Romans 7

Romans 7:24-25

“THE BONDMAN”—A BOOK REVIEW Romans 7:24-25HALL CAINE has written not a little. His work, “The Christian”, has been widely read, and by having been dramatized, a certain part of the public became familiar with its contents without having perused its pages. “The Bondman”, however, is a book more vigorously written, and, in my judgment, much more worthy of reading. Its moral tone is higher. Its characters are stronger, and its style more energetic and interesting. It is the story of the two sons of one Stephen Orry. Stephen Orry was a great overgrown Icelander, a Samson in strength; a Saul for beauty; but like those two ancients, on certain sides of his nature, he too was beastly.

But the beastly in him, like that in the lion, while destructive of certain men that crossed his path, was tender toward his own children, and beautiful in the self-sacrifices and suffering endured for their sakes.The elder of these two sons, Jason, was born to Stephen’s first wife, a woman of sweet face, cultured mind and affectionate heart, Rachel Jorgensen. She was the daughter of Iceland’s Governor General, who, when she displeased him by her marriage, shut his door against her, and his heart as well.

And, although she suffered desertion by her husband, poverty of the deepest sort, distresses unimaginable, and even death from neglect, he never opened either door.The second son of Stephen Orry was Michael. His mother was a slattern of the Isle of Man. But nature has her freaks, and so it fell out that this first boy Jason was much like his father. In his nature and appearance there was little hint of the sweet mother Rachel, and the second boy, Michael, was equally unlike his mother, and had no touch of his father in his make-up. Sensitive, delicate, naturally refined, moved always by the highest moral sentiment, he came early to be recognized by old Adam Fairbrother (the deputy governor of the Isle of Man), who had adopted him, as a much more beautiful lad than any of the five God had given him, a worthy companion indeed of Adam’s little daughter Greeba, who was very different from her groveling brothers, and in consequence was old Adam’s joy and delight.When Jason was grown to young manhood he saw his deserted mother die the most cruel death, and he determined to be avenged upon his father for having so maltreated one of earth’s angels, and for that purpose he started for the Isle of Man, whither he learned his father had fled. Near the same time Michael, the half-brother and the younger, left the Isle of Man for Iceland, prompted by the high purpose of searching out his father’s first wife, and by love, sympathy and assistance, righting in a measure her wrongs.

These half-brothers never came together until years had passed, and Michael had for a short time been the president of the Free Republic of Iceland, only to see the government overthrown and himself imprisoned at the sulphur mines.To that same prison Jason was eventually sent by suspicions that had fallen upon him. When first he saw his half-brother, he knew him not, but he saw him a broken, scourged, suffering and dying man.

He gave him his sympathy. He watched every opportunity to render him assistance. Eventually he planned and perfected his escape. He pled his cause before the court of Althing. And, when Michael was imprisoned a second time, and eventually ordered executed, Jason effected an entrance to his cell, sent him out on an errand that should end in his freedom, and calmly faced the executioners when they came, taking into his own breast the four bullets intended for Michael.And now from this meager outline, let me proceed to my sermon. There are four respects at least in which the story of “The Bondman” parallels great Scripture truths to be found in this seventh chapter of Romans.THE ELDER BROTHER WAS INJURED Jason had indeed been wronged. In the hour of his greatest need he was forsaken by those who ought to have been his best friends. When he was born his own father was a fugitive from paternal duties and cares. He had no welcome into the world. His grandfather—the Governor General of Iceland—was rich, and yet this child never knew even the necessities. Poverty pinched him, neglect oppressed him, and aside from his mother’s love, the world had no light for him.Beloved, has it not occurred to us that our Elder Brother Jesus Christ endured the same? “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (John 1:11). When by force of character He had accomplished unto Himself a following, there came a time one day in which He uttered some plain and searching truths, and it is written,“From that time many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him” (John 6:66). In the darkest hour His life ever knew there were but three men from whom He hoped for sympathy —Peter, James and John—and these three disappointed Him, every one. They slept while in Gethsemane, when He was sweating drops of blood, and His soul was exceeding sorrowful unto death. Truly He trod the wine-press alone. I often think of that Messianic prophecy of Isaiah, “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not” (Isaiah 55:3). And yet, and yet, He was our Elder Brother.Jason was injured in the second place because his love had wedded another. After his mother’s death he never loved another woman save one—Greeba— Adam Fairbrother’s daughter.

