19 - Matthew 10:42
’Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.’ -Matthew 10:42.
These words enforce and illustrate what our Lord had just before said: "He that receiveth you, receiveth me; and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me." The expression "one of these little ones" occurs half a dozen times in the Gospels. Its meaning in this place is indicated by the subjoined words, "in the name of a disciple," i.e. because he is a disciple. The discourse as a whole was addressed to the apostles; but there appear to have been others, his disciples, standing by. The great principle that whosoever receiveth one whom Christ hath sent receiveth him, is best enforced not by a reference to the most favoured and advanced of his servants, but by an application to one that is least so. The least gift to the least distinguished servant of Christ is noticed, remembered, and acknowledged by Christ.
Christ sends his servants forth into what, he plainly assures them, is a hostile world. He would not have them deceive themselves on this point. ’Ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake. They shall persecute you to the death. Seek not the honour which cometh from man; dishonour awaits you. Expect not that they will recognise you as ambassadors of God; they will stigmatize you as emissaries of Beelzebub. You know that all power is mine; that power shall be exerted in your behalf; but not perhaps in the way that you would anticipate. Your path is not to be one of ease, but of privation. The servant is not greater than his lord. They have rejected me, they will reject you. Not a hair of your head shall perish without me; yet they shall put you to death. You are to be sustained in this arduous and costly path not by the expectation of certain visible results, but by the assurance of my presence and my countenance; by the assurance that the doing of my will is in itself of highest moment. A great end is attained when my message of love has been delivered to men, even when you are expelled from their gates, and have to shake off the dust of your departing feet. Yet if any receive you, an unspeakable blessing is theirs; they receive me; the least kindness shown to the least of you, for my sake, shall be recorded in heaven, and shall be requited with heaven’s best blessing.’
There are some highly-gifted men in the ministry of Christ. They have the gift of eloquence, and the noblest in the land think it a privilege to hear them. The place where they preach is too strait for those who would attend their ministry. Many are so wrought upon by their oratory that they gladly enroll themselves among the followers of Christ. Their influence is very great; but perhaps it is not wholly spiritual, not wholly such as the Gospel aims at. Paul rejoices that the Corinthian Christians had not been won by his eloquence, "lest their faith should stand in the wisdom of man," and fail when this should fail. There is, however, an eloquence that faith itself bestows - the eloquence of love; engaging the whole heart and soul in setting forth Christ crucified. But after all, that same Spirit who in the privacy of our closet opens our eyes to behold wonderful things out of God’s word, is present where the Gospel is preached by men who are deficient in intellectual power and literary attainments, and is able to make the hearer recognise the word of Christ, and receive it as from Christ himself. And probably we shall find, at the last day, that the highly-educated servants of Christ have not won more souls than those of less culture have done. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." Our reference is not to indolent men who shrink from the searching of God’s word, and from meditation on the law and characteristics of his kingdom, and from scrutiny of the Spirit’s operations, and from inquiries regarding the needs and idiosyncrasies of men, and from persevering and whole-souled prayer. The want of culture in these slothful servants simply discloses to men, what God well sees, their spiritual nakedness and nothingness. But there are, we do not doubt, thousands of unobtrusive men scattered over the face of the earth, whose chief and habitual concern is that they may rightly interpret to men the message of Christ, who would yet be counted as "the little ones" among Christ’s servants.
One object that our Lord had in making this closing remark was to strike a blow at the spirit of self-complacency which he saw more or less germinant in the minds of the apostles. It seems almost to belong to our identity and individuality, that each one should be constantly trying to differentiate himself from others, by flattering himself that he has this or that that others have not. If we could disentangle this tendency from the sin that penetrates our entire organism, we should probably find in it a good gift of God, intended to establish between each soul and God a commerce of thankfulness and love. But it now takes simply the unsightly form of self-complacency. It follows men into the church; it follows them into the ministry; it follows them into the apostolate. The twelve disputed who should be the greatest. Christ would have them understand that there is for them only his greatness; that self for which they sought honour must be crucified, and in place of it there must be Christ; not I, but Christ liveth in me. The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand, and giveth them to us only in him. Thou eminent minister or missionary or scribe, thy self-seeking robs thee of much, and makes thee a robber of many. The blessing that the world needs more than all thy gifts goes with the little one who, stammeringly it may be, yet effectually, holds forth the uncorrupted truth of Christ’s Gospel.