The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Whole Armour of God, by John Henry Jowett
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Title: The Whole Armour of God
Author: John Henry Jowett
Release Date: July 10, 2011 [EBook #36692]
Language: English
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*** Transcription notes:
The following typos were fixed:
page 11: Moffat -> Moffatt
page 57: loathesome -> loathsome
page 60: fellowmen -> fellow-men
page 115: battle-fields -> battlefields
page 145: baptised -> baptized
page 153: multidudinous -> multitudinous
page 225: today -> to-day
page 233: pruninghooks -> pruning-hooks
page 260: frost-bitten -> frostbitten
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THE WHOLE ARMOUR OF GOD
By J. H. JOWETT, D.D.
The Whole Armour of God
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THE WHOLE ARMOUR OF GOD
BY
JOHN HENRY JOWETT, M.A., D.D.
_Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York City_
[Illustration: Logo of Fleming H. Revell Company]
NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Fleming H. Revell Company
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
Copyright, 1916, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
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Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE INVISIBLE ANTAGONISMS 9
II. THE GIRDLE OF TRUTH 25
III. THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 41
IV. READY! 59
V. THE SHIELD OF FAITH 77
VI. THE HELMET OF HOPE 91
VII. THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT 109
VIII. THE SOLDIER'S USE OF PRAYER 127
IX. WATCH YE! 143
X. ENDURING HARDNESS 161
XI. THE INVISIBLE COMMANDER ON THE FIELD 179
XII. THE SOLDIER'S FIRE 197
XIII. THE VICTORY OVER THE BEAST 215
XIV. THE COMING GOLDEN AGE 231
XV. MORE THAN CONQUERORS 249
I
THE INVISIBLE ANTAGONISMS
_Eternal God, may no distraction draw us away from our communion
with Thee. May we come to Thee like children going home,
jubilant and glad. We have been in the far country and our
garments are stained. May we hasten to the ministry of
forgiveness and reconciliation. If we have been on fields of
heavy battle, where the fire of the enemy has been awful and
unceasing, may we hasten to Thee for the overhauling of our
armor, and for the renewal of our strength. If we have been
called upon to walk weary roads of unfamiliar sorrow, may we
turn to Thee as to refreshing springs. If we have lapsed from
our high calling, may we renew our covenant. If we have missed a
gracious opportunity, may we seek another chance. If we have
been counted faithful in any service, and have fulfilled our
commission by the help of Thy grace, may we hasten to give the
glory to Thee. Unite us, we humbly pray Thee, in the holy bonds
of Christian sympathy. Deepen our pity so that we may share the
sorrows of people far away. May we feel the burden of the
burdened and weep with them that weep. May we not add to our sin
by ceasing to remember those who are in need. Grant peace in our
time, O Lord, the peace which is the fruit of righteousness. Let
Thy will be done among all the peoples, so that in common
obedience to Thee all the nations may find abiding union. Amen._
I
THE INVISIBLE ANTAGONISMS
"Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be
able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to
stand." Eph. 6:13.
Let me give one or two other translations which devout scholars have
made in the attempt to bring out the precise significance of Paul's
original words. Many interpreting minds act like the solar spectrum, and
they help to display the wealthy contents in the pure white light of
gospel truth. Here then is Dr. Moffat's translation: "So take God's
armour that you may be able to make a stand in the evil day and hold
your ground by overcoming all your foes." And here is Dr. Weymouth's
fine attempt to elicit the buried wealth of the apostle's words: "Put on
the complete armour of God so that you may be able to stand your ground
on the day of battle, and having fought to the end to remain victors on
the field." That is a translation which stirs one's blood, and I am
inclined to regard it as a very vital interpretation of the rousing,
soldierly counsel of the apostle Paul.
The apostle is writing to a tiny company of Christians at Ephesus, so
tiny that they are like a drop in a bucket in the midst of that teaming
population. For this is what has happened. Under the constraining
influence of the gospel of Christ this little handful of men and women
have done one of the hardest things we are ever called upon to do. They
have cut themselves away from old fellowships. They have separated
themselves from the fond attachments of a lifetime. They have severed
themselves from venerable roots. They have forfeited dear and vital
friendships, and they are now living an alien life within the circle of
their own city. They are strangers in their own home. They are
foreigners in their native land. They are pilgrims in their own country.
They are in it and yet not of it. They are like tropical plants which
find themselves in the Arctic Zone. And it is to this little company
that the apostle writes this letter, and to them he gives the inspiring
counsel of my text: "Put on the complete armour of God that ye may be
able to stand your ground in the day of battle."
In what sort of circumstances did these people live? Let us take a swift
survey of the hostility of their surroundings. What was the nature of
the antagonisms by which this little company were beset? First of all,
there was the overwhelming power of the world. Their city itself was
luxuriously placed. The very location of Ephesus was favourable to
prosperity, enjoying as it did the double advantage of shelter and of
openness to the outer world. I was amazed when I walked among its ruins
in the late spring at the magnificence of its position. If you will
think of a cup, with more than a third of its rim broken down to its
base, you will gain a rough but practical suggestion of the groundwork
of this ancient city. About two-thirds of the city are immediately
engirt with noble and richly verdured hills. Then this sheltering rim of
hills is broken, and the cup opens out in one direction to a port on
the open sea, and in the other direction to a rich alluvial plain,
famous for its wonderful fertility. Such was Ephesus, sheltered and yet
open, with protective arms of hills about it, and yet widely hospitable
to the trade and wealth of the world. No wonder Ephesus was luxurious,
no wonder she was carnal, and no wonder she was ennervated. She was the
very hunting ground of the garish world, and in this mesmeric garishness
this little company of Christians had their home. This was the first of
their antagonisms.
Well, then, to mention a second antagonism, there was the majestic power
of an alien religion. The magnificent Temple of Diana, which is now only
a little heap of stones, with literally not one stone resting orderly
upon another, then dominated the city by its splendour, and represented
a religion which held the people in the loose leash of easy and
licentious morals. Just think of that resplendent temple, that gorgeous
temple, and then think of some obscure house in some obscure street,
where this little company of Christians met to commune with their Lord,
and in the contrast you will realize another of the antagonisms which
assailed their discipleship every hour of the day. The Temple of Diana
versus the little Christian meeting-house! It makes one think of another
contrast in the grey and windy city of Edinburgh; the dark, frowning
Palace of Holyrood versus John Knox's small house in Canongate! And
history tells us which of these two proved to be the dwelling-place of
invincible strength. This was the second of their antagonisms.
And then, to name a third of their antagonisms, there was the pervasive
power of popular customs and traditions. Every day this little handful
of Christians were up against customs that were like invisible bonds.
Yes, religious and social customs always thread the common life, and to
oppose them is to run up against antagonisms which are like invisible
webs of barbed wire. We know what it means to oppose a popular custom
to-day. Just oppose even a simple one; decide to wear no black in the
hour of bereavement and you are up against a world of hostility and
suspicion. And, still further, let the convention you defy be an
ecclesiastical convention, or one which has somehow come to wear
religious sanctions, and the antagonism is tremendous. Well, this little
company of Christians in Ephesus were defying popular social customs and
popular religious customs every day, and they were, therefore,
confronted with a fierce and terrific opposition. And so they had all
these antagonisms to meet, the hardening glare of the world, the
far-reaching power of an alien religion, and the tyranny of popular
custom and tradition. And in the very thick of all these you must
imagine these comparatively youthful Christians seeking to live their
separate and consecrated life.
But in this strong and tender letter to this little flock of Christians,
the apostle Paul looks beyond the opposition of flesh and blood, and the
steelly barriers of usage and tradition; he pierces the visible veil and
beholds invisible antagonists, spiritual, alive, active and hostile.
Listen to him: "For ours is not a conflict with mere flesh and blood,
but with the despotisms, the empires, the forces that control and govern
this dark world, the spiritual hosts of evil arrayed against us in the
heavenly warfare." When the apostle looked upon Ephesus it seemed as
though the whole city became transparent, and behind the visible and
transient veils he saw these spiritual foes. There was much mischief in
Ephesus, there was much weaving of evil webs, there was much coming and
going of worldly forces; but to Paul, the real prompters and instigators
were back in the unseen. This is the teaching of this great apostle.
These Christians in the early Church had to fight unseen enemies,
antagonists in the spirit--"spiritual hosts of evil in the heavenly
warfare." The real enemy is entrenched in the unseen, and he is ever
active, night and day, and the early believer confronted him in ancient
Ephesus, as the later believer confronts him in modern New York and
London.
Now it is of these invisible antagonists that the apostle most urgently
warns these young disciples. He warns them of the extraordinary subtlety
of the warfare, of the wiles of the devil, of the stratagems of these
mysterious powers, of their traps and devices, of their diabolic
cleverness, and of their amazing and manifold ingenuities. The
instruments of modern material warfare are almost incredible in the
refinement of their destructiveness, and I have no doubt in my own mind
that even these ingenuities are also diabolic, and that if we could
pierce the veil we should see the invisible enemies at their fiendish
work. But these unseen antagonists out-do all the subtleties of the
material instruments of destruction in the devices in which they lure
and snare and entrap and overthrow the soul.
Well, then, how do these antagonists work? How is this cunning
antagonism exerted upon the soul? It is exerted both mediately and
immediately. First of all, these invisible antagonists work immediately
upon the soul. Spirit can work upon spirit; mind can lay pressure upon
mind. There is a direct and immediate influence upon the secret life of
man. That is the teaching of the Word of God, and I freely confess to
you that there are phenomena in my own life, and in the lives of others
which I cannot interpret in any other way. I know it is altogether
mysterious, but it is by no means incredible. In our own day we are
obtaining first glimpses into avenues of spiritual activity which
hitherto have been shrouded in mist and darkness. The phenomena of
thought transference, of telepathy, of hypnotism, are lifting the veil
upon modes of influence of which we have scarcely dreamed. One mind can
influence another mind directly without either speech or deed, leaving
upon the other the seal and imprint of its own mould. When I see this I
do not count it incredible when it is reported to me that there are
spiritual antagonists in Ephesus and in New York who prey upon the
thoughts of man, and work upon his imagination, and engage his
sentiments and ambitions with the purpose of luring him from his sacred
loyalties, and inciting him to rebellion against the holy and most high
God. "Ours is not a conflict with mere flesh and blood," says the
apostle. We have invisible foes.
And then, in the second place, these spiritual antagonists work
mediately upon the soul. They work upon the soul through the medium of
human ministries--through the contagious power of crowds, through the
gravitation of the age, through the general spirit of society, through
the psychological climate in which our life is cast. And they also work
upon the soul through the medium of individuals, through men and women
who have been captured by the evil one and who are now used in his
purposes of moral and spiritual destruction. Our invisible antagonists
cast their lure upon us through the ministry of our fellow-men.
Now all these antagonisms, seen and unseen, mediate and immediate, this
little company of Christians had to meet in ancient Ephesus. You say the
antagonisms are tremendous! Yes, indeed they are, and the Christian life
is a tremendous thing. That is what tens of thousands of professing
Christians have yet to learn. Let it be said that of all tremendous
things the Christian life is the most tremendous. It is not something we
can play with in idle hours, it is not a merely pleasant fellowship, it
is not the bloodless act of joining the visible Church. No, it is not
the carrying of a highly imposing label; it is a desperate, continuous,
but withal, a glorious campaign. Speaking for myself, I confess that I
have to have my fingers on the throat of the devil every day of my
mortal life. This is how I find it. I do not gain a single inch without
a fight. No fine victory is ever gained by me without blood. O, the
sternness of the Christian fight! and O, its attractiveness and its
glory! Yes, indeed, you are right; the antagonisms are tremendous.
How then, are they to be met? If these are our antagonisms, seen and
unseen, in New York as well as in Ephesus, how can we meet and overcome
them? Let us listen to the Word: "Put on the complete armour of _God_."
Let us begin there. Our first need is God. Without God we are beaten
even before the fight begins. We have no more likelihood of vanquishing
our spiritual foes without God than this unaided hand of mine would be
able to drive back the solid phalanxes of the German hosts. We must
begin with God. In the tenth verse of this chapter the apostle unfolds
the primary secret of victory. "Be strong in the Lord and in the power
of His might." But that is a very imperfect translation, laying too much
emphasis upon the soldier and too little upon his Lord. I greatly like
the marginal rendering of the revised version: "Be made powerful in the
Lord." Does not that word sound full of promise for soldiers who are
about to storm a difficult position? "Be made powerful in the Lord." Let
God make you powerful! Such power is not a trophy of battle; it is the
fruit of communion. It is a bequest and not a conquest. This power is
not something we have to win; it is something we have to receive. It is
not something we have to gain; it is something we have to take. "Be made
powerful in the Lord!" And listen again: "Ye shall receive power when
the Holy Spirit is come upon you." That power, that vital endowment of
strength, is the gift of God, one of the ministries of the divine grace,
and it is offered to every soldier without money and without price. So
is it true that our first necessity in battle is to hasten away to the
Lord to receive the gifts of the soldier's strength.