She pledged herself to him, and then fled from him to marry Michael instead. Has it never occurred to you that the great grief of Jesus Christ, our Elder Brother, is at the same point? This seventh chapter of Romans, the early verses of it, sets forth this fact. Mankind, for whom Christ has ever had such a deep love, has always been wedded to the world. It was so from the day of the fall. You reach but the sixth chapter in Genesis before you read, “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose” (Genesis 6:1-2) —God’s own wedding the world! “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.

If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:15-16).The second point at which the story of “The Bondman” parallels the truth of the Bible is inTHE BONDAGE OF THE YOUNGER Michael’s downfall was accomplished by deception. The five groveling sons of old Adam Fairbrother, never forgetting the jealousies and hatreds entertained against their father’s favorite, followed their sister to Iceland, and by slander and Satanic falsehoods accomplished the destruction of her house, the imprisonment of her husband, and filled his heart with doubts that drove him to despair. It is the same fate that has befallen Christ’s younger brothers from the first. Not a one of us was ever overthrown without the use of deception, falsehoods, snares. The world is full of people of whom it is rightly written, “Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips” (Romans 3:13). “Many deceivers are entered into the world” (2 John 1:7), And I come more and more to believe that no man is ever dragged down; no man is ever degraded; no man is ever driven to despair without the practice of deception upon the part of Satan, or some of his emissaries.He may not for a moment imagine it, and yet deceived he is. How many there are who have youth on their side, who have beauty, who have bounding health, and whose concern is about the gaieties of the hour, who are giving themselves with alacrity to the enjoyment of sensuous life, and who are giving little attention to the cultivation of the mind, and still less to the salvation of the soul, but who are seeking to satisfy every physical desire?

Ah, beloved, such are deceived. Such are set for a downfall.Henry Ward Beecher speaks of those who so spend their youths as “like a party entering the Mammoth Cave with candles enough, if sparingly used, to carry them forward and bring them back, but setting them all on fire at once, not heeding the warning of the guide, dancing and wandering on until they are many and many a mile from the mouth of the cave, when one light after another begins to flicker and burn low and go out. Now alarmed, they with haste turn back; one candle burns out and then another; a dim twilight begins to surround them and then darkness comes on, yet they are miles from the exit. They grope about with outcries to each other; some, wandering wide, plunge down chasms; some give up and lie down in despair.” It is so in life. The men who are deceived in youth into squandering their time, selling out cheaply their energies, drinking deeply from the cup of sensuous pleasures, ah, these are the men who will come into the dungeon, into darkness. Oh, younger brothers, let me warn you against the deception of the enemy! When once a man is degraded, the enemy seems to turn him over into the hands of his fellows for further degradation. When Jorgen Jorgenson came back to his own place of power, and overturning the new Republic, imprisoned Michael Sunlocks, he was not content to have put him down merely; he was not content to imprison him merely. His keepers had their orders; they imposed the heaviest tasks upon him; they beat him while he was doing his best. When he was sick, his ebbing energies had to respond to the scourge of their whip, and if he lifted a hand in defense, he had to pay the penalty by seeing that hand transfixed with a nail which bound it to the wall in indescribable suffering. And when he was so far exhausted that he could not carry himself to work, they chained him to Jason, the giant, and compelled him to drag the dying man to the place of drudgery.It has long seemed to me that if Satan can once bring a man down, once degrade a man, once fill a man’s heart with despair, once deceive a man, and persuade him to do his evil bidding, that then he can turn him over to evil fellows and feel quite confident that they will finish the dreadful work. Have you not known a man who a few years ago was young and strong and beautiful, a man whose conduct was exemplary and whose character was high grade?

When first he was tempted, he resisted mightily. Many a trap set for his destruction he discovered and escaped.

