======================================================================== WRITINGS OF J H JOWETT by J.H. Jowett ======================================================================== A collection of theological writings, sermons, and essays by J.H. Jowett, compiled for study and devotional reading. Chapters: 67 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TABLE OF CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. 00.00. Jowett, J. H. - Library 2. 01.00.1. The Epistles of St. Peter 3. 01.01. 1Pe_1:3-5 -- The Possibilities And Dynamics Of The Regenerate Life 4. 01.02. 1Pe_1:6-7 -- Sorrowful, Yet Always Rejoicing 5. 01.03. 1Pe_1:8-9 -- A Twofold Relationship And Its Fruits 6. 01.04. 1Pe_1:13-16 -- Being Fashioned 7. 01.05. 1Pe_1:17-21 -- The Holiness Of The Father 8. 01.06. 1Pe_1:22-25 -- The Creation Of Culture And Affection 9. 01.07. 1Pe_2:1-10 -- The Living Stones And The Spiritual House 10. 01.08. 1Pe_2:11-17 -- The Ministry Of Seemly Behaviour 11. 01.09. 1Pe_2:21-25 -- The Sufferings Of Christ 12. 01.10. 1Pe_3:1-8 -- Wives And Husbands 13. 01.11. 1Pe_3:8 -- Be Pitiful 14. 01.12. 1Pe_3:8-15 -- Christ Sanctified As Lord 15. 01.13. 1Pe_3:18-22 -- Bringing Us To God 16. 01.14. 1Pe_4:1-6 -- The Suffering Which Means Triumph 17. 01.15. 1Pe_4:7-11 -- Getting Ready For The End 18. 01.16. 1Pe_4:12-19 -- The Fiery Trial 19. 01.17. 1Pe_5:1-7 -- Tending The Flock 20. 01.18. 1Pe_5:8-10 -- Through Antagonisms To Perfectness 21. 01.19. 2Pe_1:1-2 -- Liberty! Equality! Fraternity! 22. 01.20. 2Pe_1:1-4 -- The Christian's Resources 23. 01.21. 2Pe_1:5-9 -- Diligence In The Spirit 24. 01.22. 2Pe_1:12-15 -- The Sanctification Of The Memory 25. 01.23. 2Pe_1:16-18 -- The Transfigured Jesus 26. 01.24. 2Pe_1:19-21 -- The Mystery Of The Prophet 27. 01.25. 2Pe_2:1 -- Destructive Heresies 28. 01.26. 2Pe_2:20-21 -- Worse Than The First 29. 01.27. 2Pe_3:3-9 -- The Leisureliness Of God 30. 01.28. 2Pe_3:10-14 -- Preparing For The Judgment 31. 01.29. 2Pe_3:18 -- Growing In Grace 32. 02.00.0. THE PASSION FOR SOULS 33. 02.00.1. Contents 34. 02.01. The Disciple's Theme 35. 02.02. The Disciple's Sacrifice 36. 02.03. The Disciple's Tenderness 37. 02.04. The Disciple Watching for Souls 38. 02.05. The Disciple's Companion 39. 02.06. The Disciple's Rest 40. 02.07. The Disciple's Vision 41. 03.00.0. THE PREACHER: HIS LIFE AND WORK 42. 03.00.1. Contents 43. 03.01. The Call to be a Preacher 44. 03.02. The Perils of the Preacher 45. 03.03. The Preacher's Themes 46. 03.04. The Preacher in his Study 47. 03.05. The Preacher in his Pulpit 48. 03.06. The Preacher in the Home 49. 03.07. The Preacher as a Man of Affairs 50. 04.0.0. THE WHOLE ARMOUR OF GOD 51. 04.0.1. Contents 52. 04.01. The Invisible Antagonisms 53. 04.02. The Girdle of Truth 54. 04.03. The Breastplate of Righteousness 55. 04.04. Ready! 56. 04.05. The Shield of Faith 57. 04.06. The Helmet of Hope 58. 04.07. The Sword of the Spirit 59. 04.08. The Soldiers Use of Prayer 60. 04.09. Watch Ye! 61. 04.10. Endure Hardness 62. 04.11. The Invisible Commander 63. 04.12. The Soldiers Fire 64. 04.13. Victory Over the Beast 65. 04.14. The Coming Golden Age 66. 04.15. More Than Conquerors 67. S. Apostolic Optimism ======================================================================== CHAPTER 1: 00.00. JOWETT, J. H. - LIBRARY ======================================================================== Jowett, J. H. - Library Jowett, J. H. - The Epistles of St. Peter Jowett, J. H. - The Passion for Souls Jowett, J. H. - The Preacher - His Life and Work Jowett, J. H. - The Whole Armour of God S. Apostolic Optimism ======================================================================== CHAPTER 2: 01.00.1. THE EPISTLES OF ST. PETER ======================================================================== The Epistles of St. Peter by John Henry Jowett ***** This module is brought to you by www.DoctorDaveT.com For more Bible Study modules that are conservative evangelical Bible believing Christ honoring make sure you stop by www.DoctorDaveT.com! We have hundreds of modules easily organized by topics, like these: Old Testament Exposition (topic modules) New Testament Exposition (topic modules) Doctrinal Theology (topic modules) Commentary Modules Dictionary Modules and a whole lot more! Please visit www.DoctorDaveT.com! Dave ======================================================================== CHAPTER 3: 01.01. 1PE_1:3-5 -- THE POSSIBILITIES AND DYNAMICS OF THE REGENERATE LIFE ======================================================================== 1 Peter 1:3-5 -- The Possibilities And Dynamics Of The Regenerate Life 1 Peter 1:3-5 -- Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. How easily these early disciples break into doxology! Whenever some winding in the way of their thought brings the grace of God into view, the song leaps to their lips. The glory of grace strikes the chords of their hearts into music, and life resounds with exuberant praise. It is a stimulating research to study the birthplaces of doxologies in the apostolic writings. Sometimes the march of an argument is stayed while the doxology is sung. Sometimes the Te Deum is heard in the midst of a procession of moral maxims. The environment of the doxology varies, but the operative cause which gives it birth is ever the same. From the height of some ascending argument, or through the lens of some ethical maxim, the soul catches a glimpse of the "riches of His grace," and the wonderful vision moves it to inevitable and immediate praise. I am not surprised, therefore, to find the doxology forming the accompaniment of a passage which contemplates the glory and the privileges of the re-created life. It is a Te Deum sung during the unveiling of the splendours of redeeming grace. Let us turn our eyes to the vision which has aroused the grateful song. "Blessed be the God and Father . . . who begat us again." (1 Peter 1:3) "Begat again." That is one of the unique phrases of the Christian vocabulary. It is not to be found in systems of thought which are alien from the Christian religion. It is not to be found in the vocabulary of any of the modern schools which are severed from the facts and forces of the Christian faith. The emphasis of their teaching gathers round about terms of quite a different order, such as culture, training, discipline, education, evolution. The Christian religion has also much to say about the process of evolution. It dwells at length upon the ministries of "growth," "training," "increasing," "putting on," "perfecting." But while it emphasises "growth," it directs our attention to "birth." While it magnifies the necessity of wise culture, it proclaims the necessity of good seed. So while the Bible lags behind no school in urging the importance of liberal culture, it stands alone in proclaiming the necessity of right germs. You cannot by culture develop the thorn-bush into a ladened vine. You cannot by the most exquisite discipline evolve "the natural man" into the "measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." If we had merely to do with perverted growths, then the trainer and pruner might twist the crooked straight. But we are confronted with more than perverted growths; we have to do with corrupt and rotting seed. If all we needed was the purification of our conditions, then the City Health Department might lead us into holiness. But we need more than the enrichment of the soil; we need the revitalising of the seed. And so the Christian religion raises the previous question. It begins its ministry at a stage prior to the process of evolution. It discourses on births and generation, on seeds and germs, and proclaims as its primary postulate, "Except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Now, man is not enamoured of that dogmatic postulate. It smites his pride in the forehead. It lays himself and his counsels in the dust. It expresses itself in an alien speech. Men are familiar with the word "educate"; the alien word is "regenerate." Political controversy has familiarised them with the word "reform"; the alien word is "transfigure." They have made a commonplace of the word "organise"; the alien word is "vitalise." They have made almost a fetish of the phrase "moral growth"; the alien word is "new birth." And so we do not like the strange and humbling postulate; but whether we like it or not, the heart of every man bears witness to the truth and necessity of its imperative demand. Man be comes incredulous of the necessity of the new birth when he surveys the lives of others, but not when he contemplates his own. We gaze upon the conduct and behaviour of some man who is dissociated from the Christian Church, or who indeed is hostile or indifferent to the Christian faith. "We mark the integrity of his walk, the seemliness of his behaviour, the purity of all his relationships, the evident loftiness of his ideals, and we then project the sceptical inquiry, Does this man need to be begotten again? I do not accept one man’s judgment as to the necessity of another man’s regeneration. I wish to hear a man’s judgment concerning himself. I would like a man to be brought face to face with the life of Jesus, with all its searching and piercing demands, and with all its marvellous ideals, so marvellously attained, and I would like the man’s own judgment as to what would be required before he himself, in the most secret parts of his life, is clothed in the same superlative glory. I think it is impossible to meet with a single unconverted man who does not know that, if ever he is to wear the glory of the Son of God, and to be chaste and illumined in his most hidden thoughts and dispositions, there will have to take place some marvellous and inconceivable transformation. Let any man gaze long on "the unsearchable riches of Christ," and then let him slowly and deliberately take the inventory of his own life, and I am persuaded he will come to regard the vaunted panaceas of the world as altogether secondary, he will relegate its vocabulary to the secondary, and he will welcome as the only pertinent and adequate speech, "Ye must be born again." Into what manner of life are we begotten again? What is the range of its possibilities, and the spaciousness of its prospects? The apostolic doxology winds its way among a wealth of unveiled glories. "Blessed be the God . . . who begat us again unto a living hope." (1 Peter 1:3) It is a hope affluent in life, It is a vivifying hope. There are hopes that are inoperative, ineffective, uninfluential. They generate no energy. They impart no power to work the mill. But the spiritual hope of the redeemed is living and life-creating, operating as a vital stimulus upon the consecrated race. How the Bible exults in the use of this great characteristic word: "Living Bread!" "Living Water!" "Living Fountains!" "The Living God!" The word conveys the suggestion of superabundant life, exuberant energy, an over flowing vitality. It quickens the sentiments. "We rejoice in hope." The dispositions dance in the radiant light! It vitalises the thought. The mind which is inspired by the glorious expectation is grandly secure against the encroachment of the evil one. Hope-inspired thought is its own defence. It energises the will. The great hope feeds the will, vivifies it, makes it steadfast and unmovable. Into all this powerful hope are we begotten again by the abundant mercy of God. "Begat us again . . . unto an inheritance." (1 Peter 1:4) With our regeneration we become heirs to a glorious spiritual estate, with all its inexhaustible possessions and treasures. How the apostles roll out the New Testament music by ringing the changes upon this eagerly welcomed word! "Heirs of salvation!" "Heirs of the kingdom!" "Heirs together of the grace of life!" "Heirs according to the hope of eternal life!" The apostles survey their estate from different angles, that they may comprehend the wealth of the vast inheritance. With what fruitful words does the Apostle Peter characterise the nature of these possessions! It is an inheritance "incorruptible." It is beyond the reach of death. No grave is ever dug on this estate. It is an inheritance "undefiled." It is beyond the taint of sin. No contamination ever stains its driven snow. The robes of the glorified are whiter than snow. It is an inheritance "that fadeth not away." It is beyond the blight of change. The leaf never turns. "Time does not breathe on its fadeless bloom." Into this glorious inheritance are we begotten again by the abundant mercy of God. "Begat us again . . . unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." (1 Peter 1:5) Here conies in the graciousness of spiritual evolution. All the steps on the work of salvation are "ready," right away to the ultimate consummation. There has been no caprice in the arrangements. There need be no uncertainty in the expectations. There has been no defect in the preparations. There is no lack in the resources. What is needed for the ripening of the redeemed character has been provided. At every step of the way "all things are ready." The glorious possibilities range from the seed to the "full corn in the ear"; from the new birth to the "salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." Such is the inspiring prospect, and such are some of the glorious possibilities of the redeemed and re-created life. "We have searched this glowing doxology for glimpses of the new-begotten life. We have gazed upon its fascinating range of possibilities. Has it any suggestion to offer of the dynamics by which these alluring possibilities may be achieved? I have already dwelt upon the vitalising energy which flows from its living hope. Are there other suggestions of empowering dynamics by which even the loftiest spiritual height may be scaled? Let us glance at some of these suggested powers. "According to His great mercy." (1 Peter 1:3) I am glad and grateful that the pregnant passage is prefaced by this word. The regenerated soul is just enveloped in "great mercy." Now mercy implies sympathy. "We cannot have mercy without sympathy. "Without mercy we cannot have leniency; but leniency is only thin, pinched fruit compared with the fat, juicy fruit of mercy. "Without sympathy we may have giving, but unsympathetic giving is like the cold, outer threshold, while mercy is like a glowing hearthstone. Mercy implies sympathy. Go a step further. Sympathy suggests the choicest companionship, the rarest of all fellowships. Where there is true sympathy, there is the most exquisite companionship. If, then, our God and Father enswathes us in "great mercy," He visits in the sweetest fellowships. Therefore in the redeemed life there can be no loneliness, for in the Father’s presence all possible loneliness is destroyed. The mercy which implies companionship accompanies me as a dynamic from my faintest breathing as a babe-Christian on to the consummation when I shall have become a full-grown man in Christ. "Begat us again . . . by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." (1 Peter 1:3) His resurrection opens to me the doors of the immortal life. If He had not risen, my hope had never been born. The breaking up of His grave means the breaking up of man’s winter, and the soft approach of the eternal spring. Because He has risen, death no longer counts! That Life, which in death defeated death, and converted "the place of a skull" into the altar of the people’s hope, is the dynamic of the regenerate soul, and makes the life invulnerable. "By the power of God guarded unto salvation." (1 Peter 1:5) Here is another aspect of the gracious energy which enables me to convert possibilities into achievements. I am "guarded." The "power of God" defends me, hems me in, and secures me from every assault. My Father’s power is my garrison. He engirdles me, like a defensive army occupying a city wall, and makes me invincible against the menace and attacks of the devil. "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people." Such are the adequate resources, and such the wonderful equipments of the regenerate life. The land that stretches before us is glorious. The power to possess it is equally glorious. They may both be ours "by faith." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 4: 01.02. 1PE_1:6-7 -- SORROWFUL, YET ALWAYS REJOICING ======================================================================== 1 Peter 1:6-7 -- Sorrowful, Yet Always Rejoicing 1 Peter 1:6-7 -- Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, ye have been put to grief in manifold trials, that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold that perisheth though it is proved by fire, might be found unto praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ. "WHEREIN ye greatly rejoice!" These fountains of spiritual joy shoot into the light at most startling and unexpected places. Their favourite haunt seems to be the heart of the desert. They are commonly associated with a land of drought. In these Scriptural records I so often find the fountain bursting through the sand, the song lifting its p?an out of the night. If the text is a well of cool and delicious water, the context is frequently and waste. "Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now . . . ye have been put to grief." (1 Peter 1:6) A present rejoicing set in the midst of an environing grief! A profound and refreshing satisfaction, even when the surface of the life is possessed by drought! I never expected to find a fountain in so unpromising a waste. "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice!" Who ever expected to find a well in that Sahara? As I trod the hot burning sands of "reviling" and "persecuting" and false accusing, little did I anticipate en countering a fountain of spiritual delight. Let us once again contemplate the strange conjunction. "Woe unto thee, Bethsaida! Woe unto thee, Chorazin! Woe unto thee, Capernaum!" This on the one hand. And on the other hand, "A certain lawyer stood up, and tempted Him." And between the two, "Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit." Again, I say, I am amazed at the setting. If life were a prolonged marriage-feast, one might anticipate hearing the happy bells at every corner of the way; but to hear the joyous peal in the hour of grievous midnight and eclipse arrests the heart in keen and strained surprise. "These things have I said unto you, that My joy may be in you." "My joy!" And yet Calvary loomed only a hand’s-breadth off, just twenty-four hours away! I thought the joy bells might have been heard away back in Nazareth, in the beauty and serenity of a secluded village life, or on some quiet evening, with His friends on the Galilean lake; but I never anticipated hearing them at Calvary’s base, in full view of shame and crucifixion. "My joy!" "One of you shall betray Me." It is a marvellous conjunction, but one which is almost a commonplace in the Christian Scriptures. "They received the word in much affliction, with joy in the Holy Ghost." It is a mysterious, yet glorious wedlock. "Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now . . . ye have been put to grief." What is the suggestion of this apparently forced and incongruous union? The suggestion is this, that the spiritual joy of the redeemed life is continuous, and is not conditioned by the changing moods of the transient day. Spiritual delights are not dried up when I pass into the seasons of material drought. When the shadows settle down upon my life, and my experiences darken into night, the night is not to be without its cheery and illuminating presence. The place of the midnight is to be as "the land of the midnight sun." There shall be light enough to enable me to read the promises, to see my way, and to perceive the gracious presence of my Lord. "He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." Therefore the shadow need not annihilate my joy. My temporary grief need not expunge my spiritual delights. The funeral knell of bereavement may be tolling in the outer rooms of the life, while in the most secret places may be heard the joy bells of trustful communion with God. "Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now . . . ye have been put to grief." "Wherein ye greatly rejoice." (1 Peter 1:6) If our spiritual joy is to be continuous and persuasive, sending its pure vitalising ray even through the season of grief, we shall have to see to it that it is adequately nourished and sustained. Now, the nutriment of joy is to be found in appropriate thought. Happiness is usually the resultant of sensations, the ephemeral product of sensationalisms, having the uncertain life of the things on which it depends. Joy is the product of deep, quiet, steady, appropriate thought. Thought provides the oxygen in which the bright, cheery flame of love is sustained. What kind of thought is required? "Wherein ye rejoice"! In what? The rejoicing emerges from an atmosphere of thought--the thought which is contained in the previous verses, and which formed the basis of our last exposition. It is a contemplation of the possibilities and dynamics of the redeemed life. The possibilities stretch away in a most glorious and alluring panorama: "a living hope"; "an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away"; "a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." The dynamics are no less wealthy than the prospects: the "great mercy" of the Father; "the resurrection of Jesus from the dead"; "the power" of the Holy Ghost! These constitute the oxygenating thought of the Christian redemption. If the soul be immersed in it, faint sparks will be kindled into fervent flames, and timid desires will be strengthened into confident rejoicing. "As I mused, the fire burnt." Let mind and heart make their home in the spacious thoughts of God, and there will be born in the life a moral and spiritual glow which will not be chilled by any transient cloud, nor extinguished by the storms of the most tempestuous night. "Wherein ye greatly rejoice." "Though now for a little while, if need be, ye have been put to grief in manifold trials." (1 Peter 1:6) The "manifold trials" "will come. Antagonisms may rush down upon us from north, south, east, and west, and may twist and wrench our lives into strange bewilderments, and yet the continuous thread of spiritual rejoicing need never be broken. Our affairs may be tossed into incredible complications, and yet "the joy of the Lord may be our strength." The pleasing air of music, which in its simplicity a child might hum, may appear to be lost as it passes into the maze of tortuous variations and complications, but an expert ear can detect the continuity of the primal air beneath all the accretions of the voluminous sound. The air of simple spiritual rejoicing, which may be clearly heard when life is plain and serene, may be continued when life becomes complex and burdened, torn and harassed by "manifold trials." We may still hear the sweet primitive air of Christian rejoicing. I am not surprised to hear the sounds of rejoicing from Paul’s life, when he was holding precious and sanctified intercourse with such beloved friends as Prisca and Aquila. But when the apostle is "put to grief through manifold trials," and life becomes dark, heavy, and complicated, how will it fare with him then? "The gaoler thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks. And it came to pass that at the midnight"--that is what I want to know about--"at the midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God." It is the old air, rising through the pains and burden of a harassed and sorely tried life. "As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing." Now, these "manifold trials" assume many guises and employ varied weapons of painful inquisition. Some of them may be found in the antagonism of men. Loyalty to truth may be confronted with persecution. A beautiful ministry may be given an evil interpretation. Our beneficence may be maligned. Our very leniency may be vituperated and proclaimed as a device of the devil. This may be one of the guises of "the manifold trials." Or our antagonism may be found in the apparent hostility of our circumstances. Success is denied us. Every way we take seems to bristle with difficulties. Every street we enter proves to be a cul de sac. We never emerge into an airy and spacious prosperity. We pass our days in material straits. Such may be another of the guises of "the manifold trials." Or it may be that our antagonist dwells in the realm of our own flesh. We suffer incessant pain. We are just a bundle of exquisite nerves. The streets of the city are instruments of torture. The bang of a door shakes the frail house to its base. We are the easy victims of physical depression. Who knows but that this may have been Paul’s "thorn in the flesh"? At any rate, it is one of "the manifold trials" by which many of our brethren are put to grief. I will go no further with the enumeration, because I am almost impatient to once again declare the evangel which proclaims that be hind all these apparent antagonisms we may have the unceasing benediction of the joy of our Lord. It is possible--I declare it, not as my personal attainment, but as a glorious possibility which is both yours and mine--it is possible to get so deep into the thought and purpose of God, and to dwell so near His very heart, as to "count it all joy" when we "fall into manifold trials," because of that mystic spiritual alchemy by which trials are changed into blessings and our antagonists transformed into our slaves. Can we just now nestle a little more closely into the loving purpose of God? Why are antagonisms allowed to range themselves across our way? Why are there any blind streets which bar our progress? Why does not labour always issue in success? Why are "manifold trials" permitted? We may find a partial response in the words of my text. They are permitted for "the proof" (1 Peter 1:7) of our faith. That is the purposed ministry of the sharp antagonism and the cloudy day--"the proof of your faith." Now, to "prove" the faith means much more than to test it. First of all, it means to reveal it. To prove the faith is to prove it to others. God wants to reveal and emphasise your faith, and so He sends the cloud. May we not say that the loveliness of the moonlight is revealed and emphasised by the ministry of the cloud? It is when there are a few clouds about, and the moonlight transfiguring them, that the glory of the moon herself is declared. And it is when the cloud is in the life that the radiance of our faith is proved and proclaimed. How conspicuously the calm, steady faith of our glorified Queen was proved by the clouds which so frequently gathered about her life! The "manifold trials" set out in grand relief that which might have remained a commonplace. Light which fringes the cloud is light which is beautified. Faith which gleams from behind the trial is faith which is glorified. It is the hard circumstance which sets in relief the quality of our devotion. As I listened to a thrush singing in the cold dawn of a winter’s morning, I thought its song seemed sweeter and richer than when heard in the advanced days of spring. The wintry setting emphasised the quality of the strain. Perhaps if we heard the nightingale in the glare of the noontide, the song would not arrest us as when it proceeds from the depths of the night. The shades and loneliness add something to the sweetness. "And at midnight Paul and Silas sang." That is the song which is heard by the fellow-prisoners and startles them into wonder. The trial came and your faith was "proved." You lost your money, and men discovered your devotion. Your gold, the finest of your gold, the most rare and exquisite among your treasures, was destroyed and perished; but in the hour of your calamity your faith was proved, and men bowed in spiritual wonder before the mystery of the Divine. Your trial was your triumph; the place of apparent defeat became the hallowed shrine of a glorious conquest. "Now are ye in grief through manifold trials," that in the midst of the cloud the Lord might "prove" and reveal your faith. But "the manifold trials" do more than reveal the faith. There is another ministry wrapped up in this suggestive word "prove." The trial that reveals the faith also strengthens and confirms it. (1 Peter 1:7) The faith that is "proved" is more richly endowed. The strong wind and rain which try the tree are also the ministers of its invigoration. The round of the varying seasons makes the tree "well seasoned," and solidifies and enriches its fibre. It is the negative which develops the strength of the affirmative. It is antagonism which cultivates the wrestler. It is the trial which makes the saint. The man who sustains his hold upon God through one trial will find it easier to confront the next trial and exploit it for eternal good. And so these "manifold trials" prove our faith. They reveal and they enrich our resources. They strengthen and refine our spiritual apprehension. They may strip us of our material possessions, "the gold that perisheth" but they endow us with the wealth of that "inheritance" which is "in corruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away." And, finally, there is one other radiant glimpse of the resplendent issues of a "proved" and invigorated faith: "That the proof of your faith . . . might be found unto praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ." (1 Peter 1:7) Our "proved" faith is to come to its crown in a manifestation of praise and glory and honour. When Jesus appears, these things are to appear with Him. The trial of our faith is to issue in "praise." And what shall be the praise? On that great day of unveiling, when all things are made clear, I shall discover what my trials have accomplished. I shall perceive that they were all the time the instruments of a gracious ministry, strengthening me even when I thought I was being impoverished. The wonderful discovery will urge my soul into song, and praise will break upon my lips. "Found unto praise and glory." And whose shall be the glory? When the Lord appears, many other things will become apparent. What I thought hard will now appear as gracious. What I recoiled from as severe I shall find to be merciful. What I esteemed as forgetfulness will reveal itself as faith fulness. He was nearest when I thought Him farthest away. He was faithful even when I was faithless. At His appearing I shall apprehend and appreciate my Lord. "The glory of the Lord shall be revealed." "Found unto praise and glory and honour." And whence shall flow the honour? I shall find that when the Lord sent a trial, and by the trial revealed my faith, many a fainting heart took courage, and by the beauty of my devotion many a shy soul was secretly wooed into the kingdom of God. I never knew it, but at His appearing this shall also appear. This discovery shall be my coronation. The supreme honours of heaven are reserved for those who have brought others there. "They that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever." And so by the cloud of manifold trials God leads me into the spacious sovereignty of glory, praise, and honour. God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants His footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm. Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take; The clouds ye so much dread Are big with mercy, and shall break With blessings on your head. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 5: 01.03. 1PE_1:8-9 -- A TWOFOLD RELATIONSHIP AND ITS FRUITS ======================================================================== 1 Peter 1:8-9 -- A Twofold Relationship And Its Fruits 1 Peter 1:8-9 -- Whom not having seen ye love; on whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory. "Whom not having seen ye love." (1 Peter 1:8) We some times speak of "love at first sight." Two lives are brought together, and there is a recognition pregnant with far-off destinies. "Deep calleth unto deep." The affinities leap into spiritual wedlock. Each knows the other as life’s complement, and the hearts embrace in hallowed union. It was only a look, and love was born: Entering then, Right o’er a mount of newly fallen stones, The dusky-raftered, many-cobwebbed hall, He found an ancient dame in dim brocade; And near her, like a blossom vermeil-white That lightly breaks a faded flower sheath, Moved the fair Enid all in faded silk, Her daughter. In a moment thought Geraint, "Here by God’s rood is the one maid for me." The fair vision came, and its gentle impression awoke the sleeping love and stirred it into fervent and vigilant life. It was "love at first sight." But love is not always aroused by the first eight. The "first sight" may not stir the heart to even a languid interest. The vision may be as uninfluential as a cipher. Or the "first sight" may create a repulsion. It may excite my dislike. It may rather rouse the critic than wake the lover. But love that remains sleeping at the "first sight" may be aroused by more intimate communion. The ministries of the spirit may triumph where the allurements of the countenance failed. Love may be born, not of sight, but of fellowship. It may spring into being amid the intimacies of a deepening companionship. You remember the story of Othello and Desdemona, and how their hearts were drawn into affectionate communion. It Was not love at "first sight," but love at heart sight. He told her the story of his chequered life, of "battles, sieges, fortunes" he had passed, of disastrous chances, of moving accidents by flood and field. "This to hear would Desdemona seriously incline." My story being done She gave me for my pains a world of sighs; She swore, in faith, ’twas strange, ’twas passing strange; ’Twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful. * * * * * * She loved me for the dangers I had passed, And I loved her that she did pity them. It was the communion of spirit with spirit which unsealed the springs of their affection. We recognise the principle in common life. A number of young people are thrown together in frequent fellowship. For months, and perhaps for years, their association does not pass beyond the sphere of friendship. But one day the fellowship of two of them opened into intimacy, and the sober servant, friendship, made way for the master passion, love. They had seen each other’s faces for years, and they remained companions; they caught a glimpse of each other’s hearts, and they were trans formed into lovers. So love may be the child of spiritual intimacy. It may wait on knowledge. It may wake into being through the ministry of a deep communion. "Whom not having seen ye love." Theirs was not the love born of gazing upon Christ’s face, but the love begotten by communion with His heart. Love may be born of spiritual fellowship. If only we can get into intimacy with the Master’s spirit, love may wake into being and song. It is just for this opportunity of individual communion that the Master is craving. He has little fear of our not falling in love with Him, if we will only listen to His story. He wants to visit the heart and whisper His evangel in the secret place. Do I debase the sublime quest when I say He yearns to "court" the soul, to woo and to win it? "If any man will open the door, I will come in and sup with him." That is what He asks--an open door. He asks to be allowed to visit the soul, to pay His attentions, to declare His aims and purposes, and to whisper the Gospel of His own unsearchable love. He wants to talk to us separately in individual wooings. He wants us to find a little time to listen to Him while He talks about the Father and Sonship, and life and its resources, and heaven and its rest and glory. He wants to talk to us about the burden of sin and guilt, and the exhaustion of weakness. He wants to whisper something to us about our newly born child and about our newly made grave. He would like to come very near to us and tell us what He knows about sorrow and death, and the morrow which begins at the shadow we fear. I say He wants to tell it all to thee and to me--to thee, my brother, as though there were no other soul to woo beneath God’s heaven. The winsome story shall wind its wonderful way around Christ and Bethlehem and thee, around Christ and Gethsemane and thee, around Christ and Calvary and thee, around Christ and heaven and thee! He will tell thee of His agonies and tears, and He will show thee the scars He received in the quest of thy redemption. Hath He marks to lead me to Him If He be my guide? In His hands and feet are wound-prints, And His side. He will tell thee all His story. And the sublime purpose of the communion shall be to woo thee, that in His tender fellowship the springs of thine own love may be unsealed and thou mayest become engaged, by the bonds of an eternal covenant, to the Lord of life and glory. "We love him because he first" wooed us The early love may be timid and shy, half afraid of itself, and trembling in some un certainty, but it shall put on strength and sweetness in the deeper and riper fellowships of your wedded life. Wedded to the King, you shall come to realise more and more the freedom of His forgiveness, the triumph of His power, the sweet pressure of His presence, the alluring glory of the living hope, and with this enrichment of your intimacies your heart will become possessed by a more intense and fervent affection for Him "whom not having seen ye love." "On whom . . . believing." (1 Peter 1:8) Here is a second expression of the Christian’s relationship to Christ. "On whom . . . believing." The figure is suggestive of a leaning posture, an attitude of dependence, a confident resting of one’s weight upon the Christ we love. It is the acceptance of His reasonings as sound. It is the assumption that His judgments are dependable. It is the usage of His weapons as adequate for our strife. It is the assurance that His promises are the expression of spiritual laws, and that there is no more caprice in their ministry than there is in the operation of laws in the physical world. "On Him believing." But it is more than assent to a conclusion, more than a confidence in His word. It is repose upon a person, a resting upon a presence, a trusting in a companionship. If the Christian evangel is worth anything at all it means this that the Christ of God, the "Lover of the soul," is by the loved one’s side in inseparable and all-sufficient fellowship. In the moment of extraordinary crisis and strain, "on" Him I can depend for immediate equipment. In the long-drawn-out day of wearying and monotonous commonplace, "on" Him I can lean for unfailing supplies. In the dark and cloudy day, and amid the gathering terrors of the advancing night, "on" Him I can depend for inspiring light and life. That is the very music of the Christian evangel. The words which indicate the Master’s presence suggest the all-significant closeness of His Spirit. "Companion!" "Comforter!" "Fellowship!" "Partaker!" The phraseology varies; the significance is one. The Lord is imminent and immediate: "Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet"; upon Him we may trustfully rest our weight in all the changing circumstances of our ever-changing way. "Whom not having seen ye love; on whom . . . believing, ye rejoice." (1 Peter 1:8) Is there anything surprising in the issue? Won by His love, wedded to the Lord, confident in His fellowship--is it any wonder that out of such wealthy conditions there should arise a fountain of joy? Surely we have the very ingredients of spiritual delight. If we take spiritual affection--"whom not having seen ye love"--and combine it with spiritual confidence--"on whom . . . believing"--I do not see how we can escape the crown of rejoicing. If either of the elements be annihilated, our joy is destroyed. All the bird-music that rings through the countryside at the dawn can be hushed by the appearance of the hawk. Let your little child come into a presence in whom she has not gained confidence, and the light of joy departs, and her face becomes like a blown-out lamp. It is the co-operative ministry of love and confidence which awakes the genius of joy. It is the love and confidence of wedded life which make the clear, calm joy of the hurrying years. The thought of the loved one is a baptism of light. A letter from the loved one redeems any day from commonplace. The presence of the loved one is a full and perpetual feast. It is not other wise in the highest relationships. If the soul and the Lord are lovers, and there is a mutual confidence, the soul will drink at the river of rare and exquisite delights. To think of Him will set the bells a-ringing. Jesus, the very thought of Thee With sweetness fills my breast. How unlike that other soul of whom we read in the Sacred Word, "I remembered God, and was troubled." A thought that rang an alarm-bell. Jesus, the very thought of Thee With sweetness fills my breast. A remembrance that rang anew the wedding-bells. "Whom not having seen ye love." Then it is daytime in the soul. "On whom . . . believing." Then there is no cloud over the communion. Daytime and no cloud! Then there must be sunshine in the soul. "Ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory." "With joy unspeakable." (1 Peter 1:8) All the deepest and richest things are unspeakable. A mother’s love! Who has discovered a symbol by which to express it? It is unspeakable. A profound grief! Where is the speech in which it can be enshrined? In words like weeds I’ll wrap me o’er, Like coarsest clothes against the cold; But that large grief which these enfold Is given in outline and no more. It is unspeakable. A bleeding sympathy! Has it not just to remain dumb? "We stand or sit with interlocked hands, bereft of all adequate expression! It is unspeakable. A spiritual joy! How shall we tell it? Where is the mould of speech which can catch and hold the ethereal presence? It is unspeakable. But what to those who find? Ah! this Nor tongue nor pen can show: The love of Jesus, what it is None but His loved ones know. "With joy unspeakable and full of glory." (1 Peter 1:8) It is a joy which is glorious and glorifying. There are joys that weaken and impair the soul. The happiness of the world is a corroding atmosphere that blunts and destroys the fine perception and discernments of the life. But "joy in the Lord" is light which glorifies life. It is like sunshine on the landscape. It adds warmth, and beauty, and tenderness, and grace. This joy is never productive of weakness; it is synonymous with power. "The joy of the Lord is your strength." "Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls." (1 Peter 1:9) Wedded to the Lord in consecrated love, leaning upon Him in confident dependence, rejoicing in joy unspeakable--surely this will mean a ripening personality maturing day by day, shedding not only its disease but also its impotence. We "receive" the salvation of our souls. Moment by moment we "receive" it. Our salvation is a gradual but assured ascension into the strength and beauty of the King. We are in the currents of the everlasting life. Moment by moment we receive the end of our faith. Each moment deposits its own contribution to my spiritual heritage. Moment by moment I enter more deeply into my inheritance in Christ, into "the unsearchable riches of grace." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 6: 01.04. 1PE_1:13-16 -- BEING FASHIONED ======================================================================== 1 Peter 1:13-16 -- Being Fashioned 1 Peter 1:13-16 -- Wherefore girding up the loins of your mind, be sober and set your hope perfectly on the grace that is being brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as children of obedience, not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts in the time of your ignorance: but like as He which called you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living; because it is written, Ye shall be holy; for I am holy. "Wherefore!" (1 Peter 1:13) The word gathers up all the wealthy results of the previous reasonings. The present appeal is based on the introductory evangel. The inspiration of tasks is found in the recesses of profound truths. Spiritual impulse is created by the momentum of superlative facts. The dynamic of duty is born in the heart of the Gospel. "Wherefore," says the apostle, if these be your prospects and dynamics, if you have been "begotten again into a living hope," if you are heirs to "an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled," if even apparent hostilities may be converted into wealthy helpmeets, and "manifold trials" into the ministers of salvation, "girding up the loins of your mind, be sober and set your hope perfectly on the grace that is being brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." The "wherefore" is thus suggestive of the bases of this urgent and practical appeal. Our life is purposed to shine in Divine dignity. Our prospects are glorious. Our resources are abounding. We should therefore lay aside our laxity. Life should not be spent in idle reverie. Our movement should not be a careless sauntering. Our rest should not be a thought less lounging. Life should be characterised by clear sight, definite thought, eager purpose, and decided ends. "Wherefore girding up the loins of your mind." (1 Peter 1:13) The figure of the passage is taken from the flowing garments of the Oriental dress. The flapping robes catch the wind and wrap themselves about the legs, and become serious hindrances to easy and progressive movement. The wearer therefore lays hold of the entangling garments and tucks them into a girdle, which discharges the ministry of a belt. He gathers together the disorderly robes and binds them into a compact and serviceable vesture. Now, the apostle declares that a similar disorder may prevail in the realm of thought and affection. Our life may be characterised by mental slovenliness. Our thoughts may trail in loose disorder. We may give little or no care to the beauty and firmness of the mind. How much loose thinking there is concerning the profoundest and most vital concerns of our life! And the loose thinking does not end with itself. A loose garment may trip a man up and cause him to stumble. Loose thinking is equally perilous, and may lead to moral entanglement and perdition. Loose thinking is creative of loose living; mental slovenliness issues in moral disorder. Therefore "gird up the loins of your mind." Put some strenuousness into your thinking. Do not let your thought drift along on the stream of reverie. Steer your thought and strongly guide it into wealthy havens. How do I think about God? Loosely and unworthily, or with firm and fruitful conception? "God is great," and greatly to be thought about; and if I think about Him loosely my sonship will be a stumbling and an offence. How do I think about grace? Is my thinking sluggish and unworthy, and so do I "despise the riches of his goodness"? How do I think about my spiritual call and prospects and destiny? Am I stumbling over my own thinking? Are my own garments my most immediate snares? Is my spiritual confusion the result of my mental indolence? "My people do not consider." In my want of strong and strenuous thinking may be found some explanation of my moral and spiritual disasters. As it is with the element of thought, so it is with the power of affection; for perhaps in the spiritual term "mind" both thought and affection are included. We speak of "wandering affections," and truly affection may become an appalling vagrant. Affection is easily allured, easily entangled, easily snared by the worldly glitter which gleams by the side of the common way. Or, if we recur to the apostle’s figure, our loose affections, like flowing garments that are blown about by the wind, entangle our faculties and make havoc of our moral and spiritual progress. We must "gird up the loins" of our affection. It will not be child’s play, but he who wants a religion of child’s play must not seek the companionship of Christ. The Master spake of cutting off the right hand and plucking out the right eye, and the bleeding figure has reference to the severing of relationships and the disentangling of well-established affections. To free a flowing garment which has been caught in a thorn hedge may necessitate rents, and to disentangle an unworthy affection may necessitate pain, but even at the cost of rent and pain the deliverance must be effected. We must gird up the loins of our trailing affections. We must not hold them so cheaply. We must not permit them to sweep the broad road and to expose themselves to the entanglement of every obtruding thorn. We must "set" our "affections upon things above," and for that sublime purpose we must gather them together in strenuous concentration. This exhortation is therefore an appeal for collectedness both of thought and of feeling. It is a warning against mental and affectional looseness, and with loving urgency the apostle pleads with his readers to pull themselves together, to gird up their loins, and with full energy of thought and feeling devote themselves to the worship and service of God. "Be sober." (1 Peter 1:13) This is more than an injunction against intemperance in diet. Intemperance is productive of stupor. It is the enemy of a refined sensitiveness. It is creative of heaviness and sleep. And it is this closing of the senses, by whatever agency it may be induced, against which the apostle raises his voice in clamant warning. "Be sober." Be on your guard against everything which is creative of heaviness, and which may put your senses into a perilous sleep. At all costs keep awake and vigilant! Just as excessive drinking drugs the flesh and sinks the body into a heavy sleep, so there are other conditions which create a similar stupor in the soul and by which the moral and spiritual senses are burdened and benumbed. There are opiates and narcotics which may make us spiritually drunk, and render us unconscious of the Divine voices that peal from the heights. "Not a few sleep." The sleep is induced by opiates. There is the opiate of pleasure; there is the opiate of prosperity; there is the opiate of self-satisfaction; there is the depressing drug of disappointment. Against all these we are to be on our guard. "Be sober," and amid all the narcotising atmospheres of enchanted grounds preserve a wakeful spirit by a ceaseless fellowship with God. "And set your hope perfectly on the grace that is being brought unto you in the revelation of Jesus Christ." (1 Peter 1:13) Here is the spiritual attitude by which the girded and sober life may be attained. My resources are to be found in the grace that is brought unto me in Christ. In Christ is my reservoir of power. The grace of the Lord Jesus is my dynamic. The resource will never fail me. The supply is never exhausted. It is "being brought" unto me continually--a "river of water of life." Grace is just a full river of heavenly favour, carrying all needful equipment and rich with the potencies of eternal life. Upon this grace I am to find the basis of my hope. I am to "set my hope perfectly" upon this as the all-sufficient energy for lifting me to the unveiled heights and enabling me to dwell there in undisturbed serenity. I am to release my thought from hindering entanglements, and I am to deliver my affection from enslaving fellowships, and I am to preserve a vigilant sobriety amid all the sleep-inducing atmospheres of the world; and for the accomplishment of this glorious emancipation I am bidden to "set my hope perfectly on the grace that is being brought unto me at the revelation of Jesus Christ." The apostle now probes more deeply into the mode of godly living, and unveils a little more clearly the principle by which the holy life is fashioned. Life is formed by conformity. There is always a something towards which we tend and approximate, and "we take hue from that to which we cling." There is always a something "according to" which we are being shaped. "According to Thy word," "according to this world," "according to the former lusts." We are for ever coming into accord with some thing, and that something determines the fashion of our lives. Now, this principle of "forming by conforming" is proclaimed by the apostle in the succeeding words of this great passage; and as "children of obedience" we are called to a manner of life which at once demands a stern nonconformity and a strong and fervent conformity. "Not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts in the time of your ignorance." (1 Peter 1:14) "Not fashioning . . . according to lusts." That conformity must be broken. That "accordance" must be destroyed. Our lusts must not be our formatives, giving shape and fashion to our lives. If our lust raise its feverish and imperious demand, we must be stern and relentless nonconformists. Are we imagining that the imperiousness of lust moves in very circumscribed ways, and that perhaps we escape from its fierce and burning tyranny? The New Testament conception of lust covers a very spacious area, and includes elements to which perhaps we should not give the appalling name. You may have the same element in different guises, now appearing as a solid, and now as a liquid, and now as a gas. And you may have the same essential vice in some tangible loathsomeness and in some hidden and impalpable temper. The Master told us that we have the same essential thing in anger and in murder, only one is gross and solid, while the other is gaseous and comparatively refined. But the trouble is that, when vice is gaseous, we conceive it as proportionately harmless; when it solidifies into open crime, it ensures our reprobation. Now, when the Master speaks of lust, He speaks of it in its gaseous state, as a condition of thought, as a state of temper, as a mode of spirit; and in this interpretation "lust" is just the essentially carnal, the itching after the world, the feverish desire for selfish pleasure, to the utter ignoring of the supremacy of the truth. In many lives this lust is the determining and formative force; everything is made to bow to it; all the affairs of life are fashioned by it. It occupies the throne and moulds all life’s concerns into its own accord. The apostle vehemently counsels his readers against this conformity. He pleads that the children of liberty should not retain the governing powers of their servitude. The night should not provide the patterns for the day. The season of "ignorance" should not create the ruling powers for the season of knowledge and revelation. He urges them to revolt against the old forces, to become spiritual nonconformists, not fashioning themselves after their former lusts. "But like as He which called you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living." (1 Peter 1:15) The holy God is to be the formative force in our life, and to Him are we to be devoted in close and intimate conformity. "As He which called you." The call is a Divine pledge. The acceptance of the call implies a human obligation. There is the pledge on the side of God, and the obligation on the side of man. The call, given and received, creates an intimate fellowship. The One who calls is holy, and by the mighty ministry of the Spirit he who shares the fellowship is transformed into the same holiness. AH fellowship with God is productive of spiritual likeness. If we gaze into His face, we shall be illumined with the light of His countenance. "Beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, we are transformed into the same image." We absorb the glory of the Lord. We become transfigured by it. Let us mark the breadth of the transforming process. We are to be holy "in all manner of living." The pervasive power of the Spirit is to influence every walk of life and every part of the walk. The transfiguring energy is to inhabit even trifles, and the commonplaces of life are to be illumined by the indwelling of the eternal light. We shall grow in grace, putting on more and more of the beauty of Him in whose fellowship we dwell. "Because it is written, Ye shall be holy; for I am holy." (1 Peter 1:16) That is more than an imperative; it is an evangel. It is a command which en shrines a promise. Because God is holy we have the promise of holiness. Therefore we may sing with the psalmist, in words which at the first hearing may appear strange, "We give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness." Wherefore, with this glorious provision for our life, with resources more than adequate for our tasks, with power that even surpasses the grandeur of our calling, let us "gird up the loins of our mind, be sober, and set our hope perfectly on the grace that is being brought unto us at the revelation of Jesus Christ." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 7: 01.05. 1PE_1:17-21 -- THE HOLINESS OF THE FATHER ======================================================================== 1 Peter 1:17-21 -- The Holiness Of The Father 1 Peter 1:17-21 -- And if ye call on Him as Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to each man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning in fear: knowing that ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers; but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ: who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but was manifested at the end of the times for your sake, who through Him are believers in God, which raised Him from the dead, and gave Him glory; so that your faith and hope might be in God. "If ye call on Him as Father, who . . . judgeth." (1 Peter 1:17) That is an extraordinary conjunction of terms. It is a daring and surprising companionship to associate, in immediate union, the function of the judge with the personality of Father. I had anticipated that the term "Father" would have suggested quite other relationships, and would have emphasised functions of an altogether different type. I did not anticipate the intimate wedlock of "Father" and "judge." I had thought that the glad succession would have proceeded somewhat on this wise: "If ye call on Him as Father, who loveth!" "If ye call on Him as Father, who pitieth!" "If ye call on Him as Father, who forgiveth!" I had interpreted the word "father" as being suggestive of the free and kindly intimacies of the fireside; but here it stands indicative of the august prerogatives of a throne. "If ye call on Him as Father, who judgeth." The element which I had forgotten is made conspicuous and primary, and determines the shape and colour of man’s relationship to God. "If ye call on Him as Father, who judgeth." Then the element of holy sovereignty must be a cardinal content in our conception of the Fatherhood of God. What does the term "Father" immediately suggest to me? Good nature or holiness; laxity or righteousness; a hearthstone or a great white throne? The primary element in my conception will determine the quality of my religious life. If the holiness of Fatherhood be minimised or obscured, every other attribute will be impoverished. Denude your conception of holiness, and it is like withdrawing the ozone from the invigorating air, or detracting the freshening salt from the healthy sea. Suppress or ignore the element of holiness, and think of the Father as affectionate, and the love that you attribute to Him will be only as a close and enervating air. Love without holiness is deoxygenated, and its ministry is that of an opiate or narcotic. Pity without holiness is a bloodless sentiment destitute of all healing efficiency. Forgiveness without holiness is the granting of a cheap and superficial excuse, in which there is nothing of the saving strength of sacrifice. Begin with pity or forgiveness, or forbearance or gentleness, and you have dispositions without dynamics, poor limp things, which afford no resource for the uplifting and salvation of the race. But begin with holiness, and you put a dynamic into every disposition which makes it an engine of spiritual health. Forgiveness with holiness behind it is a medicated sentiment, fraught with healing and bracing ministry. Gentleness with holiness behind it touches the aches and sores of the world with the firm and delicate hand of a discerning and experienced nurse. Exalt the element of holiness, and you enrich your entire conception of the Fatherhood of God. The "river of water of life" flows "out of the throne." "The Father who judgeth." "Our Father, hallowed be Thy name." And now the apostle proceeds to tell us how his conception of the holiness of God is fostered and enriched. Wherever he turns it is God’s holiness, and not God’s pity, which smites and arrests his attention. He is never permitted to become irreverent, for lie is never out of sight of "the great white throne." He moves in fruitful wonder, ever contemplating the glory of the burning holiness of God. If he meditates upon the character of the Father’s judgments, it is their holiness by which he is possessed. If he moves with breathless steps amid the mysteries of redemption, even beneath the blackness of the cross he discovers the whiteness of the throne. If he dwells upon the purposes of the Divine yearning, it is the holiness of the Father’s ambition for His children which holds him entranced. The holiness of the Father emerges everywhere. It is expressed and placarded in all His doings. Everywhere could the apostle take upon his lips the words of another wondering spirit who gazed and worshipped in a far-off day: "I saw the Lord, high and lifted up! Holy, holy, holy is the LORD." "The Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to each man’s work." (1 Peter 1:17) The apostle finds the holiness of the Father expressed in the character of His judgments. The elements which so commonly shape the judgments of men do not count in the judgments of God. He judgeth "without respect of persons." Fine feathers do not count as refinement. Faces may be masks. The "persona" may be an actor. The Father pays no respect to the mere show of things. All masks become transparent. All veils become trans lucent. The material show, with all ephemeral titles, and nobilities, and dignities, and degrees, are not accepted as evidence, but are put down, and only spiritual characteristics and moral essentials are permitted as testimony of personal worth. "The Father, without respect of persons, judgeth according to each man’s work." (1 Peter 1:17) And what is the bulk and quality of my work? If the Father judge me by my output in the shape of finished and realised achievement, then I shrink from the wretched unveiling! I have laboured for the salvation of men; how will He judge my "work"? Will He tabulate the results? Will He count my converts? Is that how James Gilmour will be judged, who after long years of labour in Mongolia could not record a single regenerated soul? If "work" means finished results, how few of us will be crowned! "This is the work, that ye believe." That is the basis of judgment. How much of holy energy is expressed in our relationship to God? What is the strength of our fellowship with the Divine? That is the primal energy of character, and that is the criterion of the Divine judgment. Out of that energy of belief there is born the magnificent force which expresses itself in prolonged labours in Mongolia, in fearless pioneering in New Guinea, in unromantic, educational ministry in India, in plucky, unyielding struggle with great evils in England, in tiring, unapplauded toil among the poor, in dry and heart-breaking service among the rich, in steady, persistent battle with "the world, the flesh, and the devil." All these toils are the offspring of belief. In the energy of belief they find their life and the secret of their dauntless perseverance. And so James Gilmour will not be judged by his "results," but by his "bloody sweat." He will be judged, and so shall we all, by the supplicating wrestle of the heart, by the quality of our aspiration, by the depth and fervour of our belief. In this type and character of judgment the apostle sees the mark of the holiness of God. "I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God," and the Father judged them "according to each man’s work." "I remember thy work of faith." The apostle now turns to another expression of the holiness of the Father, and he finds it in the character of our redemption. "Knowing that," reflecting that, "ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things . . . but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ." (1 Peter 1:18-19) Now, link to this a previous word which forms a vital part of the apostle’s reasoning. "I am holy." He immediately unites the conception of holiness with the ministry of redemption. To keep that holiness in mind I am to reflect upon the character of redemption. I am to gaze into the mysterious depths of redemption, and I shall behold the holiness of my Father. Now, that is not our common inclination. We look into redemption for mercy, forgiveness, condescension, love. We look for the genial flame of affection; have we been blind to the dazzling blaze of holiness? We have felt the warm, yearning intimacy of love, inclining towards the sinner; have we felt the fierce, burning heat where holiness touches sin? Redemption is more than the search of Father for child; it is a tremendous wrestle of holiness with sin. Have we felt only the tenderness of the search, and partially over looked the terribleness of the conflict? The fear is that we may feel the geniality of the one without experiencing the consuming heat of the other. I proclaim it as a modern peril. We do not open our eyes to the holiness that battles in our redemption, and so we gain only an enervated conception of redemptive love. Is not this a characteristic of many of the popular hymns which gather round about the facts of redemption? They are sweet, sentimental, almost gushing; the light, lilting songs of a thoughtless courtship: deep in their depths I discern no sense of bloody conflict, nor do I taste any tang of the bitter cup which made our Saviour shrink. And so, because we do not discern the majestic crusade of holiness, we do not realise the enormity of sin. If we look into the mystery of redemption, and do not see the august holiness of God, we can never see the blackness of the sovereignty of sin. Dim your sense of holiness, and you lighten the colour of sin. Now see what follows. Obscure the holiness and you relieve the blackness of sin. Relieve the blackness of sin and you impoverish the glory of redemption. The more we lighten sin the more we uncrown our Redeemer. If sin be a light thing, the Redeemer was superfluous. And so, with holiness hidden and sin relieved, we come to hold a cheap redemption, and it is against the conception of a cheap redemption that the apostle raises an eager and urgent warning--"There was nothing cheap about your redemption. It was not a light ministry which cost a mere trifle. Ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with precious blood, even the blood of Christ." Reason from the cost of redemption to the nature of the conflict; reason from the nature of the conflict to the black enormity of sin; reason from the enormity of sin to the glory of holiness! A lax God could have given us licence and so redeemed us cheaply! A cheap redemption might have made us feel easy; it would never have made us good. A cheap forgiveness would only have confirmed the sin it forgave. If we are to see sin we must behold holiness, unveiled for us as in a "lamb without blemish and without spot." (1 Peter 1:19 ) And so in the sacrifice of Christ, the apostle discerns something of the holiness of the Father, and thus apprehends the unspeakable antagonism of holiness and sin. To him redemption is more than a search; it is a conflict. It is more than a tender yearning; it is the mighty bearing of an appalling load. Between the Incarnation, when Christ was manifested, and the Resurrection, when God raised Him from the dead, the powers of holiness and sin met face to face in mighty combat, and in the appalling darkness of Gethsemane and Calvary sin was overthrown and holiness was glorified. When I move amid the mysteries of redemption, I never want to become deaf to my Saviour’s words, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me." I never want His cry to go out of my life, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" So long as that cry sounds through the rooms of my life I can never have a cheap Redeemer, and I shall be kept from the enervating influence of a cheap redemption. In redemption I behold an unspeakable conflict which keeps me ever in mind of the holiness of the Father hood of God. In my conception of redemption there shall be "no curse," nothing withering and destructive, for "the throne of God and the Lamb shall be in it." In the sacrifice of love I shall behold the holiness of God. Out of this large conception of a holy Father hood there will arise a worthy conception of sonship. If God be holy, expressing His holiness in all His dealings, and "if ye call on Him as Father," what manner of children ought ye to be? If I call the holy God "my Father," the assumption of kinship implies obligation to holiness. If I say "Father," I may not ignore holiness. "If God were your father," ye would bear His likeness. "Ye shall be holy; for I am holy." If then ye call on Him as "Father," put yourselves in the way of appropriating His glory, and of becoming radiant with the beauty of His holiness: "pass the time of your sojourning in fear." (1 Peter 1:17) There is no suggestion in the counsel of any enslaving timidity. We are not to cringe like slaves, or to move as though we expected that at any moment an abyss might open at our feet. The Christian’s walk is a fine swinging step, born of hope and happy confidence. To "pass the time in fear "is not to move in paralysing dread. Nor is it to be the victim of a paralysing particularity which converts every trifle into a thorn, and makes the way of life a via dolorosa of countless irritations. The Christian is neither a faddist nor a slave. To "pass the time in fear "is just to be fearful of sleep, to watch against indifference, to be alert against an insidious thoughtlessness, to be spiritually awake and to miss no chance of heightening the purity of our souls by all the ministries of holy fellowships, and by a ready obedience to the Master’s will. "If ye call on Him as Father," let the majestic claim inspire you to a spacious ambition: "pass your time "in a fervent aspiration after His likeness, "perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 8: 01.06. 1PE_1:22-25 -- THE CREATION OF CULTURE AND AFFECTION ======================================================================== 1 Peter 1:22-25 -- The Creation Of Culture And Affection 1 Peter 1:22-25 -- Seeing ye have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth unto unfeigned love of the brethren, love one another from a clean heart fervently: having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which liveth and abideth. For, All flesh is as grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower falleth: but the word of the, Lord abideth for ever. IN the very heart of this passage there lies a fair and exquisite flower--the flower of an in tense and fervent affection. Its surroundings reveal to us the means of its production. The earlier clauses of the passage describe the mode of its growth; the later clauses describe the cause of its growth. The first part is descriptive of the rootage and the preliminary life of the flower of love; the second part proclaims the all-enswathing atmosphere in which growth is rendered possible and sure. On the one hand, there are revealed to us the successive and progressive stages of spiritual culture; on the other hand, we are introduced to the all-pervading power which determines their evolution. The earlier part centres round about "obedience"; the latter part gathers round about "the word of God." The first half emphasises the human; the second half emphasises the Divine. The human and the Divine combine and co-operate, and in their mingled ministry create the sweet and unpolluted flower of love. "Love one another from a clean heart fervently." (1 Peter 1:22) How can I grow this sweet, white flower of love? Its creation is not the immediate result of volition; it is the issue of a process. We cannot command it; we can grow it. It is not an "alpha "but an "omega," the "amen" in a spiritual succession. If I want the flower, I must begin at the root. If I want the love, I must begin with obedience. The first stage towards a fervent affection is "obedience to the truth" If a soul yearns to be crowned and beautified by the grace of a delicate love, it must put itself in the posture of "obedience to the truth." Ay, but what is this truth to which we are to pay obeisance? Just as I penned the question, the sun, which had been concealed behind a cloud, broke from its hiding, and a broad, wealthy tide of light flowed over the garden, and revealed the young leaves in resplendent glory. The word "tree" obtains a new significance when you see the branches swaying in the golden light. It is even so with the familiar word "truth." To one man the word is suggestive of a dim, dull, cloudy quantity, having little or nothing of arresting radiance or beauty. To another man "truth "is a gloriously unclouded light, suggesting the hallowed beauty of the eternal God. What do we mean by the term "hill"? That depends upon where we have lived. The word "hill" has one significance at Snowdon, another at Ben Nevis, another at Mont Blanc, and another amid the gigantic heights of Northern India. What do we mean by "the truth"? Where have we lived? The apostle has not used the word "truth" before. He seems to have kept it in abeyance until by some preliminary thought he has prepared our minds to give it adequate content. He has been leading us through a pilgrimage of contemplation, and at the end of the journey he utters the word "truth," and if we would enter into his conception we must pack the word with the experiences of the previous way. We have been peering into the Fatherhood of God. The apostle has been pointing out to us elements which we were inclined to forget. We looked into the Father hood for sweetness; He pointed out whiteness. We looked for gentleness; He pointed out holiness. We looked for tender yearnings towards the sinner; He would not permit us to overlook the Divine hostility to sin. Wherever the apostle turns in the contemplation of the Father hood, it is the "whiteness" that arrests him. He looks into the Father’s judgments, and he beholds the whiteness of holiness. He glances behind the veil into the mysteries of redemption, and even amid the sacrifices of love he beholds the glory of "the great white throne." Wherever he turns his wondering gaze, it is the perception of a character "without blemish and without spot" that brings him to his knees. When, therefore, we emerge from the solemn sight-seeing, as we do in the twenty-second verse, and I hear the apostle use the word "truth," I know that he inserts into the word the content of superlative whiteness, and that while he uses it he bows before the holiness of the Fatherhood of God. Here, then, we must begin the culture of affection. We must begin with the contemplation of whiteness, with a steady, steadfast gazing upon the holiness of the Fatherhood of God. We must let holiness tower in our conception of God, as the dazzling snow abides on the lifted heights of the Alps. The "truth" is the unveiled face of the Holy Father. The first step in the creation of pure affection is the contemplation of a Holy God. The apostle uses a very graphic word to further describe the healthy pose of a soul in reference to "the truth." We are to be in "obedience to the truth." There is a stoop in the word. It is a kneeling at attention. It is an eager inclining of the ear to catch the whisper of the Holy God. But it is more than that. It is the attention of a soul that is girt and ready for service. The wings are plumed for ministering flight. It is a listening, for the purpose of a doing. "Whosoever heareth these sayings of Mine and doeth them." It is a soul waiting consciously and eagerly upon the Holy Father with the intent of hearing and doing His will. This is "obedience to the truth," and this is the preliminary step in the creation and culture of God. Now, let us pass to the vital succession described in the text. We enter a second stage of this progressive gradation. "Ye have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth." (1 Peter 1:22) While ye were doing the one, ye were accomplishing the other. Obedience to truth is the agent of spiritual perfection. Homage to holiness is the minister of refinement. To bow to the august is to enlarge the life. "He that humbleth himself shall be exalted." To listen in waiting attention for the expression of the will of holiness is to fill the life with cleansing and refining ministry. We bleach our fabrics by exposing them to the light. We whiten our spiritual garments by dwelling in the hallowed glory of the Light of Life. We "purify our souls" by our "obedience to the truth." We purify them. We make them chaste in all the varied meaning of that wealthy word. We rid them of secret defilements, washing quite out of the grain the soaking filth of selfishness and of impure ambition. We free them of all the uncouthness, the rudeness, and the rough discourtesies of the unhallowed life. We deliver them from the meretricious, the tawdry graces that are made to do duty for the fair realities of the sanctified life. The soul is made grandly simple, endowed with the winsome naturalness and grace of an unaffected child. This is the way of the eternal. When we dwell in the light, the powers of the soul are being rarefied, touched, and moulded into ever finer discernments. The organic quality of the life is enriched, and possibilities awakened of which we hardly dreamed. We transform our spiritual sub stance when we change our spiritual posture. We "purify our souls by our obedience to the truth." Now, mark the next stage in this brightening sequence. "Ye have purified your souls . . . unto unfeigned love." (1 Peter 1:22) We are rising into finer issues. We have passed from hallowed obedience to purified spirit, and now we go on to unfeigned affection! The rarest issue of the rose-tree is the perfume of the rose. From root to perfume you ascend a gradation of increasing refinements until you come to its subtle and bewitching breath. And here in my text we have arrived at the sphere of fragrance, the realm of sentiment, the haunt of affection. "Ye have purified your souls . . . unto unfeigned love." Mark the directive force of the preposition--"purified unto love"; as though the purification of the soul made straight, as by a gracious destiny, for the birth and revelation of love. The spirit can be so chastened, so refined by "obedience to the truth," that love will emerge from it as naturally and spontaneously as perfume distils from a rose. "He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth!" He cannot help loving; his love is a spontaneous affluence, and he can no more restrain it than the rose can imprison her fragrance when she is tossed by the playful breeze. A fine sentiment is the offspring of a fine spirit. The posture of the soul determines the quality of the disposition. If the soul; "live and move and have her being" in the presence of the Holy Father, revealed in Christ our Saviour, and shape her course in "obedience to the truth," she will be sublimed, and all her ministries will be attended by a gracious affection, diffusing itself as fragrance about the common ways of men. "Ye have purified your soul unto unfeigned love of the brethren." But now it may occasion a little surprise that, having reached this apparent climax in the thought, the affluence of a spontaneous affection, the apostle should add the injunction, "love one another from a clean heart fervently!" (1 Peter 1:22) What is the purpose of the apparently needless addition? We have watched the ascending stages in the spiritual processes that issue in love; what if there are ascending stages in the refinement of love itself? There may be degrees of riches even in perfumes. Even love itself may be refined into more and more exquisite .quality. That, I think, is the meaning of the apostle’s counsel. He urges them to seek for the superlative in the sweet kingdom of love, ever to set their minds on "the things above," and to fix their yearnings upon still finer issues. We get a clear glimpse into the apostle’s mind through the vivid word in which he urges the counsel, "love one another . . . fervently." There is a suggestion of increased tension in the word, as when the string of a violin has been stretched to a tighter pitch that it might yield a higher note. That is the apostle’s figure--a little more tension, that you may reach a little higher note. There are heights of love unreached. Tighten the strings of your devotion, that your soul may yield the entrancing strains. Be vigilant against all laxity, and stretch yourselves to the uttermost in the endeavour to compass the manifold music of the marvellous scales of love. When, there fore, the apostle enjoins a more fervent love, I feel that he drives me back to the first preliminary stage of spiritual growth. When he appeals for higher notes of love, he is really counselling a deeper holiness. If my love is to be more intense, I must seek a "closer walk with God." I must tighten my holiness if I would enrich my music. There will come a more discerning love when there is a more devoted obedience. I shall pass from finer homage to rarer spiritual purity, and from rarer spiritual purity to increasing exquisiteness in love. "Seeing you have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth unto unfeigned love of the brethren, love one another from a clean heart fervently." How can we depend upon this succession in the processes? How can we be assured that one stage will lead to another in inevitable spiritual gradation? What is the nature of the bond and the quality of the guarantee? What is our assurance that "obedience to truth" will issue in chaste refinement of spirit, and that spiritual refinement will be crowned by a rare and fervent affection? The basis of our reliance is "the word of God." (1 Peter 1:23) It was through the word of God there was given to us the seed of a regenerated life. We were "begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God." That word, through which there came the first, faint seminal beginnings of a holy life, remaineth sure through all the stages of subsequent growth. We may rely upon "the word of God." It "liveth and abideth," an energising all-enveloping atmosphere, in which the beautiful young growth will be matured. If the centre of love depended upon the power of any human ministry, the issue would assuredly fail. Our dependence would then be built upon a thing enduring only through a transient season. Human aid is but "as the grass"; and the best of human aid, the very glory of it, only as "the flower of grass" (1 Peter 1:24 ) In the fierce, scorching noontide, the time of feverish strain, when we are most in need of enriching rest, "the grass withereth, and the flower falleth," and there is barrenness where we yearned to find a soft and healing peace. No; not upon flesh must we depend for the evolution of the spiritual life. "Our hope is in God." The Lord Himself pervades the processes and determines the line of ascending growth. "The word of the Lord abideth for ever." (1 Peter 1:25) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 9: 01.07. 1PE_2:1-10 -- THE LIVING STONES AND THE SPIRITUAL HOUSE ======================================================================== 1 Peter 2:1-10 -- The Living Stones And The Spiritual House 1 Peter 2:1-10 -- Putting away therefore all wickedness, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, long for the spiritual milk which is without guile, that ye may grow thereby unto salvation; if ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious: unto whom coming, a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but with God elect, precious, ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Because it is contained in scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on Him shall not be put to shame. For you therefore which believe is the preciousness: but for such as disbelieve, The stone which the builders rejected, the same was made the head of the corner; and, A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence; for they stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed. But ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that ye may shew forth the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light: which in time past were no people, but now are the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. THERE is a wonderful ascending gradation in the earlier portions of this great chapter. It begins in the darkness, amid "wickedness" and "guile" and "hypocrisies," and it winds its way through the wealthy, refining processes of grace, until it issues in the "marvellous light" of perfected redemption. It begins with individuals, who are possessed by uncleanness, holding aloof from one another in the bondage of "guile "and "envies "and "evil speakings"; it ends in the creation of glorious families, sanctified communities, elect races, "showing forth the excellencies" of the redeeming Lord. We pass from the corrupt and isolated individual to a redeemed and perfected fellowship. We begin with an indiscriminate heap of unclean and undressed stones; we find their consummation in a "spiritual house," standing consistent and majestic in the light of the glory of God. We begin with scattered units; we end with co-operative communions. The subject of the passage is therefore clearly defined. It is concerned with the making of true society, the creation of spiritual fellowship, the realisation of the family, the welding of antagonistic units into a pure and lovely communion. Where must we begin in the creation of this communion? The building of the house, says the apostle, must begin in the preparation of the stones. If the family is to be glorified, the individual must be purified. A choir is no richer than its individual voices, and if we wish to enrich the harmony we must refine the constituent notes. The basis of all social reformation is individual redemption. And so I am not surprised that the apostle, who is contemplating the creation of beautified brotherhoods, should primarily concern himself with the preparation of the individual. But how are the stones to be cleaned and shaped and dressed for the house? How is the individual to be prepared? By what spiritual processes is he to be fitted for larger fellowships and family communion? I think the apostle gives us a threefold answer. "If ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious." (1 Peter 2:3) That is the basal clause of the entire chapter. Everything begins here. It is no use our dreaming of perfected human relationships until the individual has deliberately tasted the things that are Divine. A chastened palate in the individual is a primary element in the consolidation of the race. There must be a personal experimenting with God. There must be a willingness to try the spiritual hygiene enjoined in the Gospel of Christ. We must "taste and see" what the grace is like that is so freely offered to us of God. We must taste it, and find out for ourselves its healthy and refreshing flavour. What is implied in the apostle’s figure? In the merely physical realm, when we taste a thing, what are the implications of the act? When we take a thing up critically for the purpose of discerning its flavour, there are at any rate two elements contained in the method of our approach. There is an application of a sense, and there is the exercise of the judgment. We bring an alertness of palate that we may register sensitive perceptions, and we bring an alertness of mind that we may exercise a discriminating judgment. Well, these two elements are only symbolic of the equipment that is required if we would "taste and see how gracious the Lord is." We need to present to the Lord a sensitive sense and a vigilant mind. There is no word which is read so drowsily as the Word of God. There is no business so sluggishly executed as the business of prayer. If men would discern the secret flavours of the Gospel, they must come to it wide awake, and sensitively search for the conditions by which its hidden wealth may be disclosed. "Son of man, eat that thou findest. . . . Then did I eat it, and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness." He had tasted and seen. "Eat that thou findest!" Well, the only way in which we can eat a message is to obey it. Obedience is spiritual consumption; and in the act of obedience, in the act of consumption, we discern the wondrous flavours of grace. We are, there fore, to approach the Gospel of our Lord. We are to patiently and sensitively realise its conditions. We are to put ourselves in the attitude of obedience, and, retaining a bright and wakeful mind, we shall begin to discern the glories of our redemption. We shall taste the flavour of reconciliation, the fine grace of forgiveness, and the exquisite quality of peace. This is the primary step in the creation of the family; the individual is to taste and appreciate the things of God. All delights imply repulsions. All likes necessitate dislikes. A strong taste for God implies a strong distaste for the ungodly. The more refined my taste, the more exacting becomes my standard. The more I appreciate God, the more shall I depreciate the godless. I do not wonder, therefore, that in the chapter before us the "tasting" of grace is accompanied by a "putting away" (1 Peter 2:1) of sin. If I welcome the one, I shall "therefore" repel the other. The finer my taste, the more scrupulous will be my repulsions. Mark the ascending refinement in this black catalogue of expulsions: "wickedness, guile, hypocrisies, envies, evil speakings!" The list ranges from thick, soddened, compact wickedness up to un kindly speech, and I am so to grow in my Divine appreciation that I just as strongly repel the gilded forms of sin as I do those that savour of the exposed and noisome sewer. The taste of grace implies the "putting away" of sin; and therefore the second step in the creation of the family is the cleansing of the individual. Is the cleansing essential? Let us lay this down as a primary axiom in the science of life--there can be no vital communion between the unclean. Why, we cannot do a bit of successful soldering unless the surfaces we wish to solder are vigorously scraped of all their filth. I suppose that, in the domain of surgery, one of the greatest discoveries of the last fifty years has been the discovery of dirt, and the influence which it has exercised as the minister of severance and alienation. It has been found to be the secret cause of inflammation, the hidden agent in retarded healing, the subtle worker in embittered wounds; and now surgical science insists that all its operations be performed in the most scrupulous cleanliness, and its intensified vigilance has been rewarded by pure and speedy healings and communions. It is not otherwise in the larger science of life. Every bit of uncleanness in the individual is a barrier to family communion. All dirt is the servant of alienation. It is essential, if we would have strong and intimate fellowships, that every member be sweet and clean. "Therefore put away all wickedness, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies and all evil speakings," and by purified surfaces let us prepare ourselves for spiritual communion. "As newborn babes, long for the spiritual milk." (1 Peter 2:2) Having tasted of the grace of the Lord, and freeing yourselves from the embittering presence of sin, adopt an exacting diet--"long for the spiritual milk which is without guile." Feed upon the loftiest ideals. Suffer nothing of adulterating compromise to enter into your spiritual food. Nourish yourselves upon aspirations undefiled. Do not let your wine be mingled with water. Do not permit any dilution from the suggestions of the world. "Long for the spiritual milk which is without guile, that ye may grow thereby unto salvation." (1 Peter 2:2) It is the unadulterated food that ministers to growth. It is the high ideal which lifts men to the heights. The loftiness of one’s aim determines the degree of one’s growth. In these matters my spiritual gravitation is governed by my personal aspirations, my spirit pursues the path and gradient of my desires. Here, then, is the threefold preparation of the individual for a family life of intimate and fruitful fellowship--a personal experience of grace, the expulsion from the life of all uncleanness, and the adoption of a rigorous and uncompromising ideal. The whole preparatory process is begun, continued, and ended in Christ. In Christ the individual is lodged, and in His grace, which is all-sufficient, he finds an abundant equipment for the spacious purpose of his perfected redemption. Now, let us assume that the individual is ready for the fellowship. We have got the unit of the family. We have got the "living stone." cleansed, shaped, dressed, ready to be built into the "spiritual house." How, now, shall the society be formed? What shall be its cement? What shall be its binding medium, and the secret of its consistency? Here are the "living stones"; what shall we do with them? "Unto whom coming . . . as living stones ye are built up a spiritual house." (1 Peter 2:4-5) "Unto whom coming!" The living stones are to find their bond of union in the living Christ. The alpha of all enduring communion is Christ. We cannot prepare the individual stones without Christ. We cannot build the individual stones into a house without Christ. He is the "corner stone," and the pervading strength of every enduring structure. What is the implication of all this? It is this. We cannot have society without piety. We may have juxtapositions, connections, clubs, fleeting and superficial relationships, but the only enduring brotherhood is the brotherhood which is built upon faith. Apart from the Christ there can be no social cohesion. The "Word of God proclaims it, and history confirms it. Every preposition seems to have been exhausted by the Word of God in emphasising the necessity of a fundamental relationship with Christ--"in Christ," "through Christ," "by Christ," "with Christ," "unto Christ." In every conceivable way Christ is proclaimed as the all-essential. In seeking to create societies we have therefore got to reckon with the Christ. We cannot ignore Him. He will not be ignored. We either use Him or we fall over Him. We use Him and rise into strength, or we neglect Him and stumble into ruin. We either make Him the "head of the corner," (1 Peter 2:7-8) or He becomes our "stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence." Societies and families and nations, which are not built upon the Christ, fall to pieces, thrown into ruin by the very "law of the spirit of life." But have not societies been built upon the Christ, and yet been far from manifesting the glory of a radiant, family communion? Look at the sects! Is not Christ the corner stone, and yet where is the sweet communion? Ah! it is when the different communities have got away from the Christ that their communion has been destroyed. It is when the sects get away from the spirit of the Christ, when they become wranglers about a letter, when they are heated by the fever of personal vanity, and lust for the spoils of sectarian triumph--it is then that the spiritual house collapses, and lies scattered in a heap of inhospitable fragments. But when we build upon Him, when He, and He only, is "the preciousness," when all our personal aims are merged in line with His, when we have the Spirit of Christ, then are we bound into a gracious communion, into a vital and fundamental unity. And into what is He prepared to build us? This chapter is overflowing in the wealth of the figures by which it seeks to express the glorious mission. He will build us into a "spiritual house," (1 Peter 2:5) a spacious home, enclosing but one tenant, the gracious Spirit of God. He will distinguish us as "an elect race," (1 Peter 2:9) moving in the world, yet not of it, standing out in strong relief from the discordant and fragmentary life by which it is surrounded. He will endow us with all the dignities of "a royal priesthood," having kingly and priestly prerogatives, reigning with Christ in the realm of the spirit and exercising a powerful ministry of intercession in the most holy presence of God. He will constitute us "a holy nation," a people whose policies shall be purities, and whose state craft shall just be the enlightened administration of large and unselfish minds. This is what our God is prepared to make of us. It is a great ideal, but then we have a great Father and a great Saviour and a mighty Spirit, and vast ideals are native to the very spirit of our redemption. It is a grand house which the Lord would build, and if only He had the stones the majestic edifice would speedily be reared. And what is to be the mission of the glorified fellowship? If even two or three are gathered together, by common possession of the Spirit of Christ, into a sanctified society, what purpose is to be achieved by their communion? They are to "shew forth the excellencies of Him who called them out of darkness into His marvellous light." (1 Peter 2:9) The "elect race" will be distinguished by its cheeriness, its geniality, its radiant sympathies, its abounding optimism. It will be of little use our professing that we are "called into marvellous light "if our society is only the home of controversy, or the abode of a brooding melancholy and depression. The redeemed society is composed of "children of light." We are to prove that "now we are the people of God," (1 Peter 2:10) that we have been naturalised--or shall I say supernaturalised?--into the kingdom of God, and we are to prove it by bringing into common affairs the air of a better country, a loftier tone, a finer temper, a nobler spirit. "Our citizenship" is to be "in heaven," and we are to "shew forth the excellencies of God" in the lightsomeness and spirituality of His people. Such is to be the ministry of the spiritual society which our Father will create out of His reconciled and sanctified children. Such is to be the "spiritual house," built up of "living stones," and having as its one and only foundation Jesus Christ, our Lord. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 10: 01.08. 1PE_2:11-17 -- THE MINISTRY OF SEEMLY BEHAVIOUR ======================================================================== 1 Peter 2:11-17 -- The Ministry Of Seemly Behaviour 1 Peter 2:11-17 -- Beloved, I beseech you as sojourners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul; having your behaviour seemly among the Gentiles; that, wherein they speak against you as evil-doers, they may by your good works, which they behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. Be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as sent by him for vengeance on evil-doers and for praise to them that do well. For so is the will of God, that by well-doing ye should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: as free, and not using your freedom for a cloke of wickedness, but as bondservants of God. Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king. THIS is an appeal for the evangelising influences of a chaste and winsome character. It is an apostolic entreaty to consider the immeasurable momentum of a beautiful life. It is a glorification of the silent witness of saintliness. It is not given to all men to have the faculty and function of the prophet, his clear sight, and his power of fruitful interpretation, The persuasive, wooing speech, of the evangelist is not an element in the common endowment. The evangelist and the prophet may be only infrequent creations, and their gifts may have only a limited distribution. But we may all exercise the ministry of beauty. Every man may be an ambassador of life, discharging his office through the medium of holiness. Every man may be an evangelist in the domain of character, distributing his influence through the odour of sanctity, in seemliness of behaviour, in exquisite fitness of speech, in finely finished and well-proportioned life. This is a ministry for every body, the apostleship of spiritual beauty. And so in the passage before us the apostle is engaged in delineating the features of the character that tells. He is depicting a forceful life. He is exhibiting the behaviour which is influential in leading men to reverent thought and religious inquiry and spiritual conviction. What are these public aspects of the sanctified life? By what kind of living can we best arouse the interest of the world in the claims and kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? How may we become powerful evangelists, even though we have been denied the gift of tongues? How may we arrest the world in fruitful wonder? Let us seek the answer in the apostolic word. "Abstain from fleshly lusts." (1 Peter 2:11) That is the first note in the forceful life. Do not let us so narrow its interpretation that the majority of us escape the grip of the apostle’s injunction. Let us attribute a comprehensive content to the unwelcome word "lust." Lust includes the entire army of unclean forces which are antagonistic to the exalted realm of the spirit. It includes not only the carnal desire, but the jealous eye and the itching palm. It comprehends every form of heated and feverish motion which is destructive of spiritual treasure. Fleshly lust is anything in the life which steams the windows of the spirit. Fleshly lust is therefore inclusive of envy, jealousy, avarice, insatiable selfishness, and immoderate ambition. "Abstain from fleshly lusts," from any excessive heat which maintains its fire by consuming the furniture of the soul. Now, what is this but a plea for the ascendency of spirit? It is a plea for the magnificent passion of moderation, and for the imposing grace of a noble self-restraint. "Abstain from fleshly lusts." Do not let any fire get outside the bars. Do not let the flames reach the furniture. Hold everything in its place. Suffer no usurpation. Do not let the lower supplant the higher. Rigidly observe the distinction of subject and sovereign, and preserve the purity of the throne. Such is the all-inclusive meaning of the apostolic counsel. In the constitution of man there is a Divine order. His powers are arranged in ranks and gradations. The science of life is the doctrine of gradation; the art of living is the recognition of gradation. I suppose that George Combe did a great service to the cause of practical thinking when, seventy years ago, he wrote his work on The Constitution of Man. I am not aware that there was anything new in the philosophy of the book. It only confirmed the teaching of the entire range of philosophy stretching back from his own day to the days of Socrates and Plato. And what was the teaching? That the powers of the human personality are arranged in heightening gradation, and that the secret of beautiful living consists in awarding to each rank its own precise and peculiar value. The service rendered by George Combe consisted in the attempt to make this philosophy a plain, practical rule for common life. I find in the resources of my personality regiments of diverse, powers. I find vital forces, affectional forces, social forces, moral forces, spiritual forces. I find elements whose kinship is with the swine, and I find elements which have the lustre and the preciousness of pearls. "What is the art of successful and forceful living. "Give not that which, is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine." Do not treat swine and pearls as though they were of equal value. Recognise an aristocracy among the powers, and to them give the preference and the sovereignty. When there are two calls in the life, the bark of the dog and a voice from the sanctuary, "give not that which is holy unto the dogs," but ever keep the lowest under the severe jurisdiction of the highest. "Abstain from fleshly lusts." Do not allow any lower power to prowl about in loose licentiousness. Keep the chain on. "Let your moderation be known unto all men." Exercise the ministry of a well-ordered life. Let all the powers in the life be well drilled, well disciplined, healthily ranked, each one in its place, from the private soldier up to the commander-in-chief. "Abstain from fleshly lusts." The primary characteristic of forceful, influential character is the ascendency of the spirit. (1 Peter 2:13-14) "Be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as sent by him for vengeance on evil-doers and for praise to them that do well." That is the second element that tells--"Be subject to every ordinance . . . to the king . . . or unto governors!" Is there any suggestion of forcefulness in the counsel? It appears to indicate the .cringing obedience of boneless weaklings. I thought that the influential character was conspicuous for its beauty. Is there anything of beauty in this apparent servility? John Ruskin has told us that one of the primary elements of beauty is the element of repose. But he is careful to explain that by repose he does not mean the weak passivity of a pebble lying upon the highway, but the repose of a mountain, with its protruding rocks revealing themselves like gigantic muscles. It is repose suggestive of might, hinting of splendid power in reserve. May we translate the axiom into our interpretation of spiritual beauty? Spiritual beauty must not have the repose and passivity of a pebble: it must display muscle, and be suggestive of irresistible strength. Character that tells must be the ally of power. Its very sub missions must be indicative of strong nobility. Its bendings must not be the bendings of the invertebrate, but the voluntary, reasonable homage of a splendid will. What, then, is all this about, this submitting to ordinances and kings and governors? Whatever else it may mean, it is not the bending of reeds, but the devotion of giants. Here, I think, is the secret. A Christian man is one who clearly recognises the necessity of social order. The sanctity of society is a cardinal element in his faith. The hallowing of human relationship is not one whit behind the hallowing of himself. The ultimate purpose of redemption is to make an orderly family out of a disorderly race. The Christian will not stand aloof from his fellows. He will not walk the lonely way of isolation, or assume an attitude of selfish aggression. He will not maintain a stern individualism, in which the claims and rights of others are ignored. He will recognise the hallowedness of social fellowships, and he will strongly accept his social obligations. He will bend himself to the discharge of civic duties, and put his shoulder beneath the responsible burden of national life. He will fit himself into the social order, into the body corporate, and he will willingly share his blood in the common life. If this be evangelistic character, the character that tells upon "the Gentiles," then Christian life is not perfected and beautified where the hallowing of the social order is ignored. When civic duty is neglected, and national obligation is overlooked, the fair circle of spiritual devotion is broken. "Be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake . . . to the king . . . or unto governors." Bend your strength into an intelligent obedience which will be creative of a larger and more fruitful corporate life. I have no personal doubt as to what we should do with kings and governors if their rule minister to moral chaos and disorder. The sovereignty is only hallowed when it works to hallowed ends. If this predominant purpose is violated by the supreme king or governor, a man’s very reverence for social sanctities will transform him into a rebel. It was because our fathers were possessed by hallowed civic instincts, and by a burning eagerness for pure and righteous corporate life, that they hurled Charles I. from the throne, and in his rejection and dethronement pledged their souls to a deepened devotion to the sovereignty of God. A primary characteristic of forceful, evangelistic character is the serious recognition of the sanctity of corporate life. "As free, and not using your freedom for a cloke of wickedness, but as bondservants of God." (1 Peter 2:16) Here is another aspect of the influential life--"Using your freedom . . . as bondservants." All privilege is used with a sense of responsibility. All exercise is taken "as ever in the great Task master’s eye." No freedom is permitted to become licence. Every liberty is under the dominion of a fine restraint. "Why, a sense of responsibility and restraint is essential even to the appreciation of freedom itself. Restraint is always creative of refined perceptions, The ascetic can discern finer flavours than the glutton. The man who puts reins upon his appetite has a more delightful appreciation of his food. He must be a bondslave to appreciate his freedom. It is even so with every manner of freedom. It is only responsible exercise that discovers their luxurious essence. Licence, in any kind of freedom, works to coarseness, to injury, and to waste. Is this word altogether inopportune for our own day? Are there no alluring freedoms which may entice us into licence? Freedom of thought! "Use your freedom as the bondservants of God." No man has a right to think as he likes. No man has a right to think about the unworthy, or to contemplate the unclean. In the domain of the mind, it is the man who angles in narrow waters who has the wealthiest haul. Freedom of speech! "Use your freedom as the bondservants of God." Exercise it with severe restrictions. "Let no communication proceed out of your mouth but what is edifying." In all these freedoms the element of responsibility is the saving salt, and sometimes the element of responsibility will cause the freedom to be unused. If a man resign his freedom to take intoxicating drink that he may the better minister to an imperilled brother, I cannot but think that in reality he is no bondslave, but the Lord’s freeman, and that his deed will not appear unworthy when it is placed in the searching rays of the Eternal Light. In the character that tells, the responsible use of freedom is a great and influential factor. "Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king." (1 Peter 2:17) "Honour all men!" The injunction includes the entire circle of human relationships. "Honour!" "Fear!" "Love!" What do the counsels mean except this--that our entire life is to be passed in the exercise of an all-inclusive reverence. We are to move about in the spirit of homage, expecting that at any time, and anywhere, we may come upon crowned sovereignties before which it will be well for us to bow in serious and grateful regard. If we are irreverent, monarchs will be continually passing us, but they will not be known. They will pass "like ships in the night." Reverence is the very spirit of perception. Frivolity has no eyes, and so it bestows no honour. Censoriousness is blind, and so is never aroused into love. Pride walks with a heavy veil. The cocksure never rest in the deep quietness of the Divine certainties. It is the man who walks in reverence, the man who feels the mystery of all things, whether he be contemplating common men or kings or God, who enters into the secret treasure-house, and discovers unsuspected wealth. We should see more in one another if the angel of reverence dwelt near the springs of our life. It is the man who stands in reverence before flowers, and little children, and his own loved ones, and his leaders, and his God, to whom are revealed the secret essences which turn life into a garden of unspeakable delights. These, then, are some of the characteristics of the "seemly behaviour," which, working through the medium of holiness, proclaim the glory of God the ascendency of spirit, the aspiration after social sanctity, the responsible use of freedom, and the ceaseless exercise of reverence. These are the primary aspects of the forceful life which works mightily in the evangelisation of the world. As to what would be the issues of such a life the apostle proclaims a triumphant hope. "The Gentiles," (1 Peter 2:12) the great unleavened mass of men, "by your good works, which they behold," shall "glorify God in the day of visitation." The beautiful life is to raise their thoughts in homage to the glorious God. When they behold the Divine realised in the human, they too are to be wooed into heavenly fellowships. They are to be wooed, not by the eloquence of our speech, but by the radiance of our behaviour. By the imposing grace of noble living we are to "put to silence the ignorance of foolish men," (1 Peter 2:15) and that silence will be for them the first stage in a life of aspiring consecration. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 11: 01.09. 1PE_2:21-25 -- THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST ======================================================================== 1 Peter 2:21-25 -- The Sufferings Of Christ 1 Peter 2:21-25 -- For hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that ye should follow His steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth: who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously: who His own self bare our sins in His body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were going astray like sheep; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. "Christ also suffered . . . who did no sin." (1 Peter 2:21-22) The two phrases must be conjoined if either is to receive an adequate interpretation. The earlier term discloses its significance by the light of the later term. If we would know the content and intensity of the suffering, we must know the character of the sufferer. "Christ also suffered." (1 Peter 2:21) The word is indeterminate until I know the quality of His life. Suffering is a relative term. The measure of its acuteness is determined by the degree of our refinement. The same burden weighs unequally on different men. Lower organisation implies diminished sensitiveness The higher the organisation the finer becomes the nerve, and the finer the nerve the more delicate becomes the exposure to pain. The more exquisite the refinement, the more exquisite is the pang. I do not limit the principle to the domain of the flesh. It is a matter of familiar knowledge that in the body it is regnant. There are bodies in which the nerves seem atrophied or still-born, and there are bodies in which the nerves abound like masses of exquisitely sensitive pulp. But the diversity runs up into the higher endowments of the life, into the aesthetic and affectional and spiritual domains of the being. The man of little aesthetic refinement knows nothing of the aches and pains created by ugliness and discord. The rarer organisation is pierced and wounded by every jar and obliquity. It is even so in the realm of the affections. Where affection burns low, neglect and inattention are unnoticed; where love burns fervently, neglect is a martyrdom. If we rise still higher into the coronal dominions of the life, into the domain of moral and spiritual sentiments, we shall find that the degree of rectitude and holiness determines the area of exposure to the wounding, crucifying ministry of vulgarity and sin. "Christ also suffered . . . who did no sin." We must interpret the rarity and refinement of His spirit if we would even faintly realise the intensity of His sufferings. "Who did no sin, (1 Peter 2:22) neither was guile found in His mouth." "No sin!" The fine, sensitive membrane of the soul had in nowise been scorched by the fire of iniquity. "No sin!" He was perfectly pure and healthy. No power had been blasted by the lightning of passion. No nerve had been atrophied by the wasting blight of criminal neglect. The entire surface of His life was as finely sensitive as the fair, healthy skin of a little child. "Neither was guile found in His mouth." (1 Peter 2:22) There was no duplicity. There were no secret folds or convolutions in His life concealing ulterior motives. There was nothing underhand. His life lay exposed in perfect truthfulness and candour. The real, inner meaning of His life was presented upon a plain surface of undisturbed simplicity. "No sin!" Therefore nothing blunted or benumbed. "No guile!" Therefore nothing hardened by the effrontery of deceit. I ask you to try to imagine the immense area which such a life laid open to the wounding implements of un faithfulness and sin. Now, it is a Scriptural principle that all sin is creative of insensitiveness. "The wages of sin is death," deadened faculty, impaired perception. "His leaf shall wither!" Sin is a blasting presence, and every fine power shrinks and withers in the destructive heat. Every spiritual delicacy succumbs to its malignant touch. I suppose that Scripture has drawn upon every sense for analogies in which to express the ravages of sin in the region of perception. Sin impairs the sight, and works towards blindness. Sin benumbs the hearing and tends to make men deaf. Sin perverts the taste, causing men to confound the sweet with the bitter, and the bitter with the sweet. Sin hardens the touch, and eventually renders a man "past feeling." All these are Scriptural analogies, and their common significance appears to be this--sin blocks and chokes the fine senses of the spirit; by sin we are desensitised, rendered imperceptive, and the range of our correspondence is diminished. Sin creates callosity. It hoofs the spirit, and so reduces the area of our exposure to pain. "Who did no sin!" No part of His being had been rendered insensitive. No perception had been benumbed by any callous overgrowth. Put the slightest pressure upon the Master’s life, and you awoke an exquisite nerve. "And they disputed one with another who should be greatest." . . . "And Jesus perceiving their thoughts!" How sensitive the perception! The touch of a selfish thought crushed upon the nerve, and stirred it into agony. Such is the sensitiveness of sinlessness, and in this vulgar, selfish, and sinful world it could not be but that the Sinless One should be "a Man of Sorrows," and that He should pass through pangs and martyrdoms long before He reached the appalling midnight of Gethsemane and Calvary. "Christ also suffered . . . who did no sin." Now, let us watch this sensitive Sufferer, so quick and apprehensive in every nerve, and let us contemplate the nature of some of the sufferings He endured. "He was reviled." (1 Peter 2:23) Give the word its requisite intensity. He was vilified, vituperated, slandered!" What was the shape of the reviling? He was denounced as a liar! "He deceiveth the people." Why, even with our blunt and benumbed consciousness, there is no charge like falsehood for tearing us with poignant pain. There is no word which pierces to the quick and stabs the very marrow, like the awful word "liar!" But to the Pure One, with His unimpaired perception, and in whose life the truth lay as fair and white as newly fallen snow, the charge of falsehood would create unutterable pain. "Christ also suffered," being reviled. What was the shape of the revilings? "This man blasphemeth!" This meek and lowly Being, walking ever in the stoop of reverence, seeking ever to be well pleasing to His Father, now charged, by those He came to save, with irreverent and sacrilegious speech. His sacred ministry belied as profanity! "He hath a devil, and is mad!" "He casteth out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils!" This holy and sensitive Christ, whose one evangel was to tell men of His own sweet companionship with the Father, and whose one mission was to raise them into the delights of the same eternal fellowship, now charged with living in league with the devil, the evil despotism from which He sought to deliver them! It is the proof of our own benumbment if we do not feel that such accusations resulted in spiritual crucifixion. "He was reviled . . . He suffered." (1 Peter 2:23) The suffering covers the whole scope of the Passion, from the dull pangs of the physical crucifixion to the sharper and more terrible pangs of the crucifixion of the spirit. Now, I say, take this Man of the sinless, guileless life; let Him move amid the chaos of selfishness, the riot of lustfulness, the cruelty of thoughtlessness, the chilling insults of studied neglect and contempt; let Him be made the victim of incivility; let there be withheld from Him the common courtesies; let Him be denied the hospitable kiss, and the kindly gift of water for His tired feet; let rough men roughly handle Him; let them mock Him and deride Him; and as the very consummation of coarse vulgarity, let them go up to this Man of exquisite refinement, and spit in His face, and then let them subject Him to all the howling, laughing brutality of the crucifixion,--I say, watch all this, gaze steadily upon it, look long upon all its repellent offensiveness, and while you keep in mind the exquisite sensitiveness of the Sufferer, you will enter with a little more power of interpretation into that familiar cry, "Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow!" "His visage was so marred more than any man." "He was a Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief." We may not know, we cannot tell, What pains He had to bear. How did the Lord endure His sufferings? "When He was reviled, He reviled not again." (1 Peter 2:23) The bitter attack was not creative of bitter retaliation. The hurled venom did not poison His springs. Amid the environing bitterness the Man of Nazareth remained sweet. I have sometimes heard bitter retaliation justified on the plea that even the sweetest milk will turn sour under the influence of a prolonged storm. I am doubtful of the accuracy of the physical analogy, but I am confident of the inaccuracy of the spiritual inference. It is possible for "the milk of human kindness" to be kept sweet in the most tempestuous weather. "When He was reviled, He reviled not again." Is the example too remote? Come down, then, from the high, cool altitudes of the Master’s abode, and let us see if the milk can be kept sweet in the presumably more sultry vales of common men. Here is a man with a stormy, tempestuous life,--"in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent. . . . Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. . . . Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned . . . in weariness, in painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness!" Did the milk keep sweet? All these things he suffered of the Jews. When he was reviled, did he revile again? "I could wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh!" "My heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they may be saved!" I thought that out of the heart of the tempest I might hear the angry shout of retaliation; instead of which I hear a sweet and self-forgetful prayer, sounding like silvery village bells in a night of storm. The spirit was not embittered. The milk was not soured. The apostle was just the Master over again. "When He suffered, He threatened not." (1 Peter 2:23) There was no violent menace in the Master’s life. There was no dark, fateful hinting of a day of vengeance. There was no sullen, angry biding of His time for the season of retaliation. He remained quiet, unembittered, sweet, and "committed Himself," in happy confidence, and with ever-increasing assurance, "to Him that judgeth righteously." Such was the Sufferer, such were His sufferings, and such the way in which He endured them. What were the fruits of this transcendent endurance? If I were even to attempt to give an exhaustive reply to the great inquiry, I should have to quote the New Testament record from end to end. On every page one can find the enumeration and catalogue of the gracious fruits. Their proclamation is the New Testament glory. But just look at the pregnant summary given by the apostle Peter in the passage of our text. "Christ also suffered . . . that we might live." (1 Peter 2:24) What is the significance of the word? Out of His sufferings there issues a vital energy for the reviving and enlivening of the race. It is evidence whose testimony cannot be ignored that when the heart is crushed with sin, and is sinking under the burden, it turns its eyes to those scenes in the Saviour’s life where His sufferings are most abounding. Men in whose vitals the poison of the devil is dwelling, and whose spiritual force is ebbing away, do not tarry at Bethlehem, or even upon the great Mount where the great teaching was given. They make their way to Gethsemane and Calvary. It is when we are feeling respectable that Calvary has no allurement. But when the heart is bleeding in unclean tragedy, when life ceases to be a debating society topic, a light subject of controversy for a quiet summer’s eve, when the burden of sin weighs down upon us with heavy and intolerable load, it is then we follow the pilgrim band along the well-trodden way to Gethsemane and Calvary, that in the fellowship of the august Sufferer we might discover the vital energy of a restored and reinvigorated life. "Christ also suffered . . . that we might live." "By whose stripes ye were healed." (1 Peter 2:24) Do not let us overlook the experience because we cannot find an explanation. Do not let us reject the fact because we cannot contrive a theory. The sorest places in human life, the raw, festering wounds of indwelling sin, can only be remedially touched by the healing influence of His stripes. The miracle is repeated every day. The sufferer from sin turns for release to the suffering Christ. There is a strange allurement about "the Man of Sorrows " to which the common heart bears witness. "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me!" The word proclaims the magnetic influence of the uplifted, suffering Christ. "Ye were going astray like sheep; but are now returned"; (1 Peter 2:25) ye have come home again, wooed and allured by the wondrous spectacle of a suffering God! Such are the issues of the calm endurance of this sensitive Sufferer--vital energies, full of reviving and healing ministry, wooing us back to God. And now this unspeakable ministry of suffering is proclaimed as an example to all men. "Christ also suffered, leaving you an example, that ye should follow His steps." (1 Peter 2:21) Do not let us shrink from the tremendous sequence. If the calm, strong endurance of the Master has been creative of transcendently blessed ministry, so our endurance will be productive of vital powers which will work for the enrichment of Verses the race. "Do well." (1 Peter 2:19-21) Have "conscience toward God." "Follow His steps." Let no revilings make thee desist, let no sufferings turn thee sour, and thy very endurance shall make thee a large contributor to the co-operative forces of the kingdom of God. To remain sweet under coarse reviling is to be a fountain of healing energy. To remain unselfishly prayerful in the presence of menace is to bring currents of heavenly air into the atmosphere of common life. All fine endurance is a force of renewal, which contributes its quota of energy to the ultimate emancipation of the race. I am glad that this superlative passage springs out of counsel to a slave. I am glad that these stupendous heights are connected by a well-made road with this very lowly estate. I am glad that the endurance of Jesus is placarded before a slave. The apostle tells the slave that he too may be an element and factor in the universal emancipation and redemption. The slave may accomplish more by calm endurance than by hasty, precipitate revolt. Fine, noble endurance is energy--an energy which raises the common temperature, and to raise the temperature will more effectively remove the burden of icy bondage than the hasty attacks of ten thousand men armed with the pickaxe of premature revolt. Let us do well; let us have conscience towards God; let us endure, if need be, the contradiction of sinners; let us persist even through sufferings, and, by the very nobility of our endurance, we shall be leavening the world with the emancipating forces of the Christian redemption. "Christ also suffered, leaving you an example." "The things which happened unto me have turned out rather unto the furtherance of the Gospel." "If we suffer we shall also reign with Him." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 12: 01.10. 