But not only is there the imperative need of God for our initial
strength, but for every piece of armour which may be needful in the
fight. Armour for offence, and armour for defence; armour to meet every
device and stratagem with which we may be assailed. I propose to
consider this armour, piece by piece, and over and over again I shall
have to tell you that you may find every piece of armour in the
abundantly stocked and open and free armoury of God. And therefore do I
say again that if we are to be triumphant over our antagonists, our
first need is God. "Seek ye the Lord." "O come, let us kneel before the
Lord our Maker."
And then, our other great requirement is the ceaseless co-operation of
our wills. The life of a Christian soldier is not a continuous reclining
on "flowery beds of ease." Having obtained the strength we must
ceaselessly exercise it in the practice of our wills. Listen to the
divine challenge to the will: "Be made powerful in the Lord!" Well,
then, exercise the will you have, your weak will, and go and kneel in
humility at the source of power, and receive the promised gift. "Put on
the whole armour of God!" Well, then, exercise the will and go to the
armoury of grace for thine arms. "Stand therefore!" Well, then, having
received the gift of power, exercise thy will in stubborn and invincible
resistance. "Here stand I," said one who had received the strength,
"Here stand I; I can do no other, God help me!" "Having done all,
stand"--and victory shall be yours! In the name of God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, victory shall most certainly be yours!
Says Dr. Weymouth: "Stand your ground in the day of battle, and having
fought to the end remain victors on the field." "Victors on the field."
I am thrilled by the inspiring word--"Victors on the field." After every
temptation--the temptation that comes to me in sunshine, or the
temptation that comes to me in the gloom--after every fight, victors on
the field! The Lord's banner flying, His banner of love and grace; and
the evil one and all his host in utter rout, and in full and dire
retreat!
Soldiers of Christ arise,
And put your armour on;
Strong in the strength which God supplies
Through His eternal Son.
II
THE GIRDLE OF TRUTH
_Holy Father, we humbly pray Thee to reveal unto us the
unsearchable riches of Christ. Refine our discernments in order
that we may behold them; and deepen our hearts in order that we
may long to possess them. Unveil to us our poverty so that we
may seek Thy wealth. Lead us through meekness and penitence to
the reception of spiritual power. May our loins be girt about
with truth. May we drink deeply at the waters of promise and
find refreshment in immediate duty. We pray that Thou wilt bind
us together in the bonds of holy sympathy. Help us to gather up
the needs of others in common intercession. Make us ready to
bear the burden of the race. Quicken our imaginations in order
that we may enter into the sorrows of Thy children in every
land. We humbly pray Thee to steady our faith in these days of
bewilderment. In all the confusion of our time may we never lose
sight of Thy throne. In all the obscuring of our ideals may we
never lose sight of Christ. And O, Lord, out of our disorder may
we be led into larger ways. Let Thy Holy Spirit brood over us,
quickening all that is full of sacred promise, and destroying
all that hinders our friendship with Thee. Amen._
II
THE GIRDLE OF TRUTH
"Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth." Eph.
6:14.
The girdle was just a strong belt holding the different pieces of a
soldier's armour securely in their place. Even in the ordinary Oriental
attire the girdle was a necessity. Without the girdle the loose, flowing
garments became very cumbersome, flapping about the feet, and especially
hindering the movements in a hostile wind. Even the most graceful attire
became an entanglement unless the girdle held it in serviceable bonds.
But the necessity of a girdle was still more imperative on the field of
war. In active fighting loose pieces of armour would be like
embarrassing articles hanging on the soldier rather than appropriate
implements to make him efficient. Loose armour was troublesome and
distressing, making the soldier feel soft, and awkward, and unready,
giving him a sense of going to pieces. The belt bound the loose pieces
together, creating a healthy sense of firmness, compactness, and making
the soldier feel that he had everything well in hand, and enabling him
to meet the enemy's attack with united strength and confidence.
Now it is that figure of the military belt which the apostle is using
in our text, "Let your loins be girt about with truth." The soldier of
Jesus can have his armour flapping about him in disorderly array. He can
be loose and distracted. His energies can be scattered. He can be just a
mass of incoherences and inconsistencies in the presence of the foe. Or
a soldier of Jesus can be firm, and collected, and decisive. He can be
"all there," with every ounce of his strength available for the
immediate fight. And the apostle teaches that this bracing sense of
collectedness, this fine, firm feeling of moral and spiritual
concentration, can only be obtained by binding the entire life with the
splendid and tenacious girdle of gospel truth.
I want to approach the apostle's central teaching along roads which
will gather up the testimony of common experience. We all know the
strength which is imparted to a life when it is girt about with firm
principle. It is even so in the life of a boy when he is passing his
earliest days at school. Is there anything nobler to contemplate than a
fine boy whose life and character are held firm and free in the bond and
girdle of moral principle? It is even so in the later days of college
and university. What college or university graduate has not admired the
decisive strength of some man or woman whose character was held in
splendid consistency by the girdle of moral conviction! What joyful and
boisterous liberty there is in such a life! And it is all the more free
and jubilant because it recognizes fields of license into which it never
strays. And in the broader fields of the world we have the witness of
the same experience. Life that is held in a girdle quadruples its
strength. Life which is bound together even by a strong expediency
gathers force in the bondage. A life which is held in the constraint of
a policy is far mightier than a life which is trailing in scattered
indifference. But a life which is bound together in moral principle,
having all its faculties and powers gathered under one control, has
tremendous force both of attack and resistance.
You may study the contents of that statement and find abundant
illustrations in the lives of men like Lincoln, and Mazzini, and
Gladstone, and John Bright, and John Morley, and James Bryce. All these
men, whether we approve or disapprove their political programmes and
ambitions, are men whose characters reveal no loose ends, no trailing
garments, no unchartered opinions, no vagrant and unlicensed moods, but
rather a moral wholeness and solidity which we know will retain its
splendid consistency in the teeth of the fiercest storm. Yes, even in
the ways of the world men recognize the man who is wearing the belt of
principle, and whose loins are girt about with truth.
But the apostle Paul is thinking of something more than moral
principle, splendid as is the influence of a great principle on the
healthy action of a life. He is thinking of something even finer and
deeper than this, and in which the moral principle is included. He is
thinking of a soul belted with the more distinctive truth of the
Scriptures, a soul girt about with gospel truth and with the ample
promises of God. He is thinking of a man who takes some great truth of
revelation, some mighty word of life, or some broad and bracing promise
of grace, and who belts it about his soul and wears it on active service
in seeking to do the sovereign will. I know not where to begin, or where
to end, when I turn to the pages of biography for examples of men and
women who have worn the girdle of gospel truth and promise. Let me dip
here and there in the many and brilliant records.
Well, then, let us begin with Martin Luther. It is one of the strong
characteristics of Luther that he is ever wearing the girdle of truth,
and bracing himself with the promises of grace. I open his letters
almost at random, in the great year of his life when he defied the pope,
and opposed himself to the strength of uncounted hosts. He is writing to
Melanchthon on May 26, 1521: "Do not be troubled in spirit; but sing the
Lord's song in the night, as we are commanded, and I shall join in. Let
us only be concerned about the Word." There you find him putting on the
girdle! Once again I find him writing a letter to a poor little company
of Christians at Wittenberg: "I send you this thirty-seventh Psalm for
your consolation and instruction. Take comfort and remain steadfast. Do
not be alarmed through the raging of the godless." There again he is
wearing the girdle and urging others to wear it. His loins are girt
about with truth.
Then again there is John Wesley. Let me give you a glimpse of that
noble servant of the spirit as he is putting on the girdle of truth:
"When I opened the New Testament at five o'clock in the morning my eyes
fell on the words, 'There are given unto us exceeding great and precious
promises that we should be partakers of the divine nature.'" He girt his
loins with that truth. "Just before I left the room I opened the Book
again, and this sentence gleamed from the open page, 'Thou art not far
from the Kingdom of God.'" And he girt himself with that promise. He
went to St. Paul's that morning, and in the chant there came to him this
personal message from the Word: "O Israel, trust in the Lord, for in the
Lord there is mercy and in Him there is plenteous redemption, and He
shall redeem Israel from all his sins." Do you not see this noble knight
belting himself for the great crusade that even now awaits him at the
gate?
Then I think I will mention General Gordon, who laid down his life at
Khartoum. Only, if you want to see Gordon girding himself with truth,
and see it adequately, you will have to quote from almost every letter
he ever wrote, and especially his wonderful correspondence with his
sister. Take this sentence from a letter written in Cairo in 1884: "I
have taken the words, 'He will hide me in His hands'; good-night, my
dear sister, I am not moved, even a little." Or take this sentence from
a letter written in Khartoum toward the end of his days: "This word has
been given me, 'It is nothing to our God to help with many or with few,'
and I now take my worries more quietly than before." He put on the
girdle of truth, and his worries were leashed in the girdle, and his
soul was quieted in gospel confidence and serenity.
And I had other examples to offer you, but these must suffice. I had on
my table David Livingstone, and John Woolman, and Josephine Butler, and
Frances Willard, and Catherine Booth, and I wanted to give you glimpses
of all these notable soldiers of the Lord girding themselves for the
open field. But their names shall be their witness. I might have quoted,
had I the knowledge and the time, the testimony of all the saints who
from their labours rest. And concerning them all we should have seen
that their loins were girt about with truth.
Now it was to spiritual equipment of this kind that the apostle was
directing the little company of Christians at Ephesus. Think of their
surroundings:--the overwhelming worldliness, the dominating influence of
an alien religion, the fierce antagonisms of popular customs and
traditions, and all of these backed by invisible hosts of wickedness in
heavenly places. Now what chance would a loose, shuffling Christian have
in circumstances so hostile as these? The Christian in Ephesus, if he is
to be a conqueror, must not slouch along the way with a loose, hang-dog
sort of air, but rather with all the poise and movement of a lion. The
Christian must belt himself about with big truth, truth that will not
only confirm but invigorate, truth that will not only define his creed
but vitalize his soul. And these Ephesian Christians followed the
apostle's counsel and they girded themselves with truth, and so were
able to stand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
Let us watch how they did it. They had been converted to the Christian
faith and life. One sure effect of their conversion was a more vivid
sense of sin. After their conversion their own sinfulness began to
reveal itself in more awful relief. The nearer they got to the light the
more their sin appeared, just like invisible writing emerging from its
secrecy when exposed to the open fire. They saw their sin, and they saw
the sin of the people. They were like the prophet Isaiah, to whom also
there came the awakening sense of sin, and with him they could have
cried: "Woe is me, for I am unclean, and I dwell in the midst of a
people of unclean lips." Well, now, how could that little company of
Christians deal with the sin? It was like trying to drain a vast and
bitter marsh that was fed by secret springs. How could they do it? And
the tremendous task only emphasized their weakness, and might have
depressed them into a feeling of helplessness and despair. And we share
that feeling to-day. Think of the colossal sins of Europe, and think of
the sins and moral indifference of the great cities. If the sin be like
a bitter marsh, what is going to drain it? Nay, how are we going to get
the confidence that it can be drained? Well what did Paul do, and what
did he teach his fellow-disciples to do? This is what he did. He found
something even bigger than sin, and he girded himself with the bigger
thing when he confronted the appalling task. Listen to him: "Where sin
abounds grace does much more abound." Yes, sin is a big thing, but grace
is a bigger thing; the biggest thing even in this rebellious and
indifferent world. Sin is a strong thing, but grace is a stronger thing,
even the strongest thing in a revolting and alienated world. Well then,
let your loins be girt about with that truth! Put it around your fears
and uncertainties like a strong girdle. Wear it ever night and day. Go
up to every stupendous task in the vigour of its bracing grip. Begin at
the piece of the bitter marsh nearest to you, and begin to drain it. And
wear the truth--"Where sin abounds, grace doth much more abound." Wear
the truth, say it, sing it, and you will be amazed how the difficulty
will be subdued; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
There was something else in Ephesus for which these Christians needed
the girdle of truth. Ephesus was a vast city, and these Christians were
only a tiny and obscure fellowship. And even this small fellowship had
to be broken up during the hours of labour, and in those hours each
believer had to stand alone. One of them was perhaps a slave, and there
was no fellow-believer in the house. Or perhaps one was a soldier, and
there wasn't another believer in his regiment, and he had to face it all
alone. We have been reading that one reason for the massed solidity of
the German advance is that the individual German soldier craves the
mystic strength of fellowship, and desires even the physical touch of a
comrade-in-arms. I can understand it. And so could the Ephesian
Christians have understood it. They felt strong when they touched their
fellow-believers, and they felt weakened when the visible communion was
broken.
