When God breaks up your plans, and throws you to the very ground, and breaks all the threads in the loom which you were weaving, and says to you, “Begin again,” is there any Christ for you at that point of your overthrow? Can you go forth unto your Savior marking that place in His life where He was overthrown, identifying it in some way with your own overthrow? Can you stand rejoicing with Christ at that very point of humiliation and crucifixion? Christ may be followed in two ways—victorious, and in disgrace and ignominy; and we are called to follow, first, not Christ as He is set forth in all the royalty of philosophy and reason, but a Christ humiliated, a Christ despised; a Christ hated, a Christ crucified. Before we stand with Christ upon Olivet, we must stand with Him upon Calvary, must walk with Him thither.—BEECHER.