1PE_3:1-8 -- WIVES AND HUSBANDS ======================================================================== 1 Peter 3:1-8 -- Wives And Husbands 1 Peter 3:1-8 -- In like manner, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, even if any obey not the word, they may without the word be gained by the behaviour of their wives; beholding your chaste behaviour coupled with fear. Whose adorning let it not be the outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing jewels of gold, or of putting on apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptible apparel of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner aforetime the holy women also, who hoped in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands: as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose children ye now are, if ye do well, and are not put in fear by any terror. Ye husbands, in like manner, dwell with your wives according to knowledge, giving honour unto the woman, as unto the weaker vessel, as being also joint-heirs of the grace of life; to the end that your prayers be not hindered. Finally, be ye all likeminded, compassionate, loving as brethren, tenderhearted, humbleminded. WHERE shall we begin our interpretation of this influential passage? The starting-place of the exposition has much to do with the character and quality of its issues. Everybody knows the starting-place of a superficial and short-sighted curiosity. It fastens its primary attention upon the words "subjection," "fear," "obedience." These are the words which are regarded as the points of emphasis. Around these words the interest gathers and culminates. The rest of the broad passage is secondary, and takes its colour from their determination. I propose to reverse the order. We will begin with the broad significance of the passage, and then reason backwards to the content of the individual words. We will gaze upon the entire face, and then take up the interpretation of single features. If we begin with the words "subjection," "fear," "obedience," with no helpful clue of interpretation, we shall have a perverted and destructive conception of the dignity of womanhood. But if we begin with the broad, general portraiture of the wife and the husband, their mutual relationships will stand revealed as in the clear light of a radiant noon. In the passage for exposition the apostle delineates some of the spiritual characteristics of the ideal husband and the ideal wife. Let us quietly gaze at the portraiture, if perchance some of its beauty may steal into our spirits, and hallow common life with the light and glory of the blessed God. Where does the apostle begin in his portraiture of the ideal wife? "Chaste behaviour." (1 Peter 3:2) The first element in worthy womanhood is the wearing of the white robe. The spirit is perfectly clean. "The King’s daughter is all glorious within." All her powers consort together like a white-robed angel-band. In every room of her life one can find the fair linen, "clean and white." In the realm of the imagination her thoughts hover and brood like white doves. In the abode of motive her aspirations are as sweet and pure as the breathings of a little child. In the home of feeling, her affections are as incorruptible as rays of light. If you move among the powers of her speech, on the threshold of her lips you will find no stain, no footprint of "anything that defileth or worketh abomination, or maketh a lie." In the inner life of the ideal woman, no unclean garment can be found, for everything wears the white robe. The spirit is "chaste." But chasteness is more than cleanliness. The stone is not only white, it is chiselled into delicacy. Character is not left in the rough; it is refined into thoughtful finish. The substance is not only pure, it is worked into beauty. It is not only true in matter, it is consummated in exquisite manner. If the analogy of purified womanhood is to be found in the whiteness of the snow, its finish is to be found in the graceful curves and forms of the snowdrift. "Chaste behaviour" is just the refined purity of all the activities of the inner life. Refined purity is therefore the primary element in the ideal wife, and it is the first essential in human communion. There can be no vital communion where both the communicants are not clean. "When dirt intrudes, fellowship is destroyed. Corruption is the antagonist of cohesion. "The wicked shall not stand." Their very uncleanness eats up the consistency and brings the structure to ruin. "When uncleanness breaks out in the family circle, the family cannot "stand." If envy take up its abode, or jealousy, or any type of carnal desire, the fair and beautiful circle is broken. The great family of the redeemed, "the multitude whom no man can number," are one in the wearing of the "white robe." Their consistency and solidarity are found in their purity, and in the absence of all the alienating forces of uncleanness and defilement. It is not otherwise in the relationship of husband and wife. The wearing of the white robe is the primary essential to their communion. "Keep thy garments always white"! Does the ideal appear insuperable? Then let me proclaim another word: "They shall walk with Me in white!" That is not a command; the words enshrine a promise. "Walking with Me, they shall be white." The whiteness is the result of the companionship. "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean." The sprinkling is not a transitory act; it is a permanent shower. The forces of the cleansing Spirit are sprayed upon our powers just as the antiseptic is sprayed upon the exposed wound to ward off and destroy the subtle forces of contamination and defilement. To be a companion of the Lord is to have the assurance of purity. "The fear of the Lord is clean." What is the second element in the portraiture 1 Peter 3:4 of the ideal wife? "A meek and quiet spirit." (1 Peter 3:4) There is nothing cringing or servile in the disposition. It is infinitely removed from the saddening, paralysing obeisance of the slave. "I am meek," cries the Master; and can we detect anything fawning or fearful about the Son of Man? In the interpretation of the great word, let us eliminate from our minds every suggestion of servility and servitude. Meekness is just the opposite to self-aggressiveness and violent self-assertion. Meekness is just self-suppression issuing in beneficent service. Meekness does not tread the narrow path of a selfish ambition, tending only to some self-enriching end. Meekness takes broad, inclusive ways to large and unselfish ends. Meekness seeks the enrichment of life through the comprehension of the many. Self-assertion may appear to succeed, but it never really wins. It may gain a telescope, but it loses an eye. It may win an estate, but it loses the sense of the landscape. It may gain in goods what it loses in power. "It may gain the whole world, and lose its own soul." The meek are the only true "heirs." They gain an ever finer perceptiveness, and life reveals itself in richer perfumes and flavours and essences with every passing day. "The meek shall inherit the earth." "A meek and quiet spirit." A quiet spirit! The opposite to that which we describe as "loud." The "loud" woman is the ostentatious woman, moving about in broad sensations. "He shall not cry"; there was nothing loud about Him, quite an absence of the scream: "neither shall any man hear His voice in the streets"; there shall be nothing about Him of the artifice of self-advertisement. The Master was never "loud," and so He was a most winsome and welcome companion. The "loud" woman is never companionable. The difference between a "loud" woman and a woman of "quiet spirit" is the difference between fireworks and sunshine, between a quiet, genial glow and a crackling bonfire. The apostle contrasts the "quiet spirit" with the love of sensational attire and loud adornments, the disposition to arrest attention by vulgar dazzle and display. The disposition is a fatal foe to real communion. After all, we cannot bask in the glare of fireworks; we rejoice in the quiet sunlight. Home is made of quiet materials, and one of the elements in the constitution of beautiful wedded fellowship is "a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price." What is the third element in the portraiture of the ideal wife? "Not put in fear by any terror" How shall I describe the disposition? Let me call it the grace of repose. "Not put in fear by any terror." (1 Peter 3:6) They are not the victims of "sudden, wild alarms." They are not easily aroused into the fearfulness which is so often the parent of thoughtlessness. They have reposefulness of spirit. Now, if I may be allowed to say it, I think this fearfulness is more characteristic of women than of men. There are larger enemies inside the gates of men’s gardens; but in the garden of woman’s life, I think that the heat of fearfulness and the slugs of worry and fretfulness will be found to be more abounding. Fearfulness is destructive of the deeper delights of human fellowship. Restfulness is essential to deep and fruitful communion. What are the lineaments of the ideal husband? "Dwell with your wives according to knowledge." (1 Peter 3:7) How shall we describe the characteristic? Let us call it the atmosphere of reasonableness. "According to knowledge." We may grasp its content by proclaiming its opposite: "Dwell with your wives according to ignorance. Just walk in blindness. Don’t look beyond your own desires. Let your vision be entirely introspective and microscopic. Never exercise your eyes in clear and comprehensive outlook. Dwell in ignorance!" No, says the apostle, "dwell according to knowledge." Keep your eyes open. Let reason be alert and active. Let all your behaviour be governed by a sweet reasonableness. Don’t let appetite determine a doing. Don’t let thy personal wish have the first and last word. Exalt thy reason! Give sovereignty to thy reason! Be thoughtful and unceasingly considerate. It is the absence of this prevailing spirit of reasonableness which has marred and murdered many a bright and fair-promising communion. "He is not really bad at heart, but he doesn’t think!" That is the fatal defect. He does not think! He dwells according to ignorance; his reason is asleep, and the beautiful, delicate tie of wedded fellowship is smitten, wounded, and eventually destroyed. "Giving honour unto the woman, as unto the weaker vessel." (1 Peter 3:7) Giving honour, paying homage, bowing down in the spirit in the posture of serious and religious regard. To the atmosphere of reasonableness we are to add the temper of reverence. Now, see the wealthy suggestiveness of this. Reverence implies at least two things--perception and homage. "We must first see a thing before we can pay it regard. We must first behold a dignity before we can pay homage to it. Homage implies perception: perception implies eyes. How are the seeing eyes obtained? Let us lay this down as an axiom: it is only the lofty in character that can discern the spiritual dignities in life. Men of little nature cannot apprehend spiritual magnitudes. John Ruskin has told his countrymen that they are incapable of depicting and portraying the sublime, because they cannot see it! You know his explanation. He says there is in the Englishman’s character an element of burlesque which has shortened and dimmed his sight, and rendered him in capable of discerning the superlative glories of far-off spiritual heights. Whatever may be the quality of the inference, the basal principle is true. Perception implies elevation, and we cannot see the enduring dignities of life unless we ourselves are dignified. To truly revere a woman, a man himself must be good. He must dwell on high. He must abide in the heavenly places in Christ. He must bathe his eyes in heaven, and he will acquire a power of perception which will discern in his wife, and in all womankind, spiritual dignities which will preserve his soul in the abiding posture of lowly and reverent regard. The husband will see in his wife a "joint-heir of the grace of life," (1 Peter 3:7) and in that perception every relationship is hallowed and enriched. The master who sees in his servant a "joint-heir of the grace of life," and the servant who perceives in his master a similarly enthroned dignity, will create between themselves a relationship which will be the channel of "the river of the water of life." "Give honour unto the woman," and to preserve that sense of reverent perceptiveness, a man must dwell in "the secret place of the most High." "What is the last lineament in this ideal portraiture? How else must the husband live? "That your payers be not hindered." (1 Peter 3:7) His conduct has to be the helpmeet of his prayers. There has to be no discord between the one and the other. The spirit of his supplications is to be found in his behaviour. When he has been into the garden of the Lord in lonely communion, the fragrance of the flowers has to cling to his garments when he moves about in the common life of the home. Here is a man, living out his own prayers, taking the spirit of his communion into ordinary conduct, so demeaning himself that his highest aspirations may receive fulfilment. "Whatever he prays for he seeks to be, finding a pertinent duty in every supplication. "Who would not covet such a companionship? The character of the ideal husband is just a beautiful commingling of reasonableness and reverence, manifesting itself in conduct which is in harmony with the range and aspirations of his prayers. Here, then, are the spiritual portraitures of the wife and the husband: on the one hand, the robe of purity, the ornament of modesty, the grace of repose; on the other hand, an atmosphere of reasonableness, the temper of reverence, and the conformity of conduct and prayer. What, now, in the light of such relationships, can be the content of such terms as "subjection," "obedience," "fear"? The partners are a wife, clothed in purity, walking in modesty, with a reposefulness of spirit which reflects the very glory of God; and a husband, walking with his wife according to knowledge, bowing before her in reverence, and pervading all his behaviour with the temper of his secret communion with the Lord. There is no room for lordship, there is no room for servility. The subjection of the one is paralleled by the reverence of the other. I say there is no lordship, only eager helpfulness; there is no subjection, only the delightful ministry of fervent affection. The relationship is a mutual ministry of honour, each willing to be lost in the good and happiness of the other. Wherefore, "subject yourselves one to the other in the fear of Christ," that in the communion of sanctified affection you may help one another into the light and joy and blessedness of the Christian. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 13: 01.11. 1PE_3:8 -- BE PITIFUL ======================================================================== 1 Peter 3:8 -- Be Pitiful 1 Peter 3:8 -- Finally, be ye all likeminded, compassionate, loving as brethren, tenderhearted, humbleminded. "BE PITIFUL!" Here the standard of authority is set up in the realm of sentiment, and obedience is demanded in the domain of feeling! I did not anticipate that the Christian imperative would intrude into the kingdom of the feelings. I thought that feelings would lie quite outside the sphere of authority. I thought that feelings could not be made to order, and yet here is an order in which their creation is commanded! "Be pitiful!" I could have understood a commandment which dealt with the external incidents and manifestations of life. I should not have been surprised had there been laid upon me the obligation of hospitality--hospitality may be commanded. But then, hospitality need not touch the border lands of feeling. Hospitality may be generous and plentiful, and yet noble and worthy feeling may be absent. Hospitality may be a matter of form, and therefore it can be done to order. I should not have been surprised had I been commanded to show beneficence. Beneficence may be exercised while sentiment is numb. It is possible to have such a combination as callous prodigality. Beneficence may therefore be created by authority. But here in my text the imperative command enters the secret sanctuary of feeling. It is not concerned with external acts: it is concerned with internal disposition. It is not primarily a service which is commanded, but a feeling. But can feelings be made to order? Charity can: can pity? Labour can: can love? "This is My commandment, that ye love one another." "Love one another with a pure heart fervently." "Be kindly affectioned one to another." "Be pitiful." The order is clear and imperative: can I obey it? Authority commands me to be pitiful: then can pity be created by an immediate personal fiat? Can I say to my soul, "Soul, the great King commands thee to be arrayed in pity; bring out, therefore, the tender sentiment and adorn thyself with it as with a robe"? Or can a man say to himself, "Go to; this day I will array myself in love, and I will distribute influences of sweet and pure affection! I will unseal my springs of pity, and the gentle waters shall flow softly through all my common affairs"? Such mechanicalised affection would have no vitality, and such pity would be merely theatrical--of no more reality or efficacy than the acted pity of the stage. Feelings cannot rise matured at the mere command of the will. But, now, while I may not be able to produce the sentiment of pity by an act of immediate creation, can I rear it by a thoughtful and reasonable process? I cannot create an apple, but I can plant an apple-tree. I cannot create a flower, but I can create the requisite conditions. I can sow the seed, I can give the water, I can even arrange the light. I can devote to the culture thoughtful and ceaseless care; and he who sows and plants and waters and tends is a fellow-labourer with the Eternal in the creation of floral beauty. What we cannot create by a fiat we may produce by a process. It is even so with the sentiments. Feelings cannot be effected at a stroke; they emerge from prepared conditions. Pity is not the summary creation of the stage; it is the long-sought product of the school. It is not the offspring of a spasm; it is the child of discipline. Pity is the culmination of a process; it is not stamped as with a die, it is grown as a fruit. The obligation therefore centres round about the process; the issues belong to my Lord. Mine is the planting, mine the watering, mine the tending; God giveth the increase. When, therefore, I hear the apostolic imperative, "Be pitiful!" I do not think of a stage, I think of a garden; I do not think of a manufactory, I think of a school. Let us now consider the process. "Be pitiful!" That is the expression of a fine feeling; and if life is to be touched to such exquisite issues, life itself must be of fine material. Fine characteristics imply fine character. You will not get fine porcelain out of pudding-stone. The exquisiteness of the result must be hidden in the original substance. If you want rare issues, you must have fine organic quality. Some things are naturally coarser than others, and there are varying scales of refinement in their products. The timber that would make a good railway sleeper would not be of the requisite texture for the making of violins. I saw, only a little while ago, the exposed hearts of many varieties of Canadian timber. In some the grain was coarse and rough; in others the grain was indescribably close and compact, presenting a surface almost as fine as the rarest marble. Their organic qualities were manifold, and their destinations were as manifold as their grain. Some passed to rough-and-tumble usage; others passed to the ministry and expression of the finest art. These organic distinctions are equally pronounced when we ascend to the plane of animal life. The differing grains of timber find their analogy in the differing constitutions of an ordinary dray-horse and an Arab steed. You cannot harness the two beasts to the same burden and work. The sensitive responsiveness of the one, its quivering, trembling alertness, makes it fitted for ministries in which the other would find no place. It is again the repetition of the chaste porcelain and the common mug. It is not otherwise when we reach the plane of man. There is the same difference in grain. Our organic qualities are manifold. Look at the difference in our bodies. Some have bodies that are coarse and rough, dull and heavy, with little or no fine apprehension of the beauty and perfume and essences of the material world. Others have bodies of the finest qualities, alert and sensitive, responding readily to the coming and going of the exquisite visitors who move in sky or earth, on land and sea. In our bodies we appear to differ as widely as Caliban and Ariel--the thing of the ditch, and the light and buoyant creature of the air. Now, dare we push our investigation further? Do these organic differences appertain to the realm of the soul? Are there not souls which seem to be rough-grained, organically and spiritually coarse? The very substance of their being, the basis of motive and thought and feeling and ambition, is inherently vulgar, and they seem incapable of these finer issues of tender pity and chaste affection. Now, where character is rough-grained fine sentiments are impossible. You can no more elicit pity from vulgarity than you can elicit Beethoven’s Sonatas from undressed cat-gut. If we would have fine issues, we must have rare character. If we would have rare pity, we must become refined men. "What, then, can be done? Can we do anything in the way of culture? Can the organic quality be changed? Can we make coarseness retire before the genius of refinement? It is surprising how much we can do in the kingdom of nature. By assiduous care we can transform the harsh and rasping crab-apple into the mild and genial fruit of the table; and we can, by persistent neglect, drive it back again into the coarseness of the wilderness. It is amazing how you can bring a grass-plot under discipline, until even the rank grass seems to seek conformity with the gentler turf; and it is equally amazing how by neglect and indifference you can degrade a lawn into a common field. In the realm of garden and field organic qualities can be changed. Does the possible transformation cease when we reach the kingdom of man? Can dull and heavy bodies be refined? Is it possible to alter the organic quality of a man’s flesh? It is much more possible than the majority of people assume. By thoughtful exercise, by reasonable diet, by firm restraint, by "plain living and high thinking," it is possible to drive the heaviness out of our bodies, and to endow them with that organic refinement which will be the revealing minister of a new world. Can the transformation proceed further? Let me propound the question which is perhaps one of the greatest questions that can come from human lips: Is it possible to go into the roots and springs of character, into the primary spiritual substance which lies behind thought and feeling, and change the organic quality of the soul? If this can be done, the creation of pity is assured! If the coarse fibres of the soul can be transformed into delicate harp-strings, we shall soon have the sweet and responsive music of sympathy and affection! Can it be done? Why, this transformation is the very glory of the Christian evangel! What do we want accomplishing? We want the secret substance of the life chastened and refined, that it may become vibratory to the lives of our fellows. What think you then of this evangel? "He sits as a refiner." And what is the purpose of the Refiner? Let the Apostle Paul supply the answer, "We are renewed by His Spirit in the inner man." The Refiner renews our basal spiritual sub stance, takes away our drossy coarseness, and makes our spirits the ministers of refinement. And what are the conditions of obtaining refinement? The conditions are found in communion: "His Spirit in the inner man": it is fellowship between man and his Maker; it is the companionship of the soul and God. All lofty communion is refining! All elevated companionships tend to make me chaste! What, then, must be the transforming influence of the companionship of the Highest? We can see its ministry in the lives of the saints. Lay your hand upon any one, man or woman, who walks in closest fellowship with the risen Lord, and you will find that the texture of their life is as the choicest porcelain, compared with which all irreligious lives are as coarse and common clay. By communion with the Divine we become "partakers of the Divine nature." In fellowship we find the secret of spiritual refinement, and in spiritual refinement are found the springs of sympathy. To be pitiful we must become good. Our pity is born of our piety. But there is a second step in the process to which I must briefly direct your thought. It is not enough to be organically refined. Refined faculties must be exercised. A man may have a brain of very rare organic quality, and yet the particular function of the brain may be allowed to remain inactive and immature. It is not enough for me to become spiritually refined; I must exercise my refined spirit in the ministry of a large discernment. Now, for the creation of a wise and ready sympathy, there is no power which needs more continuous use than the power of the Imagination. I sometimes think, looking over the wide breadths of common life, that there is no faculty which is more persistently denied its appropriate work. "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." Such vision calls for the exercise of the imagination. "Put yourself in his place." Such transposition demands the ministry of the imagination. If the imagination be not exercised, we offer hospitality to the shrieking sisterhood of bigotry and intolerance. If a pure and refined imagination had been at work, how could an Anglican clergyman have declared that the Nonconformists are "in mad alliance with Anarchists"? And if a refined imagination had been in exercise, how could a Nonconformist have spoken of the Bishops as "caring little for the cause of Christ so long as they could suffocate Dissenters"? How much a refined imagination would have helped in the mutually sympathetic understanding of Pro-Boers and Anti-Boers? When this faculty is sleeping, evil things are very much awake! But for my immediate purpose I am asking for the exercise of the imagination in respect to things which would be otherwise insignificant. Imagination is second sight. Imagination is the eye which sees the unseen. Imagination does for the absent what the eye does for the present. Imagination does for the distant what the eye does for the near. The eye is concerned with surfaces; imagination is busied with depths. The dominion of the eye terminates at the horizon; at the horizon, imagination begins. Imagination is the faculty of realisation; it takes a surface and constructs a cube; it takes statistics, and fashions a life. Here is a surface fact: "Total of patients treated in the Queen’s Hospital during 1901, 31,064." The eye observes the surface fact and passes on, and pity is unstirred. The imagination pauses at the surface, lingers long, if perchance she may comprehend something of its saddening significance. Imagination turns the figures over; 31,064! Then these afflicted folk would fill twenty buildings, each of them the size of the chapel at Carrs Lane. Says Imagination, "I will marshal the pain-ridden, bruised crowd in procession, and they shall pass my window and door, one a minute, one a minute, one a minute! How long will it take the procession to pass? Twenty-one days!" But what of the units of the dark and tearful procession? Imagination gets to work again. Have you a child down? They are like him. Have you a brother falling, or a sister faint and spent? They are like them. Have you known a mother torn and agonised with pain, or a father crushed and broken in his prime? They are like him. Have you gone down the steep way to the death-brink, and left a loved one there? Some of these, too, have been left at the brink, and their near ones are climbing up the steep way again alone! This is how refined imagination works, and, while she works, her sister, Pity, awakes and weeps! But if pity is not to be smothered again, the aroused impulse must be gratified and fed. I know that pity can give "ere charity begins," but charity confirms pity, and strengthens and enriches it. Feelings of pity, which do not receive fulfilment in charity or service, may become ministers of petrifaction. Let our piety be the basis of our pity; let our imagination extend our vision; and from this area of hallowed out look there will arise rivers of gracious sympathy, abundantly succouring the children of pain and grief. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 14: 01.12. 1PE_3:8-15 -- CHRIST SANCTIFIED AS LORD ======================================================================== 1 Peter 3:8-15 -- Christ Sanctified As Lord 1 Peter 3:8-15 -- Finally, be ye all likeminded, compassionate, loving as brethren, tenderhearted, humbleminded: not rendering evil for evil, or reviling for reviling; but contrariwise blessing; for hereunto were ye called, that ye should inherit a blessing. For, He that would love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: and let him turn away from evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears unto their supplication: but the face of the Lord is upon them that do evil. And who is he that will harm you, if ye be zealous of that which is good? But and if ye should suffer for righteousness sake, blessed are ye: and fear not their fear, neither be troubled; but sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord: being ready always to give answer to every man that asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, yet with meekness and fear. "Sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord." (1 Peter 3:15) The heart is a sanctuary. It is a place of worship. Worship is always proceeding. There is a large congregation. Who are the worshippers? Let me name a few. There are our wishes, our ambitions, our motives, our willings. All these are worshippers, bowing in the heart before some enthroned and sovereign Lord. Our dispositions are also among the crowd. All the forces of thought and feeling are mingled in the varied congregation! Go into the sanctuary of any heart, and you will find, kneeling side by side in homage and obeisance, wishes, motives, sentiments, purposes, dispositions, all bowing before some central shrine. "Who is the Lord of the temple? In some temples it is Mammon! He is sanctified as Lord, and round him are kneeling the congregated thoughts, passions, and ambitions, offering him incense, supplication, and praise. Who is the Lord? In some temples it is the Lord of Misrule. He is sanctified as Lord! Chaos reigns, and in riotous disorder the mob of tumultuous thoughts and feelings offer him noisy acclamation. Who is the Lord of the temple? In some temples indifference is en throned. Indifference is sanctified as Lord! The atmosphere is opiated; life is a lounge; everything comes and goes in carelessness; all the worshippers are narcotised in thoughtlessness, or sunk in profound and perilous sleep. Who is the Lord of the temple? In some temples it is the devil. Every worshipper bends in adoration of vice, reciting the liturgy of uncleanness, and every member of the congregation, every thought, every feeling, every ambition, bears upon its forehead the mark of the beast. Who is the Lord of the temple? In some temples it is the Christ. All the assembled forces and powers of the life willingly prostrate themselves in fervent and lowly worship. Every hour of the day there is a worshipper in the radiant temple! Now it is a wish, now a shaping plan, now a completed purpose, now a penitent feeling, now a gay delight--these all stoop in reverent homage before the exalted Christ, and as we always appropriate the worth of the object we worship, the bending congregation of thoughts and sentiments acquire the beauty of the Lord. The worshipping motive is chastened and refined; the kneeling wish is etherealised; the stooping sorrow is transfigured; all the reverent forces of the personality are transformed into children of light. Who is the Lord in the temple? That is the all-determining question. "Sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord." In your temple let the Christ be enthroned. Let everything in the life be made to kneel in that sanctuary. Bring ye everything to the foot of the great white throne. Let the Lord be King!" Little children, keep yourselves from idols." "Sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord." (1 Peter 3:15) That is the creative centre of the passage. All the surrounding context is resultant and consequent. This is the all-originating fountain! Around it are stretches of land, threaded with rivers which are the children of its creative springs. Let us pass from the springs to the rivers. If Christ be sanctified in the heart as Lord, if everything in the deep, secret places of the life bow before His throne, if at Matins and Evensong, and through all the intervening hours of the day, the endless procession of mystic forces in the soul reverently bend to His dominion, what will be the quality of the issues, what will be the striking characteristics of the life? Are you surprised that the apostle’s answer begins with an enumeration of the softer graces: "compassionate, tenderhearted, humbleminded"? (1 Peter 3:8) Did you anticipate that he would begin with attributes more majestic, more manly and commanding? Is it disappointing that the apostle should give emphasis to graces which we commonly associate with women rather than with men? I have called them the softer graces; perhaps I ought to have called them the riper fruit. The ultimate expression of the strongest tree is its sweetest and ripest fruit. The tender, exquisite colour of a ripening acorn is the finest expression of the oak. Hearts of oak reach their finished achievement in the softest hues of their ripest fruit. Manliness is never perfected until it issues in tenderest grace. Therefore I am not surprised to find the apostle giving prominence to the finished and ripened attainments in sanctified life. What, again, are their names? "Compassion" (1 Peter 3:8) The range of a man’s life is just the range of his compassions, which is only another name for the range of his correspondences. Death is just the destruction of all correspondence. The dying lose correspondence after correspondence; nerve after nerve and sense after sense collapse; communications are slowly broken; and by gradual paralysis and benumbment all correspondences end. The measure of my life is determined by the quality and quantity of my correspondences. This is true of the life of the flesh. It is true in the realm of the mind. How much am I in touch with? What is the range of my interests? What are my correspondences? It is true in the domains of the soul. How much do I live? That depends upon my compassion, my responsiveness, my "correspondence." What is the extent of my fellow-feeling? What is my power of apprehending and realising my brother, and by the ministry of an unveiling imagination planting myself in the heart of his interests and estate? That is one of the rarest attainments in the sanctified life. The Lord refines His disciples into compassionateness. He indefinitely enlarges their correspondences. He endows them with sensitive passion, with profundity of feeling. "Deep calleth unto deep," and they maintain fruitful fellowship with the joys and sorrows of their fellow-men. "Tenderheartedness." (1 Peter 3:8) That carries one a step further than compassion. Tenderheartedness is more than correspondence; it is gentle ministry. It includes the service of the tender hand, it not only feels the pains of others; it touches the wounds with exquisite delicacy. Even the pitiful man can be clumsy. Six men may have the sympathy, but only one of the six may be able to touch the wound so as to heal it. The Lord will add a gentle hand to our compassion. He will take away all brusqueness, all spiritual clumsiness, so that in the very ministry of pity we may not "break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax." "Humblemindedness" (1 Peter 3:8) Surely that adds a still richer bloom to the heavenly grace! The Lord will not only give us a heart of compassion; it shall be compassion rid of all brusqueness; it shall also be purged of all superciliousness and pride! It shall be "humbleminded." Even pity may wear some of the garments of pride! There is something bitter and offensive in all compassion which moves in patronage. The Man whose "compassions failed not" was "meek and lowly in heart!" Pity is petrifying when it comes from pride; it is soothing and healing when it flows from the humble mind, and this is the perfected grace of the sanctified life. "Not Tendering evil for evil, or reviling for reviling; but contrariwise blessing." (1 Peter 3:9) Surely that is the perfection of compassion! Compassion may go out on chivalrous errands with sensitive hands and lowly mind, and may meet with ingratitude and angry rebuff from those whom she seeks to serve. When the one we have been compassionately nursing turns and reviles us, and treats our ministry with contempt, how easy it is to become sour and hard, to return reviling for reviling, and to throw up the knightly service with disgust! But the Lord will so perfect the compassion that even in the midst of reviling it will continue in "blessing," and in atmospheres of ingratitude and contempt will toil on in the ministry of "healing them that are bruised." What say you now to these softer graces, these riper fruits of the sanctified life? Are they not a resplendent issue? He who continually, in his heart, sanctifies Christ as Lord, becomes possessed by a compassion which moves in delicate sensitiveness, and in humblemindedness, and which remains sweet and persistent in hostile atmospheres of murmuring and contempt. Now let us turn to the sterner products of the sanctified life. Let us turn to the hearts-of-oak of which the softer graces are the perfected fruit. Let us contemplate the severer virtues, the more commanding strength. "Zealous of that which is good." (1 Peter 3:13) That sounds suggestive of strength! "Clarify your conception of duty! Get it clearly in your eye! Set the good firmly before you! Then be zealous!" Such is the strong, definite virtue which is the fruit of the sanctified life. "Zealous of the good!" You will get the native energy of the word "zealous" if you recall its kinsman "jealous." It is significant of consuming eagerness and ceaseless vigilance. It is suggestive of burning passion. There towers the "good!" The "zealous" soul confronts it, not with faint and timid aspiration, but possessed by a blazing and driving ambition! The strength of his passion is the measure of his defence. You may play tricks with a candle-flame; you must give margin to a bonfire. You may trifle with the lukewarm; who would try it on with the zealot? You may carry an evil suggestion to one man, and quite unembarrassed you may lay it across the threshold of his mind. You may take the suggestion to another man, and before you have got out of the preface you are scorched and consumed. There are lives so sanctified by the indwelling Christ that they blight all evil approaches, and cause them to wither away. Their fire is their defence. That is a wonderful figure employed by the prophet--"clad with zeal as a cloak." The man wears a protective garment of fire! He is secured in his own enthusiasms! He is preserved in the spirit of burning. Now, that burning passion for "that which is good "is one of the strengths of the sanctified life. "Why, our very word "enthusiasm," which is now suggestive of ardour, passion, fire, had no such significance in its earliest day. It literally signifies "in God," and it is because men have found that souls which are united with God are characterised by zeal and fire, that the word has lost its causal content, and is now limited to the description of the effect. The enthusiastic is the fiery, but fiery because in fellowship with God. "He shall baptize . . . with fire." One of the resultant virtues of sanctification is spiritual enthusiasm, a zeal for "that which is good." "Suffering for righteousness sake." (1 Peter 3:14) That sounds like a masculine virtue! It is a phrase which unveils a little more of the firm strength of this spiritual ambition! The zealot goes right on, with "the good" as his goal, suffering loss, if need be, of ease and comfort and wealth and fame, and counting the loss as "blessed" if only it help him in the way of spiritual attainment, This is the character of spiritual enthusiasts! We may reserve for such character whatever criticism we please, we cannot deny it the eulogium of "strength." At any rate it is not weak and effeminate. There is something about it granitic and majestic! Christ Jesus makes men and women who despise ease, who are "ready to be offered," who will plod through toils and pains and martyrdom if these lie in the way of duty and truth. Only a few months ago our little chapels outside Pekin were destroyed by the Boxers, and the majority of the native Christians foully murdered. The chapels are being erected again. I have read the account of the opening of one of these restored sanctuaries. And who took part in the reopening? The remnant of the decimated church! Men stood there whose wives and children had been butchered in the awful carnival; there they stood, their love undimmed, their faith unshaken, themselves "ready to be offered" in their devotion to the Lord! I say, give to it any criticism you please, you cannot deprive it of the glory of superlative strength! "They rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name." That is the product of the sanctified life. The Lord lifts us above the common fear. See how the passage proceeds: "And fear not their fear, neither be troubled." (1 Peter 3:14) That is the characteristic which is even now shining resplendently in the lives of the native Christians in China. They have been gloriously delivered from common fear and distraction. They are fearless and collected, quietly prepared to "suffer for righteousness sake," and strongly holding on the way of life, "zealous of that which is good." "Unto them it is given on the behalf of Christ, not only to believe in His name, but also to suffer for His sake." Now, let me sum up my exposition. The fruits of the sanctified life are to be found in the tender graces and in commanding virtues, in compassion, sensitive and humbleminded, and in moral and spiritual enthusiasm which is perfectly devoid of fear. Now, do you not think that where these soft compassions flow and these sterner virtues dwell--river and rock--a man will be able to "give answer to every man that asketh a reason concerning the hope that is in him"? (1 Peter 3:15) The finest reason a man can give for a spiritual hope is a spiritual experience. What have I seen, and heard, and felt, and known? In these experiences I shall find invincible reasons in days of inquiry and controversy. If a man has sanctified in his heart Christ as Lord, and discovers that his hardness has been softened into gracious sympathies, that his coldness towards the right has been changed into passionate enthusiasm, and that his trembling timidities have given place to firm and fruitful fearlessness, has he not a splendid answer to give to every man who asketh him a reason concerning the hope that is in him? The answer does not peep out in an apologetic "perhaps" or a trembling "if"; it is a masculine "verily," a confident "I know." As to the issues of such an answer the apostle is clear. A vital testimony is invincible. Fine living is not only a fine argument, it is the only effective silencer of bad men. "They will be put to shame who revile your good manner of life in "Christ." Men may more than match you in subtlety of argument. In intellectual controversy you may suffer an easy defeat. But the argument of a redeemed life is unassailable. "Seeing the man that was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 15: 01.13. 1PE_3:18-22 -- BRINGING US TO GOD ======================================================================== 1 Peter 3:18-22 -- Bringing Us To God 1 Peter 3:18-22 -- Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God; being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit; in which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which aforetime were disobedient, when the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water: which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ; who is on the right hand of God, having gone into heaven; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto Him. THE concluding passage of this great chapter is like a landscape in the uncertain light of the early morning. Here and there the black shadows still linger and prolong the night. The hollows are filled with mist. A prevailing dimness possesses the scene. From only a few things has the veil dropped, and their lineaments are seen in suggestive outline. On the whole, we are dealing with obscure hints, with partial unveilings, which awaken wonder, rather than convey enlightenment. Perhaps, in the present stage of our pilgrimage, an open-eyed wonder is more fruitful than an assurance begotten of broader light. Assurance may nourish sluggishness; an expectant wonder disciplines the powers to a rare perceptiveness. But amid all the indefiniteness of the revelation, there are two or three visions which are sufficiently clear to enrich our thought and life. We have glimpses of the Lord in a threefold activity. We see Him engaged in His redemptive work among men upon earth: "Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God." (1 Peter 3:18) We behold Him ministering to spirits who have left the sphere of earth, but who are not yet in reconciled fellowship with their God. "He went and preached unto the spirits in prison." (1 Peter 3:19) And we see Him again on the throne of His glory receiving the willing and jubilant homage of the mystic powers who surround the sovereignty of God. "He is on the right hand of God . . . angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto Him." (1 Peter 3:22) Let us contemplate these three relationships. "Christ also suffered for sins ONCE." (1 Peter 3:18) There is a reference to some distinct and definite historical event. To the apostle there was a certain nameable season when our redemption was achieved. The sufferings of the Master were infinitely more than momentary incidents, reflecting the permanent mood of God. Christ’s sufferings were altogether unique. They were paralleled by no previous happenings, and they would never be repeated. "Christ suffered for sins once"; something was done, done "once," and done for ever. Therefore, Gethsemane and Calvary are gravely and uniquely significant. They are more than the tempestuous ending of a noble and laborious life. Behind their appalling externalities there are more appalling conditions. Behind the loneliness of the garden there is the more awful loneliness of the soul. Behind the blackness of Calvary there is the deeper darkness of the spirit. The real movements of redemptive ministry are not to be witnessed in the material setting of the Crucifixion. The human and material environment of the Master’s death has dominated our thought too much. I do not think that the material incidents of Gethsemane and Calvary were essential to our redemption. I believe that if Christ had never been betrayed by one of the twelve, He would still have died for our sins. I believe that if He had never suffered the brutal accompaniments of mockery and blasphemy, and the loathsome coarseness of contemptible men, He would still have died for our sins. I believe that if He had never been crucified, He would still have died for our sins. I believe that if He had finished His ministry in public acclamation, instead of public contempt, He would still have passed into outer darkness, into an un thinkable loneliness, into a terrible midnight of spiritual forsakenness and abandonment. He came to die, came to pass into the night which is "the wages of sin," and what we men did was to add to His death the pangs of contempt and crucifixion. "Christ suffered for sins once." But could not sin have been forgiven without the sufferings? Could not sin have been forgiven without abandonment? Might we not have had our forgiveness without that cry of "forsaken"? I ask these questions not because I can answer them, but in order to awake a reverent wonder and a fruitful awe. This I know, that cheap forgiveness always lightens sin. Flippant forgiveness gilds the sin it forgives, and the sorest injury we can do to any man is to lighten his conception of the enormity of sin. The only really healthy forgiveness is the forgiveness which pardons sin while at the same time it reveals it. This, at any rate, is one of the commanding glories of evangelical religion--it never makes light of sin. Nowhere does forgiveness shine more resplendently, and nowhere does sin gloom more repulsively, than in the redemptive love of Christ. In that love we behold both the horrors of the midnight and the quiet, sunny glories of the noontide. "Christ suffered for sins once," in order that sin might never be glozed and veneered. In obtaining our forgiveness by His death, the Lord Christ revealed His love and unveiled our sin. "Christ suffered for sins . . . that He might bring us to God." (1 Peter 3:18) By the power of His redemption we can make our way home. He is "the way"; the road has been opened for us by the ministry of His grace. He is the "truth"; in His redemption truth was not dimmed but glorified. He is "the life"; in His grace are to be found all the resources for raising the dead into the renewed and glorified estate of children of God. He suffered, "that He might bring us to God." All that need be said about that gracious "bringing" is just this, that in Jesus, answering the call of His redeeming grace, men and women in countless numbers have turned their faces home, and are making their way out of the deadening bondage of sin into the "glorious liberty of the children of God." Far, far away, like bells at evening pealing, The voice of Jesus sounds o’er land and sea; And laden souls, by thousands meekly stealing, Kind Shepherd, turn their weary steps to Thee. And now the sphere of our vision is changed. Our minds are turned to another aspect of the saving ministry of Christ. The Saviour has died. "The great transaction’s done." He has suffered for sins "once." Forgiveness is offered to all. What of those who have departed this life, and have never heard the news of the great redemption? Men have sinned against their light, they have revolted against the Master. But they have lacked the unspeakable advantage of hearing the story of redemptive love. Are they to have no chance? The souls "which aforetime were disobedient . . . in the days of Noah," (Verse 20) are they to suffer for their disobedience, deprived al together of the ministry of Christ’s redemption? Let the question be stated with perfect frankness--are the sinful, who have never heard of Jesus, to pass into the darkness of a final destiny, a darkness which will never be illumined by the gospel and ministry of redemption? Here is the scriptural answer to that painful quest: "He went and preached unto the spirits in prison." (1 Peter 3:19) I know we are dealing with dim hints, and not with bright revelations, but from those words one thing is clear to me, that final judgment is not to be pronounced on any until they have heard of the redemptive love of Jesus, and have had the offer and opportunity of accepting it. No man’s destiny is to be fixed until he has heard of Christ. The "spirits in prison," who have not heard the gospel of redemption, are to hear it in their prison-house and are to have the gracious offer which is made to you and me to-day. I know the objection which is taken to this interpretation. It is said to weaken the urgency of foreign missions, to make men sluggish in the labour of taking the gospel of light to unillumined tribes and peoples. If the offer of salvation is to be made to the ignorant on the other side of death, what special urgency is there for strenuous labour in the present? That is how many men have reasoned, and how many reason to-day. If the unenlightened heathen are not swept into hell, the burden of the situation is lightened, and the strain is relaxed. It is a terrific motive to conceive that the unillumined multitudes are dropping over the precipice of death into ever lasting torment. And that has been the conception of many devoted followers of Christ. I was reading a book the other day in which the writer made the terrible declaration that three millions of the heathen and Mohammedans are dying every month, dropping over the precipice into the awful night, swept into eternity! Swept into what? If they go out with unlit minds and hearts, are they never to see the gracious countenance of the Light of Life? "He went and preached unto the spirits in prison." Again I ask, does this destroy the urgency of foreign missions, and will it lull the heart of the Church to sleep? Where are we if the motive of our missions and ministry is to save people from the fires of hell? Apart altogether from salvation from torment, is the Master Himself worth knowing? Sup posing we could now be assured that every soul in the heathen world would be here after rescued from the torments of hell, is there nothing in our Gospel which shapes itself into an urgent and all-constraining evangel? Seek out some ripe old saint, who has deep and intimate intercourse with the Lord; let her open her heart to you about the glories of her faith; and you will discover that the word "hell" has dropped out of her vocabulary. She is so absorbed in the glories of her Lord, so possessed by the delights of daily companionship, so engaged in carrying her own God-given comfort to the sorrows of others, that the house of torments has no place in her heart. If you ask her the nature of the evangel she carries about with her, this will be her reply: God only knows the love of God, Oh that it now were shed abroad In every human heart! The real missionary motive is not to save from hell, but to reveal the Christ; not to save from a peril, but to proclaim and create a glorious companionship. Here is the marrow of the controversy, concentrated into one pressing question: Is it of infinite moment to know Christ now? Assume that there are now men and women in the heathen world who are to remain upon the earth for the next twenty years, and it is in our power to make those twenty years a season of hallowed fellowship with the Lord, is it worth the doing? Even further assuming that if they pass through death unenlightened, they will hear the message of reconciliation in the beyond, is it worth our while to light up those twenty years with the gracious light of redemptive grace? What is the money-value of an hour with the Lord? I do not address my question to the unredeemed, for the unredeemed have no answer, and in them the missionary-motive has no place. I speak to those who have accepted the offer of reconciling love, and who know the power of the Lord’s salvation, and of them I ask--What is the money-value of an hour with the Lord? "Beyond all knowledge and all thought." Carry your values across to the regions of ignorance and night. To be able to give one "day of the Son of Man" to some poor old soul in heathendom: to lighten one day’s load; to transfigure one day’s sorrow; to lift the burden of his passion; to create a river of kindliness; to light his lamp in the evening-time, and to send him through the shadows in the assurance of immortal hope,--is it worth the doing? "A day in Thy courts is better than a thousand." Such is the value of a day with the Lord. "We are stewards of the mysteries of grace. Because we have them we owe them. Woe be to us if through our thoughtlessness we leave our fellowmen in days of burdensome terror and night, when by our ministry we might have led them into the peace and liberty of the children of light. And now the sphere of the Lord’s activity is again changed. The apostle next turns our minds to the Lord’s enthronement and dominion. He "is on the right hand of God, having gone Verse into heaven; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto Him." (1 Peter 3:22) I need that conception of the Christ! I know Him as a Sufferer, despised and lonely, sharing our frailties, and hastening on to death. I know Him as "a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief." I need to know Him as the risen and glorified King, moving in supreme exaltations, receiving the glad and reverent homage of "the spirits that surround the throne." I have seen Him weep; I have seen Him wearied at the well; I have heard Him cry "I thirst"; I have heard the still more awful cry "Forsaken!" Now I would see Him, "with a name above every name," "highly exalted," "angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto Him." We are timid, and nerveless, and hope less, lacking in spiritual energy and persistence, crawling in reluctance when we ought to speed like conquerors, and all because we do not realise the majestic lordship of our King. "All power is given unto Me in heaven and on earth." What kind of followers ought that to create? Surely it ought to be creative of disciples who can "strongly live and nobly strive." Soldiers will dare anything when they have confidence in the strength and wisdom of their general. His commands are their possibilities, and they are eager to turn them into sure achievements. We have a brave Captain, seated upon the throne, and exercising universal sovereignty. Surely we ought to march in the spirit of assured conquest. We ought to attack every stronghold of sin with confidence, as though the dark citadel were already falling into ruin. The Lord wishes His disciples to begin all enterprises in the knowledge that victory is secured. "Believe that ye receive them and ye shall have them." That is the spirit of victory. All this redemptive power may become ours by baptism, but not the baptism that consists in any outward sprinkling of external cleansing. "Not by the putting away of the filth of the flesh." We need to be lifted above the filth of the spirit, and so the baptism must be an inspiration. There must be poured into our life rivers of energy from the risen Lord. That cleansing flood will create within us moral soundness. We shall attain unto "a good conscience." Our lives will be set in "interrogation toward God." Our souls will be possessed by a reverent inquisitiveness, and they will be ever searching among the deep things of God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 16: 01.14. 1PE_4:1-6 -- THE SUFFERING WHICH MEANS TRIUMPH ======================================================================== 1 Peter 4:1-6 -- The Suffering Which Means Triumph 1 Peter 4:1-6 -- Forasmuch then as Christ suffered in the flesh, arm ye yourselves also with the same mind; for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; that ye no longer should live the rest of your time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. For the time past may suffice to have wrought the desire of the Gentiles, and to have walked in lasciviousness, lusts, winebibbings, revellings, carousings, and abominable idolatries: wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them into the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you: who shall give account to Him that is ready to fudge the quick and the dead. For unto this end was the gospel preached even to the dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit. "Forasmuch then as Christ suffered in the flesh." (1 Peter 4:1) Do not let us so think of the sufferings of Christ as to relegate them to the last few days of His earthly ministry. It is well to confine the great term, "the passion," to the awful events of Gethsemane and Calvary. In the midnight of the latter days the happenings are unspeakable. On Calvary the sufferings not only culminate; they become unique. They detach themselves from the common lot, and pass into the pangs of a lonely and terrible isolation whose supreme bitterness cannot be shared. We may not know, we cannot tell What pains He had to bear. It is well to mark these appalling hours by the distinctive term, "the passion." But we must not allow "the passion" to eclipse the sufferings of the earlier days. Christ always "suffered in the flesh." The streak of blood lay like a red track across the years. The marks of sacrifice were everywhere pronounced. What occasioned the common sufferings? Here is the explanation. His life was dominated by a supreme thought; it was controlled by an all-commanding purpose. What was the purpose? What was the prevailing characteristic of His mind? "I do always those things that please Him." He has translated that purpose of obedience into counsel for His disciples: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." That was the mind of the Master. He made his abode in the unseen. He sought His gratifications in the eternal. He rejected the sovereignty of the flesh. He subordinated the temporal. He uncrowned the body, making it a common subject, and compelling it into obeisance to high commands. In all the competing alternatives that presented themselves, priority was given to the spiritual. The allurements of ease, the piquant flavours of pleasurable sensations, the feverish delights of passion, the delicious thrill of popular acclamation, the sweetness of immediate triumph: all these many and varied offspring of the temporal were not permitted to be regnant; they were not allowed to usurp the place of executive and determining forces; they were muzzled and restrained, and kept to the rear of the life. Christ looked "not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen." Such was the mind of the Master. Now, emphasis of this kind inevitably necessitates suffering. No man can give pre-eminence to the unseen without the shedding of blood. When the immediate contends with the apparently remote, the immediate is so urgently obtrusive that to hold it down entails a crucifixion. When carnality contends with conscience, the healthy settling of the contention necessitates suffering. When ease opposes duty, the putting down of the fascinating enemy necessitates suffering. When mere sharpness comes into conflict with truth, when money seeks to usurp the throne of righteousness, when the glitter of immediate success ranges itself against the fixed and glorious constellation of holiness, the controversies will not be settled in bloodless reveries and in unexhausting dreams. To put down the immediate and to prefer the remote, to subject the temporal and to choose the eternal, demands a continual crucifixion. Christ also suffered, being tempted! Alternatives were presented to Him, and the preference occasioned the shedding of blood. Christ suffered, being tempted! The temptations were not bloodless probings of the invulnerable air. They were searching appeals to vital susceptibilities, and resistance was pain. "Christ also suffered in the flesh." All through the years He had been exercising the higher choice. Before He emerged into the public gaze, in the obscure years at Nazareth, in His early youth in the village, in the social life of the community, in the little affairs of the carpenter’s shop, He had been denying Himself and taking up His cross. He had preferred the eternal to the temporal, and His clear, commanding conscience had dominated the clamours of the flesh. This was the emphasis of the Master’s life; He "suffered in the flesh." Now such emphasis spells sinlessness. When the eternal rules the temporal, when the remotely glorious is preferred before the immediately bewitching, when suffering is chosen before the violation of the moral and spiritual ideal, the soul is already wearing the crown of the sinless life. "He that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin." (1 Peter 4:1) And now the apostle takes up the example of the Master and makes it a motive in the life of the disciple. "Forasmuch then as Christ suffered in the flesh, arm ye yourselves also with the same mind." What was His mind? The preference and the predominance of the eternal. "Arm yourselves with the same mind." Let the same governing purpose determine the choices in your life. In every moment of the little day let the eternal rule. "No longer live the rest of your time in the flesh." (1 Peter 4:2) Don’t let the flesh constitute the entire circle of your movement! Don’t let the temporal define the boundaries of your journeyings! Launch out upon larger waters! Live no longer "to the lusts of men." Don’t follow the feverish will-o’-the-wisps that flit about the swamps! But live "to the will of God." Follow the eternal star! Let the spiritual control all the events in your life, both great and small, just as the force of gravitation dominates alike the swinging planet and the mote that sports in the sunbeam. Such a sovereign purpose will necessitate suffering, but the purpose will of itself provide the necessary defence. "Arm ye yourselves also with the same mind." (1 Peter 4:1) The exalted purpose will be our armour, our assurance against destruction. If we are wounded, in the wounds there shall be no poison. If we suffer, in the sufferings there shall be no disease. In the combat there shall be no fatality. We are "armed" against destructive hurt. "What shall harm us if we be followers of that which is good?" "As dying, yet shall we live." "Our light affliction . . . worketh for us a weight of glory." "Forasmuch then as Christ suffered in the flesh, arm ye yourselves also with the same mind." From the contemplation of the Master’s "sufferings in the flesh" the apostle now turns the minds of his readers to the contemplation of their own yesterdays, if perchance they may find in the retrospect an added force to constrain them to a life of triumphant suffering. He has sought to allure them to exalted, spiritual living by the example of the Lord; now he will seek to drive them into the same lofty tendency by causing them to dwell upon their own loathsome and appalling past. The repulsion obtained from our yesterdays will give impetus to the inclination to live "to the will of God" to-day. "For the time past may suffice to have wrought the desire of the Gentiles, and to have walked in lasciviousness, lusts, winebibbings, revellings, carousings, and abominable idolatries." (1 Peter 4:3) What an appalling list! And how plainly worded! Surely a list like that will add the force of recoil to the newly-born inclination towards God! It is a fruitful exercise to go into our yesterdays, and quietly meditate upon "our times past." It is a humbling and painful ministry to trace the face of the past, bit by bit, feature by feature, giving to each characteristic its own plain and legitimate name. The Apostle Paul frequently employed this ministry when writing to his converts. He would never allow them to forget their yesterdays, lest they should lose the impetus that comes from the retrospect. "And such were some of you." There you have a retrospective glance. What had they been? "Fornicators, adulterers, effeminate, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners." How black the catalogue!" And such were some of you." I think the reminder would send the converts to their knees in intenser supplication. Hear the apostle again in his letter to the Ephesians: "In time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience." I say he will not suffer the past to be eclipsed and forgotten. He lifts the veil, and pointedly describes the terrible scene. And here is the Apostle Peter seeking to confirm his readers devotion by the power of a repulsion, and he turns their minds to "the times past." It is a rare ministry for the creation of sincere and agonising prayer! A man may pray, "Lead, kindly Light," and in in the utterance there may be "no agony and bloody sweat." If he turn his face to the past, the burden of his yesterdays may crush out of his heart a prayer which is more a moaning cry than an articulate speech. I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou Shouldst lead me on. I loved to choose and see my path, but now Lead Thou me on! I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears Pride ruled my will: remember not past years. That last prayer is just the cry of an aching and broken heart! The retrospect made him a humble and wrestling suppliant. That is the motive of the apostle in reminding his readers of "the times past" in their lives. He longed to corroborate their new-born spirituality by the rebound acquired from the contemplation of their own past. "I thought over my ways, and turned my feet unto Thy testimonies." Now, let us assume that a man has become "armed with the mind" of Christ, that his own wasted past gives impetus to his renewed present, that he will pay homage to the eternal even at the cost of immediate suffering what will be the influence of such a life upon the world? Assume that the "unseen and eternal" receives the emphasis, that the temporal is denied at all costs if it conflict with the eternal, how will such a life of mingled restraint and loftiness affect the world? Here is the answer. "They think it strange that ye run not with them into the same excess of riot." (1 Peter 4:4) "They think it strange!" They are arrested in wonder! What is the significance of this? That we shall startle the world by our Puritanism. We "run not with them into the same excess of riot." They are astounded! Puritanism is arresting. Do not let us be ashamed of the old word. Puritanism is most vigorously denounced where it is least under stood. We need to get back the commanding characteristics of its life. We need to recover its broad principles, but not its particular and detailed application. I speak not now of the counterfeit Puritanism which expressed itself in loud and eccentric externalisms, and in much-flaunted and self-advertised piety and self-denial. There is the Puritan described by Lord Macaulay, who was distinguished from other men by "his gait, his garb, his lank hair, the sour solemnity of his face, the upturned white of his eyes, his nasal twang, and his peculiar dialect." That is a Puritanism for which no sane and healthy man desires a resurrection. But there is the Puritanism which Longfellow portrays in Miles Standish; there is the Puritanism of John Milton, in whose poetry we touch the very heart and spirit of the great awakening. "What, then, is the characteristic ideal of true Puritanism? It is life whose secret springs are governed by the eternal. It is choice of duty before ease, of ideas before sensations, of truth before popularity, of a good conscience before a full purse, of the holy God before dazzling and bewitching Mammon! That is the true Puritanism, and that is the life whose glorious passion arrests the un restrained and riotous world in sharp and inquisitive wonder. "They think it strange that ye run not with them into the same excess of riot." That sense of wonder may ripen into reverence and may issue in prayer. The contemplation of a fine restraint and an unspotted integrity has often created an uneasiness which has eventually led its victim into the very rest and peace of God. But the world’s wonder does not always mature into reverence. Some times it sours into resentment, and results in a malignity which demands the Puritan’s crucifixion. I cannot forget that the men of old wondered at the Master, and then proceeded to His crucifixion. "They think it strange . . . speaking evil of you." (1 Peter 4:4) They will attribute your restraint to evil motives. The hiding of your benevolence will be interpreted as stinginess; its expression will be regarded as self-advertisement. Your self-denial will be explained as a cloak that conceals a deeper covetousness; your entire walk will be denounced as inspired by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. In the face of such resentment and reviling what shall the Puritan do? What says the apostle? Just go on! In the face of it all, just calmly persist. Do not return reviling for reviling. Leave them and yourselves to the arbitrament of God. He knows all! We must all "give account to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead." Maintain the emphasis! Proclaim and exalt the Eternal! Live "not to the lusts of the flesh," but "to the will of God." The path of suffering is "the way to glory." And "wisdom shall be justified of her children." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 17: 01.15. 1PE_4:7-11 -- GETTING READY FOR THE END ======================================================================== 1 Peter 4:7-11 -- Getting Ready For The End 1 Peter 4:7-11 -- The end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore of sound mind, and be sober unto prayer: above all things being fervent in your love among yourselves; for love covereth a multitude of sins: using hospitality one to another without murmuring: according as each hath received a gift, ministering it among yourselves, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God; if any man speaketh, speaking as it were oracles of God; if any man ministereth, ministering as of the strength which God supplieth: that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, whose is the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen. THAT is a most momentous conviction which is expressed in these words: "The end of all things is at hand." (1 Peter 4:7) What kind of conduct will it determine, and to what kind of counsel will it lead? Here is an apostle, deeply possessed by the solemn conviction that the great Consummation is approaching, that the glorified Christ is returning, that the judgment is impending, and that the "end of all things is at hand." In the looming presence of so urgent and so commanding an event, how will the apostle shape his message? What kind of counsel will he give to his readers? What manner of preparation will he constrain them to make? It matters little or nothing to my purpose that the apostle’s anticipations of the second advent were premature, and that the stupendous consummation was delayed. For you and for me the instructive and all-absorbing conjunction remains the same. Here is the Apostle Peter sharing with his fellow-Christians the expectation of an immediate end. The Judge is at the door! What will be the manner of their behaviour? If we knew that within a year or two the Master will reappear as the august and, sovereign Judge, how ought we to pass the intervening days? We know, from the letters of the Apostle Paul, how the urgent expectancy influenced many of the early Christians. Some were thrown into panic. Others were despoiled of their spiritual collectedness by the invasion of unreasonable excitement. Others abandoned their ordinary employment, and lapsed into an indolence in which they might find more leisure to wait and watch for the King’s appearing. And we know with what severity the apostle denounced these perilous and irrational excesses. "Study to be quiet and to do your own business." "Be not shaken in mind." "We command that with quietness ye work and eat your own bread." "Let us watch and be sober." All this dangerous sensationalism was combatted and subdued by the cool self-possession of this man’s healthy and imperial mind. And now here is the Apostle Peter confronted by the same prevailing and insidious inclinations. What will be the character of his message? Let us make the matter directly pertinent to our own condition that we may appreciate the strong, cooling, controlling influence of the apostle’s counsel. For us, too, "the end" may be at hand. Death looms on the not-distant horizon. The King is at the gate! What shall be the nature of our preparations, and the character of our behaviour? "The end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore of sound mind," (1 Peter 4:7) Sound mind! Life is to be characterised by reasonableness and sanity. There is to be nothing morbid about our mental state, nothing melancholy or diseased. We are to be mentally "sound," emancipated from distraction and panic. We may enter into the content of the descriptive word by watching its usage in our common speech. We are familiar with the phrase "as sound as a bell," and the usage will act as part-interpreter of the apostle’s thought. "Sound as a bell!" There is no break in the metal, no severance in the elements; it holds together in compact and undivided unity. "Sound mind"; as sound as a bell; no break in the mind, no division, no distraction, but a wonderful collectedness, issuing in the definite tone of clear and decisive purpose. "We are also familiar with another application of the word, as in the usage, "sound" and "unsound" meat, where the significance is indicative of health and disease. And this, too, may guide us into the content of the apostle’s thought, for when he counsels "sound-mindedness" he unquestionably refers to a mental condition which is freed from all morbidity, defilement, taint, and disease. "The end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore of sound mind," delivered on the one hand from the mental distraction that destroys life’s music, and on the other hand from the morbid depression which so frequently opens the gate for the invasion of death. "And be sober" (1 Peter 4:7) That is the second note of the apostle’s counsel. "And be sober." It is a warning against all kinds of intoxication, but especially against the intoxication of excited and tumultuous emotion. There are stimulants other than those of intoxicating drinks; and there is a sensationalism to be found elsewhere than in carnal gratification. Excessive stimulants may be found in the revival meeting, and men may revel in intoxicated emotionalism even in the sanctuary. Men may "lose their heads "in many more ways than by the excessive imbibing of strong drink. "Be sober." Don’t give way to any excitement which will make life grotesque and foolish! Beware of the sensationalism which is often the minister of sin. "Be sober." It is an appeal for the culture and discipline of emotion. "Be sober unto prayer" (1 Peter 4:7) preserve that calmness of life which is consistent with steady aspiration and fruitful supplication; maintain a quiet "watching unto prayer." Here, then, are two of the features which characterised a life possessed by a healthy expectancy of the Lord’s appearing: soundmindedness and sobriety. "We are to wait the coming of the King with mind and heart delivered from the distractions of panic, from the taint of corruption, and from a feverish sensationalism which is destructive of the higher ministries of fellowship and prayer. And now the apostle proceeds to add a third element to those already mentioned. "Above all things being fervent in your love among yourselves." (1 Peter 4:8) To "sound-mindedness "and "sobriety" he adds the ministry of "love." Now the apostle is at some pains to make it clear to us what is the quality of this love which should characterise the life which expects the King’s appearing. In the first place, it is to be "fervent." Now the significance of our English word "fervour" scarcely unveils to us the contents of the apostle’s mind. He did not so much suggest a love that is ardent as a love that is tense. This very word "tense" is almost the original word. The love has to be "tense," stretched out, extended to the utmost limit of a grand comprehensiveness. The New Testament recognises different types and qualities of love, and there is no counsel in which it is more abounding than just in this counsel to push back the boundaries of a circumscribed affection so that it be characterised by a more spacious inclusiveness. There is love whose measure is that of an umbrella. There is love whose inclusiveness is that of a great marquee. And there is love whose comprehension is that of the immeasurable sky. The aim of the New Testament is the conversion of the umbrella into a tent, and the merging of the tent into the glorious canopy of the all-enfolding heavens. Therefore does the writer of this very letter, in a second letter which he has written, give this very suggestive counsel, "add to brotherly love, love." Which just means this: make your love more tense; push back the walls of family love until they include the neighbour; again push back the walls until they include the stranger; again push back the walls until they comprehend the foe. The quality of our love is determined by its inclusiveness. At the one extreme there is self-love; at the other extreme there is philanthropy! What is the "tense," the stretch of my love? What is its covering power? I do not wonder that the apostle proceeds to indicate the magnificent "cover "afforded by a magnificent love. "Love covereth a multitude of sins." (1 Peter 4:8) Not the sins of the lover, but the sins of the loved! Love is willing to forget as well as to forgive! Love does not keep hinting at past failures and past revolts. Love is willing to hide them in a nameless grave. When a man, whose life has been stained and blackened by "a multitude of sins," turns over a new leaf, love will never hint at the old leaf, but will rather seek to cover it in deep and healing oblivion. Love is so busy unveiling the promises and allurements of the morrow, that she has little time, and still less desire to stir up the choking dust on the blasted and desolate fields of yesterday. "Then drew near unto Him all the publicans and sinners." There’s a "cover" for you! "And behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew . . . stood at His feet behind Him weeping!" There’s a cover for you! "The Son of Man is come to seek that which is lost." There’s a cover for you! I do not wonder that the great evangelical prophet of the Old Testament, in heralding the advent of the Saviour, should proclaim Him as "a hiding-place from the wind, a covert from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, and as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." "Love covereth all things." But we have not yet done with the apostle’s characterisation of the qualities of love. He adds a third word which confirms and enriches the other two. True love, "stretched-out" love, all-sheltering love, "uses hospitality without murmuring." (1 Peter 4:9) True love is a splendid host, a veritable Gaius in the lavish entertainment which it offers to weary and footsore pilgrims. In the primitive Christian day, the apostolic days, love opened the door and gave hospitality to the itinerant preachers as they went from place to place proclaiming the message of the Cross. Love opened the door to the persecuted refugees, driven from their homesteads because of their devotion to the Lord. There were many of them about, and the love-children were to keep an open door and a sharp look-out, and offer the welcome entertainment. Love is the very genius of hospitality; it opens the "hospice" in the stormy and perilous heights, and provides a travellers rest. Wherever love is, the hospice may be found! "Love never faileth." And the gracious ministry is all discharged so graciously; "without murmuring!" There is no frown upon the face, no sense of "put-outness" in the attention. It is all done, as Matthew Henry says, "in a kind, easy, hand some manner," as though the host had been almost impatiently waiting for the privilege, and yearning for its speedy approach. Now, brethren, the King is at the gate! Soon His hand will be upon the latch! How shall we prepare for Him? In sound-mindedness, in spiritual sobriety, and in a love which is ever straining after more and more spacious breadth of gracious and generous hospitality. How shall these dispositions express themselves? What shall be the medium of affection? What shall be the line of our ministry? The apostle provides the answer: "According as each hath received a gift." (1 Peter 4:10) We must work through what we have received. "What hast thou that thou hast not received?" Our members, our senses, our mental aptitudes, our spiritual endowments! They are all the gifts of the King! We must use them all in the ministry of love. But beyond all these there is the mysterious and indescribable gift of our own individuality. We are each as unique in personality as we are each distinctive in face. Individuality is a unique gift, and is divinely purposed for unique service. We must reverently consecrate our individuality to the King’s use, that it may become the minister of His own "manifold grace" (1 Peter 4:10-11) and "strength" In this subordination the individuality is preserved intact and unimpaired. Working through us, the Holy Ghost will, shall I say, impinge upon the world in a somewhat different form than from the life of any of our fellows. If an electric current be led through a series of several different materials, its appearance in the outer world will vary with each wire. "In a platinum wire it may appear as light, in an iron one as heat, round a bar of soft iron as magnetic energy, led into a solution as a power that decomposes and recombines." So in many individualities are there "diversities of operations, but the one Spirit." What we have to do is to take our individuality, "according as each hath received the gift," and so reverently consecrate it that "the manifold grace" may work a unique ministry, and by "the strength which God supplieth" we may manifest a daily salvation which shall be to the glory of God. Here then, I conclude. I think that no one can be made to stumble by any narrowness and irrelevancy in the apostle’s counsel. His commandment is exceeding broad. How shall we prepare for the coming of the King? What can be more reasonable than the response I have attempted to expound? In sound-mindedness, in spiritual sobriety, in an affection which is ever seeking greater inclusiveness, and working through the distinctive gifts of the consecrated individual life. I tell you, if this be my condition, I shall not be afraid "at His coming." He may come in a moment, and very suddenly, in the noontide, or the midnight, or at the cock-crow; come when He may, I shall "love His appearing." Living calmly, in the atmosphere of affection, and in the mystic strength of consecration, I shall know Him as my friend. The present Bishop of Durham has told us of a beloved friend of his who narrated to him a strangely vivid dream which he had long, long years ago. Let me tell it in the Bishop’s words. "Through the bed-chamber window seemed to shine on a sudden an indescribable light; the dreamer seemed to run, to look; and there, in the depths above, were beheld three forms. One was unknown, one the Archangel, One the Lord Jesus Christ. And at this most sudden sight that soul, the soul of one over whom, to my knowledge, the unutterable solemnities of the unseen are wont to brood with almost painful power, was instantaneously thrilled with a rapturous joy . . . unspeakable and full of glory: My Saviour, my Saviour!’" I pray that when that light breaks upon us, not in the ministry of a dream, but in the veritable coming of the Lord; when for you and for me "the end of all things is at hand," may we have so brooded on "the solemnities," and so laboured in the gracious ministry of affection, that we too, "when He cometh," shall be "instantaneously thrilled with raptuous joy, unspeakable and full of glory: My Saviour, my Saviour!’" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 18: 01.16. 1PE_4:12-19 -- THE FIERY TRIAL ======================================================================== 1 Peter 4:12-19 -- The Fiery Trial 1 Peter 4:12-19 -- Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial among you, which cometh upon you to prove you, as though a strange thing happened unto you: but insomuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, rejoice; that at the revelation of His glory also ye may rejoice with exceeding joy. If ye are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are ye; because the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God resteth upon you. For let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief , or an evil-doer, or as a meddler in other men’s matters: but if a man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God in this name. For the time is come for judgement to begin at the house of God: and if it begin first at us, what shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous is scarcely saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear? Wherefore let them also that suffer according to the will of God commit their souls in well-doing unto a faithful Creator. "The fiery trial among you, which cometh upon you to prove you." (1 Peter 4:12) But is it not one of the perquisites of sainthood to be delivered from suffering? One would have anticipated that part of the inheritance of grace would be freedom from the fiery trial. The flames would never reach us. The enemy would be stayed, and we should sit down in happy quietness at the King’s feast! But this is not the programme of Christianity. Christianity is almost alarmingly daring in the obtrusive emphasis which it gives to the darker elements in its programme. There is no attempt to hide or obscure them. No effort is made to engage our attention to the "green pastures" and "still waters," and to distract us from the affrighting valley of shadow and gloom. "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." "In the world ye shall have tribulation." "Perfected through sufferings." "Let him take up his cross daily and follow me." "The fiery trial which is to try you." These are not words which are addressed to "murderers" or "thieves," or "evil-doers," or "busybodies"; they are quietly spoken to the saints, to men and women whose lives are pledged to virtue, and who are aspiring after the holiness of the perfected life in Christ. Then let us just note this: our sufferings do not prove our religion counterfeit. Our many temptations do not throw suspicion on our sonship. Our trials are not the marks of our alienation. Do not let us think that we are strangers because our robes are sometimes stained with our blood. "Think it not strange," says this much-schooled apostle, "Think it not strange!" Don’t think you have never been naturalised--super-naturalised--that you are still a foreigner, an outcast from the home of redemptive grace! These are the happenings of the home-country! They are not the marks of foreign rule. They are the signs of paternal government. You are in your Father’s house! God will convert the apparent antagonism into a minister of heavenly grace. The oppressive harrow, as well as the genial sunshine, is part of the equipment needed for the maturing and perfecting of the fruits of the earth. "What, then, is the purpose of "the fiery trial"? What is the meaning of this permitted ministry of suffering? Well, in the first place, it tests character. It discharges the purpose of an examination. An examination, rightly regarded, is a vital part of our schooling. It is a minister of revelation. It unfolds our strengths and our weaknesses. And so it is in the larger examination afforded by the discipline of life. Our crises are productive of self-disclosures. They reveal us to ourselves, and I think the revelations are usually creative of grateful surprise. In the midst of the fiery trial we are filled with amazement at the fulness and strength of our resources. When the trial is looming we shrink from it in fear. "We say one to another, "I don’t know how I shall bear it!" And then the crisis comes, and in the midst of the fire we are calm and strong; and when it is past, how frequently we are heard to say, "I never thought I could have gone through it!" And so "probation worketh hope"; the heavy discipline is creative of assurance; the terror becomes the nutriment of our confidence. But the fiery trial not only tests by revealing character, it also strengthens and confirms it. Hard trial makes hard and much-enduring muscle. The water that is too soft makes flabby limbs; it is not creative of bone. And circum stances which are too soft make no bone: they are productive of character without backbone. Luxuriousness is rarely the cradle of giants. It is not unsuggestive that the soft and bountiful tropics are not the home of the strong, indomitable, and progressive peoples. The pioneering and progressive races have dwelt in sterner and harder climes. The lap of luxury does not afford the elementary iron for the upbringing of strong and enduring life. Hardness hardens; antagonism solidifies; trials inure and confirm. How commonly it has happened that men who, in soft circumstances, have been weak and irresolute, were hardened into fruitful decision by the ministry of antagonism and pain. "Thou art Simon"--a hearer, a man of loose hearsays and happenings; "Thou shalt be called Peter"--a rock, a man of hard, compact, and resolute convictions. But "Simon" became "Peter" through the ministry of the fiery trial. The man of "soft clothing" is in the luxury of kings houses; the hard man with the camels hair and the leathern girdle is away out in the hardships of the desert. "We must through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of God." But the fiery trial not only reveals and hardens the character, it also develops it by bringing out its hidden beauties. I am using the word develop as the photographer uses it. You know how he brings out the lines of his pictures. The picture is laid in the vessel, and the liquid is moved and moved across it; it passes over the face of the picture, and little by little the hidden graces are disclosed. "All Thy billows are gone over me." That is the Lord’s developer; it brings out the soft lines in the character. Under its ministry we pass "from strength to strength, "from grace to grace," "from glory to glory." And so the fiery trial tests and confirms and develops the character. I do not wonder that with conceptions such as these, and with such outlooks, the apostle calls upon his Christian readers to lift up their heads, to walk not as children of shame, but as children of rejoicing. And look at the motives he adduces to create the spirit of rejoicing. "Look at your companionship," he seems to say. "Ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings." (1 Peter 4:13) In the furnace with you is "one like unto the Son of Man." We have scarcely touched the fringe of life if we have not discovered what that conviction means to men. "Yet I do persuade myself," says Samuel Rutherford to one of his correspondents, "ye know that the weightiest end of the cross of Christ that is laid upon you lieth upon your strong Saviour; for Isaiah saith, In all your afflictions he is afflicted.’ O blessed Second, who suffereth with you! And glad may your soul be even to walk in the fiery furnace with one like unto the Son of Man, who is also the Son of God. Courage! Up with your heart! When ye do tire He will bear both you and your burden." And writing to Lady Forrest the same saintly writer gives this comfort: "I hear that Christ hath been so kind as to visit you with sickness. He would have more service of you. He is your loving husband, and would draw you into the bonds of a sweeter love." Look at your companionship! "Rejoice," inasmuch as the Lord is with you in unceasing fellowship. And look at the character of the Operator. "The Spirit of glory resteth upon you." (1 Peter 4:14) In the fiery trial the Operator is the Glory-spirit, the Maker of glory. As though He were controlling the hardships and trials and converting them into ministers of beauty and grace. The immeasurable waters of Niagara generate electrical power which a man may use to engrave a name upon a jewel; and the Spirit of Glory can so employ these waters of sorrow as to write our Father’s name upon our foreheads. In some hands the trial would be an agent of indiscriminate destruction. In some hands the implements in a surgery would be implements of mutilation and murder; in the hands of a wise and confident surgeon they are the ministers of sanity and health. "The Spirit of Glory resteth upon you," and He has control of the implements! He sits by the fire. Look at the character of the Operator, and you will be filled with rejoicing. And look at the splendid issues of it all. "At the revelation of His glory ye may rejoice with exceeding joy." (1 Peter 4:13) Why this jubilant rejoicing? Because this shall be the ultimate issue: when the Lord is revealed in His glory it will be disclosed that we are sharers of the glory. The Spirit of Glory, which has rested upon us, will have wrought upon us, and brought us into the Master’s likeness. We "shall be manifested with Him in glory." Well, now, if this be the ministry of trial, surely the fiery trial is a solemn necessity. Luxurious ease would destroy us. If the winds remained asleep we should remain weak and enervated. Life would drowse along in effeminate dreams. The glory of the perfected life would never be ours. And so life must have its crises. Judgments are necessities. Judgment must "begin at the House of God." Even the consecrated folk need the testing, the strengthening, the confirming discipline of suffering and pain. Even Paul must be thrown into the fiery furnace! Even John must feel the bite of the stinging flame! And if that be so with Paul and Peter and John, how much more for you and me! "If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear?" What a work is our salvation! These wills, these desires, these yearnings, these bodies!" What work God has with us, to lift us into His own glory! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 19: 01.17. 1PE_5:1-7 -- TENDING THE FLOCK ======================================================================== 1 Peter 5:1-7 -- Tending The Flock 1 Peter 5:1-7 -- The elders therefore among you I exhort, who am a fellow-elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, who am also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not of constraint, but willingly, according unto God; nor yet for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you, but making yourselves ensamples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd shall be manifested, ye shall receive the crown of glory that fadeth not away. Likewise, ye younger, be subject unto the elder. Yea, all of you gird yourselves with humility, to serve one another: for God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time; casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He careth for you. "I exhort." (1 Peter 5:1) Let me fix your eyes upon the counsellor. There is an evangel in the speaker, altogether apart from the inspiration of his message. "We are contemplating Simon Peter in the ripe, assured strength of his evening-time. "I exhort." Shall we pause a moment that we may invite the ministry of reminiscence? By what chequered way has he reached this bourn of clear and quiet assurance? Let me recall some of the prominent landmarks. "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." . . . "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." . . . "Even if I must die with Thee, yet will I not deny Thee." . . . "Then began he to curse and swear, saying, I know not the man." . . . "Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee." . . . "Now when they saw the boldness of Peter, they marvelled." . . . "I, a fellow elder, a witness of the sufferings of Christ, a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed." It is a wonderful evolution! From the call of the spring-time to the ripe, confident testimony of the autumn-time! And between the two extremes what a medley of sharp and changeful experience! The rough, untutored, impulsive character-force has been washed and disciplined into discerning and fruitful strength. And now I picture Simon Peter as an old saint, bearing the marks of the stern fight; sealed with the brands of the Lord Jesus; his face lit up with the sober light of chastening memory and glorious hope. "I am a witness of the sufferings." Think of the content of the phrase when it falls from the lips of Simon Peter! How much he had seen which he now recalled in tears! "Could ye not watch with Me one hour?" He had seen that lonely and grief-filled Presence. "And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter." He had caught a glimpse of that betrayed face, and the features were burnt into his soul in lines of remorseful fire. "I am a witness of the sufferings." All the black and heart-rending events of Gethsemane and Calvary crowd the witnessing, for they were never absent for an hour from the Apostle’s so penitent and regretful heart. But Calvary did not eclipse Olivet. The terrors of the Crucifixion were looked at in the soft light of the Resurrection dawn and in the startling wonders of the Ascension. And so yesterday became linked with the morrow. Memory was transfigured into hope. The witness became a herald. The denier became the heir. "I am a witness of the sufferings of Christ, who am also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed." And now let us listen to the scarred old warrior’s counsel. He is giving fatherly instruction to the officers of the Church. He is speaking to the elders, the overseers, the appointed leaders of these hallowed primitive assemblies. I wish to give the counsel the widest application, that it may include the outermost circle of Christian service. If we limited the counsel to bishops, then we should all listen to the tremendous charge as critical or unconcerned spectators. If we included all pastors and deacons, still the unconcerned majority might listen with perilous relish to the implied indictment. The counsel applies to every kind of Christian leadership. Wherever man or woman assumes the post of leader of souls, guide to the home of God--whether it be among children or adults, in visiting the hospitals or in going from house to house, in the pastorate or in the class, in the obscure mission or in the conspicuous phases of cathedral labours--the Apostle’s counsel is pertinent, and unfolds the primary dispositions which are the secrets of prosperous service. Mark, then, the opening word of the counsel. "Shepherd the flock of God which is among you." (1 Peter 5:2) It is a very wealthy and suggestive word which forms the initial note of the Apostle’s instructions. The Authorised Version translates it "feed," the Revised Version translates it "tend." Each element is significant of the shepherd, and both are essential to the full interpretation of the apostle’s mind. It is a wonderful sphere of service which is disclosed to me. I am told that I can be the nourisher of my brother; I am told that I can also be his defence. I can "feed" him; I can stand between him and his hunger. I can tend him; I can stand between him and his perils. That is a beautiful ministry which God entrusts to me. I can get in among my brother’s wants and take him bread. I can feed his faith, his hope, his love. I can lead him into "green pastures and by still waters," and discover to him the means of growth and refreshment. I can get in among my brother’s perils and erect extra safeguards and defences. It is possible to love my way in between my brother and his appetites, between his spirit and his snares. That is our ministry, whatever be the precise character of the leadership we have assumed. It matters little or nothing whether we be called bishops, pastors, teachers, visitors; our mission is to feed and to fend, to take nourishing bread, and to offer protective shelter. If a man stand between his brother and spiritual necessity, or between his brother and spiritual peril, he is discharging the office of a day s-man, a mediator, a faithful under-shepherd, working loyally under the leadership of the "chief Bishop and Shepherd of our souls." How, then, is this ministry of feeder and fender to be successfully discharged? How is it to be saved from offence and impertinence? How shall we gain admission to move among the needs and perils of our brother’s soul? How shall we gain an entrance into his secret place? "What dispositions are required in order to back the ministry and make it spiritually effective? The apostle acts as our counsellor, and gives us detailed instruction in all these things. First of all, it must be the service of willingness. "Not of constraint, but willingly." (1 Peter 5:2) One volunteer is worth two pressed men. I am not quite sure whether the proverbial saying is pertinent. I am doubtful if an equation can be established. On the high planes of spiritual service no number of pressed men can take the place of a volunteer. But can men be pressed into unfruitful spiritual service? Yes, men are sometimes constrained by what they call "the pressure of circumstances." They say that they "could not very well get out of it." They had been importuned so frequently that for very shame they could decline no longer. If they could have found another excuse, another excuse would have been offered. But their inventiveness failed them. Their excuse-chamber was empty. They simply had to do it! Their wills had no part in the hallowed service. They were just pressed into the ministry by circumstantial constraint which they could no longer comfortably resist. What shall we say about it? Just this--that people whose wills are not in the service, are really not in the service at all. Where there is no spontaneity the fervour is fictional, and we shall never thaw the wintry bondage of men by painted and theatrical fires. But there is a loftier constraint than the pressure of importunity and the failure of the supply of excuse. There is the constraint of conscience, which sends men into service impelled by the sense of duty. But even the conscience-labourer may toil and toil away in a fruitless task. Men may do their duty unwillingly, and the absence of the will deprives their service of the very atmosphere which would render it efficient. Duty, without the inclination of the will, is cold and freezing, and never makes a warm and genial way into the hidden precincts of another’s soul. If I were stretched in pain and sickness I would not care to be nursed by duty. All the attentions might be regular and methodical, and yet I should mourn the absence of the something which makes the ministry winsome and alive. "I just love to have her near my bed," said a hospital patient to me the other day, speaking of her Christly and consecrated nurse. That is duty with an atmosphere. It is duty transfigured. Duty may make people righteous; alone it will not make them good. "And scarcely for a righteous man, will one die; yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die." I do not think that duty will carry us far into the deep hungers and weaknesses of our fellow-men. We need the "plus," the gracious inclination of the will, the leaning of the entire being in the line of service. We need to be swayed, not by the compulsion of external pressure, not even by the lonely sovereignty of the moral sense, but by an inward constraint, "warm, sweet, tender," the unfailing impulse of grace, abiding in us as "a well, springing up into eternal life." "Not of constraint, but willingly." Secondly, our service must be the service of affection. "Nor yet for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind." (1 Peter 5:2) We are not to be moved in our service by any hunger for external reward, and do not let us think that external rewards are exhausted under the single category of money. Men may take up Christian service to enrich their purse, to enlarge their business, and in many ways to advance a transient interest, But we may also labour in the hunger for recognition and applause, and I am not sure which of the two occupies the lower sphere, he who hungers for money, or he who thirsts for applause. A preacher may dress and smooth his message to court the public cheers, and labourers in other spheres may bid for prominence, for imposing print, for grateful recognition. All this unfits us for our task. It destroys the fine sense of the shepherd. It destroys his perception of the needs and perils of the sheep. It despoils us of our bread, and robs us of our staff, and we have neither food nor protection to offer to our hungering and endangered fellow-man. "Not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind." Do thy service, not for the praises and rewards of men, but as Martin Luther says, "from the very bottom of the heart, out of love to the thing itself, out of joyous devotion to the work which the Lord thy God gives thee." The service of willingness! The service of affection! It must also be the service of humility! "Neither as lording it over the flock . . . gird yourselves with humility, to serve one another." (1 Peter 5:3-5) That is most subtle and needed counsel. Who would have expected that spiritual pastors would be warned against lordliness and pride? Who would have imagined that men who are ministering the gospel of lowliness should themselves be exalted in pride! It is one of the most insidious temptations which beset the working disciple of Christ. Pride ever lurks just at the heels of power. Even a little authority is prone to turn the seemly walk into a most offensive strut. But the peril is subtler still. While I assume to feed my brother, my own soul may be a-hungered. While I am helping his defence, the enemy may be ravaging my own land. The peril is subtler still. Some how we come to find a virtue in preaching and teaching, and our preaching and teaching become our doing. Teachers and preachers are somehow allured outside their own message--its evangel and its warnings--and we are solaced and soothed by the lonely fact that we have shared in its proclamation. It is a terrible temptation, and if we yield to it, it swells the heart with lordliness and pride. What is our security? "All of you gird yourselves with humility." Put on the apron of the slave! Go into the awful presence of the Lord, and contemplate His glory until the vision brings you wonderingly to your knees! "Go, stand on the mount before the Lord." That is the place where we discover our size! No man speaks of his greatness who has been closeted with God. Lordliness changes into holy fear, and pride bows down in reverent supplication. Oh, we must come from the Presence-chamber into the pulpit! Nay, the pulpit itself must be the Presence-chamber, and the man must preach in the consciously realised presence of the Almighty and Eternal God. The Lord will have no proud men in His service. Such men are self-appointed. "I never knew you." Their names are not to be found in the Lamb’s Book of Life. "God resisteth the proud." He stands in the way and fights them! "The angel of the Lord stood in the way for an adversary." It is an appalling thought; our strongest antagonist may be the Lord whom we are professing to serve. "God resisteth the proud." Let us hasten to add the complementary evangel. "And giveth grace to the humble." It is the humble, kneeling soul that receives ineffable outpourings of Divine grace. Grace ever seeks out the lowliest. It streams from the hills, It descends to the plain. To the humble soul God gives the very dynamics of fruitful service. In all spiritual ministry it is only grace that tells. Nothing else counts! Other gifts may amuse, may interest, may allure, but grace alone can engage in the labour of spiritual redemption. The servants of the Lord are to be filled with grace, and their overflow will constitute their influence upon their fellows. Out of them shall flow "rivers of water of life." " God giveth grace to the humble." Lastly, it must be the service of trustfulness. "Casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He careth for you." (1 Peter 5:7) Take your alarms to Him. Talk out your fears with him. Lay them upon Him in quiet assurance. And this must be done in the interests of spiritual economy. Terrible is the waste of spiritual energy which results from anxiety and fear. To allow anxiety to rear itself in the soul is like permitting rank weeds to grow in the flower-bed; and the worthier growths, being deprived of nutriment, grow faint and droop away. "He careth for you." In these high matters the Lord is doing the thinking. Oh, could we but relinquish all Our earthly props, and simply fall On Thine almighty arms! And what is to be the reward of such services? "When the chief Shepherd shall be manifested . . ." (1 Peter 5:4) Some day we are to see Him face to face. What then? "Ye shall receive the crown of glory." The victory crown will be composed of leaves and flowers which will never fade away; of leaves which are the tokens of abiding spring; of flowers which are the tokens of ever-enriching glory. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 20: 01.18. 1PE_5:8-10 -- THROUGH ANTAGONISMS TO PERFECTNESS ======================================================================== 1 Peter 5:8-10 -- Through Antagonisms To Perfectness 1 Peter 5:8-10 -- Be sober, be watchful: your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom withstand stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are accomplished in your brethren who are in the world. And the God of all grace, who called you unto His eternal glory in Christ, after that ye have suffered a little while, shall Himself perfect, stablish, strengthen you. "The devil . . . walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." (1 Peter 5:8) Peter’s memory is here helping Peter’s message. (Reminiscence is shaping his counsel. It does seem as though at times this apostle dips his pen in his own blood. At any rate, the living crimson of his own experience abundantly colours the page. The epistle is hortatory: it is also biographical. The document is alive. It unfolds a faith; it also records a pilgrimage. In the passage which is immediately before us one feels how the life emerges as the commentary upon the message. Let me for a moment identify portions of this dim background, and set them in relation to the text. Here is the foreground, "God . . . who called you." Here is the background, "And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after Me." Here is the text, "Be watchful." Here is the context, "Simon, Simon, sleepest thou? Couldst thou not watch one hour?" Here is the warning, "Your adversary, the devil . . . walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." Here is the reminiscence, "Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have thee." Here is the evangel, "The God of all grace . . . will make you perfect." Here is the experience, "Thou art Simon (hearer); thou shalt be Peter" (a rock). I say that this man’s life-blood stains his speech. His words are life, not the expression of speculation, but the utterance of a travail, the ripe judgments of a man who has "known and felt." And now he lays down his pen for a moment and surveys his chequered days. He notes the innumerable allurements which have beset his path. He recalls the gay fascinations, the incentives to pride, the lure of power, the bewitchment of personal ambition. He marks the violence of vice, the tempestuous charge of passion, the terrific onrush of the blind and brutal forces of persecution. And all these confront the lonely wayfarer as he picks his way towards God. Life abounds in moral antagonisms. The empire of devilry runs right up to our gates. The destructive mouth is open on every side. The flesh lusts against the spirit. Life is filled with moral menace! All this the apostle sees as he contemplates his own pilgrimage, and so he takes up his pen again and writes this warning to his young, inexperienced, and somewhat wilful readers, "Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." I think there is something very suggestive in the figures employed by the Bible to describe the approaches of the powers of evil and night. The devil has a fairly extensive wardrobe, but his common and more familiar guises are of three types--a serpent, an angel of light, and a roaring lion. It is in one or other of these three shapes that the forces of sin most frequently assail us. They come in the guise of the serpent. They beguile our senses. They pervert our judgment. They enchant our imaginations. We are fascinated, bewitched, paralysed by the influence of some illicit and unclean spell. The love of money becomes a fascination. It holds a man as under a wizard’s spell. Gambling becomes a bewitchment, a kind of spiritual bondage, in which the poor soul, in mesmerised inclinations, is slowly drawn towards its own destruction. The devil approaches as a serpent, and like fixed and stupefied birds we are in peril of dropping into his devouring jaws. He comes also in the guise of an angel of light. He poses as an evangelist. He plays the r?le of one whose ministry it is to deepen our conception of the love and graciousness of God. He tells us that we do not think highly enough of God. He loves us too much to be pained by our small neglects. In fact, we best show our confidence in God by disregarding these neglects. Our trust is altogether too elementary and straight. We should cast ourselves down from a few pinnacles, and display to all men what a wonderful confidence we have in the out stretched everlasting arms of God! Such is the devil as an angel of light. Such is the devil as the preacher of the exceeding breadth of our Father’s love. Such is the devil intent on easing the strain of our religious life, relaxing its severities, and putting our feet into the way of a more spacious providence and peace. He would turn religion into thin refinements; he would convert a deep devotion into a glozing plausibility; and he would transform a hallowed trust into light and flippant presumption. And the devil also comes as a roaring lion. The subtlety of the serpent is laid aside; he discards the sheen of the angel of light; he appears as sheer brutal force, an antagonist of terrific and naked violence, bearing down his victims under the heavy paws of relentless persecution. "When the apostle wrote this letter, the lion was about; Nero was at work; the Christians were being hunted unto death, in the vain attempt at stamping out their faith and devotion to the Man of Nazareth, their Saviour and their Lord. He comes as a serpent, as an angel of light, as a roaring lion. He came to the Master as a serpent when he offered Him worldly power. He came as an angel of light when he sought to deepen and enrich His trust. He came to Him as a roaring lion in the blows and blasphemies of the bloodthirsty multitude. This antagonism we have got to meet. How can we meet it in the hope of certain triumph? Let us turn to the apostle’s counsel. "Be sober." (1 Peter 5:8) The culture of sobriety! See to Verse 8 it that you are not intoxicated, drugged into any kind of perilous stupor. Keep your head clear. Be collected. "Be sober." Now, the apostle is writing to men and women who are professedly the followers of Jesus Christ, and I think there are two perils in the religious life, both of which have their issue in moral stupor. We can lose our senses in excitement, and we can lose them in sleep. There are perils in sensationalism, and there are perils in encroaching drowsiness. There is the stupor which accompanies exaggeration, and there is the stupor of indifference. There is an excessive emotionalism which offers no barriers against the incursions of the devil. That is the peril of all revivals. Men may "lose their heads," and their very excitement fosters a moral drowsiness which gives hospitality to the besetting forces of temptation and sin. It is among the highly emotional races that we find the profoundest moral sleep. "Be sober." If your spirit be fervent, at all pains let it be clear. "The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets." And on the other side there is the moral stupor which is the issue of a growing indifference, frequently initiated by small neglects. A man neglects the pointing of his house; damp enters; chills are born; disease is invited; death reigns. Relaxation in trifles is often the beginning of moral benumbment. Or it may be that a Christian man begins to take his pleasures in injurious measure. He used to sojourn in them; now he lives in them. "He that liveth in pleasure is dead." The helpful potion has become an illicit drug. Taken in homoeopathic doses the pleasure was a tonic and restorative; taken in larger measure it became an opiate, and sank the life in perilous sleep. "Whether our stupor be occasioned by excitement, or by neglect, or by dram-drinking, whether of alcoholic liquor or of drugging delights, such stupor gives the devil his opportunity, and offers him an open field in which his triumph is inevitable. "Be sober." "Be watchful." (1 Peter 5:8) The culture of perceptiveness! Not only be sober, but thoroughly awake, exercising your perceptions to the rarest and most fruitful refinement. We know the large possibilities which allure us in the cultivation of the physical senses; equally large possibilities glow before us in the culture of the soul. Every exercise of watchfulness ensures us stronger sight. In the quest of the Divine we come to self-possession. In this line of culture the progress is from the greater to the less. The moral senses perceive ever finer and finer essences of good and evil. Moral progress is in the direction of the scruple. The finest scholar in the school of Christ is he who has the rarest perception of the moral trifle. "He that doeth the least of these commandments is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Therefore, exercise thy moral senses, lest the hordes of evil should enter through the gates of unperceived neglects. "Be watchful." "Stedfast in the faith." (1 Peter 5:9) The culture of faith! Our faith has to be "stedfast," firm, solid, impenetrable like a wall. Our faith has to be "stedfast," a rampart of assurance, close, compact, and invulnerable. I have spoken of the cultivation of the moral sense, and of its progress in the detection of the trine. Here we are taken to a plane of still higher education, the culture of the spiritual sense, the apprehension of God, proceeding toward the goal of calm and invincible assurance. To be stedfast in faith is to be sure of God. The grand attainment necessitates continual exercise, the "practice of the presence of God." We must exercise our spiritual muscles in the ministry of communion with God, in praise and prayer and supplication and intercession; the exercise must be a wrestling, determined and continuous, until there steals into our life an awed sense of the Divine presence, and in the calmness of assurance we can confidently say, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." How, then, shall we resist the devil, in whatsoever guise he may appear to us? By the culture of sobriety; by the culture of moral perceptiveness; and by that culture of spiritual apprehension which will lead us into the peace which is strength--"the peace of God which passeth all understanding." Now, let me carry your minds forward a moment to the contemplation of the all-sufficient dynamic, which may be ours in this inevitable conflict with the powers of evil and night. The culture of sobriety, the culture of perceptiveness, the culture of faith will open out our lives to Him whom the apostle calls "the God of all grace," (1 Peter 5:10) and by His presence we shall be energised. "The God of all grace!" It is a beautiful and wealthy phrase, suggestive of varied endowment for varied and changing need. My need is manifold; the grace of God is also "manifold." It will fit itself to my need as light or heat, as water or bread. My God is "the God of all grace," now like sweet sunshine, now like burning flame, now like refreshing dew, now like the falling, softening rain. "The God of all grace," a tower and a sword, my refuge and my shield. "My grace is sufficient for thee"; sufficient amid the beguilements and fascinations of the serpents; sufficient amid the plausible refinements of the angel of light; sufficient amid the apparently destructive forces of the lion of violence and persecution. The whole personality, in every faculty and power, shall be pervaded with Divine forces, and in thy God thou shalt find an exuberant fountain of mercy, goodness, and compassion. "My God shall make all grace to abound towards you." And what is to be the ultimate glory? "The God of all grace . . . shall Himself perfect, stablish, strengthen you." (1 Peter 5:10) Perfected! Established! Strengthened! Settled! They are all architectural metaphors, and are massed together to suggest the fine wholeness, consistency, finish and security of the grace-blessed character as it will appear upon the glorious fields of light! "Established," every layer firmly and securely based! "Strengthened," splendidly seasoned, with no danger of splitting or of warping! "Settled," the entire structure resting evenly, comfortably, upon the best and surest foundation! These are the metaphors, and they unveil before me future attainments of blessedness, when the grace-filled character shall appear before God like a firm, well-finished, and gloriously proportioned building; all the manifold faculties co-operating in rare association; every power firm, decisive, and sanctified, and the entire life settled in holy calm and comfort on "the one foundation, Jesus Christ our Lord." Now, see the glorious range of the entire passage. "The God of all grace, who called you unto His eternal glory." (1 Peter 5:10) That glory is not altogether remote. Even now we are beginning to share it. The spring is not yet here, but the lark is up! Glory awaits us in Emmanuel’s land; but we are finding heavenly tokens by the way. The man of grace hath found Glory begun below. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 21: 01.19. 2PE_1:1-2 -- LIBERTY! EQUALITY! FRATERNITY! ======================================================================== 2 Peter 1:1-2 -- Liberty! Equality! Fraternity! 