What, then, shall they do when alone? They must let their loins be girt
about with truth. But what truth? What did the apostle Paul wear in such
isolation? He took this girdle and wrapped it round his loins: "He loved
me, and gave Himself for me." And that girdle gives a man a sense of
glorious fellowship along the emptiest and loneliest road. Put that
girdle on, lonely soul! "He loves me, and gave Himself for me!" Wear it
ever, night and day. And wear it consciously! Say it; sing it--"He loved
me, and gave Himself for me." "Let your loins be girt about with that
truth."
And so have we seen these Ephesian soldiers putting on the girdle. In
the presence of threat and persecution they wore this girdle, "We are
more than conquerors through Him that loved us." When their
circumstances were a medley and a confusion, full of ups and downs, of
strange comings and goings, of mingled joy and sorrow, foul and fair,
they wore this girdle: "All things work together for good to them that
love God." And thus they were braced for all the changes of the
ever-changing day.
So do I urge my fellow-soldiers in this later day to wear the belt.
"Let your loins be girt about with truth." Let us pray the good Lord to
help us even now to put it on. Is the girdle we need this--"He loved me
and gave Himself for me?" Well, put it on. Or is it this--"We have
forgiveness through His blood?" Put it on. Or is it this--"I will come
again and receive you unto myself?" Put it on. Or is it this--"In My
Father's house are many mansions?" Put it on. Or is it this--"I will
never leave thee nor forsake thee?" Put it on. Or is it this great
girdle--"When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee, and
through the rivers, they shall not overthrow thee, when thou walkest
through the fire thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame
kindle upon thee?" Put on the girdle, wear it ever, night and day, and
thou shalt find that in the strength of gospel truth thou are competent
to meet all circumstances, and triumphantly perfect thy Saviour's will.
III
THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
_Almighty God, our Father, it is by Thy grace that we attain
unto holiness, and it is by Thy light that we find wisdom. We
humbly pray that Thy grace and light may be given unto us so
that we may come into the liberty of purity and truth. Wilt Thou
graciously exalt our spirits and enable us to live in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. Impart unto us a deep dissatisfaction
with everything that is low, and mean, and unclean, and create
within us such pure desire that we may appreciate the things
which Thou hast prepared for them that love Thee. Wilt Thou
receive us as guests of Thy table. Give us the glorious sense of
Thy presence, and the precious privilege of intimate communion.
Feed us with the bread of life; nourish all our spiritual
powers; help us to find our delight in such things as please
Thee. Give us strength to fight the good fight of faith. Give us
holy courage, that we may not be daunted by any fear, or turn
aside from our appointed task. Make us calm when we have to
tread an unfamiliar road, and may Thy presence give us
companionship divine. Amen._
III
THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
"Having on the breastplate of righteousness." Ephesians 6:14.
This is counsel given to a little company of Christians, so little as
to be almost submerged and lost in the great unfriendly city of Ephesus,
so little as to be like a tiny boat in the midst of a vast and
threatening sea. A missionary of the gospel has been among them and they
have received the word of the Lord Jesus. They have answered the
constraint of redeeming love and they have confessed their faith in
Christ. And what has happened? Their confession has compelled their
separation from many of their old fellowships and attachments. They are
loosened from many of their old affections. The forces that were once
friendly to them have become unfriendly, and they are now confronted by
overwhelming hostilities on every side.
We must try to feel the power and peril of their isolation if we would
understand the force of the apostle's words. Imagine then the lot of
some German in Germany who espoused the cause of the Allies, or conceive
the lot of some Englishman in England who sided with Germany, and you
may realize the heat and fierceness of the antagonism with which these
immature Christians were surrounded in the city of Ephesus. But their
peril was not only found in the hostility of their old friends. There
was the enervating moral atmosphere which they had to breathe; there was
the recurring inclination of their own riotous passions; there was a
remnant of appetite for the old delights; and there was the nervous fear
that the forces against them might prove overwhelming.
What should they do? How should they be able to stand? And especially
how should they be able to stand in the evil day, the day when external
circumstances might culminate in some terrific assault, or when their
own passions might rise against them in some particularly fierce
resurgence? Well, this chapter records the counsel of a great and
experienced apostle, a mighty soldier of the Lord, in which he advises
these young recruits of the Kingdom what armour they must wear if they
would be victorious on the field. "Put on the whole armour of God." And
we are considering these noble pieces of armour if haply we too may
possess the equipment and so turn our days of battle into days of
glorious victory.
And now, in the name of the Lord Jesus, I bring you this piece of
armour, "the breastplate of righteousness," and it is to be worn in our
modern warfare in this difficult city of New York. What is this
breastplate of righteousness? What indeed was the Roman breastplate from
which the figure of speech is taken? Unfortunately, the word breastplate
is very inaccurate and misleading. The piece of armour to which the
apostle refers protected the back as well as the breast, and in addition
it gave protection to the neck and the hips. It would be much more truly
described by the phrase, "a coat of mail," because it was a sort of vest
made of small metal plates, overlapping one another like shield upon
shield, wrapping the body in its defences, and protecting the vital
organs, back and front, from every assault of the foe.
Let us then venture to lift this more accurate description into our
text, "Put on righteousness like a coat of mail, wear it in all your
comings and goings in the city of Ephesus, and in it meet all the
malicious antagonisms of devils and of men." Now I wonder how the
apostle's counsel affected these fearful struggling Christians in
Ephesus. Let us look at them. Let us assume that we are with them, and
that we are about to give them the counsel offered in the text. How will
they receive it? Remember that they have just been lifted out of the
horrible pit and out of the miry clay of long-continued sin, and that
they are oppressed by their own weakness and helplessness, and by the
strength of the evil inclinations and habits which they have just
renounced. Well, now, let us offer these inexperienced disciples the
apostle's counsel: "Put on righteousness like a coat of mail!" Why, they
just look at you in utter despair! It is their very weakness that they
cannot forge and weave such a coat of mail to cover them in the day of
battle. The counsel would surely seem like the taunting cry of the foe.
Suppose we had waylaid poor Christian in "The Pilgrim's Progress" when
he was struggling with his oppressive burden up the hill, and with the
fiery darts of the devil hurtling around him on every side, and suppose
we had called out to him, "Put on righteousness like a coat of mail!" We
should surely only have added heaviness to his burden and crushed him to
the ground in despair. "Put on righteousness like a coat of mail?" he
would have moaned in his reply, "My righteousness is like unto filthy
rags!"
One poor, sorrowful correspondent wrote to me some weeks ago who was
the victim of alcohol and drugs. For years he had walked in ways of
uncleanness, but he was now just waking from his awful sleep and turning
his thoughts toward home. Suppose now I had written to him and said "Put
on righteousness like a coat of mail!" I think his eyes would have
dulled into weariness again, and he would have slipped back to his drugs
and his despair. This cannot be the meaning of the apostle's counsel, or
this coat of mail would never be worn.
What, then, does the apostle mean when he says "Put on righteousness
like a coat of mail"? Let us seek for light in his own life, for he is a
soldier as well as a counsellor, and we shall find him following his own
advice and wearing the armour which he recommends to others. Let us
listen then to this word, and let us mark its significance; "Touching
the righteousness which is in the law I was found blameless." That seems
like an invincible protection. "Touching the righteousness which is in
the law I was found blameless!" But there was nothing invincible about
it. It was no more a coat of mail than an ordinary vest, and the devil
smote through the defences a dozen times a day.
Listen again to the apostle when he has passed into the intimate
friendship of Christ: "Not having a righteousness of mine own." Mark
that; yea verily mark that;--"Not having a righteousness of mine own."
This coat of mail he wears is not his own righteousness. Whose, then, is
it? It is the righteousness of Christ. As Paul declares: "It is the
righteousness which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness
which is of God by faith." The apostle is wearing the righteousness of
Christ, and he wears it like a coat of mail, covering back and front,
shielding him before and behind.
I want to pause a little there because we are very near one of the
deepest mysteries in the gospel of grace, and I want to state the
mystery as plainly as words can express it. This, then, is what the
Scriptures state: The Lord Jesus Christ was absolutely righteous, so
righteous that human imagination and human dream cannot conceive it
excelled. His holy obedience was perfect. There was no rent in the
vesture of His holiness. There was no frayed edge, there was no
imperfect strand, there were no stains. "In Him was no sin." We must
begin there.
And now let us assume that a poor penitent comes to this perfectly holy
Lord. Let us make the sinner as nauseous and repulsive as you please.
Let us make him a moral leper, the wretched victim of uncleanness,
befouled by his own habits, consumed in his own sin, eaten without and
within. That poor penitent sinner, laden with defilement, comes to the
holy Lord Jesus, humbly seeking His favour and grace.
Now what happens? What do the Scriptures tell us about the happening?
They tell us that the holy Saviour covers the sinner with the robe of
His own righteousness. The Lord puts His merits on to the sinner who has
no merits. He puts His obedience on to the sinner who has nothing but a
record of disobedience. He puts His spiritual conquests on to the sinner
who is torn and scarred by nothing but appalling defeats. He puts His
holiness on to a sinner who has been raked by defilements. That is the
proclamation of the gospel. That poor penitent believing sinner stands
now before the devil, and before men and angels, and before the presence
of God, clothed in the righteousness of Christ! What, in all his
imperfections? Yes. In all his weaknesses? Yes. With the scorching marks
of hell-fire still upon him? Yes. He is covered with the robe of
Christ's righteousness. He wears the merits and the strength and the
defences of the Lord's obedience. Have we not read of one who wrapped
himself in his country's flag and then dared an alien power to fire? It
is an altogether imperfect illustration, but it offers me some faint and
helpful analogy when I hear the saints give this witness: "He hath
clothed me with the robe of righteousness, and covered me with the
garments of salvation." No, it was not Paul's own righteousness which
constituted his coat of mail. It was the righteousness of his Lord.
Now, this is the word of grace, and this is the message of the gospel.
It is this of which Toplady sings in his immortal hymn--"Rock of Ages":
"Naked, look to Thee for dress."
It is this also of which Charles Wesley sings in his also immortal
hymn--"Jesus, Lover of my Soul":
"I am all unrighteousness,
Thou art full of truth and grace."
It is this which was discovered by George Fox, the founder of the
Society of Friends, and of which he tells us so rapturously in the early
pages of his journal. It was this which John Bunyan found, and of which
he tells us in the pages of "Grace Abounding": "One day, as I was
passing into the field, and that too with some dashes on my conscience,
suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, 'Thy righteousness is in
heaven,' and me thought that I saw with the eyes of my soul, Jesus
Christ at God's right hand. There, I saw, was my righteousness; so that
wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, He
wants my righteousness, for that was just before Him. I also saw,
moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my
righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness
worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ Himself, the same
yesterday, to-day and forever. Now did my chains fall off my legs
indeed; I was loosened from my afflictions and irons.... Now went I also
home rejoicing for the grace and love of God." All these men, at the
beginning of their Christian life, were covered not with a righteousness
of their own, but with the righteousness of Christ, and they could sing
with Paul that they were clothed in the garments of His salvation. Their
coat of mail was the righteousness of Christ.
Now I recognize, and I experience the difficulty, of realizing all
this, and I sympathize with you in the poverty of our apprehension. But
I think our difficulty is in some ways occasioned by the inadequacy of
all figures of speech to convey to us the real vitality of the truth.
For instance, a coat of mail is something detached, separate and
external, and so is a robe, and they have no vital relation to the body
which wears them. And therefore, when we think of the righteousness of
Christ covering another like a robe or a coat of mail, it appears
something unreal, a superficial ministry, or even a fine pretence. We
think of some villain clothed in the garb of a minister, but all the
more a villain because of the robes which cover him. Or we think of some
vile woman wearing the habits of a nun, and all the more vile because of
the significant garments in which she is clothed. A leprous sinner
wearing the robe of Christ's righteousness! It all appears detached and
superficial, like a climbing rose hiding a rubbish heap, or some lovely
ferns and greenery concealing an open sewer. There appears no deep
reality in it,--a sinner just covered with the robe of Christ's
holiness, and wearing the Lord's righteousness as a coat of mail.
