The Jesus You Never Knew

Book excerpt: In the hearts of all mankind, of whatever race or station in life, there -. are inexpressible longings for something they do not now possess. This longing is implanted in the very constitution of man by a merciful God, that man may not be satisfied with his present conditions or attainments, whether bad, or good, or better. God desires that the human shallseek the best, and find it to the eternal blessing of his soul. Satan, by wily scheme and craft, has perverted these longings of the human heart. He makes men believe that this desire may be satisfied by pleasure, by wealth, by-ease, by fame, by power; but those who have been thus deceived by him (and they number myriads) find all these things pall upon the sense, leaving the soul as barren and unsatisfied as before. It is God's design that this longing of the human heart should lead to the One, who alone is able to satisfy it. The desire is of Him that it may lead to Him, the fullness and fulfillment of that desire. That fullness is found in Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Eternal God. "Forit was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fullness dwell;" "for in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." And it is also true that "in Him ye are made full" with respect to every desire divinely implanted and normally followed. Haggai calls Him "the Desire of all nations," and we may well call Him "the Desire of all ages," even as He is "the King of ages." It is the purpose of this book to set forth Jesus Christ as the One in whom every longing may be satisfied. There is many a "Life of Christ" written, excellent, books, large funds of information, elaborate 'essays on chronology and contemporaneous history, customs, and events, with much of the teaching and many glimpses of the many-sided life of Jesus of Nazareth. Yet it may be truly.said, "The half has never been told." It is not, however, the purpose of this work to set forth a harmony of the Gospels, or even to give in stricdy chronological order the important events and wonderful Iessons of the life of Christ; its purpose is to present the love of God as revealed in His Son, the divine beauty of life of Christ, of which a1l may partake,and not to satisfy the desires of the .merely curious nor the questionings of critics. But even as . the attraetl.on of His own goodness of character Jesus drew His disciples unto himself, and his personal presence by His sympathetic touch and feeling in all their infirmities and needs, and by his constantassocaition, transformed their characters from the erathly to the heavenly, from the selfish to the sacrificing, from the small hearted ignorance and prejudice to largehearted knowledge and profound love for soulsof all nations and races, even so it is the purpose of this book so to presentthe blessed Redeemer as to helpthe readerto come to Him face to face, herat to heart, and find in Him even as did the diciples of old, Jesus the Mighty One, who saves "ot the uttermost," and transforms to HIs own divine image all of those who come unto God by Him. Yet how impossibleit is to revealHis life! It is like attemptingto putupos canvas the livingrainbow; into charaters of black and white the sweetest music.