UNTO GAZA, IV HIGH IS DESERT. 



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than of sons and of daughters ; I will give them an ever- 

 lasting name, that shall not be cut off." 



This incident in the history of Philip the Evangelist 

 is not unique, but representative. It is a type of what 

 has often happened in the experience of God's people. 

 It is an illustration of God's method of procedure still. 

 The proper immediate application of the lesson which 

 it teaches is to the case of ministers and evangelists, 

 who, like Philip, are summoned from a larger and more 

 important sphere of usefulness to one which, in com- 

 parison with it, may be called a desert. Our Lord Him- 

 self on one occasion left the busy, crowded cities and 

 villages, where He was carrying on a most beneficent 

 ministry of healing and teaching among multitudes that 

 thronged Him wherever He went, to cross over the Sea 

 of Galilee, to the lonely desert on the other side, in 

 order that there He might cure the solitary demoniac 

 who lived among the tombs ; who, in his turn, was the 

 means of a wonderful spiritual awakening among the 

 people of Decapolis, to whom he told what great things 

 Jesus had done for him. Peter was sent from the large 

 maritime city of Joppa, where he had ample scope to 

 preach the gospel to persons from all parts of the world, 

 in order to instruct a single Gentile family in the small 

 and, in comparison, unimportant town of Caesarea. 

 And so God bids His servants still leave the ninety and 

 nine in the fold, and, like Himself, go after the one lost 

 sheep in the wilderness ; leave the crowded scene, and 

 pass over to the other side, to some lonely, out-of-the- 

 Avay place, where He Himself has prepared some soli- 