Yes, I admit that the figures all fail. The figure of a robe leaves the
sinner and the Saviour in no vital relation. And so it is with the coat
of mail. But in the blessed reality there is no detachment. There is
union between the sinner and the Saviour of the most profound and vital
kind. You must remember our assumption; the sinner who comes to the
Saviour comes in faith, and in penitence and in prayer, and these things
never leave a soul separate and detached from the life and love of the
Lord. Faith itself, even amid human relationships, is never a dividing
ministry; it always consolidates and unites. You may trace the vital
unifying influence of faith in a score of relations. The faith which a
patient has in a doctor is a minister of very vital union in every
effort to recover the lost genius of health. The faith which a pupil has
in a teacher unites the two in a very vital relation, and puts the pupil
into communion with the knowledge which is stored up in the teacher's
mind. The faith which one man has in another incorporates the two in
one. Faith always unifies; it never divides.
And all this has its supreme application in the relation of the soul to
Christ. A poor penitent sinner who comes to the Lord in faith becomes
one with the Lord in the profoundest union which the mind of man can
conceive. Faith in Christ unites the soul with Christ just as in
grafting the engrafted scion becomes one with the vital stock.
Now this is the beginning of our reasoning. We are assuming a poor,
penitent, weary soul flinging himself by faith on Christ, and thereby
becoming one with Christ, one with all He is; one with all He has been;
one with all He shall be, sharing His merits, His holiness, His
obedience! By faith in Christ I become one with Christ, and all He is is
thrown over me! And now before the devil I stand as one in Christ; and
in the day of judgment I shall stand as one in Christ, one with Him in
spite of all the sins of my past, and all the weaknesses and
immaturities of the present. "Thou hast covered me with the robe of
righteousness, and clothed me in the garment of salvation." I wear the
righteousness of Christ, and I wear it as a coat of mail.
Now is not that a strong defence? Go back to the illustration of
grafting. I saw a young graft which had just been newly related to a
strong and healthy stock. The graft still looked very poor and weak and
sickly, but it had become vitally one with the healthy stock; it stood
no longer in its own strength. All the resources of the stock were
thrown about it, the merits of the stock were now the scion's, all the
victories of its yesterdays, and all the sap and energies of to-morrow.
The stock is to the scion as a coat of mail! And so it is with the soul
which has become by faith the scion of the Lord.
"All my trust on Thee is stayed,
All my help from Thee I bring;
Cover my defenseless head
With the shadow of Thy wing."
The righteousness of Christ is the breastplate of the soul.
Now let us gather up our practical conclusions: The righteousness of
Christ becomes immediately mine by the act and attitude of faith. Yea,
verily, the most leprous and unclean soul in this city, with a history
unutterably loathsome, whose faith looks up tremblingly to the Saviour,
is immediately covered with the robe of Christ's righteousness, for by
faith he immediately becomes one with the righteousness of Christ. By
faith I can here and now become one with Christ; however poor and
wretched I be, and however sinful I have been, the righteousness of
Christ becomes the armour of my soul. You say that is very dogmatic.
Yes, blessed be God, it is dogmatic, but it is justified dogmatism, for
it is the glorious dogmatism of the gospel of Christ.
And covered with the righteousness of Christ, that imputed
righteousness becomes progressively mine in the appropriation of
experience. His life flows into me like the life of stock into scion,
and all through my days I am assimilating more and more the
righteousness which covers me. His covering righteousness becomes more
and more my rectitude. His covering holiness becomes more and more my
obedience. His righteousness passes more and more into my conscience and
makes it holy; more and more into my affections and makes them lovely;
more and more into my will to make it rich and dutiful in obedience.
Forever and ever His righteousness will cover me, and forever and
forever I shall be growing into His likeness. His righteousness is my
defence. Yes, it is a coat of mail, a protection for breast and back.
His righteousness protects me from the things that are behind, the guilt
and the sins of my yesterdays. His righteousness protects me from the
things of to-morrow, from all the assaults of the unknown way, from the
fear of death, and from the day of judgment.
"When I soar through worlds unknown,
See Thee on Thy Judgment Throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee."
IV
READY!
_Heavenly Father, we thank Thee we are called to be children of
the light. Even though we have been children of the darkness,
and have loved the ways of error rather than of truth, and of
sin rather than of holiness, Thou art calling us to the light of
eternal day. We would answer Thy call in penitence, and we would
return to Thee like wayward children who are coming home again.
We do not ask to lose the sense of our shame, but we ask to
taste the sweetness of Thy forgiveness. We do not ask to forget
our rebelliousness, but we ask to be assured that we are
reconciled to Thee. We would sit at Thy table and receive the
bread of life. We would worship at Thy feet and receive the
baptism of the Holy Spirit. We would stand before Thee with our
feet shod with the shoes of readiness, willing to go out on
errands of Christian love and service. If we are inclined to
frivolity may we become inclined to be serious and reverent. If
we are heedless may we become fired with heavenly ambition and
spiritual devotion. Redeem us from the littleness of selfishness
and lift us into the blessed communion of our fellow-men. Give
us a wide and generous outlook upon human affairs. Endow us with
the sympathy that rejoices with them who are rejoicing and that
weeps with them that weep. If Thou art leading us through the
gloom of adversity may we find that even the clouds drop
fatness. If Thou art leading us through the green pastures and
by the still waters, may we recognize the presence of the great
Shepherd and may our joys be sanctified. Hallow all our
experiences, we humbly pray Thee, and may we all become branches
in the vine of our Lord. Amen._
IV
READY!
"Your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace."
Ephesians 6:15.
A little while ago an article appeared in one of the daily papers with
this startling title: "Boots and shoes may be vital determining factors
in the war." And contrasts and comparisons were made between the
opposing forces in respect to their footgear, and the provision which
had been made for keeping the soldiers' feet strong and hardy. And
allowing even for the ordinary journalistic exaggeration, it is a most
reasonable thing to assume that good, durable, well-fitting boots are
part of the requisite armour for all soldiers who are called to
prolonged and exacting service. Think of those heavy tramps in the early
days of the war, whether in advance or in retreat; and think of the miry
roads and the marshy ground since the rains have fallen; and think of
the wet and soaking trenches where the men have to stand for hours
together; and you will begin to realize what a vital part boots may play
in the terrible hardships of a long and wintry campaign.
In the Roman Empire scrupulous care was given to the feet of the
fighting men. The shoes were specially made, not only for long marches,
but for protection against the secret dangers of the way. They had not
arrived at some of our refinements in devilry, but some of their
subtleties occasioned great destruction. Gall-traps were set along the
road, multitudes of sharp sticks were inserted on the surface of the
road, keen as dagger points, to obstruct the advance of an enemy, and to
maim his soldiers and compel them to fall out by the way. And so it was
an imperative necessity that the Roman soldier be well shod, his feet
made easy for the most exacting march, and defended against the hidden
perils which would maim him in service and spoil him for the fray.
Now the apostle Paul had seen the Roman soldier marching as to war. I
think he must have been particularly fond of watching soldiers because
we can so often see and hear them reflected in his letters. We can
always learn a great deal from a man by studying his metaphors and
figures of speech, and we can get some very suggestive glimpses of his
tastes and interests by watching the analogies of the apostle Paul,
where the army is often tramping through his letters, and the Roman
soldier is often presented to offer counsel to the soldiers of the Lord.
And here in my text we are bidden to look to the soldier's shoes. He is
well shod, so splendidly shod that in a moment he is ready for any call,
along any road, and for any service.
And the Christian, too, has long marches, and often along difficult and
trying roads, and there are flints about and sharp thorns, and other
things that wound and make him stumble. And sometimes there is scarcely
a road at all, and we have never been that way before, and it is like
the work of a pioneer cutting his way through the jungle. What roads we
have to tramp! Especially when we are apostles sent forth on the King's
bidding! And, says the great apostle, "You need shoes for the roads or
you will be unfit for the long journeys, and you will easily become
tired and sore, and you may even drop out of the ranks." And what kind
of shoes are we to wear as soldiers of Christ? How can we be defended in
our long journeyings and in our crusades in the service of the King? The
answer to these questions is given in the words: "Have your feet shod
with the preparation of the gospel of peace." Now what is that?
Let me slightly recast the phrase. One of the words has slightly
altered its colour and significance since the days of the Authorized
Version. I mean the word "preparation." In the earlier days if you spoke
of a man of "preparation" you meant a man who was prepared, a man who
was equal to opportunity, a man who was awaiting the opening of the
door, having everything ready for the call of obligation and service. So
that the word "preparedness" would now be more accurate than the
authorized word "preparation." "Having your feet shod with the
preparedness of the gospel of peace." But I think we shall do even
better if instead of either of these we use the word "readiness."
"Having your feet shod with the readiness of the gospel of peace." What
is that? Look at it a little more closely. "The readiness of the
gospel"; that is the readiness which is born of the gospel as heat is
born of the sun. The gospel of peace enters the soul of a man and takes
possession of it, and then inspires the man with readiness. What for?
Readiness to take the road to tell others the good tidings which have
filled his own soul. That is it. The gospel of peace enters and
glorifies the soul, and it then imparts to the feet a readiness to take
the road, the long and difficult road, if need be, in order to tell to
others the good news which has set it free. That is it. Have your feet
shod with the readiness begotten of the gospel of peace!
Let me give an example, and let it be taken from the book of the
prophet Isaiah. Here, then, are people in exile, sitting in the cold
shadow of oppression, and longing for freedom and home. And over the
hard mountain tracks there come messengers, swift messengers carrying
the glad tidings of emancipation. There they come over the long roads!
And when the suffering exiles see and hear them they break into this
song: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that
bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings
of God, that publisheth salvation; that saith to Zion, Thy God reigneth!
Break forth into joy! Sing together!" The feet of the messengers were
shod with the readiness begotten of good news, and they were speeding
with comfort to the desolate and distressed.
We have another example in the same book where messengers who were
ladened with a rich experience were bidden to take the high road and
tell their news to others. "O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee
up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift
up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the
cities of Judah, Behold your God!... He shall feed His flock like a
shepherd: He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His
bosom; and shall gently lead those that are with young." That was the
good news, and with the readiness begotten of the good news the
messengers hastened to make it known. And so it is that our feet, as
disciples of the Lord Jesus, are to be shod with similar readiness, the
readiness begotten of our own experience of the goodness of God, the
readiness to go out on the rough and troubled roads of life, into its
highways and its byways, its broad streets and its narrow streets,
carrying the good cheer of the news of God's redeeming love and grace.
To be ready to go wherever there is any form of bondage, singing the
gospel song of joy and freedom,--that is the privileged service of the
soldiers of the Lord. "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of
him that bringeth good tidings!" "Have your feet shod with the readiness
of the gospel of peace."
Now I think it might be good for us to just glance along the roads of
life and look at one or two sorts of people who are held in spiritual
bondage, and who are therefore in need of good news and cheer, and we
will challenge ourselves if our feet are shod with readiness to take
them the gospel of peace. Well, then, look down this road, for here is a
soul who is held in the bondage of despondency and despair. You will
find such souls upon almost any road you like to tread. They are souls
who somehow have fainted; they have lost the warm, cheering, kindling
light of hope. Now failure is never really deadly until it puts out our
hope and freezes the springs of resolution. The only really fatal
element in defeat is the resolution not to try again. We have only
terribly failed when we have furled our sails. Yes, I repeat it; failure
only becomes virulent when it breeds despair.
Now these folk are on the road. They have so utterly failed that they
have lost their vital confidence, and they have become pathetic victims
of self-disparagement. What do they need? They need to have their lamps
re-lit with the cheering light of hope. They need to have their fires
rekindled with the blessed warmth of confidence. They need to hear of
new dawnings, of radiant to-morrows, of larger, brighter coming days.
And if they do need light and fire and sunrise, what is that but to say
that they need to hear again the good tidings of the inexhaustible love
of the risen Lord. They just need Jesus, and the comforting gospel of
His peace.
Yes, but who is to take it? Messengers are wanted, messengers shod with
"the readiness of the gospel of peace," messengers swift and ready to
run these glorious errands as the ministers of eternal hope. Now, are we
shod with that gospel readiness? Are our feet ready for the road? It is
a noble and a gracious ministry. How beautiful upon the mountains are
the feet of him that bringeth oil to smouldering lamps, and fuel to
dying fires, and that cheer and illumine the cold haunts of despondency
and despair! It is Mark Rutherford who says somewhere in what is to me
an unforgettable word: "Blessed are they who heal us of our
self-despisings." Yes, verily it is a beautiful ministry to kindle again
the lovely light of confidence and hope. Are we ready for such service?
Soldiers of Jesus, are our feet "shod with the readiness of the gospel
of peace"?
Look again along the road. Here is another lonely soul, held in the
bondage of a blinding experience. Let us say it is Saul of Tarsus, who
is now on the road to Damascus: "And as he journeyed, he came near
Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:
and he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him: Saul, Saul,
why persecuteth thou me?... And Saul arose from the earth, and when his
eyes were opened he saw no man: but they led him by the hand and brought
him into Damascus." Now here is a man who is held in the bondage of a
blinding experience. He has been smitten in the midnight, but has not
yet seen the dawn. He is convicted of sin, but has not yet found peace.
