31 Our Lord Laid in Zion a Stumbling Stone and Rock of Offence

XXXI OUR LORD LAID IN ZION A STUMBLING STONE AND ROCK OF OFFENCE

Romans 9:33 To be laid in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offense must have been a continual heartbreak to our Lord. To be made the occasion of so much sin to other men must have been a far greater agony to our Lord than it was Himself to be made sin. When He Himself was made sin He had such a joy set before Him that He was enabled to endure the cross and to despise the shame. But it must have been an unmitigated sorrow to our Lord to be made the occasion of so much temptation and so much sin to so many men all around Him continually. "Behold," said Simeon to Mary, "this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel." But it seemed sometimes as if it was to be all falling and no rising. It seemed sometimes as if He was to be nothing else but a gin and a snare to both the houses of Israel. It seemed sometimes as if this was the only Scripture that was ever to be fulfilled in the case of our Lord; this terrible Scripture:"Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder." No wonder that our Lord sat on the Mount of Olives and wept over Jerusalem .as He foresaw her everlasting destruction coming upon her, and all on account of Himself, on whom she so fell, and was to be so broken. By far the best book wherewith to set about the study of this terrible text is James Durham’s Treatise Concerning Scandal: one of the most characteristic books of all our old Scottish theology. "Scandal," says Durham, "or offense, as it is translated in this text, is either given only, or it is taken only, or it is both given and taken." Now that excellent distinction of Durham’s will serve our purpose most admirably this evening in our treatment of our Lord’s case; as also in treating of our own cases, in this whole matter of scandal; that is to say, in this whole matter of giving and of taking offense. Let us take, first, the case of our Lord Himself, which was the most outstanding case of mortal offense, universally taken, that the world has ever seen; mortal offense, universally taken when no offense was intended, and when no offense was in any true sense really given. "Offense is taken only," says Durham, "when no true occasion of offense is given; that is to say, when an innocent man does that which is not only lawful but necessary to be done. And yet other men from the corruption of their heart do carp thereat and stumble thereon." Now, this was completely the case with our Lord. He only said and did what was absolutely necessary for Him to say and to do. And yet those who, from the blindness of their minds did not understand Him, and from the corruption of their hearts did not love Him, were constantly carping at Him and constantly stumbling over Him. They took offense, to begin with, at the low condition in which He had been born; at His lack also of what we would call a college education; then at the spirituality, originality, and unconventionality of the doctrines He preached; and at last at the whole of His walk and conversation among men. They were mortified, they were mortally offended indeed at the success of his preaching, and at the deep hold He had taken of so many of the people all up and down the land. And then afterwards they took insufferable offense at His cross, and at the whole of that Apostolic Gospel which springs out of His cross. "We preach Christ crucified," said Paul, "unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and to the Greeks foolishness." Just as we see men stumbling and taking offense to-day at the doctrine of the atonement, at the doctrine of an imputed righteousness, and indeed at one and all of the doctrines of grace. And it was our Lord’s personal experience of all that which made Him forewarn both His disciples and ourselves by saying to us --"But blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in Me."

Then, still following out James Durham’s penetrating distinction, there is such a thing as an offense given indeed, but not taken. We find that kind of offense also in our Lord’s own case continually. Both His disciples and the rulers of the Jews seemed sometimes to do little else but to give our Lord cause of offense at their conduct. But then He as continually never took offense whatever they said or did. Peter for one, was a very proverb of offense to his Master, till one day it came to a head when Peter having gone much further than usual in his offensiveness his Master turned on him with these scathing words--"Get thee behind Me, Satan; for thou art an offense to Me; for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men." Our Lord was never nearer taking offense than He was that day. Only, though He felt the offense keenly, He did not really take it. As Durham says, our Lord’s heart was so clean of all corruption that He could be angry at Peter and yet not sin. He was very angry that day but He did not let the sun go down upon His wrath. And Paul, whose apostolic life was almost as full of all manner of ill-treatment as his Master’s life was, yet he was almost as free of taking offense as was his Master. There were times indeed when Paul had still corruption enough left in his heart to make him take great offense, and to retaliate on those who had crossed and offended him. But, as a whole, the Apostle is a great example to us of this noblest of the Christian graces; this noblest grace of overlooking and forgiving all manner of offenses, and provocation’s, and insults, and injuries.

