ness at all." "With the clean thou must be clean, and with the
holy thou must learn holiness." We know it, yet where we fail is in
not realizing the awful bearing which it has upon our lives. A rainbow
of perfect purity bars the way of entrance to the throne of God, except
for the pure.

And then, secondly, to temper, as it were, the awfulness of the first
revelation, we find that the light of God is brought us through a
medium; the glory, grace, and truth of God are shown us in the face of
Jesus Christ.

And, as we follow Him during these coming six weeks, let us remember
that we are watching the rainbow, that we are watching the medium
through which the light of God reaches us in all its inherent
attractiveness. If the heavenly rainbow is not produced by the light
shining upon the tears of human penitence, where is hope for the world?
But because it is so produced, the rainbow round the throne of God wins
us to God. "Come unto Me," it seems to signify, "all ye that are weary
and heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

Thirdly, the rainbow round the throne of God speaks of hope. Just as
the husbandman, getting anxious about his harvest, troubled by the
variableness of the season, looks up on some showery day and sees the
rainbow in the sky, and it reminds him of the faithfulness of God, and
His promise that seed time and harvest shall not cease, so the father
with his son snatched suddenly from him in the battle, so the soul
waiting so long year after year, for something to come which does not
come, so the tempted one at home or at work, looks upon the rainbow
round the throne of God, and that rainbow speaks of God's faithfulness.
"His righteousness standeth," that is what the rainbow says, "like the
strong mountains, and His judgments are like the great deep." And,
founded on the faithfulness of God, we can hope.

And yet, in spite of the attractiveness and in spite of the hope, the
rainbow round the throne of God is still awful, for it reminds us of
what, in our soft age, we are apt to forget--that "our God is a
consuming fire," that never, from generation to generation, does He
lower His standard for a moment, that not because in one age or another
sins are condoned or thought lightly of does He vary for an instant the
standard of holiness He demands, because He has appointed a day when He
will judge the world by the standard of that Man Whom He has ordained.

And when, therefore, we turn from the proto