He has lost his old life but has not yet found the new one. His old
delights have gone, but the new joys have not yet arrived. He has been
stunned, but he is not yet free! And there he is! What is needed? O
surely, what is needed is some human messenger in whom the gospel of
peace dwells like summer sunshine and fragrance, and whose feet are shod
with readiness to carry that gracious summer to others. "And the Lord
said unto Ananias, Arise and go into the street which is called
Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul.... And
Ananias went his way, and entered into the house; and putting his hands
on him, said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto
thee on the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive
thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell
from his eyes as it had been scales." And so the blinded found his
sight, and the enslaved found his liberty, and the bewildered found his
peace; and one of the Lord's messengers was the human minister in the
great emancipation. His feet were shod with the readiness of the gospel
of peace. "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that
bringeth good tidings."
There are other blinded people along the road, people who are stunned
and bewildered, not by dazzling light but by fierce lightning. There are
people who are just blinded by calamity. They have suffered the
lightning stroke of disaster or bereavement. I was talking to one such
troubled soul this very week; and speaking of the repeated blows of her
heavy sorrows she said: "They just left me blind and dumb!" Blind and
dumb along the road! What did she need? O, she just needed the restoring
balm and cordials of heavenly comfort. She needed the soft consolations
of divine grace. And what is that but to say again that she needed the
gospel of peace? And where are the messengers, with feet shod with the
readiness of the gospel of peace, to carry the good tidings to this soul
held in the bondage of silence and night? How unspeakable is the
privilege of carrying this holy grace, and seeing the holy light of
faith breaking upon the face of bewilderment, lovelier far than the
glory of sunrise breaking upon the mountains, flushing the cold snows,
and suffusing with living color the gloominess of the pines! Yes, it is
a beautiful service to carry good tidings to those who are stunned. "How
beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of him that bringeth good
tidings!" Soldiers of Jesus, are our feet shod with this readiness of
the gospel of peace?
Look once more down the road, for there is another soul held in the
bondage of ignorance. Let it be a man of Ethiopia. Let the road be the
steep descent which leadeth down from Jerusalem to Gaza. "A man of
Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace, Queen of the
Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and did go to
Jerusalem for to worship, was returning, and sitting in his chariot,
read Esaias, the prophet." This man has the Word, but he has not got the
clue. He has the Scriptures, but he has no interpreter. What is needed?
He needs some messenger in whom the Word has become life, and who has
discovered the central secret of the Scriptures in the companionship of
the Lord. "The angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and
go toward the south, unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto
Gaza. And he arose and went." "How beautiful upon the mountain are the
feet of him that bringeth good tidings!" "And Philip ran thither to him,
and heard him read the prophet Esaias." He ran on his errand because his
feet were shod with readiness!
"Take my feet and let them be
Swift and beautiful for Thee."
"And Philip said, Understandest thou what thou readest?" So he
explained to him the Word, and through the Word led him unto the Lord.
And this is the last word we read about this man going down to Egypt:
"He went on his way rejoicing!" What a ministry for a servant of the
Lord! And that is your gracious service, fellow-preacher, in the
ministry of the Word. And that is your privilege, Sunday-school teacher,
when you meet your children in the class. You are appointed by the Lord
to light up words that will burn in your scholars' minds to the very end
of the pilgrim way. And that is the privilege of all of us if we will
just have confidence in the guiding grace of the Lord. We need not be
stars in order to light lamps and kindle fires. A taper is quite enough
if it burns with genuine flame. Our greatest fitness for this kind of
service is to be ready to do it, and the Lord Himself will provide the
needful equipment. To have feet shod with readiness, that is what we
need. Then through our ministry it may joyfully happen that many of
"The sons of ignorance and night
Will dwell in the eternal light
Through the eternal love."
There is only one thing remaining to be said. The apostle teaches that
such readiness is armour for our own souls, it is defensive armour
against the world, the flesh and the devil. To be ready to tell the good
news of grace, the gospel of peace, is to have stout protection as you
trudge along the road. Readiness is one piece of armour in the panoply
of God. The soul which is not ready to serve is an easy prey to the evil
one. A man whose feet are swift to carry the good tidings of grace is
the favoured child of glorious promise: "He shall give His angels charge
over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways." While we are ministering to
others we are being ministered unto by the spirits that surround His
throne, and our security is complete.
Then let us pray for the grace and protection of readiness. Let us
pray that the gospel of peace may more and more deeply possess our
souls, so that we may be inspired with that spontaneous readiness which
awaits the King's bidding, and which speeds on its way carrying the
glorious treasures of grace. "Have your feet shod with the readiness of
the gospel of peace." "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of
him that bringeth good tidings!"
V
THE SHIELD OF FAITH
_Most Holy God, Who lightenest every man that cometh into the
world, enlighten our hearts, we pray Thee, with the light of Thy
grace, that we may fully know our sins and our shortcomings, and
may confess them with true sorrow and contrition of heart.
Unveil Thy love to us, so that in its clear shining we may
behold the sin of our rebellion, and may turn unto Thee in
humility and fervent devotion. Deliver us, we pray Thee, from
the tyranny of evil habit. Save us from acknowledging any
sovereignty above Thine. Keep us in sight of the great white
throne, and may Thy judgments determine all our ways. Defend us
when we are tempted to fields of transgression. Protect us from
the allurements which assail the senses, and which entice us,
through our fleshly desires, into impure delights. Loose us from
the bonds of vanity and pride, and remove every perverting
prejudice which blinds our vision. Impart unto us the grace of
simplicity. May our worship be perfectly candid and sincere.
Give us a healthy recoil from all hypocrisy, from all mere
acting in Thy holy Presence. Quicken our perception that we may
realize Thy Presence, and feel the awe of the unseen. Lead us,
we pray Thee, to the fountain of life. Quicken our souls so that
we may apprehend the things that concern our peace. Amen._
V
THE SHIELD OF FAITH
"Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be
able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked." Ephesians
6:16.
But did the apostle who gives the counsel find his faith an
all-sufficient shield? He recommends the shield of faith, but is the
recommendation based on personal experience? And if so, what is the
nature and value of that experience? What sort of protection did his
faith give to him? When I examine his life what tokens do I find of
guardianship and strong defence? When I move through the ways of his
experience is it like passing through quiet and shady cloisters shut
away from the noise and heat of the fierce and feverish world? Is his
protected life like a garden walled around, full of sweet and pleasant
things, and secured against the maraudings of robber and beast? Let us
look at this protected life. Let us glance at the outer circumstances.
Here is one glimpse of his experience: "Of the Jews five times received
I forty stripes save one; once was I stoned; thrice have I suffered
shipwreck; a day and a night have I been in the deep; in stripes above
measure; in prisons more frequent; in deaths oft; in weariness and
painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings
often, in cold and nakedness." And yet this is the man who speaks about
the shield of faith, and in spite of the protecting shield all these
things happened unto him!
Look at his bodily infirmities. "There was given unto me a thorn in the
flesh." Where was the shield? It is not necessary for us to know the
character of his thorn. But assuredly it was some ailment which appeared
to interfere with the completeness of his work. Some think it was an
affliction of the eyes; others think that it was a proneness to some
form of malarial fever which frequently brought him into a state of
collapse and exhaustion. But there it was, and the shield of faith did
not keep it away.
Or look again at his exhausting labours. There is no word concerning his
ministry more pregnant with meaning than this word "labour," which the
apostle so frequently used to describe his work. "In labours oft;"
"whereunto I labour;" "I laboured more abundantly than they all." This
is not the labour of ordinary toil. It is the labour of travail. It is
labour to the degree of poignant pang. It is labour that so expends the
strength as to empty the fountain. It is the labour of sacrifice. And I
thought that perhaps a protected life might have been spared the
sufferings of a living martyrdom and that the service such a man
rendered might have been made fruitful without pain. I thought God might
have protected His servant. But the shield of faith did not deliver him
from the labour of travail through which he sought the birth of the
children of grace.
Or look once more at his repeated failures. You can hear the wail of
sadness as he frequently contemplates his ruined hopes concerning little
churches which he had built, or concerning fellow-believers whom he had
won to Christ. "Are ye so soon fallen away?" "Ye would have given your
eyes to me but now--." "I hear that there is strife among you." "It is
reported that there is uncleanness among you." "Demus hath forsaken me."
And it is wail after wail, for it is failure after failure. Defeat is
piled upon defeat. It is declared to be a protected life, and yet
disasters litter the entire way. It is perfectly clear that the shield
of faith did not guard him from the agony of defeat.
Such are the experiences of the man who gave his strength to proclaim
the all-sufficiency of the shield of faith, who spent his days in
recommending it to his fellow-men, and whose own life was nevertheless
noisy with tumult, and burdened with antagonisms, and crippled by
infirmity, and clouded with defeat. Can this life be said to be wearing
a shield? We have so far been looking at the man's environment, at his
bodily infirmities, at his activities of labor, at his external defeats.
What if in all these things we have not come within sight of the realm
which the apostle would describe as his life? When Paul speaks of life
he means the life of the soul. When he thinks of life his eyes are on
the soul. In all the estimates and values which he makes of life he is
fixedly regarding the soul. The question of success or failure in life
is judged by him in the courthouse of the soul. You cannot entice the
apostle away to life's accidents and induce him to take his measurements
there. He always measures life with the measurement of an angel, and
thus he busies himself not with the amplitude of possessions, but with
the quality of being, not with the outer estates of circumstances but
with the central keep and citadel of the soul. We never find the apostle
Paul with his eyes glued upon the wealth or poverty of his surroundings.
But everywhere and always and with endless fascination, he watches the
growth or decay of the soul. When, therefore, this man speaks of the
shield of faith we may be quite sure that he is still dwelling near the
soul and that he is speaking of a protection which will defend the
innermost life from foul and destructive invasion.
Now our emphasis is prone to be entirely the other way, and therefore
we are very apt to misinterpret the teachings of the apostle Paul and to
misunderstand the holy promises of the Lord. We are prone to live in the
incidents of life rather than in its essentials, in environment rather
than in character, in possessions rather than in dispositions, in the
body rather than in the soul. The consequence is that we seek our
shields in the realms in which we live. We live only in the things of
the body and therefore against bodily ills we seek our shields. We want
a shield against sorrow, to keep it away, a shield to protect us against
the break-up of our happy estate. We want a shield against adversity, to
keep it away, a shield against the darkening eclipse of the sunny day.
We want a shield against loss, to keep it away, a shield against the
rupture of pleasant relations, a shield to protect us against the
bereavements which destroy the completeness of our fellowships. We want
a shield against pain, to keep it away, a shield against the pricks and
goads of piercing circumstances, against the stings and arrows of
outrageous fortune.
In a word, we want a shield to make us comfortable, and because the
shield of faith does not do it we are often stunned and confused, and
our thin reasonings are often twisted and broken, and the world appears
a labyrinth without a providence and without a plan. It is just here
that our false emphasis leads us astray. We live in circumstances and
seek a shield to make us comfortable; but the apostle Paul lived in
character and sought a shield to make him holy. He was not concerned
with the arrangement of circumstances, but he was concerned with the
aspiration that, be the circumstances what they might, they should never
bring disaster to his soul. He did not seek a shield to keep off
ill-circumstances, but he sought a shield to keep ill-circumstances from
doing him harm. He sought a shield to defend him from the
destructiveness of every kind of circumstance, whether fair or foul,
whether laden with sunshine or heavy with gloom. Paul wanted a shield
against all circumstances in order that no circumstance might unman him
and impoverish the wealth of his soul.
Let me offer a simple illustration. A ray of white light is made up of
many colors, but we can devise screens to keep back any one of these
colors and to let through those we please. We can filter the rays. Or we
can devise a screen to let in rays of light and to keep out rays of
heat. We can intercept certain rays and forbid their presence. Now, to
the apostle Paul the shield of faith was a screen to intercept the
deadly rays which dwell in every kind of circumstance; and to Paul the
deadly rays in circumstances, whether the circumstances were bright or
cloudy, were just those that consumed his spiritual susceptibilities and
lessened his communion with God, the things that ate out his moral
fibre, and that destroyed the wholeness and wholesomeness of his human
sympathies, and impaired his intimacy with God and man. It was against
these deadly rays he needed a shield, and he found it in the shield of
faith.
