THE POSSIBILITIES AND DYNAMICS OF
THE REGENERATE LIFE
1 Peter i. 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.”
SORROWFUL, YET ALWAYS REJOICING
1 Peter i. 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 pæan 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.”
[verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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” [Verse 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. [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.
A TWOFOLD RELATIONSHIP AND ITS FRUITS.
1 Peter i. 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.”
BEING FASHIONED
1 Peter i. 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!” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.”
THE HOLINESS OF THE FATHER
1 Peter i. 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verses
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.” [Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.”
THE CREATION OF CULTURE AND
AFFECTION
1 Peter i. 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.”
[Verse 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.” [Verse 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.”
[Verse 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!”
[Verse 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.”
[Verse 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” [Verse 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.”
[Verse 25]
THE LIVING STONES AND THE
SPIRITUAL HOUSE
1 Peter ii. 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.”
[Verse 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” [
Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [
Verses 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,” [Verses 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,” [
Verse 5] a spacious home, enclosing but one tenant, the gracious Spirit of
God. He will distinguish us as “an elect race,” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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,” [Verse 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.
THE MINISTRY OF SEEMLY
BEHAVIOUR
1 Peter ii. 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.” [
Verse 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.
[Verses
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.”
[Verse 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.” [Verse
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,” [
Verse 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,” [
Verse 15] and that silence will
be for them the first stage in a life of aspiring
consecration.
THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST
1 Peter ii. 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.” [Verses
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.” [Verse 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,
[Verse 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.” [Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.”
[Verse 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”;
[Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.”
WIVES AND HUSBANDS
1 Peter iii. 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.”
[Verse 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
Verse 4 of the ideal wife? “A meek and quiet spirit.”
[Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.”
[Verse 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,” [Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.
BE PITIFUL
1 Peter iii. 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.
CHRIST SANCTIFIED AS LORD
1 Peter iii. 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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”? [Verse 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” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.” [Verse 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”? [Verse 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.”
BRINGING US TO GOD
1 Peter iii. 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.” [Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.” [Verse 22] Let us contemplate these three relationships.
“Christ also suffered for sins ONCE.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.” [Verse 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.
THE SUFFERING WHICH MEANS
TRIUMPH
1 Peter iv. 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.”
GETTING READY FOR THE END
1 Peter iv. 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.” [Verse 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,” [Verse 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” [Verse 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”; [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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” [Verses 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!’”
THE FIERY TRIAL,
1 Peter iv. 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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!
TENDING THE FLOCK
1 Peter v. 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verses 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.” [Verse 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
. . .” [Verse 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.
THROUGH ANTAGONISMS TO
PERFECTNESS
1 Peter v. 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.” [Verse 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 rôle 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.” [Verse 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 homœopathic
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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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,” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.
THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PETER
LIBERTY! EQUALITY! FRATERNITY!
2 Peter i. 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.” [Verse 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,” [Verse 2] Here, then, we have the apostolic evangel of liberty, equality, and
fraternity.
Here is the secret of liberty: “A bondslave of
Jesus.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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?
THE CHRISTIAN’S RESOURCES
2 Peter i. 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. [Verse 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.” [Verse 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. [Verse 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.” [Verse 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” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.”
DILIGENCE IN THE SPIRIT
2 Peter i. 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verses 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.”
THE SANCTIFICATION OF THE
MEMORY
2 Peter i. 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. [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verses 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.” [Verse 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!
THE TRANSFIGURED JESUS
2 Peter i. 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” [Verse 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.” [Verse
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!
THE MYSTERY OF THE PROPHET
2 Peter i. 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.” [Verse
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.” [Verse
19]
And here is the clue to sound and effective
interpretation of prophecy: “No prophecy . . .
is of private interpretation, for . . . men spake
from God.” [Verses
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.” [Verse
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.”
[Verse 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.” [Verse
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.” [Verse 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!” [Verse 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.” [
Verse 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 à 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.
DESTRUCTIVE HERESIES
2 Peter ii. 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.
WORSE THAN THE FIRST
2 Peter ii. 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.” [Verse 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.” [Verse 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.” [
Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.
THE LEISURELINESS OF GOD.
2 Peter iii. 3, 4, 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?”
[Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.Blake’s A Reasonable View of Life. “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.”
[Verse 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.
PREPARING FOR THE JUDGMENT
2 Peter iii. 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.”
[Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.”
[Verse 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?”
[Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.”
[Verse 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.”
[Verse 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!”
[Verse 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.”
GROWING IN GRACE
2 Peter iii. 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.
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