of the crowd, who burned His life out day by day warmly responding to their sore need—­He is here.

This Jesus who fed the hungry, healed the sick of every sort, and freed men from devilish power, who convicted men so tremendously of their wrong, restrained their evil power to hurt, wooed the hearts of all so irresistibly, and led them into changed lives; this Jesus who died and then did the stupendously mighty thing of rising up out of death,—­this Jesus is with us now by your side and mine.