Paul wanted a shield, not against failure; that might come or stay
away. But he wanted a shield against the pessimism that may be born of
failure, and which holds the soul in the fierce bondage of an Arctic
winter. Paul wanted a shield, not against injury; that might come or
stay away; but against the deadly thing that is born of injury, even the
foul offspring of revenge. Paul wanted a shield, not against pain; that
might come or might not come; he sought a shield against the spirit of
murmuring which is so frequently born of pain, the deadly, deadening
mood of complaint. Paul wanted a shield, not against disappointment,
that might come or might not come; but against the bitterness that is
born of disappointment, the mood of cynicism which sours the milk of
human kindness and perverts all the gentle currents of the soul. Paul
wanted a shield, not against difficulty; that might come or might not
come; but against the fear that is born of difficulty, the cowardice and
the disloyalty which are so often bred of stupendous tasks. Paul did not
want a shield against success; that might come or might not come; but
against the pride that is born of success, the deadly vanity and
self-conceit which scorch the fair and gracious things of the soul as a
prairie-fire snaps up a homestead or a farm. Paul did not want a shield
against wealth; that might come or might not come; but against the
materialism that is born of wealth, the deadly petrifying influence
which turns flesh into stone, spirituality into benumbment, and which
makes a soul unconscious of God and of eternity. The apostle did not
want a shield against any particular circumstance, but against every
kind of circumstance, that in everything he might be defended against
the fiery darts of the devil.
He found the shield he needed in a vital faith in Christ. First of all
the faith-life cultivates the personal fellowship of the Lord Jesus
Christ. The ultimate concern of faith is not with a polity, not with a
creed, not with a church, and not with a sacrament, but with the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore the first thing we have to do if
we wish to wear the shield of faith is to cultivate the companionship of
the Lord. We must seek His holy presence. We must let His purpose enter
into and possess our minds. We must let His promises distil into our
hearts. And we must let our own hearts and minds dwell upon the Lord
Jesus in holy thought and aspiration, just as our hearts and minds dwell
upon the loved ones who have gone from our side. We must talk to Him in
secret and we must let Him talk to us. We must consult Him about our
affairs, and then take His counsels as our statutes, and pay such heed
to them that the statutes will become our songs. Faith-life cultivates
the friendship of Christ, and leans upon it, and surrenders itself with
glorious abandon to the sovereign decrees of His grace and love.
And then, secondly, the faith-life puts first things first, and in its
list of primary values it gives first place to the treasures of the
soul. Faith-life is more concerned with habits than with things, with
character than with office, with self-respect than with popular esteem.
The faith-life puts first things first, the clean mind and the pure
heart, and from these it never turns its eyes away.
And, lastly, the faith-life contemplates the campaign rather than the
single battle. One battle may seem to go against it. But faith knows
that one battle is not the end of the world. "I will see you again, and
your sorrow shall be turned into joy." Faith takes the long view, the
view of the entire campaign. "I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God." "The kingdoms of this world shall
become the kingdom of our God." Such a relationship to the Lord protects
our life as with an invincible shield. It may please God to conduct our
life through long reaches of cloudless noon; the shield of faith will be
our defence. It may please God to lead us through the gloom of a long
and terrible night; the shield of faith will be our defence. "Thou shalt
not be afraid of the pestilence that walketh in darkness nor for the
destruction that wasteth at noonday."
VI
THE HELMET OF HOPE
_Eternal God, mercifully help us to unitedly draw near to the
atoning Saviour, and through His mercies find access into the
inheritance of the saints in light. Forgive the sins of our
rebellion and redeem us from our guilt. Transform our spiritual
habits that we may find ourselves able to fix our minds upon
things above. Cleanse our hearts by the waters of regeneration,
in order that our inclinations may be fixed upon the things that
please Thee. Rekindle the fire of our affections, purify the
light of our conscience. Broaden our compassions and make them
more delicate in their discernments. Impart unto us the saving
sense of Thy Companionship, and in the assurance of Thy Presence
may we know ourselves competent to do Thy will. Meet with us one
by one. Equip us with all needful armour for our daily battle.
Feed us with hidden manna, that so our strength may be equal to
our task. Unite us in the bonds of holy fear, and may we all be
partakers of Thy love and grace. Amen._
VI
THE HELMET OF HOPE
"And take the helmet of salvation." Ephesians 6:17.
"And for an helmet the hope of salvation." I Thessalonians 5:8.
The helmet of hope! Who has not experienced the energy of a mighty
hope? It is always a force to be reckoned with in the day of life's
battle. Hope is a splendid helmet, firmly covering the head, and
defending all its thoughts and purposes and visions from the subtle
assaults of the evil one. The helmet of hope is one of the best
protections against "losing one's head"; it is the best security against
all attacks made upon the mind by small but deadly fears; it is the only
effective safeguard against petty but deadly compromise. Far away the
best defence against all sorts of mental vagrancy and distraction is to
have the executive chambers of the life encircled and possessed by a
strong and brilliant hope.
Now every student of the apostle Paul knows that he is an optimist. But
he is an optimist, not because he closes his eyes, but because he opens
them and uses them to survey the entire field of vision and possibility.
He is an optimist, not because he cannot see the gross darkness,--no one
has painted the darkness in blacker hues,--but because he can also see
the light; and no one has portrayed the light with more alluring
brilliance and glory. He is an optimist, not because he cannot see the
loathsome presence of weakness, but because he sees the unutterable
grace and love of God.
Yes, he is a reasonable optimist, and I dare to say that you cannot
find anywhere in human literature a hundred pages more glowing and
radiant with the spirit of hope than in the letters of the apostle Paul.
Nowhere can you travel with him, not even to the darkest and most tragic
realms of human need, without catching the bright shining of a splendid
hope. You know how it is when you walk along the shore with the full
moon riding over the sea. Between you and the moon, and right across the
troubled waters, there is a broad pathway of silver light. If you move
up the shore the shining path moves with you. If you move down the shore
still you have the silver path across the waves. Wherever you stand
there is always between you and the moon a shining vista stretching
athwart the restless sea. And wherever the great apostle journeyed, and
through whatever cold or desolate circumstances, there was always
between him and the risen Lord, the Lord of grace and love, a bright and
broadening way of eternal hope. No matter where he is, and how appalling
the need, no matter what corruption may gather about the shore on which
he is walking, always there is the silver path of gospel-hope stretching
from the human shore-line to the burning bliss of the eternal Presence.
In Jerusalem, in Antioch, in Lystra, in Ephesus, in Philippi, in Rome,
he was never without these holy beams. They moved with him wherever he
went, for they were the outshining rays of the mercy of the eternal God.
Yes indeed, he was an optimist born and sustained in grace. He saw a
shining road of hope out of every pit, stretching from the miry clay to
the awful and yet glorious sanctities of holiness and peace.
Now our ordinary experience teaches us how much energy resides in a
commanding hope. A big expectation is stored with wonderful dynamic, and
it transmits its power to every faculty in the soul. The influence of a
great hope fills the mind with an alert and sensitive trembling,
inspiring every thought to rise as it were on tiptoe to await and greet
the expected guest. A great hope pours its energy into the will,
endowing it with the strength of marvellous patience and perseverance. I
have lately read of an ingenious contrivance, which is now being used in
some parts of Egypt, in which, by a subtle combination of glass
receivers, the heat of the sun is collected, and the gathered energy
concentrated and used in turning machinery in the varied ministries of
agriculture. That is to say, the power of a diffused shining is directed
to an engine and its strength enlisted in practical service. And so it
is with the sunny light of a large hope. Its gathered energy is poured
into the engine of the will, imparting glorious driving power, the power
of "go" and laborious persistence.
Every sphere of human interest provides examples of this principle.
Turn to the realm of invention. An inventor has a great hope shining
before him as a brilliant vision of possible achievement. With what
energy of will it endows him, and with what tireless, sleepless,
invincible patience! Think of the immeasurable endurance of the brothers
Wright who were inspired by the great hope of achieving the conquest of
the air! Their hope was indeed a helmet defending them against all
withering suggestions of ease, protecting them against the call of an
ignoble indolence which is so often heard in hours of defeat. An
electric railway has just been introduced by its inventor to the British
Government, which is capable of transmitting mails and parcels along a
prepared track at the rate of three hundred miles per hour; and the
inventor has recently quietly told us that he has been at work upon it
for thirty years! But think how, all through those long and many
fruitless years, his helmet of hope defended him, and especially
protected him from those alluring suggestions which come from the mild
climate of Lotus-Land, and which tempt a man to relax his tension and
lie down in the pleasant and thymy banks of rest and ease.
Or seek your examples in the realms of discovery. Read the chapters in
Lord Lister's life which tell how he, braced and inspired by a mighty
hope, laboured and laboured in the quest of an anæsthetic. Or turn to
the equally fascinating pages which tell how Sir James Simpson toiled,
and moiled, and dared, and suffered in the long researches which led to
the discovery of chloroform. His will was rendered indomitable by the
splendid hope of assuaging human pain.
Or think again of the restless, tireless labours of hundreds of men who
are to-day engaged in searching for the microscopic cause of cancer,
that having found it they might isolate it, and discover an antagonist
which shall work its complete destruction. There is a glorious hope
shining across the cancer waste, and it is nerving the will of research
with unconquerable perseverance. Yes, indeed, men wear a splendid
helmet, even in the ways of common experience, when they wear the helmet
of hope.
And mark their condition when they lose it. Turn to the scriptural
record of the voyage when Paul and his fellow-prisoners were being
escorted by soldiers to take their trial in Rome: A tempestuous storm
arose, and, in the power of a mighty hope to save the boat and
themselves the men called out every ounce of their strength. But now
note this connection in the narrative as I read it to you: "All hope was
taken away." ... "We let her drift." That is it, and it offers a
striking symbol of a common experience. While our hope is burning we
steer; when our hope is gone out we drift. The motive power is gone, and
the hopeless man is like a drifting hull in the midst of a wild and
desolate sea.
Or turn to the pages of Capt. Scott's journal when he and his party are
surmounting colossal tasks in the chivalrous hope of winning for their
country the honourable distinction of first discovery of the South Pole.
The narrative just blazes with hope, and therefore it tingles with
energy and shouts with song! But when Amundsen's flag was seen at the
Pole, and their strong hope was gone, and the disappointed company began
to return--O what heavy feet, and what accumulated burdens, and what
fiercely added laboriousness to an already laborious road! Hope had
gone, and they nobly trudged, and trudged, and trudged, to faint, and
fall, and die! Aye, men and women, hope is a tremendous power. To have
hope is to have always fresh reserves to meet every new expenditure of
the will. To lose hope is like losing the dynamo, the secret of
inspiration, and the once indomitable will droops and faints away. It
just makes an infinite difference whether or not we are wearing the
helmet of hope.
But now, if all this is true of common hope and common experience, how
is it with the supreme hope, "the hope of salvation?" What is this
hope,--"the hope of salvation?" To whom is the apostle Paul giving this
counsel? He is giving it to Christian believers in Ephesus: But were
they not already saved? Why should he speak to them of "the hope of
salvation" as though it were something still to be won? I remember when
I was a mere boy going to Spurgeon's Tabernacle, and as I was retiring
from the building at the close of the service, a gentleman laid his hand
upon my shoulder, and said: "My boy, are you saved?" His question
suggested that it was something I might already have experienced. Well,
had not the Ephesian disciples passed through that same experience? A
little while ago a London cabman stood at the foot of the pulpit-stairs
in our church, and told me that by the grace of God he had been
wonderfully saved. But the apostle speaks to these believers of "the
hope of salvation" as though it were something still before them. They
had taken a great step in discipleship in that vast and wicked city of
Ephesus, crowded with all sorts of antagonisms, and they had boldly
confessed themselves on the side of Christ. And yet, the apostle
counsels them to wear as a helmet "the hope of salvation."
The truth is that the apostle Paul uses all the three primary tenses
in speaking of salvation. He speaks to believers in the past tense, and
he says: "We were saved." And to the same believers he uses the present
tense, and he says: "Ye are being saved." And yet again to the same
believers he uses the future tense, "Ye shall be saved." All of which
means that to this great apostle a gloriously full salvation stretches
across the years from past to future, gathering riches with every
passing day. Salvation to Paul was more than a step, it was also a walk.
It was more than a crisis, it was also a prolonged process. It was more
than the gift of new life, it was the maturing in growth and power. A
drowning man, when he is lifted out of the water, is in a very profound
sense vitally saved. But after this initial salvation there is the
further salvation of re-collecting his scattered consciousness, and of
recovering his exhausted strength. And in a very glorious sense a man is
spiritually saved in a moment; in a moment in Christ Jesus he passed
from death into life. But it is also equally true that a man is only
saved in a lifetime, as he appropriates to himself more and more the
grace and truth of the risen Lord. Yes, after we have been converted and
saved, there is a further salvation in self-recovery, in self-discovery,
all of which becomes ours in a fuller and richer discovery of Christ.