All this brings us to James Durham’s third kind of offense. That is to say, to that kind of offense where the offense is both given and taken. "Offense," says Durham, "is both given and taken when there is something on the one side that is apt to draw another into sin, and when that other yields to the temptation and the bait is swallowed." My brethren, the best way to understand this kind of offense is to go back often into our own past lives. This is an infallible expedient to produce in us, and to keep produced in us for ever, a broken and a contrite heart; it is the only way, indeed, to get produced out of our past lives that which will please God. Go back often then to all the times and to all the places when and where your sins led other men into temptation and a snare. No two of us are alike in our past lives; but each one of us will recognize and accept his own special case. Go back then to every house in which you have ever lived. Go back to every lover and friend you have ever had. Go back to every congregation in which you have ever worshipped. Go back to every controversy; political, or ecclesiastical, or any other, in which you were ever mixed up. Go back also upon all the hopes you ever raised in any man’s heart, or in any woman’s heart, and then afterwards dashed all those hopes to the ground. Recall to mind those rarely recurring prizes in life that you carried off to the lasting impoverishment and the lasting resentment of other disappointed men. Look often round about you at the happy homes you have built for yourselves out of the ruins of other men’s happy homes. Rejoice with trembling as often as you sit down to eat and drink at the tables you have furnished for yourselves, and that God has furnished for you, and all the time at the famine of other men’s tables. It is impossible but that such offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom they come, if he has not divine grace enough, nor common humanity enough, to see and to feel continually what a terrible stumblingblock he has been in so many things to so many men. Woe to him! unless his eyes are a fountain of tears, and unless his hands are full of all possible reparations and consolations, and his prayers full of all manner of confessions and intercessions continually. But who of us all, even with all that, can fully and entirely understand his errors? For the heavens above many of us are black with our errors, while the earth bleeds and groans all around us because of our errors, and hell beneath us cries How long! because of us, and because of our errors, and the still spreading evil fruits of them. Why, your very existence, sir, even if you had done nothing else, has all your days been a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to some men. And then your talents, and your endowments, and your successes in life, have all darkened and endangered the souls of some men. And that to an extent that would horrify and haunt you if you only had eyes inward enough and spiritual enough to see their torn and tortured souls. Ay, and they all the time far better men and far more deserving men than you are. O man, do you not see it? Do you not feel it? Does it not secretly embitter your sweetest cup And does it not make your heart to break for that land and that life where truth and love shall for ever dwell? Where no man shall be any more a stumbling stone to his neighbor, but where God shall rise up and wipe all tears from all eyes.

Now my brethren, your future life and mine will continue to be as full of offenses and snares to other men as our past life has been, unless we go back continually upon ourselves and upon other men in that self-condemning and contrite way. And unless we follow up all our distress and all our remorse with unceasing prayer for forgiveness to ourselves and for reparation to our victims, so far as reparation is possible, either in this world or in the world to come. And such is our future task that in addition to all such remorse and prayer and reparation, we must henceforth put on a great tenderness of conscience, and a great sensibility of heart, and a great spirituality of mind. We must practice a holy awe toward God, and toward all men, lest we should hurt irreparably any more of our fellowmen. We must humble ourselves to see and to admit how offensive and how injurious we still are to so many of those in whose way we come, and how we still tempt and snare and cast them down continually. Well may Durham urge us with the "infinite delicacy" of our relations to the men about us. Well may he press us with the "evangelical obligations" we all lie under to attend to all that as we have never heretofore attended. Let us open our eyes then, and look well at ourselves in the light of all that, and let us look well at our neighbors also in the light of all that. Do I, indeed, stumble or tempt any one by anything in any part of my life? let us ask. Is there any habit of mine, have I any bad manners that fret and exasperate any one who lives with me? Do I create distaste, and dislike, and disgust, and even downright hatred, in other men, as some men create in me? Who are they, naming them, and what exactly is the thing by which I so stumble and ensnare them? And how shall I escape the heavy woe that is righteously denounced on such a reckless and injurious life as my life has hitherto been? And if we are in earnest about ourselves let us, among many other things, do these things. Let us walk softly, and thoughtfully, and considerately, where hitherto we have behaved ourselves rudely, and roughly, and with a hard indifference to the harm we have done. Let us be found willing to see and to admit what we have been in the habit of doing to offend and hurt others, and especially those at home. This is the turning-point--to admit to ourselves, and a thousand times better to admit to them, the things in which we have vexed them at home, and pained them, and provoked them. And in some respects, and towards some men, let us keep out of their very sight, as much as in us lies. If we could only manage to make some men to forget that we so much as exist, or have ever existed, what a deliverance to them that would be. In the hearing of certain other men, let us speak much less; and, especially, let us never again lay down the law to them as we have been wont to do. And when it is simply not possible for us to keep out of men’s eyes and ears and recollections, then and there, all the more, let us walk ever more and more softly, tenderly, considerately, and always with more and more honor, and more and more love. And, then, if after all we have done, and can do, there still remain in us whole mountain ranges of offenses and obstacles to other men, and in our very existence, then let us, as our last resort, betake ourselves in this also to Him who was once such a stumbling stone and such a rock of offense Himself; let us continually betake ourselves to Him, appealing to Him —

Rock of ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee. And He will do it. Thou shalt hide them in the secret of Thy presence from the pride of man; Thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.