But Satan went on snaring for him until one night, in an unwary moment, he took the winecup and emptied it. A second followed. This first fall had its successors! Yielding grew into a habit, and by and by that man, once so strong that Satan with all of his emissaries, required years for a single victory over him, is now so weak and foolish that any one of his fellows can add to his destruction by simply saying, “Come in with me and drink.”I know men and you do who are not bad at heart, whose purposes are pure enough, whose resolutions for good are often formed, but they are conquered men. Like Samson, they are in the power of the enemy; like him also, their eyes have been put out, as were Michael Sunlocks’, and they are made to grind for the Philistines. Any man that wants to can make them grind for him.

They get up in the morning saying, “I will do right today”; they get up in the morning saying, “I will be strong today”; they get up in the morning saying, “Satan will have no victory today”, and before the gray has left the dawn, or the dew has risen to vapor, they are victims. Some of their fellows have found them; some of their tempters have come upon them, and they have no powers of resistance.

They are slaves! Their own wills they cannot do. But the will of the Evil One, that they do easily. That is what Paul is talking about in this seventh chapter of Romans, and as he thinks upon it, thinks upon the good that he purposed to do and yet did it not, thinks upon the evil that he purposed not to do, and yet did it; all because he was carnal and sold under sin, he cries out in agony, “0 wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death”? And that is the cry of the conquered soul the world around.The third respect in which this story of “The Bondman” parallels a great spiritual truth is thatS BEGETS Strange to say, this sympathy comes from the injured one. Jason, the elder brother, who had been injured by the fact that his own father had given the love that was due him to his illegitimate son, injured in that Michael had taken away from him his love, he—Jason—the injured one, has brought to those around him the sweetest sympathy.“Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4-5). Oh, I like to think of the sympathy of Jesus Christ. I like to remember that my sufferings make appeal to Him; make such an appeal that He forgets my sin, and in His great love, responds.It is told that Francis Xavier, the Jesuit missionary, was worn out one day with his labor. When he retired to sleep he said to the attendant, “I am so exhausted, I must sleep. I must sleep. If I do not sleep, I shall die. No matter who comes, therefore, waken me not, I must sleep.” He went into his tent, and his faithful servant was on the watch.

But no sooner had Xavier laid down, than, seeing the palid face of a child approaching the door, he beckoned to his servant and said, “I made a mistake. I made a mistake. If a sick and sorrowing child comes, waken me.”Beloved,“we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:15-16). Jason’s sympathy for Michael expressed itself in practical assistance. For days together in the prison he watched the weak sick boy to see wherein he could help. Our Elder Brother, Jesus Christ, is always watching to the same end, and is always willing to suffer Himself that our sorrows might be lightened, and our too heavy loads might be lifted.Do you recall the story of that Moravian missionary who went to the West Indian Islands to preach the Gospel to the slaves? When these slaves came home at night, they were so exhausted by the burdens of the day and the brutality of their masters, that they could not listen to his message, but crawling to their pallets of straw, gnawed their crusts until sleep partially relieved their sufferings. At the break of day the bell and whip awakened them and drove them afield again. Seeing this, the white missionary went and sold himself to their master, and permitted himself to be chained with the gang to go forth with them.

So, as he worked with them by day, he talked the Gospel to them. And, as he suffered with them both day and night, his words took hold on their hearts, and hope sprang up in many a despairing bosom.“Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same * * “For verily He took not on Him the nature of angels; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham. “Wherefore in all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. “For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted,He is able to succour them that are tempted” (Hebrews 2:14; Hebrews 2:16-18). This sympathy planned a way of escape. One day Jason, having endured to the last point of patience, laid his guards low, and throwing the weak, dying Michael across his shoulder, walked away. Jesus Christ, our Elder Brother, has planned for every suffering soul a way of escape.“The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). “Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. “For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward; “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation” (Hebrews 2:1-3 a)? The fourth lesson which I bring from the Bondman, is in my judgment the most important of them all; namely, CAME BY From the day when Jason saw Michael in prison, and was moved by his pitiable, suffering estate, to the day when he set him free once for all, it was by substitution.For Michael’s weakness he substituted his strength. The younger brother was reduced to such a state that had his guards offered him his freedom, he could not have possessed himself of it. He was too weak to walk and would have died on the very spot where they left him. But what he could not accomplish for himself, Jason perfected for him. He laid him tenderly across his giant’s shoulders and strode away. Strength for weakness!Charles Spurgeon tells how his brother James was at Croydon Hospital one night as a visitor.