Our possibilities of salvation in Christ Jesus stretch before us like
range upon range of glorious mountains. When we have attained one range
we have only obtained a new vantage-ground for beholding another; when
that, too, has been climbed, still vaster and grander ranges rise into
view. Every fresh addition to our Christlikeness increases our power of
discernment, and every added power of discernment unfolds a larger
vision and a more glorious and alluring hope. All believers in Christ
Jesus have been saved. All believers in Christ Jesus are being saved.
All believers in Christ Jesus will be saved. And therefore, says the
apostle, always wear the helmet of hope, "the hope of salvation."
Now perhaps we cannot better draw this meditation to a close in more
immediate and practical purpose than by just gazing upon one or two of
the hopes of the apostle Paul, if perchance by God's good grace we may
appropriate them to our own souls. For he, too, is wearing the helmet of
hope, the hope of salvation. What, then, does he hope for? What mighty
hope is throwing the energies of its defences upon and around his soul?
Here is one of his hopes; look at it: "In hope of the glory of God." He
wore that hope, and he wore it like a helmet, and he wore it night and
day. He had gazed upon the glory of the Lord, the wondrous light of
grace and truth which shone in the face of Jesus Christ. And now he
dared to hold the glorious hope of becoming glorified with the same
glory. He dared to hope that his own soul would become translucent with
the holy light of divine truth and purity. It almost makes one catch the
breath to see such spiritual audacity. One has read of young boys
trembling with artistic sensibility, bowing in the presence of the
world's masterpieces in art or music, and becoming possessed with the
amazing hope of one day sharing the master's light and glory. But here
is a man who has been prostrate in the presence of his God. He has been
humbly gazing upon "the chief among ten thousand and the altogether
lovely." And now, in a daring which yet quiets the soul in reverence and
prayerful lowliness, he tells his fellow-believers that he lives "in
hope of the glory of God." What a hope! The hope of being glorified with
God's glory, of being made gracious with His grace, of being made
truthful with His truth, of being sanctified with His holiness, of being
transformed into the same image, from glory unto glory! I say, what a
hope, and therefore, what a helmet! With a helmet like that defending a
man's brain, what a defence he has against all the petty devilries which
seek to enter among our thoughts in the shape of mean purposes, and
petty moral triflings, such as so often invade and desolate the whole
realm of the mind! What a hope this is, and what a helmet; "the hope of
the glory of God."
And here is another way the apostle has of describing the hope he
wears, "the hope of salvation;"--"To present us spotless before His
throne." Quietly and reverently repeat that phrase, again, and again,
and again, until something of its grandeur begins to fill your soul as
the advancing light of the rising sun fills a vale in Switzerland with
its soft and mellowing glory. "To present us spotless before His
throne." What a hope! And yet this man wore it every day, in all the ups
and downs, the victories and defeats of his ever-changing life. "To
present us spotless before His throne!" Just think of wearing that hope
in New York! And by God's good grace we can wear it; yes, indeed, we
can, and what a helmet to wear! When a man has got that helmet on, and
some sharp temptation is hurled at him, it will fall away from him like
a paper pellet thrown against the armour plate of a mighty dreadnought.
"To present us spotless!" Wear that helmet of hope, and the devil shall
batter thee in vain. For what can the devil do with men and women in
whom these hopes are blazing? He offers us his glittering snares, and
they are revealed as common paste in the presence of genuine stones.
They stand exposed as noisy fireworks in the presence of the stars.
Let us wear the helmet of hope, the helmet of salvation, and we are
quite secure. But let us put it on every day. Every morning let us put
on the helmet, and often and again during the day let us feel that it is
in its place. Let us begin the day by saying, "Now, my soul, live to-day
in hope of the glory of God! Live to-day in the hope of being presented
spotless before His throne! Live to-day in the hope of being 'filled
unto all the fulness of God'." Let us put that helmet on, and let us do
it deliberately, prayerfully, and trustfully, and in life's evil day we
shall be able to stand, and having done all, to stand.
VII
THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT
_Heavenly Father, Who hast given Thy Holy Spirit to comfort and
to guide Thy servants, teach us to trust His leading. Day by day
we would listen to His consolation and direction. When we open
Thy Word of Life we would rely upon His illuminating
interpretation. When the story of the character and the depths
of the teaching of Jesus are far beyond us, and seem
unapproachable, when doubts and fears assail the mind, let us
abide in quiet repose under the tuition of the indwelling
Spirit. When desire for the highest life fails, and hunger and
thirst after righteousness are forgotten in other pursuits, may
the kindly Spirit inspire afresh the ardor of enthusiasm which
He alone can create. When we have lost our bearings in the maze
of life teach us to look to the ever-present Guide Who brings
back into the clear path all Who trust Him; through Jesus
Christ. Amen._
VII
THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT
"Take the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God."
Ephesians 6:17.
Here is the Christian soldier with his sword, and his sword is the Word
of God. And what a sword it is! "Then said Mr. Greatheart to Mr.
Valiant-for-truth, Thou hast worthily behaved thyself; let me see thy
sword. So he showed it him. When he had taken it into his hand and
looked thereon a while, he said, Ha, it is a right Jerusalem blade. Then
said Mr. Valiant-for-truth, It is so. Let a man have one of these
blades, with a hand to wield it, and skill to use it, and he may venture
upon an angel with it. He need not fear its holding if he can but tell
how to lay on. Its edge will never blunt. It will cut flesh and bones,
and soul and spirit and all." Yes indeed, this sword is a serviceable
and most efficient weapon. And it might be profitable, in the very
beginning of our meditation, to go on to the field of actual battle and
watch one or two mighty swordsmen wielding the sword in actual war. And
let us begin with Him who could wield the sword as none other could do
and who never drew it in vain. "And the tempter came to Him and said, If
Thou art the Son of God command that these stones be made bread." At
once the Master's hand was on the hilt of His sword and He drew it forth
for combat. "It is written man shall not live by bread alone." It was
"the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God!" The place of battle
is now changed, but the [missing text] unto Him, "All these things will
I give Thee if Thou wilt fall down and worship me." And again the Master
whipped out His sword;--"Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, Thou
shalt worship the Lord Thy God, and Him only shalt Thou serve." It was
"the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God!"
Now turn your eyes to quite another field of battle where one of the
Master's disciples, a very skilful swordsman, is in combat with a very
deadly foe. "And when the people saw what Paul had done"--he had just
given a cripple the power to walk--"they lifted up their voices saying,
The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men. And they called
Barnabas Jupiter, and Paul Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker."
Now what did the apostle do in the presence of so deadly a peril, a
peril which garbed itself in the attractive robes of light? Immediately
he drew out his sword, and fought his shining antagonist with a word
from the 146th Psalm! That is excellent swordwork, by a most excellent
swordsman! And he used "the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of
God."
Or turn once more to another field of battle, to the Valley of
Humiliation, where "poor Christian was hard put to it. For he had gone
but a little way before he espied a foul fiend coming over the field to
meet him; his name was Apollyon." "Then did Christian draw, for he saw
it was time to bestir him; Apollyon as fast made at him, throwing darts
as thick as hail.... The sword combat lasted for about half a day, even
till Christian was almost quite spent; for you must know that Christian,
by reason of his wounds, must needs grow weaker and weaker. Then
Apollyon, espying his opportunity, began to gather up close to
Christian, and wrestling with him gave him a dreadful fall; and with
that Christian's sword flew out of his hand. Then said Apollyon, I am
sure of thee now. And with that he had almost pressed him to death, so
that Christian began to despair of life. But as God would have it, while
Apollyon was fetching his last blow, thereby to make a full end of this
good man, Christian nimbly reached out his hand for his sword, saying,
Rejoice not against me, oh mine enemy: when I fall I shall arise; and
with that gave him a deadly thrust which made him give back as one that
had received his mortal wound. Christian perceiving that made at him
again, saying, 'Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through Him that loved us.' And with that Apollyon spread forth his
broken wings, and sped him away, so that Christian saw him no more.... I
never saw Christian all this while give as much as one pleasant look,
till he perceived he had wounded Apollyon with his two-edged sword; then
indeed he did smile and look upward.... Then there came to him a man
with some of the leaves of the tree of life, the which Christian took
and applied to the wounds that he had received in the battle and was
healed immediately." Surely to watch expert fighters like these, who
turn their battlefields into fields of glory, makes one more ambitious
to possess and wield that same two-edged sword, the sword of the Spirit
which is the Word of God!
Well now, it is this sword which Paul advises these young disciples at
Ephesus to get and hold at all costs, and never to leave it rusting in
the scabbard at home. And surely, if there was need for swordwork
anywhere it was in that gay, shallow, materialistic city of Ephesus. We
have been reading many terrible accounts of late of bayonet fighting in
the trenches in Belgium and France, where gunnery attacks were
unavailable, and where men came face to face in the hot breath of one
another's passions, and were locked in the death-grip of hand-to-hand
encounter. It was even so with the spiritual warfare in Ephesus. There
was no long-range fighting, no far distant antagonisms, no remote or
merely theoretical persecution. The foes of the soul were exceedingly
real, exceedingly near, and exceedingly intimate. In Ephesus your enemy
was upon you in a moment, and there was nothing for it but never to let
the sword fall from your hand. Spiritual enemies approached the soul
every hour of the day, and it was imperative to run them through with
the sword of the truth. There were falsities, and subtleties, and
evasions; there were ambiguities and sophistries; there were half truths
linked with black falsehood, and white lies linked with snatches of
truth; there were exaggerations and perversions; there were insinuations
and evil counsels; there were mean expediencies and illicit compromises;
there were hypocrisies of every kind in that prosperous city of Ephesus,
tricked out in apparent seemliness, and perilous in all the wiles of the
devil. What, then, was a young Christian to do in all that immoral
welter? He must have his sword in hand, always in hand, and he must
prick these bubbles, and pierce these showy disguises, and rend these
deceptive veils, and he must do it at once, before they mastered him
with the plausible counterfeits of the truth.
I saw a photograph the other day from the European field of war, in
which a company of soldiers were examining a load of hay. They were
piercing it with their swords in the endeavour to find out if any foe
lay hidden in the fragrant pile. And I could not but think of the
warfare of the soul, and of the sweet and fragrant disguises in which
the devil is so often concealed. The devil in a hay-rick! I have
experienced it a thousand times. A deadly temptation hidden in some
innocent expediency! Some fatal lure concealed in a popular custom!
Corruption housing itself in a white lie! The enemy wearing a white
robe! The devil, I say, in a hay-rick! In such conditions there was only
one resource for these disciples in Ephesus, as there is only one
resource for you and me to-day, to have our swords always ready, and to
pierce these glistening falsities in the blessed name of the holy and
unchanging God. Yes, whip out your sword, the sword of the Spirit, which
is the Word of God.
What, then, is this sword? It is "the Word of God." And what is this
Word of God which we are to flash through all falsehood like the thrust
of a gleaming sword? What is this Word which is to be our sword? Well,
first of all, it is the word of divine truth; God's way of thinking
about things. And therefore when we are wielding the sword we are using
a thought of God. We are to use God's thought about a thing in fighting
all other thoughts about that thing. For instance, we are to take God's
thought about life, and use it as a sword to meet and destroy all mean
and unworthy conceptions of life. We are to take God's thought about sin
and use it in combating all the lax and deadly conceptions of sin which
are so loose and rampant in our own day. We are to take God's thought
about holiness, and use it in fighting all ignoble compromises which may
satisfy a poor standard in the kingdom of the letter, but which have no
standing in the more glorious realm of the spirit. We are to take God's
thought about worship, and fight all the little, mean, seductive
ritualisms which so frequently strut about in royal and gorgeous robes,
but which are empty of all vital spiritual wealth and power.
And so with a thousand other relations. God's thought about a thing is
to be our sword in fighting all the debasing thoughts of that thing; it
may be God's thought of work, or of wealth, or of success, or of
failure, or God's thought of pleasure, or of service, or of death. What
does God think about a thing? That is my sword, the thought of God which
is the word of God. And we are to take that shining, flaming, flashing
thought, and use it as a sword among all the creeping, crawling things,
or against all the flying and bewitching subtleties of things which
abounded in Ephesus, and which are equally prolific in London or New
York. And so does the apostle give us this counsel: "Take the sword of
the spirit, which is the thought or word of God."
And now I can add a second characteristic of the sword, a
characteristic which amplifies and corroborates the first. This word of
God, which is to be our sword, is not only the word of divine truth as
laid upon the mind. It is also the word of divine commandment as laid
upon the will. It is a word which divinely reveals our personal duty,
imposing upon us some imperative mission. Some word of God comes to us
with the mysterious suggestion of obligation, and we often receive it
over against some soft and wooing temptation to an indulgent indolence;
and we are to take the divine word of obligation, and with it fight and
slay the soft seduction to ease.