2 Peter 1:1-2 -- Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained an equally precious faith with us in the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. WHEN I had read this passage through many times in my effort to discover the inwardness and sequence of the apostle’s thought, there leapt into my mind the great watchword of the French Revolution, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!" My text seemed to accept the proffered ministry of the watchword, and deigned to express itself through the heightened and glorified clarion of the Revolution. Here is the secret of liberty: "A bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ." (2 Peter 1:1) And here is the basis of equality: "They that have obtained an equally precious faith with us." And here is the very genius of fraternity: "Grace to you and peace be multiplied in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord," (2 Peter 1:2) Here, then, we have the apostolic evangel of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Here is the secret of liberty: "A bondslave of Jesus." (2 Peter 1:1) At the heart of all true freedom there is a certain bondage. Liberty without restraint is always self-destructive. The man who will not be bound to anything or anybody is always the most enslaved. Even anarchist societies are compelled to have some rules, and the making of a rule always implies the forging of a chain. Liberty must be limited if it is to be possessed. Every type of freedom has its chains. That is true of intellectual freedom. A man who would be intellectually free must pay obeisance to certain laws of thought. Mental disorder is a dark enslavement. The movement that springs from obedience to the laws of thought is a fruitful freedom. Free thought begins in wearing a chain; the mental freeman is at heart a slave. That is true also of political freedom. Political freedom consists in the recognition of individual rights. To assert my brother’s rights is to state a limit to my own. Here again we start with a chain. We recognise limitations. The real political freeman is at heart a slave. And this is true also of moral freedom; no man is morally free who does not pay homage to his conscience. Moral freedom springs from the sense of obligation. Apart from that ligament, that bond, the whole body of the moral life falls limb from limb in inextricable chaos and confusion. Now let us lift the argument up to the highest type of freedom, the glorious freedom of the spirit. A great writer has denned the French notion of liberty as political economy and the English notion of liberty as personal independence. The Christian conception of liberty is inclusive of these, but infinitely greater. The most spacious of all liberties is liberation from self, and this kind of freedom springs from initial bondage. True freedom in the spirit begins in bondage to the Lord of Life. I am not surprised, there fore, that the; Apostle Peter and the Apostle Paul, men who sing so loudly and so triumphantly of the wealth and plenteousness of their freedom, should begin by proclaiming themselves the Master’s slaves. "Paul, a bondslave of Jesus." "Peter, a bondslave and apostle of Jesus Christ." Bondage is the secret of freedom. "Peter, a bondslave." Let us see what is implied in this suggestive word. First, the term "bondslave" implies the acknowledgment of a fact. He is a slave. He has been bought. He is the Lord’s property. A great price has been paid for him. The apostle thought of his Master’s weary days and nights, of the tears and agonies of Gethsemane, of the shame and darkness and abandonment of Calvary. By all this expenditure on the part of the Saviour the apostle had been bought. He acknowledged his Master’s rights; he was his Master’s slave. Secondly, the term "bondslave" implies the assumption of an attitude. The apostle puts himself in the posture of homage and obedience. His eye was ever watching the Master, his ear was ever listening. He was a slave, but not servile. I do not know what word just expresses it; I have been unable to find one. But this I know, that if we would learn what "slave" means in my text we must go to the love-sphere and seek the interpretation there. We must go where the lover slaves for the loved, and yet calls her slavery exquisite freedom. A real loving mother, slaving for her child, would not change her slavery for mines of priceless wealth or for unbroken years of cushioned ease. "Thy willing bondslave I." And thirdly, to be a slave implies the discharge of a mission. "Peter, a bondslave and apostle." He is sent forth to do the Master’s will. The Master bids; he goes. Anywhere! Through the long, dusty, tiring highways of righteousness, or to the valley of gloom; "through the thirsty desert or the dewy mead." His not to reason why, His not to make reply, His but to do and die! But in that bondage the apostle finds a perfect freedom. All the powers of his being are emancipated and sing together in glorious liberty. Life that is fundamentally bound be comes like an orchestra, every faculty constituting a well-tuned instrument, and all of them co-operating in the production of a harmony which is well-pleasing in the ears of God. And here we have the basis of equality: "To them that have obtained an equally precious faith with us in the righteousness of our God." (2 Peter 1:1) Let us rearrange the words a little. This I think is the meaning: in the righteousness of God, the absolute justice and fairness of God, you have obtained an equally precious faith with us. God in His righteousness has, in this consummate gift of faith, made us gloriously equal. Now look at that. Where does the apostle begin his reasoning about our primary equality? He begins with the righteousness of God. God is perfectly fair. He is no respecter of persons. I know this faith is troubled and disturbed by the material inequalities we see around us. Here is my little one safe at home in bed, and here is another little one, not much older, out upon the streets in the late night hungry and cold. Is God fair? Here is a good man in chronic pain; here is a bad man in health and wealth and honour. Yet God is righteous in His purpose! He does not treat us like puppets and marionettes. He has endowed us with brain and conscience and heart and will, and He has committed to us the power by which many of these gross in justices can be rectified. If the Church of the living God were to awake from her sleep to day you and I know how much could be done to rearrange material comforts, and to crush and destroy many things which make for misery, disease, and death. While our sword is rusting, and our couch has almost become our tomb, do not let us raise a mere debating-society topic and ask the question: Is God fair? It is for our own dignity, and for the disciplining and perfecting of the race, that our God has committed unto us the power by which many of these burdensome iniquities may be removed. But, leaving all these, let it be said that in the great primary things, the things out of which all other equalities take their spring, we may be grandly equal. We may all obtain an equally precious faith, the faith-dynamic which can remove mountains. Faith itself is a gift of God, and in this all men may be equal. You and Paul! The Salvation Army Captain and Martin Luther! "Precious faith," the apostle calls it, precious because of the wealth which through it comes into the life. "Faith buys wine and milk," says an old commentator. Faith goes| into the country of God among His vineyards, and out among His fields, and eats and drinks the rare and sweet and toothsome things. I say that in this great primary matter we may all be equal, and in this fundamental equality all other healthy equalities will find their impulse and resource. And lastly, we have here the genius of fraternity. "Grace to you and peace be multiplied in the knowledge of God and of Jesus." (2 Peter 1:2) How deep and exquisite is the spirit of fraternity!" What do these people seek for one another? Knowledge! "Knowledge of the Lord." And this means the advanced stages of a science, the most perfect learning, the riper unfoldings of the glory of God. They are ambitious for one another, that spiritual obscurities may be clarified, and that the partial may be perfected. A little while ago, at the dawning of the day, I looked out over a great stretch of country from the vantage ground of a lofty summit. I could only see things dimly, in vague and imperfect outline. There beneath me lay stretched out into the far distance a long, white streak of dull silver; and there rested a grey cloud; and yonder loomed a dark botch which seemed to be a remnant of the departing night. But the light came on apace, and my knowledge was advanced and perfected. The thin white streak turned out to be a river! The bank of grey mist revealed itself as a lake! The dark botch, which seemed like the belated baggage of the night, revealed itself as a forest! "The glory of the Lord shall be revealed." "Now I know in part, but then. . .!" "Grace to you and peace be multiplied in the knowledge of God." Out of this advanced and advancing knowledge there is to come a multiplication of grace and peace. Grace is to be multiplied; the single drops are to become showers; the solitary rays are to glow like the noon. And peace is to be multiplied, deepened, heightened, and enriched! Is not this the very genius of fraternity? What thing more beautiful can brotherhood grow than wishes and intercessions like these? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 22: 01.20. 2PE_1:1-4 -- THE CHRISTIAN'S RESOURCES ======================================================================== 2 Peter 1:1-4 -- The Christian’s Resources 2 Peter 1:1-4 -- Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained an equally precious faith with us in the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His Divine power hath granted unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that called us by His own glory and virtue; whereby He hath granted unto us His precious and exceeding great promises; that through these ye may become partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world by lust. HERE is the apostle reckoning up his resources in the spirit. What has he got in the bank? Divine power, glory, virtue. (2 Peter 1:3) How is the wealth of the bank given out to him? In "exceeding great and precious promises"; in "all things that pertain to life and godliness." And what is accomplished by this abundant and lavishly distributed wealth? "That through these ye may become partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped from, the corruption that is in the world by lust." (2 Peter 1:4) Where had the apostle gained the knowledge of his resources? He had found them in the fellowship of the Lord Jesus, and he was never weary of reciting his discovery to others. We may be sure that when the Apostle Paul went up to Jerusalem, and tarried with Peter, it would be of these marvellous riches that the saintly fisherman would speak. "I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days." This well-trained and expert student, who had sat at the feet of Gamaliel, and who had proved to be one of his most alert and progressive disciples, goes up to Jerusalem to sit at the feet of another teacher, the fisherman Peter from the Galilean lake! "I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days." The pupil of Gamaliel wanted to hear from the lips of the fisherman all that his memory could recall and all that tongue could tell of those three eventful years! Long into the night they would sit and talk; long after the last wayfarer had gone home, and the sounds in the streets were stilled! The pupil could never get enough of the story, and the teller of the story never grew tired in its recital, and many times, in those crowded fifteen days, the dawn looked in through the lattice and found these sleepless men still busied in the story of their Lord. Peter would lead the eager and reverent steps of his new kinsman all the way across the years--the call on the beach that made him a disciple, the strange revealing miracle on the lake, the sermon on the hill, the private communions with the twelve when the crowd had gone away, the awful and overwhelming splendour of the transfigured Presence on the Mount: then in hushed and broken voice Peter would tell of Gethsemane, of the betrayal, of the scene among the servants in the hall, of his own denial, of his Master’s broken-hearted look, of the scourge and the crown of thorns, and the ribaldry and agonies of Calvary; and then the fisherman-teacher would recover his tone and feelings again as he related the wonders of the Resurrection, and all the gracious surprises of those altogether surprising forty days, until this pupil of Gamaliel, this once-while persecutor of the Saviour, could scarcely tell whether he was in the body or out of it! Depend upon it, those fifteen days with Peter left uneffaceable marks upon the mind and soul of Paul. Well, now, ours is not the privilege of hearing that story from the lips of the fisherman-saint; but if I look at my text aright I think that here Peter puts his finger upon what he conceived to be the three great characteristics of his Master’s life. It is something to have the words this man employs when his eyes sweep across the marvellous experiences which he had been privileged to share. What does he think about it all? What are the things which stand out in predominant distinction? If there are hills and mountains in a life altogether superlative, what are the mountains? And here, I think, is the apostle’s answer, given in three of the great words which lie like the great foundations of my text--His "Divine power," His "glory," His "virtue." That is supremely interesting as coming to us from one so human, so altogether akin to us as the Apostle Peter. When he flings his mind back in the contemplation of his Master, he summarises his ever-fresh impressions in the words, "power," "virtue," "glory." That is what Peter found in the Lord: and that is what we may find in the Lord to-day. What have we in the bank? Divine power. (2 Peter 1:3) In what had Peter witnessed the power? He had marvelled at the Master’s power over Him self. He had stood in silent wonder as he gazed at Jesus self-possession and self-control. It was all so opposed to his own self-distraction, his self-dissipation and indecision. He had marked his Master’s power of patience, His refusal to be hurried into any precipitate action, His quiet waiting for the appointed time: "Mine hour is not yet come." He had witnessed the Lord’s inexhaustible patience in the presence of His foes. How full of waiting gentleness He was through all those three years! How He bore with Judas, and how eagerly He watched for signs of his return. He knew him, He pleaded with him; even when Judas was intent on betrayal He held him as by a hair. And Peter had seen the Lord’s patience with His friends. It takes an immense storage of power to be patient with dull people. And the Lord’s disciples had been very dull, and they had imbibed the lessons very slowly. "Do ye not yet understand?" "Oh, slow of heart to believe!" And yet the lesson had been quietly repeated, and no sign of irritableness was witnessed in the Master’s speech and behaviour. He condescended to the level of the dullest-witted disciple, and patiently bore with him as he learned the elements of the gospel of grace. I say Peter had gazed upon all this--it had been a daily phenomenon--and now when he looked back upon it all, and recalled his impressions of these marvellous years, he was re-impressed with the wealth of the "Divine power" of his Redeemer. But Peter had also witnessed the Master’s power over others. He had seen His trans figuring influence over their souls. He had seen faces illumined by His touch. He had watched the lighting up of a darkened life. He had seen the rekindling of a Magdalene and the restoration of a Zaccheus. He had seen the cold, paralysing burden of guilt fall away at the imperative of the Lord’s command: "Thy sins be forgiven thee." And when the once paralysed body buoyantly stepped away from the Master’s presence, Peter detected behind the released body a quickened and liberated soul. Peter had also seen the transfiguring power of the Lord upon the minds of others. He had seen Him break the tyranny of mental bondage, the sovereignty of vicious thinking, and he had seen the oppressed stand clothed and in his right mind. He had finally witnessed the Lord’s power over the bodies of men. He could command the forces of health, and they came at His bidding. He could marshal them as an army and antagonise disease and drive it away. He had seen leprosy pass out of a man’s face like a tide retiring from the beach. He had seen the mystic element of life return into a vacant body, and all its functions and faculties were restored. Is there any wonder that, when Peter gazed back upon all these things, his soul should bow in holy reverence in the contemplation of the Master’s power? What else did the apostle find emphasised in his retrospect? He was confronted by the all-predominant peak of the Lord’s "virtue." (2 Peter 1:3) The moral goodness of His Master was never away from his sight. And let us remember that Peter now uses words with the Saviour’s contents. He is judging his Master by the Master’s own standards. There are many ways of using the same word, but he employs it in the highest significance. A scavenger may use the word "clean" as descriptive of a freshly swept road; a surgeon may use the word "clean" as applied to the instruments prepared for an operation; but how exacting is the second usage as compared with the first! And here is the word "virtue." As employed by the world it has a very impoverished content, a kind of mere scavenger significance; but when employed by the Master it embraces absolute purity in the profoundest depths of the life. And I say Peter applies the Lord’s own standard to the Lord’s own life, and he pronounces it full of virtue. He had listened to His conversation, and never for one moment had the print of an unclean or unfair word crossed his Master’s lips. He had seen Him in His dealings with others, and never had a suggestion of double-dealing appeared in His behaviour. He had seen Him in His public life, and marked how He had rejected the help of all immoral auxiliaries and of all short cuts to a coveted end. He had refused the ministry of fire and the support of the sword, and the countenance and patronage of kings. "Wilt thou that we call down fire from heaven?" He would have none of it. "Lord, here are swords!" "They that take the sword shall perish by the sword." "Then Herod questioned with Him in many words." "He answered him nothing." Peter was astounded at the austerity and holy sovereignty of his Master’s "virtue." And there is one other peak on which the apostle gazed when he surveyed the three wonderful years--the peak of Divine "glory" (2 Peter 1:3) What is glory? It is the bloom of character. It is majesty issuing in grace. It is solar glory falling upon infirm eyes in rays of softest shining. It is holiness consummated in tenderness. It is truth in the radiant robes of mercy. It is the splendour of the Godhead shedding itself abroad in the delicacy of love. We must never dissociate grace from majesty; in reality we are unable to do it, but we are sorely tempted in thought to make the division. In literal truth we can no more dissociate them than we can separate the sun from the sunlight. "We beheld His glory, full of grace and truth." So that when we are contemplating the glory of the Lord we are among the holy tendernesses, the majestic gentlenesses, the incorruptible love which forgives and is never denied. Glory is the manifested presence of the Lord; warm and gentle as sunshine, and clean and pure as fire. Such are the outstanding characteristics of the Master’s life as recalled by this fisherman-seer, the man who once shrank from his Master in the awful consciousness of a tremendous disparity, but who now longs and prays for an even closer and intimate communion. Having named these three great significant wealths in the Lord Jesus, the apostle now proclaims them as the possible resources of all men. Because these riches are in the Lord Jesus they constitute a reservoir of treasure from which all His disciples can draw. It is wealth in the bank, and to us is given the privilege and the right to draw out from the bank and find mercy and grace in every time of need. What, then, may we get from this Lord of power and virtue and glory? We may obtain "precious and exceeding great promises." (2 Peter 1:4) Now, what is a promise? In our modern usage it is rather a light-weight word. It is often used as synonymous with "wish," and it carries no heavy significance. But the word as used in the New Testament has a far wider and vaster content. A promise of the Lord has a threefold purpose: it reveals an ideal, it kindles an ambition, it inspires a hope. We may take any promise we please in the Word of God, and we shall find it enshrines the secret of this threefold ministry. Take, for instance, the promise "I will give you rest." Here we have the revelation of the ideal--the restful life, the harmonious life; not the still life of a mountain tarn, but the full, brimming life of the river. Rest is not the repose of stillness; it is the absence of friction, the music of co-operation. Here, then, is an ideal. As I contemplate it, it kindles an ambition, and my soul covets the gracious inheritance. A gospel promise trans forms ambition into a mighty hope, and in the strength of a great expectancy the promised thing becomes possessed. So it is with all the promises of the Lord. They are "exceeding great" the ideal stretches across the life and fills the firmament; and they are "precious," pregnant with the possibility of inconceivable enrichment. But all this is not enough. A promise may reveal an ideal, and it may kindle an ambition, and it may inspire a hope, and yet it may fail to confer an operative endowment. I am not surprised, therefore, to find that the apostle goes on to record the gift of an endowment which is as sure as the word of the promise. "His Divine power hath granted unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness." (2 Peter 1:3) In the Lord the believer has not only promise, but equipment. "All things that pertain to life!" The life that now is! Whatever is requisite for a splendid life we may assuredly find in our Lord. It is not needful to have a strong body, but it is essential to have a fine judgment, and this we may find in the Lord. "The meek will He guide in judgment." "I will counsel thee with Mine eye upon thee." "He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall be the light of life." It is not needful to have a heavy purse, but it is essential to have a sweet temper, and this we may find in the Lord. A harsh and ugly temper is not only destructive to one’s own peace, and mars one’s own work, but it works havoc upon the peace and ministry of others. "Love suffereth long"; it is a fine, chaste, gracious temper, one of the commanding things that pertain to life and godliness. It is not needful to have a great following, but it is essential to have a companionable conscience, and this we may find in the Lord. A man has got a splendid travelling companion when he is on good terms with his own conscience. And a man is weak, miserably weak, even with the support of a multitude, if his own conscience is ranked among his foes. "A good conscience" is one of the things that pertain to life, and we may find in the bank "a conscience void of offence." "The things that pertain unto life" are not the things that are commonly named; and "the things that pertain unto life and godliness" are still more rarely found upon the lips of men. "The things that pertain unto life and godliness" are such things as I have named--a good judgment, a sweet temper, a companionable conscience, and above all, and as the root of all, the gift of faith, the gift of love, the fruits of forgiveness, the grand sense of reconciliation with God, which form the glorious inheritance of every man in Jesus Christ our Lord. And all this we may take out of the bank, "exceeding great and precious promises," filling one’s life with a vast ideal and with a fervent ambition and with an ardent hope; and "all things that pertain unto life and godliness," everything that is needful for the attainment of moral and spiritual strength and perfectness. And so we have looked at our wealth in the bank, the power and virtue and glory of the Lord. And we have looked at what we can draw out of the bank--"exceeding great and precious promises"; "all things that pertain unto life and godliness." And what is to be the end of it all? What is our possible destiny? "That through those ye may become partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world by lust." (2 Peter 1:4) So the ministry of the wealth is to effect a deliverance and a glorious adoption! We are to escape one thing and find refuge in another. Here is our deliverance, "having escaped the corruption that is in the world." Alas! we can be in no doubt as to the presence of corruption. It is everywhere about us; in this corruption men and women are everywhere enslaved. The enslavement has various guises. Dante, in the Divina Commedia, tells us that when he turned from the desert plain to scale the shining mount he encountered three beasts. And first A leopard, supple, lithe, exceeding fleet, Whose skin full many a dusky spot did stain. He found a leopard in the way, a beast which typified the love of sensual beauty, and in this beastliness many souls are enslaved. And then he met a lion Who seemed as if upon him he would leap, With head upraised and hunger fierce and wild. In the lion he typified the pride of strength, the vanity of perilous independence. And in this servitude how many souls are enslaved? And then he met a she-wolf-- A she-wolf with all greed defiled, Laden with hungry leanness terrible, That many nations had their peace beguiled. And the she-wolf typified the spirit of greed, the imprisoning bondage in which many souls are enslaved. These three beasts are ever found in the way of the man who would leave the level plain and take the shining slope. He will meet the leopard and the lion and the wolf. But in Christ we have the means of deliverance. We can pass the beasts in safety, and "escape the corruption that is in the world through lust." And with the deliverance there comes the glory of adoption. From the company of beasts we are translated into the fellowship and family of God. We "become partakers of the Divine nature." We draw upon the power of the Lord, the virtue of the Lord, the glory of the Lord! More and more does the beauty of the Lord rest upon us and within us. We become ever more finely endowed with the unsearchable riches of Christ. "We are transformed into the same image from glory to glory." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 23: 01.21. 2PE_1:5-9 -- DILIGENCE IN THE SPIRIT ======================================================================== 2 Peter 1:5-9 -- Diligence In The Spirit 2 Peter 1:5-9 -- Yea, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply virtue; and in your virtue knowledge; and in your knowledge temperance; and in your temperance patience; and in your patience godliness; and in your godliness love of the brethren; and in your love of the brethren love. For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful unto the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he that lacketh these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins. IN our previous meditation we were considering the vast resources which are the inheritance of every believer in Christ Jesus. "We gazed upon our bullion in the bank. We reverently contemplated the "exceeding great and precious promises," and we bowed in awe before the overwhelming ministry of God’s redeeming grace. And now what shall we do with these stupendous resources? "We must not allow the Divine wealth to soothe us into slumberous and perilous impotence. If the Lord makes us to "lie down in green pastures," it is only that by the gracious renewal wo might be enabled to walk in "the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake." Therefore "for this very cause add on your part all diligence." (2 Peter 1:5) It is a demand for business vigilance in the realm of the spirit. "We are not to close our eyes and allow our limbs to hang limp, in the expectancy that the Lord will carry us like blind logs. He made us of clay, but he formed us men, and as men He purposes that we shall live and move and have our being. And so He calls for "diligence." It is a word which elsewhere is translated haste, carefulness, business. It is very wonderful how commonly the New Testament takes its similes from the commercial world. "Trade ye herewith till I come." "Look therefore carefully how ye walk, buying up the opportunity." "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchantman." In all these varied passages there is a common emphasis upon the necessity of businesslike qualities in our spiritual life. We are called upon to manifest the same earnestness, the same intensity, the same strenuousness in the realm of spiritual enterprise as we do in the search for daily bread. And yet how frequent and glaring is the contrast between a man’s religious life and his life in the office or upon the exchange. His life seems to be lived in separate compartments; the one is suggestive of laxity and a waiting upon happy luck; the other is characterised by a fiery ardour and keen sagacity. There is method in the office; there is disorder in the closet. But here, I say, is a demand that men should be as businesslike in winning holiness as in seeking material wealth. We must bring method into our religion. "We must find out the best means of kindling the spirit of praise, and of engaging in quick and cease less communion with God, and then we must steadily adhere to these as a business man adheres to well-tested systems in commercial life. We must bring alertness into our religion; we must watch with all the keenness of an open-eyed speculator, and we must be intent upon "buying up every opportunity for the Lord." We must bring promptness into our religion. When some fervent impulse is glowing in our spirits we must not play with the treasured moment; "we must strike while the iron is hot." "Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." We must bring boldness into our religion. Timid men make no fine ventures. In the realm of religion it is he who ventures most who acquires most. Our weakness lies in our timidity. Great worlds are waiting for us if only we have the courage to go in and possess them. "Why are ye fearful, ye of little faith?" And we must bring persistence into our religion. We must not sit down and wail some doleful complaint because the seed sown in the morning did not bring the harvest at night. We must not encourage a spirit of pessimism because our difficulties appear insuperable. We must go steadily on and wear down every resistance in the grace-fed expectancy that we shall assuredly win if we faint not. Such are the characteristics of common diligence which we are to bring into co-operative fellowship with the forces of grace. "Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men." Assuming, then, that these business qualities and aptitudes are being brought into the ministry of the Spirit, we must now address ourselves to the expansion of our spiritual traffic, to the enrichment of our souls, and the enlargement of our spiritual stock. "In your faith supply virtue; and in your virtue knowledge; and in your knowledge temperance; and in your temperance patience; and in your patience godliness; and in your godliness love of the brethren; and in your love of the brethren love." (2 Peter 1:5-7) It is surely the addition of ever new departments to the wealthy interests of the soul! But let us mark that the endeavour after enlargement must have precise and distinctive aim. It is one of the perils of the religious life that we so frequently lose ourselves in vague and pointless generalities. Our confessions of sin have no pertinence, and our aspirations after holiness have no shining peaks. We must define our ambitions, and let them glow before us as distinct and radiant goals. It was a wise old monk who wrote, "We must always have some fixed purpose, and especially against those sins which do most of all hinder us." The principle is equally effective and applicable in the pursuit of virtue. What do I lack? Let me examine myself. It will probably be found that the things which most displease me in others are just the things which most characterise myself. Am I impatient? Let me supply it. Do I lack self-control? Let me supply it. Is my love of the brethren wanting in range? Let me supply it. But can we supply these additions at will? Ah, but the writer of this Epistle is not beginning with ethical counsel. He began by taking us round the bank and showing us the mighty resources on which we can draw. And then, after the contemplation of our wealth, he assumes that we are taking possession of it by faith, and that in the strength of that faith we are translating our strength into holy attainment in common life. It is a will that is rooted in God, and from God is drawing the strength it needs, which is engaged in this active ministry of adding to its moral and spiritual treasures. And a will so set can attain unto anything, and can become clothed in the superlative beauties of the likeness of Christ. But here, now, is a vital principle; every added virtue strengthens and transfigures every other virtue. Every addition to character affects the colour of the entire character. In Ruskin’s great work of Modern Painters, he devotes one chapter to what he calls "The Law of Help." And here is the paragraph in which he defines the law: "In true composition, everything else not only helps everything else a little, but helps it with its utmost power. Every atom is full of energy. Not a line, not a speck of colour, but is doing its very best, and that best is aid." It is even so in the composition of character. Every addition I make to my character adds to the general enrichment. The principle has its reverse application. To withdraw a single grace is to impoverish every element in the religious life. "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, is become guilty of all." We cannot poison the blood in one limb without endangering the entire circulation. But it is the positive application of the principle with which we are now concerned. And the graces are a co-operative brotherhood, they are interpervasive, and each one lends energy and colour to the whole. We cannot possibly supply a new grace to the life without bringing wealth to all our previous acquirements. For instance, here is "godliness." Godliness by itself may be very regular, and at the same time very icy and very cold. It is like a room without a fire. But now "in your godliness supply love." And what a difference a fire always makes to a well-furnished room! Love brings the fire into the cold chamber, and godliness becomes a genial thing with a new glow upon it, and a new geniality at its heart. But the love thus supplied not only enriches godliness, but every other grace as well. What a tenderness it gives to patience, and what a soft beauty it brings to self-control! Take love away from the circle of the graces, and they are like a varied landscape when the sun is hid behind the clouds. "In your faith supply . . . love." And so on, with never-ceasing additions, for ever enriching the entire life of the soul. Men who bring such business-like qualities into the sphere of their religion, and who are continually enriching their spiritual stock, make a lasting contribution to the common weal. "For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful unto the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." (Verse 8) Such lives are "not idle," they are active; they are not "unfruitful," they are efficient. Surely one could not find two words more descriptive of a worthy and positive life; it is active and efficient. It is active and efficient on the side of reception, the whole life being gloriously open to the incoming of the Divine; it is active and efficient in the ministry of impartation, communicating itself in rich currency to the interests and affairs of the world. "We become the best and the most active and the most efficient citizens when we contribute to the common life the gift of sweet and perfected dispositions. A poor but sanctified life is a magnificent civic asset! Who can compute the value to a community of a character enriched by patience, by self-control, by brotherly kindness, and by love? Such characters are moral health centres; they bring ozone into the crowded thoroughfares of common life. That is the true efficiency, as indeed that is the true success, which makes an enduring contribution to the common wealth. Such things can never die. What then? If we are businesslike, continually adding to our spiritual stock, and thereby contributing to the common weal, what will be the issue? The apostle expresses the issue in negation. "He that lacketh these things is blind." (2 Peter 1:9) Then if a man possess these things he is consequently endowed with sight. Every supplied grace enlarges the spiritual vision. Every refinement of the disposition is the acquirement of an extra lens. And now I think of it, my text is like a vast drawn-out telescope, with lens after lens added, ever contributing to the intensity and extension of its range. See how it runs: "Add virtue, and knowledge, and temperance, and patience, and godliness, and love of the brethren, and love!" What seeing power a man will gain with a telescope like this! But lacking these things I should only see things that are near, and there will be no distant alluring vision, and every thought will be of the immediate day. Lacking "these things," bread is bread alone; let these things be added, and our daily bread becomes a sacrament through which we see the very beauty of the Christ. Without "these things," affliction becomes a dark and a heavy deposit; let "these things," be added, and we can see its issue in "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Drop "these things," and life becomes a thing of purely transient import, a jostle and a squabble for a slice of bread. Let "these things" be added, and life becomes endowed with eternal significance, and every little duty becomes an open gate into the infinite world. And so the apostle concludes his exhortation by re-emphasising his kindly and urgent counsel. "Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence." (2 Peter 1:10) Let every atom of energy be devoted to your holy cause. Never let your prayers be scrimped and niggardly! Do not enter into life maimed, and so escape corruption by the skin of your teeth! Seek to win life, and to win it well, "for thus shall be richly supplied unto you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 24: 01.22. 2PE_1:12-15 -- THE SANCTIFICATION OF THE MEMORY ======================================================================== 2 Peter 1:12-15 -- The Sanctification Of The Memory 2 Peter 1:12-15 -- Wherefore I shall be ready always to put you in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and are established in the truth which is with you. And I think it right, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; knowing that the putting off of my tabernacle cometh swiftly, even as our Lord Jesus Christ signified unto me. Yea, I will give diligence that at every time ye may be able after my decease to call these things to remembrance. "I shall be ready always to put you in remembrance of these things. (2 Peter 1:12) And what things are these? We have seen how the earlier counsels of this great chapter are disposed. It is as though we had first a description of rare and fertile soil, and then a catalogue of the marvellously bountiful fruits which can be grown in it. Or to change our figure, it is as though the earlier verses are descriptive of every man’s banking account, and the later verses point out the possible issues of vigilant and aggressive enterprise. The whole passage begins in the general endowment of grace and peace, and it finishes in the glorious possibility of an abundant entrance "into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." "I shall be ready always to put you in remembrance of these things." It is vital that we remember this connection between soil and fruits, between capital and labour. It is all-important that we hold the apostolic teaching that the Christian gospel is not a theory to be defended, but an inheritance to be explored and enjoyed. The Christian is not first an apologist, or even an evangelist, but an experimentalist, dealing personally with the proffered grace and power of his Lord. At every moment the Christian is both passive and active, passively receiving the redemptive power of grace, and actively working it out in rich and perfected character. He is both suppliant and ambassador; he communes with God, he intercedes with man. He is not separately a man of the cloisters or a man of the street; he is both in one. He keeps in touch with the tremendous background of grace in order that he may fill his foreground with the fruits of grace in Christian life and duty. He brings the infinite into the trifle, and he knows that without the powers of eternal salvation he cannot redeem the passing day. In a word the Christian takes knowledge of his resources and does not dare to seek to live his life without them. He remembers "these things." But is it not a strange thing that we should ever be inclined to forget them? We should surely assume that whatever other things we might be inclined to forget we should always remember that we are spiritual millionaires. Is it possible that in doing the little business of life we can ever forget our buried capital in the Lord, the treasure laid up for us in heaven, and seek to win spiritual success without it? Yes, all this is a grave possibility, and therefore the apostle ardently labours to keep our remembrance alert. Memory is such a child of caprice, even in purely human matters! The memory is in the habit of playing curious pranks. We can remember people’s faces, but we forget their names. We remember a story, but we forget its date. We can repeat all the marriage relationships of the royal house, but we forget the steps of even a short argument. We can recall the unessential, and we forget the fundamental. "Memory is a capricious witch; she husbands bits of straw and rag, and throws her jewels out of the window." And certainly in higher relationships our memory gives us no better service. We remember a single injury and we forget a multitude of gracious benefits. We remember material experiences and incidents, but we forget the things which most profoundly concern our peace. There is therefore surely great need for the strenuous word of the apostle. And it is as urgent upon us as upon the men and women of his own day that we vigorously set about to exercise and sanctify the powers of our remembrance. Now, what can we say about it? Let us begin here. The intensity of our remembrance very largely depends upon the depth of the original impressions. Some incidents bite deep into the mind, like acid into metal; they are not printed, but graven; not written, but burned. Other impressions are like the writing upon the steamed window-panes of a railway carriage; let the outside atmosphere get a little warmer and they pass away in an hour. Now the depth of the impression is determined by the vividness of the vision. If our gaze is cursory the impression will be transient. How does all this bear upon our remembrance in the spirit? It has this most crucial bearing; our impressions are fleeting because we do not give sufficient time to receive them. The vision does not bite! What can a man know of the country of Uganda by careering through it in a railway train? What can a man know of the wealth and glory of our National Gallery if he takes the chambers at a gallop? If he is to retain a lasting and a vivid remembrance he must sit down before one of the masterpieces, and allow himself to steep in the contemplation of its glory. It is quite impossible to take a snapshot of the interior of a cathedral. If the exquisite tracery, and even the dim outlines of the structure, are to be captured, it will be done as the issue of a long exposure. And so it is with the vastness of our inheritance in Christ. Our visions come from long exposures; we have got to sit down reverently and gaze upon the glory of the Lord in prolonged contemplation. We sometimes sing, "There is life for a look at the Crucified One!" That is scarcely true if by look we mean a transient glance, a passing nod, a momentary turning of the eyes. "There is life for a gaze" and that life is continuous only so long as the gaze is retained. If we only glance upon the Master we shall forget the impression at the next turning of the way; the enemy will come, and will snatch away that which was sown in our hearts. The strength of our memory depends upon the depth of our impressions. It is equally true that the intensity of the remembrance also depends upon the studied preservation of the impressions. There are forces ever about us that minister to erasion and oblivion. I noticed the other day that the workmen were engaged upon a very conspicuous monument in London, deepening the inscriptive letters which told the heroic story. The corrosives of time had been at work upon the once deep impressions, and they were being gradually effaced. And so it is with the lines in our memory; time is hostile to their retention, and is ever at work seeking their effacement. And so the impressions need to be periodically deepened and revived. Have we any ministries for effecting this purpose? Yes, I think we have many. A place can do it. If you go back to the little village where you spent your early days, how the old life comes back to you as you tread the accustomed ways and turn the familiar corners! How the sight of an old well can recall an experience, and even a drop upon the bucket can revive feelings which carry you back to your youth. And a place can sometimes refresh and deepen a spiritual impression. I wonder if Simon Peter ever went back to the court of the High Priest’s palace! I warrant he never passed near the door without the fountain of tears being unsealed, and the stream of penitential feelings flowing anew. There was a little place in a garden to which Thomas Boston used to repair whenever he wanted to quicken his early love for the Lord. It was his spiritual birthplace, and the very place seemed to abound in the ministry of regeneration. It would be an amazingly fruitful thing if some of my readers, whose spiritual fervour is growing cool, and whose early conception of the Lord is becoming faint, would spare a day to go to the place where first they knew the Lord, and I warrant that the sacred spot would re-deepen the lines of their early covenant, and they would find themselves revived. It would be a great day in many a man’s life if he would go back to the little village church, and sit for one Sunday in the seat which he occupied when there broke upon his wondering eyes, the vision of the glory of his Lord. For a place can renew the lines of our remembrances. And a thing can do it. An apparently commonplace thing can recall a conspicuous history. I have known the scent of a flower unveil a day which seemed to have been buried in permanent obscurity. I never get the fragrance of the common dog-rose without my memory leaping back to an old-fashioned garden in the North, and peopling that garden with presences now gone, and awaking experiences which are pregnant with inspiration and peace. But the principle has higher applications still. A piece of broken bread can recall the broken body of the Lord, and a cup of wine can become the sacramental minister of the blood of the Lamb. Can we afford to forget these helpmeets of grace? Even the superlative verities of our faith sometimes grow dim to our eyes, and we temporarily lose our hold upon them. Let us make use of every means appointed by the Lord, if perchance our memory may be revived and these fruitful sanctities may be retained. 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. An incident can do it. How frequently it happens that the hands busy themselves in doing a thing which has not been done for many years, and the little action draws the curtain back from our youth. I played a little game the other day which I had not played since boyhood, and in very literal feeling I was a boy again, and all the past environments round about my feet. And it is even so with activity of a higher kind. That bit of Christian work you dropped, and the dropping of which has brought such a heavy penalty of spiritual degeneracy and recoil! Take it up again! Your Lord’s grace was very real to you then! Take it up again, and you will find that in that God-blessed work your remembrance is revived, the effaced impressions have deepened again, and you have the old inspired vision of the glory of the Lord. Go to it again, I say, and your soul shall be restored. In all these ways, by a diligent determination to give ourselves time to receive our spiritual impressions, and by cherishing all the ministries by which the impressions can be preserved, it is possible to sanctify our memories and to make them temples of the living God. But in our text the apostle puts himself forward as a helpmeet of other men’s remembrances. "I shall be ready always to put you in remembrance of these things." (2 Peter 1:12) It is a gracious prerogative that we can minister to one another in holy things. It is possible for one man to rouse another man’s memory to the recollection of the things of the Spirit, and to revive his sense of the superlative grace and goodness of God. But this ministry of remembrancer is one that requires the utmost delicacy if its exercise is to be hallowed and fruitful. The phrase in my text, "to put you in remembrance," literally signifies to remind quietly, to mention it under one’s breath, to gently suggest it! There are two ways of performing the function of remembrancer. We can approach our brother like an alarm bell, or we can bear upon him like a genial breathing. We can rouse some people quite easily by drawing up the blinds and letting in the light. There is no occasion for the rattle of artillery; it is quite enough to let the sunshine in. And there are some men who seem to be spiritually slumberous who do not require some angry indictment, but only a gentle hint of spiritual resource. Here is a man who is down; his troubles have multiplied on every hand; and in the depth of the depression he has forgotten everything but the calamity itself. Now here is an opportunity for the Lord’s remembrancer! But how unwise it would be to come with all the clatter of a fire-engine, and the accompaniment of a clanging, rousing bell. The only effective approach would be one of exquisite delicacy. We must approach the man as a nurse would touch a patient who is full of sores, and in tones of the softest compassion we must remind him that he is a millionaire, and that he has untold capital in the bank of the Lord. But, oh, the tact of it! See that fine touch in the apostle’s ministry: "I shall be ready always to put you in remembrance . . . though ye know them." (2 Peter 1:12) How delicate the courtesy!" I have nothing new to tell you, but you and I have both got the Lord, haven’t we? I say the delicacy of it; it was the very inspiration of the Holy Ghost. "It shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak." And this ministry of remembrancer is one that must not be delayed. The man’s memory is getting numb. His early spiritual impressions are being effaced. The glory of the Lord is waning. The distant heaven is growing dim. Let not the remembrancer wait; let him set about his Christlike work in the assurance that the King’s business requireth haste. "I think it right . . . knowing that the putting off of my tabernacle cometh swiftly." (2 Peter 1:13-14) The remembrancer himself is only here for a time: he has but a day at the most: let him be up and about! The night cometh! But how beautiful the apostle’s conception of the coming night! Life is a pilgrimage in tents, and to-morrow he will pull up the tent-pegs and depart to "the city that hath foundations." But meanwhile he must be active, deepening the lines in the memory of his fellow-disciples. "Yea, I will give diligence that at every time ye may be able after my decease to call these things to remembrance." (2 Peter 1:15) He will do something to ensure the continuance of his ministry, even when he has gone home. "After my decease!" After my exodus! When he has left his Egypt and found his Canaan, the far-off land across the Jordan, the ministry of remembrancer shall be maintained. I think that every time they recalled the apostle, when he had gone home, the very memory would act as a restorative of their own spiritual experiences, and the depth of their early devotion would be regained. Let us reverently and diligently see to the sanctification of our memories. Let us periodically inspect our impressions. Let us watch if we are in any way forgetful of our spiritual inheritance. Are we remembering our capital? Do we look like millionaires, or are we like beggars whose memories have utterly lost the significance of their grand estate? Lord, help us to remember what we ought never to forget! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 25: 01.23. 2PE_1:16-18 -- THE TRANSFIGURED JESUS ======================================================================== 2 Peter 1:16-18 -- The Transfigured Jesus 2 Peter 1:16-18 -- For we did not follow cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: and this voice we ourselves heard come out of heaven, when we were with Him in the holy mount. "We were eyewitnesses of His majesty" (2 Peter 1:16) --eyewitnesses of the mystic glory in which the Lord was arrayed, and by which He was possessed upon the Mount of Transfiguration. The passage has reference to the superlative splendour which shone about the Lord upon what we call the "Mount of Transfiguration." "We were eyewitnesses of His majesty." When I had written that phrase upon my paper I looked up at my study walls, and I caught sight of Munkacsy’s great picture of "Christ before Pilate," and the contrast between the mount of glory, when the majesty of the Lord was witnessed by the apostles, and the shame and the ignominy of the judgment hall, was to me positively startling. "We were eyewitnesses of His majesty." I looked at the picture, and there was Pilate, bullet-headed, with short-cropped hair, with lustreless eyes, with effeminate mouth, and a most irresolute chin--Pilate, clothed in the garment of a little brief authority, disposing of the Maker of the world. And then the crowd! Fierce men with clenched fists in an attitude of threatening; faces made repulsive by passion; Pharisees in long, tasselled garments, yelling "Crucify Him, crucify Him!" other Pharisees bowing before the Lord in profound but mock obeisance; other Pharisees, with curling lips of scorn and contempt, looking on with sheer disdain; two or three women, with babes in their arms, gazing with the fascination of terror; one woman fainting, supported by a man who has the only gentle face in the crowd; and there, hiding in the very thick of the fierce mob, Judas Iscariot, with a face all alert with fear, and eyes in which there is already visible the flame of remorse; and added to all this a ring of impassive Roman soldiers, and one or two wondering little children, and a stray, terrified dog! And before all this mass of yelling and blood-seeking fanatics there stands the Lord! Upon His exposed breast there are the weals of the scourge. The plait of thorns is crushed down upon His brow; His hands are manacled; they bear the reed, the mock symbol of sovereignty; His face is perfectly white, wearied, sorrow-stricken, and yet there is an upward look, as though His eyes were piercing the gloom. Yes, I say, I looked at that when I read Peter’s words, "We were eyewitnesses of His majesty"; and I say the contrast was perfectly startling, for there seemed to be little radiance or glory as He stood there, bound and helpless, the victim of the tyrannous crowd. But, in reality, is the radiance of the transfiguration in any way dimmed by the ignominy and the tragedy of the later days? Has the glory which shone upon the mount been in any way eclipsed by what is now taking place before Pilate? By no means. In Pilate’s judgment-hall the glory and majesty of the Lord had not departed; and it came to me, and I knew it as I gazed upon the picture in my study, that somehow that picture of the tragedy had to help me to explain the Transfiguration. The Transfiguration upon the Mount finds its explanation in the Passion. What preceded the journey up the mount? What had taken place before the disciples and the Lord took their journey away to the mount? Can we get at their mind? If I may use a somewhat common phrase to-day, what was their "psychological mood"? What was their mental content when they began to climb the hill? What had been the last emphasis of the Master’s teaching? Had they any fear? Had they any special hope? How had they begun to climb the mount with Jesus? What were the last things in His private expositions which probably filled their minds? Happily for you and for me the matter is made perfectly clear. The very last thing we are told about our Lord’s converse with His disciples is this: a , little while before, and for the first time, the shadow of the Lord’s death was flung upon their sunlit and prosperous way. "From that time"--this was only just before the climb began--"From that time began Jesus to shew unto His disciples how that He must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed." I want you to think of that as suddenly entering into the programme. It had never been whispered before, and now, when the way was becoming more and more sunny, and the crowds becoming more and more loyal and multiplied, when the day was just dawning, and the Lord’s kingdom just appearing, He begins to talk about His own suffering and death. I do not wonder that the announcement from the Master’s lips startled and staggered and paralysed them. Why, the teaching darkened the whole prospect!" That shall never be unto Thee, Lord," cried the ardent and impulsive Peter. "Get thee behind Me!" I think there is no preacher who can say that word in the Master’s tones, "Get thee behind Me!" It was not said in savage severity, but in the pleadings of love. He felt the allurement of the disciple’s words, "That shall never be unto Thee, Lord!" "Don’t, don’t, My beloved friend! Tempt Me not away from the gloom; thy friendship is seeking the victory of the evil one." And then He gathered them round about Him and began to expound unto them the law of life. "Whosoever will take thy way, Peter, whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life shall find it." He began to expound unto them the law of life through death, fulness through sacrifice. If we would live we must die; if we would find ourselves we must give ourselves away. He began to say unto them that He would suffer and be killed! And then He laid down for them the great condition of fellowship: "If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me." Well now, that is the mental furniture, that is the psychological mood which possessed the disciples as they turned to climb the slopes of the mount. They were under the shadow! To them had just been made a suggestion of the coming death of their King. They had had teaching about crosses, and losses, and sacrifice; and yet, through it all, a wonderful promise woven of ultimate victory. We must go back to that word about the cross, and self-denial, and the law of life; and when we climb the mount of transfiguration we must take it as a key to the glory, and to all that awaits us there. "And then," we are told, "Jesus taketh with him Peter," with his mind filled with these things, "and James," and his mind filled with these things, "and John." "Jesus taketh!" That word "taketh" is an exceedingly feeble and unsuggestive English word. The word that lies behind it is full of pregnant significance. It is precisely the same word which, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, is translated "offered." "He taketh with him." It is not an ordinary journey. It is the solemn beginning of a walk which is to end at an altar, and that an altar of sacrifice. "He taketh with Him Peter, and James and John," and they begin the solemn walk leading them up to the great surrender, the place of glorious sacrifice. "He taketh them into a high mountain, apart," and this too, in the evening time. Let us pause there for a moment. There is always something so solemnising about the evening. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds. Somehow in the gathering twilight God seems to come very near. And this experience receives emphasis when it is evening time upon the heights, when the clouds are coming back like tired vagrants to rest awhile upon the summits; when there is nobody near, and nobody can be heard, except, perhaps, some belated shepherd, gathering his flock together for the night. He led them unto a mountain apart, "and He prayed." Let us get the scene well fixed in our imaginations. The Master is away up in the mountain; the heavy dews are lying upon the grass: that breeze is softly blowing, the breeze which seems to be always moving upon the lower slopes of Hermon, perhaps cooled by the snows beyond. And there He kneels, the Master, the Lord, and He prays! I want us to realise that all prayer is more than speech with God. Prayer is infinitely more than pleading. I sometimes wish I say it with the utmost deliberateness--I sometimes wish we could drop the word "plead" quite out of our religious vocabulary. We so frequently pray as though we had got an indifferent and unwilling God with whom we have to plead. The cardinal necessity in prayer is not pleading, but receiving. I do not believe--I say it with, a full sense of responsibility--I do not believe we have any more need to plead with God to bless than to plead with the air outside to come into a building. It is not so much pleading that is required as the making of an inlet. God is willing. Prayer is simply communion; the opening up of channels of companionship; the opening out of mind, the opening out of will, in order that into the open mind and will and conscience there may flow the Divine energy and the Divine grace. "Jesus prayed," and I know that when it is said "Jesus prayed," it means that He was absolutely open to the infinite. Surely that is the meaning of prayer. When a man prays, if he prays aright, he is simply opening himself out to the incoming of God. God says: "Behold! I stand at the door and knock; I enshrine and surround you like the atmosphere." Prayer is conscious receptiveness in the presence of the Divine. Jesus, upon the mountain height, in the evening time prayed, He opened Himself to God, the Infinite, and the Infinite began to possess Him. "And as He prayed He was transfigured." I am not surprised at that. Even among men we have seen the ministry of transfiguration, even though it be in infinitely smaller degree. You remember that Moses had been so opened out to God, and so possessed by the Divine light, that when he came down from the mount his face shone with mystic radiance. "We are told concerning Stephen that he was so opened out to the Infinite that they saw his face as it had been the face of an angel. He was simply possessed and pervaded by the Divine power. And surely one may say, as I can say, that in far humbler life than that of Moses, in life in which there has been little of what the world calls "culture," little of mental furniture, little of dialectical power, but in which there has been great spiritual receptiveness, in the lives of the illiterate there has shone "a light that never was on sea or land." But here with the Master, whose life was absolutely and uninterruptedly opened out to the glory of the God-head, the inflow of glory transfigured and transformed Him, and in superlative and supreme degree "His face did shine as the sun." The very expression of His countenance was altered. And then the historians go even further, for we are told that the glory, the energy, I scarcely know how to describe it--one uses an almost violent phrase in seeking to give expression to it--the Divine effluence which flowed into the Lord not only transfigured His flesh, but in some mystic way transfigured even His outer vesture. "His garments became white as snow." All of which just means this: that this man of Nazareth became so absolutely filled with God that His very material vesture was transfigured and transformed. "We were eyewitnesses of it." Now, I would like to pause there a moment, to offer an opinion for which I cannot quote Scriptural authority. "This say I, not the Lord." I would venture to ask: What would have happened if man had never sinned? I think, just what happened on the mount. I have a conviction that this experience on the mount was just the purposed consummation for every life. I have a conviction that if there had been no sin you and I would never have known an open grave. We should have known a transformation, a transfiguration; there would have been a consummation in which the material would have been transfigured and transformed through the importation of the Divine glory. The corruptible would have put on incorruption, but not through the ministry of decay and death; just by the ministry of an inflow of Divine glory. I think that was our purposed end, and our purposed glory. I think that from the very day of our birth our road would have led ever forward and ever forward into light. There would have come a certain moment in the temporal life of everybody when the glory of the Lord would have absolutely possessed us, when the material shrine would have been transfigured, and we should have reached the higher plane of the immortal life. But sin came, and that consummation could never be. Instead of on some quiet evening just being transfigured into the immortal, we have now to take the way to the shades, the way of the grave. But Jesus never sinned, and therefore I think that upon the mount His life was naturally consummated, and He could have entered into the permanent glory which then possessed Him. But now, mark you, I say that our Master, with a perfectly holy life, came there to a natural consummation, in which His life was transfigured, and He might, I think, then have passed into the state of enduring glory. But He divests Himself of the glory, lays it aside, turns His back, as it were, upon the natural consummation, and takes the way to the grave. He turns from the appointed way of glory, the glory of sinlessness, and He takes the way appointed of sin. That is what I call the great renunciation; and I sometimes think that instead of calling it the Mount of Transfiguration we might call it the Mount of Renunciation. He would not claim the natural consummation. He would not claim the transfiguration. He takes up the cross even upon the mount; He takes the way of His brethren in sin; He came to do it; He leaves the glory, and He comes down the mount that by coming down the mount He might make for you and for me a new and living way by which we, too, can reach the consummation. "See, He lays His glory by!" He turns His face towards the grave. Do you think there were no fears in His renunciation? I very frequently wish that we did not so divest our Lord of all attributes common to the flesh. Do you think our Master was altogether delivered from the common fears of man in the prospect of death? No fear of death, and that a death of such absolute abandonment, and of so unspeakable and un thinkable isolation? I think when He turned His back upon that glory, glory to which He had a right, and faced towards the grave, He felt a chill, the chill of a nameless fear. I know that on another mountain, when the devil came and tempted Him, and He then turned His back upon the offered sovereignty, "angels came and ministered unto Him." And I do not wonder that now, when, upon the mount of another renunciation, He turns His back upon the glory and contemplates death, there appeared unto Him two other ministers--Moses and Elijah: Moses who died no one knew how, and was buried no one knew where; and Elijah, who was transfigured that he should not see death. And then we are told in just one phrase, which although it does not satisfy, yet relieves our wonder, that they spoke together of the decease that He should accomplish at Jerusalem. Perhaps it is permitted us to indulge in a little reverent imagination? Here is the Lord turning His back upon glory and facing the chills of death, and there appears to Him from the other side of death Moses and Elijah, and surely their conversation about His decease would be heartening! It would be feeding speech, and sustaining speech, by which He would be able all the more boldly and all the more fearlessly to take His journey into twilight and night. And so, I say, our Saviour began His descent from glory to grave. It is not the going up the mount that cheers me, it is the coming down! Every step He took in that descent gives confirmation to your hope and to mine. Our ascent becomes possible in His descent. And as He turned to go, and laid His shining glory by, behold! a voice, "This is My beloved Son." (2 Peter 1:17) It was a great renunciation on Christ’s part, but it was a great gift on God’s part, and I think that on the mount of renunciation, when our Lord begins His descent, and the Father says, "My beloved Son," we can in all reverence and truth add the other great word: "God so loved the world that He let Him lay His glory by"; "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." Down the mount He comes, on to Golgotha and the grave! Did not I say that the Transfiguration finds i^s explanation at the Passion? When I see Him coming down the mount, I can say with Paul, "He loved me and gave Himself for me." It is through our Lord’s renunciation of glory that we become glorified. When I turn my face to the mountain-height, where the Apostle Peter was an eyewitness of the majesty of God, and when I think that that glory was the purposed consummation for every life, that I, if I had never sinned, might have been similarly trans figured into the immortal state, I wonder how the blest estate can be regained. And here is the answer: There is a way for man to rise To that sublime abode: An offering and a sacrifice, A Holy Spirit’s energies, An advocate with God. These, these prepare us for the sight Of holiness above; The sons of ignorance and night May dwell in the eternal Light Through the eternal Love! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 26: 01.24. 2PE_1:19-21 -- THE MYSTERY OF THE PROPHET ======================================================================== 2 Peter 1:19-21 -- The Mystery Of The Prophet 2 Peter 1:19-21 -- And we have the word of prophecy made more sure; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a lamp shining in a squalid place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts: knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation. For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost. THE prophet, his prophecy, how to understand it! This passage is about as compact and concentrated as a crystal. It is compressed and solidified thinking, every sentence being as essential and as unwasteful as a passage of Browning. Just cast a glance at the crowded contents. I say it enshrines a description of the true prophet, it unveils the nature and significance of true prophecy, and it defines the only methods by which the secrets of prophecy can be disentangled and understood. Here is the vignette of the prophet: "No prophecy ever came by the will of man: but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost." (2 Peter 1:21) And here is the out line, the primary feature of prophetic ministry: "A lamp shining in a squalid place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts." (2 Peter 1:19) And here is the clue to sound and effective interpretation of prophecy: "No prophecy . . . is of private interpretation, for . . . men spake from God." (2 Peter 1:20-21) These great guiding lines have not become confused by the march of time; they are as true and significant to-day as on the day when they were first penned, and if we would know a modern prophet when he appears, and be able to understand his message when we hear it, we shall do well to pay close and reverent heed to the teaching of this glorious and inspired companion of our Lord. "Well, now, I think it is quite as well at once, when we are speaking about prophets and prophecy, that we detach ourselves almost entirely from the modern and popular interpretation of the word. Prophecy is not synonymous with prediction. When we use the sentence which has almost become a proverbial phrase in our ordinary speech and say, "I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet," we are employing the words almost entirely in the sense of forecast, in the meaning of prevision, with the significance of unbosoming the secrets of the morrow. The element of prevision and of forecast is not entirely absent from the true equipment of the prophet, but it is not the primary element. I do not think any one can declare principles without forecasting issues; but the burden of a true prophet is not the fore casting of an event, but the proclamation of a principle. True prophecy is declaration, not anticipation; it is vision, not prevision. A prophet is a man who foretells, but who primarily forthtells, tells forth a message which God has given to him. The prophet is a forthteller of great truths, of dominant principles; he is a revealer of the great broad highways along which all the affairs of men move to inevitable destiny. I want, then, at once to put that primary meaning which we use in our modern interpretation of the word on one side, and as far as possible to leave aside this secondary element of prevision. With this introductory assumption, look at the picture of the prophet himself. "No prophecy ever came by the will of man." (2 Peter 1:21) Some things may come by human volition, but never prophecy. No man can will himself into the prophetic office. If he is not born there, his presence is an impertinent usurpation. The prophet is not the product of self-will, not the product of self-initiative. He is not the matured flower of human culture. The prophet’s own will has little or no part in his mission or vocation. He is not a cause, he is an effect. He is not the wind, he is an instrument. He is not the sun, he is a reflector. The prophet is born, not made. No prophecy and no prophet ever came by the will of man. The prophet’s role is not the perquisite of resolute purpose, or the prize of any strenuous ambition. He does not come by culture, but by nature. He is not made by struggle, he comes by birth. There is about the prophet an element which can never be manufactured. I think we know this deep, unnatural, unearthly, uncreated element in other spheres whenever a prophet appears. We can make rhymesters; we can easily manufacture them by the score. You can lay down a number of precise little rules for the making of a versifier; you can tell him how to measure out his little lines, how to regulate his metre, how to appoint his jingle. You can make a rhymester, but no poetry ever came by the will of man. When you are reading Wordsworth, you can instinctively feel when the manufacture begins, you can instinctively feel when the will of the poet begins to work, and you can instinctively feel when the manufacture ceases and something mysterious arrives, and the poet begins to sing. You can make politicians, make them by the crowd. Give a man a little programme, a glib tongue, a strong tincture of party loyalty, and there you are! But statesmanship never came by the will of man. We know the distinction between the political party-hack in all our political parties, and the man who tells forth the fundamentals, who speaks not in the mere party tone, but in the abiding speech of the ages. We can manufacture a politician; a statesman is beyond us. We can manufacture pianolas, we can make admirable imitations of the human fingers; we can endow the hammers with something of the living touch of the finger-tips, we can create a most elaborate and exquisite mechanism; but when we have finished our work we experience some nameless chill in the absence of mysterious life. No musician ever came by the will of man. We have to await his coming, and when he comes we know him by the unearthliness of his gifts, and the strains that breathe of another and a mysterious clime. And so I say we are conscious of this unmistakable element when ever the prophet appears, in whatsoever guise he comes. "Deep calleth unto deep"; there is about him a suggestion of the infinite, and we cannot explain him. We may not like him. It is quite probable we shall set about and crucify him. But there is in the prophet an element of mysteriousness which, though he be of our flesh and blood, links him with beings of quite another plane. We may not be able to define his distinction, but we feel it; and in these high matters of refined sentiment, feeling is perhaps our safest guide. Who does not feel the difference between Cecil Rhodes and Garibaldi? It is the unearthly element to which we pay our homage and our regard. Who does not feel the difference between John Bright and Benjamin Disraeli? What is it? It is the element that never came by the will of man. It is the difference between a spring and a cistern; it is the difference between glitter and glow; it is a difference unspeakable, made by the profound and mystic forthtelling from the Infinite. It is even so in every prophet, no matter what may be the garb he wears. It is so in Rudyard Kipling. I think his poetry is often feverish; to me, at any rate, it is often declamatory, sometimes inflammatory, often thoughtless. But again and again on the heedless page a wind springs up, and everything quickens, and the man is clothed in nameless inspiration, and the mortal puts on immortality. I say we feel it. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof," and it makes one man a statesman and leaves another a politician; it makes one man a poet, and leaves another a rhymester; it makes one man a prophet, and leaves another a mere speaker. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof," but thou canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth." "No prophet ever came by the will of man." We cannot make them. What then? What suggestion does the apostle give us in my text as to how this indefinable and mysterious element can be explained? Here is the apostolic explanation: "Men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost." (2 Peter 1:21) I like that word "moved." It is one of the picturesque words of the New Testament Scriptures. It is precisely the same word which is translated in the Acts of the Apostles "drive." You remember in that graphic chapter which describes the shipwreck of the apostle, there comes this very suggestive phrase: "And when the ship was caught . . . we let her drive." That is precisely the word which is here translated "moved." "Men spake from God, being moved," driven by the Holy Ghost as Paul’s ship was driven by the wind. That is the apostolic explanation of the prophet. "Suddenly there came a rushing mighty wind," and they spake! It was so with Moses, it was so with Elijah and Micah and Amos. They were all wind-swept children of God, driven by mysterious currents which they could never explain. That is why prophets can never understand the genesis of their own mission and their own message--they seem to have had nothing to do with it: Why Thackeray, who was sometimes endowed with the prophetic calling, speaking about his highest work, those parts of his work which bore the signs of inspiration, uses these very strange words, "I have no idea where it all comes from; I am often astounded myself to read it after I have got it down on the paper." I remember a great preacher telling me that he often felt just in that way about some of his sermons. When he had preached them, or when he had prepared them, he read them over again with curious and devouring interest, and could not think they were his own. He had been moved by the Holy Ghost, and he watched with great inquisitiveness the discoveries revealed to him. "Men spake from God." (2 Peter 1:21) And that word "from"! It is in these prepositions that we so lack in trying to carry out the vividness of the original. It means right out of God, right out of the very depths of the Deity! "Men spake out of God!" Their speech was born in God, God-driven, God-controlled. That is so ever and every where, from the prophet of the earliest times to the last prophet who speaks to the listening ears of our own day. "The voice of the great Eternal speaks in their mighty tone." "No prophecy ever came by the will of man: but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost." So much, for the prophet. Now I turn from the prophet to the prophecy; and what, according to my text, is the abiding characteristic of ail true prophecy? Here is the guiding word: It is "as a Lamp shining in a squalid place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts." (2 Peter 1:19) "As a lamp!" Then prophecy is something luminous, and therefore something illuminating. "A lamp shining in a squalid place." True prophecy always exposes the squalor of its time. When the prophet speaks, something shady stands revealed, something iniquitous stands exposed. The prophet always brings with him a light brighter than the twilight of accepted compromise. He comes with something of the light eternal; he is a lamp, and in the presence of the shining prophet the sins of his time come into visibility, and are named and declared. This is what we should expect. If we turn to the book of the psalmist we find these expressive words: "Our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance." We come into the light of the Lord’s presence, and our secret sins leap into view, just as motes are seen in the sunbeam, and just as faded patches and rents are exposed in the broad light of the fuller day. And if a man comes from God, bearing with him something of this same eternal light, if he comes as a lamp, we must expect that the squalor and the deformity of his day will become visible before him. That is ever true, true of the far-off prophet Elijah. If you want to see the sin and the perversity and the squalor of that far-off day, stand near the man who has got the lamp. It is the same with the prophet Amos. If you want to see the rottenness of the gilded ceremonial religion of his day, and the injustices, and the perverted relationships of man to man, stand near the herdsman who has got the lamp. It is true of John the Baptist. If you want to see the sin of the times in which our Lord was born, stand near the man who has got the lamp. If you stand near Savonarola, you see the iniquities of Florence. If you stand near Thomas Carlyle, you behold the hollow shams and conventions of our own day. If you stand near General Booth, you will see the miseries and the deformities and the crookednesses of the submerged tenth. Until General Booth appeared we had never really seen them. "Darkest England and the way out." "The people who sat in darkness saw a great light." That is ever characteristic of prophecy. It reveals the squalor in the squalid place, it unveils it for the purpose of removing it. It reveals the darkness and corruption of the city by bringing into view a vision of the New Jerusalem, the city come down out of heaven from God. The first characteristic of true prophecy is that it is luminous and illuminating, exposing where exposure is needed. Mark the progress and sequence of my text. "A lamp shining in a squalid place, until the day dawn!" (2 Peter 1:19) Prophecy is not only luminous, it is progressive. Do you mark the increasing expansion of the terms? I think it is very beautiful and suggestive to notice it: "A lamp," "a day-star!" The dawning! and on to perfect noon! The prophet of to-day speaks a larger word than the prophet of the earliest time. Savonarola was a child of the dawning; Amos was a child of the lamp. It is always necessary to remember this. When I remember this, it clears away a thousand difficulties from the sacred page. When I go back to Elijah, or to Amos, or to Micah, I must not expect the large and comprehensive light of the dawn. I must expect lamplight, partial light, local light; but a lamp always shining above the current standard of the time. When you go back to Elijah you go from dawn to lamps, and the principle must guide you in your apprehension and appreciation of the prophet’s teaching. I do not know that the electric light need speak altogether in such contemptuous terms of the horn lamp, and I do not know why the horn lamp should so fiercely and vehemently disparage the rush. The crucial criterion is this: Not whether Elijah equals Paul, and not whether Amos equals Thomas Carlyle. The crucial criterion is this: When Elijah held his lamp, what about the squalor? Was he above the current standard? Did he shine above the accepted compromise? Did he bring in the radiance of the ideal? When I go back to Amos I do not expect to see dawnlight, but lamplight. I find in Hosea, in Amos, many things I do not like; but I am a child of a richer privilege, a child of a larger day. The question is this: Had they a lamp which exposed the dirt? Did they bring out the squalor, and did they make revelations of which even we, in our own day, do well to take heed? The light has been progressive: a lamp for Elijah, a day-star for another man, the broader light of the dawning for another. And still the light of prophecy is progressive. We, too, are only yet in the early dawning; we are far away yet from the perfect noon. The prophet of to-day and to-morrow has still richer and deeper things to tell us from God. He need not be a repetition of yester day, he need not be a repeater of old saws and counsels, carrying precisely the same lamp. Still, to-day as ever, our prophet speaks from God, and in the utterance of these more privileged times we ought to behold a brightness far more radiant than the current standard, far more exacting in its demands--an inspiration leading us nearer to that glorious consummation when we shall know even as we are known. Arid lastly, how shall we receive a prophet and understand his message when he comes? Here is the guiding word: "No prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation." (2 Peter 1:20) We are not at liberty to take our own roads to the interpretation. Private ways of that sort will never lead to the truth. There is a prescribed highway by which the deep secrets of prophets can be gained. A just interpretation of prophecy will always depend upon the spirit in which we approach it. Thomas ? Kempis has a very revealing word in, I believe, the very first chapter of that wonderfully helpful book The Imitation of Christ. "By what spirit any scripture was made, by that same spirit must it be interpreted." If you want to interpret a prophecy aright you must get into the spirit in which it was born. You cannot take a private way. Only in that way, the way in which it had its birth, can you get its secret meaning. I think that is true of literature in general. I was reading only the other day a book by one of the ablest literary critics of the last fifty years, and lie said lie never understood the drive, and spring, and leap of Sir "Walter Scott’s Marmion until he declaimed it aloud on a galloping horse. But why did the secret of Marmion come out when it was declaimed on the back of a galloping horse? Because it was composed on the back of a galloping horse. And if you will turn to Marmion with this conception of the leap, and spring, and gallop in your mind and heart, you will get the very go and drive and rhythm of the poem. That will suffice for our purpose. We are to rearrange the conditions under which poetry was born if we are to discern and interpret its meaning. And so it is with all prophecy and all poetry, and all music. What is the use of bringing a commercial instinct to the interpretation of Wordsworth? What could you do with it? If you want to understand Wordsworth, you must become identified with the man, you must become possessed by the Wordsworthian mood. How, then, shall I find the secret of Isaiah, of Paul, of Savonarola, or of Luther? Not by any private interpretation, but by that same spirit in which their message and prophecy were born. Is not this the word of the Master? "He that receiveth a prophet in the spirit of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward." He that receiveth Wordsworth in the spirit of Wordsworth, will enter into Wordsworth’s work. He that receiveth Paul in the spirit of Paul will walk in the highways and byways of Paul’s inheritance. It is no use my going to Paul or to Isaiah with mere implements of criticism, however delicate or however refined they may be I shall fail to discover the secrets of his intimacy; I shall be locked out from his innermost fellowship. We must come to these men with reverence, with humility, with sincerity of purpose, with that absolute frankness which offers a sensitive surface to all good things. To sum it all up, the Holy Spirit must interpret what the Holy Spirit first inspired, and it would be far better to have no critical apparatus at all, and to know nothing about scholarship and nothing about learning, and to come to the sacred page with the shoes from off the feet, than to go burdened with all manner of learning and scholarship, and tramp loudly and flippantly in the most sacred place. You cannot get into secrets by private and heedless ways of that kind. It will have to be done in the broad highway of God’s Holy Spirit. We need the Holy Spirit. And what we need we can get. And if ye, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father give the holy, interpreting Spirit to them that ask it? And so you see we can all be interpreters, and, blessed be God, we can all be prophets too! For if we are all filled with the Holy Spirit there will come into our message the prophetic significance, into our very singing the prophetic fervour, into our ordinary intercourse and converse spiritual energy and pith. The Holy Spirit will speak through me. Oh, teach me, Lord, that I may teach The precious things Thou dost impart; And wing my words that they may reach The hidden depths of many a heart. Oh, fill me with Thy fulness, Lord, Until my very heart o’erflow With kindling thought and glowing word Thy love to tell, Thy praise to show. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 27: 01.25. 2PE_2:1 -- DESTRUCTIVE HERESIES ======================================================================== 2 Peter 2:1 -- Destructive Heresies 2 Peter 2:1 -- But there arose false prophets also among the people, as among you also there shall be false teachers, who shall privily bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master that bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. THIS is a dark and appalling chapter. There is nothing quite like it elsewhere in the entire book. The misery and desolation of it are unrelieved. It is so like some wide and soddened moor, in a night of cold and drizzling rain, made lurid now and again by lightning-flash and weird with the growl of rolling thunder. Everywhere is the black and treacherous bog. The moral pollution is over whelming. I confess that I have stood before it for months, in the hope of seeing my way across, and even now I am by no means confident of a sure-footed exposition. The gutter conditions are ubiquitous. The descriptive language is intense, violent, terrific. There is no softening of the shade from end to end. It begins in the denunciation of "lascivious doings"; it continues through "pits of darkness," "lawless deeds," "lust of defilement," "spots and blemishes," "children of cursing"; and it ends in the gruesome figure of "the dog turning to his own vomit and the sow that had washed to wallowing in the mire." It is an awful chapter, borrowing its symbolism from "springs without water," and from "mists driven by a storm," and recalling the ashes of "Sodom and Gomorrah "to enforce the urgency and terror of its judgment. Is there any road across this dark and swampy moor? Has the bog a secret? To drop my figure, has this wide-spreading pollution an explanation? Amid all the cold mystery and darkness of the chapter, one thing becomes increasingly clear as we gaze upon it, that the depraved life is the creation of perverse thought, that in "destructive heresies" is to be found the explanation of this immoral conduct. I say this is one of the clear and primary emphases of the apostle’s teaching. A man’s thought determines the moral climate of his life, and will settle the question whether his conduct is to be poisonous marsh or fertile meadow, fragrant garden or barren sand. The pose of the mind determines the dispositions, and will settle whether a man shall soar with angels in the heavenlies or wallow with the sow in the mire. What we think about the things that are greatest will determine how we do the things that are least. "What are your primary thoughts about God? The prints of those thoughts will be found in your courtesies, in your intercourse, in the common relationships of life, in the government of commerce, in the control of the body, and in all the affairs of home and market and field. All the corruption of this chapter is traced up to unworthy conceptions of Christ, to the partial, if not entire, dethronement of "the Lord of life and glory." The immorality has its explanation in "destructive heresy." "What think ye of Christ?" In what was their thought defective? What was the essence of the heresy? The secret is here, they had no adequate sense of His holiness. All true and efficient thinking about God begins in the conception of His holiness. If you begin with His love, you deoxygenate the very affection you proclaim. If you begin with His mercy, you deprive it of the very salt which makes it a minister of healing and defence. If you begin with His condescension, it is a condescension emasculated, because you have not gazed upon His lofty and sublime abode. You cannot get a glimpse of the unspeakable humility of Calvary until your eyes are filled with the glory of the great white throne. If you would know the depth you must begin with the height! Our thinking concerning the Lord must not take its rise in His compassions or His love. We must begin with the pure white ray. We must begin with the great white throne! When the man Isaiah was refashioned for the prophetic life, it was not some softened glimpse of a wistful family circle in glory which absorbed his gaze. It was the vision of a throne, "high and lifted up." And those who stood about the throne were not moving in light and familiar liberty. "Each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet." How solemn, and how reverent, and how worshipful! And the voices which he heard were not the jaunty songs and liltings which are sung at the fireside. "And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts." It was in circumstances like these, and upon heights like these, that the prophet’s thinking began! Do not think that grave and venerable experiences of this kind make life severe and hard and rob it of its juice and freedom. There is no man who has more to say about the throne and the awful splendours that gather about it, no man who tells us more about the thunders and lightnings that proceed out of it, than just the apostle who has given us the most exquisitely tender letter in the New Testament Scriptures. John Calvin is a name that has become almost synonymous with hardness, unbendableness, severity, with high and austere contemplation, but you do the man a grave injustice and you miss the interpretative secret of his life if you ignore or overlook the wells of most delicate compassion in which his life and writings abound. Our softest water is the water that flows over granitic beds. If you would know what it made of Isaiah, read through his message and examine his life. The rivers of tenderness and compassion which flow in this book are not anywhere to be surpassed except by "the river of water of life" which "flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb." When you have read the sixth chapter of Isaiah, when you have tremblingly gazed upon the throne, "high and lifted up," when you have looked upon the veiled and stooping seraphim, and when you have listened to the solemn sound of holy voices "chanting by the crystal sea," then turn to the fortieth chapter, and hear the sound of running waters, the rivers of compassion "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith the Lord. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned. . . . He shall feed His flock like a shepherd!" The soft compassion of the fortieth chapter finds its explanation in the solemn severities of the sixth. I stood by a Swiss chalet, on the lower slopes of a lovely vale, and by the house there flowed a gladsome river, full and forceful, laughing and dancing in its liberty, and instinctively I prayed that my life might be as the river, full of power and full of song, clearing obstacles with a nimble leap, and hastening on to the great and eternal sea. And to my voice less prayer there came reply, "Follow up the stream to its birth!" And I tracked the buoyant river, and I reached the snow-line, and I found that in the spreading wastes of virgin-snow the singing minister had its birth. And then I knew that full and forceful Christian lives must have their source in sovereign holiness, that only above the snow-line, near the great white throne, could they find an adequate birth. "Hast thou forsaken the snows of Lebanon?" That is the "destructive heresy," to begin one’s thinking and one’s doing otherwhere than in the holiness of God. To begin elsewhere is to be sure of impoverishment, and to have a life-river which will lose itself in unwholesome swamp and bog, and become the parent of moral corruption and contagion. "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts." But let me still further analyse this "destructive heresy." If we do not begin with the Lord’s holiness, we can have no discernment of the Lord’s atonement. Dwell below the snowline, and you want no atonement! And for this reason. The man who does not begin his thinking in divine holiness will have no keen and poignant perception of human sin. "What you see in a thing depends very much upon its background. John Ruskin has shown us how the whitest notepaper, exposed before the tribunal of bright sunshine, reveals its inherent grey. It all depends upon the back ground. If your background be gas-light, your notepaper will appear superlatively white; but if the background be the all-revealing flame of God’s resplendent sun, the apparent white will darken into grey. I have seen a sea-gull in flight, with a black cloud for a background, and the bird seemed white as driven snow; I have seen the same bird upon the water, with a back ground of snowy foam, and the wings were grey. Yes, what is your background? If you do not begin with the holiness of God you will never see the blackness of sin. If your back ground be some indifferent human standard, some halting expediency, some easy policy, human life, and your own included, will appear passably clear. I think I am no pessimist, but I confess I look with some alarm at what I cannot but regard as the lessening sense of sin which seems to hold our modern thought and life. One’s fears are difficult to express because the dark symptoms themselves are so difficult to disengage and define. But I feel a certain dulness, a certain drowsiness, in the spiritual life. I feel a certain close, enervating mugginess in the moral atmosphere; a want of alertness, of sharp and sensitive response. Our modern Churches are too indolently contented, too prematurely satisfied, and are much too willing to take easy advantage of the compromises offered of the world. We must become suspicious of an indulgent terminology. A violent antagonist of the Christian faith, a man whose method of attack is of the slap-dash kind, declared, only a few days ago, "There is no such thing as sin; there is only error." The man who begins with that diagnosis can never prescribe for me. But we must see to it that we do not take advantage of this indulgent term, and the Christian pulpit must proclaim the holiness of the Lord, and allow no web of wordy sophistry to hide the great white throne! We have frequently been told that we need to recover the word "grace"; we need first to recover the word "holiness"; holiness will recover the word sin. And if sin does not appear sin, but passes muster as imperfect virtue, wherein comes the need of atonement? No holiness, no sin; no sin, no Saviour! Redemption is a superfluity, and the ministry of Jesus is a wasteful toil, and His passion is a fruitless death. The man who has no vision of holiness has no perception of the Atonement, and he "denies the Lord that bought him." It is the man who has ascended above the snow-line, who will wail in his secret soul, "Woe is me, for I am unclean," and who will smite upon his breast, saying, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" Well, now, see the consequence of these things. I have been trying to expound the "destructive heresy "which I think is the initial cause of the pollution which is so terribly unfolded in this chapter. If these cardinal conceptions are dull or eclipsed, other precious things will be destroyed. Cast your eyes over this widespread corruption. There are some "conspicuous absences." There are many missing treasures, whose absence accounts for the filth. I miss the instinct of reverence! They tremble not "to rail at dignities." It is an ill thing in a life when a man has no sovereignty before which he bows in reverent awe. Take out the august, and life is reduced to flippancy, and levity is the master of the feast both day and night. A man who never reveres will find it impossible to be true. The man who never kneels in spirit can scarcely be upright in life. To bow to nothing is to be master of nothing. If we have no sense of the august to worship, we shall have little sense of sin to expel. I know that in using this word "august" I am using and borrowing a characteristic expression of my great predecessor Dr. Dale, and I hope I am using it with something of his own reach and loftiness of thought. I do not know anything which is more needed in our Free Church life and worship than an awed and reverent consciousness of God. I could wish that we moved about our very sanctuaries with a softer step, and that our very demeanour was that of men who are held in a subdued wonder at the majestic presence of God. I sometimes think that our very detachment from any prescribed order of service, our boundless freedom, our familiarity with the Lord, our easy intimacy in communion, need to be guarded from besetting perils. Even when we rejoice in the Gospel of Calvary let us "give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness." Before Jehovah’s awful throne Ye nations bow with sacred joy. I do not think we are in danger of "railing at dignities," but I do think we are in danger of forgetting the supreme dignity of them. In one of his letters to Matthew Mowat, Samuel Rutherford uses these words: "Ye should give (God) all His own court-styles, His high and heaven-names." I think we are a little lacking in the court-style, in this use of the high and heaven-names. But the use of the high names will come back when our souls are humbly gazing upon the high things. "When we shall see Him as John the Evangelist saw Him, we, too, "shall fall at His feet as one dead." Our souls will always have the stoop of reverent adoration while we keep in view the vision of the holiness of our Lord. In all this revelling, sweltering chapter I miss the sense of sin. And amid all the movements I miss another treasure, the sense of a large and noble free dom. I know there is a talk of freedom, but freedom is not enjoyed. "Promising them liberty," and the poor fools are deluded into the thought that they are in possession of it. I know they are "doing just as they like," but of all forms of bondage that is the worst; for this great world, and the laws of its government, are not built upon the "likes "of men, but upon the rights and prerogatives of God. How can a man be free, even though the song of freedom be ever on his lips, if all the powers in grace and nature are pledged to overthrow him? I tell you every flower of the field is ranked against defilement, and all the forces of this wonderful planet are arrayed against the man whose only arbiter is his own "likes," instead of being determined by the arbitrament of the will and purpose of God. A man who is in sin, and assumes he is in liberty, and is satisfied with his position, has not risen to the contentment and liberty which are the glory of humankind, but is sunk to the animal bondage of the sow, which gloats and wallows in the mire. There are other missing treasures which I might name, but I will content myself in mentioning only one the absence of any perception of the drift and purpose of history. When the great things go out of life, when the sublime is exiled, when reverence dies and the days decline in triviality, men lose their sense of history, and yesterday has no voice. "And I heard a voice behind me, saying!" That is the voice of yesterday, and it is the privilege of those who are in the fellowship of God to know its interpretation. Sodom and Gomorrah shout through the centuries, and so do Nineveh and Babylon, and Greece and Rome! "If God spared not the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when He brought a flood upon the ungodly"; and if God turned "the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes. . ."--that is the voice of history, the shoutings of experience, and by the people in this chapter the voice is unheeded because unheard. All these "conspicuous absences"--the instinct of reverence, the feeling of sin, the sense of a noble freedom, and the recognition of historical witness--are accounted for by perverse thinking, by "destructive heresies," by the degradation of the Godhead, by the eclipse of the great white throne. Having no sense of holiness, they "denied the Lord that bought them." The lack of lofty summit explains the corrupt and stagnant plain. Now this particular species of heresy may not be prevalent to-day. I do not know that we could find its precise lineaments in our own time. But we may give the teaching wide dominion. Our primary conception of the Lord will determine the trend and quality of our own life, and the depth or shallowness of its ministry. Whatever dethrones or disparages Christ will impair and impoverish man. Anything that cheapens the Saviour will make us worthless. Any teaching which puts Him out of account, which removes Him from the front place, which relegates Him to the rear, which in any way "denies" Him, is a "destructive heresy," and is fraught with peril and destruction. Is there any modern peril? There is a prevalent teaching to-day which is usually known as the "New Thought." I do not speak as its antagonist, but as one who wishes to preserve it from becoming a minister of weakness and destruction. I welcome much of its teaching. I believe that in discovering and clarifying psychological laws it may render unspeakable help to the living of a Christian life. I believe that we are now standing upon the borderland of a marvellous country, and that mystic forces are to be revealed to us of which hitherto we have only dimly dreamed. I believe that the marvellous phenomena of telepathy and hypnotism, and all the discoveries we are making in this dim and impalpable world, may mightily help us in the fortification of pure and resolute habit. But I see a danger, an ominous danger, a danger real and immediate. I know the literature of this new teaching, the literature both of this country and of the United States; I speak from first hand knowledge, and I say that the teaching gives no adequate place and sovereignty to Jesus Christ our Lord. He is of little or no account; lie is occasionally mentioned, but only as one of a crowd, and He is not accorded that unique and solitary pre-eminence which He claims. In one of the latest, and in some respects the ablest, of these books I have looked in vain from end to end for even the bare mention of the Saviour’s name. He does not count! He is a negligible and therefore neglected factor, and is left entirely out of the reckoning. And because He is absent, other things are missing. I find no mention of guilt. Rarely do I stumble upon the fact of sin. In the "New Thought" there is no confession of sin, no sob of penitence, no plea for forgiveness, no leaning upon mercy. The atonement is an obsolete device, the pardonable expedient of a primitive day. "A man must acquire the art," says one of the best of these teachers, "the art of allowing the past, with whatever errors, sins, faults, follies, or ignorances entangled, to slip out of sight." How easy the suggestion, how tremendous the achievement! For the most of us that burden slips away only where the pilgrim’s burden rolled away, at the foot of the Saviour’s cross, where it rolls into the Saviour’s grave. I care not what veins of helpful ministry these men and women may strike, if they ignore the Saviour and the ministry of redeeming grace, they are dealing with essentially surface forces as compared with the mighty powers born of personal communion with Him. It is a teaching which practically "denies the Lord that bought us," and so far it is a "destructive heresy" which offers no adequate ministry for the liberation of sinful men, and for the attainment of a full and matured life. All thinking is initially wrong which does not begin with the unique holiness of the Lord, and which does not reserve for Him a supreme and sovereign place in man’s redemption. And that, too, is the severest indictment of spiritualism. It has little or nothing to do with the Lord. It concerns itself with meaner folk, with smaller themes, and with trivial communion. Who ever heard of a spiritualistic campaign for the reclamation of the lost? That’s where its sense is dull. "Saviour!" That’s where the vision is dim. We must bring all teachings, and all ministries to the touchstone of our exalted Lord and Saviour. What do they do with Him? What think they of Christ? We must suspect any thing and everything which lays Him under eclipse. Do they deny the Lord that bought us? Do they dim His glory, and rank Him in the indiscriminate crowd? Then we must label them as "destructive heresies," whose forces can never achieve the redemption of human kind. What, then, shall we pray for ourselves and for others? First of all we will pray that we may never lose sight of the heights of the Divine holiness! We are told that they, who dwell beneath great domes, acquire a certain loftiness and stateliness of bearing which distinguishes them from their fellows. Let us pray that about our brethren and ourselves there may be a mystic significance, a breadth and height of character, a nobility of life, telling of the sublime abode in which we dwell. May we dwell in the truth, live and move in the truth, and by no perilous emphasis of minor themes and things deny the Lord that bought us. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 28: 01.26. 2PE_2:20-21 -- WORSE THAN THE FIRST ======================================================================== 2 Peter 2:20-21 -- Worse Than The First 2 Peter 2:20-21 -- For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the last state is become worse with them than the first. For it were better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after knowing it, to turn lack from the holy commandment delivered unto them. "The last state is become worse with them than the first." (2 Peter 2:20) Apostasy is worse than ignorance! It were better for us never to have come within sight of the Kingdom, and to have remained in ignorance of its privileges and glory, than, having entered the gate, to become rebels to its sovereignty, and to turn our backs upon its contemplated ministries of grace. To approach the Divine is an unspeakable favour; it is also an appalling responsibility. Light that is trifled with becomes lightning; the splendour of the great white throne becomes a "consuming fire." To have known, and then to rebel, translates our very knowledge into a minister of destruction. The abuse of the highest degrades us beneath the lowest. "The first shall be last." "The last is become worse with them than the first." "Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds." Here, in the apostle’s words, we have depicted for us the rise and fall of a soul. There is the realisation of moral deliverance: "they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." (2 Peter 2:20) There is the subsequent moral relapse: "they are again entangled therein and overcome." And there is the consequent deterioration in the moral and spiritual capital of the life: "the last state is become worse with them than the first." The realisation of moral deliverance. "They have escaped the defilements of the world." What is this "defilement" of the world in which these souls have been imprisoned? Who can define it? "Who can lay hold of this subtle and varying corruption, and give it an interpretative name? Its metamorphoses are extraordinary. It has a hundred different guises, changing its attire continually, but amid all its shifting appearances it remains essentially the same. You have the same essential elements in solid ice, in flowing water, in hissing steam, in wreathing vapour, in moving cloud. In all the multiplex forms you have the same essence: the reality abides; it is only a change of attire. You can have the same poison in varying preparations, mingling with different compounds, appearing in diverse colours, and confined within dissimilar flasks. The incidentals are many, the poisonous essence is one and the same. And so it is with this "corruption" of the world; it pervades different sets of circumstances; it enshrines itself in different compositions, but everywhere and anywhere it is the same destructive minister. It is the same in Whitechapel and Belgravia, in the House of Commons and on a racecourse, in the King’s palace and the peasant’s hut, in the Church and on the Exchange. You may have "the defilements of the world" palpable and gross, and you may have them tenuous and refined. They may be rank and offensive as "the lust of the flesh"; they may be rare and vain and elusive as "the pride of life." Yes, many forms, but one spirit! "The fashion of this world passeth away." The "fashion" changes; the thing itself abides. "The defilements of the world." Every age seems to have its own characteristic corruption, its own destructive, worldly form and colour. When St. Anthony went out into the Egyptian desert as a protest and safeguard against the corruption of his time, it was a different form of worldliness to that which encountered St. Benedict in a succeeding century, and which drove him to found his great Monastic Order; and the worldliness against which St. Benedict contended differed from the corruption which surrounded St. Francis when, at a later day, he established the Order of the Mendicant Friars. All these forms of monasticism fought the same essential corruption, but it appeared here in the shape of a decaying individualism, and there in the shape of social and political dissolution, and yonder in the shape of a proud and luxurious Church. "The fashion of this world passeth away." How different is the worldliness which forced the Salvation Army into existence from the worldliness which prevailed at the time of the evangelical revival! John Wesley and General Booth looked out upon quite different conditions, but the difference was only in the shape of the flask and the colour of the compound; the essential adversary was the same. The corruption of our own day wears a different guise from the corruption of twenty-five years ago. It has transferred itself to other spheres, and has pervaded new sets of relationships, and you have to look for it in new attire. The fashion changes; the pollution abides! Behind all the shiftings of the centuries the defilement persists, and it manifests itself in a mode of thinking, a mode of working, and a mode of living which is essentially anti-Christian. It is the anti-Christian drift in the life of a generation which constitutes its pollution, and such drift may be found with equal certainty in Mayfair and the Seven Dials. It is a subtle spirit, now enshrining itself in an individual, now in a society, now in a Parliament, now in literature, now in art, now in the acquisition of treasure, now in the apportioning of leisure, in a hundred different vestures, but remaining always the anti-Christian drift, and ever degrading its victims into Christian negations. Now this "defilement of the world" is an infection, and propagates itself like a foul contagion. It is a significant and suggestive thing that the word which our version translates by "defilements" is our English word "miasma." It is the suggestion of the process by which the corruption works. "The miasma of the world!" And what is a miasma? Medical science has a synonym for the word which gives us much enlightenment. "Aerial poison!" A miasma is an aerial poison, an emanation or effluvia rising from the ground and floating in the air. "The miasma of the world." It is pervasive as an aerial poison, it distributes itself like a destructive contagion. Let an unclean miasma, some foul immorality, infest one lad in a public school, and the school will seek its own security by his immediate expulsion. One polluted lad can infect a thousand. "The miasma of the world." We know the workings of the principle in social clubs. It is amazing how soon the miasma can pollute a society. It has happened before: now that one man has degraded a social fellowship, and has created a malaria which pure men have refused to breathe. What has happened in smaller communities has also prevailed in civic fellowships and in the larger life of the State. "Evil communications corrupt good manners." Sometimes we can withdraw ourselves from an evil contagion, and our withdrawal may tend to destroy it by neglect. But we cannot altogether get away from "the miasma of the world." We are in the world, and the air is infected, and we have got to breathe it. How then? There is a way of escape. "They have escaped the miasma of the world." We can be rendered immune, as medical science can make us immune in the presence of some particular contagion. "I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world," but that Thou shouldest make them immune--"that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil." Regard it or disregard it as we may, this is the claim of the real Christian science, the promise of the Gospel of Christ: "If they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them." It is possible for a man to move amid the prevailing miasma of his day, to live and move and have his being in its very presence, and yet to remain in robust moral health. Now, mark you, this moral deliverance is attained through a spiritual fellowship. "They have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." (2 Peter 2:20) An escape from the miasma by the "knowledge" of a Person! But that word "knowledge" implies infinitely more than mental conception. It is the "knowledge" which implies acquaintance, intimacy, communion, community. I should not be doing violence to the meaning of my text if I were to read it in this wise: "They have escaped the miasma of the world through the partnership of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." It is a "knowledge" which implies a league, a covenant, a "partaking of the Divine nature"; and through this marvellous union there flows into human-kind a river of regenerating energy, reinforcing our miserable weakness, and endowing us with all the resistances of invincible health. Our Lord makes us immune to the miasma of the world by communicating to us His own victorious virtue, and by making us sublimely positive to all the assaults and negations of the devil. "He restoreth my soul." "Thou shalt not be afraid of the pestilence that walketh in darkness." "I will fear no ill." Such is the way of escape. But now the apostle unfolds a dark sequence. The moral deliverance may be followed by a moral relapse. "They are again entangled therein and overcome." (2 Peter 2:20) Need I say that this immoral alliance is occasioned by the breaking of the spiritual alliance? Our spiritual attachment endows us with a powerful antidote and antagonism to the miasma of the world. Relax the attachment and you weaken the antidote. Sever your spiritual communion and you impoverish your moral defence. It is a sequence which is illustrated every day in multitudes of lives. Maintain your alliance with the Lord, and you are secure in a health which keeps your enemy at the gate. Let your alliance become loose, and your moral repulsion grows faint. I offer no argument to prove it; the proof is found in common experience. "Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present evil world." Yes, but before Demas had forsaken Paul, he had broken with the Lord, and then he swung back in mighty drift towards the world. When he had wilfully rejected the help of the heavenly energy, he succumbed to the gravitation of the world. He was no longer immune, and the miasma subdued him in the common defilement. How suggestive are the words in which the apostle describes the relapse: "They are again entangled." (2 Peter 2:20) They begin to move towards the world, and presently they become involved. It is a figure of this kind: they go too near the destructive machinery; they go in a prying curiosity, and they are caught by a sleeve, and are undone! "They are again entangled." Ah, it is by our loosenesses that we are caught and involved! When we leave our Lord our thought becomes loose, we exercise too much freedom of thinking; and some loose end becomes entangled, and we are "overcome." When we leave our Lord our speech becomes loose; we say what we like and not what we ought; and some loose phrase gets entangled and we are "overcome." When we leave our Lord our affections become loose; deserting the great Lover we flirt with the world: "I will go after my lovers." We become "lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God," and we are speedily involved and undone. Immediately we begin to weaken our alliance with the Lord we begin to re-establish our communion with the world. The re-establishment of the immoral alliance may begin in apparently trifling flirtations, but it speedily issues in a dark enslavement. When you wish to moor a big boat to a pier, you first throw across the intervening gulf a light line. Gulliver’s bondage in Lilliput began in the binding down of a single hair! And our light flirtations with the defiled world, the yielding of a hair here and a hair there to its playful caress, will lead to an eventual entanglement which will make the soul the bond-slave of pollution. To trifle with the world is to play with the plague. "They are again entangled and overcome." And what is the moral status of the back slider? "The last state is become worse with them than the first." (2 Peter 2:20) Here is a man who has had intimacy with the Lord. By the strength of the holy partnership he has been kept inviolate, and "no plague has come nigh his dwelling." He dissolves the partnership; he opens up a lost communion; he turns like "a dog to his vomit," and "a sow to the mire," and the appalling issue is this, that "it were better had he never known the way of righteousness," and the last state of the man is worse than the first! How is he worse? In spiritual apprehension. His sense of God is tremendously abused, and he has not the same receptive organ to the Divine that he had when first he sought the Lord. He has not the same appreciation of grace, the same craving for forgiveness, the same hunger for holiness, the same longing for home! How is he worse? In moral discrimination. His moral palate is not as sensitive as when lie first surrendered his life to the King. His mouth is harder! He can swallow iniquity neat. How is he worse? In the poverty of his emotional force. The fundamental energies of the life are sluggish or dead, the love-force, the hope-force, the faith-force, the ultimate momenta which constitute the wealth and dignity of man. How is he worse? Because he does not know he is worse! "Thou sayest I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art the wretched one and miserable and poor and blind and naked!" "The last state of that man is worse than the first." Can such a man be recovered? Oh yes! Backsliders may be converted and recovered. "He is able to save unto the uttermost!" "I will recover thee of thy backsliding." "All things are possible to him that believeth." Though earth and hell the word gainsay, The word of God can never fail: The Lamb shall take my sins away, ’Tis certain, though impossible: The thing impossible shall be, All things are possible to me. All things are possible to God, To Christ, the power of God in man, To men, when I am all renewed, When I in Christ am formed again, And when, from all sin set free, All things are possible to me. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 29: 01.27. 