He was late in leaving and all the porters had retired, leaving him and a physician as the only men in the institution, awake. A boy came running in saying that there had been a railway accident and that they needed a stretcher at the station.

The doctor and James Spurgeon responded. Presently they came carrying back to the hospital the wounded man, and for the next week or two James Spurgeon often visited this fellow, and he explained his special interest in him by saying, “I helped to carry him.” Charles remarked, “I believe James will always take interest in that man because he once felt the weight of him.” Ah, beloved, read the parable of the lost sheep and realize that it is a figure of the lost sinner, and that the shepherd who lays him over his shoulder and bears the sick one back to the fold, is none other than the Saviour. He has felt the weight of us, and while doing it was substituting his strength for our weakness.Again, there was substitution by mediatorship. When Jason carried Michael from prison, he never stopped until he had reached the Mount of Laws. Once there, Michael, unconscious, was unable to plead his case before the judges of Althing, and Jason pled it for him. And what a plea!

When the judge said, “Don’t you know the man you’ve brought here?” Jason cried, “No—yes—yes, my brother—my brother in suffering—my brother in misery—that’s all I know or care.” * * “And I have heard that if any one is wronged and oppressed and unjustly punished, let him but find his way to this place, and though he be the meanest slave that wipes his forehead, yet he will be a man among you all * *. Then, Judges of Iceland, fellow-men and brothers, do you ask why I have brought this man to this place?

Look at this bleeding hand! It has been pierced with a nail. Look at these poor eyes, they are blind! Do you know what that means? Then, Judges of Iceland, I call on you to save this man, for He that dwells above is looking down on you.”But more eloquent than the words of Jason was his suffering face, and as the judges looked upon that, Caine says there was but one voice in all that great assembly, and it was a mighty shout that seemed to rend the dome of the heavy sky, “Free! Free! Free!”The story is told that Aeschylus was once condemned by the Athenians. When they were about ready to execute him, his brother Amyntas, a brave warrior, who had just gained a great victory for the Athenians, came into the court.

And without uttering a word, he held up the bleeding stub of an arm which had been severed in the last battle. As the judges looked upon that they said, “For the sake of Amyntas, Aeschylus is adjudged innocent and set free.”When I turn my eyes toward heaven, and remember that the God who sitteth upon His throne has condemned me, I would be in utter despair of clemency did I overlook Him, who, standing at the right hand of God, is pleading for me. Jesus is holding before the Father a wounded hand, is presenting His pierced feet, is letting His pierced side be looked upon.“Five bleeding wounds He bears, Received on Calvary; They pour effectual prayers, They strongly plead for me: Forgive him, O forgive, they cry, Nor let that ransomed sinner die!” “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus?” (1 Timothy 2:5). And above all, substitution by standing in his condemned brother’s stead. The ever watchful enemy, Jorgen Jorgenson, through his minions, sent Michael to a second prison, located on a lonely island, and set a priest to guard him. Learning that he was improving, he was filled with fear of him, and determined upon his death and dispatched four sailors, armed with muskets, to do that dreadful work. But Jason reached the cell ahead of them, secured from the priest the privilege of playing bondman for Michael while he went on a visit to old Adam Fairbrother, the father-in-law. Jason knew that death was determined for that day, and that Michael’s bondman would take into his own bosom the lead meant for another, and when the morning dawned clear and cold, Jason responded to the call of the sailors, and Caine says, “He took up his stand and folded his arms behind him. As he did so, the sun broke through the clouds and lit up his uplifted face.

The sailors fired and he fell. He took their shots into his heart, the biggest heart for good or ill that ever beat in the breast of man.”But Caine was wrong. The biggest heart for good that ever beat in the breast of man, on Calvary received into itself the point of the Roman spear, and poured out its blood in demonstration of the doctrine of substitution. “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). Come!