01.11. CHAPTER XI - HOW TO NOURISH THE SACRED FIRE
CHAPTER XI - HOW TO NOURISH THE SACRED FIRE
“Follow me,” said Jesus, “and I will make you fishers of men.” A man cannot become such of his own self. He is not equal to a task so supernal. As we have been saying all along, nothing but the touch of the Master’s passion can create or conserve the soul’s spiritual life.
Boreham remarks on the transformation which took place in the life of Thomas Chalmers. He was the brilliant pastor of a little church in Kilmany, a marvelous preacher when he was onlytwenty-three. He was a good pastor and won their unstinted admiration and love. But they could not understand why when they came to the kirk on the Sabbath day he fulminated at that little company against the heinous wickedness of theft, of murder, and of adultery. After they had spent a hard week’s work in field and stable, why should they be berated by their minister as if they had spent the week in open shame! “This,” says Chalmers* biographer, “continued from 1803 to 1811, but then something happened. Chalmers ceased to thunder against the grosser crimes and against the iniquities of Napoleon, but every day he had something fresh to say about the love of God, about the cross of Christ, and about the way of salvation.” “He would bend over the pulpit and press us to take the gift,” says one of his hearers, “as if he had it that moment in his hand and would not be satisfied until every one of us had got possession of it. And then when the sermon was over and he rose to pronounce the benediction, he would break out afresh with some new entreaty, unwilling to let us go until he had made one more effort to persuade us to accept it.”
He says that in 1811 he was converted. When he was called away to a great city parish this was what he said to his humble parishioners: “For the first eight years of my twelve with you, I thundered away against crimes of every sort, but the interesting fact is that during the whole of that period I never once heard of any reformation being wrought among you. It was not until the free offer of forgiveness through the blood of Christ was urged upon you that I ever heard of those subordinate reformations which I made the ultimate object of my earlier ministry. You have taught me that to preach Jesus Christ is the only effective way of preaching morality, and the lesson which I have learned in your humble cottages, I shall carry into a wider field.”
Bunyan said the same thing long before the days of Chalmers. He says: “I went for the space of two years crying out against men’s sins and their fearful state because of them. After which, the Lord came in upon my own soul with peace and comfort through Christ. He gave me many sweet discoveries of blessed grace through Him.
Wherefore now I altered in my preaching and did much labor to hold forth Christ in all His offices, relations and benefits unto the world. After this God led me into something of the mystery of the union with Christ. Wherefore that I discovered and showed it to them also.” Ah, if we could only measure to the heights of that personal experience of which it is written “What we have seen and felt with confidence we tell.”
Theories may be cold, but reality is full of passion. When one has an experience of his own, then he hastens to bring others into the same blessed knowledge, and when once others are brought in his own confidence is thereby multiplied. What a miracle of grace to be able to win a soul to God and what infinite comfort to the soul who wins another! Nothing can take the place of it. Mr. Valiant-for-Truth cries out, when the summons to go hence seized him, “My sword I give to him who shall succeed me in my pilgrimage; my courage and skill to him who can get them; my marks and scars I carry with me to be my witness that I have fought His battles who will now be my rewarder.” When a man has victories hung up in the high halls of memory, how his faith increases! He won them himself at the point of a Damascus blade, which is the word of God, and he is fain to say with David, “There is none like it; give it to me.”
It is a sad thing in the life of the individual when the child spirit dies; when he ceases to wonder and adore. How supremely true it is in the life of him who proclaims the message that he will lose its power when the wonder and marvel of it fades out of his soul! A man need have no troubles over the miracles of the first century, when he sees them reproduced in his own life at the touch of the pierced Hand. If one can feel the compelling glow of those adoring words, “When I survey the wondrous cross On which the Prince of glory died My richest gain I count but loss And pour contempt on all my pride.” he will be able to say “Jesus, I love thee, thou art to me Dearer than ever mortal can be.” As well think of restraining the ardor of the bridegroom as to lay restraining hands upon his devotion. His love is as fire shut up in his bones. That will transform the pulpit and kindle a blaze which will draw men from every walk in life to see it burn.
We must make more personal the message which we bring to men. Dr. Jefferson will not be accused of failing to emphasize the social note or of being unduly moved by his emotions, but in his Yale Lectures, he says, “Many a man is preaching to a dwindling congregation because his sermons have lost the personal note. He chills by his vague generalities, or enrages by his wholesale denunciation. This is not the age in which the preacher can afford to lose the personal touch.
Many forces conspire to blur the edges of individuality and melt men into a common mass.”
Even organized philanthropy has a tendency to lose the individual. It is the lack of this personal touch which is multiplying our problems and deepening the blackness of human tragedy. Thousands of men and women all over the world have lost their grip upon the high things of life because no one but God feels for them. There is no one on earth who cares for their souls. Men are lost to the church as soon as they are submerged in the crowd. Dr. Jefferson adds, “In fact, the preacher is in danger of losing himself. “
It is a matter of history that on one occasion when Julia Ward Howe invited Charles Sumner to meet a distinguished guest at her house, he replied, “I do not know that I wish to meet your friend. I have outlived my interest in individuals. “ Recording in her diary that night the Senator’s surly remark, Mrs. Howe wrote after it, “God Almighty, by latest accounts, had not got so far as this.” The great secret of power is the personal touch.
God Himself put on a soul and a body when He came to us. They were arms of flesh and blood, like ours, which stretched wide upon the cross, and which when taken down and folded over the lifeless bosom invisibly folded a saved world in their embrace.
What a beautiful testimonial that was to the matchless personality of Henry Drummond, that when an artisan was dying, his wife knocked at Drummond ’s door and said, “My husband is deeing’, sir. He’s no’ able to speak to you, and he’s no’ able to hear you, and I dinna ken as he can see you; but I would like him to hae a breath o’ you aboot him afore he dees.” No books can ever nourish a believing heart as will the goodness and patience and truth which is reflected in individual lives.
Here then is the conclusion of the whole matter.
Jesus said, “I am come that ye might have life and that ye might have it more abundantly. ’ ’ By vital contact with Him who is the way, the truth, and the life, we must keep our souls alive. The inner light must not fail; our passion for the souls of men must never cease. But if, alas, our passion for the souls of men has in any sense failed, we must get it back. We must have our trysting place with God and meeting Him there, He who heareth in secret will reward us openly, and we shall have power with men. However great our natural abilities, they are only the channels through which the tides of holy passion and power must run. Let us not mistake the channel for the power, and let us be careful that no act of ours shall sever our connection with the source of power. The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him. In fellowship with Him we shall catch His love a love which stopped not at the cross.
We cannot do better than to utter the prayer of the old hymn which for generations has aroused the church to a waiting pentecost.
“Oh, that it now from heaven might fall, And all our sins consume, Come, Holy Ghost, for thee I call, Spirit of burning come.
“Refining fire, go through my heart, Illuminate my soul, Scatter thy life through every part, And sanctify the whole.” The Master’s call is upon us. It is hot with haste. Rise up; let us go! THE END