2PE_3:3-9 -- THE LEISURELINESS OF GOD ======================================================================== 2 Peter 3:3-9 -- The Leisureliness Of God 2 Peter 3:3-4; 2 Peter 3:8-9 -- Mockers shall come with mockery, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His presence? . . . One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness; but is longsuffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. "Where is the promise of His presence?" (2 Peter 3:4) Where are the signs of the King’s presence and ministry? Where are the prints of His goings? Show us the proofs of His interposition, the evidences of His revolutionary and transforming work! Reveal to us the witness of His handiwork, or at any rate let us see and touch the hem of His garment!" Where is the promise of His presence? "It is the uproarious cry of the mockers, "walking after their own lusts." (2 Peter 3:3) They are proclaiming the heedlessness of the Almighty; "The Lord God is not moving, with attentive ministry, along the ways of men! He is far away, in the boundless hunting-ground of space, engaged with larger prey!" "Where is the promise of His presence?" It is not only the shout of the scoffer, it is the low, poignant cry of the devout. The voices in this Book are many and manifold. You can hear the loud, laughing jeer of the mocker, rising in the very midst of prophecy and psalm: and you can hear the wail of the perplexed, like a low, long moan of pain. "How long wilt Thou forget me, Lord?" "Lord, how long wilt Thou look on?" "How long, Lord, how long?" The defiant and reckless scorn, and the agonising doubt, concern themselves with one thing--the apparent heedlessness of God. What, then, is the problem? It is this. Men are confronted with an apparently undiscriminating and uncompassionating juggernaut. No hand seems to be busy in human affairs engaged in just and discerning judgment. There is no selection determined by moral worth. The vast movement is blind and capricious. The gigantic machine staggers along, like some untended traction engine, and its huge, grinding wheels bruise and break all things into a common mass, stones and little children, the wasteful and the useful, the sinner and the saint. Let me read to you a short passage from one of the most delicate and sensitive of our present-day writers, who thus expresses a part of this sharp and burdensome problem: "Last summer, as I walked in my garden, I heard a fledgeling sparrow chirruping merrily under a bush. Possibly he had by accident dropped out of his nest, and, by making parachutes of his wings, had so broken his fall as to reach ground without taking hurt, and was now in a flutter, between pride and fear, at his own daring. For a few minutes I watched him ruffling it as roguishly as a robin, now cocking his glossy head at a sprawling worm, now stropping his tiny beak, razor-wise, upon a twig, and twittering lustily meanwhile for very joy of his freedom and of his merry youth and of the summer morning. . . . I insinuated myself into my hammock, and with my ringers between the pages of a book, lay a-swing in the sunshine as in the centre of a golden globe. For a time I forgot both book and bird. Then suddenly my golden globe shattered into darkness at a sound--a mere thimbleful of sound--a scream of terror and agony, so tiny and yet so haunting and so horrible, that I seem to hear it even now. A tame rook that has the run of my garden had pinned the sparrow, breast upward, under his talons, and, as I looked, was stabbing the life out of him with iron beak. For that wee bird no happy warbling among the leaves: no happier rearing of his young. . . . The sight of that helpless nestling, done to death in the June sunshine, and by one of his feathered kin, turned me sick and faint with horror." "Where is the promise of His presence?" I had just written these words when an urgent letter was placed upon my desk. I paused in my work to open and read it, and this sentence gave its crimson hue to deepen the colour of my page: "We have had another physician to see her, and he pronounces the disease to be cancer." The victim is an incarnate angel, who has moved along the hard roads of life with all the sweetening and reviving ministry of a perfume. Her life has been a daily death; she has acquired only that she might give again, she has spent herself in order that by the energy of sacrificial blood others might be made alive. And now, cancer! "We have had another physician to see her, and he pronounces the disease to be cancer." That cancer should have come to her! "Where is the promise of His presence?" The same morning I had read these words in my daily paper: "The 6th Company of the 23rd Siberian Regiment reached the summit, and rushed in the Japanese defences. They were, however, received with fixed bayonets, the captain being lifted into the air by several Japanese on the points of their weapons. The rest of the company all perished before the companies following could get up. This is the tenth day such a butchery has been going on. The Turkish War was a joke to this! Over all this vast field of action, an area of thirty miles, the ground is strewn with the dead, and tens of thousands of human wrecks are being carried south and north from this unexampled battlefield." Let that gory record add its quota to the already deeply dyed and troubled page. "Where is the promise of His presence?" And that is not all. The difficulty is accentuated when one turns from the victims to some of those who apparently escape. Notoriously bad men are housed in comfort, and useless women are clothed in silks and satins, and walk the sunny side of the way. Dishonesty sweeps by in the carriage, while integrity creeps foot sore by the kerb. "Fools ride on horseback, while princes walk by their side." The sleep of the beast is untroubled, while the saint moans through the night in pain. The contrasts are apparently appalling, and fortune does not favour the brave! "Where is the promise of His presence?" What shall we say to these things? Let us say, first of all, that we are very ignorant, that our eyes are only endowed with short range, and that our knowledge has severe and almost immediate limitations. Do not let us regard our uncertain guessings as final judgments. Let us admit the mystery, and cease our bitter dogmatisms until the mist has rolled away. How little we know! That little fledgling, done to death by the rook, how little we know about him! The dropping from the nest, his little chirp, his material equipment, the scream and . . . we know no more! "If God saw fit," says our literary friend, "to set that little creature singing in the green groves of Paradise (and who dare say that God has no place in His universe for the sparrow, that God Himself has told us is evermore within His care!), if God saw fit, at the cost of a moment’s pain, to take His bird--where danger shall menace never more, what is that to you?" Our range of vision is ineffective, and we haven’t the evidence to justify a harsh and bitter verdict. My cancer-stricken friend, how little I know about her! And sometimes in my thinking I do not include all the little I know. I called her "victim"; the strange thing is that she would never use the word about herself, and her thoughts about herself are part of the case. I refuse to allow any verdict upon her which takes no account of her peace, and resignation, and deep and unsmitten faith. I can hold no parley with judges who keep their eyes glued upon the corroding disease, and pay no regard to her long and radiant vista of immortal hope. I say that the "victim’s" assurance is part of the problem, and must not be ignored in the verdict. The fact of the matter is, our thoughts are moving upon an altogether inadequate scale. That is the teaching of this chapter to troubled and doubt-stricken men. "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." (2 Peter 3:8) We are not thinking on a sufficiently adequate scale: our thoughts cannot wrap themselves about the entirety of the place. We know what ministry an enlarged scale accomplishes even for some of the smaller things which lie in the term of human years. A thing looked at in the scale of one day is quite a different matter when set in the scale of seventy years. The scale of one day obscures purpose and tendency, and veils "the far-off interest of tears." I lately read some extracts from a printed diary, and I would like to read you a part of them. The first is from the diary of a boy, and I will give it just as it appears. (1) "I cannot pretend to like this school, however much I try. The head is a beast, and not one of the under masters is a decent chap. I hate being kept in after hours when the other fellows are going out to games, yet, whenever I haven t done a lesson right they make me do it until I know it thoroughly. This is constantly the case with my Latin. Also I do loathe the food they give us; we have to eat fat and lean together, and ,fat is beastly. Also, however cold it is, we have to take long runs when it would be much nicer to sit by the fire and be comfortable. Also I can’t understand my father and mother, who say they love me and all that, sending me to such a place." Just fifty years later the same hand wrote these words, when the writer’s name was known throughout the world. "Of my many advantages in early life, I place easily first my parents, whose particular method of training me was beyond all praise. . . . In looking back upon my first school, I can think of it only with affection, for the manner in which the masters treated |my inert tendency of character was entirely admirable. To their insistence at that period I owe one of the keenest delights of my maturer years, a love for the Latin authors. . . . In the matter of physical soundness, also, I am certainly much indebted to the school runs, which were compulsory, and to the wholesome and sensible diet on which we were fed, without which I should not possess to-day the virility which has kept me free from disease to a quite unusual extent." Need I point the moral of the contrasts? The boy’s entry enshrines a verdict fashioned upon the scale of a day: the man’s entry declares a judgment fashioned to the scale of fifty years. It is all a matter of scale!" One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." In things of the day He has in view the thousand years; the thousand years being the full maturing of the designs that moulded the little day. "Where is the promise of His presence?" Think upon the scale of a thousand years. But in the chapter before us the mocker’s scorn primarily concerns the heedlessness of God in the face of human sin. They are happy and untroubled in their lust! The jeer is this, that God is heedless of sin or virtue, and that there are no signs of discriminating judgment between the open sinner and the professed saint. Is God heedless about sin? "Where is the promise of His presence?" Are there any signs of His whereabouts? Let us ask ourselves this searching question--how do things trend? Is God heedless concerning sin? To what tribunal can we make our appeal? We can appeal to the testimony of the purest instincts. We can appeal to the witness of personal experience. We can appeal to the proclamation of the Christian Scriptures. And what is their united teaching? It is this that there is nothing more sure than "the everlasting burnings." I do not refer to some remote and unseen hell, the appointed destiny of an impenitent race. I refer to a present conflagration, the everlasting burning, in which the sinner is even now being inevitably consumed. I say that instinct and experience agree in this, that sin has to encounter an unavoidable Nemesis, and that wrong moves on to certain destruction. Our proverbial lore, the findings and expressions of the common life, gives emphatic utterance to the same truth. "A man’s chickens come home to roost." "The whirligig of time brings round its revenges." "Sin doesn’t pay in the long run." What the proverb declares, our experiences confirm. There is not a single sinner in this town to-day who is not, even now, in "the devouring fire," "the everlasting burnings." You say that some of them seem very happy in the fire! Yes, they do, but don’t you see that their happiness is not a disproof, but the very proof of the conflagration. Degradation is penalty. Loss of fine perception is penalty. The destruction of the coronal powers is penalty. Is it no sign of horrible judgment that a man is satisfied with the pleasures of the kitchen, when the oratory of his life is ablaze? This is the plane of true and cogent reasoning; manhood maimed is manhood penalised. That men are contented to be as pigs in the mire is the clearest evidence that their crowns and dignities have been burnt away. In the early stages of their sin men are conscious of their loss, and they busy themselves in fashioning counterfeits. They employ divers kinds of religious cosmetics. They strive and strive to "keep up appearances" even when the internal treasure is destroyed! My God! no judgment in the world? No Nemesis? No fire? Is not this a most awful judgment, more awful than any other, that when the very virtues of a man are consumed away, he should move about in self-satisfaction, wearing a hollow and painted pretence? You want to see visible lightning appear and strike him! Our God uses the ministry of a more secret consumption. "Our God is a consuming fire." As it is with individuals so it is with peoples. Judgment haunts the footsteps of the sinful state. We can trace the decline and fall of Rome. We can track it step by step through increased idleness, through demoralising employment, through heated sensuality, through the decline of agricultural pursuits, through the lapse of military virtue, on through all to Imperial perdition. There are grave and sober-minded men who are beginning to think that Nemesis is revealing a visible hand in the Russia of to-day. As for Britain, let her remember that, whatever adhesion may be found in material and commercial communion, it is not in these things that she will find the cement of an enduring and indestructible empire. "Righteousness alone exalteth a nation." In men and in peoples we may be sure that our sin will find us out. All sin works towards decline, insipidity, impotence, and night. Of all sad spectacles, the saddest is the spectacle of the candle smouldering out in an ill-spent life! "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, ere the evil days come," the insipid, burnt-out days, "when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them." And yet, after all, God does appear leisurely. Why does He not hasten His goings? Why are not sin and perdition more closely joined? Why does He move at such a leisurely pace? Why is He so slack? Listen. "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness; but is longsuffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9) "Not slack, as some count slackness," not impotent, not indifferent, not unwilling to perform. What then? "But is longsuffering toward you." It is the leisureliness, not of heedlessness, but of mercy. Our God is "slow to wrath"; it is a slow fire, slow in order that we may have opportunity to repent. God’s judgment on sin could have been appallingly swift and final. He might have ordained that one revolt should incur the paralysis of the will and the ruin of the life. And what would have been the effect? That we should have moved in a trembling terror, and though we might have been virtuous we should never have been free. The lowest motive would have operated in the soul, and the lowest motive can never produce the highest life. Some graces would never have ripened; we might have been pure, we could never have been genial and sweet. And so our Lord is apparently "slack"; He is "slow to wrath"; and by the very slowness He gives to us a gracious opportunity for reflection, a chance for the awaking of the affections, and room for the ministry of repentance. The far-off psalmist had discerned the secret of the Lord when he said: "Therefore will the Lord wait that He may be gracious unto you." "The Lord is not slack . . . as some count slackness; but is longsuffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." Let us give thanks at the remembrance of God’s leisureliness! How have I Thy Spirit grieved Since first with me He strove, Obstinately disbelieved, And trampled on Thy love! I have sinned against the light; I have broke from Thy embrace, No, I would not, when I might Be freely saved by grace. After all that I have done To drive Thee from my heart! Still Thou wilt not leave Thine own, Thou wilt not yet depart. Wilt not give the sinner o’er; Ready art Thou now to save, Bidst me come, as heretofore, That I Thy life may have. (1) Blake’s A Reasonable View of Life. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 30: 01.28. 2PE_3:10-14 -- PREPARING FOR THE JUDGMENT ======================================================================== 2 Peter 3:10-14 -- Preparing For The Judgment 2 Peter 3:10-14 -- But the day of the Lord will come as a thief; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing that these things are thus all to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness, looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God, by reason of which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? But, according to His promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for these things, give diligence that ye may be found in peace, without spot and blameless in His sight. "Seeing that ye look for these things." (2 Peter 3:14) What things? Let us glance back at the descriptive record of the outlook. "The day of the Lord will come as a thief; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up." (2 Peter 3:10) Here is an apostle vividly anticipating an awful day of judgment. In that final judgment righteousness is to be triumphantly vindicated, and iniquity is to be irrevocably overwhelmed. The coming of the day is sure; the time of its dawning is uncertain. It will assuredly come, but it will come as a thief! The affairs of all men are moving forward to consummation and crisis. There are details in the apostle’s out look, the mere drapery of the expectation, which I do not profess to understand, and which I shall make no attempt to explain. But altogether apart from the mysterious vestures in which the judgment is clothed, there are three outstanding characteristics of this stupendous crisis in the history of the soul. The anticipated judgment is to be a time of dissolution. "The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with a fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up." With the material details in this description I am not now concerned. It is sufficient for me to receive this cardinal impression: that the judgment is to be a season of convulsion, of upheaval, of exposure of foundations, of the dissolution and exhibition of the component parts of things. In that day it is to be revealed of what elementary substance things and characters are made. And, secondly, the anticipated judgment is to be a time of discrimination. This out standing event is to mark not merely a culmination, but a crisis. Things are to be analysed and tested, and judged by the pattern in the mount, and there is to be a separation of part from part, of character from character, of the healthy from the corrupt. "The wicked not stand in the judgment.." And, thirdly it is to be a time of transformation. Out of the dissolution and discrimination is to arise a changed world. "According to His promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." (2 Peter 3:13) Out of the crisis is to be born a new morning, with new light and new atmosphere, and a new home, and a new spirit pervading all things. Such are the pre-eminent characteristics of this overwhelming event in which every earthly life is to culminate in the judgment presence of God. And now with this foreground of severe and sanctified expectancy, the apostle proclaims the following challenge: "Seeing that these things are thus all to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be?" (2 Peter 3:11) How ought men to live in the face of a hereafter and a sure and awe-inspiring judgment? With that towering possibility confronting us, which to the apostle was a great and solemn certainty, with what kind of ambition ought we to direct and control our days? Let us mark the coolness and sanity the apostle’s reply. For there is nothing heated in his speech, nothing feverish, nothing sensational and fanatical. He does not tremble in paralysing fear; he does not maim his life by ascetical severities. Looking upon this superlative event, his life is cool and calm, full-toned and healthy. "Seeing that ye look for these things, give diligence that ye may be found in peace, with out spot and blameless in His sight." (2 Peter 3:14) That is not counsel for men in their decrepitude, when their evening time is come, and their sun is in the west, and the shout and struggle are over, and the fight and feast are done; it is counsel for life in its morning and its pride, counsel which seeks the creation of a rich and consecrated character, full-blooded and effective all along the changing way. If there be a judgment, as there will be, if there be a morrow of crisis, as there surely will, then in these robes we may meet it with eager and fearless face; "In peace, without spot and blameless in His sight." Now let us look a little more closely at those features of the character which will stand triumphant in the judgment. "Found in peace." (2 Peter 3:14) Let us once again rid ourselves of the common interpretation of peace. In the ordinary mind peace is synonymous with quietness and rest. We are walking up Ludgate Hill at noon, and we are jostled by the hurrying and perspiring crowd, and we turn from the hurrying multitudes into the cool quietness of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and we are tempted to say to ourselves, How peaceful it is! Or we go into some little village church, hoary with the passage of many years, and with no sound disturbing the stillness except the occasional song of a bird which steals tenderly through the open window, and again we use the pregnant word, How peaceful! Or we go into the chamber of the dead, and we look at the body with the wrinkles wiped out, and the once-while weary limbs lying in undisturbed rest, and again we say, How peaceful it is! But these are not the symbols of Christian peace, however pertinently they may express the secret of stillness. Peace is not stillness, but a certain kind of movement. It is movement without friction: cog works into cog with perfect and noiseless harmony: everything moves without jar, and there is no grit in the wheels. Peace is not the absence of noise, but the absence of discord. "When we dig away to the very roots of the word we find its primary content is "perfect joining." Nothing works out of its place. Everything moves in every thing else with delightful confluence. And this is peace, and therefore peace is harmony; it is the absence of the rebel, the extinction of strife. And so if there is to be peace in my life, all the powers in my life must co-operate without friction and move in harmony under the supreme control of the sovereign will of God. Here is a musical instrument, the organ. It is a very complex instrument, containing I know not how many hundred parts. And there is a movement in the organ known as ciphering. And what is ciphering? It is the sounding of an organ-pipe, in consequence of some derangement or maladjustment, independently of the action of the player. Harmony is dependent upon the obedience of each note to the organist’s authority. If any note breaks out of its own accord, the harmony is broken, and we are the victims of jarring discord. Now every man’s individuality is like a complex organ. How manifold and varied are the component parts! And the harmony of the individual is dependent upon the co-operation of all his powers. And yet how frequently the harmony of the life is broken by the ciphering of a part! Some faculty is rebellious, and breaks away from the control of the will. How often the player upon the instrument has to confess, "I cannot control my temper!" or, "I cannot control my imagination!" or, "I cannot control my passions!" But there is this distinction between ourselves and the musical instrument. The organist at the keyboard has no control over the ciphering; it is independent of him, and works entirely away from his resources and his will. But the individual has resources at his disposal, offered to him by his Lord, resources found in the dynamics of grace, by which every faculty can be subjected to the holy purpose of our Lord. It is possible for the individual to be "found in peace," and for "all that is within me" to bless God’s holy name. Let us investigate a little more in detail this manifold organ of the individual self. There are my powers of body. These are to be "found in peace." They are to work in harmony with one another, and under the control of the sovereign will of God, and they are to move as common subjects of the King. "Present your bodies." We must bring our basal energies to the Lord, and have these bodily forces subdued to the higher harmonies, like the profound notes of the organ that give body and fulness to its tender and sweetening strains. "Let the ape and tiger die," sings Tennyson. But there is a better way. And the better way is to transform them. I do not want my passions annihilating; I want them turning to useful force. I want the sword changed into a ploughshare, and the spear into a pruning-hook, and I want the beast at the base harnessed to the imperial and holy purpose of God. If a man consecrates "the ape and tiger" to the Lord, and these are brought into obedience under the Lord’s control, the life will receive a tremendous driving-power, and every holy ambition will be pursued with almost violent zest. "I keep my body under," says the Apostle Paul. "I allow no ciphering!" Every bodily desire is held in the leash, and all work together, and are "found in peace." There are my powers of mind. We speak of wandering thoughts, thoughts that are rebellious to the general dominion, and that steal away to forbidden fields. "We have unrestrained imaginations, fancies that go off on their own charges and ask no question concerning the lands in which they roam. "Bring every thought into captivity to Christ." It is possible for all our mental powers to be "found in peace." We have more power over our thoughts than we frequently conceive. There is much reserve of authority which has not yet been exercised. We can refuse a thought expression, and that refusal enormously strengthens our self-control. "Give no unproportioned thought its act." Make every thought bow down to Jesus before you give it utterance! But if we still find that our sovereignty is ineffective we can refer our weakness to the Spirit. We can take these rebel thoughts and imaginings, and we can say to the Holy Spirit, "These thoughts, my great Companion, are beyond me! I have no power to deal with them! I hand them over to thee!" And marvellous is the efficacy of the reference! Marvellous is the re-arranging of this disordered world, and the subjection of the mental chaos into harmony and peace. And there are my powers of soul. There are the superlative senses in my life. These also must be "found in peace." Our sense of right must not be allowed to join the rebel forces of mere expediency. Our sense of the sublime must not be permitted to career after degrading superstitions. Our highest powers must pay obeisance in the holy place, and acknowledge in awed communion the holiness of the Lord. All this is peace, for this is harmony, the powers of body and of mind and of soul all co-operating in producing the music of the spheres, the melody which is well-pleasing unto God. And this is the character with which one can confidently meet the day of judgment. "Give diligence that ye may be found in peace." Now turn to the second of the characteristics of the triumphant life: "found . . . without spot." (2 Peter 3:14) Let us mark the significance of the word. It describes a life distressed by no infirmity and corrupted by no disease. It is neither lame nor denied. Our God desires the entire life, and He resents a defective offering. He wants "a lamb without spot." None of our powers are to be made infirm by disease, and none are to be rendered diseased by abuse. Is not this a sane and reasonable teaching? Surely this man’s mind is in no degree impaired by the spectacle of coming judgment! His ambition is to be diligent--to present himself healthy, with every part of his being in working order. We may vary in the quality of our endowments, but there need be no variety in their purity. One man may have ten talents, and another man only one, but in both instances the life can be perfectly clean. One man’s endowment may be as that of a cathedral organ, while another may be common place as an ordinary harmonium, but both can be kept in perfect purity, no part corrupted, and every part sounding out the obedient note. And the third characteristic of the triumphant character is described in the succeeding phrase, "without blame." (2 Peter 3:14) Is that possible? I may get my body under, and I may succeed, by the grace of God, in freeing every part of my being from infirmity and disease, but is it within the bounds of possibility that I can stand in the judgment "without blame"? I think of my life. I retrace its steps. I mark its deliberate rebellions, its sins of selfishness and desire, its injustices in speech and deed, its disloyalties and secret treacheries. How can such a life ever be found "without blame"? And yet it is gloriously possible. It is the .very evangel of grace that, on the day of judgment, men whose lives were once defiled can stand before the Almighty, and no word of blame or rebuke shall fall upon their ears. They shall come to judgment, but there shall be no condemnation. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." I saw a man a little while ago with the marks of his old rebellion still seated in his face; but behind that disfigured countenance there was the illuminating presence of the light of life, and that man shall stand in the judgment "without blame." But this can only be possible when the life is lost "in Christ." We are regarded and judged as being in Him. What He is we are, for as He is we shall one day assuredly become. "Our life is hid with Christ." It may be only poor as yet, and the footprints of the beast may be scarcely erased from our life, but one day we are to be manifested in His beauty. It fills me with amazement that I, once a vagrant, and bearing about with me signs of my degeneracy, shall one day "walk in His likeness." Yes, and those old days, those pitiably blighted days, are never to be named by Him in whose holy presence we are all to stand. "I will remember them against thee no more for ever." Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee. Here, then, is a great ambition--that on the awful day of unveiling we may thus be "found in peace, without spot, and blameless." And see with what intensity this apostolic ambition is to be pursued. The apostle uses three very strenuous figures of speech. "Be diligent." (2 Peter 3:14) It is again the favourite image of the business man. We are to pursue the riches of this finished character with all the ardour of an expert man of affairs. We are to be inventive and earnest and prompt, buying up every opportunity for moral and spiritual enrichment. "Beware!" (2 Peter 3:17) And secondly we are to have all the vigilance of a custodian. Having got a pearl, I am to guard it as one of the crown jewels. "Hold fast that which thou hast; let no man take thy crown." And thirdly, we are to "be stedfast." We are to manifest the unshakeable and unshrinkable loyalty of a soldier at the post of duty. In seeking this glorified character we are to stand faithful at our post, "and having done all, to stand." Go forward to the judgment, seeking peace and spotlessness and blamelessness with all the diligence of a business man, with all the vigilance of a watchman, and with all the daring obedience of a soldier on the field of battle. A life like that, hiding in Christ and always cherishing the Father’s business, need fear nothing that the morrow may bring. For that kind of life the judgment will have no terrors. If we live toward God we shall not fear to see Him. Nay, here is the apostle bold enough to use these very daring and exuberant words, "earnestly desiring the coming of that day." It is the very music of this Epistle. "That day!" "At that day!" I say it is music to the apostle, as indeed it was music to the Apostle Paul, who gloried in "the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day, and not unto me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 31: 01.29. 2PE_3:18 -- GROWING IN GRACE ======================================================================== 2 Peter 3:18 -- Growing In Grace 2 Peter 3:18 -- Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. IF these words, and indeed the nature and contents of all this wonderful chapter, were not penned by Simon Peter, they were composed by his "double" in the spirit. Their hearts are fashioned alike. The writer of this counsel has had Simon Peter’s experience, and he is possessed by Simon Peter’s penitence, and he shares Simon Peter’s trembling confidence and hope. If some firmly authenticated and altogether non-suspicious letter of the great apostle were to fall into my hands, this is the kind of matter, and this the manner, which I should expect in its intense and impetuous pages. I should expect much about pitfalls and snares, much about finely attired and specious seductions, much about secret treachery, cowardly denial, and open revolt. I should expect strong and jubilant evangels, proclaiming the capacity of frail and fragile man to become the loyal and bosom friend of God Almighty. I should expect glorious vistas of distant possibility, bright and alluring, the ultimate bourn of human life in fellowship with the Divine. All these I should expect from the hands and lips and heart of this great apostle--once impulsive, and cowardly, and disloyal, but now recovered, emboldened, glorified in the recreating power of the Holy Ghost. And they are all here, messages full of heartening, serious with warning, kindling with inspiration, and all of them culminating in this cheery word of sanctified Christian optimism, "Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." Yes, it is Simon Peter, or his "double," the man who had the two-fold experience of weeping bitterly in the cold twilight of the betrayal morning, and of gazing, with hungry, loving eagerness into the reconciled countenance of the risen Lord. Well, here in my text there is suggested a marvellous dignity, the supreme prerogative and endowment of human-kind, our capacity to receive the Divine. "Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." Let us humanise it. To grow in a thing implies that I have the power to acquire it. Acquisition implies susceptibility, power of reception. When a man counsels me to grow, he suggests that I am in possession of a germinal aptitude, in the development of which the growth consists. "Grow in Art, and in the knowledge of the Masters of Art!" Such counsel implies that I possess initial artistic instincts, a certain elementary sensitiveness, which will respond to the revelations of each succeeding stage in the unfolding apocalypse of form and colour. If I am to grow in the grace and knowledge of Turner I must fundamentally possess the primal instincts of which the ultimate Turner is made. Growth implies a germ, an initial bias or tendency, an original aptitude or gift. And if I am to "grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ," the consoling and inspiring suggestion is this, that I am not passive and ungifted like a splint from a planet, or a mineral in the mine, but that to me has been given an original capability, an innate possibility of holding commerce with the infinite God. We are fragments of Divinity! Here then, I start with this glorious and marvellous implication, that the children of men have the power to apprehend and to growingly appropriate the "things" of the Spirit of God. Let us look at the capacity. "Grow in grace" We have the capacity to receive the Divine energy, to receive it more and more; to so grow in the appropriation of it that we are at last "filled with the fulness of God." For Grace is an energy; it is the Divine energy; it is the energy of the Divine affection rolling abundantly to the shores of human need. Oh, it is this, and much more than this! Its manifold wealth eludes the span of human speed, and refuses to be defined. Grace is indefinable. Dr. Dale, with his strong hands and yet most exquisite touch, endeavoured to express its secret in a pregnant phrase, but he laid down his pen in despair. "Grace," he says, "is love which passes beyond all claims to love. It is love which, after fulfilling the obligations imposed by law, has an unexhausted wealth of kindness." Yes, it is all that; but when we have said all that, the half hath not been told. It reminds me of an experience in my life a little while ago. Some minister of the Cross, toiling in great loneliness, among a scattered and primitive people, and on the very fringe of dark primeval forests, sent me a little sample of his vast and wealthy environment. He sent it in an envelope. It was a bright and gaily-coloured wing of a native bird. The colour and life of trackless leagues sampled within the confines of an envelope! And when we have made a compact little phrase to enshrine the secret of grace, I feel that, however fair and radiant it may be, we have only got a wing of a native bird, and bewildering stretches of wealth are untouched and unrevealed. No, we cannot define it. Who can define an Alp? We may describe the varying aspects of a mountain, some of its ever-changing moods; we can add feature to feature, characteristic to characteristic, but we can never say that we have exhausted the significance of its wealthy face. And so it is with grace. We may have glimpses of its features and varying moods. Even when we can not construe its ultimate secret, we may describe when we cannot define. Now that is just what the New Testament permits us to do. It gives us a glimpse here, and a glimpse there, and we can put bit to bit, feat Lire to feature, until we are overwhelmed with the glory of the revelation of God’s redeeming grace! Let us put them together. Grace is energy. Grace is love-energy. Grace is a redeeming love-energy. Grace is a redeeming love-energy ministering to the unlovely, and endowing the unlovely with its own loveliness. Wherever I see grace at work in the Christian Scriptures it is ever a minister of purity, and joy, and song and peace. Cast your eyes over these! "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." Like as you have seen the shore littered with filth and refuse, and the infinite deep has rolled in, and gathered up the uncleanness into its own purifying flood! "We have good hope through grace." Like as the light in the lighthouse burns clear and steadily through the night, because of the unfailing and carefully administered supplies of oil, so the light of a cheery optimism burns strong and calmly in the night of life, because of the unfailing supplies of grace! "Singing with grace in your hearts unto the Lord." Didn’t I say that grace is the mother of song? Grace makes a light and nimble atmosphere; the soul becomes buoyant, and breaks into music as instinctively as the bird sings in the soft airs of the dawn. All this is the work of the love-energy of the Eternal God, and the evangel is this, that to you and me is given the capacity to receive it, to grow in it, to appropriate it more and more, to more and more become its home. "He giveth grace for grace," until every tissue and function in body, mind, and soul are saturated and sanctified in its redeeming ministry. "Grow in grace!" "And in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." Then we have not only capacity to receive the Divine energy, but capacity to perceive the Divine character. Gifts of reception are succeeded by gifts of perception. We are to "grow in knowledge" too. I heard a great Bible student say the other day--he is a man of most delicate spiritual insight, and has worked and walked with his Lord for many years--and he was speaking among a few familiar friends, and he said, "I feel as if I have only investigated a small garden-bed, and there’s a continent still before me!" Have we not all shared his feelings? Is there a minister worth his salt who, as his experience broadens and deepens, does not realise that he has only touched the hem of his Master’s garment, and that the more glorious intimacy is all before him? Yes, so far as the Lord Jesus is concerned we have all pottered about a little garden-bed, with a continent awaiting us. But do not let us be despondent or afraid. We must not measure ourselves by the size of the garden-bed, but by the possibilities of the continent. We are not scaled to the size of the garden-bed; we are scaled and endowed to the ultimate demands of the continent. "Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known!" The continent is to be as familiar to us as the garden-bed. We can "grow . . . in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." Does not that sound continental, that great, all-comprehensive name--Lord--Saviour--Jesus--Christ? Into the secrets, the deep, bright mysteries of that most wonderful name we are to enter, little by little, and we are to apprehend and appreciate things which have been "hidden from the foundations of the world." Our capacity may at present be infantile, but infantile capacity is real, and the undeveloped germ carries in its heart the promise and power of its own prime. Caliban may be dark and imprisoned in contrast with the enlightened and appreciative Paul, but Caliban is a Paul in embryo, and even Paul himself, while he walked the ways of time, had but the comprehension of a babe in comparison with many a poor peasant who had "left his native lea" and had awakened amid the unveiled secrets of the Eternal day. Yes, we can grow; it is our dignity and our privilege to grow; we can grow "in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." "Now are we the sons of God," aye, even now! And to what shall we grow? "It doth not yet appear what we shall be." What then? "We know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." For what superlative glories we are made! Let us even now wear our crowns as kings and queens. How, then, can we increase our capacity for God? How may we best "grow in grace and knowledge," in the two-fold gifts of reception and perception? I only know three ways; but I think they are all-inclusive, and they would bring a man at length into "the measure of the fulness of the stature of Christ." You will not be surprised when I mention, as the first means of growth, the ministry of fervent prayer. That is an old counsel, almost threadbare by incessant reiteration, but we can no more ignore it than we can ignore the fresh air when we are reckoning up the conditions of physical health. When I speak of prayer I am thinking of a very active and businesslike thing. I think of something far more than speech; it is commerce with the Infinite. It is the sending out of aspiration, like the ascending angels in the patriarch’s dream; it is the reception of inspiration, like the descending angels that brought to the weary pilgrim the life and light of God. When we pray, we must drink in, and drink deeply, quietly, consciously, deliberately, the very love-energy of the Eternal God. Marvellous is the ministry of that inspired and inspiring grace! Shall I tell you how I heard one man speak of another man a little while ago? The one of whom he spake had appeared weary and worn, and dark, tired lines were pencilled here and there upon his face. And this weary man knelt and prayed! "And," said my friend, "when he rose from his knees, I saw for the first time the significance of Pentecost! The weariness had gone! The dark care-lines were wiped out! His face was all aglow with a renewed flame! And I verily believe that if my own heart had been pure enough I should have seen a radiant nimbus enveloping his exalted head!" What had the weary man been doing on his knees? He had been growing in grace, and therefore in the knowledge of his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And the second means of growth is found in the ministry of honourable and consecrated labour. If we could not "grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" while we earn our daily bread, life would be very largely a dark and fruitless waste. But if the hours of labour afford a congenial season for spiritual growth, then life presents a vast and glorious opportunity. It was while the Man of Nazareth was yet working at the carpenter’s bench that we are told "He increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man." "In favour"--our very present word "grace": the love-energy of the Eternal streamed into His soul while He engaged in the lowly toil of a humble village craftsman. The business of the little day was so done that at the same time it was commerce with the Infinite! Every business transaction was so scrupulously pure and honourable as to afford a dwelling-place for the Holy Spirit of the Eternal God! While He earned His daily bread He was drawing into His hungry heart the very bread of life. He and His Father were inseparable partners in the making of a household chair, or in the fashioning of a yoke for the ox of the field. Was not that, too, the restful boast of Stradivari? This is my fame-- When any master holds, ’Twixt chin and hand a violin of mine, He will be glad that Stradivari lived, Made violins, and made them of the best. The masters only know whose work is good: They will choose mine: and, while God gives them skill, I give them instruments to play upon, God choosing me to help Him. The man who goes out to his labour in the morning in that spirit, must and will grow in grace and knowledge, and he will find that the common path of duty is even now "close upon the shining tableland to which our God Himself is sun and moon." And the third means of growth is to be found in the ministry of unselfish service. In the sphere of the spirit, expenditure is ever the condition of expansion. We get while we give. We grow while we serve. "He that would be great among you let him be your minister." "He giveth grace to the humble." Aye, it is along that path that we come upon the crown jewels of the King of Kings. "He that loseth his life shall find it." The man who goes out to serve his brother shall meet his God, and shall be partially transfigured into the Saviour’s likeness: he shall pass into ever richer acquisitions of grace, and he shall be taken into the deeper secrets of his Lord. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 32: 02.00.0. THE PASSION FOR SOULS ======================================================================== THE PASSION FOR SOULS BY J. H. JOWETT, M.A. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 33: 02.00.1. CONTENTS ======================================================================== Contents The Disciple’s Theme The Disciple’s Sacrifice The Disciple’s Tenderness The Disciple Watching for Souls The Disciple’s Companion The Disciple’s Rest The Disciple’s Vision ======================================================================== CHAPTER 34: 02.01. THE DISCIPLE'S THEME ======================================================================== CHAPTER I THE DISCIPLE’S THEME "Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." Ephesians 3:8. MARK how the apostle describes the evangel-" the unsearchable riches of Christ!" It suggests the figure of a man standing, with uplifted hands, in a posture of great amazement, before continuous revelations of immeasurable and unspeakable glory. In whatever way he turns, the splendor confronts him! It is not a single highway of enrichment. There are side-ways, byways, turnings here and there, labyrinthine paths and recesses, and all of them abounding in unsuspected jewels of grace. It is as if a miner, working away at the primary vein of ore, should continually discover equally precious veins stretching out on every side, and overwhelming him in rich embarrassment. It is as if a little child, gathering the wild sweet heather at the fringe of the road, should lift his eyes and catch sight of the purple glory of a boundless moor. "The unsearchable riches of Christ!" It is as if a man were tracking out the confines of a lake, walking its boundaries, and when the circuit were almost complete should discover that it was no lake at all, but an arm of the ocean, and that he was confronted by the immeasurable seal "The unsearchable riches of Christ!" This sense of amazement is never absent from the apostle’s life and writings. His wonder grows by what it feeds on. Today’s surprise almost makes yesterday’s wonder a commonplace. Again and again he checks himself, and stops the march of his argument, as the glory breathes upon him the new freshness of the morning. You know how the familiar paean runs. "According to the riches of His grace." "That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory." "God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." "The riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles." "The same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him." "In everything ye are enriched in Him." "The exceeding riches of His grace." His thought is overwhelmed. He is dazzled by the splendor. Speech is useless. Description is impossible. He just breaks out in awed and exultant exclamation. "O, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” The riches are "unsearchable," untrackable, "beyond all knowledge and all thought." But now, to the Apostle Paul, these "unsearchable riches" are not merely the subjects of contemplation, they are objects of appropriation. This ideal wealth is usable glory, usable for the enrichment of the race. The "unsearchable riches" fit themselves into every possible condition of human poverty and need. The ocean of grace flows about the shore of common life, into all its distresses and gaping wants, and it fills every crack and crevice to the full. That is the sublime confidence of the Apostle Paul. He stands before all the desert places in human life, the mere cinder-heaps, the men and the women with burnt-out enthusiasms and affections, and he boldly proclaims their possible enrichment. He stands before sin, and proclaims that sin can be destroyed. He stands before sorrow, and proclaims that sorrow can be transfigured. He stands before the broken and perverted relationships of men, and proclaims that they can all be rectified. And all this in the strength of "the unsearchable riches of Christ!" To this man the wealth is realizable, and can be applied to the removal of all the deepest needs of men. Let us fasten our attention here for a little while, in the contemplation of this man’s amazing confidence in the triumphant powers of grace. He stands before sin and proclaims its possible destruction. It is not only that he proclaims the general ministry of pardon and the general removal of sin. He finds his special delight in specializing, the ministry, and in proclaiming the all-sufficiency of redeeming grace in its relationship to the worst. There is about him the fearlessness of a man who knows that his evangel is that of redemption which cannot possibly fail. Turn to those gloomy catalogues, which are found and from these estimates his glowing confidence in the powers of redeeming grace. Here is such a list: --" Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, abusers of themselves with men, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners." Such were some of the foul issues upon which the saving energies of grace were to be brought. And then he adds--"And such were some of you. But ye were washed!" And when the Apostle uses the word "washed" he suggests more than the washing out of an old sin, he means the removal of an old affection; more than the removal of a pimple, he means the purifying of the blood; more than the canceling of guilt, he means the transformation of desire. Such was this man’s belief in the saving ministry of divine grace. Do we share his confidence? Do we speak with the same unshaken assurance, or do we stagger through unbelief? Does our speech tremble with hesitancy and indecision? If we had here a company of men and women whose condition might well place them in one of the catalogues of the Apostle Paul, could we address to them an evangel of untroubled assurance, and would our tones have that savoir of persuasion which would make our message believed? What could we tell them with firm and illumined convictions? Could we tell them that the cinder-heaps can be made into gardens, and that the desert can be made to rejoice and blossom as the rose? I say, should we stagger in the presence of the worst, or should we triumphantly exult in the power of Christ’s salvation? It has always been characteristic of great soul-winners that, in the strength of the unsearchable riches of Christ, they have proclaimed the possible enrichment and ennoblement of the most debased. John Wesley appeared to take almost a pride in recounting and describing the appalling ruin and defilement of mankind, that he might then glory in all-sufficient power of redeeming grace. "I preached at Bath. Some of the rich and great were present, to whom, as to the rest, I declared with all plainness of speech, (1) that by nature they were all children of wrath. (2) That all their natural tempers were corrupted and abominable....One of my hearers, my Lord---, stayed very impatiently until I came to the middle of my fourth head. Then, starting up, he said, ’ ’Tis hot! ’Tis very hot,’ and got downstairs as fast as he could." My Lord should have stayed a little longer, for John Wesley’s analysis of depravity and of human need was only and always the preface to the introduction of the glories of the unsearchable riches of Christ. My Lord should have waited until Wesley got to the marrow of his text; "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." There was a similar sublime confidence in the preaching of Spurgeon. What a magnificent assurance breathes through these words, "The blood of Christ can wash out blasphemy, adultery, fornication, lying, slander, perjury, theft, murder. Though thou hast raked in the very kennels of hell, yet if thou wilt come to Christ and ask mercy He will absolve thee from all sin." That too, I think, is quite Pauline. Henry Drummond has told us that he has sometimes listened to confessions of sin and to stories of ill living so filthy and so loathsome that he felt when he returned home that he must change his very clothes. And yet to these plague-smitten children Drummond offered with joyful confidence the robe of righteousness and the garment of salvation. We need this confident hope to day. Men and women are round about us, will-less, heartless, hopeless, and there is something stimulating and magnetic about a strong man’s confident speech. If we proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ, let us proclaim them with a confidence born of experimental fellowship with the Lord, and with the un-trembling assurance that the crown of life can be brought to the most besotted, and the pure white robe to the most defiled. What else does Paul find in the unsearchable riches of Christ? He finds a gracious ministry for the transfiguration of sorrow. The unsearchable riches of Christ bring most winsome light and heat into the midst of human sorrow and grief. "Our consolations also abound through Christ." Turn where you will, in the life of Paul, into his darker seasons and experiences, and you will find that the sublime and spiritual consolation is shedding its comforting rays. "We rejoice in tribulation also." Who would have expected to find the light burning there? "We sorrow, yet not as others who have no hope." "Not as others!" It is sorrow with the light streaming through it! It is an April shower, mingled sunshine and rain; the hope gleams through tears. The light transfigures what it touches! Even the yew tree in my garden, so somber and so sullen, shows another face when the sunlight falls upon it. I think I have seen the yew tree smile! Even pain shows a new face when the glory-light beams upon it. Said Frances Ridley Havergal, that exultant singing spirit, with the frail, shaking, pain-ridden body, "Everybody is so sorry for me except myself." And then she uses the phrase; "I see my pain in the light of Calvary." It is the yew tree with the light upon it! Such is the ministry of the unsearchable riches in the nighttime of pain. Professor Elmslie said to one of his dearest friends towards the end of his days, "What people need most is comfort." If that were’ true, then the sad, tear-stricken, heavy-laden children of men will find their satisfaction only in the unsearchable riches of Christ. What further discoveries does the Apostle make in the unsearchable riches of Christ? He not only confronts sin and claims that it can be destroyed, and stands before sorrow and claims that it can be transfigured, he stands amid the misunderstandings of men, amid the perversions in the purposed order of life, the ugly twists that have been given to fellowships which were ordained to be beautiful and true, and he proclaims their possible rectification in Christ. When Paul wants to bring correcting and enriching forces into human affairs, he seeks the wealthy energy in "the unsearchable riches of Christ." He finds the ore for all ethical and social enrichments in this vast spiritual Deposit. He goes into the home, and seeks the adjustment of the home relationships, and the heightening and enrichment of the marriage vow. And by what means does he seek it? By bringing Calvary’s tree to the very hearthstone, the merits of the bleeding sacrifice to the enrichment of the wedded life. "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for it." He goes into the domain of labor, and seeks the resetting of the relationships of master and servant. And by what means does he seek it? By seeking the spiritual enrichment of both master and servant in a common communion with the wealth of the blessed Lord. He takes our common intimacies, our familiar contracts, the points where we meet in daily fellowship, and he seeks to transform the touch which carries an ill contagion into a touch which shall be the vehicle of contagious health. And by what means does he seek it? By bringing the Cross to the common life and letting the wealth of that transcendent sacrifice reveal the work of the individual soul. Every Where the Apostle finds in the "unsearchable riches of Christ" life’s glorious ideal, and the all-sufficient dynamic by which it is to be attained. Here, then, my brethren, are the "unsearchable riches" of Christ--riches of love, riches of pardon, riches of comfort, riches of health, riches for restoring the sin-scorched wastes of the soul, riches for transfiguring the sullenest of sorrow and pain, and riches for healthily adjusting the perverted relationships of the home, the state and the race. These riches are ours. Every soul is heir to the vast inheritance! The riches are waiting for the claimants! And some, yea, multitudes of our fellows have claimed them, and they are moving about in the humdrum ways of common life with the joyful consciousness of spiritual millionaires. James Smetham describes one such man. He was a humble member of Smetham’s Methodist class-meeting. "He sold a bit of tea. And staggered along in June days with a tendency to hernia, and prayed as if he had a fortune of ten thousand a year, and were, the best-off Man in the world!" His "bit of tea" and his rupture I But with the consciousness of a spiritual millionaire! "All this," said the old woman to Bishop Burnett, as she held up a crust, "all this and Christ!" These are the folk who have inherited the promises, who have even now inherited the treasures in heaven: and "unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, to preach these unsearchable riches of Christ." Let me turn, in conclusion, from the disciple’s theme to the preacher himself. "Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints." Then the disciple is possessed by a sense of profound humility. "Unto me "--the standing amazement of it, that he should have been chosen, first, to share the wealth, to claim the inheritance, and then to make known his discovery to others. "Unto me, who am less than the least "--he violates grammar, he coins a word which I suppose is used nowhere else. It is not enough for Paul to obtain a word, which signifies the least; he wants a place beneath the least--"unto me, who am less than the least"--- Such a word does he require in order to express his sense of his own unworthiness. "Less than the least." He gazes back; surely I don’t misinterpret the Apostle when I say it--he gazes back upon the days of his alienation, upon the days when he was deriding and scorning the supposed riches of his Master’s kingdom. Again and again, in places where I least expect it, I find the Apostle turning a powerful and, I think, pain-ridden gaze into those early days when he lived in revolt. If you turn to Romans sixteen, that collection of miscellanies, a chapter that I suppose we don’t often read, which is concerned largely with salutations and the courtesies of common life, you get here and there most vivid glimpses into the consciousness of the Apostle. Here is one: "Salute Andronicus, and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellow-prisoners who were in Christ before me." Do you feel the sob of it--" who were in Christ before me”? They were serving Him, following Him, proclaiming Him, while I was still a declared and implacable foe; they were in Christ before me. But unto Me, less than Andronicus, less than Junia, and less than the least of all, unto me was the grace given. I think we shall have to share it with him--this sense of unworthiness at being called and elected by grace to preach the Gospel. We shall have to enter into controversy even with the old Puritan who said, "I do not quarrel with Paul’s language, but I do dispute his right to push me out of my place." "’ Less than the least,’" said the Puritan, "is my place." Surely the preacher must sometimes lay down his pen, and pause in the very middle of his preparation, in a sense of extreme wonderment that the condescending Lord should have chosen him to be the vehicle and messenger of eternal grace. The man who feels unworthy will be kept open and receptive towards the fountain. "Why did Jesus choose Judas?" said an inquirer once to Dr. Parker. "I don’t know," replied the Doctor, "but I have a bigger mystery still. I cannot make out why He chose me." "Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints was this grace given." I wish I could just read that in the very tone and accent in which I think the Apostle himself would have proclaimed it. I think the early part of it would have to be read almost tremblingly. Mark the mingling of profound humility with the tone of absolute confidence. When the Apostle looked at himself he was filled with shrinking and timidities, but when he thought about his acceptance and his endowment he was possessed by confident triumph. Whatever shrinking he had about himself, he had no shrinking that he was the elect of God, endowed with the grace of God, in order to proclaim the evangel of God. It was just because he was so perfectly assured of his acceptance and of his vocation that he felt so perfectly unworthy. Did not Cromwell say of George Fox that an enormous sacred self-confidence was not the least of his attainments? I am not quite sure that Oliver Cromwell correctly interpreted George Fox. I would be inclined to withdraw the word "self" and insert the word "God," and then we have got, not only what George Fox ought to be, but what the Apostle Paul was, and what every minister of the Gospel is expected to be in Christ; we are expected to be the children of an enormous God-confidence, we are to be children absolutely assured that we are in communion with Christ, and are even now receptive of His grace. "Unto me was the grace given." Without that grace there can be no herald, and without that grace there can, therefore, be no evangel. You have heard the old legend of the noble hall, and the horn that hung by the gate waiting for the heir’s return; none could blow the horn except the heir to the noble pile. One stranger after another would come and put the horn to his lips, but fail to sound the blast. Then the heir appeared, took the horn down from the gate, blew it, and there came the blast that rang down the valley and wound round the hills. "Unto me was the grace given" to blow the horn; "unto me was the grace given" to preach; and none’ but the one who has the grace of the heir can blow the horn of the Gospel. Our main work, our supreme work, our work, before which all other pales and becomes dim, is to tell the good news, to go everywhere, letting everybody knows about the unsearchable riches of Christ. When Professor Elmslie was dying, he said to his wife, "No man can deny that I have always preached the love of, God "; and just before he died he said again, "Kate, God is love, all love. Kate, we will tell everybody that, but especially our own boy--at least, you will--we will tell everybody that; that’s my vocation." That is the vocation-of the disciple, to tell everybody of the unsearchable riches of Christ. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 35: 02.02. THE DISCIPLE'S SACRIFICE ======================================================================== CHAPTER II THE DISCIPLE’S SACRIFICE "I fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ."-- Colossians 1:24 "I FILL up that which is behind!" Not that the ministry of reconciliation is incomplete. Not that Gethsemane and Calvary have failed. Not that the debt of guilt is only partially paid, and there is now a threatening remnant which demands the sacrifice of human blood. The ministry of atonement is perfected. There is no outstanding debt. "Jesus paid it all." In the one commanding sacrifice for human sin Calvary leaves nothing for you and me to do. In the bundle of the Savior’s sufferings every needful pang was borne. Bearing shame and scoffing rude, In my place condemned He stood, Sealed my pardon with His blood. I can add nothing to that. There is nothing lacking. The sacrifice is all sufficient. And yet "I fill up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ" The sufferings need a herald. A story needs a teller. A gospel requires an evangelist. A finished case demands efficient presentation. The monarch must repeat himself through his ambassadors. The awning Savior must express Himself through the ministering Paul. The work of Calvary must proclaim itself in the sacrificial saints. In his own sphere, and in his own degree, Paul must be Christ repeated. As a minister in Greece and Asia Minor Paul must reincarnate the sacrificial spirit of Jerusalem and Galilee. He must "fill up that which is behind in the sufferings of Christ." The suggestion is this--all ministry for the Master must be possessed by the sacrificial spirit of the Master. If Paul is to help in the redemption of Rome he must himself incarnate the death of Calvary. If he is to be a minister of life he must "die dally." "The blood is the life." Without the shedding of blood there is no regenerative toil. Every real lift implies a corresponding strain, and wherever the crooked is made straight "virtue" must go out of the erect. The spirit of Calvary is to be reincarnated in Ephesus and Athens and Rome and London and Birmingham; the sacrificial succession is to be maintained through the ages, and we are to "fill up that which is behind in the sufferings of Christ." "I fill up that which is behind"! That is not the presumptuous boast of perilous pride; it is the quiet, awed aspiration of privileged fellowship with the Lord. Here is an Apostle, a man who thinks meanly enough of himself, counting himself an abortion, regarding himself as "the least of the apostles, not worthy to be called an apostle," and yet he dares to whisper his own name alongside his Master’s, and humbly to associate his own pangs with the sufferings of redemptive love. "I fill up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ." Is the association permissible? Are the sufferings of Christ and His Apostles complementary, and are they profoundly cooperative in the ministry of salvation? Dare we proclaim them together? Here is an association. "In all their afflictions He was afflicted." "Who is weak and I am not weak; who is offended and I burn not?” Is the association alien and uncongenial, or is it altogether legitimate and fitting? "In all their afflictions He was afflicted "--the deep, poignant, passionate sympathy of the Savior; "Who is weak and I am not weak"--the deep, poignant, passionate sympathy of the ambassador. The kinship in the succession is vital. The daily dying of the Apostle corroborates and drives home the one death of his Lord. The suffering sympathies in Rome perfected the exquisite sensitiveness in Galilee and Jerusalem. The bleeding heart in Rome perfected the ministry of the broken heart upon the Cross. Paul "filled up that which was behind of the sufferings of Christ." Here, then, is a principle. The gospel of a broken heart demands the ministry of bleeding hearts. If that succession were broken we lose our fellowship with the King. As soon as we cease to bleed we cease to bless. When our sympathy loses its pang we can no longer be the servants of the passion. We no longer "fill up the sufferings of Christ," and not to "fill up" is to paralyze, and to "make the cross of Christ of none effect." Now the apostle was a man of the most vivid and realistic sympathy. "Who is weak and I am not weak?" His sympathy was a perpetuation of the Passion. I am amazed at its intensity and scope. What a broad, exquisite surface of perceptiveness he exposed to the needs and sorrows of the race I wherever there was a pang it tore the strings of his sensitive heart. Now it is the painful fears and alarms of a runaway slave, and now the dumb, dark agonies of people far away. The Apostle felt as vividly as he thought, and he lived through all he saw. The sighs and cries of his fellow men were continually arousing him. He heard a cry from Macedonia, and the pain on the distant shore was reflected in his own life. That is the only recorded voice, but he was hearing them every day, wandering, pain-filled, fear-filled voices, calling out of the night, voices from Corinth, from Athens, from Rome also, and from distant Spain! "Who is weak and I am not weak?” He was exhausted with other folk’s exhaustion, and in the heavy burdensome-ness he touched the mystery of Gethsemane, and had fellowship with the sufferings of his Lord. My brethren, are we in this succession? Does the cry of the world’s need pierce the heart, and ring even through the fabric of our dreams? Do we "fill up" our Lord’s sufferings with our own sufferings, or axe we the unsympathetic ministers of a mighty Passion? I am amazed how easily I become callous. I am ashamed how small and insensitive is the surface, which I present to the needs and sorrows of the world. I so easily become enwrapped in the soft wool of self-indulgence and the cries from fax and near cannot reach my easeful soul. "Why do you wish to return?” I asked a noble young missionary who had been invalided home: "Why do you wish to return?” "Because I can’t sleep for thinking of them!" But, my brethren, except when I spend a day with my Lord, the trend of my life is quite another way. I cannot think about them because I am so inclined to sleep I A benumbment settles down upon my spirit, and the pangs of the world awake no corresponding sympathy. I can take my newspaper, which is oftentimes a veritable cup-full of horrors, and I can peruse it at the breakfast table, and it does not add a single tang to my feast. I wonder if one who is so unmoved can ever be a servant of the suffering Lord! Here in my newspaper is the long, small-typed casualty list from the seat of wax; or here is half a column of the crimes and misdemeanors of my city; or here is a couple of columns descriptive of the hot and frantic doings of the race-course; or here is a small comer paragraph telling me about some massacres in China; or here axe two little hidden lines saying that a man named James Chalmers has been murdered in New Guinea! And I can read it all while I take my break fast, and the dark record does not haunt the day with the mingled wails of the orphaned and the damned. My brethren, I do not know how any Christian service is to be fruitful if the servant is not primarily baptized in the spirit of a suffering compassion. We can never heal the needs we do not feel. Tearless hearts can never be the heralds of the Passion. We must pity if we would redeem. We must bleed if we would be the ministers of the saving blood. We must perfect by our passion the Passion of the Lord, and by our own suffering sympathies we must "fill up that which is behind in the sufferings of Christ." "Put on, therefore, as God’s elect, a heart of compassion." Here is another association. Can we find a vital kinship? "He offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears." So far the Master. "I would have you know how greatly I agonize for you." So far the Apostle. The Savior prayed "with strong crying and tears"; His Apostle "agonized" in intercession! Is the association legitimate? Did not the agony at Rome "fill up" the "strong cryings" at Jerusalem? Does not the interceding Apostle enter into the fellowship of his Master’s sufferings, and perfect that "which is behind"? The intercession in Rome is akin to the intercession in Jerusalem, and both are affairs of blood. If the prayer of the disciple is to "fill up" the intercession of the Master, the disciple’s prayer must be stricken with much crying and many tears. The ministers of Calvary must supplicate in bloody sweat, and their intercession must often touch the point of agony. If we pray in cold blood we are no longer the ministers of the Cross. True intercession is a sacrifice, a bleeding sacrifice, a perpetuation of Calvary, a "filling up" of the sufferings of Christ. St. Catherine told a friend that the anguish which she experienced, in the realization of the sufferings of Christ, was greatest at the moment when she was pleading for the salvation of others. "Promise me that Thou wilt save them I" she cried, and stretching forth her right hand to Jesus, she again implored in agony, "Promise me, dear Lord, that Thou wilt save them. 0 give me a token that Thou wilt." Then her Lord seemed to clasp her outstretched hand in His, and to give her the promise, and she felt a piercing pain as though a nail had been driven through the palm. I think I know the meaning of the mystic experience. She had become so absolutely one with the interceding Savior that she entered into the fellowship of His crucifixion. Her prayers were red with sacrifice, and she felt the grasp of the pierced hand. My brethren, this is the ministry which the Master owns, the agonized yearnings which perfect the sufferings of His own intercession. And we in the succession? Do our prayers bleed? Have we felt the painful fellowship of the pierced hand? I am so often ashamed of my prayers. They so frequently cost me nothing; they shed no blood. I am amazed at the grace and condescension of my Lord that He confers any fruitfulness upon my superficial pains. I think of David Brainerd--I think of his magnificent ministry among the Indians, whole tribes being swayed by the evangel of the Savior’s love. I wonder at the secret, and the secret stands revealed. Gethsemane had its pale reflection in Susquahannah, and the strong-crying" Savior had a fellow laborer in His agonizing saint. Let me give you a few words from his journal, alter one hundred and fifty years still wet with the hot tears of his supplications and prayers: "I think my soul was never so drawn out in intercession for others as it has been this night; I hardly ever so longed to live to God, and to be altogether devoted to Him; I wanted to wear out my life for Him." "I wrestled for the ingathering of souls, for multitudes of poor souls, personally, in many distant places. I was in such an agony, from sun half-an-hour high till near dark, that I was wet all over with sweat; but O, my dear Lord did sweat blood for such poor souls: I longed for more compassion." Mark the words, "I was in such an agony from sun half-an-hour high till near dark!" May we do what David Brainerd would not do, may we reverently whisper the word side by side with another and a greater word, "And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly." I say, was not Susquahannah a hint echo of Gethsemane, and was not David Brainerd filling up "that which was behind in the sufferings of Christ "? Brethren, all vital intercession makes a draught upon a man’s vitality. Real supplication leaves us tired and spent. Why the Apostle Paul, when he wishes to express the poignancy of his yearning intercession for the souls of men, does not hesitate to lay hold of the pangs of labor to give it adequate interpretation. "Ye remember, brethren, our travail." "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again till Christ be formed in you." Again I say, it was only the echo of a stronger word, "He shall see of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied." Are we in the succession? Is intercession with us a travail, or is it a playtime, a recreation, the least exacting of all things, an exercise in which there is neither labor nor blood? "The blood is the life." Bloodless intercession is dead. It is only the man whose prayer is a vital expenditure, a sacrifice, who holds fellowship with Calvary, and "fills up that which is behind in the sufferings o! Christ." Here is another association. Is it legitimate? "Master, the Jews of late sought to stone Thee, and goest Thou thither again?" "Having stoned Paul" (at Lystra) "they drew him out of the city supposing he had been dead." And Paul "returned again to Lystra!" Back to the stones I Is that in the succession? Is not the Apostle the complement of his Master’? Is he not doing in Lystra what his Master did in Judaea? Is he not filling up "that which was behind of the sufferings of Christ"? Back to the stones! "Master, the Jews of late sought to stone Thee, and goest Thou thither again?" The Boxers of late sought to decimate thee, poor little flock, and goest thou thither again? The New Guineans have butchered thy Chalmers and thy Tompkins, and goest thou thither again? Mongolia has swallowed thy men and thy treasure, and its prejudice and its suspicions appear unmoved, and goest thou thither again? Thou hast been tiring thyself for years, seeking to redeem this man and that man, and he treats thee with indifference and contempt, and goest thou thither again? My brethren, are we familiar with the road that leads back to the stones? It was familiar to the Apostle Paul, and when he trod the heavy way he entered the fellowship of his Master’s pains, and knew that he "filled out that which was behind of the sufferings" of his Lord. To go again and face the stones is to perpetuate the spirit of the Man who "set His face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem," even though it meant derision, desertion, and the Cross. We never really know our Master until we kneel and toil among the driving stones. Only as we experience the "fellowship of His sufferings can we know the power of His resurrection." There is a sentence in David Hill’s biography --that rare, gentle, refined spirit, who moved like a fragrance in his little part of China--a sentence which has burned itself into the very marrow of my mind. Disorder had broken out, and one of the rioters seized a huge splinter of a smashed door and gave him a terrific blow on the wrist, almost breaking his arm. And how is it all referred to? "There is a deep joy in actually suffering physical violence for Christ’s sake." That is all I It is a strange combination of words--suffering, violence, joy! And yet I remember the evangel- of the Apostle, "If we suffer with Him we shall also reign with Him," and I cannot forget that’ the epistle which has much to say about tribulation and loss, has most to say about rejoicing! "As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth through Christ." "Out of the eater comes forth meat." These men did not shrink from the labor when the stones began to fly. Rebuff was an invitation to return! The strength of opposition acted upon them like an inspiration. Have you ever noticed that magnificent turn which the Apostle gives to a certain passage in his second letter to the Corinthians? "I will tarry at Ephesus for a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries"! "There are many adversities I will tarry"! The majestic opposition constitutes a reason to remain! "There are many adversaries "; I will hold on! My brethren, that is the martyr’s road, and he who treads that way lives the martyr’s life, and even though he do not die the martyr’s death he shall have the martyr’s crown. Back to the stones! "It is the way the Master went," and to be found in that way is to perpetuate the sacrificial spirit, and to "fill up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ." To be, therefore, in the sacrificial succession, our sympathy must be a passion, our intercession must be a groaning, our beneficence must be a sacrifice, and our service must be a martyrdom. In everything there must be the shedding of blood. How can we attain unto it? What is the secret of the sacrificial· life? It is here. The men and the women who willingly and joyfully share the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings are vividly conscious of the unspeakable reality of their own personal redemption. They never forget the pit out of which they have been digged, and they never lose the remembrance of the grace that saved them. "He loved me, and gave Himself for me"; therefore, "I glory in tribulation!" "by the grace of God I am what I am"; therefore "I will very gladly spend and be spent!" The insertion of the "therefore" is not illegitimate: it is the implied conjunction which reveals the secret of the sacrificial life. When Henry Martin reached the shores of India he made this entry in his journal, "I desire to bum out for my God," and at the end of the far-off years the secret of his grand enthusiasm stood openly revealed. "Look at me," he said to those about him as he was dying--" Look at me, the vilest of sinners, but saved by grace! Amazing that I can be saved!" It was that amazement, wondering all through his years, that made him such a fountain of sacrificial energy in the service of his Lord. My brethren, are we in the succession? Are we shedding our blood? Are we filling up "that which is behind in the sufferings of Christ"? They are doing it among the heathen. It was done in Uganda, when that handful of lads, having been tortured, and their arms cut off, and while they were being slowly burned to death, raised a song of triumph, and praised their Savior in the fire, "singing till their shriveled tongues refused to form the sound." They are doing it in China, the little remnant of the decimated Churches gathering here and there upon the very spots of butchery and martyrdom, and renewing their covenant with the Lord. They are "filling up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ." They are doing it among the missionaries. James Hannington was doing it when he wrote this splendidly heroic word, when he was encountered by tremendous opposition: "I refuse to be disappointed; I will only praise!" James Chalmers was doing it when, after long years of hardship and difficulty, he proclaimed his unalterable choice: "Recall the twenty-one years, give me back all its experience, give me its shipwrecks, give me its standings in the face of death, give it me surrounded with savages with spears and clubs, give it me back again with spears flying about me, with the club knocking me to the ground--give it me back, and I will still be your missionary!" Are we in the succession? A noble army, men and boys, The matron and the maid, Around the Savior’s throne rejoice, In robes of light arrayed; They climbed the steep ascent of Heaven Through peril, toil and pain! 0 God, to us may grace be given To follow in theft train. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 36: 02.03. THE DISCIPLE'S TENDERNESS ======================================================================== CHAPTER III THE DISCIPLE’S TENDERNESS "And I will betroth thee unto Me forever."-- Hosea 2:19. THAT is a tenderly beautiful figure; surely one of the sweetest and most exquisite in God’s Word! "I will betroth thee unto Me forever!" The communion of ideal wedlock is used to express the ideal relationship between the soul and its Lord. We are to be married unto the Lord! Look into the heart of it, and see how much the gracious figure reveals. "I will betroth thee unto Me forever." There is to be a wedding of the soul and its Savior, of the nation and its King. To bring that wedding about is the aim and purpose of every kind and type of Christian ministry. We are to labor to bring souls into marriage-covenant with their Lord. I wish for the present to limit my outlook entirely to the winning of the children, and shall engage your thought to the pertinent problem as to how they can be wooed into a marriage-contract with the Lord of glory. What is the kind of wooing that will lead to a wedding? Let me begin here. I do not think we greatly help the cause of the Lover by proclaiming the remoteness of the Lover’s home. I have never been able to find out what we gain by teaching children the "faroffness" of the Savior’s dwelling. There is a happy land Far, far away! How does that help the wooer? For beyond the clouds and beyond the tomb It is there, it is there, my child. I say, how does that help the wooing? I am afraid that the remoteness of the home tends to create a conception of the remoteness of the Lover; and, if the Lover is away, the wooing will be very mechanical and cold. There’s a Friend for little children Above the bright blue sky. That is the only line I don’t like in that greatly beloved and very beautiful hymn. In my childhood it helped to make my Saviour an absentee, and He was "above the bright blue sky," when I wanted Him on the near and common earth. I think that we shall perhaps best help the cause of the Wooer if we teach that His home is very near, and that no clouds interpose between us and the place of His abiding. There is a happy land, Not far away. Destroying all sense of remoteness, we must labour to bring the children into the immediate presence of the Lover Himself. How shall we do it? What is there in the child of which we must lay hold? To what shall we make our appeal? Ruskin was never weary of telling us that the two fundamental virtues in childhood are reverence and compassion, the sympathetic perception of another’s weakness, and the venerating regard for another’s crown. To perceive the sorrows of life, and to maintain a sense of the dignities of life, are two rare and choice endowments; and, when these are exercised upon "the Man of Sorrows," and "the King with many crowns," the issue will be a life of commanding spiritual devotion. But Ruskin’s analysis does not altogether, and quite fittingly, serve my purpose here. It is more to my purpose to borrow the familiar line of Wordsworth, for his teaching includes the teaching of Ruskin, and also adds to it--" We live by admiration, hope, and love." In those three attributes a man’s personality abides. Gain them, and you win the man! All the three attributes must be regarded in indissoluble union. The quality of each depends upon the presence of all. Strike out one, and you maim and impoverish the rest. There is an imperfect love in which there is no admiration. There is an imperfect admiration in which there is no love. Perfect love admires: perfect admiration loves; and love and admiration are ever associated with the gracious spirit of hopeful aspiration. These three, I say, constitute the very marrow of life--the deep, secret springs of character and conduct. "We live by admiration, hope, and love." To win a child’s love, and admiration, and hope, is to grip his entire being, and make conquest of all the powers of his soul. If the great Lover can win these, the wooing will be followed by the wedding. How can we so represent Him, that this triumph shall be won? We have so to reveal Jesus to the children, that He captivates their love. What shall we reveal to them? Instinctively, I think, we feel that we must let them gaze long at His beauteous simplicity. We must reveal Him handling the lilies; we must strive to make it so real, that the children, with their magnificently realistic imagination, shall feel that they are with Him among the flowers of the field. We must reveal Him watching the graceful flight of the birds of the air, and His peculiarly tender regard for the common sparrow. We must reveal Him pausing to give thought to the hen and her chickens, and His wistful interest in the sheep and the sheepfold. We must reveal Him as the approachable Jesus, with groups of little children clustering about His knees; not bored by them, not too great for their companionship, but lovingly taking them into His arms to bless them; and, if there is some puny weakling among them, giving to that one some special caress and regard. Will these fascinating simplicities, if vividly revealed, be ineffective in awaking the impressionable responsiveness of a little child? Depend upon it, the heart will begin to thrill! But not only His simplicity must we reveal, but His sympathy too! We must whip up our own powers, and seek to clearly depict for the child the great Lover’s love for the weak, the defenseless, the unloved, and the abandoned. But cannot we go further? Must we confine the visions of the children to the simplicities and sympathies of the Lover? Must we just keep to the fireside Jesus, the Jesus of the lilies, the farmyard, and the sheepfold, the good-Samaritan Jesus, binding up the wounds of the bruised and broken? Shall we keep the children in the "green pastures," and by "the still waters," or shall we take them into "the valley of the shadow"? Shall they abide upon the sunny slopes of Galilee, and watch the Lover there, or shall we guide their feet into Gethsemane, and let them gaze on Calvary? Brethren, I will give my own experience; at any rate, it is one man’s witness, and represents, I avow, the findings of one who seeks to woo young life into covenant-communion with the Lord. I sometimes take my young people into the garden of Gethsemane and up the hill of Calvary; I do not do it frequently, lest the via dolorosa should become a common way, and should be trod with flippant step; but now and again, when i think I dare, I lead them into the shadow of the Passion, and whisper to them hints of the awful mystery! And what do I find? My brethren, I find there is no wooing like that! It is not only for the reprobate, but also for the little child, that in the passion of the Lord there is un-bared the infinite love of the Lover. There is no need to be sensational. The sensational is never the parent of fruitful love. Gethsemane was very quiet, and all we need to do is to walk very softly, taking the children with us, and let them gaze upon the Sufferer as He bows amid the olive-groves on that most eventful night. The spiritual appreciativeness of the child will supply the rest.’ "I thank Thee, O Father... that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast Thou ordained praise." I say there is no wooing like this! The spiritual marriage contract is most frequently made in Gethsemane and at the Cross. "The love of Christ constraineth me." "We live by love." By "admiration" too! Our children must not only find in the Lover their Savior; they must find in Him their Hero too. Say to yourself, "I will so present my Master as a Hero as to woo the adoring homage of my boys." Would you suffer from any lack of matter? Your eyes are closed and sealed if you do not see the heroic glowing upon every page of the sacred story! His splendid chivalry; His tremendous hatred of all meanness and sin; His magnificent "aloneness" in the night; His strenuous refusal of a popular crown, when the sovereignty would mean compromise with the powers of darkness! Let these be unfolded with the same tremendous effort at vivid realization which we make when we seek to unveil the heroism’s of a Cromwell, a Howard, or a Gordon, and our boys and girls will go on their knees before the unveiling with reverent admiration and homage. "Thou art worthy, O Christ, to receive all honor and glory." Loving! Admiring! These fair dispositions will be assuredly associated with the beautiful genius of hope. The glorious Lord will become the children’s bread. Their worship will become their hunger. Their loving will become their longing. Their admiration will become their aspiration. Their faith will become their hope. They will be laid hold of in all the fetters and feelings of personality, and the great Wooer will have won. What more shall we say about ourselves? Let this be said: while we are employed in wooing do not let us be heedless as to the manner of our living. I know that is a great commonplace, but I know also that it is by the preservation of the commonplace that we maintain the wholeness and sanity of our lives. Those who woo for the Master must be careful how they live. The detection of inconsistency is fatal to the reception of our message. "A child is the most rigid exacter of consistency." "I say" may count for little or nothing. "I know" may count for very little more. "I am" is the incarnation which gives defense and confirmation to the Gospel, and reveals the deputy-wooer in something of the reflected beauty of the glorious Lover Himself. The wooers must themselves be won; and our own conquest must be proved by the brightness and purity of our wedding apparel and the radiant buoyancy of our dispositions. I say the wooers must be in wedding attire, and must be "children of light," children of the morning. "I wonder if there is so much laughter in any other home in England as in ours." So wrote Charles Kingsley in one of his incomparable letters to his wife! That sounds fascinating, captivating, there is the ring of the wedding-bells in the quaint and only partially hidden boast. I do not wonder that this child of the morning was such a mighty wooer for his Lord! Let us beware of a forced seriousness. Let us discriminate between sobriety and melancholy. It was a saying of David Brainerd’s that "there is nothing that the devil seems to make so great a handle of as a melancholy humor." Let us distinguish between a wedding and a funeral, and in our wooing let it be the wedding-bells which lend their music to our speech. I confess that in the school-teaching of my early days I think the wooers gave too much prominence to the minor key, and the dirge of melancholy resignation too often displaced the wedding-march of a triumphant walk with God. When shall we begin the wooing? When I had written that sentence I chanted to lift my eyes from the paper, and I saw a tender fruit-sapling just laden with blossom. At what age may a sapling blossom? At what age may a young life begin to blossom for the King? To revert to my figure---when shall we begin the wooing? Plato said, "The most important part of education is right training in the nursery." And Ruskin said, "When do you suppose the education of a child begins? At six months old it can answer smile with smile, and impatience with impatience." Perhaps we have to begin the wooing even in the speechless years. In the life of the Spirit I believe in early wooings because I believe in early weddings! The wooing and the wedding become increasingly difficult when we pass the age of twelve. As for the wedding itself, the betrothal to the lord, I would have it a very decisive act. It must be a conscious, intelligent consecration. The vow must not be made in thoughtlessness; not in any bewildering and sensational transports. In the rapture there must be the moderating presence of serious and illumined thought. But mind you, the act of decision must be a wedding and not a funeral. It must be serious and yet glad. I give my heart to Thee, Savior Divine. For Thou art all to me And I am Thine. Is there on earth a closer bond than this That my Beloved’s mine and I am His? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 37: 02.04. THE DISCIPLE WATCHING FOR SOULS ======================================================================== CHAPTER IV THE DISCIPLE WATCHING FOR SOULS "I will make you fishers of men."-- Matthew 4:19. I WISH to devote this chapter to the consideration of the serious work of watching for souls. I do not presume to be a teacher who has secrets to unfold; still less can I claim to be an expert in the great vocation. I suppose it is true of all preachers that as we grow older our sense of the inefficiency of our work becomes intensified. The wonder grows that God can accomplish so much with such inadequate implements. One’s satisfaction with the evangel deepens with the years; but one is increasingly discontented with the imperfect way in which we present it. No, I do not write as one who is proficient; I am only a blunderer at the best; but I write as one who is honestly desirous of better and more useful equipment. I have often been amused by the headline to the preface in Isaac Walton’s "Complete Angler." Here is the quaint sentence: "To the reader of this discourse, but especially to the Honest Angler." And in this chapter I conceive myself as writing, not to expert anglers, or even to successful anglers, but to those who are "honest," and who are sincerely desirous to become proficient in their ministry. More than two hundred years ago there was a young probationer in the Church of Scotland named Thomas Boston. He was about to preach before the parish of Simprin. In contemplation of the eventful visit he sat down to meditate and pray. "Reading in secret, my heart was touched with Matthew 4:19 : ’Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.’ My soul cried out for the accomplishing of that to me, and I was very desirous to know how I might follow Christ so as to be a fisher of men, and for my own instruction in that point I addressed myself to the consideration of it in that manner." Out of that honest and serious consideration there came that quaint and spiritually profound and suggestive book: "A Soliloquy on the Art of Man-Fishing." All through Thomas Boston’s book one feels the fervent intensity of a spirit eager to know the mind of God in the great matter of fishing for souls. Without that passion our enquiry is worthless. "The all-important matter in fishing is to have the desire to learn." "Now for the art of catching fish, that is to say, how to make a man--that was not--to be an angler by a book; he that undertakes it shall undertake a harder task than Mr. Hales, a most valiant and excellent fencer, who in the printed book called ’A Private School of Defense,’ undertook to teach that art or science, and was laughed at for his labor --not that but many useful things might be learned by that book, but he was laughed at because that art was not to be taught by words." So says Isaac Walton in his famous book on Angling. It is painfully true. If books would make an angler, I should be the most expert fisher in this neighborhood. On one of my shelves there is quite a little collection of fishing books, out of which I have been able to borrow many hints and suggestions for my own particular labor. I think I know them fairly well, and in many · of their chapters could pass an examination with honors. But in the practical handling of the rod I should come in the rear of the most incompetent. In angling I am a splendid theorist, but useless in practice. Is it not here that we must begin our consideration of the matter of the ministry of Christ? Books cannot make a preacher; he may find them full of helps, but they are not creators of gifts. They may teach how to make sermons, but they have nothing to do with the creation of prophets. We are made by Christ. "I will make you." We are fashioned in His presence. Every wealthy and fruitful gift for our work is born directly of His own grace and love. Ring out the music of the changing emphasis in this phrase! The promise reveals its treasure as each word is taken in turn and given distinct prominence. "I will make you"; no one else and nothing else can do it. Neither books, nor ’colleges, nor friends! "I will make you"; He will make us just in that secret and mysterious way in which true poetry comes into being. The gift will come as a breath, as an inspiration, as a new creation. "When He ascended on high... He gave gifts unto men." He dropped one gift here, and a commonplace man became a pastor. He dropped another gift there, and the undistinguished became a prophet. He dropped a third gift yonder, and an impotent man became a powerful evangelist. "I will make you fishers of men." But even though the germinal gifts of the preacher are Christ-born and Christ-given, our Lord expects us to reverently and diligently use our minds. He will further fashion and enrich His gifts through our own alertness. The incipient capacity will be developed by our own intelligent observation and experience. What can we learn which will foster our heaven-born gift? Let us turn to the fisher in natural waters, and see what hints he may give us for the labors in our own sphere. What, then, does the angler say to fishers of men? Keep out of sight! Mark Guy Pearse is an expert fisher, and rarely does a year pass without his paying a visit to the rivers of Northumberland. And he has more than once laid down what he considers to be the three essential rules for all successful fishing, : and concerning which he says," It is no good trying if you don’t mind them. The first rule is this: Keep yourself out of sight. And secondly, keep yourself further out of sight. And thirdly, keep yourself further out of sight!" Mr. Pearse’s counsel is confirmed by every fisher. A notable angler, writing recently in one of our daily papers, summed up all his advice in what he proclaims a golden maxim: "Let the trout see the angler and the angler will catch no trout." Now this is a first essential in the art of man-fishing: the suppression and eclipse of the preacher. How easily we become obtrusive! How easily we are tempted into self-aggres-sive prominence! How prone we are to push ourselves to the front of our work in quest of fame and praise and glory! The temptation comes in a hundred different ways. It steals upon us in the study and spoils our secret labor. It destroys the efficacy even of the bait that we prepare. It comes upon us in the pulpit and perverts our workmanship even when we are in the very midst of our work. The devil secretly whispers to us in most unctuous flattery: "That was a fine point you made." And we readily respond to the suggestion. And so the insidious destruction is wrought. We don’t stand aside. If I may vary my figure, let me say that our function is to draw aside the curtain and hide ourselves somewhere in its robes. Let us remember that so soon as our people see the preacher they will not take his bait. As soon as we become prominent our Lord is never seen. Keep out of sight! Cultivate a mood of cheeriness and praise. Here is a bit of counsel from an old book whose phraseology and spelling have quite an old-world flavor about them. It is a book on fishing. The writer is recording the requisite virtues of the angler: "He should not be unskillful in music, that whenever either melancholy, heaviness of his thoughts, or the perturbations of his own fancies, stirreth up sadness in him, he may remove the same with some godly hymn or anthem, of which David gives him ample examples." Is that not rather a far-fetched notion of an angler’s equipment? Why should he require the gift of music? Because, says my author, when the angler is depressed he cannot throw a light line. When a man is melancholy his throw will be heavy. When his spirits are light and exuberant, he will be able to touch the surface of the water with the exquisite delicacy of a passing feather. Can we not apply the counsel to the ministry of preaching? If we come into our pulpits in a depressed and complaining frame of mind, we shall lack the requisite throw. If we are possessed by melancholy we shall catch no fish. And therefore it is well that we, too, should resort to the service of song. We must sing away our depressions and melancholia’s before we preach the evangel of grace. We must put on "the garment of praise." I frequently consult a book given to me many years ago, and now out of print: "Earnest Christianity," an account of the life and journal of the Rev. James Caughey. There is much in that journal that reminds me of David Brainerd and John Wesley. One day James Caughey was depressed and melancholy, full of lamentation and complaint. There was no music in his spirit and there was no power upon his tongue. He preached, but ineffectively, because his words were not pervaded by the spirit of praise. And then he took to the corrective of prayer and singing. He adopted William Law’s counsel, and chanted himself into lightness and buoyancy of heart. He exchanged the "spirit of heaviness for the garment of praise." And now mark the change in the diary: "Easy preaching now. The sword has a new edge, more apt to penetrate; more strength in my soul’s arm to lay it round me fearlessly." That is the spirit. We must address ourselves to the great act of preaching in the exuberance which belongs to a thankful and praiseful heart. Study the fish! George Eliot was once listening to the complaints of some angling friends as they were describing their fruitless day’s work. Looking into their empty creels she said: "You should make a deeper study of the subjectivity of the trout." That is a very suggestive word, and pregnant with significance for the fishers in the world of men. We must study the fish that we may find out what will win them for the Lord. All fish cannot be caught by the same bait. We must study the individual prejudices, and habits and tastes. We must discover what will catch this man and that man, and address ourselves accordingly. I was once passing through a little village in the Lake district, and there was a card in the shop window which gave me more than a passing thought. On the card were a number of artificial flies with this engaging headline: "Flies with which to catch fish in this locality." The shopkeeper had nothing to say about the requirements of the Midlands. He had studied the characteristics of the fish in his own neighborhood, and he had discovered what bait provided the best allurement. We preachers must do it in our own localities. It was the practice of the Apostle Paul: "To the Jews I became as a Jew that I might gain the Jews." He became "all things to all men that he might gain some." He baited his hook according to the fish he wanted to catch. I don’t think we should fish with the same hook for Lydia and the Philippian jailer. It may be that we shall discover that a sermon will never effect the purpose. We may find out that a letter will do infinitely better work. Or it may be that a direct talk may be the requisite constraint. Or, again, it may be that a long conversation, apparently indirect and aimless, but quietly dropping one delicate hint, may win a soul for Christ. Study the fish! Learn from other fishermen! Other men will never make us fishers, but they may make us better fishers. If we have the rudimentary gift their experience may help to enrich it. Let us turn to the expert fishermen and see if their ways and methods can give us helpful counsel. John Wesley was a great fisher, can we learn anything from him? Dr. Alexander Whyte has told us how he has made a patient and laborious study of John Wesley’s journals for the purpose of classifying all the texts upon which the great preacher built his evangel. Is not that a splendid discipline for any one who wishes to become skillful in the great ministry? What did Wesley preach about? And how did he fit his message to the changing circumstances of his varying spheres? The Salvation Army has a great body of expert fishers. They lack many things, but they catch fish. How do they do it? We may dislike many of their ways, but what is it in their ministry which enables them to win multitudes for the Lord? What was the secret of Finney and Moody? And what is it about Torrey which constrains the people to become disciples of the Christ? Let us set about this investigation like men who wish to do great business for the Lord. Let us eagerly pick up any hints which these highly endowed and experienced men may be able to give us. "It is a great matter to take a trout early in your trial. It gives one more heart. It seems to keep one about his business, Other wise you are apt to fall into unproductive reverie." I know no word more closely applicable to the work of the ministry. If we do not catch men we are in great danger of losing even the desire to catch them. Our purposed activity is in peril of becoming a dream. Let me counsel my fellow preachers in the lay ministry to make up their minds to catch one soul, to go about it day and night until the soul is won. And when they have gained one man for the Master I have then no fear as to what will be their resultant mood. The joy of catching a soul is unspeakable! When we have got one soul we become possessed by the passion for souls. Get one and you will want a crowd! And let me say this further word. Keep a list of the names of the souls you win for the King, and if on any day you are apt to be cast down, and the lightness and buoyancy go out of your spirit, bring out that list and read it over, and let the contemplation of those saved lives set your heart a-singing and inspire you to fresh and more strenuous work. It is a good thing to have lists of the Lord’s mercies by which to drive away the clouds in a day of adversity. Let your labor be directed to the immediate catching of men for the Lord. "It is a great matter to take a trout early in your trial." And now I will close this meditation by offering a suggestion which I obtained from an advertisement in an anglers’ paper some time ago. "Now is the time for your old favorite rods to be overhauled and treated with a steel tonic that will not fail to work wonders in the way of renewing their strength." And following this advertisement came this confirmatory testimonial: "I am glad to acknowledge that a very whippy gig-whip of a rod has been converted into a powerful weapon." My hearers will immediately perceive the spiritual significance of the words. There axe times when we need the "steel tonic" in order that our poor ministries may be converted into powerful weapons. And, blessed be God, we have the promise of this redemptive work in the very names in which the Holy Spirit is revealed to us. He is called the Renewer, the Reviver, the Restorer of souls, and by His baptism the poorest, weakest agent can be turned into a powerful weapon. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." Let us turn to our Lord this very night, and seek for that renewal in the strength of which we shall turn to our work with multiplied possibility, and with perfect assurance of success. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 38: 02.05. THE DISCIPLE'S COMPANION ======================================================================== CHAPTER V THE DISCIPLE’S COMPANION Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed And they said unto him, Nay, we did not so much as hear whether the Holy Ghost was given. "-- Acts 19:1-3. "DID ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed?" Why did he put the anxious question? Were there some ominous signs of impoverishment which aroused this painful wonder? Did he miss something? He certainly did not suspect the reality and sincerity of their faith. The separation of this little body of twelve men from the mighty drift and popular fashion of Ephesian life was itself an all-sufficient proof that they were moving in the fear of the Lord. And yet to the Apostle’s trained and discerning eye there was something lacking! I know not what were the signs which stirred his solicitude. Perhaps it was the large care-lines ploughed so deeply upon their faces. Perhaps it was a certain slow heaviness in their walk, or a certain stale flatness in their intercourse. Perhaps it was a look of defeat in their tired eyes--the expression of exhausted reserves, the lack of exuberance, the want of a swinging and jubilant optimism. Perhaps it was the absence of the bird-note from their religious life. I know not what the signs may have been, but some conspicuous gap yawned before the Apostle’s penetrating vision, which prompted him to ask this trembling, searching question, "Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed?" And the half-spent and wearied souls replied, "Nay, we did not so much as hear whether the Holy Ghost was given!" How imperfect their equipment! How inadequate their resources! They were resisting the day’s drift with a quite insufficient endowment. They were endeavouring to counteract and transform the fashion of the world with quite inferior dynamics. I know that mighty dynamics can work along the flimsiest threads, and I know that the heavenly powers can operate through the slenderest faith; but there is an unenlightened, a non-vigilant, a non-expectant attitude of mind which negatives the divine ministry, which impedes the inflow of the divine power, and which reduces the soul to comparative weakness and impoverishment. The day of Pentecost had come; the marvelous promises had been fulfilled; the wonder-ministry had begun; but these disciples were still in the pre-Pentecostal days: they were behind the spiritual times! "We did not so much as hear whether the Holy Ghost was given." And if you would discover what it means for men to step from pre-Pentecostal dearth to Pentecostal fullness, you must compare the earlier atmosphere of this incident with the atmosphere of its close, and you will find how these weary, laboring men, heavy footed, heavy-minded, with slow and stammering lips, are transformed into nimble, buoyant, and resourceful servants of the Lord. "The Holy Ghost came upon them, and they spake with the tongues and prophesied." ’ But what is the relevancy of all this to our own time? The precise lineaments of this incident are not repeated to-day. No such impoverishing ignorance prevails among the modern disciples. We know that the Holy Ghost has been given. We know! Ah, I am using a New Testament word, and I must attach to it the wealth of New Testament significance. We may "know," in the way of cognition: a bare act of the intelligence; a merely mental acquisition. And we may "know," in the way of a living fellowship, by the intimate discernment’s of communion, by the delights and satisfactions of the soul, by real and practical experience. As a matter of cognition, of merely mental enlightenment, we may live in the spacious days of Pentecost; but in daily usage and common experience we may be living in the leaner and straitened days which preceded it. I am deeply persuaded that, judged experimentally by our dally life and practice, much of the mental attitude and spiritual pose of the modem Church is pre-Pentecostal, and that in this thin and immature relationship is to be found the secret of our common weariness and impotence. This is the relevancy of the ancient incident: Do we share their mental temper, their spiritual standpoint, their angle of vision? Are we a little band of pilgrims, laboriously toiling over desert sands, with now and again the privilege of standing upon some Pisgah height and wistfully gazing upon the promised land afar, or are we in the possession and enjoyment of the goodly land, "a land that flows with milk and honey"? Are we still on the road, or have we arrived? Are our religious thinking and experience up-to-date, or are we behind the spiritual times? If I go into one of our assemblies of praise I find that we are still "tarrying at Jerusalem," waiting for "the Promise of the Father." We are busy invoking instead of receiving, busy asking rather than using. If I listen to the phraseology of the hymns I discover that the outlook of the soul is frequently pre-Pentecostal:- Father, glorify Thy Son: Answering His all-powerful prayer, Send that Intercessor down, Send that other Comforter! Descend with all Thy gracious powers O come, great Spirit, come! I think that if the Apostle Paul were to visibly enter our assembly when we are singing these strained and fervid supplications he would wonderingly and anxiously ask: "Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed?" He would wonder that men should plead for a Presence when the Presence Himself is pleading to be received! He would wonder that men should continue the strains of the exile when the native air is about their souls! When I listen to some of our prayers, and mark the pose and inclination of the soul, and note its uncertain longings, its timid asking, its trembling waiting for an event which has happened, its sighing for a gift that is already given, I can scarcely realize that the One with whom we are dealing is "a gracious willing Guest, where He can find one humble heart wherein to rest." The attitude is pre-Pentecostal; it is the language of the wilderness; it is not "one of the songs of Zion!" But when I look a little more deeply at this mental temper, and investigate more closely the nature of its conception, I find that we are still more profoundly allied with the imperfect mood and inclination of the pre-Pentecostal day. Is it native to the Christian inheritance that we should so commonly conceive of the Spirit as an influence, a force, an energy, an atmosphere, an impersonal breath? I know the limitations of the human mind, and I know the fertile and helpful ministry of simile and symbol. I know how inclined we are to dwell in the realm of effects, and to express those very effects in the shrines of figurative speech. It is beautiful and true to speak of some gracious influence upon the soul by the imagery of a wind, or a fire, or of light, or of dew, or of rain. I say it is a beautiful and a helpful ministry; but if this be the predominant characteristic of our thinking we are pre-Pentecostal men and women, and we are self-deprived of the strength and glory of our larger and richer day. The all-encompassing glory of the Christian day is this--that we are dealing, not with an energy, but with a Person--not with "it," but with "Him"! Now, see our danger. We are living in a time when men are busy reducing all phenomena beneath the categories of definite law and order. No phenomenon is now regarded as a lawless vagrant, the sport of a sad or happy chance, wandering as chartered libertine through the mighty wastes of space. Everything pays obeisance to law. And so, too, in the realm of the spirit, we are busy eliminating chance and caprice; we are taking the tides of ambition, the gusts of passion, the movements of desire, and the kindling of love, and we are reducing them to the dominion of sovereign law. We are seeing more and more clearly that things are not erratic and lawless just because they are spiritual and ethereal, and that "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" is as constant as the laws that breathe in the material world. Well, all this is wise and good and inevitable. Only let us see to it that we do not so far bow to a tendency as to enthrone a law in place of a Companion, and exalt a force in place of a Counselor and Friend. We shall lose unspeakably, and miss the fine fervor and flavor of Apostolic life, if our larger knowledge of law attenuates our fellowship with a Person, and our greater familiarity with forces impair our intimacy with the immediate heart of God. "A something not ourselves that makes for righteousness" may be a notable expression of scientific thought, but it is not the language of religion. "A something not ourselves that makes for righteousness," when translated into religious speech, becomes "a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother," and when translated into the New Testament evangel it becomes "the communion of the Holy Ghost." Our fellowship is not with a "something" but with a "Somebody," not with a force but with a Spirit, not with "it" but with "Him"! It is just here, I think, that Keswick is contributing a vital emphasis to the thought of the modern Church. I do not identify myself with all the mental methods and instruments of Keswick. I think its Old Testament exegesis is often fanciful. I think its symbolism’s are often forced and artificial. I think it has often labored to erect doctrinal structures upon a tabernacle-pin when it could have found a much more satisfactory base. I think it has shown a little timidity in the application of its dynamic in the wider fields of social and national life. But even these are criticisms which are directed more at yesterday than at the life and teaching of today. The all-predominant teaching of Keswick is the personality of the Holy Ghost, and the wonderful and glorious privilege of the Christian believer to have holy and intimate companionship with Him. They do not deal with an influence, they walk with a Friend I There is nothing new in the teaching; it is only the recovery of an emphasis, with this further uniqueness, that while so many of us are contented with the proclamation of the fellowship they are busy in the enjoyment of it, and about their lives there is a strength, and a serenity, and a flavor, and a fragrance, which mark them off from the harassed, restless, feverish world they are seeking to redeem. I miss this glaring contrast between the Church and the world! The saved are too much like the unsaved; the physician is laboring under the disease of his patient; there is no outstanding and commanding difference; we do not, with sufficient legibleness, bear God’s name "in our foreheads." What is the reason? Is it that we are not long enough in His company to receive the imprint of the fair and gracious seal? Is it that we are having mental commerce with an "it" instead of ceaseless communion with "Him"? I declare my own conviction that here is the secret of much of our impoverishment. We are living too much as men lived before the Holy Ghost was given. We have not occupied the new and far-stretching land of Christian privilege. We have not seized upon our inheritance of august and holy companionship, and, therefore, many of the gifts and graces and perfumes of the Apostolic age are absent from our modem religious life. You cannot, by fellowship with an energy, produce that exquisite little flower called heart’s-ease," which was so prolific and abounding in the life of the Apostle Paul The prophet of the Old Testament hints at the coming of the flower in his illumined phrase, "He that believeth shall not make haste"! What a word for our own day! He shall not get excited, become fussy, or be thrown into panic! "He shall not make haste"! There shall be progress without much perspiration! There shall be strenuousness without strain! There shall be running without panting! "They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." They shall be fed with "hidden manna." In the very midst of turbulence shall heart’s-ease grow. "He that believeth shall not make haste." O blessed life! the heart at rest When all without tumultuous seems! I say you cannot grow that flower in cooperation with an influence or a force, but only in the strength and grace of a glorious companionship. It is not the product of an energy: it is born of a communion. It is "peace in the Holy Ghost." Do you see much of this flower called "heart’s-ease" about to-day? When the world gazes upon us, the professed disciples of the Master, does it see just a reflection of itself, its own wear and tear, its own strain and worry, or does it stoop to gaze upon a rare flower, and to wonder and to inquire about the soil in which it was grown? Is there anything about our speech and behavior to suggest that "wear and tear" are counteracted by a secret renewal, the renewal of the Holy Spirit, "the inward man being renewed day by day"? Speaking for myself, I have to say that even when for a day I enter upon my inheritance, and realize the ineffable nearness of the great Companion-Spirit, the strain not only goes out of my mind and heart, but I feel the very wrinkles and care-lines being smoothed out of my face. If we were children of Pentecost, living up to our spiritual times, heart’s-ease would bloom just within our gate, and the weary wayfarer would be stopped by its perfume, and would question us as to the secret and manner of its growth. You cannot, by fellowship with a force, produce the exquisite grace of Apostolic tenderness. Have you ever studied the strength and softness of Apostolic tenderness? Why, their (very rebukes and severities emerge from their tenderness! Mark the tenor and order of this Apostolic counsel: "Full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish"! Do you see where admonition has to be born? Who is to be the monitor? One "filled with all knowledge"! Back still further! "Full of goodness!" Who would not be helped by admonition which came clothed in this tender bloom? But see again: "Admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs "; and even this singing monitor has first of all to "put on a heart of compassion"! All this tenderness is not the softness of weakness; it is the bloom of strength, and is born of the refining and chastening ministry of a great Companionship. We cannot live in the communion of the Holy Ghost without our unnecessary asperities being smoothed away; the very power of the fellowship subdues them into tenderness. And, my brethren, there must never have been a time when it was more needful to ensure this tenderness than to-day. In these days of hard controversy we must beware of becoming nard. Men who become hard lose the power to inflict hard blows. The most tremendous antagonist is the man who is inherently tender. The only overwhelming anger is "the wrath of the Lamb." No, my brethren; we cannot fight without it! We cannot preach without it! You may perhaps remember how Andrew Bonar and Robert McCheyne were having one of their frequent walks together, talking over the ways of their ministry, when "McCheyne asked me," says Bonar, "what my last Sabbath’s subject had been. It had been: ’ The wicked shall be turned into hell.’ On hearing this awful text, he asked: ’Were you able to preach it with tenderness?’" Shall we repeat Robert McCheyne’s question to one another? When we speak on the destiny of the sinful, or on any one of the awful severities of the Word, are we "able to preach it with tenderness," with a melting heart, with secret tears? They say that McCheyne’s severities were terrific, they were so tender! And I do not wonder at his tenderness, for he lived en-folded in the companionship of the Holy Ghost. He was ever holding converse with Him, and how could he become hard? "Oh," said his domestic servant; "oh I to hear Mr. McCheyne at prayers in the mornin’! It was as if he would never the owner; he had so much to ask." How could he become hard, abiding in a Companionship which was forever communicating to him the very gentleness of God? You will not get that exquisite sensitiveness from a force; you will get it only from an intimate Friend. "Thy gentleness hath made me great" :-- Tender Spirit, dwell with me, I myself would tender be: And with words that help and heal, Would Thy life in mine reveal; And with actions brotherly, Speak my Lord’s sincerity. And let me add this further word. There is a certain compulsory impressiveness of character which attaches to profound spirituality, and which is commandingly present in those who walk in the fellowship of he Holy Ghost. I know not how to define it. It is a certain convincing aroma, self-witnessing, like the perfume of a flower. It is independent of mental equipment, and it makes no preference between a plenteous and a penurious estate. It works without he aid of speech because it is the effluence of a silent and secret communion. It begins to minister before you preach; it continues its ministry when the sermon is ended. It is endowed with marvelous powers of compulsion, and it sways the lives of others when mere words would miserably fail. The pit-man away yonder in the county of Durham felt the strength of this mystic constraint when he said of his old vicar, "You have only to shake that man’s hand to feel that he is full of the Holy Ghost"! And his fellow in toil, an agricultural laborer in a not distant village, was bowing beneath the same persuasion when, speaking of another, he said, "I never saw that man cross the common, sir, without being the better for it"! What is it, this mysterious influence? It is this: "He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believed in Him were to receive, for the Spirit was not yet given, ’because Jesus was not yet glorified." Then it was not the vicar whom the pitman felt, but the vicar’s great Companion; it was not the man who crossed the common, but the man’s inseparable Guest and Friend. My brethren, Jesus is now glorified! The Holy Ghost has been given ! We, too, may cross our common, and by the very crossing make men better: for in the prayerful fostering of a conscious friendship with Him the "rivers of living water" will flow from you and me. I have been leading you among the rudiments of our religious faith and life. I make no apology. "We must need to learn the things we have known the longest." Why should a man apologize for leading his fellows to the running waters and the bracing air of the open moor? We are infinitely richer than we dream. Ours is the Pentecostal inheritance. Let us assume the Pentecostal attitude of zealous and hungry reception. Above all, let us cultivate a sensitive intimacy with the Holy Spirit. Let us listen to Him, let us talk to Him, let us consult Him in all the changing seasons of the changing days, and let us greedily receive His proffered gifts of enlightenment and grace. He will be our all-sufficiency, and we shall move about in the enduement of Pentecostal power. A little while ago I had a day dream, one of those subjective visions which sometimes visit the mind in seasons of wakeful meditation and serious thought. I was in my study in the early morning, before the day’s work was begun, and I was somewhat sadly contemplating the comparative weakness of my ministry and the many shortcomings in my personal life. And while I pondered, with closed eyes, I became aware of a Presence before whom my spirit bowed in trembling awe. He liked my garments, and I saw that they were badly stained. He went away, and came again, and again He liked my robes, and began to remove the stains, and I saw that He was using the ministry of blood. And then He touched my lips, and they became pure as the lips of a little child. And then He anointed mine eyes with eye-salve, and I knew He was giving sight to the blind. Then He breathed upon my brow, and my depression passed away like a morning cloud. And I wondered what next my august Companion would do, and with the eyes and ears of my spirit I watched and listened. Then He took a pen, and putting it into my hand He said, "Write, for I will take of the things of Christ and show them unto thee." And I turned to my desk and I wrote in the communion of the Holy Ghost. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 39: 02.06. THE DISCIPLE'S REST ======================================================================== CHAPTER VI THE DISCIPLE’S REST "Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls."-- Matthew 11:28-29· "I WILL give you rest." Give! This kind of rest is always a gift; it is never earned. It is not the emolument of toil; it is the dowry of grace. It is not the prize of en-devour, its birth precedes endeavor, and is indeed the spring and secret of it. It is not the perquisite of culture, for between it and culture there is no necessary and inevitable communion. It broods in strange and illiterate places, untouched by scholastic and academic refinement, but it abides also in cultured souls which have been chastened by the manifold ministry of the schools. It is not a work, but a fruit; not the product of organization, but the sure and silent issue of a relationship. "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest." But even the gift of rest does not disclose its unutterable contents in a day. It is an immediate gift, but it is also a continuous discovery. "Learn of Me, and ye shall find rest." Part of "the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him" lie in this wealthy gift of rest, and it is one of the frequent and delightful surprises of grace that we should repeatedly come upon new and unexpected veins of ore in this deep mine of "the peace of God which passeth all understanding." I say that the rest of the Lord is an immediate gift and a perpetual discovery. "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest." "Learn of Me and ye shall find rest unto your souls." And so I am to speak to you of the riches of the Christian rest. Do you feel it to be an irrelevant note, an inappropriate theme, in the march and warfare of our times? Surely, we need to speak of battle-fields rather than of green pastures, and to hear the nerving call to struggle and duty rather than the soft and gentle wooings that call to rest ! Our times demand the warrior’s bugle-peal, and not the shepherd’s pipe of peace! Ah, but, brethren, in this warfare the trumpeter himself is shorn of inspiration unless he have the gift of rest, and the warrior himself is rendered impotent unless he be possessed by the secret of the heavenly peace. The restless trumpeter ministers no thrill, and the perturbed warrior lacks the very genius of conquest. I know the feverish motions of our time, the restlessness of fruitless desire, the disturbing forebodings of anxiety, the busy-ness of the devil, the sleepless and perspiring activity of Mammon, the rush to be rich, the race to be happy, the craving for sensation, the immense impetus and speed characterizing every interest in our varied life, and added to all, the precipitate shedding of hoary forms and vestures, and the re-clothing of the thoughts of men in modem and more congenial attire. I know the general restlessness, the heated and consuming haste, and knowing them I proclaim that the secret of a successful antagonism must be sought in the profound restfulness of the Church. I do not wonder at the restlessness of the world, but I stand amazed at the restlessness of the Savior’s Church! We are encountering restlessness by restlessness, and on many sides we are suffering defeat. The antagonist ought to be of quite another order. The continents must be restfulness versus rest, and the odds will be overwhelmingly on our side. Let me pause to make a few distinctions in order that my argument may not be misunderstood. We must distinguish between indolent passivity and active restfulness. I am not pleading for enervating ease, but for enabling and inspiring rest. Ease is an opiate; rest is a stimulant, say, rather a nutriment. Ease is the enemy of strength; rest is its hidden resource. I do not stand here, therefore, as the advocate of the couch, but as the advocate of restful and therefore invincible movement. Our scientists distinguish between motion and energy, and I could wish that some similar distinction might be transferred to the sphere of the Church. All activity is not influential. All speech is not persuasive. All supplication is not effective. The secret of effective supplication is a quiet faith. The secret of effective speech is a hidden assurance. The secret of triumphant warfare is a permanent peace. The essential and operative element in all fruitful activity is a deep and abiding rest. We must fight the prevalent restlessness by a sovereign peace. "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest." Now, my brethren, I confess I miss this essential in the modern Church. How think you? Is the Church of our day characterized by that wealthy peace and rest which ought to be the portion of all saved, forgiven and sanctified men and women? I confess that peace and rest are about the last grace I think about when I gaze upon the modem Church! The care-lines, and the wrinkles of worry and anxiety and uncertainty, and a general air of restlessness, seem to me almost as prevalent upon the countenance of the Church as upon the face of the world. The Church is not conspicuous by the smoothness of its brow! Everywhere I detect a certain strain, a certain fussy precipitancy, a certain trembling activity, a certain emasculating care. We look like men and women who are carrying more than we can bear, and who are attempting tasks that are quite beyond our strength. If I listen to our prevailing vocabulary, and note the words that are most in evidence, my impression of the general restlessness is only confirmed. The vocabulary is scriptural enough so far as it goes, but the real fertilizing terms are too much obscured or ignored. The great, hot, dry words in the terminology are manifest enough: strive, fight, wrestle, oppose, work, war, do, endeavor; but those gracious, energizing words, lying there with the soft dews upon them: grace, rest, joy, quietness, assurance, these deep, generic words are not sufficiently honored in our modem speech. I am calling for the resurrection of these domestic terms in order that the military terms may be revived. I am calling to peace for the sake of warfare. I am calling to rest for the sake of labor. I plead for a little more mysticism for the sake of our enthusiasms. I proclaim the sacredness and necessity of the cloister in the soul, the necessity of a chamber of peace, a center of calmness, a "heart at rest, when all without tumultuous seems." Rest is the secret of conquest, and it is to the Church therefore, and not to the world, that I primarily offer this evangel today: "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Now, when I look around upon the strained and wrinkled Church, moving often in the pallor of fear and uncertainty when she ought to exult in the pink of strength and assurance, I am impressed with certain primary lacks in her equipment. The strain frequently comes at the hill; not always so, perhaps not even commonly so, for perhaps it is true both of men and of Churches that the strain is not so much felt in the sharp and passing crisis as in the dull and jogging commonplace. Perhaps there is more strain in the prolonged drudgery than in the sudden calamity. The dead level may try us more than the hill ! "Because they have no changes they fear not God." But come the strain how it may, all strain is suggestive of inadequate resources; and the wrinkled, restless, careworn face of the Church makes it abundantly evident that the Church is not entering into the fullness of "the inheritance of the saints in light." What does the Church require if her strain and her paralyzing restlessness are to be removed? She needs a more restful realization of her Lord’s Presence. My brethren, we fight too much as soldiers whose leader is out of the field. We work too much as though our Exemplar were a dead Nazarene, instead of a living and immediate friend. We tear about with the aimless, pathetic wanderings of little chicks when the mother-bird is away. And so our life is strained and restless and uninspired, when it might be filled with a big and bracing contentment. We need the stimulating consciousness of a great and ever-present Companionship. We know the stimulus of lofty companionship in other spheres and in smaller communions. We know the influence of Stevenson’s companionship upon Mr. Barrie and Mr. Crockett. That companionship acted like a second literary conscience, restraining all careless and hasty work, but it also acted as an unfailing inspiration, quickening the very tissues of their minds and souls. It was a companionship that was not only like a great white throne of literary judgment, but a throne out of which there flowed, as there does out of every engaging personality, a river of water of life, vitalizing all who hold communion with it. But when we lift up the relationship, and contemplate the great communion which we are all privileged to share in the companionship of the Lord, all similes tire and fall limp and ineffective, and leave the glory unexpressed ! A restful realization of the Lord’s companionship! That has been the characteristic of all men whose religious activity has been forceful, influential and fertile in the purposes of the kingdom. At the very heart of all their labors, in the very center of their stormiest days, there is a sphere of sure and restful intimacy with the Lord. You know how close and intimate and calm such intimacy can be. I think of Samuel Rutherford. I think of the love-language which he uses in his communion with the Lord. Only the Song of Solomon can supply him with suitable expressions of holy passion wherewith to tell the story of his sours devotion. When I read some of his words I almost feel as though I were eavesdropping, and had overheard two lovers in their gentle and wooing speech. It is a fashion of language not congenial to our time, but that is only because in our day we have almost ceased to cultivate the affections, and confine our education to the culture of the intellect and the conscience. "We now make critics, not lovers," and the love-impassioned speech of Samuel Rutherford sounds to us like an alien tongue. Samuel Rutherford had a sweet and restful intimacy with his Lord, and therefore he was never idle, and never feared the coming day I think of Jonathan Edwards, a man of greatly differing type from Samuel Rutherford, but also a man of multitudinous labors and of fearless persistence, and whose activities rested upon a sublime repose in the abiding sense of the reality and presence of his Lord. His latest biographer declares that he had "an immediate vision of the spiritual universe as the reality of realities," that "in exploring its recesses and in pondering its relations he did so as native and to the manner born," and that perhaps next to the Apostle John he exercised the surest and most intimate familiarity with things unseen. I think of David Hill, and I am conscious of the sweet and gracious perfume which was ever rising from his full and ever-moving life. At the heart of this busy worker was the restful lover; he moved about in assured and certain warfare because his soul was ever feasting in love-companionship with his Lord. I like this sentence of his: "What a thrill it gives me to meet with one who has fallen in love with Jesus!" Ah, but that is the speech of a lover, who is himself in love with the Lord. It is the thrill of sympathetic vibrations; it is the thrill of one who is already in love with the lover, and who delights to see the Lover come to His own. David Hill’s sort of warfare finds its explanation in the lover’s thrill, and in the lover’s thrill has its secret in the lover’s rest. But why should I keep upon these high planes of renowned and prominent personalities? Get a man who is restfully intimate with his Lord, and you have a man whose force is tremendous! Such men move in apparent ease, but it is the ease that is linked with the infinite, it is the very rest of-God. They may be engaged in apparent trifles, but even in the doing of the trifles there emerges the health-giving currents of the Kingdom of God. Listen to James Smetham: "I was at the leaders’ meeting last night. There was the superintendent. There were a gardener, a baker, a cheese-monger, a postman and myself. We sat till near 10 P. M. Now what were the topics? When is the juvenile missionary meeting to be? When the society tea-meeting? How best to distribute the poor moneys etc.?" Here were these unknown and unlettered men, engaged in apparently trivial business, but resting in the Lord, and pouring forth from their rest-possessed souls spiritual energy which to James Smetham is like "healthy air," and "send me home," he says, "as last night, cured to the core, so fresh, so calm, so delivered from all my fears and troubles." The man who is sure and restful in the conscious companionship of his Lord has about him the strainlessness and inevitableness of the ocean tide, and gives off bracing influence like God’s fresh and wondrous sea. "Then had Thy peace been like a river, and Thy righteousness like the waves of the sea." Let us become restfully sure of God, and we shall meet the battalions of the evil one unstrained and undismayed. "Hold the fort, for I am coming !" The doctrine is pernicious, and fills the life with strain, and fear, and uncertainty! "For I am coming!" "The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge." Let the Church rest in her Lord, and she will become terrible as an army with banners· Come unto Me, and I will give you rest." What does the Church need if her strain and her wrinkles are to be removed? She needs a more restful realization of the wealth and power of her allies. We too often face our foes with the shiver of fear, and with the pallor of expected defeat We too often manifest the symptoms of panic, instead of marching out in orderly array with the restful assurance of conquest. The hosts of evil are even now organizing their forces in threatening and terrific mass. Are our wrinkles increasing? Is our fear intensifying our strain, and are we possessed by a great uncertainty? Why, brethren, if we were conscious of our resources, and recognized our cooperative allies, we should more frequently put the Doxology at the beginning of our programs, and our hearts would sing of victory even before the conflict began ! It is all a matter of being more restfully conscious of the allies that fight on our side. Paul was a great hand at numbering up his friends, and so great was the company that he always felt his side was overwhelming! He periodically reviews the cooperative forces, and invariably marches on with a more impassioned Doxology. Think of our resources in grace. You cannot turn to any of the epistles of the great Apostle without feeling how immense and immediate is his conception of his helpmeets in grace. Grace runs through all his arguments. It is allied with all his counsel. It bathes all his ethical ideals. It flows like a river close by the highway of his life, winding with all his windings, and remaining in inseparable companionship. But my figure is altogether ineffective. Paul’s conception of life was not that of road and river--the common highway of duty with its associated refreshment of grace. Grace was to Paul an all-enveloping atmosphere, a defensive and oxygenating air, which braced and nourished his own spirit, and wasted and consumed his foes. "The abundant grace" ! "The riches of the grace"! "The exceeding riches of His grace "! I can never recall Paul’s conception of grace without thinking of broad, full rivers when the snows have melted on the heights, of brimming springtides, and of overwhelming and submerging floods. "Where sin abounded grace did much more abound"! And, brethren, these glorious resources of grace are ours, our allies in the work, and march, and conflict of our times. Don’t you think that if she realized them, the Church would lose her wrinkles and her strain, and would move in the strength and the assurance of a glorious rest? I like that dream of Josephine Butler’s, when her life passed into deep shadow, amid many frowning and threatening besetments: "I thought I was lying flat, with a restful feeling, on a smooth, still sea, a boundless ocean, with no limit or shore on any side. It was strong and held me up, and there was light and sunshine all around me. And I heard a voice say, ’ Such is the grace of God!" Let the Church even dimly realize the force of this tremendous ally, and she will move with a strength and quietness which will give her the secret of perpetual conquest. And think of our allies in circumstances! Devilry has not the unimpeded run of the field. Somewhere in the field, let me rather say everywhere in the field, there is hidden the Divine Antagonist. The apparent is not the fundamental. The immediate trend does not represent the final issue. The roistering adversary runs up against Almighty God, and all his feverish schemes are turned agley. , It is marvelous to watch the terrific twist given to circumstances by the compulsion of an unseen and mysterious hand. "The things that happened unto me have turned out rather unto the progress of the Gospel." So sings the Apostle Paul, and the experience has become so familiar to him that now, in the days of his great basements, he always quietly and confidently awaits the action of the mighty, secret pressure which changes the temporary misfortune into permanent advantage. "I know that even this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Christ Jesus." How can a man with that persuasion be shaken with panic? How can he fight and labor in any spirit but the restful optimism of a triumphant hope? Do not let us quake before circumstances, or lapse into unbelieving restlessness and strain. The secret of circumstance belongeth unto God. The unseen drift is with us. The nature of things is on our side. "Thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field." The universal yearning of the material world corroborates the purpose of our advance. "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth" in profoundest sympathy with the evolution and "manifestation of the children of God." The planet itself is pledged against the devil. "The stars in their courses fought against Sisera." "They that be with us are more than they that be against us." "And Elijah prayed, and said, Lord, I pray Thee, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw; and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire." Our allies are everywhere and anywhere! Why should our faces be strained? Why should we toil in restless fear? Why should the Church be wrinkled like the world? "Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself’ for it, . that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing." And let me add one closing word. I think the Church needs a more restful disposition in the ministry of prayer. I am amazed at the want of restfulness in our communion with the Lord! I do not speak of our unnecessary loudness, but of the feverish uncertainty, the strained and painful clutch and cleaving, the perspiring pleading which is half-suggestive of unbelief. Let me say it in great reverence, and not in a spirit of idle and careless criticism, when I listen to some prayers I find it difficult to realize that we are speaking to the One who said, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with Me." Our strained and restless prayers do not suggest the quiet opening of a door, they rather suggest a frenzied and fearful prisoner, hallooing to a God who has turned His back upon our door, and the sound of whose retreating footsteps is lessening in the far-away. We need a firmer and quieter assurance while we pray. Yes, even in our supplications it is needful to "rest in the Lord." Perhaps it would be a good thing for many of us in our praying seasons if we were to say less and to listen more. "I will hear what God the Lord will speak." Listening might bring restfulness where speech would only inflame us. It is not an insignificant thing that the marginal rendering of that lovely phrase, "Rest in the Lord," is just this, "Be silent unto the Lord "! Perhaps we need a little more of the Quaker silence and receptiveness, and a little less of heated speech and aggression. At any rate, we must get the doubt-wrinkles out of our prayers, and in our speech with God we must manifest the assurance of a calm and fruitful faith. I call you then to rest! Nay, the Master Himself is the caller: "Come unto Me," thou strained and care-worn Church, "Come unto Me," and I will distinguish thee from the world, for "I will give thee rest." Drop Thy still dews of quietness, Till all our strivings cease; Take from our souls the strain and stress, And let our ordered lives confess The beauty of Thy peace. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 40: 02.07. THE DISCIPLE'S VISION ======================================================================== CHAPTER VII THE DISCIPLE’S VISION "But in the latter days it shall come to pass."-- Micah 4:1. "BUT in the latter days it shall come to pass…" The prophet lifts his eyes away to the latter days to gain refreshment in his present toil. He feasts his soul upon the golden age which is to be, in order that he may nerve himself in his immediate service. Without the anticipation of a golden age he would lose his buoyancy, and the spirit of endeavor would go out of his work. Our visions always determine the quality of our tasks. Our dominant thought regulates our activities. What pattern am I working by? What golden age have I in my mind? What do I see as the possible consummation of ’my labors? I may be keenly conscious of what I am working at, but what am I working for? What do I see in the latter days? There is your child at home. You are ministering to him in your daily attention and service. What is your pattern in the mind? How do you see him in the long run? How looks he in your mind’s eye? What sort of a man do you see in your boy? How would you fill up this imperfect phrase concerning him "In the latter days it shall come to pass…?" Have you ever painted his possibilities? If you have no clear golden age for the boy your training will be uncertain, your discipline will be a guesswork and a chance. You must come to your child with a vision of the man you would like him to be, and the vision will shape and control all your ministries. Our visions are our dies, quietly, ceaselessly pressing against the plastic material of the lives for which we labor. Our vision of possibilities helps to shape the actuality. There is the scholar in the school. When a teacher goes to his class, be it a class of boys or girls, what kind of men and women has he in his eye? Surely we do not go to work among our children in blind and good humored chance? We are the architects and builders of their characters, and we must have some completed conception even before we begin our work. I suppose the architect sees the finished building in his eye even before he takes a pencil in his hand, and certainly long before the pick and the spade touch the virgin soil. It is built up in imagination before he cuts the first sod. It must not be otherwise with our children in the schools. Again I say, we must be able to complete the unfinished phrase: "In the latter days it shall come to pass. " We must deliberately fill in the blank, and see clearly the consummation at which we aim. That boy who gives the teacher so much trouble; restless, indifferent, bursting with animal vitality, how is he depicted as man in your chamber of imagery? Do you only see him as he is? Little, then, will be your influence to make him what he might be. You must see a golden age for the boy, a splendid prime, and so every moment your ardent vision will be operating to realize itself in the unpromising material of the present. Let me assume that your work is among the outcasts. When you go to court and alley, or to the elegant house in the favored suburb, and find men and women sunk in animalism, trailing the robes of human dignity in unnamable mire, how do you see them with the eyes of the soul? "In the latter days it shall come to pass..." What? To the eye of sense they are filthy, offensive, repellent. What like are their faces, and what sort of robes do they wear in the vision of the soul? Do we address the beast as the gentleman-to-be? Are we dealing with the "might-be" or only with the thing that is? Sir Titus Salt was pacing the docks at Liverpool and saw great quantities of dirty, waste material lying in unregarded heaps. He looked at the unpromising substance, and in his mind’s eye saw finished fabrics and warm and welcome garments; and ere long the power of the imagination devised ministries for converting the outcast stuff into refined and finished robes. We must look at all our waste material in human life and see the vision of the "might-be." I took out a little sentence the other day from a book I was reading, a sentence which fell from the lips of one of the unfortunate women who so greatly add to the sins of our great cities. Some man had done her a courtesy, spoken to her in kindly tone and manner, and surprised and thrilled her cold and careless heart. "He raised his hat to me as if I were a lady l" The man had addressed her as she might be, and the buried dignity within her rose to the call. He spoke to her in the language of the golden age, and she lifted her eyes to the vision revealed. Surely this was the Master’s way! He is always calling the thing that is by the name of its "might-be." "Thou art Simon," a mere hearer; "Thou shalt be called Peter," a rock. To the woman of sin, the outcast child of the city, He addressed the gracious word "daughter," and spoke to her as if she were already a child of the golden age; her weary heart leaped to the welcome speech. And so we have got to come to our work with visions of the latter days, glimpses of the “might-be," pictures of the golden age, or the cheap and tinseled present will never be enriched. Take your child, your scholar, or the outcast man in the court, or the degraded man in the villa, and get well into your mind and heart a vision of all they might be. Spend time over it. Work it out line upon line. Make it superlatively beautiful and noble. Then, with that vision of the later day, address yourself to the present day; and your vision will dominate your very muscles, and every movement of service will be a minister of elevation and refinement. I am not surprised, therefore, that all great reformers and all men and women who have profoundly influenced the life and thought of their day have been visionaries, having a clear sight of things as they might be, feeling the cheery glow of the light and heat of the golden age. Abraham, amid the idolatrous cities of his own day, had a vision of the latter days, and, while laboring in the present, "looked for the city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God." The Apostle John, in the Island of Patmos, while impressed with the iniquity of Rome seated on her seven hills, and drunk with the blood of saints, saw through the Rome that was to the Rome that might be, "The Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, made ready as a bride adorned for husband." And so has it been through all the changing centuries right down to our own time. In my own city of Birmingham forty years ago, when the North and the South were locked in bloody strife, and it seemed as though the future were pregnant with nothing but quarrel and discord, John Bright lifted the eyes of his countrymen to the glory of the latter days, and unfolded to them the radiant colors of the golden age: "It may be but a vision, but I will cherish it, I see one vast federation stretch from the frozen north in unbroken line to the glowing south, and from the wild billows of the Atlantic westward to the calmer waters of the Pacific main. And I see one people and one language, and one law and one faith, and over all that white continent the home of freedom and a refuge for the oppressed of every race and every clime." And so the prophet Micah, in a book that is crowded with severity and denunciation and indictment, and noisy with thunder and frightful in its lightning, still lets us hear the music of the latter days, and permits us to contemplate the vision of the golden age in which he travailed and toiled: "In the latter days it shall come to pass.. " What are the characteristics of the golden age to which the prophet was looking with hungry and aspiring spirit? "The mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills." Then in the golden age emphasis is to be given to the spiritual. The mountain of the Lord’s house is to be established at the top of the mountain. I think of Durham city as an emblem of the prophet’s thought. Away in the lower reaches of the city there is the river, on which boats are plying for pleasure and recreation. A little higher up on the slopes are the places of business, the ways and byways of trade. A little higher there is the castle hill, on which the turreted tower presents its imposing front; but on a higher summit, commanding all and overlooking all, there rises and towers aloft the majesty of the glorious old cathedral. Let me interpret the emblem. The river is typical of pleasure, the ways of business are representatives of money, the castle is the symbol of armaments, the cathedral is significant of God. In the latter days the spiritual is to have emphasis above pleasure, money, armaments. In whatever prominence these may be seen, they are all to be subordinate to the reverence and worship of God. Military prowess and money-making and pleasure-seeking are to be put in their own place, and not to be permitted to leave it. First things first! "In the beginning God." This is the first characteristic of the golden age. "And many nations shall come and say: Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and lure will teach us His ways, and we will walk in His paths." Then the second characteristic of the golden age is that people are to find their confluence and unity in common worship. The brotherhood is to be discovered in spiritual communion. We are not to find profound community upon the river of pleasure or in the ways of business or in the armaments of the castle. These are never permanently cohesive. Pleasure is more frequently divisive than cohesive. At the present time we have abundant evidence that commerce may be a severing ministry among the peoples of the earth. And certainly we do not find union in common armaments. Two nations may fight side by side to-day, and may confront each other tomorrow. No, it is in the mountain of the Lord’s house the peoples will discover their unity and kinship. It is in the common worship of the one Lord, in united adoration of the God revealed in Christ, that our brotherhood will be unburied, and we shall realize how rich is our oneness in Him. "And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks." Then the third characteristic of the golden age is to be the conversion of merely destructive force into positive and constructive ministries. No energy is to be destroyed: it is all to be transfigured. The sword is to become a ploughshare; the weapon of destruction an implement of culture. I saw a picture the other day which was intended to represent there-enthronement of peace. A cannon had dropped from its battered carriage and was lying in the meadow, rusting away to ruin. A lamb was feeding at its very mouth, and round it on every side the flowers were growing. But really that is not a picture of the golden age. The cannon is not to rust, it is to be converted, its strength is to be transfigured. After the Franco-German war many of the cannon balls were re-made into church bells. One of our manufacturers in Birmingham told me only a week ago that he was busy turning the empty cases of the shells used in the recent war into dinner gongs! That is the suggestion we seek in the golden age: all forces are to be changed into helpful ministries. Tongues that speak nothing but malice are to be turned into instructors of wisdom. Passions that are working havoc and ruin are to be made the nourishes of fine endeavor and holy work. All men’s gifts and powers, and all material forces, are to be used in the employment of the kingdom of God. "They shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig-tree." That savors of Bournville! Yes, and Bournville is in the prophetic line, and has got something of the light and color of the golden age. There is to be a distribution of comforts. Life’s monotony is to be broken up. Sweet and winsome things are to be brought into the common life. Dinginess and want are both to be banished. There is to be a little beauty for everybody, something of the vine and the fig-tree. There is to be a little ease for everybody, time to sit down and rest. To every mortal man there is to be given a little treasure, a little leisure and a little pleasure. "And none shall make them afraid." And they are not only to have comfort but the added glory of peace. The gift of the vine and fig-tree would be nothing if peace remained an exile. There are many people who have both the vine and the fig-tree, but their life is haunted and disturbed by fears. In the golden age peace is to be the attendant of comfort, and both are to be guests in every man’s dwelling. And now mark the beautiful final touches in this prophet’s dream: "I will assemble her that halteth, and I will gather her that is driven out, and her that is afflicted." They are all to be found in God’s family. "Her that halteth," the child of "ifs" and "buts" and fears and indecision, she shall lose her halting and obtain a firm and confident step. "And her that is driven out," the child of exile, the self-banished son or daughter, the outcast by reason of sin; they shall all be home again! "He gathereth together the outcasts." And along with these there is to come "her that is afflicted," the child of sorrows. The day of grief is to be ended. morning shall be the thing of the preparatory day which is over; "He shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 41: 03.00.0. THE PREACHER: HIS LIFE AND WORK ======================================================================== THE PREACHER: HIS LIFE AND WORK YALE LECTURES BY REV. J. H. JOWETT, D. D. PASTOR FIFTH AVENUE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH AUTHOR OF "APOSTOLIC OPTIMISM," "THE PASSION FOR SOULS," "THE SILVER LINING," ETC. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 42: 03.00.1. CONTENTS ======================================================================== CONTENTS The Call to be a Preacher – “Separated unto the Gospel of God” The Perils of the Preacher – “Lest…I myself should be a castaway” The Preacher’s Themes – “Feed my sheep” The Preacher in his Study – “A wise master-builder” The Preacher in his Pulpit – “The service of the sanctuary” The Preacher in the Home – “From house to house” The Preacher as a Man of Affairs – “Like unto a merchantman” ======================================================================== CHAPTER 43: 03.01. THE CALL TO BE A PREACHER ======================================================================== LECTURE I THE CALL TO BE A PREACHER "Separated unto-the Gospel of God" In the course of these lectures I am to speak on the general theme of "The Preacher: his life and work." There is little or no need of introduction. The only prefatory word I wish to offer is this. I have been in the Christian ministry for over twenty years. I love my calling. I have a glowing delight in its services. I am conscious of no distractions in the shape of any competitors for my strength and allegiance. I have had but one passion, and I have lived for it--the absorbingly arduous yet glorious work of proclaiming the grace and love of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.’ I stand before you, therefore, as a fellow-laborer, who has been over a certain part of the field, and my simple purpose is to dip into the pool of my experiences, to record certain practical judgments and discoveries, and to offer counsels and warnings which have been born out of my own successes and defeats. I assume that I am speaking to men who are looking upon the field from the standpoint of the circumference, who are contemplating the work of the ministry, who are now disciplining their powers, preparing their instruments, and generally arranging their plans for a journey over what is to them a yet untravelled country. I have been over some of the roads, and I want to tell you some of the things which I have found. I To-day I am to speak on the Preacher’s call and mission. It is of momentous importance how a man enters the ministry. There is a "door" into this sheepfold, and there is "some other way." A man may enter as a result of merely personal calculation: or he may enter from the constraint of the purely secular counsel of his friends. He may take up the ministry as a profession, as a means of earning a living, as a desirable social distinction, as a business that offers pleasantly favorable chances of cultured leisure, of coveted leaderships, and of attractive publicity. A man may become a minister because, after carefully weighing comparative advantages, he prefers the ministry to law, or to medicine, or to science, or to trade and commerce. The ministry is ranged among many other secular alternatives, and it is chosen because of some outstanding allurement that appeals to personal taste. Now in all such decisions the candidate for the ministry misses the appointed door. His vision is entirely horizontal. His outlook is that of "the man of the world." Similar considerations are prevalent: similar maxims and axioms are assumed: the same scales of judgment are used. The constraining motive is ambition, and the coveted goal is success. There is nothing vertical in the vision. There is no lifting up of the eyes "unto the hills." There is nothing "from above." There is no awful mysteriousness as of "a wind that bloweth where it listeth." A man has decided his calling, but "God was not in all his thoughts." Now I hold with profound conviction that before a man selects the Christian ministry as his vocation he must have the assurance that the selection has been imperatively constrained by the eternal God. The call of the Eternal must ring through the rooms of his soul as clearly as the sound of the morning-bell rings through the valleys of Switzerland, calling the peasants to early prayer and praise. The candidate for the ministry must move like a man in secret bonds. "Necessity is laid" upon him. His choice is not a preference among alternatives. Ultimately he has no alternative: all other possibilities become dumb: there is only one clear call sounding forth as the imperative summons of the eternal God. Now no man can define or describe for another man the likeness and fashion of the divine vocation. No man’s circumstances are exactly commensurate with another’s, and the nature of our circumstances gives distinctiveness and originality to our call. Moreover the Lord honors our individuality in the very uniqueness of the call He addresses to us. The singularity of our circumstances, and the awful singularity of our souls, provide the medium through which we hear the voice of the Lord. How strangely varied are the" settings" through which the divine voice determines the vocations of men, as they are recorded in the Scriptures! Here is Amos, a poor herd-man, brooding deeply and solitarily amid the thin pastures of Tekoa. And rumors come his way of dark doings in the high places of the land. Wealth is breeding prodigality. Luxury is breeding callousness. Injustice is rampant, and "truth is fallen in the streets." And as the poor herdman mused "the fire ’burned." On those lone wastes he heard a mysterious call and he saw a beckoning hand! For him there was no alternative road. "The Lord took me as I followed the flock, and said, Go, prophesy!" But how different is the setting in the call of the Prophet Isaiah! Isaiah was a friend of kings: he was a cultured frequenter of courtly circles: he was at home in the precincts of kings’ courts. And through what medium did the divine call sound to this man? "In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord." Isaiah had pinned his faith to Uzziah. Uzziah was "the pillar of a people’s hopes." Upon his strong and enlightened sovereignty was being built a purified and stable state. And now the pillar had fallen, and it seemed as though all the fair and promising structure would topple with it, and the nation would drop again into uncleanness and confusion. But on the empty throne Isaiah discovered the presence of God. A human pillar had crumbled: the Pillar of the universe remained. "In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord." Isaiah had a vision of a mighty God, with a vaster sovereignty, moving and removing men as the ministers of His large and beneficent purpose. Isaiah mourned the fall of a king, and he heard a call to service! "Whom shall I send, and who will go for me?" One man fallen: another man wanted! God’s call sounded through the impoverished ranks, and smote the heart and conscience of Isaiah, and Isaiah found his vocation and his destiny. "Here am I, send me!" How different, again, are the circumstances attending the call of Jeremiah! There are liquids which a "shake" will precipitate into solids: and there are fluid and nebulous things in life, vague things lying back in the mists of consciousness, which some sudden shaking or shifting of circumstances can precipitate into clear intuition, into firm knowledge, and we have the mind and will of God. Yes, a little tilt of circumstances, and the mist becomes a vision, and uncertainty changes into realized destiny. I think it was even so with Jeremiah. In his life there had been thinking without conclusions, obscure moments of consciousness without clear guidance, broodings without definite vocations. But one day, we know not how, his circumstances slightly shifted, and his vague meditation changed into vivid conviction, and he heard the voice of the Lord God saying unto him, "Before thou tamest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet." It was a clear call: like lightning rather than light: and it was greatly feared, and reluctantly accepted. I have given three examples of the varying fashions in the callings of our God: but had they been indefinitely multiplied, until they had included the last one in my audience to hear the mystic voice, it would be found that every genuine call has its own uniqueness, and that through the originality of personal circumstances the divine call is mediated to the individual soul. And so we cannot tell how the call will come to us, what will be the manner of its coming. It may be that the divine constraint will be as soft and gentle as a glance: "I will guide thee with Mine eye." It may be that we can scarcely describe the guidance, it is so shy, and quiet, and unobtrusive. Or it may be that the constraint will seize us as with a strong and invisible grip, as though we were in the custody of an iron hand from which we cannot escape. That, I think, is the significance of the strangely violent figure used by the Prophet Isaiah: "The Lord said unto me with a strong hand." The divine calling laid hold of the young prophet as though with a "strong hand" that imprisoned him like a vice He felt he had no alternative! He was carried along by divine coercion! "Necessity was laid" upon him! He was in "bonds" and he must obey. And I think this feeling of the "strong hand," this sense of mysterious coercion, is sometimes a dumb constraint which offers but little illumination to the judgment. What I mean is this: a man may realize his call to the ministry in the powerful imperative of a dumb grip for which he can offer no adequate reason. He is sure of the constraint. It is as manifest as gravity. But when he seeks for explanations to justify himself he feels he is moving in the twilight or in the deeper mystery of the night. He knows the "feel" of the "strong hand" that moves him, but he cannot give a satisfactory interpretation of the movement. If I may say it without needless obtrusion, this was the character of my own earliest call into the ministry. For a time I was like a blind man who is being led by the "strong hand" of a silent guide. There was the guidance of a mysterious coercion, but there was no open vision. I was "in bonds," but I knew the "hand," and I had to obey.’ "I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not." "Thou hast laid Thine hand upon me." And so it is that the manner of one man’s "call" may be very different to the manner of another man’s "call," but in the essential matter they are one and the same. I would affirm my own conviction that in all genuine callings to the ministry there is a sense of the divine initiative, a solemn communication of the divine will, a mysterious feeling of commission, which leaves a man no alternative, but which sets him in the road of this vocation bearing the ambassage of a servant and instrument of the eternal God. "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe on Him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach except they be sent?" The assurance of being sent is the vital part of our commission. But hear again the word of God: "I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied." The absence of the sense of vocation will eviscerate a man’s responsibility, and will tend to secularize his ministry from end to end. Now a man who enters through the door of divine vocation into the ministry will surely apprehend "the glory" of his calling. He will be constantly wondering, and his wonder will be a moral antiseptic, that he has been appointed a servant in the treasuries of grace, to make known "the unsearchable riches of Christ." You cannot get away from that wonder in the life of the Apostle Paul. Next to the infinite love of his Savior, and the amazing glory of his own salvation, his wonder is arrested and nourished by the surpassing glory of his own vocation. His "calling" is never lost in the medley of professions. The light of privilege is always shining on the way of duty. His work never loses its halo, and his road never becomes entirely commonplace and grey. He seems to catch his breath every time he thinks of his mission, and in the midst of abounding adversity glory still more abounds. And, therefore, this is the sort of music and song that we find unceasing, from the hour of his conversion and calling to the hour of his death: "Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." "For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward!" "Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity!" Do you not feel a sacred, burning wonder in these exclamations, a holy, exulting pride in his vocation, leagued with a marveling humility that the mystic hand of ordination had rested upon him? That abiding wonder was part of his apostolic equipment, and his sense of the glory of his calling enriched his proclamation of the glories of redeeming grace. If we lose the sense of the wonder of our commission we shall become like common traders in a common market, babbling about common wares. I think you will find that all great preachers have preserved this wondering sense of the greatness of their vocation. It was most impressively true of Dr. Dale, a distinguished Yale lecturer, and my illustrious predecessor in the pulpit at Carrs Lane. The members of my old congregation have often tried to describe to me the mingled dignity and humility with which he proclaimed the gospel of salvation. They say that at times he spake with a sort of personal diffidence born of a great surprise that he should be counted worthy to "bear the vessels of the Lord." They tell me that it was peculiarly manifest at the table of the Lord, and at other times, when, in the handling of the most august themes, he was leading his people into the innermost secrets of the holy place. All this was equally true of another man, very different in mental equipment to Dr. Dale, Robert M’Cheyne, who, in Scotland, brought the riches of grace to an almost countless multitude. Andrew Bonar, M’Cheyne’s intimate friend, has told us with what full and delicate wonder he car-tied his ministry in the Lord. In their conversation he would frequently break out into deep and joyful surprise. The glory of his ministry irradiated common duty like a halo, and God’s statutes became his songs. I do not marvel that Andrew Bonar can write these words about him: "tie was so reverent toward God, so full also in desire toward Him . . . he never seemed unprepared. His lamp was always burning, and his loins always girt. His forgetfulness of all that was not found to God’s glory was remarkable, and there seemed never a time when he was not himself feeling the presence of God." This sense of great personal surprise in the glory of our vocation, while it will keep us humble, will also make us great. It will save us from becoming small officials in transient enterprises. It will make us truly big, and will, therefore, save us from spending our days in trifling. Emerson has somewhere said that men whose duties are done beneath lofty and stately domes acquire a dignified stride and a certain stateliness of demeanor. And preachers of the gospel, whose work is done beneath the lofty dome of some glorious and wonderful conception of their ministry, will acquire a certain largeness of demeanor in which flippancy and trivialities cannot breathe. "I shall run the way of Thy commandments when Thou shalt enlarge my heart." Now, if such be the sacredness of our calling, and its consequent glory, we cannot be blind to its solemn responsibilities. It is a great, awful, holy trust. We are called-to be guides and guardians of the souls of men, leading them into "the way of peace." We are to be constantly engaged with eternal interests, leading the thoughts and wills of men to the things that primarily matter, and disengaging them from lesser or meaner concerns which hold them in servitude. We are to be the friends of the Bridegroom, winning men, not to ourselves, but to Him, match-making for the Lord, abundantly satisfied when we have brought the bride and the Bridegroom together. I do not wonder that men shrink from the calling even when they feel the glory of it! I do not wonder at the holy fear of men as they approach the sacred office! Listen to these words of Charles Kingsley, written in his private journal, written in the dawning of the day on which he was to be ordained to the priesthood of the Lord: "In a few hours my whole soul will be waiting silently for the seals of admission to God’s service, of which honor I dare hardly think myself worthy... Night and morning for months my prayer has been, Oh, God, if I am not worthy, if my sin in leading souls away from Thee is still unpardoned, if I am desiring to be a deacon not wholly for the sake of serving Thee, if it is necessary to show me my weakness and the holiness of Thy office still more strongly, Oh, God, reject me!" I say I do not wonder at the shrinking, and I would not pray that the day may come when it may entirely pass away, lest in a perilous self-confidence we lose the brightness of the glory, and have an impoverished conception of our great vocation. In this matter, as in many others, "the fear of the Lord is a fountain II Such, then, is the preacher’s calling, so sacred, so responsible, so glorious; what can be the mission of such a vocation? Have we any clear word of enlightenment which places it before us like a shining road? I think we have. Whenever I want to recover afresh the superlatively lofty mission of my calling I reverently turn into the holy place where our Master is in communion with the Father, and in that mysterious fellowship I hear my calling defined. "As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world." The serenity that pervades that sequence is overwhelming. The quietude of the passage is the quietude of stupendous heights. It is the serenity of sublimity. The "even so" which associates the two sentences on the same level of thought and purpose is majestic and divine. It places the mission of the Galilean fishermen in line with the redemptive mission of the Son of God. Let us move reverently in that secret holy place. "As Thou hast sent Me." The words lead our halting, failing thought into the inconceivable state which our Lord described as "The glory which I had with Thee before the world was." I know that we have neither wing with which to soar into the mysterious realm nor eye wherewith to see the burning bliss. But we may feel the majesty of what we cannot express. It is well to feel the awe of the undefined and the indefinable. And it is well to lose ourselves in the vast significance of words like these, "The glory which I had with Thee before the world was." Brood upon it. The sublime abode! The holy Fatherhood! The light ineffable! The mystic presence’s! The cherubim and seraphim who "continually do cry, Holy, Holy, Holy!" And then in that glory the redemptive mission of the Prince of Glory! A wonder more glorious than the glory is the laying of the glory by! "He emptied Himself." The amazement of the spirits that surround the throne! "The word became flesh." The wonder of it! The awe of it! "As Thou hast sent Me into the world." And now change the scene. The inconceivable glory is laid aside. The Son of Glory is no longer surrounded by cherubim and seraphim, swift and pure as light. ’But in the guise of a Galilean peasant He has a few fishermen around Him, dull in apprehension of spiritual purpose, timid in heart, irresolute in will, often seeking personal advancement rather than the progress of truth, very lame, very dense, altogether very imperfect and soon to forsake Him and flee. And these two scenes are linked together. "As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world." That the one "going out" should be linked with the other is to me the wonder of wonders. The marvel is that they should be mentioned in the same breath, included in the same bundle of thought, comprehended in the same purpose. For what does the association mean? It means the exaltation of Christian apostleship, the glorification of the Christian ministry. It means that the mystic ordination that rested on the Son of Glory, when He came to earth, rested also on the fisherman Peter as he went down to Caesarea. It means that the same holy commission that wrought in the redemptive ministry of the Son of God wrought also in the energies of the Apostle Paul as he went forth to Macedonia, and on to Corinth, and Athens, and Rome. It means that you, in your sphere of service, and I in mine, may, in our own degree, share the same joyous commission as was held by the Prince of Glory when He was made in the likeness of man. It is the glorification of the apostle’s mission and service. "As Thou hast sent Me." We must, therefore, look carefully at what is said about the nature and character of our Lord’s mission if we would understand our own commission, and so realize the glory of our own appointment and the dignity of our own service. We must reverently gaze upon the one that we may thereby apprehend the other. Have we any further guidance concerning the mission of our Lord? Did He define it? Did He describe it? Has He anywhere outlined it in features that we can comprehend? I think such light has been given us. We are told that Jesus went into Nazareth on the Sabbath day. He entered the synagogue. He opened a book and read a selected passage, and then He appropriated the words as descriptive of Himself, and as finding fulfillment in His own life. And what was the passage? "He hath sent Me to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to’ the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind; to set at liberty them that are bruised and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." Is it possible that the passage is a lamp whereby we may interpret our own ministry? Look at the cardinal words in the passage, "preach," "heal," "deliver," "give liberty," "proclaim" I Can we extract the common virtue of the words? Have they any general significance? Is there any common denominator? May we not say that in all these varied words there is a pervasive sentiment and purpose of emancipation? Are they not all suggestive of an opening, an emergence, a release? Let us review the words: "Sent to preach "; to give the open vision of divine grace to those whose thought is darkly bounded and imprisoned. "To heal "; to give the grace of comfort to those who are crushed beneath the unintelligible weight of- sorrow and care. “To deliver the captive "; to give the open spaces of a noble freedom to all who languish in any form of unholy servitude. "To set at liberty them that are bruised "; to give open passage to all who are lying with broken wing or broken limb, to all whose powers have been shattered by disappointment and defeat. "To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord "; to announce the open door in the present hour, and to say that by God’s grace there is a present right of way from the deepest gloom of the soul into the radiant light of acceptance with God. In all these words there appears to be this general sense of emergence and release. There is an opening of mind, an opening of heart, an opening of eyes, an opening of doors. In every word the iron gate swings back and there is the sound of the song of freedom. Now in the light of these words dare we take up the Master’s sequence and give this same interpretation to our own mission and service? I think this is our holy privilege. It is one aspect of "The prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." "As Thou hast sent Me into the world even so have I also sent them,"--to preach, to heal, to deliver, to open the iron gates, to be the ambassadors of a glorious freedom for body, mind, and soul. Yes, I think we may accept this interpreting light upon our calling; the mission of the apostle is determined by the mission of the Master, and that mission is declared to be one of wide and inclusive emancipation. If this be so, if we may read our calling in the words of the Master, by what method are we to follow the ministry of emancipation? We are to follow it in two ways, by the service of good news, and by the good news of service. First, we are to find our mission in the service of good news. That is our primary calling, to be tellers of good news, to be heralds of salvation. Here are the emphatic words: "Preach!" and again, "Preach!" "Proclaim!" "As ye go, preach!" And what is to be the theme of the good news? This we will consider in greater detail later on. But meanwhile let this be said. It is to be good news about God. It is to be good news about the Son of God. It is to be good news about the vanquishing of guilt and the forgiveness of sins. It is to be good news about the subjection of the world and the flesh and the devil. It is to be good news about the transfiguration of sorrow and the withering of a thousand bitter roots of anxiety and care. It is to be good news about the stingless death and the spoiled and beaten grave. That is to be our first mission to the world,--to be carriers of good news. That is to be our glorious mission. We are to go about our ways finding men and women shattered and broken, with care upon them, and sorrow upon them, and death upon them, wrinkled in body and mind, and with the light flickering out in their souls. And we are to bring them the news which will be like oil to dying lamps, which will be as vitalizing air to those who faint, which will be like the power of new wing to birds that have been broken in flight. "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." But we are not only to preach the good news. We are also to incarnate it in vital service. Our mission is to be one of emancipation both by word and work, by gospel and by crusade. Everywhere we are confronted by big iniquities, frowning like embattled castles. Around us are grim prisons where innocence lies entombed. All over the world captives are held in a thousand evil servitude’s. And here is our mission, which is reflected from the mission of our Lord, "He hath sent me to give liberty to the captives." The word of grace is to be confirmed by gracious deeds. The Gospel is to be corroborated by the witness of daring exploits. The herald is to be a knight, revealing the power of his message in his own chivalry. That is to say, there is laid upon the preacher the supreme privilege of obligation and sacrifice. He is to be filled with the "love and pity" which are the very energies of redemption. The good news without the good deed will leave us impotent. But the spirit of sacrificial love will make us invincible. There is much that might make us afraid. The very terms of our commission might fill us with dread. "I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves." How quixotic the enterprise appears to be! Let our thoughts go back to the first preaching crusaders, so apparently weak and fearless as to be compared to innocent sheep! And these men are sent forth into a wolfish environment, where the odds appear to be overwhelming, and the outlook one of hopeless and cruel defeat. And the words of the commission are unchanged. Still does the Master say to you and me, "I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves,"--against cruelty, and lust, and greed, and indifference, against every form of sin, against an army of antagonists, fierce and terrific. What is to be our inspiration and our confidence? I will dare to place two separated passages side by side that I may offer you the heartening secret of their communion. And here is one of them: "As Thou hast sent Me into the world." And here is the other: "Behold the Lamb!" The Lord who was sent into the brutal or indifferent environment of man was the Lamb of God! The Lamb came among wolves. And now let me place another pair of passages side by side, and the analogy will help us for, ward to the inspiration we need. And here is one: "Even so have I also sent them into the world." And here is the other: "I send you forth as sheep." The Lamb of God Himself came among the wolves. And He sends His sheep among the same fierce and destructive presence’s. The Lamb sends forth the sheep! And how fared it with the Lamb? I turn to the Word of God and I read: "These shall make war with the Lamb and the Lamb shall overcome." And I read again: "And I beheld, and in the midst of the throne stood the Lamb." The Lamb was triumphant. It was not the wolf who conquered, but the Lamb, and in the victory of the Lamb the safety and triumph of the sheep are assured. That is our inspiration. "In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." We are "called with a holy calling." Our mission is beset with antagonisms. The way will rarely, if ever, be easy. But in chivalrous faith and obedience our victory is secure. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 44: 03.02. THE PERILS OF THE PREACHER ======================================================================== LECTURE II THE PERILS OF THE PREACHER "Lest . . . I myself should be a castaway" I begin our consideration of the perils of the preacher by quoting this startling word of the Apostle Paul. "I therefore so run, not as uncertainly: so fight I, not as one that beateth the air; but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway." And, as you well know, the word which is here translated "castaway," and in the Revised Version is translated "rejected," is applied to things that cannot bear the standard test, that reveal themselves to be counterfeit and worthless, like coins which have no true "ring" about them, and which are flung aside as spurious and base. And the Apostle Paul foresees the possible peril of his becoming a counterfeit coin in the sacred currency, a spurious dealer in sublime realities, a worthless guide to "the unsearchable riches of Christ." He sees the insurgent danger of men who are busy among holy things becoming profane. A man may be dealing with "gold thrice refined," and yet he himself may be increasingly mingled with the dross of the world. He may lead others into the heavenly way, and he may lose the road himself. He may be diligent in his holy calling and yet be deepeningly degenerate. It is the ominous forecast of what is perhaps life’s saddest and most pathetic tragedy, the spectacle of a man who, having "preached to others," should himself become "a castaway." Now the Apostle Paul foresaw the peril, and studiously and prayerfully provided against it. And you and I have been chosen to walk along his road, and we shall encounter all the dangers that infest it. None of us will be immune from their besetment. Perils are ever the attendants of privilege, and they are thickest round about the most exalted stations. I suppose that every profession and every trade has its own peculiar enemies, just as every kind of flower is attacked by its own peculiar pests. And I suppose that every profession might claim that these distinctive microbes are most subtle and plentiful in its own particular sphere of service. And yet I strongly believe that the artisan who works with his hands, or the trader who is busy in commerce, or the professional man who labors in law, or in medicine, or in literature, or in music, or art, is not able to conceive the insidious and deadly perils which infest the life of a minister. The pulpit is commonly regarded as a charmed circle, where "the destruction that wasteth at noonday" never arrives. We are looked upon as the children of favor, "delicately appareled," shielded in many ways from the cutting blasts that sweep across the common life. It is supposed there is many a bewitching temptation that never displays its shining wares at our window! There is many a gnawing care that never shows its teeth at our gate! We are told we have the genial times, and the "soft raiment," and that for us life is more a garden than a battlefield. But, gentlemen, the fatal defect in the statement is this: it reasons as though "privilege" spells "protection," and as though soft conditions provide immunity. It reasons as though a garden is a fortress, and as though a favored life is a strong defense. It reasons as though a garden can never be a battlefield, when after all a garden was the scene of the hardest fighting in the battle of Waterloo. Privilege never confers security: it rather provides the conditions of the fiercest strife. I gladly and gratefully recognize that the minister is laden with many privileges but I also recognize that the measure of our privileges is just the measure of our dangers, that the inventory of our garden would also give an inventory of the destructive pests that haunt every flower, and shrub, and tree. It is literally and awfully true that "where grace abounds" death also may abound, for our spiritual favors may be either "a savoir of life unto life or of death unto death." We may lead people into wealth and we ourselves may be counterfeit: we may preach to others while we ourselves are castaways. I propose, therefore, to examine some of these perils which fatten upon privilege, these enemies which will haunt you to the very end of your ministerial life. The first peril which I will name, and I name it first because its touch is so fatal, is that of deadening familiarity with the -sublime. You will not have been long in the ministry before you discover that it is possible to be fussily busy about the Holy Place and yet to lose the wondering sense of the Holy Lord. We may have much to do with religion and yet not be religious. We may become mere guide-posts when we were intended to be guides. We may indicate the way, and yet not be found in it. We may be professors but not pilgrims. Our studies may be workshops instead of "upper rooms." Our share in the table-provisions may be that of analysts rather than guests. We may become so absorbed in words that we forget to eat the Word. And the consummation of the subtle peril may be this: we may come to assume that fine talk is fine living, that expository skill is deep piety, and while we are fondly hugging the non-essentials the veritable essence escapes. I think this is one of the most insidious, and perhaps the predominant peril in a preacher’s life. A man may live in mountain-country and lose all sense of the heights. And that is a terrible impoverishment, when mountain-country comes to have the ordinary significance of the plains. The preacher is called upon to dwell among the stupendous concerns of human interest. The mountainous aspects of life are his familiar environment. He lives almost every hour in sight of the immensities and the eternities--the awful sovereignty of God, and the glorious yet cloud-capped mysteries of redeeming grace. But here is the possible tragedy: he may live in constant sight of these tremendous presences and may cease to see them. They may come to be mere "lay-figures" of the study, no longer the appalling dignities which prostrate the soul in adoration and awe. That is our peril. We have to be constantly talking about these things, and the talking may be briskly continued even when the things themselves have been lost. We may retain our interest in philosophy, and lose our reverence. We may keep up a busy traffic in words, but "the awe of the heights" no longer makes us tremble with urgent actuality. We may talk about the mountains, and we may do it as blind insensitive children of the plains. The plentifulness of our privileges may make us numb. "Will a man leave the snow of Lebanon?" The calamity is that we may do so and never know it. The second peril in the preacher’s life which I will name is that of deadening familiarity with the commonplace. I have mentioned the possibility of our becoming callous to the presence of the heights: there is an equally subtle peril of our becoming dead to the bleeding tragedies of common life. Dark presence’s which come to others only as occasional and startling visitors are in our fellowship every day. They move in our daily surroundings. Experiences which move and arrest the business-man, because they are unusual, are the ordinary furniture of our lives. And the ever possible danger is this, that in becoming accustomed to tragedy we may also become callous. There is, for example, our familiarity with death. I know there is something about Death so mysterious, so imperious, that he never passes as quite an ordinary presence. The chill air of his passing is never altogether lost. And yet you will find it is possible to be strangely unmoved in the house of death. There will be breaking hearts around you, among whom Death has come like some cruel beast, heedlessly breaking and crushing the fragile reeds on his way to the water-courses, and they are feeling that they will never be able to lift themselves again into the sweet sunny light and air. And you may be like an indifferent Outsider in the tragedy! I know that it may be one of God’s merciful dealings with us, as a necessity of our labor, to put the gracious cushion of custom between us and the immediate blows of dark and heavy circumstance. No man could do his work if the vital drain were to be unrelieved. If custom gave us no defense we should faint from sheer exhaustion. The impact of the blow upon us is restrained in order that we may minister to those upon whom it has fallen with naked and staggering force. But that possible ministry becomes impossible if the cushion becomes a stone. If familiarity implies insensibility then our powers of consolation are lost. Now this is one of our perils, and it is very real and immediate. The peril can be avoided, but there it is, one of the possible dangers in your way. Familiarity may be deadly, and we may be as dead men in the usually disturbing presences of sorrow, and pain, and death. The pathetic may cease to melt us, the tragic may cease to shock us. We may lose our power to weep. The very fountain of our tears may be dried up. The visitations which arouse and vivify our fellowmen may put us into a fatal sleep. A stupor begotten of familiarity may make us remote from the common need. To use the apostle’s phrase, we may become "past feeling." The third ministerial peril is the possible perversion of our emotional life. The preaching of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ demands and creates in the preacher a certain power of worthy emotion, and this very emotion becomes the center of new ministerial danger. For the emotions can become perverted. They may become unhealthily intense and inflammatory. They may become defiled. The emotional may so easily become the neurotic. I do not know just how to express the danger I see. A preacher’s emotion may be so constantly and so profoundly wrought upon that his moral defenses are imperiled. Exaggerated emotion can be like a flood that will overwhelm and submerge his moral dykes, and plunge him into irretrievable disaster. I remember one very eventful day when I had a long walk with Hugh Price Hughes through the city of London. In the course of our conversation he suddenly stopped, and gripping my arm in his impulsive way, he said, "Jowett, the evangelical preacher is always on the brink of the abyss!" There may be excessive coloring in the judgment, but it indicates a grave peril which it is imperative to name, and against which we should be on our guard. I think I know what he meant. Preaching that sways the preacher’s emotions, moving him like a gale upon the sea, makes great demands upon the nerves, and sometimes produces nervous exhaustion. That is to say, the evangelical preacher, with his constant business in great facts and verities that sway the feelings, may become the victim of nervous depression, and in his nervous impoverishment his moral defenses may be relaxed, the enemy may leap within his gates, and his spirit may be imprisoned in dark and carnal bondage. "He that hath ears to hear let him hear," and "let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." And now let me mention a peril which will be more evident than the one I have just named, because we meet it along every road of life, and because we make its acquaintance long before we take up the actual work of the ministry. I mean the perilous gravitation of the world. I say you may meet that danger everywhere, but nowhere will you meet it in a more insidious and persistent fashion than in the Christian ministry. It is round about us like a malaria, and we may become susceptible to its contagion. It offers itself as a climate, and we may be led into accepting it as the atmosphere of our lives. I suppose that one of the deepest characteristics of worldliness is an illicit spirit of compromise. It calls itself by many agreeable names, such as "expediency," "tactfulness," "diplomacy," and it sometimes ascends to higher rank and claims kinship with "geniality," "sociability," and "friendship." But, despite this fine borrowed attire, the worldly spirit of compromise is just the sacrifice of the moral ideal to the popular standard, and the subjection of personal conviction to current opinion. There is a half-cynical counsel given in the Book of Ecclesiastes which exactly describes what I am seeking to express. "Be not righteous overmuch. . . . Be not overmuch wicked." I think this moral advice enshrines the very genius of worldliness. Worldly compromise takes the medium-line between white and black, and wears an ambiguous grey. It is a partisan of neither midnight nor noon. It prefers the twilight, which is just a mixture of midnight and noon and is equally related to both. It is, therefore, a very specious presence, fraternizing with all sorts and conditions of men, nodding acquaintedly to the saint, and intimately recognizing the sinner, at home everywhere, mixing with the worshippers in the temple, or with the money-changers in the temple courts. Grey is a very useful color, it is in Keeping with a wedding or a funeral. And yet the word of Holy Writ is clear and decisive, raising the most exalted standard: "Keep thy garments always white." Now you will meet that spirit of worldly compromise, and you will meet it in its most seductive form. It will seek to determine the character of your personal life. It will entice you to wear grey habits when you mix with the business-men of your congregation, and to "talk grey" in your conversation with them. A certain suavity or urbanity will offer itself as a medium, and you will loll about with relaxed moral ideals. This is no idle fancy. I am describing the road along which many a minister has passed to deadly degeneracy and impotence. We are tempted to leave our "noontide lights" behind in our study, and to move among men of the world with a dark lantern which we can manipulate to suit our company. We pay the tribute of smiles to the low business standard. We pay the tribute of laughter to the fashionable jest. We pay the tribute of easy tolerance to ambiguous pleasures. We soften everything to a comfortable acquiescence. We seek to be "all things to all men" to please all. We "run with the hare" and we "hunt with the hounds." We try to "serve God and mammon." We become the victims of illicit compromise. There is nothing distinctive about our character. It is neither one thing nor another. We are of the kind described by the Prophet Isaiah: "Thy wine is mixed with water," or like those portrayed by Jeremiah: "’Reprobate silver shall men call thee." But in the perilous gravitation of worldliness there is more than an illicit spirit of compromise: there is what I will call the fascination of the glittering. All through our ministry we are exposed to the temptations which met our Lord in the wilderness, and which met Him again and again before He reached the cross. "All these things will I give Thee if Thou wilt fall down and worship me." It was the presentation of carnal splendor, the offer of an immediate prize. The tempter used the lure of the "showy," and he sought to eclipse the vision of reality. He used the glittering to entice the eyes away from the "gold thrice refined." That peril will meet you on the very day your ministry begins. Nay, it is with you now in the days of preparation. Even now you may be arrested by fireworks and you may lose the vision of the stars. On your ordination day you may be the victim of worldliness, and your soul may be prostrate before Mammon. You may be seeking "the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them"; in quest of "glitter" rather than true "gold." We are tempted to covet a showy eloquence rather than the deep, unobtrusive "spirit of power." We may become more intent on full pews than on redeemed souls. We may be more concerned to have a swelling membership-roll than to have the names of our people "written in Heaven." We may be more keen for "the praises of men" than for "the good pleasure of God." These are the perils of worldliness. Our besetting peril is to go after the "showy," to "strive," and "cry," ’’to let our voice be heard "in the streets," to follow the glitter instead of "the gleam," and to be satisfied if our names are sounded pleasantly in the crumbling halls of worldly fame. I have thus mentioned many perils which will meet you in your calling, and they have this common and fatal tendency, to snare you away from God. They will lead you away from "the snows of Lebanon," from the great gathering-ground of your resources, where the mighty rivers rise which bring to men the dynamic of a strong and efficient ministry. And, surely, of all pathetic sights on God’s earth there is none more pathetic than a preacher of the gospel who, by the benumbing power of custom, or by the wiles and guile’s of the world, has been separated from his God! For when a preacher, by an unhallowed absorption in the mere letter of truth, or by a successful invasion of worldliness, gets away from God, the direful consequences are immediate and destructive. Let me mention some of the results. First of all, our characters will lose their spirituality. We shall lack that fine fragrance which makes people know that we dwell in "the King’s gardens." There will be no "heavenly air" about our spirits. Atmospheres will not be mysteriously changed by our presence. We shall no longer bring the strength of mountain-air into close and fusty fellowships. And, surely, this ought to be one of the most gracious services of a Christian minister,--by his very presence to create a climate by which the faint and overburdened are revived. There is an exquisite line in Paul’s portrayal of his friend Onesiphorus which describes this very characteristic of ministerial service. "He oft refreshed me," and the refreshment is just the bringing of fresh air, a vitalizing breath, a restoring climate for faint and weary souls! The coming of Onesiphorus was like the opening of a window to one held in close imprisonment. He brought an atmosphere with him, and he himself had found it in the breathing of the Holy Ghost. My brethren, it is our spirituality that pro-rides that atmosphere of refreshment, and it is active in our silences as well as in our speech. If we are snared away from God that atmosphere is devitalized, our personal "air" loses its power of quickening, and no "faint-heart" calls down blessings as we pass by. But a second thing happens when, for any cause, we ate separated from the Lord whom we have vowed to serve. Our speech lacks a mysterious impressiveness. We are wordy but we are not mighty. We are eloquent but we do not persuade. We are reasonable but we do not convince. We preach much but we accomplish little. We teach but we do not woo. We make a "show of power" but men do not move. Men come and go, they may be interested or amused, but they do not bow in penitent surrender at the feet of the Lord. We go on talking, talking, talking, and the haunts of "the evil one" ring with scorn of our futility. Our words are just the "enticing words of man’s wisdom," they are not "in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." And as it is with our preaching so it is with our enterprises. If our perils overwhelm us our enterprises become pastimes rather than crusades. We are busy but we are futile. We may be always active but the strongholds do not fall. We pass multitudes of resolutions but nobody quakes. We form clubs and societies but there is no vital movement towards God. The central fact of the matter is this: when a preacher is snared away from God and from the good-pleasure of God he does not count, and he is, therefore, not counted, and evil dances flippantly along the open road heedless of his presence, because he has no magic weapon by which it can be either crippled or destroyed. But I turn to a more positive aspect of my theme. How can all these perils be avoided? Nay, how can we make our perils minister to a richer, stronger, and more fruitful life? For that is life’s true victory, not to ignore dangers but to despoil them. It is possible to take the strength of a peril and enlist it in our own resources. That is the privilege of temptation: we can sack it and transfer the wealth of its strength into the treasury of our own will. That is a great principle! The minister’s life has many perils, and he has, therefore, many possible stores of enrichment. We cannot affirm this to ourselves too often and too confidently: conquered perils become allies: in every victory there is a transfer of dynamics. Perils may indicate our possible impoverishment: they equally indicate our possible enrichment. How, then, is it to be done? By studious and reverent regard to the supreme commonplaces of the spiritual life. We must assiduously attend to the culture of our souls. We must sternly and systematically make time for prayer, and for the devotional reading of the Word of God. We must appoint private seasons for the deliberate and personal appropriation of the Divine Word, for self-examination in the presence of its warnings, for self-humbling in the presence of its judgments, for self-heartening in the presence of its promises, and for self-invigoration in the presence of its glorious hopes. In the midst of our fussy, restless activities, in all the multitudinous trifles which, like a cloud of dust, threaten to choke our souls, the minister must fence off his quiet and secluded hours, and suffer no interference or obtrusion. I offer that counsel with particular urgency now that I have come to labor in this country. I am profoundly convinced that one of the gravest perils which beset the ministry of this country is a restless scattering of energies over an amazing multiplicity of interests, which leaves no margin of time or of strength for receptive and absorbing communion with God. We are tempted to be always "on the run," and to measure our fruitfulness by our pace and by the ground we cover in the course of the week! Gentlemen, we are not always doing the most business when we seem to be most busy. We may think we are truly busy when we are really only restless, and a little studied retirement would greatly enrich our returns. We are great only as we are God-possessed; and scrupulous appointments in the upper room with the Master will prepare us for the toil and hardships of the most strenuous campaign. We must, therefore, hold firmly and steadily to this primary principle, that of all things that need doing this need is supreme, to live in intimate fellowship with God. Let us steadily hold a reasonable sense of values, and assign each appointed duty to its legitimate place. And in any appointment of values this would surely be the initial judgment, that nothing can be well done if we drift away from God. Neglected spiritual fellowship means futility all along the road. But the discipline of the soul must be serious and studious. This high culture must not be governed by haphazard or caprice. There must be purpose and method and regularity. And you may depend upon it, that when you give yourselves to soul culture in this serious way, it is a travail and not a pastime. If it were easy it might, scarcely be worth counseling: it is tremendously difficult, but its rewards are infinite. One of the most cultured spirits in modern Methodism, a man whose style is as strong as his thoughts are lofty, has recently given this judgment as he looked back upon the years of his ministry: "I have not failed to study: I have not failed to visit: I have not failed to write and meditate: but I have failed to pray ....Now why have I not prayed? Sometimes because I did not like it: at other times because I hardly dared: and yet at other times because I had something else to do. Let us be very frank. It is a grand thing to get a praying minister I have heard men talk about prayer who never prayed in their lives. They thought they did: but when you have heard them, they made their own confession in a ruthless way." These sentences lift the veil upon a naked experience, and they expose the solemn fact that prayer is very costly, even at the expense of blood, and that Churches which have praying ministers may not realize the travail by which the power is gained. We are permitted to look upon our Master as He prays. "In the days of His flesh He offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears." It was a holy and a costly business. "And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." There was something here which we can never share, and yet there is something which we must share if we are leagued with the Lord in the ministry of intercession, and enter into "the fellowship of His sufferings." Perhaps I cannot better illustrate the costliness of this intensive soul-culture than by the example of Dr. Andrew Bonar. Dr. Bonar labored in Scotland a generation or two ago, and he adorned his ministry by a very saintly life and by very fruitful service. He kept a private diary or journal, contained in two small volumes, containing regular entries from 1828 to within a few weeks of his death in 1892. His daughter has permitted this most priceless record of a soul’s pilgrimage to be given to the world, "in the belief that the voice now silent on earth will still be heard in these pages, calling on us as from the other world to be ’followers of them who, through faith and patience, are inheriting the promises.’" Let me give you one or two extracts from this journal. "By the grace of God and the strength of His Holy Spirit I desire to lay down the rule not to speak to man until I have spoken to God: not to do anything with my hand until I have been upon my knees: not to read letters or papers until I have read something of the Holy Scriptures." . . . "In prayer in the wood for some time, having set apart three hours for devotion: felt drawn out much to pray for that peculiar fragrance which believers have about them, who are very much in fellowship with God." . . . "Yesterday got a day to myself for prayer. With me every time of prayer, or almost every time, begins with a conflict."... "It is my deepest regret that I pray so little. I should count the days, not by what I have of new instances of usefulness, but by the times I have been enabled to pray in faith, and to take hold upon God." . . . "I see that unless I keep up short prayer every day throughout the whole day, at intervals, I lose the spirit of prayer." . . . "Too much work without corresponding prayer. To-day setting myself to pray. The Lord forthwith seems to send a dew upon my soul."... "Was enabled to spend part of Thursday in the church, praying. Have had great help in study since then." . . . "Last night could do little else but converse with the Lord about the awakening of souls, and ask it earnestly.’’ . . . "Passed six hours to-day in prayer and Scripture-reading, confessing sin, and seeking blessing for myself and the parish." Words like these, written for no eye but God’s to see, give deep significance to the sentence I quoted from our distinguished Methodist friend: "It is a grand thing to get a praying minister." And another thing becomes evident in the light of this journal: real prayer is the sharing of "the travail which makes God’s Kingdom come." Andrew Bonar was a strong minister of "the grace of the Lord Jesus," ant in the wrestling communion of prayer he became mighty with God and man. Men of his type, whose souls are elevated and refined by lofty fellowships, approach everything" from above," and not "from beneath." The trouble with many of us is just this,--we come to our work from low levels, from the common angle, with the ordinary points of view. In that way we come to our sermons, and to our pulpits, and to our pastoral work, and to the business affairs of the Church. We are "from beneath." We do not come upon our labors "from above," with the sense of the heavenly about us, with quiet feeling of elevation, and strong power of vision, and the perception of proportion and values. Men who are "from beneath" belittle and degrade the things they touch. Men who are "from above" elevate them, and give distinction and dignity to the meanest service. And if any minister is to live "in heavenly places in Christ Jesus," and to have this lofty hearing and this uplifting constraint in his common work, if he is to be pure and purifying, he must learn to "pray without ceasing." And I would add one further word in reference to the discipline of character by the culture of the soul, and it is this: it is only by this primary culture that we gain those secondary virtues which play so vital a part in our moral defenses, and in the effectiveness of our work. The fragrance of character usually rises from the apparently subordinate virtues, the very virtues which are commonly neglected or ignored. All the ten lepers had faith, only one had gratitude, and he is the one who remains beauteous and winsome in the regard of the Lord. And this very grace of gratitude fills a great part in a minister’s life, and so do courtesy, and patience, and that wonderfully beautiful thing we call considerateness, and forbearance, and good-temper. I have called them secondary virtues, but I am afraid I have degraded their rank, so high and so princely a place do they fill in the shining equipment of the Christian ministry. And I name them here in order to reaffirm my conviction that such strong and attractive graces are not "works "; they are "fruits," the natural and spontaneous growth of much communion with the Lord. We may be fragrant in character, having "beauty" as well as "strength," if we abide in the King’s gardens. Gentlemen, I have mentioned our perils, and I have suggested our resources, and the one is more than sufficient for the other. A calling without difficulty would not be worth our choice. You will have traps and enemies, allurements and besetments, all along your way, but "grace abounds," and "the joy of the Lord is your strength." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 45: 03.03. THE PREACHER'S THEMES ======================================================================== LECTURE III THE PREACHER’S THEMES "Feed my sheep" I am to speak to you to-day on the preacher’s themes, and I have ventured to attach to the title the words of our Master, spoken to Simon Peter,--" Feed my sheep." I do not forget the particular conditions in which the counsel was born, but I believe that, without doing it any violence, it has immediate significance for our present meditation. The words are descriptive of a pastoral relationship, a shepherd caring for the needs of his flock. The shepherd is to lead his sheep from the barrenness of the wilderness, or from patches where the herbage is scanty and unsatisfying, to "green pastures" and "still waters." He is to watch against famine and drought. He is to" feed" his sheep, to "satisfy their mouth with good things." And ours, too, is the pastoral relationship. A flock is committed to our care. There are manifold duties connected with the office, but we are just now concerned with the primary responsibility of defending our sheep against the perils of hunger. To us is entrusted the solemn duty of finding food. The sheep are largely dependent upon their shepherds for the riches or poverty of their provisions. We are to provide against starvation, or against that semi-starvation which arises from innutritious herbage, and which results in weakness, anemia, disease. We have the choice of the pastures. Where shall we choose? To drop my metaphor, you and I are accounted responsible, by our very vocation, for the feeding of immortal souls. They will look to us for spiritual food. We are appointed to bring them satisfaction, to provide them with strong and wholesome nutriment by which they shall be competent to carry their daily burden, and to engage in life’s battles without faintness or exhaustion. That is what you men are going out into the world to do. You are to be guardians of the church’s health by providing against moral and spiritual famine. You are to see to it that bread is at hand by which the soul can be "restored." When men and women come to your spiritual table, with aching cravings and desires, they are to find such provision as shall send them away with the words of the Psalmist upon their lips: "He satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness ’,; "We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Thy house, even of Thy holy temple!" Now what shall we give them? What is our conception of bread? To what aspects of truth shall we lead the souls of men? What shall be the marrow of our preaching? What shall be our themes? To what claimant needs shall we address ourselves? "Life," says a very wise observer, "grows more and more severe. Pain becomes more inward. Grief and strain advance along with physical security and comfort. Civilization only internalizes the trouble. We have fewer wounds but more weariness. We are better cared for but we have more care. There is less agony, perhaps, but perhaps also, more misery." What "bread of life" shall we bring to lives so burdened and stricken? What shall we preach? I suppose it will be the common judgment that in many quarters a great change has taken place in the character of pulpit themes, and in the treatment of them. Subjects are introduced to-day which would never have been considered even a generation ago. In many instances the subjects are not so much themes, in the sense of the presentation of great truths, but "topics," the consideration of some passing crisis, or of some local combination of circumstances, or of some incident which is exciting the attention of the daily press. Many reasons are given to account for this change. In the first place it is said to be explained by a broader and healthier conception of the preacher’s mission. We are told that it should be a preacher’s ambition not only to have "a spirit of wisdom," but also "a spirit of understanding," not merely knowledge of principles, but a skill in their practical application. He must be more than seer, he must be architect: he must be more than architect, he must be artisan. His preaching must do more than indicate ideal and goal, it must prepare the way by which the goal is reached. The preacher must be more than "a light to my path," he must be "a lamp unto my feet." All of which means that the preacher must be more than an idealist, more than a theologian, more than an evangelist: he must busy himself in the realms of political and social economics. I have personally nothing to say in disparagement of these momentous ministries, and I deeply honor the men who are engaged in them. I very gratefully recognize the peculiarly special gifts and vision in which some men find their equipment and calling to this particular form of service. With equal readiness and gratitude I recognize the part which some men have played in the illumination of social ideals, in the disentanglement of social complexities, and in the inspiration of social service. But with all this you will permit me to express my own conviction as to the perils which beset a preacher in themes and ministries like these. I am in no doubt of my position as a citizen, and of my duties and privileges in the life of the nation. I must not be an alien to the commonwealth, living remote and aloof from its travails and throes. My strength must be enlisted in the vital, actual forces which, through tremendous obstacles, are seeking the enthronement of justice and truth. I can also conceive it probable that critical occasions may arise when it will be the duty of the pulpit to speak with clarion distinctness on the policy of the state or nation. But even with these admissions I can clearly see this danger, that the broadening conception of the preacher’s mission may lead to the emphasis of the Old Testament message of reform rather than to the New Testament message of redemption. Men may become so absorbed in social wrongs as to miss the deeper malady of personal sin. They may lift the rod of oppression and leave the burden of guilt. They may seek to correct social dislocations and overlook the awful disorder of the soul. It seems to me that some preachers have made up their minds to live in the Old Testament rather than in the New, and to walk with the prophet rather than with the apostle and evangelist. Amazing differences are determined by a man’s choice of central home; whether, say, he shall dwell in the gospel of John or in the Book of Amos, whether, say, in the wonderful realms of the epistle to the Ephesians, or in the smaller world of Isaiah or Jeremiah. It is all a matter of center, of dwelling-place, of settled home. Where does a preacher live? From what place do his journeyings begin? To what bourn do his journeyings return? These are the central tests, and my observation leads me to think that the broader conception of the preacher’s mission sometimes tends to lure him away to the circumference and suburbs of life, and to partially efface the vital, tremendous verities of redeeming grace. In the fascinating breadth we may lose centrality: things that are secondary and subordinate may take the throne. Let me not be misunderstood. While I write these words I carry in my mind the memory of Dr. Dale, and the character of his life and ministry. Now Dale was a great politician, he was an intimate friend and fellow laborer of Gladstone and Bright and Chamberlain. lie burned with the passion of righteousness, lie entered deeply into social, educational, and political questions, and he flung himself with stern enthusiasm into every campaign for the rectification of crooked conditions, for the widening of the bounds of freedom, and for the enrichment of the general life of the nation. Yes, Dale was a great politician, but he was a greater preacher, and the themes of his pulpit were vaster and more fundamental than those he dealt with on the platform. Was ever a pulpit devoted to mightier themes than when Dale filled it! Turn to his book on "The Atonement ": every chapter went through his pulpit! Take his incomparable work on Ephesians: it was all preached in his pulpit! Or look at his maturest work, the great book on" Christian Doctrine ": every word of it was given to his people through the pulpit! “I hear that you are preaching doctrinal sermons to the congregation at Carrs Lane," a fellow-minister said to him one day: "they will not stand it." Dale replied, "They will have to stand it," and throughout his long and noble ministry they not only stood it, but welcomed it, and rejoiced in it, and were nourished for the splendid service which that church has always rendered to the cause of civil and religious liberty. At the very time when he was foremost as a politician his pulpit was dealing with the awful yet glorious mysteries of redeeming grace. Dale’s home was not among the prophets but among the apostles and evangelists, lie visited Isaiah, but he lived with Paul. Nay, he dwelt "in heavenly places in Christ Jesus," and it was the glories of that lofty relationship, which he had obtained by grace, and at which he never ceased to wonder, that he sought to unveil Sunday by Sunday to his waiting people. His pulpit was reserved for vital and central themes: he never allowed the calls of wider citizenship to snare him from his throne. There is another peril which I will name. The sense of scriptural truth is very delicate and it can be easily impaired. Every preacher knows how sensitive is the organ of spiritual perception, and how vigilantly it has to be guarded if he is to retain his vision and apprehension of "the deeper things" of God. You will find in your ministry that an evil temper can make you blind. You will find that jealousy can scale your eyes until the heavens give no light. You will find that paltry temper raises an earth-born cloud between you and the hills of God. You will find when you enter your study that your moral and spiritual condition demands your first attention. I have sat down to the preparation of my sermon and the heavens have been as brass! I have turned to the gospel of John and it has been as a wilderness, without verdure or dew! Yes, you will find that when your spirit is impaired, your Bible, and your lexicons, and your commentaries are only like so many spectacles behind which there are no eyes: you have no sight! All this you will probably grant when our attention is confined to the influence of deliberate sin upon spiritual vision. But I would ask you to consider whether the spiritual organ of the preacher may not be bruised if he is enticed to give the burden of his attention to secondary discussion and controversies, to matters which have certainly not first rank in the interests of the soul. I believe it is possible for the sociologist to impair the evangelist in the preacher, and that a man can lose his power to unveil and display "the unsearchable riches of Christ." Gentlemen, this fear is not the creation of the fancy. I have heard men make the confession that they have acquired a passion and aptitude for certain types of preaching, and they have lost the power to expound those deepest matters which absorbingly engaged the heart and brain of the Apostle Patti. When the preacher becomes economist there are men outside who can surpass him in his office. His influence in these secondary realms is comparatively small. His legitimate and unshared throne is elsewhere and among other themes. It is for him to keep a clean, clear, true insight into the things that matter most, to explore the wonderful love of God, to delve and mine in the treasures of redemption, "to know nothing among men save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." But a second reason is given why the themes of the pulpit should be more widely varied than those of a past generation. We are told that there is a tragic lapse of interest in the Church. The Church is now surrounded by a multiplicity of conflicting or competing interests. Modern life has put on brighter colors: it has become more garish, more arresting, more mesmeric. Society has become more enticing, and lures of pleasure abound on every side. And all this is making the Church seem very grey and somber, and her slow, old-fashioned ways appear like a "one-horse shay" amid the bright, swift times of automobile and airplane! And therefore the Church must "hurry up" and make her services more pleasant and savory. Her themes must be "up-to-date." They must be "live" subjects for "live" men! They must be even a little sensational if they are to catch the interest of men who live in the thick of sensations from day to day. I can quite understand men who take this position, and I think they offer certain reasonable counsels which it will be our wisdom to heed. But on the other hand I think the road is beset with perils which we must heed with equal vigilance. The Apostle Paul recognized changing assortments of circumstances, and he resolved upon a certain elasticity, and he became "all things to all men" that he might "save some." But in all the elasticity of his relations he never changed his themes. He moved amid the garishness of Ephesus, and Corinth, and Rome, but he never borrowed the artificial splendor of his surroundings and thereby eclipsed the Cross. No "way of the world" seduced him from his central themes. Wherever he went, whether to a little prayer-meeting by the river-side in Philippi, or amid the aggressive, sensational glare of Ephesus or Corinth, he "determined to know nothing among men save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." And I am persuaded that amid all the changed Conditions of our day--the social upheavals, the race for wealth, the quest of pleasure, we shall gain nothing by hugging the subordinate, or by paying any homage to the flippancy and frivolity of the time. The Church is in perilous ways when she begins to borrow the sensational notes of the passing hour. One of the clearest and wisest counselors of our time, a man who knew the secrets of men because he dwelt in "the secret place of the Most High," gave this straight counsel to the ministry a little while ago: "Against religious sensationalism, outré sayings, startling advertisements, profane words, irreverent prayers, the younger ministry must make an unflinching stand, for the sake of the Church and the world, for the sake of their profession and themselves." I do not think these words describe an imaginary peril. The peril is already at our gates; in some quarters it has been an actual menace to our worship, and here and there the menace has become a "destruction that wasteth at noonday." There is a certain reserved and reticent dignity which will always be an essential dement in our power among men. We never reach the innermost room in any man’s soul by the expediencies of the showman or the buffoon. The way of irreverence will never bring us to the holy place. Let us be as familiar as you please, but let it be the familiarity of simplicity, the simplicity which clothes itself in all things natural, chaste, and refined. And I think if we were to exercise ourselves upon things supremely beautiful we should find that we had hit upon the supremely sensational, and that the out-of-the-way themes, the glaring titles, the loud advertisements, are undesirable ministers in the quest and cure of souls. What are the needs of the people who face us in the pews? In their innermost souls what do they crave? Are they hungering for the rediscussion of newspaper topics, with only the added flavor of the sanction of the sanctuary? Shall the preacher be just a visible editor, presenting his message amid the solemn inspirations of prayer and praise? What is the apostolic guidance in the matter? When I turn to apostolic witness and preaching I am growingly amazed at the fulness and glory of the message. There is a range about it, aha a vastness, and a radiance, and a color which have been the growing astonishment of my latter years. When I turn to it I feel as though I am in Alpine country; majestic heights with tracts of virgin snow; suggestions of untraversed depths with most significant silence; mighty rivers full and brimming all the year round; fields of exquisite flowers nestling beneath the protecting care of precipitous grandeur; fruit-trees on the lower slopes, each bearing its fruit in its season; the song of birds; the moving air; the awful tempest. Turn to one of Paul’s epistles, and you will experience this sense of air, and space, and height, and grandeur. Turn to Ephesians, or Colossians, or Romans, and you feet at once you are not in some little hill-country, and still less on some unimpressive and monotonous plain, you are in mountainous country, awful, arresting, and yet also fascinating, companionable, intimate. In Ephesians you lift your wondering eyes upon the ineffable Glory, but you also wander by rivers of grace, and you walk in paths of light, and you gather "the fruits of the Spirit" from the tree that grows by the way. I say it is this vastness, this manifold glory of apostolic preaching which more and more allures me, and more and more overwhelms me as the years of my ministry go by. There is something here to awaken the wonder of men, to lead them into holy awe, to brace their spirits, to expand their minds, and to immeasurably enlarge their thought and life. And what is true of apostolic preaching has been true of all great preaching down to this very hour. Take Thomas Boston. We are told that his language was "tasked and strained to the utmost, to admeasure and to understand," when he spoke of "those redemptive blessings which meet all men’s necessities . . . ’the full and irrevocable forgiveness of sins; reinstatement in the divine favor and friendship; the gift of the Holy Spirit in his enlightening, purifying, and peace-giving influences, turning men into living temples of the living God; victory in death and over death; the reception of the soul at death into the Father’s house, and the beatific vision of God." These were the themes of transcendent interest which enriched and glorified the preaching of Thomas Boston, and which made it so mighty a power for the highest good that there was scarcely a cottage home in all Ettriek in which some of his converts could not be found. Or take Spurgeon. You may not like his theology. You may resent some of the phraseology in which his theology is enshrined. But I tell you that, with Spurgeon’s preaching as your guide, your movements are not limited to some formal exercise on a barren asphalt area, or confined to the limits of some small backyard. Hear him on the love of God, on the grace of Christ Jesus, on the communion of the Holy Ghost. Hear him on such texts as "Accepted in the Beloved," "The Glory of His Grace," "The Forgiveness of Sins," "The Holy Spirit of Promise," "The Exceeding Greatness of His Power to Usward Who Believe "--hear him on themes like these, and you have a sense of vastness kindred to that which awes you when you listen to the Apostle Patti. Every apparently simple division in the sermon is like the turning of the telescope to some new galaxy of luminous wonders in the unfathomable sky. Or take Newman. What was it that held the cultured crowds in St. Mary’s enthralled in almost painful silence? I know there was the supreme genius of the preacher. There was also that mysterious fascination which always attaches to the mystic and the ascetic, to those who are most evidently detached from the jostling and heated interests of the world. But above and beyond these there was the vastness and the inwardness of the themes with which he dealt. His hearers were constrained from the study to the sanctuary, from the market-place to the holy place, even to "the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." The very titles of his sermons tell us where he dwelt: "Saving Knowledge," "The Quickening Spirit," "The Humiliation of the Eternal Son," "Holiness Necessary for Future Blessedness," "Christ Manifested in Remembrance,’’ "The Glory of God." The very recital of the themes enlarges the mind, and induces that sacred fear which is "the beginning of wisdom." The preacher was always moving in a vast world, the solemn greatness of life was continually upon him, and there was ever the call of the Infinite even in the practical counsel concerning the duty of the immediate day. I say this has been the mood and the manner of all great and effective preaching. It was even so with the mighty preaching of Thomas Binney. "He seemed," says one who knew him well, "to look at the horizon rather than at an enclosed field, or a local landscape. He had a marvelous way of connecting every subject with eternity past and with eternity to come." Yes, and that was Pauline and apostolic. It was as though you were looking at a bit of carved wood in a Swiss village window, and you lifted your eyes and saw the forest where the wood was nourished, and, higher still, the everlasting snows! Yes, that was Binney’s way, Dale’s way, the way of Bushnell, and Newman, and Spurgeon--they were always willing to stop at the village window, but they always linked the streets with the heights, and sent your souls a-roaming over the eternal hills of God. And this it is which always impresses me, and impresses me more and more the solemn spaciousness of their themes, the glory of their unveilings, their wrestling with language to make the glory known, the voice of the Eternal in their practical appeals; and this it is which so profoundly moved their hearers to "wonder, love, and praise." Well now, is our preaching to-day characterized by this apostolic vastness of theme, this unfolding of arresting spiritual wealth and glory? I ask these questions not that we may register a hasty and careless verdict, but to suggest a serious and personal inquiry. Dr. Gore, the Bishop of Oxford, has been recently telling us what he thinks is the perilous tendency of the ministers and teachers of the Protestant religion. He declares that we are seeking refuge from the difficulties of thought in the opportunities of action. That is a very serious suggestion. It would mean that we are intensely busy in the little village shop, and have no vision of the pine forests, or of the august splendors of the everlasting hills. And it would mean something more than this. We are not going to enrich our action by the impoverishment of our thought. A skimmed theology will not produce a more intimate philanthropy. We are not going to become more ardent lovers of men by the cooling of our love for God. You cannot drop the big themes and create great saints. But altogether apart from what Dr. Gore thinks of our preaching, what do we think of it ourselves? In the light of the example of the Apostle Paul, of his teaching and preaching, and by the example of the other great preachers I have named, how does it fare with our familiar themes? Are they always in the village shop, or is there always a suggestion of the mountains about them? Are they thin, and small, and of the dwarfed variety? Can our language very easily say all that we have got to say, or does it fail to carry the glory we would fain express? Is it not true that our language is often too big for our thought, and our thought is like a spoonful of sad wine rattling about in a very ornate and distinguished bottle? Men may admire the bottle, but they find no inspiration in the wine. Yes, men admire, but they do not revere; they appreciate, but they do not repent; they are interested, but they are not exalted. They say, "What a fine sermon!" not, "What a great God!" They say, "What a ready speaker!" and not, "Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" It is this note of vastitude, this ever-present sense and suggestion of the Infinite, which I think we need to recover in our modern preaching. Even when we are dealing with what we sometimes unfortunately distinguish as "practical" duties we need to emphasize their footage in the eternal. It is at the gravest peril that we dissociate theology and ethics, and separate the thought of duty to men from the thought of its relation to God. When the Apostle Paul, in the twelfth chapter of Romans, begins to be hortatory, preceptive, practical, it is because he has already prepared the rich bed in which these strong and winsome graces may be grown. Every precept in the twelfth chapter sends its roots right down through all the previous chapters, through the rich, fat soil of sanctification and justification, and the mysterious energies of redeeming grace. We employ a universe to rear a lily-of-the-valley. We need the power of the Holy Spirit to rear a fruit of the Spirit. We require evangelical grace if we would create evangelical patience. We require "the truth as it is in Jesus" if we would furnish even a truly courteous life. Ruskin says that if you were to cut a square inch out of any of Turner’s skies you would find the infinite in it. And it ought to be that if men were to take only a square inch out of any of our preaching, they would find a suggestion which would lead them to "the throne of God and of the Lamb." All this means that we must preach upon the great texts of the Scriptures, the fat texts, the tremendous passages whose vastness almost terrify us as we approach them. We may feel that we are but pigmies in the stupendous task, but in these matters it is often better to lose ourselves in the immeasurable than to always confine our little boat to the measurable creeks along the shore. Yes, we must grapple with the big things, the things about which our people will hear nowhere else; the deep, the abiding, the things that permanently matter. We are not appointed merely to give good advice, but to proclaim good news. Therefore must the apostolic themes be our themes: The holiness of God; the love of God; the grace of the Lord Jesus; the solemn wonders of the cross; the ministry of the Divine forgiveness; the fellowship of His sufferings; the power of the Resurrection; the blessedness of divine communion; the heavenly places in Christ Jesus; the mystical indwelling of the Holy Ghost; the abolition of the deadliness of death; the ageless life; our Father’s house; the liberty of the glory of the children of God. Themes like these are to be our power and distinction. "0 thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up into the high mountain. O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up thy voice with strength: lift it up: be not afraid: say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!" If such is to be the weighty matter of our preaching, we surely ought to be most seriously careful how we proclaim it. The matter may be bruised and spoiled by the manner. The work of grace may be marred by our own ungraciousness. We may fail to grip and hold because of our inconsiderate clumsiness. There are certain things which it is necessary to avoid if we would give even great themes directness and wing. First of all, we must avoid a cold officialism. There is nothing more uncongenial to me, as I move about amid the venerable stones and the subduing presence’s of Westminster Abbey, than to hear the cold, heartless, wonderless recitals of the official guides. Yes, there is one thing more uncongenial still, to hear the great evangel of redeeming love recited with the metallic apathy of a gramophone, with the cold remoteness of an unappreciative machine. And that is our peril. The world is tired of the mere official and is hungry for the living man. It wants more than a talker, it seeks the prophet. It wants more than a sign-post, it seeks a Greatheart who knows the ways of Zion, who has found them in the travail of his own soul, and who exults in their fountains and flowers, and in all their exquisite delights. The mere official spectralizes the grandest themes, he offers men a phantom deliverance and a phantom feast. "I’ve been to church," says Robert Louis Stevenson, in one of his letters, "I’ve been to church, and I am not depressed!" Walk down the suggestive lane of that phrase, and ponder its significance. "I once heard a preacher," says Emerson in a familiar passage, "who sorely tempted me to say I would go to church no more. A snowstorm was falling around us. The snowstorm was real; the preacher merely spectral, and the eye felt the sad contrast in looking at him, and then out of the window behind him, into the beautiful meteor of the snow. He had lived in vain. He had no one word intimating that he had laughed or wept, was married or in love, had been commended, or cheated, or chagrined. If he had ever lived and acted, we were none the wiser for it. The capital secret of his profession, namely, to convert life into truth, he had not learned." Yes, he was a mere official, wrenched from the innermost vitalities of his office. If he had ever had "the vision splendid," it had faded from his heaven, and no longer inspired his soul with light and flame. His words were only words, they were not spirit and life; he dwelt in the outermost courts of the temple, near to all the other traffickers in holy things--he was not a servant of the holy place, not a living priest of the living God. And his peril is our peril, subtle and insistent, the peril of remoteness from central issues, the peril of making substances appear shadows, and of making the holy splendors of grace seem like immaterial dreams. And, therefore, may we not fitly add to our private devotional liturgy an extra intercession, and may it not be this: "From all cold officialism of mind and heart; from the deadliness of custom and routine; from worldliness in which there is no spirit, and from ministry in which there is no life; from all formality, unreality, and pretence, good Lord, deliver us!" And there is a second temptation which, if we yield to it, will impair the efficiency of even mighty themes, the peril of dictatorialism. I am not suggesting that we are to affect a limp in our preaching, and that we are to proclaim the word with trembling hesitancy and indecision. But there is a world of difference between the authoritative and the dictatorial. In these realms the authoritative messenger is clothed with humility, the dictatorial messenger is clothed with subtle pride. One walks on stilts, the other "walks in the fear of the Lord." The dictatorial is self-raised, the authoritative comes "from above." And, therefore, the authoritative carries an atmosphere as well as a message, it has grace as well as truth. The dictatorial may have the form of truth, but it does not carry the fragrance of the King’s garden; it lacks the grace of the Lord Jesus. Now, I am perfectly sure that here we find one reason why our ministry is often so ineffective we confuse the dictatorial with the authoritative, plainness with impressiveness, "straight speaking" with "speaking with tongues" as the Spirit gives us utterance. We "call a spade a spade," and think we have spoken the truth. And so we dictate, but we don’t persuade; we point the way, but few pilgrims take the road. Look at the oppressive presence of sin. We may deal with it authoritatively or dictatorially. The weight of our speech may be derived from the tiny elevation of our office, or from the sublime heights of the "heavenly places in Christ Jesus." If we speak dictatorially we shall be only combatants: if we speak authoritatively we shall be saviors. If we are only dictatorial we shall speak with severity; if we are authoritative we shall speak with medicated severity, and men and women will begin to expose their poisoned wounds to our healing ministry. If we are only dictatorial our speech will have the aloofness of a prescription; if we are authoritative we shall have the immediacy of a surgeon engaged in the work of practical salvation. Or take the dark and ubiquitous presence of sorrow. I have been greatly impressed in recent years by one refrain which I have found running through many biographies. Dr. Parker repeated again and again, "Preach to broken hearts!" And here is the testimony of Ian Maclaren: "The chief end of preaching is comfort. ... Never can I forget what a distinguished scholar, who used to sit in my church, once said to me: ’Your best work in the pulpit has been to put heart into men for the coming week!" And may I bring you an almost bleeding passage from Dr. Dale: "People want to be comforted .... They need consolation--really need it, and do not merely long for it. I came to that conclusion some years ago, but have never been able to amend my ways as I wish. I try, and sometimes have a partial success: but the success is only partial. Four or five months ago I preached a sermon on ’Rest in the Lord,’ and began to think I had found the track: but if I did I lost it again. Last Sunday week I preached on ’As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us.’ That, I think, was still nearer to the right thing; but I cannot keep it up." Brethren, if these men felt this need of the people, and also felt the difficulty of bringing their ministry to bear upon it, how is it with you and me? One thing is perfectly clear, the merely dictatorial will never heal the broken in heart, or bind up their bleeding wounds. Our power will not be found in our official rank, or in the respect paid to our vocation. Our power will be found in our authority, mysterious yet most real, an authority which is not the perquisite of human dignity or reward. We shall have to go to "the throne of God and of the Lamb," we shall have to tread the way which runs by the mystical river; we shall have to pluck the leaves of the tree which are for "the healing of the nations "; and with the exquisite tenderness of grace lay these leaves upon the wounds and the sorrows of our afflicted race. And for all this tremendous but privileged task, which I have sought to outline in this lecture, the presentation of great themes in a great way, ministering to the sin, and sorrow, and weakness of the world, we have the abundant resources of a bountiful God. We have "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost "; and with these as our allies God’s statutes will become our songs. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 46: 03.04. THE PREACHER IN HIS STUDY ======================================================================== LECTURE IV THE PREACHER IN HIS STUDY "A wise master-builder” I am to-day to ask your consideration to the subject of "The Preacher in His Study." What manner of man must the preacher be when he enters his workshop, and what kind of work shall he do? A little while ago I was reading the life of a very distinguished English judge, Lord Bowen, and in an illuminating statement of the powers and qualities required for success at the bar he used these words: "Cases are won in chambers." That is to say, so far as the barrister is concerned, his critical arena is not the public court but his own private room. He will not win triumph by extemporary wit, but by hard work. Cases are not won by jaunty "sorties" of flashing appeal, but by well-marshaled facts and disciplined arguments marching solidly together in invincible strength. "Cases are won in chambers." And if a barrister is to practically conquer his jury before he meets them, by the victorious strength and sway of his preparations, shall it be otherwise with a preacher, before he seeks the verdict of his congregation? With us, too, "cases are won in chambers." Men are not deeply influenced by extemporized thought. They are not carried along by a current of fluency which is ignorant where it is going. Mere talkativeness will not put people into bonds. Happy-go-lucky sermons will lay no necessity upon the reason nor put any strong constraint upon the heart. Preaching that costs nothing accomplishes nothing. If the study is a lounge the pulpit will be an impertinence. It is, therefore, imperative that the preacher go into his study to do hard work. We must make the business-man in our congregation feel that we are his peer in labor. There is no man so speedily discovered as an idle minister, and there is no man who is visited by swifter contempt. We may hide some things, but our idleness is as obtrusive as though the name of sluggard were branded on our foreheads. As indeed it is! And here we must most vigilantly guard against self-deception. We may come to assume that we are really working when we are only loafing through our days. The self-deception may arise from many causes. I have noticed that some people assume they are very generous, but it is simply because they have no system in their giving and no record of their gifts. You will find, when you get into your churches, that some people confuse the number of appeals they have heard with the number of times they have given; and the mere remembrance of the appeals makes them sweat under the burdened sense of their bounty. Their self-deception is not intentional: it is only consequential: they have very poor memories, and they use no system to aid them. And so it is in respect to labor. If we have no system we shah come to think we were working when we were only thinking about it, and that we were busy when we were only engaged. And, therefore, with all my heart I give this counsel,--be as systematic as a business-man. Enter your study at an appointed hour, and let that hour be as early as the earliest of your business-men goes to his warehouse or his office. I remember in my earlier days how I used to hear the factory operatives passing my house on the way to the mills, where work began at six o’clock. I can recall the sound of their iron-clogs ringing through the street. The sound of the clogs fetched me out of bed and took me to my work. I no longer hear the Yorkshire clogs, but I can see and hear my business-men as they start off early to earn their daily bread. And shall their minister be behind them in his quest of the Bread of life? Shall he slouch and loiter into the day, shamed by those he assumes to lead, and shall his indolence be obtrusive in the services of the sanctuary when "the hungry sheep look up and are not fed "? Let the minister, I say, be as business-like as the business-man. Let him employ system and method, and let him be as scrupulously punctual in his private habits in the service of his Lord, as he would ’have to be in a government-office in the service of his country. And to regularity let him add proportion. Let him estimate the comparative values of things. Let first things be put first, and let him give the freshness of his strength to matters of vital and primary concern. Gentlemen, all this will pay, and the payment will be made in sterling good. You will win the respect of your people, even of the most strenuous of them, and when they see that you "mean business" some of your obstacles will be already removed, and you will find an open way to the very citadels of their souls. Now if this large, honest road is to be followed we shall go into our workshops for systematic study. We shall not be desultory or trifling. We shall not waste time in looking for work, but we shall begin to work at once. We shall not spend the early hours of the day in raking for texts, but in comprehensive visions of truth. We must be explorers of a vast continent of truth, and the individual texts will find us out as we go along. Our very insight into particular truths depends upon our vision of broader truth. Our perceptiveness is determined by our comprehensiveness. Men whose eyes range over the vast prairies have intense discernment of things that are near at hand. The watchmaker, whose eyes are imprisoned to the immediate, loses his strength of vision, and soon requires artificial aid to see even the immediate itself. The big outlook makes you lynx-eyed: telescopic range gives you also microscopic discernment. We must study truth if we would understand texts, as we should study literature to understand the significance of individual words. How could you seize the significance of such a phrase as "rejoicing in hope," or "bless them which persecute you," found in the twelfth chapter of Romans, unless you see it drenched in the morning splendor of grace, and set in the radiant vistas of the sanctified life? We cannot preserve the real life of these things if we cut them out, and detach them, and regard them as having no vital and infinite relations. The fact of the matter is, these practical counsels of the Apostle Paul are not added to his letters as though they were an unrelated appendix, casually bound up with matter with which they have no critical relation. Every counsel has blood-relation-ship to all that has preceded it. We require the entire letter for the understanding of only one of its parts. A duty in chapter twelve shines with a light reflected from chapter five, and it pulses with a motive and constraint which is born in chapter eight. The unveiled truth interprets and empowers the practical duty. This is what I mean when I say that we are to be explorers of broad fields of revelation, and that we are to find our texts in these wide domains. I would, therefore, urge upon all young preachers, amid all their other reading, to be always engaged in the comprehensive study of some one book in the Bible. Let that book be studied with all the strenuous mental habits of a man’s student days. Let him put into it the deliberate diligence, the painstaking care, the steady persistence with which he prepared for exacting examinations, and let him assign a part of every day to attaining perfect mastery over it. You will find this habit to be of immeasurable value in the enrichment of your ministry. In the first place, it will give you breadth of vision, and, therefore, it will give you perspective and proportion. You will see every text as colored and determined by its context, and indeed as related to vast provinces of truth which might otherwise seem remote and irrelevant. And you will be continually fertilizing your minds by discoveries and surprises which will keep you from boredom, and which will keep you from that wearisome gin of commonplaces in whose accustomed grooves even the most stalwart grows faint. Wide journeyings and explorations of this kind will leave you no trouble about texts. Texts will clamor for recognition, and your only trouble will be to find time to give them notice. The year will seem altogether too short to deal with the waiting procession and to exhibit their wealth. Yes, you will be embarrassed with your riches instead of with your poverty. I know one minister who, as he walked home from his church on Sunday nights, would almost invariably say to a deacon, who accompanied him, and say it with shaking head and melancholy tones, "Two more wanted! Two morel" He would send the eyes of his imagination roving over the thin little patch which he had gleaned so constantly, and he was filled with doleful wonder as to where he should gather a few more ears of corn for next week’s bread! "Two more wanted! Two morel" He had no barns, or, if he had, they were empty! We must cultivate big farms, and we shall have well-stocked barns, and we shall not be moody gleaners searching for thin ears over a small and ill-cultivated field. In your study you will, of course, take advantage of the best that scholarship can offer you in the interpretation of the Word. Before preaching upon any passage you will make the most patient inquisition, and under the guidance of acknowledged masters you will seek to realize the precise conditions in which the words were born. And here I want most strongly to urge you to cultivate the power of historical imagination: I mean the power to reconstitute the dead realms of the past and to repeople them with moving life. We shall never grip an old-world message until we can re-create the old-world life. Many of us have only a partial power, and it leaves us with maimed interpretations. To a certain extent we can refashion the past, but it is like Pompeii, it is dead. We get a setting, but not the life. Things are not in movement. We cannot transpose our; selves back with all our senses, and see things in all their play and interplay, and catch the sounds and secrets in the air, and touch the hurrying people in the streets, or nod to the shepherd on the hills. We may see the past as a photograph: we do not see it as a cinematograph. Things are not alive! And to see men alive is by no means an easy attainment. We cannot get it by reverie: it is the fruit of firm, steady, illumined imagination. How are we to preach about Amos unless we can live with him on the hills of Tekoa, and see his environment as if it were part of our own surroundings, every sense active in its own reception: and tm-less we can go. with him into Bethel, and note the very things that he sees along the road, and see the moving, tainted, insincere and rotten life which is congested in the town? How can we enter into the teaching of the Prophet Hosea unless by the power of a vividly exercised imagination we recover his surroundings? The Book of Hosea is filled with sights and sounds and scents. We must go back to his day and all our senses must be as open channels to the impressions that appealed to him. We must go with him along the streets, we must look into the houses and workshops. We must see the baker at his oven and kings and princes in their palace. We must walk with him through the lanes and among the fields at dawn of day when "the morning cloud" is beginning to lift and the grass is drenched with "the early dew." We must see Hosea’s homeland if we would intimately appreciate his speech. Or, again, how are we going to preach, say, about the Lord’s tender ministries to the leper unless we can get into the leper’s skin, and look out through his darkened windows, and shrink with his timidity, or come running with him along the highway, and in his very person kneel before the Lord? We must see that man, hear him, feel him: nay, we must be the man if we would know how to preach about the Master’s words, "I will, be thou clean." I am urging the cultivation of the historical imagination because I am persuaded that the want of it so often gives unreality to our preaching. If we do not realize the past we cannot get its vital message for the present. The past which is unfolded in the pages of Scripture is to many of us very wooden: and the men and the women are wooden: we do not feel their breathing: we do not hear them cry: we do not hear them laugh: we do not mix with their humanness and find that they are just like folk in the next street. And so the message is not alive. It does not pulse with actuality. It is too often a dead word belonging to a dead world, and it has no gripping relevancy to the throbbing lives of our own day. And so I urge you to cultivate the latent power of realization, the power to fill with breath the motionless forms of the past. If needful, before you preach upon an old-world message, spend a whole morning in hard endeavor to recall and vitalize the old world, until it becomes so vivid that you can scarcely tell whether you are a preacher in your study, or a citizen in some village, or city, or empire of the past. Of course, you will consult other minds upon your message, not that you may immediately accept their judgments, but that you may pass them through the mill of your own meditations. Indeed it is, perhaps, not so much their particular judgments that we need as their general points of view. One of the best things we can obtain from a man is not individualized counsels on particular problems, but the general standpoint from which he surveys the kingdom of truth. I know it is necessary to have much mental fellowship with a man before you gain this knowledge. It is easier to gather his opinions than to acquire his mental attitudes and inclinations. It is easier to pick up the verdicts of his mind than to become acquainted with its pose. But it can be done. We may come to know, with sufficient accuracy, how a man would approach a subject, how he would lay hold of it. Now I think it is an exceedingly enriching discipline to seek to look at our themes from other men’s points of view. How would So-and-so look at this? By what road would he approach it? One of our English magazines has been lately propounding problems to its readers of this kind. One week the readers were asked to identify themselves with Dr. Johnson, with his mind and heart and manner, and give his probable opinions on Woman’s Suffrage! And I think some such similar discipline must be employed in relation to our interpretation of the Word. If I may give you my own experience, I have been in the habit of following this practice for many years. I ask,--how would Newman regard this subject? How would Spurgeon approach it? How would Dale deal with it? By what road would Bushnell come up to it? Where would Maclaren take his stand to look at it? Where would Alexander Whyte lay hold of it? You may think this a very presumptuous practice, and I have no doubt some of my conclusions would horrify the saintly men whose heart-paths I have presumed to trace. But here is the value of the practice, it broadens and enriches my own conception of the theme, even though I may not have correctly interpreted the other men’s points of view. I have looked at the theme through many windows, and some things appear which I should never have seen had I confined myself to the windows of my own mind and heart. But while I am advising you to consult other minds I must further advise you not to be overwhelmed by them. Reverently respect your own individuality. I do not advise you to be aggressively singular, for then you may stand revealed as a crank, and your influence will be gone. But without being angular believe in your own angle, and work upon the assumption that it is through your own unrepeated personality that God purposes that your light should break upon the world. Reverently believe in your own uniqueness, and consecrate it in the power of the Holy Spirit. Be yourself, and slavishly imitate nobody. We do not want mimic greatness but great simplicity. When we begin to imitate we nearly always imitate the non-essentials, the tertiary things that scarcely count. In my own college there was a peril of our turning out a species of dwarfed or miniature Fairbairns. We could so easily acquire the trick of his style,--that sharp antithetical sentence, doubling back upon itself, and which we fashioned like standardized pieces of machinery east in a foundry! I believe I became rather an expert in the process, and for some time I carried the Fairbairn moulds about with me, only unfortunately there was nothing in them! And so I counsel you not to borrow anybody’s moulds of experience, and not to be intimidated by any other man’s point of view. Consult him, judgments, but revere your own individuality, and respect the processes and findings of your own mind. You will find that the freshness of your own originality will give new flavor and zest to the feast which you set before your people. When your subject is chosen, and you have had the guidance of all that sound scholarship can give you, and you have had enriching communion with many minds, do not feel obliged to preach upon the theme on the following Sunday. It may be that a word will lay hold of you so imperatively as to make you feel that its proclamation is urgent, and that its hour has come. But I think it frequently happens that we go into the pulpit with truth that is undigested and with messages that are immature. Our minds have not done their work thoroughly, and when we present our work to the public there is a good deal of floating sediment in our thought, and a consequent cloudiness about our words. Now it is a good thing to put a subject away to mature and clarify. When my grandmother was making cider she used to let it stand for long seasons in the sunlight "to give it a soul!" And I think that many of our sermons, when the preliminary work has been done, should be laid aside for a while, before they are offered to our congregations. There are subconscious powers in the life that seem to continue the ripening process when our active judgments are engaged elsewhere. The subject "gets a soul," the sediment settles down, and in its lucidity it becomes like "the river of water of life, clear as crystal." Every preacher of experience will tell you that he has some sermons that have been "standing in the sun" for years, slowly maturing, and clarifying, but not yet ready to offer to the people. One of my congregation in Birmingham once asked Dr. Dale to preach upon a certain text in the epistle to the Romans, and he said he would seriously think about it. Long afterwards she reminded him of his promise, and she asked him when the sermon was coming. Dr. Dale answered her with great seriousness, "It is not ready yet!" At another time he was asked by another of his people to preach a course of sermons on some of the great evangelical chapters in the book of the prophecies of Isaiah. He made the same reply, "I am not ready yet." I came upon a similar instance in the life of Beecher. He was to preach at an ordination service in New England. He said to Dr. Lyman Abbott, "I think I shall preach a sermon on pulpit dynamics; you had better look out for it." "I did look for it," continued Dr. Abbott, "and it was nothing but a description of the incidental advantages of the ministry as a profession. When I next met Beecher I asked, ’Where is that sermon on pulpit dynamics?’ ‘It was not ripe,’ he replied." The weakness of smaller preachers is that their time is "always ready ": the mighty preachers have long seasons when they know their time "is not yet come." They have the strength to go slowly and even to "stand." They do not "rush into print," or into speech, with "unproportioned thought." They can keep the message back, sometimes for years, until some day there is a soul in it, and a movement about it, which tells them "the hour is come." Beware of the facility which, if given a day’s notice, is ready to preach on anything. Let us cultivate the strength of leisureliness, the long, strong processes of meditation, the self-control that refuses to be premature, the discipline that can patiently await maturity. "Let patience have her perfect work." I have a conviction that no sermon is ready for preaching, not ready for writing out, until we can express its theme in a short, pregnant sentence as clear as a crystal. I find the getting of that sentence is the hardest, the most exacting, and the most fruitful labor in my study. To compel oneself to fashion that sentence, to dismiss every word that is vague, ragged, ambiguous, to think oneself through to a form of words which defines the theme with scrupulous exactness,--this is surely one of the most vital and essential factors in the making of a sermon: and I do not think any sermon ought to be preached or even written, until that sentence has emerged, clear and lucid as a cloudless moon. Do not confuse obscurity with profundity, and do not imagine that lucidity is necessarily shallow. Let the preacher bind himself to the pursuit of clear conceptions, and let him aid his pursuit by demanding that every sermon he preaches shall express its theme and purpose in a sentence as lucid as his powers can command. All this will mean that the preparation of Sunday’s sermons cannot begin on Saturday morning and finish on Saturday night. The preparation is a long process: the best sermons are not made, they grow: they have their analogies, not in the manufactory, but in the garden and the field. I need not, perhaps, say that in all the leisurely preparation of a sermon we must keep in constant and immediate relation to life. The sermon is not to be a disquisition on abstract truth, some clever statement of unapplied philosophy, some brilliant handling of remote metaphysics. The sermon must be a proclamation of truth as vitally related to living men and women. It must touch life where the touch is significant, both in its crises and its commonplaces. It must be truth that travels closely with men, up hill, down hill, or over the monotonous plain. And, therefore, the preacher’s message must first of all "touch" the preacher himself. It must be truth that "finds" him in his daily life, truth that lies squarely upon his own circumstances, that fits his necessities, that fills the gaps of his needs as the inflowing tide fills the bays and coves along the shore. If the truth he preaches has no urgent relation to himself, if it does no business down his road, if it offers no close and serious fellowship in his journeyings, the sermon had best be laid aside. But the truth of a sermon must also make recognition of lives more varied than our own, and in the preparation of our sermons these must be kept in mind. I know that God "hath fashioned their hearts alike," and that the fundamental needs of men are everywhere the same: and yet there are great differences in temperament, and vast varieties of circumstances, of which we have to take account if our message is to find entry into new lives, and to have both attraction and authority. Perhaps you will permit me to illustrate by mentioning my own plan. When I have got my theme clearly defined, and I begin to prepare its exposition, I keep in the circle of my mind at least a dozen men and women, very varied in their natural temperaments, and very dissimilar in their daily circumstances. These are not mere abstractions. Neither are they dolls or dummies. They are real men and women whom I know: professional people, trading people, learned and ignorant, rich and poor. When I am preparing my work, my mind is constantly glancing round this invisible circle, and I consider how I can so serve the bread of this particular truth as to provide welcome nutriment for all. What relation has this teaching to that barrister? How can the truth be related to that doctor? What have I here for that keenly nervous man with the artistic temperament? And there is that poor body upon whom the floods of sorrow have been rolling their billows for many years--what about her? And so on all round the circle. You may not like my method: it probably would not suit you, and you may devise a better: but at any rate it does this for me,--in all my preparation it keeps me in actual touch with life, with real men and women, moving in the common streets, exposed to life’s varying weathers, the "garish day," and the cold night, the gentle dew and the driving blast. It keeps me on the common earth: it saves me from losing myself in the clouds. Gentlemen, our messages must be related to life, to lives, and we must make everybody feel that our key fits the lock of his own private door. With our purpose thus clearly defined, and keeping sight of actual men and women, we shall arrange our thought and message accordingly. There will be one straight road of exposition, making directly for the enlightenment of the mind, leading on to the capture of the judgment, on to the rousing of the conscience, on to the conquest of the will. This last sentence used figures of speech that are significant of military tactics, and we do, indeed, require something of military strategy, in its vigilance and ingenuity, in seeking to win Mansoul for the Lord. How to so expound and arrange the truth, along what particular ways to direct it, so as to change foes into allies and enlarge the bounds of the Kingdom of Christ,--that is the problem that confronts the preacher every time he prepares his sermon. And it may be, it probably will be, that you will reject outline after outline, outline after outline, discarding them all as too indefinite and uncertain, until one is planned which seems to lead undeviatingly to the much-desired end. First get your bare straight road, with a clear issue: go no further until that road is made: later on you may open springs of refreshment, and you may have even flowers and bird-song along the way. But, first of all, I say, "Prepare ye the way of the people: cast up, cast up the highway: gather out the stones." When all the preliminary labor is finished, and you begin to write your message, let me advise you not to be the bondslave to much-worn phraseology, and to forms of expression which have ceased to be significant. I do not counsel you to be unduly aggressive, and still less, irreverent, in your treatment of old terminology, but you will find amazing power in the newness of carefully chosen expressions, offered as new vehicles of old truth. A famous doctor told me that sickly people are often helped in their appetites by a frequent change of the ware on which their food is served. The new ware gives a certain freshness to the accustomed food. And so it is in the ministry of the word. A "new way of putting a thing" awakens zest and interest where the customary expression might leave the hearer listless and indifferent. And in this matter of expression let me add one further word. Do not foolishly attach value to carelessness and disorder. Pay sacred heed to the ministry of style. When you have discovered a jewel give it the most appropriate setting. When you have discovered a truth give it the noblest expression you can find. A fine thought can bear, indeed it demands, a fine expression. A well-ordered, well-shaped sentence, carrying a body and weight of truth, will strangely influence even the uncultured hearer. We make a fatal mistake if we assume that uncultivated people love the uncouth. I have heard Henry Drummond address a meeting of "waifs and strays," a somber little company of ragged, neglected, Edinburgh youngsters, and he spake to them with a simplicity and a finished refinement which added the spell of beauty to the vigor of the truth. There was no luxuriance, no flowery rhetoric: nothing of that sort: but the style was the servant of the truth, and, whether he was giving warning or encouragement, making them laugh or making them wonder, the sentences were "gentlemanly,’’ a combination of beauty and strength. And as for the illustrations we may use in our exposition of a truth I have only one word to say. An illustration that requires explanation is worthless. A lamp should do its own work. I have seen illustrations that were like pretty drawing room lamps, calling attention to themselves. A real preacher’s illustrations are like street lamps, scarcely noticed, but throwing floods of light upon the road. Ornamental lamps will be of little or no use to you: honest street-lamps will serve your purpose at every turning. Thus I conclude this consideration of "the preacher in his study." I need not remind you, after all I have said, that "a heavenly frame of mind is the best interpreter of Scripture." Unless our study is also our oratory we shall have no visions. We shall be "ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." In these realms even hard work is fruitless unless we have "the fellowship of the Holy Spirit." But if our study be our sanctuary, "the secret place of the Most High," then the promise of ancient days shall be fulfilled in us, "the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken ": and the work of the Lord shall have free course and be glorified. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 47: 03.05. THE PREACHER IN HIS PULPIT ======================================================================== LECTURE V THE PREACHER IN HIS PULPIT "The service of the sanctuary" I am to speak to-day on the preacher’s life and ministry in the pulpit. There is no sphere of labor more endowed with holy privilege and sacred promise, and there is no sphere where a man’s impoverishment can be so painfully obtrusive. The pulpit may be the center of overwhelming power, and it may be the scene of tragic disaster. What is the significance of our calling when we stand in the pulpit? It is our God-appointed office to lead men and women who are weary or wayward, exultant or depressed, eager or indifferent, into "the secret place of the Most High." We are to help the sinful to the fountain of cleansing, the bondslaves to the wonderful songs of deliverance. We are to help the halt and the lame to recover their lost nimbleness. We are to help the broken-winged into the healing light of "the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." We are to help the sad into the sunshine of grace. We are to help the buoyant to clothe themselves with "the garment of praise." We are to help to redeem the strong from the atheism of pride, and the weak from the atheism of despair. We are to help little children to see the glorious attractiveness of God, and we are to help the aged to realize the encompassing care of the Father and the assurance of the eternal home. This is something of what our calling means when we enter the pulpit of the sanctuary. And our possible glory is this, we may do it. And our possible shame is this, we may hinder it. When "the sick and the diseased" are gathered together we may be ministers or barriers to their healing. We may be added encumbrances or spiritual helps. We may be stumbling-blocks over which ’ our people have to climb in their desire to commune with God. Now we may not be able to command intellectual power. Ours may not be the gifts of exegetical insight, and luminous interpretation, and forceful and unique expression. We may never astound men by a display of cleverness, or by massive argumentative structures compel their admiration. But there is another and a better way at our command. With the powers and means that are ours we can build a plain, simple, honest altar, and we can invoke and secure the sacred fire. If we can never be "great" in the pulpit, when judged by worldly values, we can be prayerfully ambitious to be pure, and sincere, and void of offence. If the medium is not "big" we can make sure that it is clean, and that there is an open and uninterrupted channel for the waters of grace. To this end I think it is needful, before we go into the pulpit, to define to ourselves, in simple, decisive terms, what we conceive to be the purpose of the service. Let us clearly formulate the end at which we aim. Let us put it into words. Don’t let it hide in the cloudy realm of vague assumptions. Let us arrest ourselves in the very midst of our assumptions, and compel ourselves to name and register our ends. Let us take a pen in hand, and in order that we may still further banish the peril of vacuity let us commit to paper our purpose and ambition for the day. Let us give it the objectivity of a mariner’s chart: let us survey our course, and steadily contemplate our haven. If, when we turn to the pulpit stair, some angel were to challenge us for the state, merit of our mission, we ought to be able to make immediate answer, without hesitancy or stammering, that this or that is the urgent errand on which we seek to serve our Lord to-day. But the weakness of the pulpit is too often this:--we are prone to drift through a service when we ought to steer. Too often "we are out on the ocean sailing," but we have no destination: we are "out for anywhere," and for nowhere in particular. The consequence is, the service has the fashion of a vagrancy when it ought to be possessed by the spirit of a crusade. On the other hand a lofty, single, imperial end knits together the detached elements in the service, it makes everything co-operative, and all are related and vitalized by the pervasive influence of the common purpose. "Who keeps one end in’ view makes all things serve." If the end we seek is "the glory of God" everything in the service will pay tribute to the quest. Now let us see what this clearly formulated sense of sacred purpose will do for us. First of all, it will ensure the strong, gracious presences of reverence and order. Irreverence emerges when there is no sense of "the high calling.” We "trample the courts of the Lord" when we lose our sight of the gleam. Unless we see "the Lord, high and lifted up," irreverent and disorderly things will appear in our conduct of the service. We cannot keep them out. We shall sprawl and lounge about the pulpit. We shall take little part in the worship we profess to lead. Our idle curiosity will be more active than our spiritual obedience. We shall be tempted to be flippant in tone, to be careless in speech, and sometimes we may be tripped into actual coarseness and vulgarity. The first necessity to a refined pulpit ministry is reverence, and if we are to be reverent our eyes must be stayed upon "The King in His beauty." But let me mention a second security which is attained when the service is dominated by some great and exalted end. It will defend the preacher from the peril of ostentatious display. He will have power, but it will not be an exhibition. He will have light, but in the glory he himself will be eclipsed. His ministry will be transparent, not opaque. The vision of his people will not be stayed on him, it will gaze beyond him to the exalted Lord. When I was in Northfield two years ago I went out early one morning to conduct a camp-meeting away in the woods. The camp-dwellers were two or three hundred men from the Water Street Mission in New York. At the beginning of the service prayer was offered for me, and the prayer, opened with this inspired supplication: O Lord, we thank Thee for our brother. Now blot him out! And the prayer continued: Reveal Thy glory to us in such blazing splendor that he shall be forgotten." It was absolutely right and I trust the prayer was answered. But, gentlemen, if we ourselves are gazing upon the glory of the Lord we shall be blotted out in our own transparency. If we are seeking the glory of the Lord there will be about us a purity, and a simplicity, and a singleness of devotion which will minister to the unveiling of the King, and men will "see no man, save Jesus only." Everything m the service will be significant, but nothing will be obtrusive. Everything will meekly fall into place, and will contribute to a reverent and sober setting in which our Lord will be revealed, "full of grace and truth." Now all this will mean a revolution in the way in which some parts of the service are conducted. I would have you seriously consider the pathetic, nay the tragic weakness of much of our devotional worship. We frequently fix our attention upon the sermon when we seek to account for the comparative impotency of a service, when perhaps the real cause of paralysis is to be found in our dead and deadening communion with God. There is nothing mightier than the utterance of spontaneous prayer when it is born in the depths of the soul. But there is nothing more dreadfully unimpressive than extemporary prayer which leaps about on the surfaces of things, a disorderly dance of empty words, going we know not whither,--a mob of words carrying no blood, bearing no secret of the soul, a whirl of insignificant expressions, behind which there is no vital pulse, no silent cry from lone and desolate depths. It is not difficult to trace some of these weaknesses in pulpit prayer to their deeper cause. First of all, they are to be accounted for by our own shallow spiritual experience. We cannot be strong leaders of intercession unless we have a deep and growing acquaintance with the secret ways of the soul. We need to know its sicknesses,--its times of defilement, and fainting, and despair. We must know its Erie’s and moans when it has been trapped by sin, or when it has been wearied with the license of unhallowed freedom. And we must know the soul in its healings, when life is in the ascendant, when spiritual death has lost its sting, and the spiritual grave its victory. And we must know the soul in its convalescence, when weakness is being conquered as well as disease, and life is recovering its lost powers of song. And we must know the soul in its health, when exuberance has returned, and in its joyful buoyancy it can "leap as an hart." How are we going to lead a congregation in prayer if these things are hidden from us as in unknown worlds? I confess I often shrink from the obligation, when I think of the richly-experienced souls whom I have to lead in prayer and praise. I think of the depths and the heights of their knowledge of God. I think of their sense of sin. I think of their rapture in the blessedness of forgiveness. And I have to be their medium in public worship for the expression of their confessions, and their aspirations, and their adoring praise! I feel that I am like a shepherd’s pipe when they need an organ! They must often be "straitened" in me in the exercises of public communion. The preacher’s shallow experiences offer one explanation of the poverty of his intercession. But there is a second reason why our public devotions are frequently so impoverished. It is to be found in our imperfect appreciation of the supreme and vital importance of these parts of our services. They are sometimes described as "the preliminaries," matters merely concerning the threshold, a sort of indifferent passageway leading to a lighted room for the main performance! I do not know any word which is more significant of mistaken emphasis and mistaken values, and wherever it is truly descriptive of our devotions the congregation, which looks to the pulpit for sacred guidance will find barrenness and night. It we think of prayer as one of "the preliminaries" we shall treat it accordingly. We shall stumble up to it. We shall stumble through it. We shall say "just what comes to us," for anything that "comes" will be as good as anything else! Anything will do for a "preliminary.’’ We have prepared the words we are to speak to man, but any heedless speech will suffice for our communion with God! And so our prayerful people are chilled, and our prayerless people are hardened. We have offered unto the Lord God a "preliminary," and lo: "the heavens are as brass," and "the earth receives no rain." And I would mention, as a third reason for the weakness and shallowness of public devotion, the preacher’s lack of prayerfulness in private. If we are strangers to the way of communion in private we shah certainly miss it in public. The man who is much in "the way" instinctively finds the garden, and its fragrant spices, and its wonderfully bracing air, and he can lead others into it. But here, more than in anything else, our secret life will determine our public power. Men never learn to pray in public: they learn in private. We cannot put off our private habits and assume public ones with our pulpit robes. If prayer is an insignificant item in private it will be an almost irrelevant "preliminary" in public. If we are never in Gethsemane when alone we shall not find our way there with the crowd. If we never cry "out of the depths" when no one is near there will be no such cry when we are with the multitude. I repeat that our habits are fashioned in private, and a man cannot change his skin by merely putting on his gown. I am fixing your thoughts upon this common weakness in pulpit devotions because I am persuaded it is here we touch the root of much of our pulpit incapacity. If men are unmoved by our prayers they are not likely to be profoundly stirred by our preaching. I cannot think that there will ever be more vital power in our sermons than in our intercessions. The power that upheaves the deepest life of the soul begins to move upon us while we commune with God. The climax may come in the sermon: the vital preparations are made in the devotions. I have heard pulpit intercessions so tremendous in their reach, so filled with God, so awe-inspiring, so subduing, so melting, that it was simply impossible they should be followed by an unimpressive sermon. The "way of the Lord" had been prepared. The soul was awake and on its knees, and the message came as the uplifting "power of God unto salvation." And on the other hand I have heard prayers so wooden, so leaden, so dead, or with only a show of life in loud tones and crude declamation, that it was simply impossible to have sermons full of the power of the Holy Ghost. I would therefore urge you, when you are in your pulpit, to regard the prayers as the essentials and not the "preliminaries" of the service, and to regard your sermon as a lamp whose arresting beams are to be fed by a holy oil which flows from the olive tree of sacred communion with God. And there is a second "preliminary" in public worship which needs to be lifted into primary significance,--our reading of the word of God. Too frequently the Scripture lesson is just something to be "got through." No careful and diligent work is given to its choice. No fine honor is assigned to it in the service. And the consequence is this, the "lesson" is one of the dead spots in the service, and its deadening influence chills the entire worship. The momentous message is given without momentousness, and it is devoid of even the ordinary impressiveness which belongs to common literature. How few of us remember services where the Scripture-lesson gripped the congregation and held it in awed and intelligent wonder! They tell us that Newman’s reading of the Scriptures at Oxford was as great a season as his preaching. I know one man who always lights up the Burial Service by the wonderful way in which he reads the resurrection chapter in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. While he reads you can see and feel the morn dawning, even though you are in the home of the dead! You should have heard Spurgeon read Psalms 103:1-22! It is a mighty experience when a lesson is so read that it becomes the sermon, and the living word grips without an exposition. I said, "without an exposition." But there are expositions which are given in our manner, in our demeanor, in the very tones of our voice, in our entire bearing. I have been told that there was a fine and impressive homage in the way in which John Angel James used to open his pulpit Bible, and an equally subduing impressiveness in the way in which he closed it. These are not little tricks, taught by elocutionists: they are the fruits of character. If they are learned as little tricks they will only add to the artificiality of the service: if they are "the fruits of the Spirit" they will tend to vitalize it. If Scripture is to be impressively read it is of first importance that we understand it, that we have some idea of the general contour of the wonderful country, even though there are countless heights that we have never climbed, and countless depths that we have never fathomed. And if we are to have even this partial understanding of the lesson we must be prepared to give pains to it. I was deeply interested when I first went to Carrs Lane to examine Dr. Dale’s copy of the Revised Version from which he read the lessons in his pulpit. It bore signs of the most diligent devotion. In difficult chapters the emphatic words were carefully marked, and parenthetical clauses and passages were clearly defined. Dr. Dale’s making of an emphasis has sometimes been to me a revelation when I have read from his copy in the conduct of public worship. I mention this only to show what consecrated care one great expositor gave to the reading of the Scriptures. It is not elocution that we need, at least not the kind of elocution which in past years was given to theological students for the ministry. That was an imprisonment in artificial bonds which, for the sake of a galvanized life, destroyed all sense of weight and dignity. No, what we need, in the first place, is to exalt the ministry of the lesson in public worship, to set ourselves in reverent relationship to it, and then to give all needful diligence to understanding it and transferring our understanding to the people. Let us magnify the reading of the Word. Let us defend it with suitable conditions. Let us deliver it from all distractions. Let us keep the doors closed. Let no late-comers be loitering about the aisles while its message is being given. Let it be received in quietness, and it shall become manifest that God’s word is still a lamp unto men’s feet and a light unto their paths. And now, in pursuit of the one exalted purpose of glorifying God in our pulpit ministry, we shall give consecrated diligence to our common praise. Here again we are touching something which may be the abode of death or a fountain of resurrection life. And here again we are turning to something to which many of us pay but slight and indifferent regard. And once again I am seeking to convey to you the urgent conviction that every item in the service carries its own effective significance, and that carelessness concerning any part will inevitably lower the temperature of the entire worship. I am perfectly sure that it is with the hymns as it is with the reading of the Scriptures; our heedlessness is punished by antagonisms which make it doubly difficult to reach our supreme end. Many of the hymns we sing are artificial. They are superficial and unreal. They frequently express desires that no one shares, and which no healthy, aspiring soul should ever wish to share. Some of our hymns are cloistral, even sepulchral, smell-hag of death, and are far removed from the actual ways of intercourse and the throbbing pulse of common need. The sentiment is often sickly and anemic. It has no strength of penitence or ambition. It is languid, and weakly dreamy, more fitted for an afternoon in Lotus-land than for pilgrims who are battling their way to God. And yet these hymns are indifferently chosen, and we use and sing them with a detachment of spirit which makes our worship a musical pretence. The thing is hollow and devoid of meaning, and through the emptiness of this "preliminary" we lead our people to the truth of our message and hope that it will be received. It is a strangely unwise way, to prepare for spiritual receptiveness by a deadening formality which closes all the pores of the soul. Every artificiality in the service is an added barrier between the soul and truth: every reality prepares the soul for the reception of the Lord. The hymn before the sermon has often aggravated the preacher’s task. There is another matter which I should like to mention in connection with our hymns. Many of the hymns are characterized by an extreme individualism which may make them unsuitable for common use in public worship. I know how singularly sweet and intimate may be the communion of the soul with our Lord. I know that no language can express the delicacy of the ties between the Lamb and His bride. And it is well that the soul, laden with the glorious burden of redeeming grace, should be able to sing its secret confidence and pour out the strains of its personal troth to the Lord. "He loved me, and gave Himself for me!" But still I think that these hymns of intense individualism should be chosen with prayerful and scrupulous care. Public worship is not a means of grace wherein each may assert his own individuality and help himself from the common feast: it is a communion where each may help his brother to "the things which the Lord hath prepared for them that love Him." A congregation is not supposed to be a crowd of isolated units, each one intent upon a personal and private quest. The ideal is not that each individual should hustle and bustle for himself, stretching out his hand to touch the hem of Christ’s garment, but that each should be tenderly solicitous of every other, and particularly mindful of those with "lame hands" who are timid and despondent even in the very presence of the great Physician. And so the ideal hymn in pub-lie worship is one in which we move together as a fellowship, bearing one another’s sins, sharing one another’s conquests, "weeping with them that weep, and rejoicing with them that rejoice." In this wealth of widest sympathy we must select our hymns. There must be a hymn in which the sorrowful will lay his burden, and the joyful will help him to lift it. There must be a hymn for those who are "valiant for the truth," and the timid and the fearful may take courage while they sing it. There must be a hymn in which the newly-made bride shall see the sacred light of her own new day, and the newly-made widow will catch the beams of the eternal morn. There must be hymns in which old people and little children can meet together and see the beauty of the leaf that never withers, and the glory of the abiding spring. All this means that our hymns cannot be chosen at the last moment if they are to be vital factors in a living service. They will have to be diligently considered, and their content carefully weighed, and we shall have to estimate their possible influence upon the entire worship. Do you not feel the reasonableness of this, and the importance of it, if every hymn is to be a positive ministry in constraining the congregation to intimate fellowship with God? But even now I have not done with the musical portion of our worship. I want to urge you to cultivate friendship and most intimate communion with your organist. Enlist his spirit in your own exalted purpose. Make him realize, by the fellowship of your deepest desires, that he is a fellow-laborer in the salvation of men to the glory of God. Let the music be redeemed from being a human entertainment, and let it become a divine revelation. Let it never be an end in itself but a means of grace, something to be forgotten in the dawning of something grander. Let it never be regarded as an exhibition of human cleverness but rather as a transmitter of spiritual blessings: never a terminus, but always a thoroughfare. And therefore take counsel with your organist. Tell him what you want to do next Sunday. Do not be shy about leading the conversation into the deeper things. Do not keep him in the outer courts: take him into the secret place. Tell him your purpose in reference to each particular hymn, and what influence you hope it will have upon the people. Tell him what you are going to preach about, and lead him into the very central road of your own desires. Tell him you are going in quest of the prodigal, or to comfort the mourner, or to rouse the careless, or to encourage the faint. Tell him what part of the vast realm of "the unsearchable riches" you will seek to unveil to your people, and let his eyes be filled with the glory which is holding yours. Take counsel as to how he can co-operate with you, and let there be two men on the same great errand. Let him consider what kind of organ voluntaries will best minister to your common purpose and prepare the hearts of the people for the vision of God. Let a tune be chosen from the standpoint of what will best disclose the secret wealth of a hymn and open the soul to its reception. Never let the anthem be an "uncharted libertine,’’ playing its own pranks irrespective of the rest of the service,--at the best an interlude, at the worst an intolerable interruption and antagonism--but let the anthem be leagued to the dominant purpose, urging the soul in the one direction, and preparing "the way of the Lord." In all these simple suggestions I am offering you counsel of incalculable worth. A preacher and his organist, profoundly one in the spirit of the Lord Jesus, have inconceivable strength in the ministry of redemption. And indeed what I have said about the organist I would say concerning everybody who has any office in the service of the sanctuary. Let it be your ambition to make them co-operate in the purpose that possesses you. Your pulpit ministry is helped or hindered by everybody who has to deal with your congregation, even to the "doorkeeper in the house of the Lord." And, therefore, let your ushers know that they may be your fellow-laborers, not merely showing people to their seats, but by the spirit and manner of their service helping them near to God. Let every one of your helpers be on the inside of things, and in their very service worshipping God "in spirit and in truth." Gentlemen, there is nothing petty or priggish in all this. A prig is a man who has never seen or has lost the august, and who is, therefore, swallowed up in his own conceit. I am seeking to depict a preacher who lives in the vision of the august, and who desires to lift into its splendor even the obscurest ministry of the sanctuary. There are portions of our services that are vagrant, unharnessed to the central purpose, and I want to recover their power to the direct mission of the salvation of men,--and it can only be done when the minister takes his fellow-workers into his counsels, and makes them at home in the secret desires of his own soul. We must cease to regard the sermon as the isolated sovereign of the service, and all other exercises as a retinue of subordinates. We must regard everything as of vital and sacred importance, and everything must enter the sanctuary clothed in strength and beauty. And so with these mighty allies of prayer, and Scripture, and music, all pulsing with the power of the Holy Ghost, we shah give to a prepared people the message of the sermon. There are some questions about the sermon on which I am comparatively indifferent. Whether it shall be preached from a full manuscript or from notes, whether it shall he read, or delivered with greater detachment; these questions do not much concern me. Either method may be alive and effective if there be behind it a "live" man, real and glowing, fired with the passion of souls. Our people must realize that we are bent on serious business, that there is a deep, keen quest in our preaching, a sleepless and a deathless quest. They must feel in the sermon the presence of "the hound of heaven," tracking the soul in its most secret ways, following it in the ministry of salvation, to win it from death to life, from life to more abundant life, "from grace to grace," "from strength to strength," "from glory to glory." And in all our preaching we must preach for verdicts. We must present our case, we must seek a verdict, and we must ask for immediate execution of the verdict. We are not in the pulpit to please the fancy. We are not there even to inform the mind, or to disturb the emotions, or to sway the judgment. These are only preparative along the journey. Our ultimate object is to move the will, to set it in another course, to increase its pace, and to make it sing in "the ways of God’s commandments." Yes, we are there to bring the wills of men into tune with the will of God, in order that God’s statutes may become their songs. It is a blessed calling, frowning with difficulty, beset with disappointments, but its real rewards are "sweeter than honey and the honeycomb." There is no joy on earth comparable to his who has gone out with the great Shepherd, striding over the exposed mountain, and’ through deep valleys of dark shadow, seeking His sheep that was lost: no joy, I say, comparable to his when the sheep is found, and the Shepherd lays it on His shoulder rejoicing, and carries it home to the fold. "Rejoice with Me, for I have found My sheep which was lost!" And every one who has shared in the toil of the seeking shall also share in the joy of the finding--" Partaker of the sufferings" he shall also be "partaker of the glory." He shall assuredly "enter into the joy" of his Lord. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 48: 03.06. THE PREACHER IN THE HOME ======================================================================== LECTURE VI THE PREACHER IN THE HOME "From house to house" In our previous lectures we have been considering the preacher’s calling, the glory of his themes, the studious preparation of his message, and the presentation of the message in the sanctuary amid conditions which have been ordered and fashioned to be allies of the truth. And now we are to consider the preacher’s calling when he leaves the public sanctuary and enters the private home. There is a change of sphere but no change of mission. The line of purpose continues unbroken. He is still a messenger, carrying good news; he is still an ambassador, bearing the decrees of the eternal God. His audience is smaller, his business is the same. Now the difficulty of delivering a message is in inverse proportion to the size of the audience. The greater the audience the easier the task: with a diminished audience our difficulties are increased. I know that a crowd brings its perils, and they are very subtle, and we are not always doing our strongest work when we are least conscious of the dangers. Crowds may add to our comfort but they do not necessarily add to our Spiritual triumphs. We may" be least effective When we feel our work to be easiest, and we may be in the most deadly grips with things when we have difficulties and reluctance’s on every side. Now, I think that the common experience is this, that the difficulties of the messenger become multiplied as his hearers become few. It is a harder thing to speak about our Lord to a family than to a congregation, and it is harder still to single out one of the family and give the message to him. To face the individual soul with the word of God, to bring to him the mind of the Master, whether in counsel or encouragement, in reproof or comfort, is one of the heaviest commissions given to our charge. Where there are ten men who can face a crowd there is only one who can face the individual. What is the explanation of it? Well, in the first place, the fear of a man is a much more subtle thing than the fear of men. The fear of a man bringeth a most insidious snare, and too often the fear is created by the mere accidents of circumstance and not by any essential gifts of character. We are intimidated by the office rather than by the officer: by a man’s talents rather than by his disposition: by his wealth rather than by his personality. Nay, our timidity sometimes arises from the splendor of a man’s house rather than from any splendor in the tenant. And from all this kind of fear the preacher is not exempt. The snare is ever about him, and he may measure his growth in grace by the strength with which he meets the snare and overcomes it. It was a noble type of courage which inspired Paul to "fight with beasts at Ephesus ": it was a nobler courage with which he confronted the Apostle Peter, reputed to be "a pillar of the Church," and "withstood him to the face because he stood condemned." I confess that this part of our commission, the carrying of the message to the individual, was the greatest burden of my early ministry. Of course it is perfectly natural that in our earliest ministry this burden should be the heaviest. There is our lack of experience, there is the timidity of untried powers, there is the deference we pay to years,--all these tend to make us fearful and reserved, and disinclined to speak to individuals of their personal relationship to the Lord. A sermon is easier than a conversation. And yet from the very beginning of our ministry this obligation is laid upon us, and we cannot neglect it without imperiling the health and welfare of immortal souls. And how we shrink from it! I vividly remember the first battle-royal I had with the temptation soon after my ministry began. I heard on excellent authority that one of my people was "giving way to drink." He was a man of some standing in the church, and he was possessed of considerable wealth. I had already preached more than one temperance sermon, but these had been general messages addressed to a congregation. I was now ordered by the Master to carry the message to an individual, and to tactfully withstand him to his face, because he stood condemned! How I wriggled under the commission! How I shrank from it! How I dallied with it! And even when I had fought my way almost to his door, I lingered in the street in further faithless loitering. But at length courage e0nquered fear, I faced my man, tremblingly gave him my message, and by the grace of God he heard the voice of God and was saved from a horrible pit and the miry clay. Gentlemen, it seemed as though I could preach a sermon and never meet a devil: but as soon as I began to take my sermon to the individual the streets were thick with devils, and I had to be like the armed man in "The Pilgrim’s Progress" who, "after he had received and given many wounds to those that attempted to keep him out, cut his way through them all, and pressed forward into the palace." But I will say again, "the fear of man bringeth a share." But there is perhaps a second reason why we shrink from these individual commissions. There is a certain secularity which is often embedded in our characters and which makes us half-ashamed W "talk religion" in private. The "wares" seem out of place. We can "talk" politics, or business, or sport, but religion seems an intrusion which will certainly be resented. Men can scent "the garments of myrrh" afar off, and turn away as they approach. And the secularity in our souls takes sides with this aversion, and we are snared into sinful silence, and our solemn charge is unfulfilled. And thus the spirit of the world makes its home in our souls and defines the limits of our commission. The Lord issues the decree, but worldliness is permitted to appoint its bounds. And I will mention a third reason why the individual ministry is beset by so much reluctance and timidity. There is a certain shyness which makes us shrink from any assumption of moral and spiritual superiority. When we minister in the pulpit, and proclaim the exacting commandments of the Lord, we may regard the proclamation as the utterance of a voice not our own, and we may place ourselves among the struggling, stumbling congregation, which is listening to decrees from the great white throne. We can preach to a crowd and yet number ourselves in its faltering ranks. But when we go to the individual, to minister in the things of the higher life, we go not merely as a voice but as an incarnation. We cannot hide from ourselves that we go not only with the strength of a message but in the assumption of an attainment. And sometimes we shrink from it, lest the assumption should appear presumption, and lest we should seem tainted with Pharisaic pride and profession. That is an exceedingly subtle temptation. It is born amid the delicate reserves and reticence of true humility, but it may be perverted into the faithlessness of unlawful shame. It is one thing to be humble about our spiritual attainments, it is quite another thing to be betrayed into acting as though we had no tokens of heavenly favor, and no riches from the treasury of grace. There is a false modesty which makes us disloyal: there is a true humility which constrains us to make our boast in the Lord. The one may make us silent about ourselves, the other will make us silent about the Lord. There may be other explanations, besides those which I have named, why many of us are so indisposed to religious dealings with the individual man. But whatever the radical explanation may be, there is the fact: we fear the individual more than we fear the crowd. Multitudes of ministers can fish with a net who are very reluctant to fish with a line. But it is as clearly a part of our commission to go out after "the one" as to minister to "the ninety-and-nine": and therefore we are called upon to master our reluctance and our timidity’s, and with steady loyalty to carry our ministry from the pulpit into the home, and from the great assembly to the individual soul. Now I want to frankly confess my own conviction that in this attempted ministry to the home there is a pathetic waste of precious time. I have no confidence whatever in the ministry which calculates its afternoon’s work by the number of doorbells it has rung, and the number of streets it has covered, and the number of supposed "calls" that can be registered in the pastoral books. I attach little value to the breathless knocking at a door, the restless, "How do you do?" and the perspiring departure to another door where a similar hasty errand is effected. I attach even less value to a sharp, short series of afternoon gossiping which only skim the surfaces of things, and which never come within sight of those stupendous heights and depths that matter everything to immortal souls. "Wandering about from house to house . . . tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not." I say that this kind of ministry, burdensome and tiring as it certainly is, is effeminate work, and it is a tragic waste of a strong man’s time. But here again, a clear and well-defined purpose, large, luminous, sacred, and sanctifying, will be our sure defense against puerility’s and against all sinful trifling with time and strength. Ever and everywhere, in the pulpit and out of it, amid a crowd, with a few, or holding fellowship with the individual, the true minister will guide himself with the self-arresting challenge: "What am I after?" and he will continually refresh his vision and ambition by the contemplation of the apostolic aim:--"To present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." There is no need that a minister be pietistic just because he unceasingly cherishes a glorious end. Nay, the pious prig will be absolutely impossible where a man seeks to live in the glory of his "High calling in Christ Jesus." A lofty purpose can minister through lighter moods. It can consecrate church-bells and ring out a merry peal, as well as fire-bells and ring out its loud alarm. It can seek its serious ends through laughter as well as through tears. Its quest of the Holy Grail runs through many a bright and jocund day. It can use the ministries of wit and humor and yet never lose sight of its end. How true all this was of Spurgeon! He could fish in the sunniest seas I His geniality was ever the companion of his piety, and his smile was never far away from his tears. He followed a great purpose, and a big retinue of powers moved in his train. They moved with him in private as well as in public, when he communed with the individual and when he ministered to the crowd. And equally true was all this of Moody. He was a child of light, luminously human in the service of the divine, all the more human because he increasingly sought the glory of God. He moved and won men by his naturalness. He could throw his line through wit and humor, but in the central heart of all his merriment there was a holy place where notching dwelt that was common or unclean. And so, I say, a minister need not be a Stiggins --a melancholy Stiggins because his life is possessed of a lofty and serious end. On the other hand, let his life lose its holy and well-defined purpose, and there is no man who will so surely drivel into effeminacy’s, into idle puerility’s, into empty gossiping, into petty conventions devoid of spiritual significance,--with the added tragedy that he may come to be satisfied with his barren lot. When, then, we leave our pulpit, and on the one sacred quest seek communion with the individual, what earl we do for him? First of all, we can bring to a man the ministry of sympathetic listening. You will find that sometimes this is all that a man requires, a sympathetic audience. It is not that he needs your speech: he needs your ears. "When I kept silence my bones waxed old." Unshared troubles bring on premature age. The trouble we can talk about loses some of its weight. An audience brings to many people a simplification of their grief. A strange light often breaks upon us when we are unfolding our troubles to another. When we begin to explain our difficulties we often explain them away. The problem is unraveled even while it is being described. You will find that this principle operates in the pulpit. While you are attempting to expound the truth to others you will see it yourself in clearer light. Things become luminous while they are being shared. They become transparent in fellowship. Our audience enriches our possessions. Now many people lack the audience and therefore they never come to their own. And we provide them with an audience, and our ministry to the individual is frequently just this provision of fellowship, the offer of an opportunity through which a soul can "speak" its way into light and liberty. Think how many haunting fears vanish away when we try to put them into words! Their strength is in their vagueness. They are terrible because they are ill-defined. They are often banished by expression. We seek to put them into expression and they are gone! A fear thus shared is very frequently a fear destroyed. How often I have had that experience in my ministry! I have sat and listened to men and women as they have poured out the story of their griefs and fears. Scarcely a word has passed my lips. I seemed to be doing nothing, but it may be that in such ministries more sacred energies are at work than we have conceived. Who knows what mystic powers are operative when two souls are in sympathetic relation, and one is apparently passively listening to the tale of the other’s woes? At any rate I have often been the silent partner in such fellowship, and often when I have come away the afflicted soul has said to me, "I cannot tell you how much you have helped me ": and I could see that by the mysterious workings of God’s grace the yoke had been made easy and the burden light. And so the minister provides the individual with an audience, but not only for the expression of trouble, and difficulty, and fear, but also for the transfiguration and enrichment of his joy. For joy that is never shared is never fully matured. A joy that tells its story is like some imprisoned bird that has found the sunny air of larger spaces. It is strengthened and vitalized, and it discovers new powers of rapture and song. Here again the audience enriches the songster by giving him occasion to sing. There are people who are laden with providential experiences, and they would become all the wealthier if they told their own simple story of grace. "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles," but he would be all the richer just to tell his minister this chapter in the Lord’s dealings with his soul. We strengthen a man’s faith when we give him opportunity of confession: we enrich his joy when we listen to his song in the Lord. But there is another side to this individual ministry. We are called upon by our God to bring to men not merely the strengthening grace of sympathetic listen-hag, but also the strengthening grace of sympathetic speech. What can we say to a man when we meet him face to face? Our God will inspire the counsel if we will cherish and seek His glory. He will appoint the means if we will revere His ends. If I will follow "the light" upon my path He will "keep my feet." It is in ministries to the individual soul that the promise of our Lord has rich and immediate fulfillment:--" It shah be given you in that same hour what ye shah speak." Our discernment’s shah be made sensitive, our affections shall be kept sympathetic, our judgments shah be enlightened, and our words shall be as keys that fit the locks, and the "iron gate" in men’s souls shall be opened. We need not trouble about the details of our approach to the individual if only our controlling purpose is clean and lofty. What, then, shall be our sovereign purpose in moving among men in common affairs? It will surely be to relate the common to the divine, and to bring the vision of the sanctuary into the street and the market and the home. We are to go among men helping them to see the halo on the commonplace, to discern the sacred fire in the familiar bush. In the sanctuary men are frequently conscious of the stirrings of a heavenly air, but they lose its inspirations in the streets. In the sanctuary they often catch the gleam of the ideal, and they often feel the Sacred Presence of the Lord in the ways of public prayer and praise, but the gleam fades away when they touch their daily work, and the Sacred Presence is lost in the crowded roads of business. It must be our ministry to help them to recover their lost inheritance, and to retain the sense of heavenly fellowship while they earn their daily bread. We do a mighty work when we keep a man’s sense of God alive amid all the hardening benumbments of the world. Sometimes a word will do it: sometimes even the word is not required. Ian Maclaren said that when Henry Drummond entered a room it seemed as though the temperature was changed. Everything looked and felt different, the medium of intercourse was brightened and clarified. Men’s spiritual senses get jaded, they lose their fine perceptions, the setting of life becomes common and profane, and it may be our gracious ministry, by the vigor of our fellowship, altogether apart from actual speech, to "refresh" them, and to restore to them the lost sanctities. It may be we Shall find some business-man living as though life were only a dreary and monotonous plain, and we may leave him "refreshed," having recovered the vision of "the hills of God." But it will also be our mission to recover the divine light, not only as it rests upon common labor, but as it rests upon the ordinary sorrows which so often appear somber and hostile. That is a very beautiful ministry, one of the most gracious privileges committed to our hands. We are to go where the cloud is low, and black, and frowning, and we are to reveal its silver lining. We are to find "springs in the desert." We are to find flowers of divine mercy, forget-me-nots of heavenly grace, growing in the heaviest and ruttiest roads. We are to go into homes where sorrow reigns, and it is to be our tender ministry to show that Jesus reigns. We are to find "the Church in the wilderness." You will esteem this a very precious privilege, and you will esteem it more and more as the years pass by. You will lie down to sweet sleep on the days when you have lightened the path of the sorrowful, when you have shown the divine gleam resting upon the clod, and when the timid, riven heart has been quieted in the assurance that God is near. I once called upon a cobbler whose home was in a little seaside town in the North of England. He worked alone in an exceedingly tiny room. I asked him if he did not sometimes feel oppressed by the imprisonment of his little chamber. "Oh, no," he replied, "if any feelings of that sort begin I just open this door!" And he opened a door leading into another room, and it gave him a glorious view of the sea! The little room was glorified in its vast relations. To the cobbler’s bench there came the suggestion of the infinite. And really, gentlemen, I think this expresses my conception of our ministry as we encounter men and women in their daily lot. We are to open that door and let in the inspiration of the Infinite! We are to go about skillfully relating everything to God:--the lowliest toil, the most unwelcome duty, the task that bristles with difficulty, the grey disappointment, the black sorrow,--we are to open the door, and let in upon them the light of the infinite purpose and the warm inspirations of eternal love. It may be that sometimes the opening of that door may startle and frighten a man rather than soothe and comfort him. It may be that he is deliberately keeping it closed, and in sinful comfort he is living unmindful of God. Well, then, we must not shirk our duty. We must gently but firmly open the door even though the light should strike like lightning, and the man is filled with present resentment. The resentment will pass, it will most probably change into gratitude, and in the recovered vision of God the man will recover himself and all the riches and powers of his lost estate. For thus saith the Lord, "Son of Man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die: and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life: the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity: but his blood will I require at thine hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity: but thou hast delivered thy soul." Now let no one think that this ministry to the individual is on our part an unmixed expenditure, attended by no corresponding returns. The personal recompense in such labor is abundant. In the first place we discover how strangely many are the varieties of human experience. The kaleidoscope of circumstances takes shapes and fashions of which we ourselves have never dreamed. And we shall find that the changed assortment of circumstances varies the conditions of warfare, and that, while the general campaign of life for all of us may be one and the same, the individual battles are never alike. Every life has its own peculiar field, and we shall discover conditions of warfare which we have never shared. And then, in the second place, through this variety and multiplicity of human needs we shall more gloriously apprehend the fulness and glory of our resources in grace. We are very tempted to interpret our own individuality as the common type, and to express our message through the medium of our own peculiar circumstances. It is a minister’s life that we see, and a minister’s perils, and a minister’s conflicts, and these are too often the settings of our sermons, and other men feel that they are living in another and alien world, and our counsels and warnings seem irrelevant. The ministry to the individual discovers the individuality of others, life breaks up into lives, each of its own fashion, and as we bring the common grace to the manifold needs our conception of grace is immeasurably glorified, "the same Lord over all being rich unto all that call upon Him." Now, for this ministry to the individual mere book knowledge is of little or no service. Our knowledge must be personal, experimental, practical, and immediate. We need an experimental knowledge of God. There must be something solid and satisfying. We must know something, something about which we can be dogmatic, and about which we can speak in words and tones of assurance. "I know": "I have felt": "I have seen": "I know whom I have believed and am persuaded ": --This must be the firm and confirming assurance which fills our confession of the grace and love of God. And to an expert-mental knowledge of God must be added an experimental knowledge of the King’s highway. If Greatheart is to guide the pilgrims from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City he must know the road, and he must be keen to recognize the inviting and perilous by-paths which are only flower-decked ways to destruction. And for all this we need an intelligent and experimental knowledge of the mysterious workings of our own heart, of our own inclinations and repulsion’s, and how in our own souls the enemy has conquered or been overthrown. And yet, with all this we shall meet with problems in our individual ministry for which we have no solution. We shah be asked questions to which we have no personal reply. There will be locks for which we have no keys. How then? There is nothing more pernicious for a minister and for his people than for him to assume knowledge and certainties which he does not possess. We discourage our people when we speak lightly and airily about heights that we have never climbed, and when we move with an air of familiarity in regions where we have no light. The best help you can offer some men is to tell them that you share their doubt and fear, and that the door at which they are knocking has never been opened to you. Let them feel your kinship in uncertainty where uncertainty reigns, and make no pretence of cloudless noon where there are only the doubtful rays of uncertain dawn. We are harmful in our ministry when we profess experiences which to ourselves and to others are only in the region of alluring dreams. When you are certain speak in faith, "nothing wavering": when you are uncertain, when the light is still dubious, speak like a man who is watching for the morning: "For we know in part, and we prophesy in part ": and concerning the things we know not it is a minister’s wisdom and piety to confess his ignorance, and to calmly and hopefully await the further unveiling. In all that I have said to you in this lecture I have assumed that in your intercourse with men you will act as "the friend of the Bridegroom." You are about His most sacred business, seeking to win the soul to the Lord, and to minister to the holy relationships of Bridegroom and bride. That is our business, and we must, therefore, be regularly watchful lest any mood or disposition of ours should give a false impression of the Bridegroom and scare away the prospective bride. It is needful that we be jealously careful lest the impression we give in the pulpit should be effaced when we get into the home. "Jesting, which is not convenient,’’ is never friendly to the Bridegroom. Spiritual moods are very sensitive, as sensitive and delicate as the awakenings of early love. Can you think of anything more exquisite than the love of a young girl, a love newly born in her soul, which she hides almost from herself, and in the most intense shyness shrinks from giving it expression? I know of only one thing more exquisite still,--the earliest mood of the soul when it is first "falling in Love" with the Lord. Yes, "the soul’s awakening" is more exquisite still. And this love for the Bridegroom can be checked and bruised by the Bridegroom’s friend; he can change its vision into fancies, and he can pervert its dawning passion into a transient dream. But, on the other hand, he may, by Christian grace and courtesy, and by "the strength which God supplies," confirm the "heart’s desire" of a would-be-lover until the soul, wooed by his message, and encouraged by his life, has become the consort of Him who is "the chief among ten thousand and the altogether lovely." I close this lecture with personal witness as to the spiritual good which has come my way through ministering to sick and troubled people, and to those who were beaten and crippled by the way. All the way along it has quickened and deepened my communion with God. Soon after I entered the ministry I was called upon to visit the senior elder of my church, who had been taken sick unto death. He had been a noble and stately figure among us, a certain old-world grace and courtesy reflecting the strength and dignity of his soul. He had been a great friend of the Master, and he had done his Master’s work in a great way. I saw him two or three days before he died, when it was known that the end might come at any time, and I found he was enjoying Dickens’ "Pickwick Papers "! I must have made some remark about it, and he replied very simply that he had always been fond of Pickwick, and that he would not be ashamed, when the Master came, to be found deep in the enjoyment of such innocent humor. I do not know what helpful ministry I brought to him, but I know that he gave to me a broadly human conception of matured piety, which all along the way has enriched my conception of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. In a very recent day of my ministry I went to see a man who had cancer in the throat. Time after time I had communion with him and never did a word of complaint escape his lips. The disease got fiercer hold upon him, his voice sank to a whisper, and at last all power of speech ceased. The first time I saw him after he had become dumb, he took a slip of paper and wrote these words upon it, "Bless the Lord, 0 my soul, and forget not all His benefits!" Again I say I know not what help I brought to him, but I know he gave to me the actual vision of higher range of human possibility, of severe and splendid triumph wrought in the power of divine grace. These two incidents are taken from the early days and the latter days of the last twenty years, and they are typical of a countless succession of ministerial experiences which have poured wealth into my own treasury, enriching my possession of faith and hope and love. And this, too, will be the happy record of your own labors. While you give you will receive. While you comfort you will be comforted. While you counsel you will be enlightened. While you lift another’s burden your own burden will be made light. For here, too, does the word of the Lord prevail: "He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 49: 03.07. THE PREACHER AS A MAN OF AFFAIRS ======================================================================== LECTURE VII THE PREACHER AS A MAN OF AFFAIRS "Like unto a merchantman" In the course of these lectures we have considered the life and ministry of the preacher in many varied relations,--in his study, in his pulpit, and in the home, and we have sought to realize, in all these varying conditions, the line of purpose and obligation. To-day we are to consider quite another relation, not, perhaps, so quick, and vital, and momentous as the others, and yet one which seriously affects the fruits of the others, either in the way of retarding or advancing them. I am to speak of the Preacher as a man of affairs, as one who meets and consults with other men in the business management of the church. And I am venturing to take the direction and tone of my thought from the teaching of the Master when He said that "the kingdom of Heaven is like unto a merchantman." That is to say, our Master commands, and appropriates, and sanctifies business instincts and aptitudes in the ministry of the kingdom. Talents and faculties, which are used in the affairs of the world, are to be used in the interests of our "Fathers business." "The children of the world" are not to be wiser than "the children of light." We are not to "scrap" the business gifts, and rely upon some mysterious influence which ’ works without them. We are to be vigilant, punctual, enterprising, decisive, surrendering all our senses to the work, and notably the ’king of all the senses, the sense which makes all other senses effective, the power of common sense. We are to be as merchantmen, men of sobriety, of wide sanity, of keen but cool judgment, alert but not hasty, zealous but circumspect, doing the King’s business in a business-like way. Now I think you would find it a very common confession that it is just here that many preachers fail. They may be acceptable and even powerful in the pulpit. They may be congenial and most welcome in the home. But they are impossible in business. No one can "get on" with them. They have no sense of management or address. They are inopportune when they think themselves seasonable, they are stupid when they think themselves persistent. Their "goods" may be admirable, but they lack the power to dispose of them. They can hold their own in the pulpit, but they have no strength in the vestry. They can "carry" a congregation, they cannot lead the Diaconate or the Session. They succeed as preachers but they fail as merchantmen. This lack of business ability may sometimes be traced to a deeper need from which it directly springs, and I wish you to consider two or three of these deeper things upon which our real business aptitude depends. First of all then, I should say that the primary requisite, if we are to be successful men of affairs, is that we ourselves be men. Some time ago an article appeared in an American magazine entitled "Is the preacher a molly-coddle?" In the course of the article the writer makes the following statement: "Among strong," steadfast, manly business men, as well as among the athletes of the baseball and foot-: ball field, there is a kind of belief or feeling that all preachers belong in some measure to the molly-coddle class." Now I suppose a molly-coddle is a man who lacks resolution, energy, or hardihood, and that the term is used in derision or contempt, and I am afraid it expresses the conception of the Christian preacher which is very commonly entertained by men of the world. I know, of course, that the man of the world is inclined to regard anything that looks beyond his own material circle as belonging to the effeminate, and his judgment is by no means the final standard of strong and healthy life. And yet we ought to listen to his judgment, and ponder its weight, even though we have finally to discard it as practically worthless. If there be any truth in the conception that the preacher is lacking in the elements of true manliness we ought to see to it that the occasion of the judgment is changed. We must get more iron into our blood, more vision into our ideals, more vigor into our purposes, more sacrifice into our services, more tenacity into our wills. We must get rid of all that is soft, and lax, and flabby, and lethargic, and manifest to men that combination of strength and gentleness which is the fruit of the finest piety and the characteristic of all true manliness. On the side of vision the preacher’s life should touch the romantic: on the side of labor he should touch the heroic: and in all his contact with men they should be made to feel his possession of a fresh and healthy vigor which clearly attests that he has found the fountain of vitality, and that he drinks of "the river of water of life." We certainly can never be successful merchantmen unless we are, first of all, men. A second necessity, if we are to be competent men of affairs, is a competent knowledge of men. Our fellow-officers in the government of the Church are not like so many billiard-balls, devoid of individuality, having precisely the same weight," running in precisely the same manner, and by their inherent constitution determined by precisely the same initiatives to a common motion. When we are dealing with men the further we can get away from the conception of a billiard-ball the better it will be for the progress of our business. We must study men, we must know their differences as well as their unites, in order that we may know what are the different motives which will produce a common movement. You will be surprised how many types of character there are within the circle of a Session or a Diaconate. There are the facile men, swift in vision and in judgment, seeing their goal and leaping to decision. There are the slow-witted men, following the others like a carrier’s wagon in the track of an automobile, arriving at clear vision through dim stages, first "seeing men as trees walking," and troubled by doubts and indecision’s. You will have these men to deal with, and it is needful you should know when they have only reached the "tree-walking" stage, lest you should unwisely hurry them along the half-darkened way. Then there are the genial men, the men whose dispositions are confluent and agreeable, a fervent fluid ready for any mould. There are also the fixed, the rigid, with dispositions that are only rarely ductile, and who are hurt and resentful if they are unseasonably squeezed into some newly-fashioned mould. Most surely you will meet such men, and it is a science and art of the finest human perception and ministry to soften their rigidity, almost without their knowing it, and to conduct their loosened spirit-into the altered fashion of a new day. And there are the old men, valuable because of their years, retrospective, often finding their "golden age" in the days that are past, in "the days that have been," their souls inclining to conservatism and venerable convention. And things of others." That in itself is an exceedingly valuable exercise, just to recognize that there are other fields whose contour and features differ from our own. Then with disciplined discernment’s we must discipline our imagination. Common discernment may give us the external configuration of another man’s field, but only a fine imagination will give us his interpretation of it. I am using the word "imagination" in the sense of enlightened sympathy, the power to get beneath another man’s skin, and look out through his windows, and obtain his view of the world. I mean the power by which one man can identify himself with another, can become almost incorporate with another, and realize his general sense and appreciation of the things with which we deal. This is by no means easy: if any man thinks it easy, he has certainly not yet mastered the strong and gracious art. Casting my mind over biography and autobiography I do not know any man who possessed the gift in richer measure than Frederick Robertson of Brighton. He knew men in a most surprising manner, and, even though their judgments and convictions differed almost immeasurably from his own, he made laborious effort to understand their positions and to appreciate their sense and value. There is, consequently, a fine catholicity about his mind, and there is a noble comradeship about his manner, and he moves with an intelligent and sympathetic discernment of those whose conclusions he cannot share. But all this, I say, is not an easy attainment, it is a fruit of persistent culture: and if you and I are to be wise and strong leaders of men who are of very varying mental fashion and emotional moods, we must subject ourselves to the same quiet and serious discipline, and sympathetically and imaginatively appreciate their individuality, and realize their own peculiar points of view. Now a discipline of this kind, the exercise of discernment and sympathetic imagination, will give us the invaluable possession of tact. I have sometimes heard it said that if a man is devoid of tact by nature he will never gain it as an acquisition: that it is always innate and never an accomplishment. I don’t believe it. I do not attach so fatal and final a sovereignty to the drift of heredity. I believe that when God gives His good grace all good graces are implicated in the gift, and that by requisite care and culture they can be evolved with all the order and certainty of the production of flowers and fruits. I believe that clumsy people can become tactful, and that folk who are brusque and abrupt can become gracious and courteous, and that the indifferent and inconsiderate can become thoughtful and sympathetic. There is no excuse for our tactlessness, and if even we are temperamentally tactless it is our urgent duty to change it by the ministries of discipline and grace. But what trouble and disaster the want of tact is working among the ministry of the churches! I am appalled at times to hear accounts of ministerial tactlessness which are almost incredible in their exhibition of infantile ignorance of men. I have known many churches where spiritual life has been chilled, and spiritual enterprise has been ruined by the minister’s tactless handling of men who were to carry his desires and purposes to fruition. Such ministers treat their fellow-officers as so many marionettes, and lo the marionettes prove to be alive, with very marked and vivacious personalities, and there is consequent discord and strife. And therefore do I urge you to study and know your men: know them through the ministry of a hallowed and sympathetic imagination, and always bear them in strong and considerate regard. And you will come to possess tact, that fineness of feeling which can diagnose without touching, that mystical divining-rod which apprehends the hidden waters in the shyest and most secluded life. But even this is not enough. If our equipment for the knowledge of men is to be even passably complete we must exercise a genial sense of humor, by whose kindly light we shall be saved from pious stupidities, and from that grotesqueness of judgment which sees tragedy in comedy, griffins in asses, and mountains in mole-hills. Gentlemen, we need to know men, and when our men know that we know them, and respect and revere them, you may depend upon it we have got the key into the lock which will’ open their most secret gate. I have one further word to say respecting our relations with those with whom we have to co-operate in managing the business of the Church. See to it that you exalt the great and noble dignity of their office. Hedge it about with reverence and prayerful regard. Let every man feel that no greater honor will ever come his way than his appointment to service in the Church of the Lord. Save the office from degenerating into a merely social distinction. Lift it up into a solemn and holy privilege in the Lord. Never let any man assume an office without the opportunity of gazing at his "high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Lift his eyes up to the hills! Speak to him about it. Write to him about it. And when he has entered upon the office, and has even spent some years in the service, seek his intimacy from time to time that you may refresh his sense of the sacred honor and responsibility of his vocation. You will find he will welcome it, he will be grateful for it, he will rise to it. And never allow any countenance to be given to the divorce of the secular and spiritual affairs of the church, as though he who is working in the administration of the temporalities is engaged in a less sacred mission than he who labors in the business of worship and communion. Exalt them both alike; set a common seal of sanctity upon them: and let the "door-keeper in the house of our God" feel that his office is as sacred as the office of him who lights the candles at the altar, or of him who bears the intercession into the holy place. And remember this: the atmosphere and spirit in which all business is done determines the real quality and value of the business. And remember further: in a company of church officers it is the minister who is supremely the creator of atmosphere, and that if he is small, and churlish, and impatient, and irritable, and self-willed, he makes conditions in which all sorts of petty things breed and flourish: but if he is large, and liberal, and patient, and self-controlled, he: creates a genial air and temper in which all big things breathe easily, and generous purposes find congenial hospitality and support. And now I want to offer you a few general principles of business management which I think you will do well to heed in your ministry. And the first is this: Never move with small majorities. Never take an important step in church life if a large minority is opposed to your proposals. I inherited this principle from Dr. Dale, and I have steadily honored it all through the years of my ministry. When Dr. Dale’s diaconate had discussed some new proposals, and it was then found that a minority of the deacons were opposed to their adoption, the proposals were tabled, and no action was taken. You may exclaim about the waste of time, the frequent and irritating delays! Yes, but remember that when Dr. Dale’s Diaconate did move it moved to some purpose, with unbroken solidity and with no hampering hesitancy in its ranks. There was no half-movement,--the feet advancing, but the eyes held in lingering retrospect. It was movement enlightened, expectant, and irresistible. A small, lukewarm, unconvinced minority can chill the heart of even a fine crusade. For you know how it is with men. When men have been simply "voted down," and carried forward against their judgments, there often begins a process of self-justification which greedily seeks evidence to confirm their position. "He, being willing to justify himself!" That subtle quest governs our conduct even more than we realize. We love to maintain our own conclusions even when some opposing action has been taken, and we have more than a secret delight when something happens which spoils the action, or in any way interferes with expected re-suits. We do not realize that perhaps one cause of the sluggish or disappointing movement is just our own moody and suspicious reluctance. We think we are only spectators, watching others act, when in reality we are very busy actors, who being "willing" and eager "to justify" ourselves, are hampering those who began a movement which was opposed to our judgments. And so do I counsel you not to move with small majorities. Far better wait than try to run some new engine with lukewarm water. Wait for more enthusiasm: wait and pray for the unanimity of strong devotion. It is pre-eminently true in matters of church business that there must be light before there can be heat, there must be conviction before there can be resolute consecration, there must be an enlightened judgment before there can be a really vigorous and fruitful will. I have known churches ruined by the neglect of this principle. Great action has been taken without serious union, and premature movement has left behind an unconvinced and irritated remnant, who would not march as allies, and whose position scarcely gave them the helpful spirit of friends. Perhaps in all these matters we cannot do better than take for our ideal the condition portrayed in a hidden and little known passage in the Book of Chronicles, where a strong and victorious army is described as going "forth to battle, expert in war, fifty thousand, which would keep rank: they were not of double heart." I always think that a minister, moving with a solidly united and sympathetic Diaconate or Session, can do almost anything! The second principle of business management which I will offer you is this: avoid the notoriety and the impotence of always wanting something new. There are some men who have new schemes for their officers almost every time they meet. Scheme after scheme is designed and produced, each new one effacing the significance of the last, until in the multitude of designs nothing is accomplished. The officers are continually spending their time, not in the inspiration of vision and task, but in the soporific exercise of dreaming dreams. I sometimes think it would be a useful thing, at any rate it would be a surprising and perhaps a humbling thing, if a strong, vigilant committee could be occasionally appointed to make a thorough examination of the church minute-book for the purpose of exhuming all resolutions that were still-born, and all that had independent life but were never given a fair chance of growing up, and all that by some ill-chance were forgotten and had died from sheer starvation and neglect. The report of such a committee would provide matter for a most important and significant meeting! It might be held once every five years, or even more frequently where the death-rate is abnormally high, where schemes and purposes die almost as soon as they are born. It might be called a meeting for the disinterring and examination of resolutions which have never been carried out, proposals that never fructified, promising schemes which have drooped and no one knew the hour of their burial! It would be a very somber and melancholy meeting. It would be like spending an hour in a graveyard.. But I am sure the experience would not be without profit, and we might discover the folly of continually originating schemes merely to bury them, and of multiplying a family of plans and devices which immediately sink into their graves. If we are competent merchantmen in the business of the Church we shall limit our schemes, and we shall operate them to the last ounce of our strength. We shall not waste and squander our power in twenty scouting excursions, but we shall use it in sinking one or two good mines, and working them with noble and persistent exploration. That is what we want in the ministry, men who will concentrate upon one or two promising mines, and week after week produce the invaluable ore. If the pulpit is your mine, don’t play with it, work it night and day. If the Sunday-School is your mine, sink your shaft deeper’ and deeper, open out new seams and veins of treasure, and let the mine abundantly justify itself by its products. Whatever may be your mine, put your strength into it. I am a strong believer in a very few schemes, but tried to the utmost; I believe in a very few mines, but worked for all they are worth. The life of our day tempts us to diffuseness. We are tempted to have too many irons in the fire, and we don’t beat any one of them to final "shape and use." Gentlemen, have a: few well-designed and well-proportioned schemes. Don’t lose yourself in dreams. Lay your hands upon a few things, and hold on to them like grim death, and make them pay daily tribute to the Lord your God. Master something. Finish something, or be still working away at it when the Lord promotes you to higher service. That was the Master’s way. "I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do." He "set His face" steadfastly to it, nothing drew Him aside, and He finished it. "Having loved His own which were in the world He loved them unto the end." His purposeful affection continued its ministry with tenacious and deathless persistency, and it never let go! And this, too, was the way of the Apostle Paul. "This one thing I dot" His life and work were controlled by a glorious concentration, and he held on to his track like a hound that has found the trail. Follow his inspired example. Don’t be forever itching after novelties. Don’t be continually shifting your ground. "Hold fast that which thou hast:" hold on to it, and "let patience have her perfect work." I will offer you a third principle for your guidance in the business affairs of the Church. Never mistake the multiplication of organization for the enlargement and enrichment of service. Do not be deceived into thinking that you are doing work when you are only preparing to do it. It is very possible to elaborate our machinery and not increase our products. We may have much mechanism but little or no life. That is one of the immense perils of our day, and the ministers of the Church of Christ are peculiarly exposed to it. We organize, and organize, and organize! I suppose there was never a time when organization was so rife as it is to-day. You can hear the "noise" of the bones coming together. You can hear the "shaking" of their approach. Never was there such skill shown in the work of incorporation. Bone is fitted to bone, and the strength of sinews is added, and the grace of flesh and skin. But here is the vital question: is it only clever manufacture or is it inspired creation? Is it only a lovely corpse, or does it live — live I mean, with the life of God? Much of it, I know, thrills with holy and effective life, and in its gracious movement it is possessed by breath divine. And yet how very much of our organization is only an articulated corpse! It does not carry a burden: it is rather a burden that has to be borne. It is an organization but not an organism! It has no central soul, no life, no breath. It stops short of the vital, the inspirational, the divine. It has got everything but God! I believe that what the old world needs just now is not so much the multiplication of organization as the baptism of the Holy Ghost. We have piles of organization, but they lie prone upon the earth, incorporated death. We have got organization enough to revolutionize the race. It is not more schemes we want, more associations, more meetings: we want the breath and fire of the Holy Ghost. .A small organization, with breath in it, can do the work of an army. I am not decrying the institutional. The institutional is necessary: it is imperative: but I fear that in these days we ministers may be so keen on organizing that we rest contented when the body is articulated, even though it lies stretched and breathless on the ground. We may be so intent upon committees that we have no time for the upper room. We may be so "public" that we forget "the secret place." We may be absorbed in devising machinery and careless about the power which is to make it go. That is our peril. I know it. I feel it. We may be busy organizing and yet have no organic life. And if we only enlarge our "plant," and multiply our machinery, we are apt to think we are extending the Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. "Be not deceived." Keep your eyes on essentials. "Pray without ceasing,’’ vigilantly watch for "the fruits of the Spirit," and smother any satisfaction which does not honor your great Redeemer’s name. There is a fourth principle which you will do well to heed when, with your fellow-laborers, you are estimating the business of the Church. Never become a victim to the standard of numbers. In this holy business statistics cannot measure enterprise. A church-roll by no means defines the limits of a church’s influence and ministry. "The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation." It may be moving here and there like the faintest breathing like the almost imperceptible stirring of the air at the dawn. It may be here and there in the creation of vision and dream, in the loosening of hidden fear, in the healing of unknown sorrow, in deliverance from secret sin. I know the comfort and inspiration that come to a minister in the open confession of God’s children, when that confession is simple, and serious, and true. But I am not going to limit my conception of the fruits of my ministry to products like these. There are many people who find their Lord who never find me. There are many children of despondency and depression who steal into my services, and who steal out again with the feeling that "the winter is past," and that "the time of the singing of birds is come." But no news of their springtime gets into my journal, or finds a place in the diaries of the Church. Many a weary business-man, who for a whole week has been the victim of the dusty plains, trails into the church, and he gets a vision of the glory of the hills of God, and his soul is restored, but no tidings of his soul’s journeyings is given to me. Gentlemen, we should be astonished with a great surprise if we knew all the secret happenings which take place every time we minister of the Lord Jesus in sincerity and in truth! Something always happens--deep and gracious and beautiful, and the great Husbandman, who never overlooks or loses any fruit, will gather it unto everlasting life. So I counsel you not to be burdened by the menace of statistics, and do not permit your strength to be sapped by worries which you ought to quietly lay upon the love of God. "Trust in the Lord, and do good: so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed." And the last counsel which I will give you as merchantmen in the business of the Kingdom is this: ---you never help the business by advertising yourself. Self-advertisement is deadly in the ministry of the Lord Jesus. Puffy, showy paragraphs concerning ourselves and our work: egotistical recitals of our powers and attainments: all forms of self-obtrusion and self-aggression: all these are absolutely fatal to the really deepest work committed to our hands. Our fellow-laborers know when our work is marred by self-conceit. The devil is delighted when he can lure us into self-display. Our own highest powers shrink and wither when we expose them to the glare of self-seeking publicity. They cannot bear a light like that, and they speedily lose their strength and beauty. I urge you to avoid it. Never tell people what a clever fellow you are. Never write a private paragraph to the newspaper giving its readers the same information. It was said of the Master Whom we serve, "He shall not strive, nor cry, neither shall any man hear His voice in the streets." "It was the way the Master went. Shall not the servant tread it still?" Of one thing we can be perfectly sure: when we display ourselves we hide our Lord; when we blow our own trumpet men will not hear "the still small voice of God." And now I have done. I have spoken to you in these lectures from the journals of my own life, the findings of my own experience. I thought you might like to know how one man has found the road into the service of which you are consecrating your life. I have told you where I have found perils, and where I have found arbours of rest and refreshing springs. Your road may be very different from mine, and yet I think the dominant features will be the same. You will have your Slough of Despond, your hill "Difficulty," your alluring Bye-path Meadow, your Valley of Humiliation, your Enchanted Ground where the spirit gets very drowsy, and your clear hill-tops with bewitching visions of Beulah Land, where the birds sing and the sun shines night and day. But you will surely find that, however swiftly changing may be the character of your road, your provision in Christ is most abundant. My brethren, you are going forth into a big world to confront big things. There is "the pestilence that walketh in darkness," and there is "the destruction that wasteth at noonday." There is success and there is failure, and there is sin, and sot-row, and death. And of all pathetic plights surely the most pathetic is that of a minister moving about this grim field of varied necessity, professing to be a physician, but carrying in his wallet no balms, no cordials, no caustics to meet the clamant needs of men. But of all privileged callings surely the most privileged is that of a Greatheart pacing the highways of life, Carrying with him all that is needed by fainting, bruised, and broken pilgrims, perfectly confident in Him "Whom he has believed." Brethren, your calling is very holy. Your work is very difficult. Your Savior is very mighty. And the joy of the Lord will be your strength. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 50: 04.0.0. THE WHOLE ARMOUR OF GOD ======================================================================== THE WHOLE ARMOUR OF GOD BY JOHN HENRY JOWETT, M.A., D.D. Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York City New York Chicago Toronto Fleming H. Revell Company London and Edinburgh ======================================================================== CHAPTER 51: 04.0.1. CONTENTS ======================================================================== CONTENTS CHAPTER I. The Invisible Antagonisms II. The Girdle of Truth III. The Breastplate of Righteousness IV. Ready! V. The Shield of Faith VI. The Helmet of Hope VII. The Sword of the Spirit VIII. The Soldier’s Use of Prayer IX. Watch Ye! X. Enduring Hardness XI. The Invisible Commander on the Field XII. The Soldier’s Fire XIII. The Victory Over the Beast XIV. The Coming Golden Age XV. More Than Conquerors ======================================================================== CHAPTER 52: 04.01. THE INVISIBLE ANTAGONISMS ======================================================================== I THE INVISIBLE ANTAGONISMS Eternal God, may no distraction draw us away from our communion with Thee. May we come to Thee like children going home, jubilant and glad. We have been in the far country and our garments are stained. May we hasten to the ministry of forgiveness and reconciliation. If we have been on fields of heavy battle, where the fire of the enemy has been awful and unceasing, may we hasten to Thee for the overhauling of our armor, and for the renewal of our strength. If we have been called upon to walk weary roads of unfamiliar sorrow, may we turn to Thee as to refreshing springs. If we have lapsed from our high calling, may we renew our covenant. If we have missed a gracious opportunity, may we seek another chance. If we have been counted faithful in any service, and have fulfilled our commission by the help of Thy grace, may we hasten to give the glory to Thee. Unite us, we humbly pray Thee, in the holy bonds of Christian sympathy. Deepen our pity so that we may share the sorrows of people far away. May we feel the burden of the burdened and weep with them that weep. May we not add to our sin by ceasing to remember those who are in need. Grant peace in our time, O Lord, the peace which is the fruit of righteousness. Let Thy will be done among all the peoples, so that in common obedience to Thee all the nations may find abiding union. Amen. "Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand." Ephesians 6:13. Let me give one or two other translations which devout scholars have made in the attempt to bring out the precise significance of Paul’s original words. Many interpreting minds act like the solar spectrum, and they help to display the wealthy contents in the pure white light of gospel truth. Here then is Dr. Moffatt’s translation: "So take God’s armour that you may be able to make a stand in the evil day and hold your ground by overcoming all your foes." And here is Dr. Weymouth’s fine attempt to elicit the buried wealth of the apostle’s words: "Put on the complete armour of God so that you may be able to stand your ground on the day of battle, and having fought to the end to remain victors on the field." That is a translation which stirs one’s blood, and I am inclined to regard it as a very vital interpretation of the rousing, soldierly counsel of the apostle Paul. The apostle is writing to a tiny company of Christians at Ephesus, so tiny that they are like a drop in a bucket in the midst of that teaming population. For this is what has happened. Under the constraining influence of the gospel of Christ this little handful of men and women have done one of the hardest things we are ever called upon to do. They have cut themselves away from old fellowships. They have separated themselves from the fond attachments of a lifetime. They have severed themselves from venerable roots. They have forfeited dear and vital friendships, and they are now living an alien life within the circle of their own city. They are strangers in their own home. They are foreigners in their native land. They are pilgrims in their own country. They are in it and yet not of it. They are like tropical plants which find themselves in the Arctic Zone. And it is to this little company that the apostle writes this letter, and to them he gives the inspiring counsel of my text: "Put on the complete armour of God that ye may be able to stand your ground in the day of battle." In what sort of circumstances did these people live? Let us take a swift survey of the hostility of their surroundings. What was the nature of the antagonisms by which this little company were beset? First of all, there was the overwhelming power of the world. Their city itself was luxuriously placed. The very location of Ephesus was favourable to prosperity, enjoying as it did the double advantage of shelter and of openness to the outer world. I was amazed when I walked among its ruins in the late spring at the magnificence of its position. If you will think of a cup, with more than a third of its rim broken down to its base, you will gain a rough but practical suggestion of the groundwork of this ancient city. About two-thirds of the city are immediately engirt with noble and richly verdured hills. Then this sheltering rim of hills is broken, and the cup opens out in one direction to a port on the open sea, and in the other direction to a rich alluvial plain, famous for its wonderful fertility. Such was Ephesus, sheltered and yet open, with protective arms of hills about it, and yet widely hospitable to the trade and wealth of the world. No wonder Ephesus was luxurious, no wonder she was carnal, and no wonder she was ennervated. She was the very hunting ground of the garish world, and in this mesmeric garishness this little company of Christians had their home. This was the first of their antagonisms. Well, then, to mention a second antagonism, there was the majestic power of an alien religion. The magnificent Temple of Diana, which is now only a little heap of stones, with literally not one stone resting orderly upon another, then dominated the city by its splendour, and represented a religion which held the people in the loose leash of easy and licentious morals. Just think of that resplendent temple, that gorgeous temple, and then think of some obscure house in some obscure street, where this little company of Christians met to commune with their Lord, and in the contrast you will realize another of the antagonisms which assailed their discipleship every hour of the day. The Temple of Diana versus the little Christian meeting-house! It makes one think of another contrast in the grey and windy city of Edinburgh; the dark, frowning Palace of Holyrood versus John Knox’s small house in Canongate! And history tells us which of these two proved to be the dwelling-place of invincible strength. This was the second of their antagonisms. And then, to name a third of their antagonisms, there was the pervasive power of popular customs and traditions. Every day this little handful of Christians were up against customs that were like invisible bonds. Yes, religious and social customs always thread the common life, and to oppose them is to run up against antagonisms which are like invisible webs of barbed wire. We know what it means to oppose a popular custom to-day. Just oppose even a simple one; decide to wear no black in the hour of bereavement and you are up against a world of hostility and suspicion. And, still further, let the convention you defy be an ecclesiastical convention, or one which has somehow come to wear religious sanctions, and the antagonism is tremendous. Well, this little company of Christians in Ephesus were defying popular social customs and popular religious customs every day, and they were, therefore, confronted with a fierce and terrific opposition. And so they had all these antagonisms to meet, the hardening glare of the world, the far-reaching power of an alien religion, and the tyranny of popular custom and tradition. And in the very thick of all these you must imagine these comparatively youthful Christians seeking to live their separate and consecrated life. But in this strong and tender letter to this little flock of Christians, the apostle Paul looks beyond the opposition of flesh and blood, and the steelly barriers of usage and tradition; he pierces the visible veil and beholds invisible antagonists, spiritual, alive, active and hostile. Listen to him: "For ours is not a conflict with mere flesh and blood, but with the despotisms, the empires, the forces that control and govern this dark world, the spiritual hosts of evil arrayed against us in the heavenly warfare." When the apostle looked upon Ephesus it seemed as though the whole city became transparent, and behind the visible and transient veils he saw these spiritual foes. There was much mischief in Ephesus, there was much weaving of evil webs, there was much coming and going of worldly forces; but to Paul, the real prompters and instigators were back in the unseen. This is the teaching of this great apostle. These Christians in the early Church had to fight unseen enemies, antagonists in the spirit—"spiritual hosts of evil in the heavenly warfare." The real enemy is entrenched in the unseen, and he is ever active, night and day, and the early believer confronted him in ancient Ephesus, as the later believer confronts him in modern New York and London. Now it is of these invisible antagonists that the apostle most urgently warns these young disciples. He warns them of the extraordinary subtlety of the warfare, of the wiles of the devil, of the stratagems of these mysterious powers, of their traps and devices, of their diabolic cleverness, and of their amazing and manifold ingenuities. The instruments of modern material warfare are almost incredible in the refinement of their destructiveness, and I have no doubt in my own mind that even these ingenuities are also diabolic, and that if we could pierce the veil we should see the invisible enemies at their fiendish work. But these unseen antagonists out-do all the subtleties of the material instruments of destruction in the devices in which they lure and snare and entrap and overthrow the soul. Well, then, how do these antagonists work? How is this cunning antagonism exerted upon the soul? It is exerted both mediately and immediately. First of all, these invisible antagonists work immediately upon the soul. Spirit can work upon spirit; mind can lay pressure upon mind. There is a direct and immediate influence upon the secret life of man. That is the teaching of the Word of God, and I freely confess to you that there are phenomena in my own life, and in the lives of others which I cannot interpret in any other way. I know it is altogether mysterious, but it is by no means incredible. In our own day we are obtaining first glimpses into avenues of spiritual activity which hitherto have been shrouded in mist and darkness. The phenomena of thought transference, of telepathy, of hypnotism, are lifting the veil upon modes of influence of which we have scarcely dreamed. One mind can influence another mind directly without either speech or deed, leaving upon the other the seal and imprint of its own mould. When I see this I do not count it incredible when it is reported to me that there are spiritual antagonists in Ephesus and in New York who prey upon the thoughts of man, and work upon his imagination, and engage his sentiments and ambitions with the purpose of luring him from his sacred loyalties, and inciting him to rebellion against the holy and most high God. "Ours is not a conflict with mere flesh and blood," says the apostle. We have invisible foes. And then, in the second place, these spiritual antagonists work mediately upon the soul. They work upon the soul through the medium of human ministries—through the contagious power of crowds, through the gravitation of the age, through the general spirit of society, through the psychological climate in which our life is cast. And they also work upon the soul through the medium of individuals, through men and women who have been captured by the evil one and who are now used in his purposes of moral and spiritual destruction. Our invisible antagonists cast their lure upon us through the ministry of our fellow-men. Now all these antagonisms, seen and unseen, mediate and immediate, this little company of Christians had to meet in ancient Ephesus. You say the antagonisms are tremendous! Yes, indeed they are, and the Christian life is a tremendous thing. That is what tens of thousands of professing Christians have yet to learn. Let it be said that of all tremendous things the Christian life is the most tremendous. It is not something we can play with in idle hours, it is not a merely pleasant fellowship, it is not the bloodless act of joining the visible Church. No, it is not the carrying of a highly imposing label; it is a desperate, continuous, but withal, a glorious campaign. Speaking for myself, I confess that I have to have my fingers on the throat of the devil every day of my mortal life. This is how I find it. I do not gain a single inch without a fight. No fine victory is ever gained by me without blood. O, the sternness of the Christian fight! and O, its attractiveness and its glory! Yes, indeed, you are right; the antagonisms are tremendous. How then, are they to be met? If these are our antagonisms, seen and unseen, in New York as well as in Ephesus, how can we meet and overcome them? Let us listen to the Word: "Put on the complete armour of God." Let us begin there. Our first need is God. Without God we are beaten even before the fight begins. We have no more likelihood of vanquishing our spiritual foes without God than this unaided hand of mine would be able to drive back the solid phalanxes of the German hosts. We must begin with God. In the tenth verse of this chapter the apostle unfolds the primary secret of victory. "Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might." But that is a very imperfect translation, laying too much emphasis upon the soldier and too little upon his Lord. I greatly like the marginal rendering of the revised version: "Be made powerful in the Lord." Does not that word sound full of promise for soldiers who are about to storm a difficult position? "Be made powerful in the Lord." Let God make you powerful! Such power is not a trophy of battle; it is the fruit of communion. It is a bequest and not a conquest. This power is not something we have to win; it is something we have to receive. It is not something we have to gain; it is something we have to take. "Be made powerful in the Lord!" And listen again: "Ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you." That power, that vital endowment of strength, is the gift of God, one of the ministries of the divine grace, and it is offered to every soldier without money and without price. So is it true that our first necessity in battle is to hasten away to the Lord to receive the gifts of the soldier’s strength. But not only is there the imperative need of God for our initial strength, but for every piece of armour which may be needful in the fight. Armour for offence, and armour for defence; armour to meet every device and stratagem with which we may be assailed. I propose to consider this armour, piece by piece, and over and over again I shall have to tell you that you may find every piece of armour in the abundantly stocked and open and free armoury of God. And therefore do I say again that if we are to be triumphant over our antagonists, our first need is God. "Seek ye the Lord." "O come, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker." And then, our other great requirement is the ceaseless co-operation of our wills. The life of a Christian soldier is not a continuous reclining on "flowery beds of ease." Having obtained the strength we must ceaselessly exercise it in the practice of our wills. Listen to the divine challenge to the will: "Be made powerful in the Lord!" Well, then, exercise the will you have, your weak will, and go and kneel in humility at the source of power, and receive the promised gift. "Put on the whole armour of God!" Well, then, exercise the will and go to the armoury of grace for thine arms. "Stand therefore!" Well, then, having received the gift of power, exercise thy will in stubborn and invincible resistance. "Here stand I," said one who had received the strength, "Here stand I; I can do no other, God help me!" "Having done all, stand"—and victory shall be yours! In the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, victory shall most certainly be yours! Says Dr. Weymouth: "Stand your ground in the day of battle, and having fought to the end remain victors on the field." "Victors on the field." I am thrilled by the inspiring word—"Victors on the field." After every temptation—the temptation that comes to me in sunshine, or the temptation that comes to me in the gloom—after every fight, victors on the field! The Lord’s banner flying, His banner of love and grace; and the evil one and all his host in utter rout, and in full and dire retreat! Soldiers of Christ arise, And put your armour on; Strong in the strength which God supplies Through His eternal Son. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 53: 04.02. THE GIRDLE OF TRUTH ======================================================================== II THE GIRDLE OF TRUTH Holy Father, we humbly pray Thee to reveal unto us the unsearchable riches of Christ. Refine our discernments in order that we may behold them; and deepen our hearts in order that we may long to possess them. Unveil to us our poverty so that we may seek Thy wealth. Lead us through meekness and penitence to the reception of spiritual power. May our loins be girt about with truth. May we drink deeply at the waters of promise and find refreshment in immediate duty. We pray that Thou wilt bind us together in the bonds of holy sympathy. Help us to gather up the needs of others in common intercession. Make us ready to bear the burden of the race. Quicken our imaginations in order that we may enter into the sorrows of Thy children in every land. We humbly pray Thee to steady our faith in these days of bewilderment. In all the confusion of our time may we never lose sight of Thy throne. In all the obscuring of our ideals may we never lose sight of Christ. And O, Lord, out of our disorder may we be led into larger ways. Let Thy Holy Spirit brood over us, quickening all that is full of sacred promise, and destroying all that hinders our friendship with Thee. Amen. "Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth." Ephesians 6:14. The girdle was just a strong belt holding the different pieces of a soldier’s armour securely in their place. Even in the ordinary Oriental attire the girdle was a necessity. Without the girdle the loose, flowing garments became very cumbersome, flapping about the feet, and especially hindering the movements in a hostile wind. Even the most graceful attire became an entanglement unless the girdle held it in serviceable bonds. But the necessity of a girdle was still more imperative on the field of war. In active fighting loose pieces of armour would be like embarrassing articles hanging on the soldier rather than appropriate implements to make him efficient. Loose armour was troublesome and distressing, making the soldier feel soft, and awkward, and unready, giving him a sense of going to pieces. The belt bound the loose pieces together, creating a healthy sense of firmness, compactness, and making the soldier feel that he had everything well in hand, and enabling him to meet the enemy’s attack with united strength and confidence. Now it is that figure of the military belt which the apostle is using in our text, "Let your loins be girt about with truth." The soldier of Jesus can have his armour flapping about him in disorderly array. He can be loose and distracted. His energies can be scattered. He can be just a mass of incoherences and inconsistencies in the presence of the foe. Or a soldier of Jesus can be firm, and collected, and decisive. He can be "all there," with every ounce of his strength available for the immediate fight. And the apostle teaches that this bracing sense of collectedness, this fine, firm feeling of moral and spiritual concentration, can only be obtained by binding the entire life with the splendid and tenacious girdle of gospel truth. I want to approach the apostle’s central teaching along roads which will gather up the testimony of common experience. We all know the strength which is imparted to a life when it is girt about with firm principle. It is even so in the life of a boy when he is passing his earliest days at school. Is there anything nobler to contemplate than a fine boy whose life and character are held firm and free in the bond and girdle of moral principle? It is even so in the later days of college and university. What college or university graduate has not admired the decisive strength of some man or woman whose character was held in splendid consistency by the girdle of moral conviction! What joyful and boisterous liberty there is in such a life! And it is all the more free and jubilant because it recognizes fields of license into which it never strays. And in the broader fields of the world we have the witness of the same experience. Life that is held in a girdle quadruples its strength. Life which is bound together even by a strong expediency gathers force in the bondage. A life which is held in the constraint of a policy is far mightier than a life which is trailing in scattered indifference. But a life which is bound together in moral principle, having all its faculties and powers gathered under one control, has tremendous force both of attack and resistance. You may study the contents of that statement and find abundant illustrations in the lives of men like Lincoln, and Mazzini, and Gladstone, and John Bright, and John Morley, and James Bryce. All these men, whether we approve or disapprove their political programmes and ambitions, are men whose characters reveal no loose ends, no trailing garments, no unchartered opinions, no vagrant and unlicensed moods, but rather a moral wholeness and solidity which we know will retain its splendid consistency in the teeth of the fiercest storm. Yes, even in the ways of the world men recognize the man who is wearing the belt of principle, and whose loins are girt about with truth. But the apostle Paul is thinking of something more than moral principle, splendid as is the influence of a great principle on the healthy action of a life. He is thinking of something even finer and deeper than this, and in which the moral principle is included. He is thinking of a soul belted with the more distinctive truth of the Scriptures, a soul girt about with gospel truth and with the ample promises of God. He is thinking of a man who takes some great truth of revelation, some mighty word of life, or some broad and bracing promise of grace, and who belts it about his soul and wears it on active service in seeking to do the sovereign will. I know not where to begin, or where to end, when I turn to the pages of biography for examples of men and women who have worn the girdle of gospel truth and promise. Let me dip here and there in the many and brilliant records. Well, then, let us begin with Martin Luther. It is one of the strong characteristics of Luther that he is ever wearing the girdle of truth, and bracing himself with the promises of grace. I open his letters almost at random, in the great year of his life when he defied the pope, and opposed himself to the strength of uncounted hosts. He is writing to Melanchthon on May 26, 1521: "Do not be troubled in spirit; but sing the Lord’s song in the night, as we are commanded, and I shall join in. Let us only be concerned about the Word." There you find him putting on the girdle! Once again I find him writing a letter to a poor little company of Christians at Wittenberg: "I send you this thirty-seventh Psalm for your consolation and instruction. Take comfort and remain steadfast. Do not be alarmed through the raging of the godless." There again he is wearing the girdle and urging others to wear it. His loins are girt about with truth. Then again there is John Wesley. Let me give you a glimpse of that noble servant of the spirit as he is putting on the girdle of truth: "When I opened the New Testament at five o’clock in the morning my eyes fell on the words, ’There are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that we should be partakers of the divine nature.’" He girt his loins with that truth. "Just before I left the room I opened the Book again, and this sentence gleamed from the open page, ’Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God.’" And he girt himself with that promise. He went to St. Paul’s that morning, and in the chant there came to him this personal message from the Word: "O Israel, trust in the Lord, for in the Lord there is mercy and in Him there is plenteous redemption, and He shall redeem Israel from all his sins." Do you not see this noble knight belting himself for the great crusade that even now awaits him at the gate? Then I think I will mention General Gordon, who laid down his life at Khartoum. Only, if you want to see Gordon girding himself with truth, and see it adequately, you will have to quote from almost every letter he ever wrote, and especially his wonderful correspondence with his sister. Take this sentence from a letter written in Cairo in 1884: "I have taken the words, ’He will hide me in His hands’; good-night, my dear sister, I am not moved, even a little." Or take this sentence from a letter written in Khartoum toward the end of his days: "This word has been given me, ’It is nothing to our God to help with many or with few,’ and I now take my worries more quietly than before." He put on the girdle of truth, and his worries were leashed in the girdle, and his soul was quieted in gospel confidence and serenity. And I had other examples to offer you, but these must suffice. I had on my table David Livingstone, and John Woolman, and Josephine Butler, and Frances Willard, and Catherine Booth, and I wanted to give you glimpses of all these notable soldiers of the Lord girding themselves for the open field. But their names shall be their witness. I might have quoted, had I the knowledge and the time, the testimony of all the saints who from their labours rest. And concerning them all we should have seen that their loins were girt about with truth. Now it was to spiritual equipment of this kind that the apostle was directing the little company of Christians at Ephesus. Think of their surroundings:—the overwhelming worldliness, the dominating influence of an alien religion, the fierce antagonisms of popular customs and traditions, and all of these backed by invisible hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. Now what chance would a loose, shuffling Christian have in circumstances so hostile as these? The Christian in Ephesus, if he is to be a conqueror, must not slouch along the way with a loose, hang-dog sort of air, but rather with all the poise and movement of a lion. The Christian must belt himself about with big truth, truth that will not only confirm but invigorate, truth that will not only define his creed but vitalize his soul. And these Ephesian Christians followed the apostle’s counsel and they girded themselves with truth, and so were able to stand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Let us watch how they did it. They had been converted to the Christian faith and life. One sure effect of their conversion was a more vivid sense of sin. After their conversion their own sinfulness began to reveal itself in more awful relief. The nearer they got to the light the more their sin appeared, just like invisible writing emerging from its secrecy when exposed to the open fire. They saw their sin, and they saw the sin of the people. They were like the prophet Isaiah, to whom also there came the awakening sense of sin, and with him they could have cried: "Woe is me, for I am unclean, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips." Well, now, how could that little company of Christians deal with the sin? It was like trying to drain a vast and bitter marsh that was fed by secret springs. How could they do it? And the tremendous task only emphasized their weakness, and might have depressed them into a feeling of helplessness and despair. And we share that feeling to-day. Think of the colossal sins of Europe, and think of the sins and moral indifference of the great cities. If the sin be like a bitter marsh, what is going to drain it? Nay, how are we going to get the confidence that it can be drained? Well what did Paul do, and what did he teach his fellow-disciples to do? This is what he did. He found something even bigger than sin, and he girded himself with the bigger thing when he confronted the appalling task. Listen to him: "Where sin abounds grace does much more abound." Yes, sin is a big thing, but grace is a bigger thing; the biggest thing even in this rebellious and indifferent world. Sin is a strong thing, but grace is a stronger thing, even the strongest thing in a revolting and alienated world. Well then, let your loins be girt about with that truth! Put it around your fears and uncertainties like a strong girdle. Wear it ever night and day. Go up to every stupendous task in the vigour of its bracing grip. Begin at the piece of the bitter marsh nearest to you, and begin to drain it. And wear the truth—"Where sin abounds, grace doth much more abound." Wear the truth, say it, sing it, and you will be amazed how the difficulty will be subdued; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. There was something else in Ephesus for which these Christians needed the girdle of truth. Ephesus was a vast city, and these Christians were only a tiny and obscure fellowship. And even this small fellowship had to be broken up during the hours of labour, and in those hours each believer had to stand alone. One of them was perhaps a slave, and there was no fellow-believer in the house. Or perhaps one was a soldier, and there wasn’t another believer in his regiment, and he had to face it all alone. We have been reading that one reason for the massed solidity of the German advance is that the individual German soldier craves the mystic strength of fellowship, and desires even the physical touch of a comrade-in-arms. I can understand it. And so could the Ephesian Christians have understood it. They felt strong when they touched their fellow-believers, and they felt weakened when the visible communion was broken. What, then, shall they do when alone? They must let their loins be girt about with truth. But what truth? What did the apostle Paul wear in such isolation? He took this girdle and wrapped it round his loins: "He loved me, and gave Himself for me." And that girdle gives a man a sense of glorious fellowship along the emptiest and loneliest road. Put that girdle on, lonely soul! "He loves me, and gave Himself for me!" Wear it ever, night and day. And wear it consciously! Say it; sing it—"He loved me, and gave Himself for me." "Let your loins be girt about with that truth." And so have we seen these Ephesian soldiers putting on the girdle. In the presence of threat and persecution they wore this girdle, "We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us." When their circumstances were a medley and a confusion, full of ups and downs, of strange comings and goings, of mingled joy and sorrow, foul and fair, they wore this girdle: "All things work together for good to them that love God." And thus they were braced for all the changes of the ever-changing day. So do I urge my fellow-soldiers in this later day to wear the belt. "Let your loins be girt about with truth." Let us pray the good Lord to help us even now to put it on. Is the girdle we need this—"He loved me and gave Himself for me?" Well, put it on. Or is it this—"We have forgiveness through His blood?" Put it on. Or is it this—"I will come again and receive you unto myself?" Put it on. Or is it this—"In My Father’s house are many mansions?" Put it on. Or is it this—"I will never leave thee nor forsake thee?" Put it on. Or is it this great girdle—"When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee, and through the rivers, they shall not overthrow thee, when thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee?" Put on the girdle, wear it ever, night and day, and thou shalt find that in the strength of gospel truth thou are competent to meet all circumstances, and triumphantly perfect thy Saviour’s will. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 54: 04.03. THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS ======================================================================== III THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS Almighty God, our Father, it is by Thy grace that we attain unto holiness, and it is by Thy light that we find wisdom. We humbly pray that Thy grace and light may be given unto us so that we may come into the liberty of purity and truth. Wilt Thou graciously exalt our spirits and enable us to live in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Impart unto us a deep dissatisfaction with everything that is low, and mean, and unclean, and create within us such pure desire that we may appreciate the things which Thou hast prepared for them that love Thee. Wilt Thou receive us as guests of Thy table. Give us the glorious sense of Thy presence, and the precious privilege of intimate communion. Feed us with the bread of life; nourish all our spiritual powers; help us to find our delight in such things as please Thee. Give us strength to fight the good fight of faith. Give us holy courage, that we may not be daunted by any fear, or turn aside from our appointed task. Make us calm when we have to tread an unfamiliar road, and may Thy presence give us companionship divine. Amen. "Having on the breastplate of righteousness." Ephesians 6:14. This is counsel given to a little company of Christians, so little as to be almost submerged and lost in the great unfriendly city of Ephesus, so little as to be like a tiny boat in the midst of a vast and threatening sea. A missionary of the gospel has been among them and they have received the word of the Lord Jesus. They have answered the constraint of redeeming love and they have confessed their faith in Christ. And what has happened? Their confession has compelled their separation from many of their old fellowships and attachments. They are loosened from many of their old affections. The forces that were once friendly to them have become unfriendly, and they are now confronted by overwhelming hostilities on every side. We must try to feel the power and peril of their isolation if we would understand the force of the apostle’s words. Imagine then the lot of some German in Germany who espoused the cause of the Allies, or conceive the lot of some Englishman in England who sided with Germany, and you may realize the heat and fierceness of the antagonism with which these immature Christians were surrounded in the city of Ephesus. But their peril was not only found in the hostility of their old friends. There was the enervating moral atmosphere which they had to breathe; there was the recurring inclination of their own riotous passions; there was a remnant of appetite for the old delights; and there was the nervous fear that the forces against them might prove overwhelming. What should they do? How should they be able to stand? And especially how should they be able to stand in the evil day, the day when external circumstances might culminate in some terrific assault, or when their own passions might rise against them in some particularly fierce resurgence? Well, this chapter records the counsel of a great and experienced apostle, a mighty soldier of the Lord, in which he advises these young recruits of the Kingdom what armour they must wear if they would be victorious on the field. "Put on the whole armour of God." And we are considering these noble pieces of armour if haply we too may possess the equipment and so turn our days of battle into days of glorious victory. And now, in the name of the Lord Jesus, I bring you this piece of armour, "the breastplate of righteousness," and it is to be worn in our modern warfare in this difficult city of New York. What is this breastplate of righteousness? What indeed was the Roman breastplate from which the figure of speech is taken? Unfortunately, the word breastplate is very inaccurate and misleading. The piece of armour to which the apostle refers protected the back as well as the breast, and in addition it gave protection to the neck and the hips. It would be much more truly described by the phrase, "a coat of mail," because it was a sort of vest made of small metal plates, overlapping one another like shield upon shield, wrapping the body in its defences, and protecting the vital organs, back and front, from every assault of the foe. Let us then venture to lift this more accurate description into our text, "Put on righteousness like a coat of mail, wear it in all your comings and goings in the city of Ephesus, and in it meet all the malicious antagonisms of devils and of men." Now I wonder how the apostle’s counsel affected these fearful struggling Christians in Ephesus. Let us look at them. Let us assume that we are with them, and that we are about to give them the counsel offered in the text. How will they receive it? Remember that they have just been lifted out of the horrible pit and out of the miry clay of long-continued sin, and that they are oppressed by their own weakness and helplessness, and by the strength of the evil inclinations and habits which they have just renounced. Well, now, let us offer these inexperienced disciples the apostle’s counsel: "Put on righteousness like a coat of mail!" Why, they just look at you in utter despair! It is their very weakness that they cannot forge and weave such a coat of mail to cover them in the day of battle. The counsel would surely seem like the taunting cry of the foe. Suppose we had waylaid poor Christian in "The Pilgrim’s Progress" when he was struggling with his oppressive burden up the hill, and with the fiery darts of the devil hurtling around him on every side, and suppose we had called out to him, "Put on righteousness like a coat of mail!" We should surely only have added heaviness to his burden and crushed him to the ground in despair. "Put on righteousness like a coat of mail?" he would have moaned in his reply, "My righteousness is like unto filthy rags!" One poor, sorrowful correspondent wrote to me some weeks ago who was the victim of alcohol and drugs. For years he had walked in ways of uncleanness, but he was now just waking from his awful sleep and turning his thoughts toward home. Suppose now I had written to him and said "Put on righteousness like a coat of mail!" I think his eyes would have dulled into weariness again, and he would have slipped back to his drugs and his despair. This cannot be the meaning of the apostle’s counsel, or this coat of mail would never be worn. What, then, does the apostle mean when he says "Put on righteousness like a coat of mail"? Let us seek for light in his own life, for he is a soldier as well as a counsellor, and we shall find him following his own advice and wearing the armour which he recommends to others. Let us listen then to this word, and let us mark its significance; "Touching the righteousness which is in the law I was found blameless." That seems like an invincible protection. "Touching the righteousness which is in the law I was found blameless!" But there was nothing invincible about it. It was no more a coat of mail than an ordinary vest, and the devil smote through the defences a dozen times a day. Listen again to the apostle when he has passed into the intimate friendship of Christ: "Not having a righteousness of mine own." Mark that; yea verily mark that;—"Not having a righteousness of mine own." This coat of mail he wears is not his own righteousness. Whose, then, is it? It is the righteousness of Christ. As Paul declares: "It is the righteousness which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." The apostle is wearing the righteousness of Christ, and he wears it like a coat of mail, covering back and front, shielding him before and behind. I want to pause a little there because we are very near one of the deepest mysteries in the gospel of grace, and I want to state the mystery as plainly as words can express it. This, then, is what the Scriptures state: The Lord Jesus Christ was absolutely righteous, so righteous that human imagination and human dream cannot conceive it excelled. His holy obedience was perfect. There was no rent in the vesture of His holiness. There was no frayed edge, there was no imperfect strand, there were no stains. "In Him was no sin." We must begin there. And now let us assume that a poor penitent comes to this perfectly holy Lord. Let us make the sinner as nauseous and repulsive as you please. Let us make him a moral leper, the wretched victim of uncleanness, befouled by his own habits, consumed in his own sin, eaten without and within. That poor penitent sinner, laden with defilement, comes to the holy Lord Jesus, humbly seeking His favour and grace. Now what happens? What do the Scriptures tell us about the happening? They tell us that the holy Saviour covers the sinner with the robe of His own righteousness. The Lord puts His merits on to the sinner who has no merits. He puts His obedience on to the sinner who has nothing but a record of disobedience. He puts His spiritual conquests on to the sinner who is torn and scarred by nothing but appalling defeats. He puts His holiness on to a sinner who has been raked by defilements. That is the proclamation of the gospel. That poor penitent believing sinner stands now before the devil, and before men and angels, and before the presence of God, clothed in the righteousness of Christ! What, in all his imperfections? Yes. In all his weaknesses? Yes. With the scorching marks of hell-fire still upon him? Yes. He is covered with the robe of Christ’s righteousness. He wears the merits and the strength and the defences of the Lord’s obedience. Have we not read of one who wrapped himself in his country’s flag and then dared an alien power to fire? It is an altogether imperfect illustration, but it offers me some faint and helpful analogy when I hear the saints give this witness: "He hath clothed me with the robe of righteousness, and covered me with the garments of salvation." No, it was not Paul’s own righteousness which constituted his coat of mail. It was the righteousness of his Lord. Now, this is the word of grace, and this is the message of the gospel. It is this of which Toplady sings in his immortal hymn—"Rock of Ages": "Naked, look to Thee for dress." It is this also of which Charles Wesley sings in his also immortal hymn—"Jesus, Lover of my Soul": "I am all unrighteousness, Thou art full of truth and grace." It is this which was discovered by George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, and of which he tells us so rapturously in the early pages of his journal. It was this which John Bunyan found, and of which he tells us in the pages of "Grace Abounding": "One day, as I was passing into the field, and that too with some dashes on my conscience, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, ’Thy righteousness is in heaven,’ and me thought that I saw with the eyes of my soul, Jesus Christ at God’s right hand. There, I saw, was my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, He wants my righteousness, for that was just before Him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ Himself, the same yesterday, to-day and forever. Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed; I was loosened from my afflictions and irons.... Now went I also home rejoicing for the grace and love of God." All these men, at the beginning of their Christian life, were covered not with a righteousness of their own, but with the righteousness of Christ, and they could sing with Paul that they were clothed in the garments of His salvation. Their coat of mail was the righteousness of Christ. Now I recognize, and I experience the difficulty, of realizing all this, and I sympathize with you in the poverty of our apprehension. But I think our difficulty is in some ways occasioned by the inadequacy of all figures of speech to convey to us the real vitality of the truth. For instance, a coat of mail is something detached, separate and external, and so is a robe, and they have no vital relation to the body which wears them. And therefore, when we think of the righteousness of Christ covering another like a robe or a coat of mail, it appears something unreal, a superficial ministry, or even a fine pretence. We think of some villain clothed in the garb of a minister, but all the more a villain because of the robes which cover him. Or we think of some vile woman wearing the habits of a nun, and all the more vile because of the significant garments in which she is clothed. A leprous sinner wearing the robe of Christ’s righteousness! It all appears detached and superficial, like a climbing rose hiding a rubbish heap, or some lovely ferns and greenery concealing an open sewer. There appears no deep reality in it,—a sinner just covered with the robe of Christ’s holiness, and wearing the Lord’s righteousness as a coat of mail. Yes, I admit that the figures all fail. The figure of a robe leaves the sinner and the Saviour in no vital relation. And so it is with the coat of mail. But in the blessed reality there is no detachment. There is union between the sinner and the Saviour of the most profound and vital kind. You must remember our assumption; the sinner who comes to the Saviour comes in faith, and in penitence and in prayer, and these things never leave a soul separate and detached from the life and love of the Lord. Faith itself, even amid human relationships, is never a dividing ministry; it always consolidates and unites. You may trace the vital unifying influence of faith in a score of relations. The faith which a patient has in a doctor is a minister of very vital union in every effort to recover the lost genius of health. The faith which a pupil has in a teacher unites the two in a very vital relation, and puts the pupil into communion with the knowledge which is stored up in the teacher’s mind. The faith which one man has in another incorporates the two in one. Faith always unifies; it never divides. And all this has its supreme application in the relation of the soul to Christ. A poor penitent sinner who comes to the Lord in faith becomes one with the Lord in the profoundest union which the mind of man can conceive. Faith in Christ unites the soul with Christ just as in grafting the engrafted scion becomes one with the vital stock. Now this is the beginning of our reasoning. We are assuming a poor, penitent, weary soul flinging himself by faith on Christ, and thereby becoming one with Christ, one with all He is; one with all He has been; one with all He shall be, sharing His merits, His holiness, His obedience! By faith in Christ I become one with Christ, and all He is is thrown over me! And now before the devil I stand as one in Christ; and in the day of judgment I shall stand as one in Christ, one with Him in spite of all the sins of my past, and all the weaknesses and immaturities of the present. "Thou hast covered me with the robe of righteousness, and clothed me in the garment of salvation." I wear the righteousness of Christ, and I wear it as a coat of mail. Now is not that a strong defence? Go back to the illustration of grafting. I saw a young graft which had just been newly related to a strong and healthy stock. The graft still looked very poor and weak and sickly, but it had become vitally one with the healthy stock; it stood no longer in its own strength. All the resources of the stock were thrown about it, the merits of the stock were now the scion’s, all the victories of its yesterdays, and all the sap and energies of to-morrow. The stock is to the scion as a coat of mail! And so it is with the soul which has become by faith the scion of the Lord. "All my trust on Thee is stayed, All my help from Thee I bring; Cover my defenseless head With the shadow of Thy wing." The righteousness of Christ is the breastplate of the soul. Now let us gather up our practical conclusions: The righteousness of Christ becomes immediately mine by the act and attitude of faith. Yea, verily, the most leprous and unclean soul in this city, with a history unutterably loathsome, whose faith looks up tremblingly to the Saviour, is immediately covered with the robe of Christ’s righteousness, for by faith he immediately becomes one with the righteousness of Christ. By faith I can here and now become one with Christ; however poor and wretched I be, and however sinful I have been, the righteousness of Christ becomes the armour of my soul. You say that is very dogmatic. Yes, blessed be God, it is dogmatic, but it is justified dogmatism, for it is the glorious dogmatism of the gospel of Christ. And covered with the righteousness of Christ, that imputed righteousness becomes progressively mine in the appropriation of experience. His life flows into me like the life of stock into scion, and all through my days I am assimilating more and more the righteousness which covers me. His covering righteousness becomes more and more my rectitude. His covering holiness becomes more and more my obedience. His righteousness passes more and more into my conscience and makes it holy; more and more into my affections and makes them lovely; more and more into my will to make it rich and dutiful in obedience. Forever and ever His righteousness will cover me, and forever and forever I shall be growing into His likeness. His righteousness is my defence. Yes, it is a coat of mail, a protection for breast and back. His righteousness protects me from the things that are behind, the guilt and the sins of my yesterdays. His righteousness protects me from the things of to-morrow, from all the assaults of the unknown way, from the fear of death, and from the day of judgment. "When I soar through worlds unknown, See Thee on Thy Judgment Throne, Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 55: 04.04. READY! ======================================================================== IV READY! Heavenly Father, we thank Thee we are called to be children of the light. Even though we have been children of the darkness, and have loved the ways of error rather than of truth, and of sin rather than of holiness, Thou art calling us to the light of eternal day. We would answer Thy call in penitence, and we would return to Thee like wayward children who are coming home again. We do not ask to lose the sense of our shame, but we ask to taste the sweetness of Thy forgiveness. We do not ask to forget our rebelliousness, but we ask to be assured that we are reconciled to Thee. We would sit at Thy table and receive the bread of life. We would worship at Thy feet and receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We would stand before Thee with our feet shod with the shoes of readiness, willing to go out on errands of Christian love and service. If we are inclined to frivolity may we become inclined to be serious and reverent. If we are heedless may we become fired with heavenly ambition and spiritual devotion. Redeem us from the littleness of selfishness and lift us into the blessed communion of our fellow-men. Give us a wide and generous outlook upon human affairs. Endow us with the sympathy that rejoices with them who are rejoicing and that weeps with them that weep. If Thou art leading us through the gloom of adversity may we find that even the clouds drop fatness. If Thou art leading us through the green pastures and by the still waters, may we recognize the presence of the great Shepherd and may our joys be sanctified. Hallow all our experiences, we humbly pray Thee, and may we all become branches in the vine of our Lord. Amen. "Your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace." Ephesians 6:15. A little while ago an article appeared in one of the daily papers with this startling title: "Boots and shoes may be vital determining factors in the war." And contrasts and comparisons were made between the opposing forces in respect to their footgear, and the provision which had been made for keeping the soldiers’ feet strong and hardy. And allowing even for the ordinary journalistic exaggeration, it is a most reasonable thing to assume that good, durable, well-fitting boots are part of the requisite armour for all soldiers who are called to prolonged and exacting service. Think of those heavy tramps in the early days of the war, whether in advance or in retreat; and think of the miry roads and the marshy ground since the rains have fallen; and think of the wet and soaking trenches where the men have to stand for hours together; and you will begin to realize what a vital part boots may play in the terrible hardships of a long and wintry campaign. In the Roman Empire scrupulous care was given to the feet of the fighting men. The shoes were specially made, not only for long marches, but for protection against the secret dangers of the way. They had not arrived at some of our refinements in devilry, but some of their subtleties occasioned great destruction. Gall-traps were set along the road, multitudes of sharp sticks were inserted on the surface of the road, keen as dagger points, to obstruct the advance of an enemy, and to maim his soldiers and compel them to fall out by the way. And so it was an imperative necessity that the Roman soldier be well shod, his feet made easy for the most exacting march, and defended against the hidden perils which would maim him in service and spoil him for the fray. Now the apostle Paul had seen the Roman soldier marching as to war. I think he must have been particularly fond of watching soldiers because we can so often see and hear them reflected in his letters. We can always learn a great deal from a man by studying his metaphors and figures of speech, and we can get some very suggestive glimpses of his tastes and interests by watching the analogies of the apostle Paul, where the army is often tramping through his letters, and the Roman soldier is often presented to offer counsel to the soldiers of the Lord. And here in my text we are bidden to look to the soldier’s shoes. He is well shod, so splendidly shod that in a moment he is ready for any call, along any road, and for any service. And the Christian, too, has long marches, and often along difficult and trying roads, and there are flints about and sharp thorns, and other things that wound and make him stumble. And sometimes there is scarcely a road at all, and we have never been that way before, and it is like the work of a pioneer cutting his way through the jungle. What roads we have to tramp! Especially when we are apostles sent forth on the King’s bidding! And, says the great apostle, "You need shoes for the roads or you will be unfit for the long journeys, and you will easily become tired and sore, and you may even drop out of the ranks." And what kind of shoes are we to wear as soldiers of Christ? How can we be defended in our long journeyings and in our crusades in the service of the King? The answer to these questions is given in the words: "Have your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace." Now what is that? Let me slightly recast the phrase. One of the words has slightly altered its colour and significance since the days of the Authorized Version. I mean the word "preparation." In the earlier days if you spoke of a man of "preparation" you meant a man who was prepared, a man who was equal to opportunity, a man who was awaiting the opening of the door, having everything ready for the call of obligation and service. So that the word "preparedness" would now be more accurate than the authorized word "preparation." "Having your feet shod with the preparedness of the gospel of peace." But I think we shall do even better if instead of either of these we use the word "readiness." "Having your feet shod with the readiness of the gospel of peace." What is that? Look at it a little more closely. "The readiness of the gospel"; that is the readiness which is born of the gospel as heat is born of the sun. The gospel of peace enters the soul of a man and takes possession of it, and then inspires the man with readiness. What for? Readiness to take the road to tell others the good tidings which have filled his own soul. That is it. The gospel of peace enters and glorifies the soul, and it then imparts to the feet a readiness to take the road, the long and difficult road, if need be, in order to tell to others the good news which has set it free. That is it. Have your feet shod with the readiness begotten of the gospel of peace! Let me give an example, and let it be taken from the book of the prophet Isaiah. Here, then, are people in exile, sitting in the cold shadow of oppression, and longing for freedom and home. And over the hard mountain tracks there come messengers, swift messengers carrying the glad tidings of emancipation. There they come over the long roads! And when the suffering exiles see and hear them they break into this song: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of God, that publisheth salvation; that saith to Zion, Thy God reigneth! Break forth into joy! Sing together!" The feet of the messengers were shod with the readiness begotten of good news, and they were speeding with comfort to the desolate and distressed. We have another example in the same book where messengers who were ladened with a rich experience were bidden to take the high road and tell their news to others. "O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!... He shall feed His flock like a shepherd: He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom; and shall gently lead those that are with young." That was the good news, and with the readiness begotten of the good news the messengers hastened to make it known. And so it is that our feet, as disciples of the Lord Jesus, are to be shod with similar readiness, the readiness begotten of our own experience of the goodness of God, the readiness to go out on the rough and troubled roads of life, into its highways and its byways, its broad streets and its narrow streets, carrying the good cheer of the news of God’s redeeming love and grace. To be ready to go wherever there is any form of bondage, singing the gospel song of joy and freedom,—that is the privileged service of the soldiers of the Lord. "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings!" "Have your feet shod with the readiness of the gospel of peace." Now I think it might be good for us to just glance along the roads of life and look at one or two sorts of people who are held in spiritual bondage, and who are therefore in need of good news and cheer, and we will challenge ourselves if our feet are shod with readiness to take them the gospel of peace. Well, then, look down this road, for here is a soul who is held in the bondage of despondency and despair. You will find such souls upon almost any road you like to tread. They are souls who somehow have fainted; they have lost the warm, cheering, kindling light of hope. Now failure is never really deadly until it puts out our hope and freezes the springs of resolution. The only really fatal element in defeat is the resolution not to try again. We have only terribly failed when we have furled our sails. Yes, I repeat it; failure only becomes virulent when it breeds despair. Now these folk are on the road. They have so utterly failed that they have lost their vital confidence, and they have become pathetic victims of self-disparagement. What do they need? They need to have their lamps re-lit with the cheering light of hope. They need to have their fires rekindled with the blessed warmth of confidence. They need to hear of new dawnings, of radiant to-morrows, of larger, brighter coming days. And if they do need light and fire and sunrise, what is that but to say that they need to hear again the good tidings of the inexhaustible love of the risen Lord. They just need Jesus, and the comforting gospel of His peace. Yes, but who is to take it? Messengers are wanted, messengers shod with "the readiness of the gospel of peace," messengers swift and ready to run these glorious errands as the ministers of eternal hope. Now, are we shod with that gospel readiness? Are our feet ready for the road? It is a noble and a gracious ministry. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth oil to smouldering lamps, and fuel to dying fires, and that cheer and illumine the cold haunts of despondency and despair! It is Mark Rutherford who says somewhere in what is to me an unforgettable word: "Blessed are they who heal us of our self-despisings." Yes, verily it is a beautiful ministry to kindle again the lovely light of confidence and hope. Are we ready for such service? Soldiers of Jesus, are our feet "shod with the readiness of the gospel of peace"? Look again along the road. Here is another lonely soul, held in the bondage of a blinding experience. Let us say it is Saul of Tarsus, who is now on the road to Damascus: "And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: and he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him: Saul, Saul, why persecuteth thou me?... And Saul arose from the earth, and when his eyes were opened he saw no man: but they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus." Now here is a man who is held in the bondage of a blinding experience. He has been smitten in the midnight, but has not yet seen the dawn. He is convicted of sin, but has not yet found peace. He has lost his old life but has not yet found the new one. His old delights have gone, but the new joys have not yet arrived. He has been stunned, but he is not yet free! And there he is! What is needed? O surely, what is needed is some human messenger in whom the gospel of peace dwells like summer sunshine and fragrance, and whose feet are shod with readiness to carry that gracious summer to others. "And the Lord said unto Ananias, Arise and go into the street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul.... And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house; and putting his hands on him, said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee on the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales." And so the blinded found his sight, and the enslaved found his liberty, and the bewildered found his peace; and one of the Lord’s messengers was the human minister in the great emancipation. His feet were shod with the readiness of the gospel of peace. "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings." There are other blinded people along the road, people who are stunned and bewildered, not by dazzling light but by fierce lightning. There are people who are just blinded by calamity. They have suffered the lightning stroke of disaster or bereavement. I was talking to one such troubled soul this very week; and speaking of the repeated blows of her heavy sorrows she said: "They just left me blind and dumb!" Blind and dumb along the road! What did she need? O, she just needed the restoring balm and cordials of heavenly comfort. She needed the soft consolations of divine grace. And what is that but to say again that she needed the gospel of peace? And where are the messengers, with feet shod with the readiness of the gospel of peace, to carry the good tidings to this soul held in the bondage of silence and night? How unspeakable is the privilege of carrying this holy grace, and seeing the holy light of faith breaking upon the face of bewilderment, lovelier far than the glory of sunrise breaking upon the mountains, flushing the cold snows, and suffusing with living color the gloominess of the pines! Yes, it is a beautiful service to carry good tidings to those who are stunned. "How beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings!" Soldiers of Jesus, are our feet shod with this readiness of the gospel of peace? Look once more down the road, for there is another soul held in the bondage of ignorance. Let it be a man of Ethiopia. Let the road be the steep descent which leadeth down from Jerusalem to Gaza. "A man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and did go to Jerusalem for to worship, was returning, and sitting in his chariot, read Esaias, the prophet." This man has the Word, but he has not got the clue. He has the Scriptures, but he has no interpreter. What is needed? He needs some messenger in whom the Word has become life, and who has discovered the central secret of the Scriptures in the companionship of the Lord. "The angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south, unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza. And he arose and went." "How beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings!" "And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias." He ran on his errand because his feet were shod with readiness! "Take my feet and let them be Swift and beautiful for Thee." “And Philip said, Understandest thou what thou readest?" So he explained to him the Word, and through the Word led him unto the Lord. And this is the last word we read about this man going down to Egypt: "He went on his way rejoicing!" What a ministry for a servant of the Lord! And that is your gracious service, fellow-preacher, in the ministry of the Word. And that is your privilege, Sunday-school teacher, when you meet your children in the class. You are appointed by the Lord to light up words that will burn in your scholars’ minds to the very end of the pilgrim way. And that is the privilege of all of us if we will just have confidence in the guiding grace of the Lord. We need not be stars in order to light lamps and kindle fires. A taper is quite enough if it burns with genuine flame. Our greatest fitness for this kind of service is to be ready to do it, and the Lord Himself will provide the needful equipment. To have feet shod with readiness, that is what we need. Then through our ministry it may joyfully happen that many of "The sons of ignorance and night Will dwell in the eternal light Through the eternal love." There is only one thing remaining to be said. The apostle teaches that such readiness is armour for our own souls, it is defensive armour against the world, the flesh and the devil. To be ready to tell the good news of grace, the gospel of peace, is to have stout protection as you trudge along the road. Readiness is one piece of armour in the panoply of God. The soul which is not ready to serve is an easy prey to the evil one. A man whose feet are swift to carry the good tidings of grace is the favoured child of glorious promise: "He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways." While we are ministering to others we are being ministered unto by the spirits that surround His throne, and our security is complete. Then let us pray for the grace and protection of readiness. Let us pray that the gospel of peace may more and more deeply possess our souls, so that we may be inspired with that spontaneous readiness which awaits the King’s bidding, and which speeds on its way carrying the glorious treasures of grace. "Have your feet shod with the readiness of the gospel of peace." "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings!" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 56: 04.05. THE SHIELD OF FAITH ======================================================================== V THE SHIELD OF FAITH Most Holy God, Who lightenest every man that cometh into the world, enlighten our hearts, we pray Thee, with the light of Thy grace, that we may fully know our sins and our shortcomings, and may confess them with true sorrow and contrition of heart. Unveil Thy love to us, so that in its clear shining we may behold the sin of our rebellion, and may turn unto Thee in humility and fervent devotion. Deliver us, we pray Thee, from the tyranny of evil habit. Save us from acknowledging any sovereignty above Thine. Keep us in sight of the great white throne, and may Thy judgments determine all our ways. Defend us when we are tempted to fields of transgression. Protect us from the allurements which assail the senses, and which entice us, through our fleshly desires, into impure delights. Loose us from the bonds of vanity and pride, and remove every perverting prejudice which blinds our vision. Impart unto us the grace of simplicity. May our worship be perfectly candid and sincere. Give us a healthy recoil from all hypocrisy, from all mere acting in Thy holy Presence. Quicken our perception that we may realize Thy Presence, and feel the awe of the unseen. Lead us, we pray Thee, to the fountain of life. Quicken our souls so that we may apprehend the things that concern our peace. Amen. "Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked." Ephesians 6:16. But did the apostle who gives the counsel find his faith an all-sufficient shield? He recommends the shield of faith, but is the recommendation based on personal experience? And if so, what is the nature and value of that experience? What sort of protection did his faith give to him? When I examine his life what tokens do I find of guardianship and strong defence? When I move through the ways of his experience is it like passing through quiet and shady cloisters shut away from the noise and heat of the fierce and feverish world? Is his protected life like a garden walled around, full of sweet and pleasant things, and secured against the maraudings of robber and beast? Let us look at this protected life. Let us glance at the outer circumstances. Here is one glimpse of his experience: "Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one; once was I stoned; thrice have I suffered shipwreck; a day and a night have I been in the deep; in stripes above measure; in prisons more frequent; in deaths oft; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness." And yet this is the man who speaks about the shield of faith, and in spite of the protecting shield all these things happened unto him! Look at his bodily infirmities. "There was given unto me a thorn in the flesh." Where was the shield? It is not necessary for us to know the character of his thorn. But assuredly it was some ailment which appeared to interfere with the completeness of his work. Some think it was an affliction of the eyes; others think that it was a proneness to some form of malarial fever which frequently brought him into a state of collapse and exhaustion. But there it was, and the shield of faith did not keep it away. Or look again at his exhausting labours. There is no word concerning his ministry more pregnant with meaning than this word "labour," which the apostle so frequently used to describe his work. "In labours oft;" "whereunto I labour;" "I laboured more abundantly than they all." This is not the labour of ordinary toil. It is the labour of travail. It is labour to the degree of poignant pang. It is labour that so expends the strength as to empty the fountain. It is the labour of sacrifice. And I thought that perhaps a protected life might have been spared the sufferings of a living martyrdom and that the service such a man rendered might have been made fruitful without pain. I thought God might have protected His servant. But the shield of faith did not deliver him from the labour of travail through which he sought the birth of the children of grace. Or look once more at his repeated failures. You can hear the wail of sadness as he frequently contemplates his ruined hopes concerning little churches which he had built, or concerning fellow-believers whom he had won to Christ. "Are ye so soon fallen away?" "Ye would have given your eyes to me but now—." "I hear that there is strife among you." "It is reported that there is uncleanness among you." "Demus hath forsaken me." And it is wail after wail, for it is failure after failure. Defeat is piled upon defeat. It is declared to be a protected life, and yet disasters litter the entire way. It is perfectly clear that the shield of faith did not guard him from the agony of defeat. Such are the experiences of the man who gave his strength to proclaim the all-sufficiency of the shield of faith, who spent his days in recommending it to his fellow-men, and whose own life was nevertheless noisy with tumult, and burdened with antagonisms, and crippled by infirmity, and clouded with defeat. Can this life be said to be wearing a shield? We have so far been looking at the man’s environment, at his bodily infirmities, at his activities of labor, at his external defeats. What if in all these things we have not come within sight of the realm which the apostle would describe as his life? When Paul speaks of life he means the life of the soul. When he thinks of life his eyes are on the soul. In all the estimates and values which he makes of life he is fixedly regarding the soul. The question of success or failure in life is judged by him in the courthouse of the soul. You cannot entice the apostle away to life’s accidents and induce him to take his measurements there. He always measures life with the measurement of an angel, and thus he busies himself not with the amplitude of possessions, but with the quality of being, not with the outer estates of circumstances but with the central keep and citadel of the soul. We never find the apostle Paul with his eyes glued upon the wealth or poverty of his surroundings. But everywhere and always and with endless fascination, he watches the growth or decay of the soul. When, therefore, this man speaks of the shield of faith we may be quite sure that he is still dwelling near the soul and that he is speaking of a protection which will defend the innermost life from foul and destructive invasion. Now our emphasis is prone to be entirely the other way, and therefore we are very apt to misinterpret the teachings of the apostle Paul and to misunderstand the holy promises of the Lord. We are prone to live in the incidents of life rather than in its essentials, in environment rather than in character, in possessions rather than in dispositions, in the body rather than in the soul. The consequence is that we seek our shields in the realms in which we live. We live only in the things of the body and therefore against bodily ills we seek our shields. We want a shield against sorrow, to keep it away, a shield to protect us against the break-up of our happy estate. We want a shield against adversity, to keep it away, a shield against the darkening eclipse of the sunny day. We want a shield against loss, to keep it away, a shield against the rupture of pleasant relations, a shield to protect us against the bereavements which destroy the completeness of our fellowships. We want a shield against pain, to keep it away, a shield against the pricks and goads of piercing circumstances, against the stings and arrows of outrageous fortune. In a word, we want a shield to make us comfortable, and because the shield of faith does not do it we are often stunned and confused, and our thin reasonings are often twisted and broken, and the world appears a labyrinth without a providence and without a plan. It is just here that our false emphasis leads us astray. We live in circumstances and seek a shield to make us comfortable; but the apostle Paul lived in character and sought a shield to make him holy. He was not concerned with the arrangement of circumstances, but he was concerned with the aspiration that, be the circumstances what they might, they should never bring disaster to his soul. He did not seek a shield to keep off ill-circumstances, but he sought a shield to keep ill-circumstances from doing him harm. He sought a shield to defend him from the destructiveness of every kind of circumstance, whether fair or foul, whether laden with sunshine or heavy with gloom. Paul wanted a shield against all circumstances in order that no circumstance might unman him and impoverish the wealth of his soul. Let me offer a simple illustration. A ray of white light is made up of many colors, but we can devise screens to keep back any one of these colors and to let through those we please. We can filter the rays. Or we can devise a screen to let in rays of light and to keep out rays of heat. We can intercept certain rays and forbid their presence. Now, to the apostle Paul the shield of faith was a screen to intercept the deadly rays which dwell in every kind of circumstance; and to Paul the deadly rays in circumstances, whether the circumstances were bright or cloudy, were just those that consumed his spiritual susceptibilities and lessened his communion with God, the things that ate out his moral fibre, and that destroyed the wholeness and wholesomeness of his human sympathies, and impaired his intimacy with God and man. It was against these deadly rays he needed a shield, and he found it in the shield of faith. Paul wanted a shield, not against failure; that might come or stay away. But he wanted a shield against the pessimism that may be born of failure, and which holds the soul in the fierce bondage of an Arctic winter. Paul wanted a shield, not against injury; that might come or stay away; but against the deadly thing that is born of injury, even the foul offspring of revenge. Paul wanted a shield, not against pain; that might come or might not come; he sought a shield against the spirit of murmuring which is so frequently born of pain, the deadly, deadening mood of complaint. Paul wanted a shield, not against disappointment, that might come or might not come; but against the bitterness that is born of disappointment, the mood of cynicism which sours the milk of human kindness and perverts all the gentle currents of the soul. Paul wanted a shield, not against difficulty; that might come or might not come; but against the fear that is born of difficulty, the cowardice and the disloyalty which are so often bred of stupendous tasks. Paul did not want a shield against success; that might come or might not come; but against the pride that is born of success, the deadly vanity and self-conceit which scorch the fair and gracious things of the soul as a prairie-fire snaps up a homestead or a farm. Paul did not want a shield against wealth; that might come or might not come; but against the materialism that is born of wealth, the deadly petrifying influence which turns flesh into stone, spirituality into benumbment, and which makes a soul unconscious of God and of eternity. The apostle did not want a shield against any particular circumstance, but against every kind of circumstance, that in everything he might be defended against the fiery darts of the devil. He found the shield he needed in a vital faith in Christ. First of all the faith-life cultivates the personal fellowship of the Lord Jesus Christ. The ultimate concern of faith is not with a polity, not with a creed, not with a church, and not with a sacrament, but with the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore the first thing we have to do if we wish to wear the shield of faith is to cultivate the companionship of the Lord. We must seek His holy presence. We must let His purpose enter into and possess our minds. We must let His promises distil into our hearts. And we must let our own hearts and minds dwell upon the Lord Jesus in holy thought and aspiration, just as our hearts and minds dwell upon the loved ones who have gone from our side. We must talk to Him in secret and we must let Him talk to us. We must consult Him about our affairs, and then take His counsels as our statutes, and pay such heed to them that the statutes will become our songs. Faith-life cultivates the friendship of Christ, and leans upon it, and surrenders itself with glorious abandon to the sovereign decrees of His grace and love. And then, secondly, the faith-life puts first things first, and in its list of primary values it gives first place to the treasures of the soul. Faith-life is more concerned with habits than with things, with character than with office, with self-respect than with popular esteem. The faith-life puts first things first, the clean mind and the pure heart, and from these it never turns its eyes away. And, lastly, the faith-life contemplates the campaign rather than the single battle. One battle may seem to go against it. But faith knows that one battle is not the end of the world. "I will see you again, and your sorrow shall be turned into joy." Faith takes the long view, the view of the entire campaign. "I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God." "The kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of our God." Such a relationship to the Lord protects our life as with an invincible shield. It may please God to conduct our life through long reaches of cloudless noon; the shield of faith will be our defence. It may please God to lead us through the gloom of a long and terrible night; the shield of faith will be our defence. "Thou shalt not be afraid of the pestilence that walketh in darkness nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 57: 04.06. THE HELMET OF HOPE ======================================================================== VI THE HELMET OF HOPE Eternal God, mercifully help us to unitedly draw near to the atoning Saviour, and through His mercies find access into the inheritance of the saints in light. Forgive the sins of our rebellion and redeem us from our guilt. Transform our spiritual habits that we may find ourselves able to fix our minds upon things above. Cleanse our hearts by the waters of regeneration, in order that our inclinations may be fixed upon the things that please Thee. Rekindle the fire of our affections, purify the light of our conscience. Broaden our compassions and make them more delicate in their discernments. Impart unto us the saving sense of Thy Companionship, and in the assurance of Thy Presence may we know ourselves competent to do Thy will. Meet with us one by one. Equip us with all needful armour for our daily battle. Feed us with hidden manna, that so our strength may be equal to our task. Unite us in the bonds of holy fear, and may we all be partakers of Thy love and grace. Amen. "And take the helmet of salvation." Ephesians 6:17. "And for an helmet the hope of salvation." 1 Thessalonians 5:8. The helmet of hope! Who has not experienced the energy of a mighty hope? It is always a force to be reckoned with in the day of life’s battle. Hope is a splendid helmet, firmly covering the head, and defending all its thoughts and purposes and visions from the subtle assaults of the evil one. The helmet of hope is one of the best protections against "losing one’s head"; it is the best security against all attacks made upon the mind by small but deadly fears; it is the only effective safeguard against petty but deadly compromise. Far away the best defence against all sorts of mental vagrancy and distraction is to have the executive chambers of the life encircled and possessed by a strong and brilliant hope. Now every student of the apostle Paul knows that he is an optimist. But he is an optimist, not because he closes his eyes, but because he opens them and uses them to survey the entire field of vision and possibility. He is an optimist, not because he cannot see the gross darkness,—no one has painted the darkness in blacker hues,—but because he can also see the light; and no one has portrayed the light with more alluring brilliance and glory. He is an optimist, not because he cannot see the loathsome presence of weakness, but because he sees the unutterable grace and love of God. Yes, he is a reasonable optimist, and I dare to say that you cannot find anywhere in human literature a hundred pages more glowing and radiant with the spirit of hope than in the letters of the apostle Paul. Nowhere can you travel with him, not even to the darkest and most tragic realms of human need, without catching the bright shining of a splendid hope. You know how it is when you walk along the shore with the full moon riding over the sea. Between you and the moon, and right across the troubled waters, there is a broad pathway of silver light. If you move up the shore the shining path moves with you. If you move down the shore still you have the silver path across the waves. Wherever you stand there is always between you and the moon a shining vista stretching athwart the restless sea. And wherever the great apostle journeyed, and through whatever cold or desolate circumstances, there was always between him and the risen Lord, the Lord of grace and love, a bright and broadening way of eternal hope. No matter where he is, and how appalling the need, no matter what corruption may gather about the shore on which he is walking, always there is the silver path of gospel-hope stretching from the human shore-line to the burning bliss of the eternal Presence. In Jerusalem, in Antioch, in Lystra, in Ephesus, in Philippi, in Rome, he was never without these holy beams. They moved with him wherever he went, for they were the outshining rays of the mercy of the eternal God. Yes indeed, he was an optimist born and sustained in grace. He saw a shining road of hope out of every pit, stretching from the miry clay to the awful and yet glorious sanctities of holiness and peace. Now our ordinary experience teaches us how much energy resides in a commanding hope. A big expectation is stored with wonderful dynamic, and it transmits its power to every faculty in the soul. The influence of a great hope fills the mind with an alert and sensitive trembling, inspiring every thought to rise as it were on tiptoe to await and greet the expected guest. A great hope pours its energy into the will, endowing it with the strength of marvellous patience and perseverance. I have lately read of an ingenious contrivance, which is now being used in some parts of Egypt, in which, by a subtle combination of glass receivers, the heat of the sun is collected, and the gathered energy concentrated and used in turning machinery in the varied ministries of agriculture. That is to say, the power of a diffused shining is directed to an engine and its strength enlisted in practical service. And so it is with the sunny light of a large hope. Its gathered energy is poured into the engine of the will, imparting glorious driving power, the power of "go" and laborious persistence. Every sphere of human interest provides examples of this principle. Turn to the realm of invention. An inventor has a great hope shining before him as a brilliant vision of possible achievement. With what energy of will it endows him, and with what tireless, sleepless, invincible patience! Think of the immeasurable endurance of the brothers Wright who were inspired by the great hope of achieving the conquest of the air! Their hope was indeed a helmet defending them against all withering suggestions of ease, protecting them against the call of an ignoble indolence which is so often heard in hours of defeat. An electric railway has just been introduced by its inventor to the British Government, which is capable of transmitting mails and parcels along a prepared track at the rate of three hundred miles per hour; and the inventor has recently quietly told us that he has been at work upon it for thirty years! But think how, all through those long and many fruitless years, his helmet of hope defended him, and especially protected him from those alluring suggestions which come from the mild climate of Lotus-Land, and which tempt a man to relax his tension and lie down in the pleasant and thymy banks of rest and ease. Or seek your examples in the realms of discovery. Read the chapters in Lord Lister’s life which tell how he, braced and inspired by a mighty hope, laboured and laboured in the quest of an anæsthetic. Or turn to the equally fascinating pages which tell how Sir James Simpson toiled, and moiled, and dared, and suffered in the long researches which led to the discovery of chloroform. His will was rendered indomitable by the splendid hope of assuaging human pain. Or think again of the restless, tireless labours of hundreds of men who are to-day engaged in searching for the microscopic cause of cancer, that having found it they might isolate it, and discover an antagonist which shall work its complete destruction. There is a glorious hope shining across the cancer waste, and it is nerving the will of research with unconquerable perseverance. Yes, indeed, men wear a splendid helmet, even in the ways of common experience, when they wear the helmet of hope. And mark their condition when they lose it. Turn to the scriptural record of the voyage when Paul and his fellow-prisoners were being escorted by soldiers to take their trial in Rome: A tempestuous storm arose, and, in the power of a mighty hope to save the boat and themselves the men called out every ounce of their strength. But now note this connection in the narrative as I read it to you: "All hope was taken away." ... "We let her drift." That is it, and it offers a striking symbol of a common experience. While our hope is burning we steer; when our hope is gone out we drift. The motive power is gone, and the hopeless man is like a drifting hull in the midst of a wild and desolate sea. Or turn to the pages of Capt. Scott’s journal when he and his party are surmounting colossal tasks in the chivalrous hope of winning for their country the honourable distinction of first discovery of the South Pole. The narrative just blazes with hope, and therefore it tingles with energy and shouts with song! But when Amundsen’s flag was seen at the Pole, and their strong hope was gone, and the disappointed company began to return—O what heavy feet, and what accumulated burdens, and what fiercely added laboriousness to an already laborious road! Hope had gone, and they nobly trudged, and trudged, and trudged, to faint, and fall, and die! Aye, men and women, hope is a tremendous power. To have hope is to have always fresh reserves to meet every new expenditure of the will. To lose hope is like losing the dynamo, the secret of inspiration, and the once indomitable will droops and faints away. It just makes an infinite difference whether or not we are wearing the helmet of hope. But now, if all this is true of common hope and common experience, how is it with the supreme hope, "the hope of salvation?" What is this hope,—"the hope of salvation?" To whom is the apostle Paul giving this counsel? He is giving it to Christian believers in Ephesus: But were they not already saved? Why should he speak to them of "the hope of salvation" as though it were something still to be won? I remember when I was a mere boy going to Spurgeon’s Tabernacle, and as I was retiring from the building at the close of the service, a gentleman laid his hand upon my shoulder, and said: "My boy, are you saved?" His question suggested that it was something I might already have experienced. Well, had not the Ephesian disciples passed through that same experience? A little while ago a London cabman stood at the foot of the pulpit-stairs in our church, and told me that by the grace of God he had been wonderfully saved. But the apostle speaks to these believers of "the hope of salvation" as though it were something still before them. They had taken a great step in discipleship in that vast and wicked city of Ephesus, crowded with all sorts of antagonisms, and they had boldly confessed themselves on the side of Christ. And yet, the apostle counsels them to wear as a helmet "the hope of salvation." The truth is that the apostle Paul uses all the three primary tenses in speaking of salvation. He speaks to believers in the past tense, and he says: "We were saved." And to the same believers he uses the present tense, and he says: "Ye are being saved." And yet again to the same believers he uses the future tense, "Ye shall be saved." All of which means that to this great apostle a gloriously full salvation stretches across the years from past to future, gathering riches with every passing day. Salvation to Paul was more than a step, it was also a walk. It was more than a crisis, it was also a prolonged process. It was more than the gift of new life, it was the maturing in growth and power. A drowning man, when he is lifted out of the water, is in a very profound sense vitally saved. But after this initial salvation there is the further salvation of re-collecting his scattered consciousness, and of recovering his exhausted strength. And in a very glorious sense a man is spiritually saved in a moment; in a moment in Christ Jesus he passed from death into life. But it is also equally true that a man is only saved in a lifetime, as he appropriates to himself more and more the grace and truth of the risen Lord. Yes, after we have been converted and saved, there is a further salvation in self-recovery, in self-discovery, all of which becomes ours in a fuller and richer discovery of Christ. Our possibilities of salvation in Christ Jesus stretch before us like range upon range of glorious mountains. When we have attained one range we have only obtained a new vantage-ground for beholding another; when that, too, has been climbed, still vaster and grander ranges rise into view. Every fresh addition to our Christlikeness increases our power of discernment, and every added power of discernment unfolds a larger vision and a more glorious and alluring hope. All believers in Christ Jesus have been saved. All believers in Christ Jesus are being saved. All believers in Christ Jesus will be saved. And therefore, says the apostle, always wear the helmet of hope, "the hope of salvation." Now perhaps we cannot better draw this meditation to a close in more immediate and practical purpose than by just gazing upon one or two of the hopes of the apostle Paul, if perchance by God’s good grace we may appropriate them to our own souls. For he, too, is wearing the helmet of hope, the hope of salvation. What, then, does he hope for? What mighty hope is throwing the energies of its defences upon and around his soul? Here is one of his hopes; look at it: "In hope of the glory of God." He wore that hope, and he wore it like a helmet, and he wore it night and day. He had gazed upon the glory of the Lord, the wondrous light of grace and truth which shone in the face of Jesus Christ. And now he dared to hold the glorious hope of becoming glorified with the same glory. He dared to hope that his own soul would become translucent with the holy light of divine truth and purity. It almost makes one catch the breath to see such spiritual audacity. One has read of young boys trembling with artistic sensibility, bowing in the presence of the world’s masterpieces in art or music, and becoming possessed with the amazing hope of one day sharing the master’s light and glory. But here is a man who has been prostrate in the presence of his God. He has been humbly gazing upon "the chief among ten thousand and the altogether lovely." And now, in a daring which yet quiets the soul in reverence and prayerful lowliness, he tells his fellow-believers that he lives "in hope of the glory of God." What a hope! The hope of being glorified with God’s glory, of being made gracious with His grace, of being made truthful with His truth, of being sanctified with His holiness, of being transformed into the same image, from glory unto glory! I say, what a hope, and therefore, what a helmet! With a helmet like that defending a man’s brain, what a defence he has against all the petty devilries which seek to enter among our thoughts in the shape of mean purposes, and petty moral triflings, such as so often invade and desolate the whole realm of the mind! What a hope this is, and what a helmet; "the hope of the glory of God." And here is another way the apostle has of describing the hope he wears, "the hope of salvation;"—"To present us spotless before His throne." Quietly and reverently repeat that phrase, again, and again, and again, until something of its grandeur begins to fill your soul as the advancing light of the rising sun fills a vale in Switzerland with its soft and mellowing glory. "To present us spotless before His throne." What a hope! And yet this man wore it every day, in all the ups and downs, the victories and defeats of his ever-changing life. "To present us spotless before His throne!" Just think of wearing that hope in New York! And by God’s good grace we can wear it; yes, indeed, we can, and what a helmet to wear! When a man has got that helmet on, and some sharp temptation is hurled at him, it will fall away from him like a paper pellet thrown against the armour plate of a mighty dreadnought. "To present us spotless!" Wear that helmet of hope, and the devil shall batter thee in vain. For what can the devil do with men and women in whom these hopes are blazing? He offers us his glittering snares, and they are revealed as common paste in the presence of genuine stones. They stand exposed as noisy fireworks in the presence of the stars. Let us wear the helmet of hope, the helmet of salvation, and we are quite secure. But let us put it on every day. Every morning let us put on the helmet, and often and again during the day let us feel that it is in its place. Let us begin the day by saying, "Now, my soul, live to-day in hope of the glory of God! Live to-day in the hope of being presented spotless before His throne! Live to-day in the hope of being ’filled unto all the fulness of God’." Let us put that helmet on, and let us do it deliberately, prayerfully, and trustfully, and in life’s evil day we shall be able to stand, and having done all, to stand. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 58: 04.07. THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT ======================================================================== VII THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT Heavenly Father, Who hast given Thy Holy Spirit to comfort and to guide Thy servants, teach us to trust His leading. Day by day we would listen to His consolation and direction. When we open Thy Word of Life we would rely upon His illuminating interpretation. When the story of the character and the depths of the teaching of Jesus are far beyond us, and seem unapproachable, when doubts and fears assail the mind, let us abide in quiet repose under the tuition of the indwelling Spirit. When desire for the highest life fails, and hunger and thirst after righteousness are forgotten in other pursuits, may the kindly Spirit inspire afresh the ardor of enthusiasm which He alone can create. When we have lost our bearings in the maze of life teach us to look to the ever-present Guide Who brings back into the clear path all Who trust Him; through Jesus Christ. Amen. "Take the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God." Ephesians 6:17. Here is the Christian soldier with his sword, and his sword is the Word of God. And what a sword it is! "Then said Mr. Greatheart to Mr. Valiant-for-truth, Thou hast worthily behaved thyself; let me see thy sword. So he showed it him. When he had taken it into his hand and looked thereon a while, he said, Ha, it is a right Jerusalem blade. Then said Mr. Valiant-for-truth, It is so. Let a man have one of these blades, with a hand to wield it, and skill to use it, and he may venture upon an angel with it. He need not fear its holding if he can but tell how to lay on. Its edge will never blunt. It will cut flesh and bones, and soul and spirit and all." Yes indeed, this sword is a serviceable and most efficient weapon. And it might be profitable, in the very beginning of our meditation, to go on to the field of actual battle and watch one or two mighty swordsmen wielding the sword in actual war. And let us begin with Him who could wield the sword as none other could do and who never drew it in vain. "And the tempter came to Him and said, If Thou art the Son of God command that these stones be made bread." At once the Master’s hand was on the hilt of His sword and He drew it forth for combat. "It is written man shall not live by bread alone." It was "the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God!" The place of battle is now changed, but the [missing text] unto Him, "All these things will I give Thee if Thou wilt fall down and worship me." And again the Master whipped out His sword;—"Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord Thy God, and Him only shalt Thou serve." It was "the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God!" Now turn your eyes to quite another field of battle where one of the Master’s disciples, a very skilful swordsman, is in combat with a very deadly foe. "And when the people saw what Paul had done"—he had just given a cripple the power to walk—"they lifted up their voices saying, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men. And they called Barnabas Jupiter, and Paul Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker." Now what did the apostle do in the presence of so deadly a peril, a peril which garbed itself in the attractive robes of light? Immediately he drew out his sword, and fought his shining antagonist with a word from the 146th Psalm! That is excellent swordwork, by a most excellent swordsman! And he used "the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God." Or turn once more to another field of battle, to the Valley of Humiliation, where "poor Christian was hard put to it. For he had gone but a little way before he espied a foul fiend coming over the field to meet him; his name was Apollyon." "Then did Christian draw, for he saw it was time to bestir him; Apollyon as fast made at him, throwing darts as thick as hail.... The sword combat lasted for about half a day, even till Christian was almost quite spent; for you must know that Christian, by reason of his wounds, must needs grow weaker and weaker. Then Apollyon, espying his opportunity, began to gather up close to Christian, and wrestling with him gave him a dreadful fall; and with that Christian’s sword flew out of his hand. Then said Apollyon, I am sure of thee now. And with that he had almost pressed him to death, so that Christian began to despair of life. But as God would have it, while Apollyon was fetching his last blow, thereby to make a full end of this good man, Christian nimbly reached out his hand for his sword, saying, Rejoice not against me, oh mine enemy: when I fall I shall arise; and with that gave him a deadly thrust which made him give back as one that had received his mortal wound. Christian perceiving that made at him again, saying, ’Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.’ And with that Apollyon spread forth his broken wings, and sped him away, so that Christian saw him no more.... I never saw Christian all this while give as much as one pleasant look, till he perceived he had wounded Apollyon with his two-edged sword; then indeed he did smile and look upward.... Then there came to him a man with some of the leaves of the tree of life, the which Christian took and applied to the wounds that he had received in the battle and was healed immediately." Surely to watch expert fighters like these, who turn their battlefields into fields of glory, makes one more ambitious to possess and wield that same two-edged sword, the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God! Well now, it is this sword which Paul advises these young disciples at Ephesus to get and hold at all costs, and never to leave it rusting in the scabbard at home. And surely, if there was need for swordwork anywhere it was in that gay, shallow, materialistic city of Ephesus. We have been reading many terrible accounts of late of bayonet fighting in the trenches in Belgium and France, where gunnery attacks were unavailable, and where men came face to face in the hot breath of one another’s passions, and were locked in the death-grip of hand-to-hand encounter. It was even so with the spiritual warfare in Ephesus. There was no long-range fighting, no far distant antagonisms, no remote or merely theoretical persecution. The foes of the soul were exceedingly real, exceedingly near, and exceedingly intimate. In Ephesus your enemy was upon you in a moment, and there was nothing for it but never to let the sword fall from your hand. Spiritual enemies approached the soul every hour of the day, and it was imperative to run them through with the sword of the truth. There were falsities, and subtleties, and evasions; there were ambiguities and sophistries; there were half truths linked with black falsehood, and white lies linked with snatches of truth; there were exaggerations and perversions; there were insinuations and evil counsels; there were mean expediencies and illicit compromises; there were hypocrisies of every kind in that prosperous city of Ephesus, tricked out in apparent seemliness, and perilous in all the wiles of the devil. What, then, was a young Christian to do in all that immoral welter? He must have his sword in hand, always in hand, and he must prick these bubbles, and pierce these showy disguises, and rend these deceptive veils, and he must do it at once, before they mastered him with the plausible counterfeits of the truth. I saw a photograph the other day from the European field of war, in which a company of soldiers were examining a load of hay. They were piercing it with their swords in the endeavour to find out if any foe lay hidden in the fragrant pile. And I could not but think of the warfare of the soul, and of the sweet and fragrant disguises in which the devil is so often concealed. The devil in a hay-rick! I have experienced it a thousand times. A deadly temptation hidden in some innocent expediency! Some fatal lure concealed in a popular custom! Corruption housing itself in a white lie! The enemy wearing a white robe! The devil, I say, in a hay-rick! In such conditions there was only one resource for these disciples in Ephesus, as there is only one resource for you and me to-day, to have our swords always ready, and to pierce these glistening falsities in the blessed name of the holy and unchanging God. Yes, whip out your sword, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. What, then, is this sword? It is "the Word of God." And what is this Word of God which we are to flash through all falsehood like the thrust of a gleaming sword? What is this Word which is to be our sword? Well, first of all, it is the word of divine truth; God’s way of thinking about things. And therefore when we are wielding the sword we are using a thought of God. We are to use God’s thought about a thing in fighting all other thoughts about that thing. For instance, we are to take God’s thought about life, and use it as a sword to meet and destroy all mean and unworthy conceptions of life. We are to take God’s thought about sin and use it in combating all the lax and deadly conceptions of sin which are so loose and rampant in our own day. We are to take God’s thought about holiness, and use it in fighting all ignoble compromises which may satisfy a poor standard in the kingdom of the letter, but which have no standing in the more glorious realm of the spirit. We are to take God’s thought about worship, and fight all the little, mean, seductive ritualisms which so frequently strut about in royal and gorgeous robes, but which are empty of all vital spiritual wealth and power. And so with a thousand other relations. God’s thought about a thing is to be our sword in fighting all the debasing thoughts of that thing; it may be God’s thought of work, or of wealth, or of success, or of failure, or God’s thought of pleasure, or of service, or of death. What does God think about a thing? That is my sword, the thought of God which is the word of God. And we are to take that shining, flaming, flashing thought, and use it as a sword among all the creeping, crawling things, or against all the flying and bewitching subtleties of things which abounded in Ephesus, and which are equally prolific in London or New York. And so does the apostle give us this counsel: "Take the sword of the spirit, which is the thought or word of God." And now I can add a second characteristic of the sword, a characteristic which amplifies and corroborates the first. This word of God, which is to be our sword, is not only the word of divine truth as laid upon the mind. It is also the word of divine commandment as laid upon the will. It is a word which divinely reveals our personal duty, imposing upon us some imperative mission. Some word of God comes to us with the mysterious suggestion of obligation, and we often receive it over against some soft and wooing temptation to an indulgent indolence; and we are to take the divine word of obligation, and with it fight and slay the soft seduction to ease. We have this sort of warfare most vividly described in the experience of the prophet Jonah. Let me set it before you. "And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it!" Let us note the lines of this experience. The word of the Lord came to Jonah as an imperative and an obligation. It said "Nineveh!" But another word came to Jonah, a soft, luxurious, seductive word, luring him to Tarshish. And there you have all the conditions of spiritual warfare; and the only way for the believer is to take the word of obligation, and use it as a mighty sword against the word of seduction; he must take his sword and slay it, or chase it in miserable flight from the field. The word of duty is the word of God, and therefore the word of duty is thy sword against every plausible temptation that would snare thee to disloyal ease. There is still a third descriptive word about the sword, and which again corroborates and enriches the others. The word of God, which is the sword of the spirit, is not only the word of divine truth laying God’s thought upon the mind; and not only the word of divine commandment laying God’s purpose upon the will; it is also the word of divine promise laying God’s strengthening comfort upon the heart. Just think of that fine sword, the word of promise, being handed to these young and tempted disciples in this awful, hostile city of Ephesus. I think we may easily imagine, without presumption, how they would apply the apostle’s counsel, and how the older men among them would train the younger men in the expert use of this shining sword. They would say: "Whenever you go out to your work, amid all the cold, bristling antagonisms of the world, carry the sword of promise! When your circumstances seem to mock you because of your unnerving loneliness, whip out the sword of promise! When you appear to be in a minority of one, and the enemy swarms in menace around you on every side, carry this sword of promise in your right hand, ’I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.’ And when the enemy taunts you because of your weakness, or your want of culture, or your lack of rank and social prestige, or your nobodyism and nothingism, whip out the sword and fight the taunt with this word of promise, ’Neither shall any one pluck you out of my hand’!" Thus do I think these disciples would speak to one another, as, blessed be God, disciples can speak to one another to-day. When the devil comes to us in our loneliness, in our weakness, in our seeming abandonment, let us lay hold of the word of grace, and fight all the enemies’ taunts with the divine promise, and pierce them through and through, turning the foe to rout, and remaining more than conquerors on the hard and finely won field. Well, such is what I think to be the sword. It is the word of divine truth, it is the word of divine commandment, and it is the word of divine promise. It is a superlatively excellent sword, "it is a right Jerusalem blade." "Let a man have one of these blades, with a hand to wield it, and skill to use it, and he may venture upon an angel with it." Its edge will never blunt, for it is "the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God." Where, then, can we find this word of God which is to be our sword of the spirit. Well, first of all, we can find the word of God in the sacred Scriptures. We can get our sword from its splendid armoury. Here is the word which gives the revelation of truth, telling me how the great God thinks about things, and therefore, telling me how to think amid all the plausible errors of our time. And here, too, is the word which gives the revelation of duty, telling me what the great God would have me do. And here also is the word which gives the revelation of promise, telling me what resources are prepared for them who follow the fair gleams of truth and take the divine road of duty and obedience. Yes, the word of God is in the old Book, and here you can find your sword. But sometimes the word of God is given to us, not through the medium of a book, not even the book of the Scriptures, but in a direct and immediate message to our own souls. Oh, yes, sometimes the Captain of our salvation gives me my sword without my having to make recourse to the written word. He speaks to me and hands me my sword with no intermediary between us. The word of the Lord comes unto thee and unto me as it came to the herdman Amos, and the courtier Isaiah, and to the fisherman Peter, and to the university student Paul. He speaks to thee and to me. "Hath He not promised, and shall He not do it"? "Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way; walk ye in it." "And His that gentle voice we hear, Soft as the breath of even; That checks each fault, and calms each fear, And speaks of heaven!" If the sword of the spirit is the word of God, then sometimes I take my sword immediately from my Sovereign’s hand,—the word of truth, the word of duty, and the word of promise,—and like St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Catherine of Sienna, and George Fox, all of them mystics, and all of them deep in the knowledge of the mind and heart of God, I, too, can take the sword and use it on the wide and changing battlefields of life, and be more than conqueror through Him Who loved me and gave Himself for me. "Take the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God." Well, then, let us take the sword; let us draw it, and let us use it. Let us reverently find the word in the Book of Holy Writ, or in the secret chamber of our own soul; and then let us carry it as our sword to the immediate occasion, and to the next stage upon life’s road. Let us have the sword ready, always ready; let us be always at attention, waiting with the word of God to meet the tempting word of man. A man without a sword is in a sorry way when the devil leaps upon him. That was the tragic plight of Judas Iscariot. When the chief priests and scribes came to bargain with him, to induce him to sell his Lord, he ought to have had his sword ready, and to have run it through the devilish suggestion when it was only newly born. But somehow, somehow, he had lost his sword, and he was undone—"and he covenanted with them for thirty pieces of silver"! And when you and I are tempted to sell the Lord, when we are tempted to make a dirty bargain of any kind, when we are tempted to prefer money to integrity, or unholy ease to stern duty, or soft flattery to rugged truth, let us have our swords in our hands,—"the sword of the spirit which is the word of God"—and let us slay the suggestion at its very birth. Have your sword ready. You may need it before you get home. Have your sword ready! Fight the good fight of faith, and lay hold on eternal life. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 59: 04.08. THE SOLDIERS USE OF PRAYER ======================================================================== VIII THE SOLDIER’S USE OF PRAYER Almighty God, Our Father, it is by Thy grace that we attain unto holiness, and it is by Thy light that we find wisdom. We humbly pray that Thy grace and light may be given unto us, so that we may come into the liberty of purity and truth. Wilt Thou graciously exalt our spirits and enable us to live in heavenly places in Christ Jesus? Impart unto us a deep dissatisfaction with everything that is low, and mean, and unclean, and create within us such pure desire that we may appreciate the things which Thou hast prepared for them that love Thee. Wilt Thou receive us as guests of Thy table? Give us the glorious sense of Thy presence, and the precious privilege of intimate communion. Feed us with the bread of life; nourish all our spiritual powers; help us to find our delight in such things as please Thee. Give us strength to fight the good fight of faith. Give us holy courage, that we may not be daunted by any fear, or turn aside from our appointed task. Make us calm when we are to tread an unfamiliar road, and may Thy presence give us companionship divine. Meet with us, we humbly pray Thee, in all the appointed means of grace, and may the joyful remembrance of this service inspire us in all common life and service of after days. Amen. "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; and for me that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel." Ephesians 6:18-19. We have been engaged in studying the different pieces of the Christian soldier’s armour as it is described to us by the apostle Paul. Let us now glance at the warrior as he stands before us fully armed and ready for the field. His loins are girt about with truth, the truth revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord. He is protected back and front with a coat of mail, the righteousness of the Lord Jesus, a righteousness which covers him in a moment as with a garment, and then little by little imparts to him the holy likeness of his Lord. His feet are shod with readiness, and are swiftly obedient to do the King’s bidding and to carry his message of grace and good-will. He bears the shield of faith, his sure screen from every deadly dart springing from any kind of circumstance, whether in the cloudless noon or in the blackest midnight. On his head there is the helmet of salvation, the helmet of a mighty hope, protecting his mind from the invasion of deadly distractions, and from all the belittling suggestions of the evil one. In his hand he carries the sword of the Spirit, the word or thought of God, the shining thought wherewith every other kind of thought is overthrown or put to utter rout. Now that, surely, is a brave and gleaming equipment. Surely the armour is all-sufficient, and the well-appointed, well-defended warrior is now ready for the field! Let him go forth to meet the great enemy of souls. Let him encounter all the wiles of the devil, and let him so hold himself and so use himself as to convert every hour of opportunity into a season of spiritual glory. No, no, not yet! Says the apostle, "Steady!" With all his shining armour his equipment is not yet complete. There is one other vital thing to be named, and this the Christian warrior must take along with him, for his warfare will be hopeless if he leaves it behind. "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints." Now why should the Christian warrior pray? He must pray as a suppliant for the robust health of his own spirit. Yes, but why should he pray for the maintenance of his own spiritual health? What is the vital relationship between the praying soul and the attainment of moral and spiritual robustness? How is prayer related to a man’s moral force? This is the relationship. A praying warrior receives into his soul the grace-energies of the eternal God. The power of grace is just the holy love and strength and beauty of the holy Godhead flowing into the needs of the soul and filling them with its own completeness. Now we do not pray in order to make God willing to impart this grace, but in order to fit ourselves to receive it. We do not pray to ingratiate God’s good-will, but to open our souls in hospitality. We do not pray in order to create a friendly air, but to let it in, not to propitiate God but to appropriate Him. We do not pray to turn a reluctant God toward ourselves, but to turn our reluctant selves toward a ready and bountiful God. It is imperative that we should lay hold of this teaching very firmly. It is of the utmost moment we should know what we are doing when we pray for the bracing and sanctifying energies of the Holy Spirit. Prayer then, I say, is first and chiefly the establishment of communion with God. Prayer is the clearing of the blocked roads which are crowded with all sorts of worldly hindrances. Prayer is the preparing of the way of the Lord. When I turn to the Lord in prayer I open the doors and windows of my soul toward the heavenlies, and I open them for the reception of any gifts of grace which God’s holy love may wish me to receive. My reverent thought in prayer perfects communion between my soul and God. Let me offer an illustration. I am told there is electricity in my house. I am told that this mysterious, invisible, electric spirit is waiting to be my minister and to serve me in a dozen different ways. I go into a room where the genius is said to be waiting, and yet the room is held in darkness. Where is this friendly spirit? Where is the light which is one of its promised services? And then I am told that an action of mine, quite a simple one, is required, and that when the action has been performed the waiting spirit will reveal itself in radiant beams. And so I bring my will into play, and I push a button, or I lift a tiny lever, and my action completes the circuit, and the subtle energy leaps into the carbon filament and turns my darkness into light. That is it! My action completes the circuit! And when I turn my will to pray, when I seek the holy, sanctifying power of God, my prayer completes the circuit between my soul and God, and I receive whatever the inexhaustible fountain of grace is always waiting to bestow. And so do I say that prayer is first of all, and most of all, the establishing of a vital communion between the soul and God. Lord Tennyson, in what must have been a wonderful conversation on the subject of prayer with Mr. Gladstone, and Holman Hunt, and James Addington Symonds, said that to him prayer was the opening of the sluice-gates between his soul and the waters of eternal life. It is worth while just to dwell upon Tennyson’s figure for a moment. The figure may have been taken from a canal. You enter a lock and you are shut up within its prison. And then you open the sluice-gates, and the water pours into your prison and lifts you up to the higher level, and your boat emerges again on a loftier plane of your journey. Or the figure may have been taken from a miller’s wheel: There are the miller and his mill. And the wheel is standing idle, or it is running but sluggishly and wearily at its work. And then the miller opens the sluice-gate, and the waiting water rushes along, and leaps upon the wheel, and makes it sing in the bounding rapidity of its motion. Prayer, says Tennyson, is the opening of the sluice-gates and the letting into the soul of the waiting life and power of God. Prayer opens the sluice-gates, and the water of life floods the sluggish affections, and freshens the drowsy sympathies, and braces and speeds the will like the glorious rush of the stream upon the miller’s wheel. That, to me, is the dominant conception of prayer. Prayer opens the soul to God. Prayer opens the life to the workings of infinite grace. And now I see why the Christian soldier should be so urgently counselled to pray. Prayer keeps open his lines of communication. Prayer keeps him in touch with his base of supplies. Without prayer he is isolated by the flanking movements of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and he will speedily give out in the dark and cloudy day. "Men ought always to pray and not to faint." If that is one reason why the Christian soldier should pray in order to maintain the bounding health of his own spirit, we are now faced with the second question as to when he should pray. And here is the answer of the veteran warrior Paul: "Praying always." Not at some time, but at all times! "Praying always." But can we do that? "Always"? But I am called upon to earn my daily bread. I have to face a hundred different problems. Every bit of gray matter in my brain is devoting its strength to the immediate task. Is it possible for us to think of two things at once? Can we be thinking out some absorbing question in business, and at the same time be praying to God? One thing is surely perfectly clear, we cannot always be thinking of God: It is constitutionally impossible. But now, while we cannot always be thinking of God, and always speaking to God, we can always be mentally disposed toward Him, so that whatever we are doing there can be a mental leaning or bias towards His most holy will. Let me show you what I mean. We must reverently dare to reason in this great matter as we reason in other relationships. Turn, then, for an illustration, to common gymnastics. In physical gymnastics there is no need for us to be always exercising, to be at it every moment of the waking day. The body does not need it. Indeed, it would resent it, and rebel against it. But here is the healthy genius of gymnastic exercises. Regular exercises give the body a certain healthy pose, a certain vigour and excellence of carriage, which the body retains between the exercises when we are going about our accustomed work. That is to say, conscious exercise makes unconscious habit. Our conscious exercise forces the body into attitudes which persist as habits when we are doing something else. We can retain the pose of the gymnasium on the street, and we can retain it without thinking. And so it is with spiritual exercises when they are as real as the exercises in the gymnasium. When a man prays, and prays as deliberately and purposely as he practices physical exercises, when he drills his soul as he drills his body, he gives his mind and soul a certain pose, a certain attitude, a certain stateliness and loftiness of carriage. He gives his soul a healthy bias towards God, and the soul retains the bias when he is no longer upon his knees. His soul carries itself Godward even when he is earning his daily bread. God can get at him any time and anywhere! The way is open, the communion is unbroken! That is the vital logic of the matter. By regular spiritual exercises we can subdue the soul to spiritual habit. Again and again throughout the day it is possible for us, by a conscious upward glance, to confirm the habit; until it happens that the soul is always in the posture of prayer,—in business, in laughter, in trade, at home, or abroad, always in prayer,—and therefore, in every part of the wide and varied battleground of life receiving the all-sufficient grace and love of God. And so the Christian soldier is to be "Praying always, with all prayer and supplication in the spirit." But the Christian soldier is not only a suppliant for his own spiritual health. He is much more than this. The apostle counsels him to be a suppliant for the health of the entire Christian army. "Praying always, with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints." That is to say, the Christian soldier not only prays for the health of his own spirit, but for a healthy "esprit de corps" throughout the whole militant Church of Christ. It is his duty and privilege to be prayerfully jealous for all the saints, and for the spiritual equipment of all his fellow-soldiers on the field. Now this is a very wonderful privilege entrusted to the disciple of Christ. To every believer there is entrusted the marvellous ministry of helping others to receive the energies of divine grace, and to strengthen them in the fierce combats of their own "evil day." For the character of our evil days is very varied. Your evil day may not be mine, and my evil day may not be yours. What makes an evil day for you may never trouble me, and what makes my day difficult and tempestuous may leave you perfectly serene. It is to be accounted for in many ways. The differences in our circumstances account, to some extent, for the differences in our evil days. The differences in our occupations create great differences in our daily warfare in the spirit. The differences in our temperaments make no two persons’ battles quite alike. And yet, with all our differences, we are all called upon to stand in our own evil day, "and having done all, to stand." Peter’s evil day would be very different from John’s. Thomas’ evil day would be very different from Nathanael’s. Dorcas’ evil day would be quite different to the evil days which gloomed upon Euodia and Synteche. But blessed be God, by the holy ministry of prayer we can strengthen one another to "stand in the evil day." We can help every soldier to keep his spiritual roads open and to prepare the way of the Lord. We are called upon to be sentinel suppliants on their behalf, "watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints." We are to be ever on the look-out, vigilant for the entire army of the Lord, divinely jealous for its healthy spirit, and seeking for every man in the ranks the grace and glory which we seek for ourselves. What a magnificent man this true soldier of the Lord must be! And then, just to finish it all, and by one example to show us how deep and wide is this ministry of supplication, the apostle Paul asks the young Ephesian soldiers to pray for him. "And for me, that utterance may be given unto me." Let us carefully note this, and let us observe its heartening significance. These young, immature Christians in Ephesus, trembling in their early faith, are asked to pray for the old warrior in Rome. He is now "an ambassador in bonds," held in captivity in imperial Rome, and the young soldiers in Ephesus are asked to be sentinel-suppliants for the stricken soldier far away. Do you believe this? And what does he want them to pray for? Listen to him again. "And for me, that utterance may be given unto me." Have you got the real inwardness of that appeal? A poor slave in Ephesus may, by his own prayer, anoint the lips of a great apostle with grace and power. What a vista of powerful possibility! Do all congregations realize that privilege and service concerning their ministers? "For me, that utterance may be given unto me." Do I realize that my prayers, obscure and nameless though I be, can give utterance to a Paul, a Livingstone, a Moffatt, or a Chalmers? Do I realize that I can pour grace upon their lips? What a brave and splendid privilege! Am I using it? I cannot get out of my mind the vision of some poor slave in Ephesus pouring grace and truth upon the apostle’s lips in Rome, and I cannot get out of my imagination the surprise which awaited the slave in glory, when Paul asked him, as a fellow-labourer, to share in gathering in the sheaves. "And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly." And can we do that for a man, and do it by prayer? Can one soldier give another soldier nerve, and can he do it by prayer? Can he chase away his fears? Can he change timidity into pluck? Can he transform a lamb into a lion? What a marvellous power has God given to me and thee! The unbounded privilege of it all! Some slave in Ephesus giving new boldness to Paul in Rome, and enabling Paul to take some new ground and conquer it for the Lord! And once again I say, to be called to share in the apostle’s triumphs! If anyone has prayed for me, your fellow-soldier, that utterance and courage may be given unto me, and if by my ministry some depressed and retreating soldier finds heart again, and takes up his fallen sword, and fights anew the good fight, then that suppliant shall share my holy conquest in the Lord, and the joy of the Lord shall be his strength. So once again, let us hear the apostle’s counsel, and keep it in our hearts. "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mysteries of the gospel." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 60: 04.09. WATCH YE! ======================================================================== IX "WATCH YE!" Eternal God, we bow before Thee as the children of grace and love. Purify our souls, make our eyes keen and watchful, in order that we may discern Thy purpose at every turning of the way. Help us to hallow all our circumstances whether they appear friendly or adverse, and may we subdue them all to the King’s will. We pray that we may obtain new visions of the glory of Christ. May His gospel of grace become more exceedingly precious as we gaze into its unsearchable wealth. Let in the light as our eyes are able to bear it. Tell us some of the many things which are yet withholden because we are not able to bear them. May we exercise our senses in discernment, that so we may be led into the deeper secrets of Thy truth. And wilt Thou graciously grant unto us new possibilities of service. May we light lamps on many a dark road. May we give help to many a tired pilgrim who is burdened by the greatness of the way. May we give cups of refreshment to those who are thirsty and faint. And may our own faith and hope restore the flickering light where courage is nearly spent. Amen. "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong." 1 Corinthians 16:13. This is the counsel of a brave warrior, experienced and weather-beaten, writing to raw and comparatively untried recruits. One is reminded of the veteran Lord Roberts when he lately spake to young English recruits who had not yet been baptized in the actual flames of battle, advising them about their own warfare of the spirit, and counselling them on no account to forfeit their self-respect and self-control. And this tried warrior, Paul, is addressing a little company of Christian recruits in the city of Corinth. Corinth is now wiped out, buried in the accumulated débris of the centuries. Here and there an excavated column bears desolate witness to the glory of former days, but Corinth as a city is sealed up in an unknown grave. But just behind the site of the city there appears the Acrocorinthius, rising to the height of two thousand feet. I climbed this famous hill in the spring because I wanted to see the panorama on which the apostle had gazed, and also to see the setting and relations of this once imperial city. It was a wonderful vision of natural glory, with deep, far-stretching valleys, and distant gleams of the sea, and range upon range of hills, many of them snow-covered and glistening in the blazing sunshine of a splendid noon. There below was the plain on which Corinth found her shelter, and beyond the plain the narrow water-way, which gave her such intimate relations with the commerce of the Mediterranean; and beyond the water-way there is a touch of old romance, for there rise the shrines of the muses, the twin peaks of Helicon and Parnassus. Standing on this elevated eminence I tried to realize the conditions in which this little company of Christian recruits had to live the consecrated life. They had to fight the Christian warfare amid the soft luxuriousness of Corinth, a luxuriousness which relaxed the moral fibre, and made the Corinthians conspicuous for their depravity, "even amid all the depraved cities of a dying heathenism." Corinth was a city of abyssmal profligacy; "it was the Vanity Fair of the Roman Empire, at once the London and Paris of the ancient world"! And it was in this city, away there on the plain before me, that these untried Christian recruits had to "fight the good fight of faith." Then I thought of the little church in which they found their fellowship. It was besieged by continual assaults of their Jewish foes. It was torn with internal divisions. It was honeycombed by deadly heresies. It was defiled by sensuality. Nearly all the members of the church were of obscure origin and standing. Many of them were slaves. It was in these conditions of fierce and growing difficulties that these disciples had to be good soldiers of Jesus Christ. And it is to this little company of Christian recruits that the apostle sends this challenging letter in which is found the rousing bugle-peal of my text. "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong." Now I will confess to you that times and again during the last few months this trumpet-blast has sounded in my ears, as though it were a clarion-call to the Christians of to-day. For we too have our warfare upon a most exacting field. We have fallen upon gravely troubled times. We are witnessing a resurgence of devilry that is perfectly appalling. The baser passions have become frightfully aggressive, and a crude animalism is at large like a surging, boiling sea which has burst its dykes. Some of us had begun to dream that the sweet angel of peace was almost at our gates, and that nothing could happen to drive her away; and now, when we look out of the gate, it is no fair angel-messenger which we see, but the red fury of unprecedented strife and slaughter. And amid all this we have to live the Christian life. But it is not only the "fightings without" which trouble us. There are also "the fears within." Many of our venerable assumptions are lying in ruin. Our spiritual world has suffered an upheaval as though with the convulsion of an earthquake, and many of us are trembling and confused. What then shall we do in this terrible hour? What path shall we take? Can we settle our goings upon any promising road of purpose and endeavour? Along what lines shall we pull ourselves together? And in answer to all these questions I bring you this well-tried counsel of the great Christian apostle, this bugle-peal from the first century, and I ask you to let it be to you as the inspired word of the living God. "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong." Let us examine the counsel in order that we may buckle it on to our souls. Here then is the first note of this soldierly blast. "Watch ye!" The phrase literally means "keep awake!" You perhaps think there is no need of that counsel to-day. You probably think that in times like these our difficulty is not to keep awake but to go to sleep. I am not so sure about that. If we have loved ones at the war there will not be the remotest peril of our going to sleep. Every post that comes to our door will startle us like the crack of doom. Every headline in the daily press will tighten our nerves in sleepless attention. But when we have no flesh and blood at the front, when many miles roll between us and the fields of war, when we are only spectators, a certain drowsiness is not so far away as we may suppose. When we only read about things, things become familiar, and the familiar is apt to lose its terror. Custom is a dull narcotic, and frequent repetition dims our apprehension. When the Titanic went down the whole city spoke in whispers, such a dread was resting over our souls. But now a dreadnought goes down, or a half dozen cruisers, and we scarcely catch our breath at the news. The cushion of familiarity is thickening between us and realities, and awful facts do not hit us on the raw. The awful becomes less awful by repetition, and we grow less sensitive as the tragedies increase. The newspaper statistics cease to be significant, and the descriptive adjectives become the tamest blanks. And therefore there is need for the apostle’s trumpet blast to sound in our ears. "Keep awake!" Do not let familiarity become an opiate, so putting the senses to sleep that the direst woes become a painless commonplace. "Keep awake!" Make it a matter of will. Bring the stream of vital thought to bear upon the field. Exercise the imagination. Nourish the sympathies. We must keep awake, for our primary hope of emancipation in this dark hour is to remain sensitive, to be capable of being shocked and wounded with the appalling blows of every succeeding day. But it is not only wakefulness, but also watchfulness which the apostle enjoins in the counsel of our text. The soldier of Jesus is to be awake and watchful with all the keen quest of a sentinel peering about him night and day. But our watchfulness must be intelligent and disciplined, and we must carefully survey the entire field. We must keep awake, and we must diligently watch for all enemies of the sanctified brotherhood of the race, as a sentry would watch every suspicious movement in the night. What are the real enemies behind all the appalling desolation and sorrow of our time? Is it militarism? Then "Watch ye!" Is it something deeper than militarism? Is it racial animosity and jealousy and prejudice? Then "Watch ye!" Is it something even deeper than racial antipathy? Is it a profound and deadly materialism in all the nations—a materialism which has been tricked out in the ribbons of culture, and disguised in the glamour of progress? Then "Keep awake, Watch ye!" Or is it a faithless church, muttering many shibboleths, but confessing no vital faith; a church which has been too much a pretense, offering no strong moral and spiritual preservatives, and supplying no saving salt to social fellowships, and, therefore, not exercising any restraint upon moral degeneracy and corruption? "Keep awake, and Watch ye!" And amid all the horrors and agonies of our day fasten your eyes upon the real enemy of the Lord Jesus, the outstanding antagonist of His kingdom of righteousness and truth. But there is a further word to say about our vigilance. We must keep awake and watchful, not only to detect the busy lurking, ambushed foes, but also to see all the bright and wonderful things of the hour, all the splendid happenings which are favourable to the holy will and Kingdom of our Lord. What should we think of a sentinel who could not distinguish between enemy and friend? And what shall we say of a soldier-sentinel of Christ who has no eye for the great and friendly happenings on the field? Watch ye, and behold the growing seriousness of the world; frivolity has almost begun to apologize for itself, and tinselled gaiety is ill at ease. Watch ye, and behold the unsealing of multitudinous springs of human sympathy, and the flowing of holy currents from the ends of the earth. Watch ye, and behold the magnificent courage which in every land of strife is purging families from the dross of indolence and indifference, and educing the gold of chivalry and sacrifice. Watch ye, and behold the marvellous re-equipment of Christian motive—thousands upon thousands of Christian disciples realizing as they have never done before that the world needs the vital redeeming grace of the Lord Jesus, and that without Him human brotherhood will remain a phantom and a dream. A real wakeful watchman will see these things. He will not only record the things of the night and the nightmares, but he will be as "they who watch for the morning." The Moslem priest appears on the tower of his mosque half an hour after sunset to call the people to prayer, but he also appears on the tower half an hour before sunrise, when the grey gleams of morning are faintly falling upon the night. And we too, watchmen of Jesus, must watch for the sunrise as well as for the sunsets, and we too must tell what fair jewels of hope we see shining on the dark robe of the night. Brethren, the Lord Jesus Christ is abroad! "Watch ye, for at such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man will come." Now let us consider the second note of the counsel which is given by this warrior, Paul. "Stand fast in the faith." Just try to realize that bracing counsel coming to these young recruits in the city of Corinth. Let me try to paraphrase it as I think it would be interpreted to them. "When the soft, enervating air of Corinth’s luxuriousness steals over you like the mild air of Lotus-Land, ’Stand fast in the faith’! When the cold wind of persecution assails you like an icy blast from the north, ’Stand fast in the faith’! If some supercilious philosopher comes along and breathes cynically upon your new-found piety and devotion, ’Stand fast in the faith’! Stand fast in your faith and meet all your antagonisms there." And has that counsel no pertinency for the Christian believers of our own time? There are some among us who are ready, because of the unspeakable horrors through which we are passing, to throw their faith away like obsolete arms and armour. Now men who can drop their faith in the day of real emergency have never been really held by it. That is surely true; men who can drop their faith like a handkerchief have never known their faith as a strong and vital defence. And yet that is what you sometimes find them doing in modern novels. They just drop their faith as they would drop a pair of gloves. Robert Elsmere, in Mrs. Humphry Ward’s story of twenty years ago, dropped his faith in about ten days. If my memory serves me truly, George Eliot dropped her faith in about the same length of time. If our faith has ever meant anything vital, it will be as difficult to drop it as to drop our skin. But it is the inexperienced who are in peril. It is the young recruit who is dangerously convulsed by the upheavals of our day, and it is to him I bring the nerving counsel of the Lord: "Stand fast in the faith!" "Stand fast in the faith!" What faith? "The faith once for all delivered to the saints." Stand fast in the faith of the atoning Saviour as the secret of the reconciliation of mankind. Stand fast in the faith of the risen Lord as the secret and promise of racial union and brotherhood. Stand fast in the faith of the Holy Spirit as the source of all the light and cheer which illumines the race. Stand fast in your own personal faith in the exalted Lord. Don’t doubt Him! Don’t suspect Him! Don’t desert Him! Above all, don’t sell Him! In this hour of darkness, when devilry seems to be pulling down the very pillars of the temple, stand fast in the faith, and let this be your strong but humble cry: "Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, Neither shall fruit be in the vines; The labour of the olive shall fail, And the fields shall yield no meat; The flock shall be cut off from the fold, And there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation." And the third note in the great apostle’s counsel in this: "Quit you like men." Our translators have taken four words to express a single word in the original letter. We have no one English word which can carry the splendid load of meaning. It really means—play the man! It really means—no funk! All the school children will know the value of that word. It is a good strong vital English word, and I am sure it expresses the spirit of the apostle’s counsel to these young recruits. Lowell uses it in the Bigelow Papers: "To funk right out o’ p’litical strife ain’t thought to be the thing." No funk, soldiers of Christ! I have sometimes heard men talk of late as though the Lord were dead, and the game is up, and the Kingdom is in ruins. "Play the man!" The European soldiers of every nation are showing the world in their own sphere what it means to play the man. Some of us are becoming almost afraid to call ourselves soldiers of Jesus when we see what a true soldier really is. Think of it! Think of his readiness for the front! Think of his laughter in sacrifice! Think of his song in the midst of danger and pain! Think of his endurance even unto death! And then, think how we stand up and sing "Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war"! And shall we funk in the day of darkness and disaster, and after months of appalling bloodshed and woe shall we talk as if the campaign of righteousness were ended, and the Kingdom of Jesus is overturned? Let us stop this kind of talk. Let us silence this sort of fear. Let us crush this type of disloyalty. It is an insult to our flag; it is a dishonour to our Lord. "Quit you like men, be strong!" Put strength into everything, and do everything strongly. Do not let us speak or serve in a faint, lax, irresolute, anæmic, dying sort of way. "Be strong!" Be strong in your prayers. Be strong in your moral and spiritual ambitions. Be strong in your visions and hopes. Be strong in your beneficence; strengthen it to the vigour of sacrifice. And if there be a devil, as more than ever I believe there is, let the Church surprise him by her strength. Let her turn the day of calamity into the day of opportunity. Let her transfigure the hour of disaster into the hour of deeper consecration. Let us make new vows. Let us enter into new devotion. Let us exercise ourselves in new chivalry. Let us go out in new ways of sacrifice. My brethren, God is not dead! "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong!" "Stand up, stand up for Jesus! The trumpet call obey; Forth to the mighty conflict In this His glorious day. Ye that are men now serve Him Against unnumbered foes, Let courage rise with danger And strength to strength oppose. "Stand up, stand up for Jesus! Ye soldiers of the Cross. Lift high His royal banner, It must not suffer loss. From victory unto victory His army shall He lead, Till every foe is vanquished, And Christ is Lord indeed!" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 61: 04.10. ENDURE HARDNESS ======================================================================== X ENDURING HARDNESS Heavenly Father, may all our hearts be filled with Thy praise. May the spirit of Thanksgiving fill all our days, and deliver us from the mood of murmuring and complaint. Graciously remove the scales from our eyes, so that we may look upon our life with eyes anointed with the eye-salve of grace. Help us to discern Thy footprints in the ordinary road. Grant that we may now review our yesterdays and see the providences which have crowded our paths. Help us to see Thy name on blessings that we never recognized, so that we may now be praiseful where we have been indifferent. Redeem us from our spiritual sloth. Awake us out of our perilous sleep. May our consciences goad us when we are in peril. May the good desires within us be so strengthened as to destroy every desire that is vain. Sow in our hearts the word of Thy truth. Guard the seed with the vigilance of Thy blessed Spirit, and let it appear in our life as a fragrant and bountiful harvest. Graciously watch us and defend us and make us mighty in consecration, and may we place our all upon the altar. Amen. "Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." 2 Timothy 2:3. Any military metaphor which is used to-day will surely have a very arresting significance. Many of our hymns are crowded with military terminology. In the Wesleyan Methodist Hymn-Book there is a whole section entitled "For Believers Fighting." We are all familiar with these martial hymns: "Onward, Christian Soldiers", "The Son of God goes forth to war", "Soldiers of Christ arise", "Stand up, stand up, for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross", "Oft in danger, oft in woe, onward Christians, onward go." But too often the soldier-like hymn is only a bit of martial poetry which pleases the emotions but does not stir the will. We like the swing of the theme. It brings a sort of exhilaration into our moods, just as lively dance music awakes a nimble restlessness in our feet. Too often it is the song of the parade ground, and it is not broken with the awful thundering of the guns in actual war. But just now when we hear the phrase, "Endure hardness as a good soldier," our thoughts are carried away to the battlefields of Europe. We recall those roads like deeply ploughed fields! Those fields scooped by the shells into graves in which you can bury a score of men! Those trenches filling with the rain or snows, the hiding place of disease, and assailed continually with the most frightful engines of destruction! Pestilence on the prowl! Frost stiffening the limbs into benumbment! Death always possible before the next breath! These military metaphors in our hymns get some red blood into them when we use them against backgrounds and scenes like these. "Endure hardness as a good soldier." Now the apostle calls for this soldierly spirit in Thessalonica. He is writing to young recruits in the army of the Lord. They are having their first baptism of fire. Their enemies are strong, subtle, ubiquitous. To be a Christian in Thessalonica was to face the fierce onslaught of overwhelming odds. But indeed in those early days, Christian believers, wherever they lived, had to be heroic in the defence of their faith and obedience. Everywhere circumstances were hostile. Nothing was won without sacrifice. Nothing was held without blood. To be a witness was to be a martyr. If a believer would be faithful to his Lord he must "fight the good fight of faith"; if he would extend the frontiers of the Kingdom of Heaven he must endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. What are the circumstances amid which the modern Church is placed? The Christian believer in our day is confronted with stupendous difficulties. Look at the present field on which our Christian warfare is to be waged. When the European war broke out I was staying at a quiet seaside village, from which I could see the soft green beauty of the mountains which encircle the English lakes. On the morning that war was proclaimed I felt as though some venerable and majestic temple had suddenly crumbled into dust. One of my most intimate friends, a noble German, was staying in my home, and we both felt as though some devil of mischief and disaster had toppled human affairs into confusion. The quiet sequence of human progress seemed to have been smashed at a stroke. The nations drew apart, and gulfs of isolation yawned between them, and down the gulfs there swept the cruel shrieking blasts of racial hatred and antipathy. Holy ministries which had been leagued in sacred fellowship were wrenched asunder. Spiritual communions which had been sweet and welcome curdled in the biting blast of resentment. The work of the Kingdom of our Lord was smitten as by an enemy; ploughshares were beaten into swords; pruning-hooks were transformed into spears; and instead of the fir and the myrtle-tree there sprang up the thorns and the briars. And then, to crown our difficulties, the red fury of war leaped into countries where our missionaries are proclaiming the gospel of peace, and the passion of battle began to burn where they are telling the story of the passion of Calvary, that holy passion of sacrifice which brought to the whole world redemption from sin, and reconciliation with God, and the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. Our immediate circumstances do not offer the soldiers of Jesus an easy parade ground where we can just loll and sing our lilting songs; they rather offer us a fearfully rugged and broken field which demands as heroic and chivalrous virtues as ever clothed a child of God. What shall we do? Is it the hour for craven fear or for a noble courage? What shall we do on our mission fields? Shall we cry "forward," or shall we sound the depressing and despairing note of retreat? Shall we throw up the sponge, or shall we, in the spirit of unprecedented sacrifice, march forward in our campaign, and endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ? First of all, we must keep our eyes steadily fixed upon the object for which Christ died, that solemn and holy end for which He created and appointed His own Church. And what is that object? It is to let "all men know that all men move under a canopy of love" as broad as the blue sky above. It is to break down all middle walls of partition, and to merge the sundered peoples in the quickening communion of His grace. It is to unite all the kingdoms of the world in the one and radiant Kingdom of His love. That is the aim and purpose of our blessed Lord, and in all the shock and convulsions of to-day we must keep that object steadfastly in sight. It was said of Napoleon that "he never for a moment lost sight of his way onward in the dazzle and uproar of present circumstances." That is to say, Napoleon was never blinded by the glare of victory or by the lowering cloud of defeat. "He saw only the object." Quietness did not throw its perilous spell about him. Calamity did not turn his eyes from the forward way. He saw only the object, and the glory of the goal sent streams of energy into his will and into his feet at every step of the changing road. Now our temptation is to permit events to determine our sight. There is the shimmer of gold on the right hand, and we turn to covet. There is the gleam of the sword on the left hand, and we turn in fear. We allow circumstances to govern our aims. Our eyes are deflected from their object by the dazzle or the uproar around us. And here is the peril of it all. When we lose the object of our warfare we begin to lose the campaign. And, therefore, one of the first necessities of the Christian Church in the present hour is to have our Lord’s own purpose steadily in view, to keep her eyes glued upon that supreme end, and to allow nothing to turn her aside. "Let thine eyes look right on;" "Thy kingdom come;" "The kingdoms of this world shall become the Kingdom of our God;" "He must reign until He hath put all enemies under His feet." This, I say, is the pressing and immediate need of the good soldier of Christ Jesus, to refuse to have his single aim complicated by the entanglement of passing circumstances, and to constantly "apprehend that for which we also were apprehended by Christ Jesus our Lord." What else shall we do in this hour of upheaval and disaster? The Church must eclipse the exploits of carnal warfare by the more glorious warfare of the spirit. Just recall the heroisms which are happening every day in Europe, and on which the eyes of the world are riveted with an almost mesmerized wonder! Think of the magnificent sacrifices! Think of the splendid courage! Think of the exquisite chivalry! Think of the incredible powers of endurance! And then, further, think that the Church of Christ is called upon to outshine these glories with demonstrations more glorious still. This was surely one of the outstanding distinctions of apostolic life. Whenever hostilities confronted the early Church, whenever the first disciples were opposed by the gathered forces of the world, wherever the sword was bared and active, wherever tyranny exulted in sheer brutality, these early disciples unveiled a more splendid strength, and threw the carnal power into the shade. They faced their difficulties with such force and splendour of character that their very antagonisms became only the dark background on which the glory of the Lord was more manifestly revealed. Their courage rose with danger and eclipsed it! Let me open one or two windows in the apostolic record which give us glimpses of this conquering life. Here, then, is a glimpse of the hostilities: "Let us straightly threaten them that they speak henceforth to no man in this name." There you have the naked tyranny of carnal power, and there you have the threat that burns through carnal speech. And now, over against that power put the action of the Church: "And they spake the word of God with boldness!" They were good soldiers of Jesus Christ, and by that boldness the tyranny and threat of carnal power were completely eclipsed. Here is another glimpse of those heroic days: "And when they had called the apostles, and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus." There again you have the demonstration of carnal power; and here again is the demonstration of the power of the spirit: "And they departed from the presence of the counsel, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ." I say that this "rejoicing" eclipses that beating, and the good soldier of Jesus Christ puts the Roman soldier into the shade. Let me open another window: "And they cast Stephen out of the city and stoned him." Get your eyes on that display of carnal passion and tyranny; and then lift your eyes upon the victim of it: "And he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Who is the conqueror in that tragedy, the stoners or the stoned, the ministers of destruction or the good soldier of Jesus Christ? The carnal power was terrific and deadly, but it was utterly eclipsed by the power of grace, the power which blazed forth in this redeemed and consecrated life. Open yet another window upon this day of shining exploits: "Having stoned Paul they drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead." That incident seems to record the coronation and sovereignty of brutal strength. Now read: "And they returned again to Lystra." Paul went back to the place where he had been stoned, to tell again the good news of grace, and to carry to broken people the ministries of healing. And I say that this bruised man, beaten and sore, returning again to the scene of the stoning, is a good soldier of Jesus Christ, and by his magnificent courage and grace he eclipsed all the rough strength of the world and threw its achievements into the shade. But it is not only in apostolic days that you can find these brilliant contrasts. The Church has been distinguished by such demonstrations of spiritual glory all along her history. When material power has been riotous and rampant, when rude, crude passions have blazed through the earth, the chivalry of the Church has shone resplendent in the murky night, and she has eclipsed the dread shocks of the world and the flesh and the devil by her noble sacrifices, and by her serenity, and by her spontaneous joy. The Church has distinguished herself by her manifestations of spiritual strength, by her lofty Christian purpose, by her glowing devotional enthusiasm, and this over against gigantic obstacles, and in the face of enemies who seemed to be overwhelming. I think of James Chalmers, the martyred missionary of New Guinea. How well I remember the last time I met him; his big, powerful body, his lion-like head, his shock of rough hair, his face with such a strange commingling of strength and gentleness, indomitableness and grace! And what he went through in New Guinea in carrying to the natives the story of our Saviour’s love! And then, having gone through it all, he stood up there in England, on the platform of Exeter Hall, and said: "Recall these twenty-one years, give me back all its experiences, give me its shipwrecks, give me its standings in the face of death, give it me surrounded with savages with spears and clubs, give it me back again with spears flying about me, with the club knocking me to the ground, give it me back, and I will still be your missionary." What is happening in Europe just now that can put that exploit in the shade? I do not wonder that when that man thought of heaven he used these words: "There will be much visiting in heaven, and much work. I guess I shall have good mission work to do, great, brave work for Christ. He will have to find it, for I can be nothing else than a missionary." James Chalmers went back to New Guinea to tell and retell to the natives why Jesus came to thee and me and all men, and he won the martyr’s crown. The love of Christ constrained him. And again I ask, what incidents in carnal warfare are not eclipsed by shining heroisms like these? I might go on telling you these glorious exploits of grace, but I hasten to say that it is our privilege to continue the story. To-day carnal strength is stalking in deadly stride through a whole continent. And to-day the Church must do something so splendid and so heroic as will outshine the glamour of material war. This is the hour when we must send out more men and women who are willing to live and toil and die for the Hindu, and for the Turk, and the Persian, and the Chinese and the Japanese, and all the dusky sons of Africa. I verily believe that if the apostle Paul were in our midst to-day, with the war raging in Europe, he would sound an advance all along the line. He would call us in this hour to send out more men and women to save, and to comfort, and to heal; men and women who will lay down their lives in bringing life to their fellow-men. We must send forth new army corps of the soldiers of Christ, and we must give them more abundant means, endowing them so plentifully that they can go out into the needy places of Asia and Africa, and assuage the pains and burdens of the body, and dispel the darkness of the mind, and give liberty to the imprisoned spirit, and lead the souls of men into the life and joy and peace of our blessed Lord. If the Church would, and if the Church will, she can so arrest the attention and win the hearts of the natives of Africa and Asia with the grace and gentleness of the Lord Jesus, a grace and gentleness made incarnate again in you and me, and in those whom we send to the field, that the excellent glory of the Spirit shall shine pre-eminent, and in this hour of world-wide disaster the risen Lord shall again be glorified. Shall we quietly challenge ourselves amid all the awful happenings of to-day? Here are the terms of the challenge. Shall the good soldier of Christ Jesus be overshadowed by the soldiers of the world? Or shall the courage and ingenuities of the world be eclipsed by the heroism and the wise audacity of the Church? Shall we withdraw our army from the field because the war is raging in Europe, or shall we send it reinforcements? Shall we practice a more severe economy and straiten our army’s equipment for service; or shall we practice a more glorious self-sacrifice, and make its equipment more efficient? Shall we exalt and glorify our Saviour, or shall we allow Him to be put in the shade? Shall we endure hardness, as good soldiers of Christ, or shall we take to the fields of indulgence, and allow the Church of the Living God to be outshone by the army of the world? Which shall it be? Our holy battlefield is as wide as the world. The needs are clamant. The opportunities of victory are on every side. Our Captain is calling! What then, shall it be? Advance or retreat? What answer can there be but one? Surely the answer must be that we will advance, even though it mean the shedding of the blood of sacrifice. One of our medical missionaries was Dr. Francis J. Hall of Peking, China. He had been graduated with high honours at the Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore, and had consecrated his life to medical missionary work in China, where his large abilities promptly won him wide influence. In 1913 he said to one of his associates: "I have just been called to a Chinese who has typhus fever. Many physicians have died of that disease, but I must go." Two weeks later he was stricken. As he lay dying his mind wandered, and he was heard to exclaim: "I hear them calling, I must go; I hear them calling!" Do we hear them calling? Is the answer "Yes"? Then let us joyfully register a vow that, God helping us, the army of the Lord shall not be maimed because of our indifference, but as good soldiers of Jesus Christ we will, if need be, endure hardness, and give of our possessions, even unto the shedding of our blood. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 62: 04.11. THE INVISIBLE COMMANDER ======================================================================== XI THE INVISIBLE COMMANDER Eternal God, we rejoice in the security that is offered to us in our midnights and in our noons. Thou wilt not leave us to the loneliness of self-communion, but Thou wilt hold fellowship with us along the way. Come to us as the Lord Jesus came to the men who were journeying to Emmaus, and make our hearts burn within us in the revelation of light and grace. Especially in these bewildering times wilt Thou steady our minds with Thy councils and inspire our hearts in the assurance of Thy sovereign love. Lead us along our troubled road. Let the heavenly light break upon our darkness. Help us to believe in Thy peace even when the world is at strife. Let Thy kingdom come. Even when the world is filled with the smoke of battle may we discern the presence of the Lord. Save us from the sin of unbelief. Reveal to us, we humbly pray Thee, the sin in which this strife has been born, and help the nations to turn from it in new consecration to Thee. In this gracious purpose wilt Thou possess our services. Help us to look beyond the seen into the strength and glory of the unseen. Cheer us with Thy consolations. Uphold us with Thine hand, and impart to us the gift of Thy gracious peace. Amen. "And He will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth." Isaiah 5:26. "And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria." Isaiah 7:18. That was a startling word to fall upon the ears of the people of Judah. It shocked them into confusion. It was an altogether revolutionary word. It played havoc with their traditional beliefs. It smashed up all their easy securities. It turned their world upside down, and all their ancient confidences were broken. Let us try to feel the shock of the message. The people had come to regard their land as a sort of divine reservation, and they looked upon their nation as a specially favoured instrument in the hand of the Lord. They esteemed themselves as being in the friendly grip and fellowship of the Lord of hosts. All their movements were the inspirations of His counsels, and in the strength of His providence their nation’s progress and destiny were assured. They lived in the assumption that every step in their national life was foreseen, and planned, and provided for, and that they were always being led towards divinely appointed goals. There was nothing of chance in their journeyings, and nothing of uncertainty in their ends. For them there was no blind groping in the darkness, for the Lord of hosts had charge of their national life; and "the sure mercies of David" would secure it from calamity and destruction. That was what they thought about themselves. What did they think of the nations beyond their frontier? That was quite another story. They looked upon other nations as struggling blindly, and in their dark rage imagining vain things. These other nations had the promptings of passion, but they had no divine and mystic leadership. They moved hither and thither, but it was under no divine appointment, and a thousand traps were laid for their unhallowed feet. Yonder was Assyria, full of strength and full of movement, expressing herself in the might of tremendous armies, but she was under no divine command or inspiration. Assyria was like a boat in unknown waters, without a pilot, and she was marked for inevitable destruction. And yonder was proud Egypt, swelling with her power and renown, colossal in her material achievements, but she had no divinely enlightened eyes, she was blind in her goings, and her marching was in reality a staggering towards doom. And yonder were other nations from afar; but they were all just chance masses, looked upon as existing outside the frontier line of divine favour and enlightenment. They dwelt in some hinterland of life where God’s gracious decrees do not run. They were beyond the orbit of divine thought and grace. Now that was the kind of thinking which the prophet had to meet. Judah regarded herself as nestling within the home circle of Providence, and all other nations were outcasts living beyond the sacred pale. And now perhaps we shall be able to feel something of the astounding effect of the prophet’s words. "And the Lord shall lift up an ensign to the nations from far." Far-away peoples are to move under the impulse and inspiration of the Lord, and in the light of His guiding command. "The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt." A far-away nation, thick as flies, is to move under the touch and ordination of God! "The Lord shall hiss for the bee that is in the land of Assyria." A far-away nation, thick as a hive of bees, is to move under the controlling purpose of the Lord! Can you feel the shock of the prophet’s words? It is the shock of a larger thought which shakes the nations out of their small and cosey contentment. They had conceived the divine Providence as being confined exclusively to Judah’s particular guidance and defence. They had thought within the limits of a country; they are now bidden to cross the frontier and conceive a Providence which encircles a continent and a world. The fly in Egypt, and the bee in Assyria, raising their wings at the touch of the Lord,—it staggered them into incredulity! Now we can see what the prophet was doing. He was seeking to enlarge their sense of the orbit of the divine movement. For the little ripples on their pool he was substituting the ocean tides. For the circle of their native hills and valleys he was substituting a line which embraced the uttermost parts of the earth. And that is what I wish to do in this meditation. I wish to proclaim the vastness of the divine orbit, the tremendous sweep of the divine decrees, and I wish to emphasize the teaching of this great prophet, that momentous destinies may be born in far-away places, even at the very end of the world. "The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria." Well then, under the power of this teaching, let us think in wider orbits of the divine inspiration of nations. For we are apt to imprison our thought within very narrow and artificial restraints. Much of our thought about providential movements shuts God up to the circle of so-called Christian nations: But what if a fierce and decadent civilization is to be corrected by the inspired influence of such peoples as are described by Rudyard Kipling as "lesser breeds without the law?" What if our God will hiss for the fly and the bee among just such peoples as we are inclined to patronize or despise? Let us imagine some modern Isaiah standing up in London or New York and uttering words like these;—"The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of China, and for the bee that is in the land of India." I know that such a doctrine shocks our national susceptibilities, just as a similar doctrine shocked the national pride of the ancient Jews. But such a doctrine offers the only true interpretation of the range of the divine orbit. It may be that the reinforcements of civilization are to come from the movements of the stagnant waters of China. It may be that rivers of vitality are to flow into our life from the meditative, contemplative, philosophic, mystic races of India. Just think of their quiet, lofty, serious brooding, stealing into our feverish materialism and sobering the fierceness of the quest. I cannot but wonder what the good Lord, in the vastness of His orbit, is even now preparing for the world on the far-away plains of India and China. Let your imagination exercise itself again in the larger orbit, and think of some modern prophet standing up in London with this message upon his lips;—"The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost parts of Russia." The message strikes us as incredible, but it is only because, like the people of Judah, our conception of the divine orbit is so small and circumscribed. I for one am watching with fascinated eyes the movements of Russia. I am wondering what is coming to us from that great people, so long and patiently sad, so full of reverence, going on long, weary pilgrimages to bow at holy shrines. Superstition? Yes, if you please. But I am wondering what is going to happen when the dogged strength of that superstition becomes an enlightened faith. I am wondering what will happen when that rich, fertile bed of national reverence begins to bear the full and matured fruits of the Spirit. What then? I know it is not easy to think it. It is not easy to widen the orbit of one’s thought. It is never easy to stretch a neglected or unused muscle. But the wider thought is the orbit of our God, and in the mysterious land of Russia untold destinies may be even now at the birth. And so do I urge that we think in vaster orbits of the divine inspiration of nations. Let us reject the atheism of incredulity, and let us encourage ourselves in the boundless hope of an all-encompassing God of the human race. The great God journeys on in His tremendous orbit, and who knows from what unlikely peoples the rejuvenation of the world is to come? "The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria." Now I want to go further, and under the power of the prophet’s teaching I would urge that we think in wide orbits of the divine raising of the heroic leaders of men. In what wide and mysterious sweeps the great God works when He wants a leader of men! The man is wanted here at the center, but he is being prepared yonder on the remote circumference! God hisses for the fly or the bee, and He calls it from very obscure and unlikely fields. Here is ancient Israel. Her altars are defiled, and her balances are perverted. She is hollow in worship, and she is crooked in trade, and the people are listless in their debasement. A leader is wanted to awake and scourge the people. Where shall he be found? The Lord hisses for a fly in Tekoa, a wretched little village, in a mean and scanty setting; and the fly was a poor herdman, following the flock, and eking out his miserable living by gathering the figs of the sycamore. And this Amos was God’s man! A prophet of fire was wanted in Bethel, and God prepared him in Tekoa! But what an orbit, and who would have thought that Tekoa would have been a school of the prophets? Stride across the centuries. The religion of Europe has become a gloss for indulgence. Nay, it has become an excuse for it. The Father’s house has become a den of thieves. The doctrines of grace have been wiped out by a system of man-devised works. Religion is devitalized, and morals have become dissolute. Wanted, a man, who shall be both scourge and evangelist! Where shall he be found? "The Lord hissed for the fly" that was in Eisleben, in the house of a poor miner, and Martin Luther came forth to grapple with all the corruptions of established religion. But what an orbit! A fire was wanted to burn up the refuse which had accumulated over spiritual religion, and the fire was first kindled in a little home, in a little village, far away from the broad highways of social privilege and advantage. Again, I say, what an orbit! March forward again across the years. Here is England under the oppression of a king who claims divine sanction for his oppression. There is no tyranny like the tyranny which stamps itself with a holy seal. And in those old days of Charles I, tyranny wore a sacred badge. Tyranny carried a cross. It was tyranny by divine right. Wrong was justified by grace. I say, of all tyrannies, this is the most tyrannical. Wanted, a man to meet and overthrow it! Where will he be found? Will he be found in some national centre of learning where wealthy privilege holds her seat? Oh, no! The Lord hissed for a fly on the fens, from a little farm at Huntington, and Oliver Cromwell emerged, to try swords with the king on his throne! Let me give the familiar glimpse which Sir Philip Warwick offers us of Cromwell making his first speech in the House of Commons. "I came into the House one morning, well clad, and perceived a gentleman speaking whom I knew not, very ordinarily appareled, for it was a plain cloth suit, which seemed to have been made by an ill country tailor. His linen was plain and not very clean, and I remember a speck or two of blood upon his little band, which was not much larger than his collar. His hat was without a hat-band. His stature was of a good size; his sword stuck close to his side; his countenance swollen and reddish; his voice sharp and untunable, and his eloquence full of fervour." And there is God’s man! But what an orbit! A man was wanted for the defence of liberty and spiritual religion, and God prepared this man in the obscurity of a little farm among the fens. What an orbit is marked by the goings of the Lord. The Lord hissed for the fly on the fen. March forward across the centuries. Here is slavery in the American republic. In spite of the noble words of the Declaration of Independence: "That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"—in spite of these ringing human claims slavery nestled beneath the American flag. Well, wanted a man to deal with it! Where will he be found? Will he be found in some university centre? Will he be a paragon of intellectual learning and accomplishment? Oh no! The Lord hissed for a fly in Harden, in a scraggy part of Kentucky, Harden with its "barren hillocks and weedy hollows, and stunted and scrubby underbush,"—and there in a dismal solitude, and in a cheerless home, and in the deepest poverty, the great God made His man, and Abraham Lincoln came forth to cross swords with the great wrong, and to ring the bells of freedom from the "frozen North to the glowing South, and from the stormy waters of the Atlantic westward to the calmer waters of the Pacific Main." But what an orbit of divine providence! Who would have guessed that just there, in that poor, unschooled, and unprivileged family the great God was doing His momentous work? And I wonder where now in the vast orbit of His providence He is rearing the leaders of to-morrow? Our God moves in mighty sweeps, and He is even now at work in the mysterious ministries of His grace. "The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria." And then, under the influence of the prophet’s teaching I want once more to urge that we think in wider orbits of the divine presence in the individual life. For instance, in what sweeping orbits the Lord moves on His journeys in seeking to bring us to Himself, and to fashion us into the strength and beauty of His own image. He lifts an ensign to some remote circumstance, and from afar there comes an influence which sets me on the road to God. He calls a ministry from distant Egypt, or from far off Assyria, and my life is turned to the home of my Lord. Here is a careless young son of wealth in Cambridge University. Life for him is just an idle sport, a careless revel, a jaunty outing, an enjoyable extravagance. Life is just a shallow, shimmering pool; not an ocean with momentous tidal forces, and with the voice of the great Eternal speaking in its mighty tones. Wanted a man to awake this indolent son of wealth! And in what an orbit God moved to find the man! The Lord hissed for a fly in Massachusetts, and there, in Northfield, was a poor homestead, encumbered with mortgage; and a poor widow with seven children, so poor that the very kindling wood was taken by the creditors from the shed. And there in that poor woman’s house God made His man, and Dwight Moody came forth, and went to Cambridge University, and proclaimed the evangel of grace, and by the love of God won this young fellow from a loose and jaunty and indifferent life, and kindled in him a passionate devotion to Christ which is now blazing away on the Southern Soudan in a campaign to light a line of Christian beacon-fires which shall stretch from coast to coast! But what an orbit! From a poor widow’s homestead in Northfield to a sporting young fellow in Cambridge University! I met a cultured man the other day, a man who has enjoyed all the academic advantages that money can provide, a man of university culture and distinction, but whose life has been spiritually indifferent, and who has held coldly aloof from God and the Kingdom of God. And in the vast orbit of His providence the great God brought this man into communion with Billy Sunday, and all the stubble of his neglected life was burned up in the consuming fire of his kindled love for the Lord. But just think of the orbit! The Lord hissed for His fly, and from the apparently incredible circumstance of a slangy evangelist this man was brought to his Father’s House in reconciliation and peace. Again I say, what an orbit! "I will bring the blind by a way that they know not," and under His wide and mysterious leadership the blind find themselves at home. And so, my friends, our God is still moving in these vast orbits. He hisses for a disappointment, and it comes and throws its shadow upon our life, but the shadow is purposed to be one of the healing shadows of grace. "I will command the clouds, saith the Lord." Yes, even our cloudy experiences move under command. They travel in the tremendous orbit of His providence. "I will command the ravens, saith the Lord God." Yes, there are diverse circumstances that come to us on wings,—kind words, cheering messages, bright inspirations, and they are the commanded ministers of God’s providence. They are God’s messengers on wings! We can never tell in what remote circumstances the good Lord is even now preparing our to-morrow. But of one thing we may be perfectly sure, the great Lord is at work, and He is at work over wide fields. "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him." "The Lord is thy keeper.... The Lord shall keep thee from all evil, He shall keep thy soul. The Lord shall keep thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 63: 04.12. THE SOLDIERS FIRE ======================================================================== XII THE SOLDIER’S FIRE Heavenly Father, may we experience that deepest of all joys which is born of holy communion with Thee. Lead us into new fields of our wonderful inheritance in Christ. May we have new surprises of grace. May some fresh revelations of Thy love break upon our astonished vision. Remove the scales from our eyes, so that we may see clearly the things which are waiting to be unveiled. Graciously make known to us what Thou wouldst have us be in order that we may then more clearly apprehend what Thou wouldst have us do. Help us to remember what we ought not to forget, and help us to forget what we ought not to remember. May our minds be the servants of Thy truth. Let the beams of heavenly light chase out the darkness of error and let it be all glorious within. We humbly pray Thee to deliver us from our selfishness, and enlarge and refine our sympathies until they express themselves in willing sacrifice. May we feel the pains of others, and carry their burdens and share their yokes. May the circles of our compassion grow larger every day. Let the ends of the earth be at our own doors, and so may we hear the cry which is very far off. Illumine our lives in this service, and send us forth to enlighten and kindle the lives of others. Make us missionaries of Thy truth and ambassadors of Thy grace and love. May we be quick to discern opportunity, and ready to use it in the service of the King. Amen. "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." Matthew 3:11. Such is the divine promise. Let me read the story of its fulfilment. "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them." Do not let us become victims of the letter and become entangled in the symbolism. It is possible so to regard material signs as to lose their spiritual significance. A musical word may conceal its own thought. Words are purposed to be the vehicles of mind. Symbols are intended to be transparencies, losing themselves in something better. They are ordained to be thoroughfares through which we pass to nobler destinations. The sign is to be the servant of its own significance. Here then are men and women who are about to receive the promised gift of the Spirit of God. They have been waiting as their Master directed, waiting in prayer, and in prayer incalculably strengthened by community of desire, waiting in trembling watchfulness and expectation. Then the much-hoped-for day arrives and their spirits receive the infinite reinforcement of the gift of the Holy Spirit. We have a very pale reflection of this experience when two human spirits are given to each other in deep and vital communion. When David received the gift of Jonathan’s spirit, and Jonathan received the gift of David’s spirit, each of them obtained immeasurable enrichment. When Robert Browning received the gift of Elizabeth Barrett’s spirit, and Elizabeth Barrett received the gift of Robert Browning’s spirit, who can calculate the wealth which each of them found in the other’s possession? But these examples, and others even more sacred which we could gather from our own experience, are only pale and wan and shadowy, compared with the wonder which breaks upon the soul when the spirit of man receives the gift of the Spirit of God, and the two dwell together in mystic and glorious communion. What happens to the human spirit is suggested to us under the familiar symbols of wind and fire. "Like unto a rushing mighty wind;" "like unto fire." Do not let us be enslaved by any hampering details in the figures. Let us seek their broad significance. And what is the characteristic of a rushing mighty wind? It dispels the fog. It freshens the atmosphere. It gives life and nimbleness to the air. It is the minister of vitality. And the breath of God’s Spirit is like that; it clears the human spirit, and freshens it, and vitalizes it; it acts upon the soul like the air of a spiritual spring. And as for the symbol of the fire; fire is the antagonist of all that is frozen; it is the antagonist of the torpid, the tepid; it is the minister of fervour, and buoyancy, and expansion. The wind changes the atmosphere, the fire changes the temperature; and the holy Spirit of God changes the atmosphere and temperature of the soul; and when you have changed the atmosphere and temperature of a soul you have accomplished a mighty transformation. It is about this change in the moral and spiritual temperature that I want to meditate, the gift of fire which we receive in the baptism of the Holy Ghost. If the spirit of man and the spirit of God come into blessed communion, and the fire of God is given, how will it reveal and express itself? For if there be a gift of fire in the soul we shall most surely know it. Fire is one of the things which cannot be hid. You can hide a painted sun in your parlour and no one will know it is there, but you cannot hide a glowing fire. A man can hide a denominational label, he cannot possibly hide the holy fire of God. How, then, shall we know that the fire is there? First of all I think I should look for the holy fire on the common hearthstone of human love. If the fire of God does not warm up the affections I fail to recognize what its heat can be worth. The first thing to warm up is the heart. The intimate friend of the Holy Spirit is known by the ardour of his affections. He loves with a pure heart fervently. He is baptized with fire. Now I need not seek to prove the existence of cold hearts among us. I am afraid we must accept them without question. Whether there are hearts like fire-grates without a spark of fire I cannot tell. Personally, I have never met with anyone in whose soul the fire of love had gone quite out. I think that if we sought very diligently among the gray dusty ashes of any burnt-out life we should find a little love somewhere. Yes, even in Judas Iscariot, or in the dingy soul-grate of old frozen-out Scrooge. But there are surely souls so cold, and so destitute of love, that the poor fire never leaps up in dancing, cheering, welcome flames. Their temperature is zero. There are other souls with a little fire of love burning, but it is very sad, very sodden, very sullen, very dull. There is more smoke than fire. There is more surliness than love. Their fire is not inviting and attractive. There is a little spitting, and spluttering, and crackling, but there is no fine, honest, ruddy glow. Their temperature is about ten above freezing. They are not frozen but they are not comforting. There are other lives where the fire of affection is burning more brightly, and certainly with more attractive glow, but where it seems as if the quality of the fuel must be poor because the fire gives out comparatively little heat. The heart sends out a cheery beam across the family circle, but it does not reach beyond. There is no cordial warmth for the wider circles of fellowship. The fire burns in the home but it does not affect the office. It encompasses the child but it has no cheer for the stranger. What is the temperature of such a life? It is very difficult to appraise it. Perhaps it will be best to say that in one room of the soul the temperature is 60, while in all the other rooms it is down towards freezing. And, therefore, I need not say how profound is the need in the world for warm, glowing, affectional fires. What awfully cold lives there are in the city, just waiting for the cheer of "the flame of sacred love!" There are souls whose fires have died down at the touch of death. There are others whose glow has been dulled by heavy sorrow. There are others whose love has been slaked by the pitiless rains of pelting defeat. There are others again whose hearts are cold in the midst of material wealth. They have richly furnished dwellings, but their hearts are like ice. They are unloved and unlovely, and they are frostbitten in the realms of luxury. Wealth can buy attention; it can never purchase love. My God! What cold souls there are in this great city! And, therefore, what a clamant and urgent need there is for love-fires at which to kindle these souls that are heavy, and burdened, and cold. And when the Holy Spirit is given to a man, and he is baptized with fire, it must surely, first of all, be the fire of cordial, human affection. And such is the teaching of experience. When John Wesley came into the fulness of the divine blessing in a little service at Aldersgate Street, London, he said that he "felt his heart strangely warmed." He was receiving the gift of holy fire. And I cannot but think that Charles Wesley was thinking about his brother’s experience on that day when he wrote his own immortal hymn which includes the prayerful lines: "Kindle a flame of sacred love In these cold hearts of ours." You find and feel the glow of that love-fire throughout the New Testament Scriptures. They who have the most of God’s Spirit have the most of the fire. There was Barnabas, who was declared to be "full of the Holy Spirit," and he is also described as "the son of consolation." What a consummate title! Cannot we feel the love-fire burning and glowing in all his ample ministry? Full of the Spirit, and therefore full of consolation! The truth of the matter is this,—we cannot be much with the Spirit of Christ, and not take fire from His presence. In these high realms, communing is partaking, and we kindle to the same affection as fills the heart of the Lord. "We love because He first loved us." His fire lights our fire, and we burn in kindred passion. So do I proclaim that when the fire of God falls upon our spirits the sacred gift kindles and inflames the soul’s affections. When we are baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire, we receive the glowing power of Christian love. Where else shall we look for that holy fire in human life? I think I should look for the presence of the fire of the Holy Ghost in fervent enthusiasm for the cause of Christ’s Kingdom. And that indeed is what I find. The New Testament instructs me in this, and it teaches me that where man is baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire his own spirit becomes fervent. He is declared to be "fervent in spirit," and the original word means to bubble up, to boil, as in a boiling kettle; it is the emergence of the mighty power of steam. And so the significance is this: the fire of God generates steam, it creates driving power, it produces forceful and invincible enthusiasm. You will find abundant examples of this spiritual miracle in the Acts of the Apostles; perhaps the Book might be more truly named "The Acts of the Holy Spirit," for all the glorious activity is generated by His holy fire. Let your eyes glance over the apostolic record. Mark how the fire of God endows man with the power of magnificent initiative. Take the apostle Peter;—once his strength was the strength of impulse, a spurt and then a collapse, a spasm and then a retreat, proud beginnings bereft of patience and perseverance. But see him when the Spirit of God has got hold upon him, and what a gift he has received of initial and sustained enthusiasm! "And Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit!" You should see him then, and note the strength of his drive, and the ardour of his enterprise! And the example of Peter would be confirmed by the examples of all the other apostles, if only we knew their personal history and experience. I wish there had been given to us just a glimpse of doubting Thomas, slow, hesitant, reluctant, uncertain, when the Holy Spirit had him in possession. "And Thomas filled with the Holy Spirit,"—I would give something to know the end of that sentence. And I wish we had one glimpse of timid, fearful, night-walking Nicodemus, when the fire of God’s Spirit blazed in his soul. "Then Nicodemus, filled with the Holy Spirit,"—I wonder what notable exploits would complete that unfinished sentence. This we know; the holy fire transformed the timid into the courageous, the lukewarm into the fervent, it generated a moral steam which made them invincible. The first apostles drove through tremendous obstacles. Indeed, they never had the comfort of an open and unimpeded road. Every road was thick with adversaries. What then? Through them or over them! "But, Sire," said a timid and startled officer to Napoleon, on receiving apparently impossible commands, "But, Sire, there are the Alps!" "Then there must be no Alps," replied his audacious chief. "There must be no Alps!" That was the very spirit of the first apostles. Mighty antagonisms reared themselves in their way,—ecclesiastical prejudices, the prejudices of culture, social hostilities, political expediences, and all the subtle and violent contrivances of the world, the flesh and the devil. "But, Sire, there are the Alps!" "There must be no Alps!" Through them! Over them! What that coward Peter got through when the fire of God glowed in his soul! When a man has the holy fire of God within him he has a boiling fervency of spirit, and he can drive through anything. And that same holy fire gives the same terrific power to-day, the same driving enthusiasm, the same patient, dogged, invincible perseverance. If a man declares that he has received the fire of God’s Holy Spirit, I will look eagerly for the impetus of his sacred enthusiasm. If he be a preacher I will look for labour in the passion, and the unsnarable energy and patience which he will assuredly put into his work. If he be a teacher, I will examine the generated steam, and note how much he can do, how far he can travel, and how long he can hold out in the service of his Lord. If he be a man who has set himself to some piece of social reconstruction I will watch with what ardour, and ingenuity, and inevitableness he is moving towards his goal. Is it the smashing of the saloons? "Then Peter, filled with the Holy fire;"—what if that power were harnessed to the enterprise? Or is it the awful plague and blight of impurity; or is it the cleaning up of politics; the establishment of rectitude in civic and national life? Whatever it be, the holy fire of God will reveal its presence in the soul of man in an ardent enthusiasm which cannot be quenched. It is the promise of our God, and shall He not do it? "He maketh His ministers a flaming fire,"—and that fire can never be blown out in the darkest and most tempestuous nights. And lastly, I shall look for the signs of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the fire of sacred resentment. If a man is baptized with the Holy Ghost, and with fire, I shall expect to see the presence of that fire in the capacity of hot and sensitive indignation. I need not say that there is a mighty difference between hot temper and hot indignation. Hot temper is a firing of loose powder upon a shovel. It is just a flare, and an annoyance, and a danger. But hot indignation is powder concentrated in the muzzle of a gun, and intelligently directed to the overthrow of some stronghold of iniquity. Hot temper is the fire of the devil. Hot indignation is the fire of God; it is the wrath of the Lamb. What is this capacity of indignation? It is the opposite to frozen antipathy, to tepid curiosity, to sinful "don’t care," to all immoral coldness and calculated indifference. There are many people who can be irritated, but they are never indignant. They can be offended, but they are never nobly angry. The souls who are possessed with the fire of God are the very opposite to all these. I said at the very beginning of this meditation that the breath of God is like the quickening atmosphere of the Spring; but it is equally true to say that it can be like the destructive blast of the African sirocco—"The grass withereth and the flower fadeth because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it." The hot breath of God is like unto a blast that scorches things in their very roots. And if we share the breath of God’s Spirit we too shall be endowed with the ministry of the destructive blast, even the power of a consuming indignation. Any form of public iniquity will make our fire blaze with purifying wrath. Corruption in civic or national government, inhumanity in the treatment of the criminal and the unfortunate, the oppression of the poor, the brutal disregard of the rights of the weak and the defenceless, any one of these will draw out our souls in the hot and aggressive indignation which is the imparted fire of the Holy Ghost. If any one claims to have been baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire, and he is indifferent in the presence of licensed iniquity, and apathetic and lukewarm when gigantic wrongs glare and stare upon him, that man’s spiritual baptism is a pathetic fiction, and his boasted fire is only a painted flame. But if a man suffer a personal injury, if some wrong is done to him, what kind of fire shall I expect to see in his life if he is filled with the Holy Ghost? Yes, if some one has done an injury to another, and the other has been baptized with the Holy Ghost, what kind of fire will he reveal? Listen to this: "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head!" It is the very fire that rains upon us from the Cross of our Lord: "And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand and the other on the left. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." What kind of fire is that? It is the same holy fire which flowed from the soul of the martyr Stephen as he was being stoned to death: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." It is a marvellous fire, a most arresting fire; and we simply cannot withstand it. It is the very fire of grace; it is live coal from the altar of God. So this is the sort of fire I look for when a man claims to be filled with the Holy Spirit,—the glowing fire of humble affection, the glowing fire of noble enthusiasm, the glowing fire of indignation, and the marvellous fire of self-forgetting grace. "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." "He came in tongues of living flame, To teach, convince, subdue, All powerful as the wind He came, And viewless too. Spirit of purity and grace, Our weakness, pitying see, Oh, make our hearts Thy dwelling-place, And worthier Thee." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 64: 04.13. VICTORY OVER THE BEAST ======================================================================== XIII VICTORY OVER THE BEAST Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for our knowledge that all our springs are in Thee. Wilt Thou deliver us from any sense of self-dependence, and lead us into an intimate fellowship with the ministers of Thy grace. If any triumph has made us self-confident, if any earthly success has made us proud, may Thy Holy Spirit lead our spirits into the lowliness which is the beginning of true wisdom and strength. We humbly ask that Thou wilt deliver us from the sins which have become our masters, and in which we find unholy delight. Incline our hearts unto Thy law, and help us to find pleasure in obedience to Thy holy will. Graciously redeem us from every care which fetters our souls, and give us such an assurance of Thy providential love that we may exult in the glorious liberty of the children of God. Graciously remember us one by one. Be very near to those who scarcely have the heart to pray. Mercifully meet with those who have been stunned with sorrow, and who have not yet regained the comforts of Thy peace. Remember all who are in grave perplexity, and graciously light Thy lamp on their bewildered way. Receive all our little ones into the circle of Thy blessing, and may they early rejoice in Thy friendship and become devoted to Thy holy will. Amen. "And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and they that had gotten the victory over the beast." Revelation 15:2. The symbolism of the city of God as given in the Book of Revelation represents the character of its citizens, and all the glories of the new Jerusalem have correspondences in the souls who live and move in that radiant land. The sea of glass represents a spiritual character of regal serenity, a character transparent in its limpid depths, and reflecting in its stillness the very image of the Lord. And the sea of glass, "mingled with fire," is significant of character made fervent by holy love, purity made genial, righteousness changed into goodness by the permeating heat of affectional enthusiasm and devotion. And now I wish to examine the next descriptive sentence, which tells us something of the history and experiences of those who have arrived at the sea of glass, and who have attained the serene and genial purity of those who hold immediate communion with God. And this is the sentence which records some of the happenings which have befallen them on the road; "They have gotten the victory over the beast." It is a very striking conjunction, this which tells me that they who dwell by the sea of glass have come by the way of the beast, and that they have conquered the beast by the way. What was the beast which these men and women had faced and conquered as they moved onward to the crystal sea? I do not profess to know the precise historic interpretation. The beast may have been the malignant and vindictive antagonism of the Emperor Nero. He may have been the beast. The beast may have been the hostile and suffocating pressure of the Roman Empire. The beast may have been the stealthy seductions of the imperial city of Rome. The beast may have been the fascinating and paralyzing charm of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Anyone or all of these together may have been the beast which straddled across the road and opposed these Christians on their journey towards home. I do not know, and I frankly confess I am not deeply concerned to know. The general boldness of the figure is quite enough for me. Whatever else the beast may mean it must essentially mean anti-God, anti-Christ, the antagonist of the divine. It must mean the animal side of our nature seeking to invade the realm of the spirit, to force its way among the executive powers of the soul, and to usurp the throne of God. The beast is triumphant when the flesh and all the works of the flesh have ousted the forces of the spirit. The beast is conquered when the powers of the spirit never surrender their holy sovereignty, when the forces of the flesh have been ordered to their place among the rank and file, and when they are never allowed to wear the honours and prerogatives of the commander-in-chief. "They that have gotten the victory over the beast." The beast is just anti-Christ, in whatever form he may appear. Let us spend a little while in first of all examining this beast who claims the control and mastery of our souls. Everybody has a vivid experience of his power, but it may help to clarify our minds if we consider what has been said about him by the recognized masters and counsellors of the soul. Let us turn, then, to the pages of literature, and first of all let us turn to the inspired literature itself. You have scarcely opened the Word of God before the beast makes his appearance in the form of a serpent. "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field." And who has not experienced the wiles of the serpent when he approaches the soul in some charming seduction, in some fascinating crookedness, in some wriggling sophistry, in some twisted excuse, in some winding compromise? Who has not seen the beast when he has sought to persuade the soul that the wriggle is the most graceful form of motion, and that the curve is more acceptable than the straight line? Who has not heard him when he has argued that the detour is the shortest way home, and that a slight deviation from rectitude will lead to the noblest ends? Yes, this beast is the apostle of the serpentine, and this is his creed,—the wriggle is the best way to your goal. "The serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field." I turn over the pages of the old book, and I am confronted with an extraordinary change in the form of the beast. He is no longer a wriggling serpent but a prowling lion. "The devil goeth abroad like a roaring lion." He no longer makes a seductive approach to the intellect with his advocacy of the crooked way; he makes a passionate assault upon the spirit with all the fiery forces of the flesh. It is no longer the wriggle but a terrific leap. And who has not known him in this wild approach? It is just the tremendous weight and pounce of anti-spiritual impulse, the mighty onrush of carnal longing and desire. The lion is sheer mass and weight of hungry craving. Who has not known the lion in the way?... And yet beside the crystal sea are those "who have gotten the victory over the beast." Again I turn over the pages of the old book, and once again the form of the beast has changed and he appears before me in the guise of a fox. It is our Master’s name for the foe. And who has not known the beast when he has assailed the soul in the manner of a fox? It is the assault of cunning, when things are made to appear in semblance what they are not in spirit and in truth. Nay, it is the very art of foxiness that the fox itself is made to look like a goose, and the wolf is given the appearance of a lamb. Vice is dressed up like virtue. Falsehood moves about in white robes and innocently accosts us in the dress of a white lie. License tricks itself out as gaiety. Sin clothes itself in the fashions of the hour and hides its talons in silks. I say this is the very genius of the fox,—he makes you think you are having converse with a harmless old goose! Who has not known the fox when he cunningly tried to persuade us that the devil was God, and that hell was heaven, and that death was.... But, O no, he never mentions death! In his scheme it is part of the trick that death shall never be known. The old fox! And yet, in spite of fox and lion and serpent, there were those beside the sea of glass "who had gotten the victory over the beast." Let me lead you further, for a moment or two, into the pages of a wider literature, and let it be into the pages of Dante and John Bunyan. In his immortal book Dante tells us that when he turned his feet to the pilgrim road he was successively confronted by three beasts which sought to stop his journey. And first he met a leopard: "And lo! just as the sloping side I gained, A leopard, subtle, lithe, exceeding fleet, Whose skin full many a dusky spot did stain; Nor did she from before my face retreat; Nay, hindered so my journey on the way, That many a time I backward turned my feet." The leopard which confronted Dante was the symbol of sensuous beauty which sought to block his road and ensnare his feet. Next he was confronted by a lion: "Yet o’er me, spite of this, did terror creep— From aspect of a lion drawing near. He seemed as if upon me he would leap, With head upraised and hunger fierce and wild, So that a shudder through the air did sweep." The lion was to Dante the symbol of worldly pride. And next he met a wolf: "A she-wolf, with all ill-greed defiled, Laden with hungry leanness terrible." And the wolf was to Dante the lean symbol of a hungry greed; it was the beastly type of avarice. And who has not shared the experience of Dante on his own road and encountered the leopard, the lion and the wolf?... And yet there were those before the sea of glass who had got the victory over the beast. Turn to John Bunyan. There is a wonderful passage in the early part of John Bunyan’s "Holy War," in which he describes the preparations which the beast has made for his attack upon the soul. He tells how beast held counsel with beast, and how it was agreed that they should assume forms with which the soul was quite familiar; such as were accounted harmless, lest the soul should be alarmed when they made their deadly approach. "Therefore let us assault the soul in all pretended fairness, covering our intentions with all manner of lies, flatteries, and illusive words; feigning things that will never be, and promising that to them which they shall never find." And so they marched toward the soul, "all in a manner invisible," save only one, and he took on a shape as harmless and familiar as a bird, and when he spoke he spake with such gentleness "as if he had been a lamb." And I for one put myself side by side with John Bunyan, for I too have known the beast when he has come disguised, and has addressed me with all the harmlessness and innocence of a lamb. I will add one further word in our consideration of the beast. When I look around on the world to-day, upon the appalling scenes of passion and hatred and slaughter,—it is to me very significant that so many of the national emblems, which represent the corporate life of peoples, are different types of beasts. It is the beast which still provides the symbols of our national life. There is the lion; there is the bear; there is the wolf, and I know not what besides! We talk of rousing the bear and of twisting the lion’s tail! Our national emblems are beasts. The American nation has happily discarded the beast, but it has chosen one of the fiercest among the birds—the bird whose talons are more obtrusive than its song. I am suggesting the significance of the fact that we have found nothing above the beast to symbolize the individuality of national life. Perhaps some day we may "move upward," and we may erase the beasts from our emblems, but it will only be when we have driven the beasts from our souls! Well, then, after this swift glimpse into inspired and general literature, and this glance upon the typical symbols of the national life, we are more disposed than ever to say that the beast is just anti-Christ, the presumptuous claim of the animal to take the place of the spiritual, the defiant claim of the devil to usurp the throne of God. But here are men and women whose triumph is recorded in my text, who have conquered the beast, and who have attained a strong and fervent purity in which the spirit is all in all. What was the secret of their triumph? By what means and ministries did they conquer the beast? Happily we are left in no manner of doubt, and the means by which they conquered are offered to you and me. What says the Old Book?—"They overcame by the blood of the Lamb." Let us tell their secret very quietly and very simply, without any waste of words,—they shared the blood of Jesus Christ and it changed them into giants. In some way or other a communion was formed between their life and His life, and His mighty life flowed into their life as vine-blood flows into the branch of the vine. They shared the strength of Him who fought the beast in the wilderness of Judea, and who fought him again in still more alluring forms in the courts of Jerusalem and by the shores of the Lake of Galilee. Yes, if you had asked these radiant victors by the sea of glass to tell you how they triumphed, they would have reverently turned their faces towards the Lord and eagerly answered, "By the blood of the Lamb!" "I asked them whence their victory came, They with united breath Ascribed their conquest to the Lamb, Their triumph to His death." And the second secret of their triumph is to be found in their continual warfare. They drank his blood to fight his fights. It is a fight that knows no armistice. It acknowledges no flag of truce. Eternal vigilance and eternal struggle is the price of spiritual freedom. Life is warfare; it is never parade-drill; it is never holiday review; we are never off duty; the contest is constant, and the close of every day records a victory or a defeat. Our Master never promised his soldiers a life of ease. The beast promises roads which are pleasant as field paths that lead through grassy meadows. There shall be no flints, no thorns, no briars; and if we choose, we can lie down in the meadows morning, noon and night! That is the promise that the beast makes,—a promise which is always broken. Our Lord always calls us to battles, to noble crusades and prolonged campaigns. "His blood-red banner streams afar!" He calls us to share the travail that makes His Kingdom come. Yes, He calls us to glorious, endless battles, but He promises sure and certain victory if we drink His blood along the way. And so they conquered the beast by the blood of the Lamb. They conquered by the continual battles of their faith. And lastly they conquered by their songs of victory. They sang their way to the sea of glass, and their songs were songs of victory all along the road. They did not moan in misereres; they did not wail in lamentations as if the beast were mightier than their Lord. They knew their Lord was mightier than all; and their songs of victory were the beginning of their triumph. O, the singing that abounds in the Word of God! O, the singing you may hear in the Acts of the Apostles! And, O, the singing that sounds through the Book of Revelation; the song of victory, the song of Moses and the Lamb! At the battle of Dunbar, in the great critical days of English freedom, Cromwell’s troops sang their way to victory. They could hear the roaring of the sea. The land was swept with deluges of rain. But above the roar of the sea, and the sound of the pelting rain, they lifted their voices in praise to God, and as they swept into battle their song rang out; "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble; therefore will we not fear if the earth be removed and the mountains be shaken in the heart of the seas! The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge!" Their song was part of their armour; it was indeed the armour of their souls. I greatly like that word of the Christian, Appollinaris, in Ibsen’s play,—"The Emperor Julian," which he spake when the forces of the beast were massed against the soldiers of the cross;—"Verily I say unto you, so long as song rings out above our sorrows, Satan shall never conquer!" Verily, I too will say that our praise is an invincible armour,—we sing our way to the triumph we seek! Men and women, the beast can be conquered, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it! You and I may stand at the sea of glass, pure, transparent, fervent with divine love, victors over the beast, through the blood of the Lamb, through constancy in battle, and in songs which ring out above our sorrows, as we push along life’s way. "Soldiers of Christ, arise! And put your armour on; Strong in the strength which God supplies Through His eternal Son. From strength to strength go on, Wrestle, and fight and pray; Tread all the powers of darkness down And win the well-fought day." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 65: 04.14. THE COMING GOLDEN AGE ======================================================================== XIV THE COMING GOLDEN AGE Holy Father, we thank Thee for the privilege of fellowship, and for the help which we can give to one another. May the faith of everyone be strengthened by the faith of all. May our penitence be deepened because we are all engaged in common confession. May our joys be enriched because we are all contemplating the unsearchable riches of Christ. May our obedience become more devoted because we all drink of the waters of inspiration. Impart unto us the grace of sacred sympathy. May we reverently bear one another’s burdens and carry them in the arms of intercession. We beseech Thee to grant unto us visions of Thy glory in so far as our eyes are able to bear them. May we make new discoveries among the mysteries of Thy truth. May the whole worship prepare us for a larger ministry in the service of Thy kingdom. Wilt Thou give us the armor we need for the great campaign. Especially may we receive the endowment of the love that never grows faint. Reveal to us our work, and then lead us into a devotion which will never be satisfied until the work is finished. Look upon the whole world in this hour of desolation and woe. Enlarge our hearts to comprehend the sorrow, and may we share the sufferings of our Lord in sacrificial labors. Let Thy kingdom come, O Lord, and let Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen. "And many people shall go up and say, Come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." Isaiah 2:3-4. There is something almost unreal in these words when they are read aloud in the times through which we are passing. They sound like the voice of a mocking-bird calling from the midst of the dust and the débris of a ruined world. It is like hearing the gentle peal of church bells on the bloody field of battle. It is like anything you choose which has become unreal, and which has been transferred from the healthy book of noble prophecy to the bitter pages of satire and the sour lips of the cynic. Yes, I grant that the great passage unfolds ideals which have become mere scraps of paper, torn and retorn into a thousand pieces, and blown about like withered leaves in an autumn gale. What, then, are we to do? I am reminded of what Lord Morley said in Manchester a few weeks ago. "When the war is ended,—this mournful chapter of sore bereavement and wasted treasure, when all that is gone, I ask is there not a moral loss which ought to be counted, a moral loss in the wreck of ideals in which the men of my generation were deeply concerned? That loss has got to be counted and retrieved. The fabric of those ideals has to be built up again in the hearts and minds of men and women." Surely that is an opportune word, and it offers both counsel and warning to the Christian Church. We must not just sit down in the bloody dust, and wail our misereres in deadly impotence. We have got to reconstruct the ruined pile, and we must begin the reconstruction by rebuilding the golden palace of our dreams. And if we are going to rear again that stately temple of vision and dream, who can give us nobler help than the Hebrew prophets, and who among the prophets can help us more than Isaiah? Isaiah was a prophet interpreting the mind of God. He was a statesman with a keen and comprehensive outlook on human affairs. He was also a poet bringing to human problems the illuminating imagination of the seer. He lived in a time of grave national disloyalties, a time when peoples were abandoning their most sacred trust. His were days of international strife and convulsion, days witnessing vast world movements in which empires were seen at their birth, and empires were seen in withering decline and death. Isaiah was a man whose thought was distinguished by breadth and depth and length. He saw things broadly, he saw things deeply, and he also saw the things which gleamed afar. And as he looked out upon the world to his vision the troubled and chaotic day merged into a reconstituted order of active concord and peace. Isaiah was a confirmed optimist. He had a keen sense of the future. He felt the days before him. He could scent the waving harvest while yet the snow was on the ground. He could catch the sound of harvest-home while the wintry wind was whistling across the ice-bound field. And looking out over the dark scene of convulsion and disaster, and amid the rude and brutal clamour of international strife, he sang this song of the morning,—"They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." If we are purposing to rebuild the fallen ideals of our own day, and so reconstruct our common life, can we do better than stand near this man for guidance and inspiration? How, then, does this man say that the golden dream is to be realized? Through what preparatory stages are we to pass before we reach the shining consummation? Isaiah declares that the fulfilment of the dream is to begin in the profound revival of spiritual religion. "It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established at the head of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills." That is to say, the dominant peak in the reconstructed landscape is to be a shining spirituality of pure and undefiled religion. Man’s relationship to God is to be the supreme relation overtopping and overseeing everything else. "And many peoples shall say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths." That is to say, in the golden age this is to be the common aspiration; spiritual desire and spiritual ambition are to be dominant; the biggest thing in life is to be the yearning for the divine communion, the gladsome craving for fellowship in the heavenly quest. That is how the golden dream is to begin to be fulfilled; it is to begin in the recovery of vital worship, in the profound revival of spiritual religion. Now, all the best things can be mimicked in the cheapest counterfeits! Pearls can be so skilfully manufactured that even the expert eye can be deceived. There are diamonds about, common as window glass, and their dancing gleams can delude the very elect. Yes, the best things can be cleverly imitated, and their counterfeits can move unsuspected in the most exalted places. It would be an amusing trait, if it were not a tragic characteristic of human nature, how willing we are to borrow the clothes of realities, and just strut about in our cheap and glittering attire. And it is so easily done! Anybody can borrow the jolly meters of Rudyard Kipling and put their own tawdry stuff into his caskets; and a thousand people have done it! Anybody can borrow the disorderly irregularities of Walt Whitman, and into his eccentric bottles they can pour their own cheap wine; and crowds of people have done it! It is so easy to borrow clothes, and bottles, and outer forms. Yes, and it is so easy to borrow the outer garments of religion and to move about in the mere trappings of devotion. We can borrow the sacramental cup and put into it the thinnest and the most diluted wine of life. Our apparent religion can be just an affair of clothes, a borrowed skin, an acted thing, a play, a theatricality with feigned postures and emotions, altogether devoid of blood-red life, and having no deep and vital commerce with the Infinite. Religion can be conventional, having no inner sanction of fine awe and godly fear. We can get religion while all the time religion has not got us. It can be just a light performance, a social convention and not a solemn travail in which the soul is doing great business in deep waters in communion with the eternal God. Now, is not this the religious condition into which the world has drifted in these latter days? I do not make exception of any country, not even of America. This country is delivered from the horrors of the European convulsion, not by a separating gulf of moral and spiritual condition, but by 3,000 miles of sea. If the coast line of America had been twenty-five miles from the coast of Europe she would have been involved in the woes of the boiling cauldron. And therefore do I put the inclusive question,—and I venture to challenge your judgments,—is not the religious condition which I have suggested one into which the entire Christian world appears to have fallen? Multitudes of Christian people are just wearing the clothes of religion. We have religious professions without spiritual possessions. We have religious conventionality without devotional vitality. We have the show without the life. We have the skin of religion without its sacrificial heart. We have the crucifix without the Saviour. We have the altar but not the open heaven. You may make the test in any way you please. Let us test our condition by any one of the primary characteristics of true and vital religion. Let us apply one test. Let us test our condition by our own secret and personal communion with the Lord. I am speaking in a Christian church, and I am addressing professedly Christian people; well, how do we stand the test? What proportion of the members of the Church of Christ in this country have a really living and fruitful fellowship with God? How many have walked the way of communion so frequently that it is now a much-beloved and well-trodden road, along which they can easily and naturally make their way in the dark, yea, even in the stormy midnight when the floods are out, and the tempest howls about their ways? For we cannot have religion with God wiped out! If religion is only beneficence, if it is only decent, respectable living, if it is only a comfortable conformity with accepted social standards,—if that is all it is, then let us say so and have done with it. Let us pull down our altars and fling their useless stones to the winds. But this is not religion. True religion is more than this. True religion is the reverent and most solemn recognition of the eternal God. It is the conscious prostration of the soul in His most holy Presence. It is the free because reverent fellowship of a child with the Father. It is the loyal acceptance of the Father’s will. It is the humble reception of His grace as offered to us in Jesus Christ our Lord. It is the assumption of our life as a sacred trust accepted from the hands of God. It is the anticipation of His glory in our eternal home. Religion has great human relationships with our fellowman, and these shall not be overlooked. But for the moment, I am speaking of the fontal relationship of the soul with God, that fundamental fellowship in which all other worthy fellowships are born, and I ask you whether all the peoples of all professing Christian nations have not wandered far from the vitalizing bond of this primary communion? Let your eyes roam over the darkened world; dense clouds are still rising everywhere on the ominous horizon. How is that night-time to be turned into day, yea, into a day like unto a lovely summer’s morning? Here is the answer of the greatest of the prophets when he, too, was confronted with tempest and night;—the first thing we have to pray for, and work for, and seek for, in every Christian country, is a profound revival of spiritual religion, when "the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established at the head of the mountains, and when many peoples shall say, Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths." This, I say, is needed in every country, until in every country all who profess the Saviour’s name shall cry out in the fervour of a great and quenchless desire,—"As the hart panteth after the water brook, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God!" Now look at the second stage in the realization of the golden dream. "He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths.... And He shall judge between the nations." That is to say, a profound revival of spiritual religion will be accompanied by loftier and more exacting moral standards. He will teach and we will walk. Morals always grow lax when piety gets cool. When religion becomes a mere conventionality, morality always loses its awful sanctions. Wipe out God and your moral standards will surely fall. If I neglect the temperature of my greenhouse, or if I play fast and loose with it, my tender plants will assuredly droop. And if I neglect my spiritual temperature, which is the climate of my soul, my moral and spiritual flowers will be smitten and pinched. We cannot lower our spirituality and yet have our morality keep its winsome bloom. Let me ask you,—have you ever known anyone grow loose and careless in their religion, and at the same time become correspondingly nobler and purer, and more scrupulously faithful in their daily life? Have you ever known anyone drop Christ and then become more like Him? Have you ever had occasion to whisper this secret concerning any living woman,—"O, yes, she broke off communion with Christ, and then she put on moral grace and beauty like a robe?" The very question is an insult to our intelligence, as it is an affront to our experience; for this is the eternal law, whose workings can be witnessed every day,—when the spirit deteriorates the moral life becomes diseased. On the other hand, let there be an enrichment in vital godliness and our conduct will begin to shine like burnished gold. "He will teach," says the prophet, "and we will walk." He, with Whom we hold vital communion, He will be the teacher of the spirit, and the illuminant of the conscience and the inspiration of the will; a nobler conduct will be born of that fellowship as surely as the choicest grapes are the children of the healthiest vines. When we are all in living and deep communion with Christ, truly worshipping in the innermost secret place,—English, and German, and American, and Japanese,—a finer spirit of judgment will be abroad in the earth, a healthier moral climate, and we shall naturally and instinctively seek to do what Jesus did, and in the way that Jesus did it, when He came and dwelt among us as a carpenter’s Son, Son of Mary, Son of Man, Son of God! Only one thing remains to be said as to the process by which the radiant dream of the prophet is to be fulfilled. When there has come a profound revival of spiritual religion, and, consequently, a loftier and more exacting moral standard, there will be a wonderful conversion of destructive forces in the personal and national life. "They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks." I want you carefully to notice that the sword is not to be destroyed; it is to be transformed; it is to become a ploughshare. The spear is not to be broken and thrown away; it is to be converted into a pruning-hook. That is to say, the rudely destructive energies in human life are to be changed into constructive energies. What was darkly negative is to become brightly positive. The martial is to be transformed into the pastoral. The rude implement of slaughter is to become the breaker of the earth-clod or the helpful friend of the vine. "They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks." After the first historic siege of Antwerp, the cannon balls were taken and converted into church bells; and may the gracious and holy Lord grant that there may speedily come such a transformation in modern Antwerp, when all the ministers of carnage shall be changed into sweet and sacred ministers of worship and devotion! But now, if swords are to be beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning-hooks, where must that work begin? It must begin in the individual heart. We are never going to get the swords out of the nations until we have got them out of the hearts. There is a sword in the heart, a cruel sword, a minister of destruction. There is a sword in the German heart, and a sword in the English heart, and a sword in the American heart, and that sword has got to be transformed before the material sword can become a ploughshare of the field! We are all familiar with our own swords; perhaps I had better say, we are all acquainted with one another’s swords. There is the sword of ill-will. There is the spear of deadly gossip. There is the sword of evil prejudice. There is the spear of petty spite and contempt. Yea, surely there is a sordid armoury in the soul. And this has to be converted into a tool-house of a noble Christian culture before the material armouries can be emptied and the sound of war is heard no more. And therefore, the great national revolution is to begin in individual conversions, and these are to be the children of a vital and saving religion. The transformation of the world is to begin in the conversion of people like you and me. There is no other way. When our own militaristic armour, the one stored in our own soul, is changed into a garden tool-house,—malice changed into good-will, suspicion into enlightened understanding, cynicism into genial and gracious esteem, and foul hatred into Christ’s own strong and fruitful love, then we are bringing the day nearer of which the herald angels sang, when there shall be "peace on earth and good will among men." All this cannot be done by scholarship. We cannot do it by legislation. We cannot do it by commerce. It is the vital work of salvation, and it only can be done by the Saviour of the world. And He must do it in His own way, and His work must be thorough, profound, fundamental. He must search the very cellarings of our being, seeking out our wickednesses as with a candle, and cleansing and purifying us in the deepest and most secret rooms of the soul. And when we thus come to know our Saviour, we shall most surely come to know our brother, for we shall see him with ourselves in the radiant light of the same eternal grace and love. Then will our swords be beaten into ploughshares and our spears into pruning-hooks and we shall learn war no more! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 66: 04.15. MORE THAN CONQUERORS ======================================================================== XV MORE THAN CONQUERORS Heavenly Father, wilt Thou graciously redeem us from any perilous mood of independence which sets our wills against Thine. Help us to find ourselves in Thee, and to come to our inheritance in the riches of Thy grace. Give us that lowliness of spirit which will enable us to find the gate of higher life and to enter in. Forgive the sin that binds our judgment and enable us through a pure heart to see ourselves in Christ, and to behold ourselves perfected in the power of His love. Save us from low ideals. Lift us out of the thoughts that belittle us and which check and destroy our powers of growth. Give us wider and deeper conceptions of all things. May the experiences of our life come to us as helpful disciplines, through which we may apprehend more of Thy purpose, and more swiftly put on the likeness of our Lord. May we not be mastered by our circumstances, but may we be so strong in Thy strength, that every circumstance may be our servant, adding some fresh grace to our spirits, and some new influence to our lives. May we lose the things we ought not to keep, and may we desire the things we ought to find. Control us, O Lord, by Thy spirit, taking us away from the shallows of common life into the great deep privileges of communion with Thee. Amen. "In all these things, we are more than conquerors." Romans 8:37. Was the writer of these words himself a conqueror? To whom is he making the proud boast? He is writing his letter to the people of Rome. And it is in this letter to Rome that the apostle claims to be a conqueror. If he had been writing to a little company of people living in some quiet and remote district in Asia Minor, far away from the movement and pageantry of imperial life, his boast of being a conqueror might have been received without surprise. But think of the daring of making his claim in a letter to the Romans, who were accustomed to gaze upon their conquerors as they returned in glory from triumphant wars of conquest, dragging their distinguished captives at their chariot wheels! When the apostle claims to be a conqueror he is using a word which to the Romans is weighted with pomp and glory, suggesting cities ablaze with emblems of festivity, and streets thronged with cheering multitudes, and a hero upon whom favours are being showered thick as the flowers which are flung upon his triumphal car. When Paul dares to call himself a conqueror in a letter to the Romans he is using a word significant of all this wealth and effulgence, and he is using it to describe the passage of his own life down the ways of time. "We are more than conquerors." Such a claim would surely strike the Roman reader with amazement. What was there in the apostle’s life to correspond to the claim? What was there about it which in any way recalled the radiant entry of an acclaimed warrior into the festive city of Rome? Let us glance at the external circumstances of his Christian life. Is there anything in these circumstances of pomp, and flowers, and favour, and acclamation? Run your eye over the apostle’s road. What are its features? What is it like as it stretches from Damascus to Rome? In peril of his life in Damascus, his enemies watching the gates day and night to kill him; coldly suspected by his fellow-believers in Jerusalem; persecuted at Antioch; assaulted in Iconium; stoned in Lystra; beaten with many stripes in Philippi; attacked by a lewd and envious crowd in Thessalonica; pursued by callous enmity in Berea; despised in Athens; blasphemed in Corinth and dragged before the judgment-seat; exposed to the fierce wrath of the Ephesians; bound with chains in Jerusalem, and finally imprisoned at Rome! Such is the character of his cold, storm-swept, painful road. And yet he dares to call himself a conqueror, and to so style himself to the men of imperial Rome! When I turn away from the gay and rapturous streets, through which the Roman conqueror made his tumultuous entry, and then gaze on the long, dark, cruel road on which this man trudged throughout all his public days, his life seems to be broken up in successive tragedies, and to sink at last in the black defeat of utter and complete eclipse. And yet he sings aloud in joyful pride: "We are more than conquerors"! Where, then, shall we look for the signs of conquest, and for the waving banners, and the rapturous shouts? There are two ways of estimating a triumphant life. We may trace the line of external circumstances, and we make an inventory of the material treasures, and the flattering diplomas, and the public honours that have been gained along the way. That road winds by the bank, and the Stock Exchange, through Wall Street, or Threadneedle Street, and thence it stretches away through fair suburbs of material comforts, and through gardens of enticing ease, ascending even to lofty eminences of public favour and regard. We may walk along this road in our desire to estimate a man’s standing, and to reckon the degree and quality of his conquests. And judged by that standard Paul’s circumstances were disastrous, and his life was just a dismal succession of appalling defeats. Indeed the apostle himself has given his own verdict upon his life when it is judged by the standard of Wall Street, and he has done it in two words of pregnant and sweeping brevity—"having nothing"! And yet he claimed to be "more than conqueror"! But there is another way of judging the failure or triumph of a life. We may follow the line of character. We may register the success of the soul in its mastery of circumstances, in its refusal to be submerged by evil antagonisms, in its preservation of a diamond-like translucency amid engulfing floods of defilement, in its buoyancy in the days of prolonged disappointment, in its quiet and firm ascendency over the beast, in its inevitable emergence from every kind of hostility in increasing majesty and strength. These are the two lines of investigation. These are the possible criteria of judgment. On the one hand we may measure the success of a life by the progressive enrichment of circumstances; on the other hand we may estimate its conquests by the progressive growth of the soul. We may make our valuation in the material world or in the spiritual world; that is to say, we may value the man or we may value his possessions. Now the circumstantial happenings in a life had little or no interest for the apostle Paul. All his concern followed the inward line of the spirit. He kept his eyes on spiritual processes and never on material results. He did not busy himself with a man’s happenings; he busied himself with the effect of the happenings on the man. Always and everywhere he pressed through condition to character; his thought always took the short cut to the soul. If in the streets of Rome or of Ephesus you had pointed out to him some rich man, Paul would have immediately leaped the adjective and inquired about the noun. He would have had no interest whatever in the man’s riches; riches are no criterion of triumph; but he would have been devouringly interested in what the riches had done with the man. While the man has been making riches, what have riches made of the man? Measure the man! Is the man who is within the riches a victor or a victim, a noble master or a poor ignoble slave. And so also do I believe that if you had pointed out to the apostle some poor man, he would have left the adjective and fixed upon the noun. What about the man inside the poverty? What about the soul so ill-housed in indigence? Is the soul royal or servile? Is it crouching or has it a noble and stately rectitude? That would be the concern of the apostle Paul. He would get behind the riches to the man. He would get behind the poverty to the man. For every external happening or every material possession is only a house, and within the happening there is the man or the woman, the tenant of the house. What about them? What about the quality of their manliness or womanliness? That was the apostle’s line of investigation. The apostle Paul was not much concerned about the character of the road, whether it was bare or flowery, but he was vitally concerned with the spiritual condition of the traveller. How is it with the pilgrim soul? What spiritual conquests has the soul made along the road? That is the apostle’s standard of measurement, and by its records he registers life’s conquests or defeats. Well, then, what was the quality of his own life when it is measured by these interior standards? For, after all, these are the only standards worth naming, as in our sober and thoughtful moments we all very well know. We are not here to make fortunes, we are here to grow souls. How then does the apostle bear the supreme test of his own spiritual standards? Is he master or slave? Are the streets of his soul festive with triumph, or are they dull and cheerless in defeat? Is he more than conqueror? Let us begin the test with a day when his external circumstances were brilliant. Brilliant days came but rarely to the apostle Paul; they were as infrequent as oases in Sahara’s thirsty waste. Test him then on one of his rare, brilliant days, for the dazzling circumstance is often our severest test. Some souls shrivel in the bright sunshine. They grow less in their enlarging circumstances as some nut-kernels contract in the expanding shell. Here is Paul on a great day, when by the mighty grace of God he has made an impotent man to walk. How is the deed regarded? What does the crowd think about him? Listen to the records: "And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men. And they called Barnabas, Jupiter; and Paul, Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker. Then the priest of Jupiter, which was before their city, brought oxen and garlands unto the gates, and would have done sacrifice with the people." How now? The public favour is dazzling! What about the man inside the dazzling happenings? Is the man contracting in pride or is his soul expanding in humility? "Which, when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out, and saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein." Do you mark that? This man shines in the sunshine. Popular favour made him kneel before his God, and God’s gentleness made him great. The circumstances did not lessen him. His soul did not shrivel and wither in the popular blaze. His soul grew larger, and the man mastered his circumstances; he was bigger than his blazing fate, he was "more than conqueror." But I have said that brilliant days were rare with the apostle Paul: Let us test him, then, when his days were frowning, when the clouds were lowering, and when his circumstances nipped him like the winter frosts. Does his soul expand in the winter, or does it shrink like frostbitten fruit? Take this little glimpse of one of his days: "And there came to Lystra certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead." Having stoned Paul, they dragged him out of the city. How swift and red is the record! Did he grow hard in the stoning? Did he become small and petty and peevish and revengeful? Let me read to you: "And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch, confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of God." This man’s fruit grew sweeter at the touch of the frost. This soul grew larger in the season of apparent defeat. He was "more than conqueror." Look again through this window. Here is a very dark and bitter happening: "And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely: who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks." How now? Will this man Paul scowl in the darkness? Will his magnanimity sour into the bitter mood of revenge? Listen to the record: "And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them." Do you mark that? This man was a victim but he was also a victor. We almost forget his sufferings in the sound of his praise. Adversity did not rob him of his crown. He was "more than conqueror." And so I might go on introducing instance after instance, in every record of his turbulent life, showing how he attained to magnificent mastery in the spirit. When Paul speaks of being a "conqueror" he means that he is on the top of his circumstances and not beneath them. To be more than conqueror is to be on the top of your wealth and not beneath it; to be on the top of your poverty and not beneath it; to be on the top of your joy and not beneath it; to be on the top of your sorrow and not beneath it; to be on the top of your disappointment and not beneath it. To be more than conqueror is to be on the top of the old serpent, and, as Browning says, to stand upon him and to feel him wriggle beneath your feet! The real conqueror, the only one worthy of that royal name, is he who makes every circumstance his subject, permitting no circumstance to be the lord and master of his soul. He is "more than conqueror." And what is the secret of such conquest? Here is the secret: "We are more than conquerors through Christ that loved us." It is conquest through the energy of an imparted love. Nay, it is much more than that. It is conquest through humble yet intimate communion with the eternal Lover. You remember what conquests the knights of the olden time could achieve when they were conscious that love-eyes were fixed upon them in the jousts. And if this were so with knights of ancient chivalry, when love inspired them in the fray, how infinitely more must it be so with the knights of King Jesus’ Order when they know that the love-eyes of the Lord are always fixed upon them in the field! "He loved me" sings the greatest of the apostolic knights. "He loved me and gave Himself for me." What tremendous exploits of patience and of service lie latent in that supreme assurance! For, mark you, all love conveys the lover to the beloved. The very secret of love is self-impartation to the beloved. Love can never content herself with the gifts of things. Charity gives things. Love always gives herself. Yes, the lover gives herself! And if love is thus self-giving tell me, then, what inconceivable giving is wrapped up in the love of Christ for Paul, and in the love of Christ for thee and me? In an infinitely deeper and richer sense than ever a loving bridegroom gives himself to his loving bride, our great and gracious Lover, the Christ, gives Himself to all who will receive Him. The Saviour’s love is the giving of Himself. Shall I now dare to put that vast and awe-inspiring content into my text? Listen again to the text: "We are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us." Now hear it: "We are more than conquerors through Him who has given himself to us." That word expresses the very gospel of His grace. The Christian believer faces all his circumstances, not merely with a love but with a Lover, and with a Lover who Himself mastered every circumstance, and was the conqueror of sin and death. So this is how the Gospel music rings: "We are more than conquerors through Him the Conqueror"! By reverent faith we share His very love, we drink His very blood, and all our circumstances are made to pay tribute to the health and welfare of our souls. We are more than conquerors through Him Who is ever riding forth, conquering, and to conquer. Now I think I can go back to those streets of Rome where we began, and where we watched the triumphant conqueror returning home with his spoils. And now I am not surprised at Paul’s daring to use the glowing word "Conqueror" to portray the glorious victories of the soul. When I go into the realm of his soul the roadway is lined with a cheering multitude; he is "compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses." A blood-red banner is waving triumphantly in all his goings; "His banner over me is love!" A garland of victory awaits the victor’s brow; "henceforth there is laid up for me a crown." And as for his spirits, they are festive in the love of the Lord, and they dance in the joy of blessed assurance. "I know in whom I have believed!" "I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me!" We are more than conquerors in the conquering fellowship of our holy and gracious Lord. And this song of the conqueror is intended to be sung by thee and me. O, let us believe it! "Shall this divinely-urgéd heart Half toward its glory move? What! shall I love in part—in part Yield to the Lord of love? O sweetest freedom, Lord, to be Thy love’s full prisoner! Take me all captive; make of me A more than conqueror!" Printed in the United States of America ======================================================================== CHAPTER 67: S. APOSTOLIC OPTIMISM ======================================================================== Apostolic Optimism Rejoicing in hope.—Romans 12:12. That is a characteristic expression of the fine, genial optimism of the Apostle Paul. His eyes are always illumined. The cheery tone is never absent from his speech. The buoyant and springy movement of his life is never changed. The light never dies out of his sky. Even the gray firmament reveals more hopeful tints, and becomes significant of evolving glory. The apostle is an optimist, “rejoicing in hope,” a child of light wearing the “armor of light,” “walking in the light” even as Christ is in the light. This apostolic optimism was not a thin and fleeting sentiment begotten of a cloudless summer day. It was not the creation of a season; it was the permanent pose of the spirit. Even when beset with circumstances which to the world would spell defeat, the apostle moved with the mien of a conqueror. He never lost the kingly posture. He was disturbed by no timidity about ultimate issues. He fought and labored in the spirit of certain triumph. “We are always confident.” “We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” “Thanks be unto God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” This apostolic optimism was not born of sluggish thinking, or of idle and shallow observation. I am very grateful that the counsel of my text lifts its chaste and cheery flame in the twelfth chapter of an epistle of which the first chapter contains as dark and searching an indictment of our nature as the mind of man has ever drawn. Let me rehearse the appalling catalog that the radiance of the apostle’s optimism may appear the more abounding: “Senseless hearts,” “fools,” “uncleanness,” “vile passions,” “reprobate minds,” “unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, unmerciful.” With fearless severity the apostle leads us through the black realms of midnight and eclipse. And yet in the subsequent reaches of the great argument, of which these dark regions form the preface, there emerges the clear, calm, steady light of my optimistic text. I say it is not the buoyancy of ignorance. It is not the flippant, light-hearted expectancy of a man who knows nothing about the secret places of the night. The counselor is a man who has steadily gazed at light at its worst, who has digged through the outer walls of convention and respectability, who has pushed his way into the secret chambers and closets of life, who has dragged out the slimy sins which were lurking in their holes, and named them after their kind—it is this man who when he has surveyed the dimensions of evil and misery and contempt, merges his dark indictment in a cheery and expansive dawn, in an optimistic evangel, in which he counsels his fellow-disciples to maintain the confident attitude of a rejoicing hope. Now, what are the secrets of this courageous and energetic optimism? Perhaps, if we explore the life of this great apostle, and seek to discover its springs, we may find the clue to his abounding hope. Roaming then through the entire records of his life and teachings, do we discover any significant emphasis? Preeminent above all other suggestions, I am imprest with his vivid sense of the reality of the redemptive work of Christ. Turn where I will, the redemptive work of the Christ evidences itself as the base and groundwork of his life. It is not only that here and there are solid statements of doctrine, wherein some massive argument is constructed for the partial unveiling of redemptive glory. Even in those parts of his epistles where formal argument has ceased, and where solid doctrine is absent, the doctrine flows as a fluid element into the practical convictions of life, and determines the shape and quality of the judgments. Nay, one might legitimately use the figure of a finer medium still, and say that in all the spacious reaches of the apostle’s life the redemptive work of his Master is present as an atmosphere in which all his thoughts and purposes and labors find their sustaining and enriching breath. Take this epistle to the Romans in which my text is found. The earlier stages of the great epistle are devoted to a massive and stately presentation of the doctrines of redemption. But when I turn over the pages where the majestic argument is concluded, I find the doctrine persisting in a diffused and rarefied form, and appearing as the determining factor in the solution of practical problems. If he is dealing with the question of the “eating of meats,” the great doctrine reappears and interposes its solemn and yet elevating principle: “destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died.” If he is called upon to administer rebuke to the passionate and unclean, the shadow of the cross rests upon his judgment. “Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price.” If he is portraying the ideal relationship of husband and wife, he sets it in the light of redemptive glory: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it.” If he is seeking to cultivate the grace of liberality, he brings the heavenly air around about the spirit. “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor.” It interweaves itself with all his salutations. It exhales in all his benedictions like a hallowing fragrance. You can not get away from it. In the light of the glory of redemption all relationships are assorted and arranged. Redemption was not degraded into a fine abstract argument, to which the apostle had appended his own approval, and then, with sober satisfaction, had laid it aside, as a practical irrelevancy, in the stout chests of orthodoxy. It became the very spirit of his life. It was, if I may be allowed the violent figure, the warm blood in all his judgment. It filled the veins of all his thinking. It beat like a pulse in all his purposes. It determined and vitalized his decisions in the crisis, as well as in the lesser trifles of the common day. His conception of redemption was regulative of all his thought. But it is not only the immediacy of redemption in the apostle’s thought by which I am imprest. I stand in awed amazement before its vast, far-stretching reaches into the eternities. Said an old villager to me concerning the air of his elevated hamlet, “Ay, sir, it’s a fine air is this westerly breeze; I like to think of it as having traveled from the distant fields of the Atlantic!” And here is the Apostle Paul, with the quickening wind of redemption blowing about him in loosening, vitalizing, strengthening influence, and to him, in all his thinking, it had its birth in the distant fields of eternity! To the apostle redemption was not a small device, an afterthought, a patched-up expedient to meet an unforseen emergency. The redemptive purpose lay back in the abyss of the eternities, and in a spirit of reverent questioning the apostle sent his trembling thoughts into those lone and silent fields. He emerged with whispered secrets such as these: “fore-knew,” “fore-ordained,” “chosen in him before the foundation of the world,” “eternal life promised before times eternal,” “the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Brethren, does our common thought of redemptive glory reach back into this august and awful presence? Does the thought of the modern disciple journey in this distant pilgrimage? Or do we now regard it as unpractical and irrelevant? There is no more insidious peril in modern religious life than the debasement of our conception of the practical. If we divorce the practical from the sublime, the practical will become the superficial, and will degenerate into a very lean and forceless thing. When Paul went on this lonely pilgrimage his spirit acquired the posture of a finely sensitive reverence. People who live and move beneath great domes acquire a certain calm and stately dignity. It is in companionship with the sublimities that awkwardness and coarseness are destroyed. We lose our reverence when we desert the august. But has reverence no relationship to the practical? Shall we discard it as an irrelevant factor in the purposes of common life? Why, reverence is the very clue to fruitful, practical living. Reverence is creative of hope; nay, a more definite emphasis can be given to the assertion; reverence is a constituent of hope. Annihilate reverence, and life loses its fine sensitiveness, and when sensitiveness goes out of a life the hope that remains is only a flippant rashness, a thoughtless impetuosity, the careless onrush of the kine, and not a firm, assured perception of a triumph that is only delayed. A reverent homage before the sublimities of yesterday is the condition of a fine perception of the hidden triumphs of the morrow. And, therefore, I do not regard it as an accidental conjunction that the psalmist puts them together and proclaims the evangel that “the Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in them that hope in his mercy.” To feel the days before me I must revere the purpose which throbs behind me. I must bow in reverence if I would anticipate in hope. Here, then, is the Apostle Paul, with the redemptive purpose interweaving itself with all the entanglements of his common life, a purpose reaching back into the awful depths of the eternities, and issuing from those depths in amazing fulness of grace and glory. No one can be five minutes in the companionship of the Apostle Paul without discovering how wealthy is his sense of the wealthy, redeeming ministry of God. What a wonderful consciousness he has of the sweep and fulness of the divine grace! You know the variations of the glorious air: “the unsearchable riches of Christ”; “riches in glory in Christ Jesus”; “all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ”; “the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering.” The redemptive purpose of God bears upon the life of the apostle and upon the race whose privileges he shares, not in an uncertain and reluctant shower, but in a great and marvelous flood. And what to him is the resultant enfranchisement? What are the spacious issues of the glorious work? Do you recall those wonderful sentences, scattered here and there about the apostle’s writings, and beginning with the words “but now”? Bach sentence proclaims the end of the dominion of night, and unveils some glimpse of the new created day. “But now!” It is a phrase that heralds a great deliverance! “But now, apart from the law the righteousness of God hath been manifested.” “But now, being made free from sin and become servants to God.” “But now in Christ Jesus ye that once were far off are made nigh in the blood of Christ.” “But now are ye light in the Lord.” “Now, no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” These represent no thin abstractions. To Paul the realities of which they speak were more real than the firm and solid earth. And is it any wonder that a man with such a magnificent sense of the reality of the redemptive works of Christ, who felt the eternal purpose throbbing in the dark background and abyss of time, who conceived it operating upon our race in floods of grace and glory, and who realized in his own immediate consciousness the varied wealth of the resultant emancipation—is it any wonder that for this man a new day had dawned, and the birds had begun to sing and the flowers to bloom, and a sunny optimism had taken possession of his heart, which found expression in an assured and rejoicing hope? I look abroad again over the record of this man’s life and teachings, if perchance I may discover the secrets of his abiding optimism, and I am profoundly imprest by his living sense of the reality and greatness of his present resources. “By Christ redeemed!” That is not a grand finale; it is only a glorious inauguration. “By Christ redeemed; in Christ restored”; it is with these dynamics of restoration that his epistles are so wondrously abounding. In almost every other sentence he suggests a dynamic which he can count upon as his friend. Paul’s mental and spiritual outlook comprehended a great army of positive forces laboring in the interests of the kingdom of God. His conception of life was amazingly rich in friendly dynamics! I do not wonder that such a wealthy consciousness was creative of a triumphant optimism. Just glance at some of the apostle’s auxiliaries: “Christ liveth in me!” “Christ liveth in me! He breathes through all my aspirations. He thinks through all my thinking. He wills through all my willing. He loves through all my loving. He travails in all my labors. He works within me ‘to will and to do of his good pleasure.’“ That is the primary faith of the hopeful life. But see what follows in swift and immediate succession. “If Christ is in you, the spirit is life.” “The spirit is life!” And therefore you find that in the apostle’s thought dispositions are powers. They are not passive entities. They are positive forces vitalizing and energizing the common life of men. My brethren, I am persuaded there is a perilous leakage in this department of our thought. We are not bold enough in our thinking concerning spiritual realities. We do not associate with every mode of the consecrated spirit the mighty energy of God. We too often oust from our practical calculations some of the strongest and most aggressive allies of the saintly life. Meekness is more than the absence of self-assertion; it is the manifestation of the mighty power of God. To the Apostle Paul love exprest more than a relationship. It was an energy productive of abundant labors. Faith was more than an attitude. It was an energy creative of mighty endeavor. Hope was more than a posture. It was an energy generative of a most enduring patience. All these are dynamics, to be counted as active allies, cooperating in the ministry of the kingdom. And so the epistles abound in the recital of mystic ministries at work. The Holy Spirit worketh! Grace worketh! Faith worketh! Love worketh! Hope worketh! Prayer worketh! And there are other allies robed in less attractive garb. “Tribulation worketh!” “This light affliction worketh.” “Godly sorrow worketh!” On every side of him the apostle conceives cooperative and friendly powers. “The mountain is full of horses and chariots of fire round about him.” He exults in the consciousness of abounding resources. He discovers the friends of God in things which find no place among the scheduled powers of the world. He finds God’s raw material in the world’s discarded waste. “Weak things,” “base things,” “things that are despised,” “things that are not,” mere nothings; among these he discovers the operating agents of the mighty God. Is it any wonder that in this man, possessed of such a wealthy consciousness of multiplied resources, the spirit of a cheery optimism should be enthroned? With what stout confidence he goes into the fight! He never mentions the enemy timidly. He never seeks to underestimate his strength. Nay, again and again he catalogs all possible antagonisms in a spirit of buoyant and exuberant triumph. However numerous the enemy, however subtle and aggressive his devices, however towering and well-established the iniquity, however black the gathering clouds, so sensitive is the apostle to the wealthy resources of God that amid it all he remains a sunny optimist, “rejoicing in hope,” laboring in the spirit of a conqueror even when the world was exulting in his supposed discomfiture and defeat. And, finally, in searching for the springs of this man’s optimism, I place alongside his sense of the reality of redemption and his wealthy consciousness of present resources his impressive sense of the reality of future glory. Paul gave himself time to think of heaven, of the home of God, of his own home when time should be no more. He loved to contemplate “the glory that shall be revealed.” He mused in wistful expectancy of the day “when Christ who is our life shall be manifested,” and when we also “shall be manifested with him in glory.” He pondered the thought of death as “gain,” as transferring him to conditions in which he would be “at home with the Lord,” “with Christ, which is far better.” He looked for “the blest hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,” and he contemplated “that great day” as the “henceforth,” which would reveal to him the crown of righteousness and glory. Is any one prepared to dissociate this contemplation from the apostle’s cheery optimism? Is not rather the thought of coming glory one of its abiding springs? Can we safely exile it from our moral and spiritual culture? I know that this particular contemplation is largely absent from modern religious life, and I know the nature of the recoil in which our present impoverishment began. “Let us hear less about the mansions of the blest and more about the housing of the poor!” Men revolted against an effeminate contemplation, which had run to seed, in favor of an active philanthropy which sought the enrichment of the common life. But, my brethren, pulling a plant up is not the only way of saving it from running to seed. You can accomplish by a wise restriction what is wastefully done by severe destruction. I think we have lost immeasurably by the uprooting, in so many lives, of this plant of heavenly contemplation. We have built on the erroneous assumption that the contemplation of future glory inevitably unfits us for the service of man. It is an egregious and destructive mistake. I do not think that Richard Baxter’s labors were thinned or impoverished by his contemplation of “The Saint’s Everlasting Rest.” When I consider his mental output, his abundant labors as father-confessor to a countless host, his pains and persecutions and imprisonments, I can not but think he received some of the powers of his optimistic endurance from contemplations such as he counsels in his incomparable book. “Run familiarly through the streets of the heavenly Jerusalem; visit the patriarchs and prophets, salute the apostles, and admire the armies of martyrs; lead on the heart from street to street, bring it into the palace of the great king; lead it, as it were, from chamber to chamber. Say to it, ‘Here must I lodge, here must I die, here must I praise, here must I love and be loved. My tears will then be wiped away, my groans be turned to another tune, my cottage of clay be changed to this palace, my prison rags to these splendid robes’; ‘for the former things are passed away.’“ I can not think that Samuel Rutherford impoverished his spirit or deadened his affections, or diminished his labors by mental pilgrimages such as he counsels to Lady Cardoness: “Go up beforehand and see your lodging. Look through all your Father’s rooms in heaven. Men take a sight of the lands ere they buy them. I know that Christ hath made the bargain already; but be kind to the house ye are going to, and see it often.” I can not think that this would imperil the fruitful optimisms of the Christian life. I often examine, with peculiar interest, the hymn-book we use at Carr’s Lane. It was compiled by Dr. Dale. Nowhere else can I find the broad perspective of his theology and his primary helpmeets in the devotional life as I find them there. And is it altogether unsuggestive that under the heading of “Heaven” is to be found one of the largest sections of the book. A greater space is given to “Heaven” than is given to “Christian duty.” Is it not significant of what a great man of affairs found needful for the enkindling and sustenance of a courageous hope? And among the hymns are many which have helped to nourish the sunny endeavors of a countless host. There is a land of pure delight Where saints immortal reign; Infinite day excludes the night, And pleasures banish pain. What are these, arrayed in white, Brighter than the noonday sun? Foremost of the suns of light, Nearest the eternal throne. Hark! hark, my soul! Angelic songs are swelling O’er earth’s green fields and ocean’s wave-beat shore. Angelic songs to sinful men are telling Of that new life when sin shall be no more. My brethren, depend upon it, we are not impoverished by contemplations such as these. They take no strength out of the hand, and they put much strength and buoyancy into the heart. I proclaim the contemplation of coming glory as one of the secrets of the apostle’s optimism which enabled him to labor and endure in the confident spirit of rejoicing hope. These, then, are some of the springs of Christian optimism; some of the sources in which we may nourish our hope in the newer labors of a larger day: a sense of the glory of the past in a perfected redemption, a sense of the glory of the present in our multiplied resources, a sense of the glory of tomorrow in the fruitful rest of our eternal home. O blest hope! with this elate Let not our hearts be desolate; But, strong in faith and patience, wait Until He come! ======================================================================== Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/writings-of-j-h-jowett/ ========================================================================