We have this sort of warfare most vividly described in the experience
of the prophet Jonah. Let me set it before you. "And the word of the
Lord came unto Jonah, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and
cry against it!" Let us note the lines of this experience. The word of
the Lord came to Jonah as an imperative and an obligation. It said
"Nineveh!" But another word came to Jonah, a soft, luxurious, seductive
word, luring him to Tarshish. And there you have all the conditions of
spiritual warfare; and the only way for the believer is to take the word
of obligation, and use it as a mighty sword against the word of
seduction; he must take his sword and slay it, or chase it in miserable
flight from the field. The word of duty is the word of God, and
therefore the word of duty is thy sword against every plausible
temptation that would snare thee to disloyal ease.
There is still a third descriptive word about the sword, and which
again corroborates and enriches the others. The word of God, which is
the sword of the spirit, is not only the word of divine truth laying
God's thought upon the mind; and not only the word of divine commandment
laying God's purpose upon the will; it is also the word of divine
promise laying God's strengthening comfort upon the heart. Just think of
that fine sword, the word of promise, being handed to these young and
tempted disciples in this awful, hostile city of Ephesus. I think we may
easily imagine, without presumption, how they would apply the apostle's
counsel, and how the older men among them would train the younger men in
the expert use of this shining sword. They would say: "Whenever you go
out to your work, amid all the cold, bristling antagonisms of the world,
carry the sword of promise! When your circumstances seem to mock you
because of your unnerving loneliness, whip out the sword of promise!
When you appear to be in a minority of one, and the enemy swarms in
menace around you on every side, carry this sword of promise in your
right hand, 'I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.' And when the
enemy taunts you because of your weakness, or your want of culture, or
your lack of rank and social prestige, or your nobodyism and nothingism,
whip out the sword and fight the taunt with this word of promise,
'Neither shall any one pluck you out of my hand'!" Thus do I think these
disciples would speak to one another, as, blessed be God, disciples can
speak to one another to-day. When the devil comes to us in our
loneliness, in our weakness, in our seeming abandonment, let us lay hold
of the word of grace, and fight all the enemies' taunts with the divine
promise, and pierce them through and through, turning the foe to rout,
and remaining more than conquerors on the hard and finely won field.
Well, such is what I think to be the sword. It is the word of divine
truth, it is the word of divine commandment, and it is the word of
divine promise. It is a superlatively excellent sword, "it is a right
Jerusalem blade." "Let a man have one of these blades, with a hand to
wield it, and skill to use it, and he may venture upon an angel with
it." Its edge will never blunt, for it is "the sword of the spirit,
which is the word of God."
Where, then, can we find this word of God which is to be our sword of
the spirit. Well, first of all, we can find the word of God in the
sacred Scriptures. We can get our sword from its splendid armoury. Here
is the word which gives the revelation of truth, telling me how the
great God thinks about things, and therefore, telling me how to think
amid all the plausible errors of our time. And here, too, is the word
which gives the revelation of duty, telling me what the great God would
have me do. And here also is the word which gives the revelation of
promise, telling me what resources are prepared for them who follow the
fair gleams of truth and take the divine road of duty and obedience.
Yes, the word of God is in the old Book, and here you can find your
sword.
But sometimes the word of God is given to us, not through the medium of
a book, not even the book of the Scriptures, but in a direct and
immediate message to our own souls. Oh, yes, sometimes the Captain of
our salvation gives me my sword without my having to make recourse to
the written word. He speaks to me and hands me my sword with no
intermediary between us. The word of the Lord comes unto thee and unto
me as it came to the herdman Amos, and the courtier Isaiah, and to the
fisherman Peter, and to the university student Paul. He speaks to thee
and to me. "Hath He not promised, and shall He not do it"? "Thine ears
shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way; walk ye in it."
"And His that gentle voice we hear,
Soft as the breath of even;
That checks each fault, and calms each fear,
And speaks of heaven!"
If the sword of the spirit is the word of God, then sometimes I take my
sword immediately from my Sovereign's hand,--the word of truth, the word
of duty, and the word of promise,--and like St. Francis of Assisi, and
St. Catherine of Sienna, and George Fox, all of them mystics, and all of
them deep in the knowledge of the mind and heart of God, I, too, can
take the sword and use it on the wide and changing battlefields of life,
and be more than conqueror through Him Who loved me and gave Himself for
me. "Take the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God."
Well, then, let us take the sword; let us draw it, and let us use it.
Let us reverently find the word in the Book of Holy Writ, or in the
secret chamber of our own soul; and then let us carry it as our sword to
the immediate occasion, and to the next stage upon life's road. Let us
have the sword ready, always ready; let us be always at attention,
waiting with the word of God to meet the tempting word of man. A man
without a sword is in a sorry way when the devil leaps upon him. That
was the tragic plight of Judas Iscariot. When the chief priests and
scribes came to bargain with him, to induce him to sell his Lord, he
ought to have had his sword ready, and to have run it through the
devilish suggestion when it was only newly born. But somehow, somehow,
he had lost his sword, and he was undone--"and he covenanted with them
for thirty pieces of silver"! And when you and I are tempted to sell the
Lord, when we are tempted to make a dirty bargain of any kind, when we
are tempted to prefer money to integrity, or unholy ease to stern duty,
or soft flattery to rugged truth, let us have our swords in our
hands,--"the sword of the spirit which is the word of God"--and let us
slay the suggestion at its very birth. Have your sword ready. You may
need it before you get home. Have your sword ready! Fight the good fight
of faith, and lay hold on eternal life.
VIII
THE SOLDIER'S USE OF PRAYER
_Almighty God, Our Father, it is by Thy grace that we attain
unto holiness, and it is by Thy light that we find wisdom. We
humbly pray that Thy grace and light may be given unto us, so
that we may come into the liberty of purity and truth. Wilt Thou
graciously exalt our spirits and enable us to live in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus? Impart unto us a deep dissatisfaction
with everything that is low, and mean, and unclean, and create
within us such pure desire that we may appreciate the things
which Thou hast prepared for them that love Thee. Wilt Thou
receive us as guests of Thy table? Give us the glorious sense of
Thy presence, and the precious privilege of intimate communion.
Feed us with the bread of life; nourish all our spiritual
powers; help us to find our delight in such things as please
Thee. Give us strength to fight the good fight of faith. Give us
holy courage, that we may not be daunted by any fear, or turn
aside from our appointed task. Make us calm when we are to tread
an unfamiliar road, and may Thy presence give us companionship
divine. Meet with us, we humbly pray Thee, in all the appointed
means of grace, and may the joyful remembrance of this service
inspire us in all common life and service of after days. Amen._
VIII
THE SOLDIER'S USE OF PRAYER
"Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit,
and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication
for all saints; and for me that utterance may be given unto me,
that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of
the gospel." Ephesians 6:18, 19.
We have been engaged in studying the different pieces of the Christian
soldier's armour as it is described to us by the apostle Paul. Let us
now glance at the warrior as he stands before us fully armed and ready
for the field. His loins are girt about with truth, the truth revealed
in Jesus Christ our Lord. He is protected back and front with a coat of
mail, the righteousness of the Lord Jesus, a righteousness which covers
him in a moment as with a garment, and then little by little imparts to
him the holy likeness of his Lord. His feet are shod with readiness, and
are swiftly obedient to do the King's bidding and to carry his message
of grace and good-will. He bears the shield of faith, his sure screen
from every deadly dart springing from any kind of circumstance, whether
in the cloudless noon or in the blackest midnight. On his head there is
the helmet of salvation, the helmet of a mighty hope, protecting his
mind from the invasion of deadly distractions, and from all the
belittling suggestions of the evil one. In his hand he carries the sword
of the Spirit, the word or thought of God, the shining thought wherewith
every other kind of thought is overthrown or put to utter rout.
Now that, surely, is a brave and gleaming equipment. Surely the armour
is all-sufficient, and the well-appointed, well-defended warrior is now
ready for the field! Let him go forth to meet the great enemy of souls.
Let him encounter all the wiles of the devil, and let him so hold
himself and so use himself as to convert every hour of opportunity into
a season of spiritual glory. No, no, not yet! Says the apostle,
"Steady!" With all his shining armour his equipment is not yet complete.
There is one other vital thing to be named, and this the Christian
warrior must take along with him, for his warfare will be hopeless if he
leaves it behind. "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in
the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and
supplication for all saints."
Now why should the Christian warrior pray? He must pray as a suppliant
for the robust health of his own spirit. Yes, but why should he pray for
the maintenance of his own spiritual health? What is the vital
relationship between the praying soul and the attainment of moral and
spiritual robustness? How is prayer related to a man's moral force? This
is the relationship. A praying warrior receives into his soul the
grace-energies of the eternal God. The power of grace is just the holy
love and strength and beauty of the holy Godhead flowing into the needs
of the soul and filling them with its own completeness. Now we do not
pray in order to make God willing to impart this grace, but in order to
fit ourselves to receive it. We do not pray to ingratiate God's
good-will, but to open our souls in hospitality. We do not pray in order
to create a friendly air, but to let it in, not to propitiate God but to
appropriate Him. We do not pray to turn a reluctant God toward
ourselves, but to turn our reluctant selves toward a ready and bountiful
God.
It is imperative that we should lay hold of this teaching very firmly.
It is of the utmost moment we should know what we are doing when we pray
for the bracing and sanctifying energies of the Holy Spirit. Prayer
then, I say, is first and chiefly the establishment of communion with
God. Prayer is the clearing of the blocked roads which are crowded with
all sorts of worldly hindrances. Prayer is the preparing of the way of
the Lord. When I turn to the Lord in prayer I open the doors and windows
of my soul toward the heavenlies, and I open them for the reception of
any gifts of grace which God's holy love may wish me to receive. My
reverent thought in prayer perfects communion between my soul and God.
Let me offer an illustration. I am told there is electricity in my
house. I am told that this mysterious, invisible, electric spirit is
waiting to be my minister and to serve me in a dozen different ways. I
go into a room where the genius is said to be waiting, and yet the room
is held in darkness. Where is this friendly spirit? Where is the light
which is one of its promised services? And then I am told that an action
of mine, quite a simple one, is required, and that when the action has
been performed the waiting spirit will reveal itself in radiant beams.
And so I bring my will into play, and I push a button, or I lift a tiny
lever, and my action completes the circuit, and the subtle energy leaps
into the carbon filament and turns my darkness into light.
That is it! My action completes the circuit! And when I turn my will to
pray, when I seek the holy, sanctifying power of God, my prayer
completes the circuit between my soul and God, and I receive whatever
the inexhaustible fountain of grace is always waiting to bestow. And so
do I say that prayer is first of all, and most of all, the establishing
of a vital _communion_ between the soul and God.
Lord Tennyson, in what must have been a wonderful conversation on the
subject of prayer with Mr. Gladstone, and Holman Hunt, and James
Addington Symonds, said that to him prayer was the opening of the
sluice-gates between his soul and the waters of eternal life. It is
worth while just to dwell upon Tennyson's figure for a moment. The
figure may have been taken from a canal. You enter a lock and you are
shut up within its prison. And then you open the sluice-gates, and the
water pours into your prison and lifts you up to the higher level, and
your boat emerges again on a loftier plane of your journey.
Or the figure may have been taken from a miller's wheel: There are the
miller and his mill. And the wheel is standing idle, or it is running
but sluggishly and wearily at its work. And then the miller opens the
sluice-gate, and the waiting water rushes along, and leaps upon the
wheel, and makes it sing in the bounding rapidity of its motion. Prayer,
says Tennyson, is the opening of the sluice-gates and the letting into
the soul of the waiting life and power of God. Prayer opens the
sluice-gates, and the water of life floods the sluggish affections, and
freshens the drowsy sympathies, and braces and speeds the will like the
glorious rush of the stream upon the miller's wheel.
That, to me, is the dominant conception of prayer. Prayer opens the
soul to God. Prayer opens the life to the workings of infinite grace.
And now I see why the Christian soldier should be so urgently counselled
to pray. Prayer keeps open his lines of communication. Prayer keeps him
in touch with his base of supplies. Without prayer he is isolated by the
flanking movements of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and he will
speedily give out in the dark and cloudy day. "Men ought always to pray
and not to faint."
If that is one reason why the Christian soldier should pray in order to
maintain the bounding health of his own spirit, we are now faced with
the second question as to when he should pray. And here is the answer of
the veteran warrior Paul: "Praying always." Not at some time, but at all
times! "Praying always." But can we do that? "Always"? But I am called
upon to earn my daily bread. I have to face a hundred different
problems. Every bit of gray matter in my brain is devoting its strength
to the immediate task. Is it possible for us to think of two things at
once? Can we be thinking out some absorbing question in business, and at
the same time be praying to God? One thing is surely perfectly clear, we
cannot always be thinking of God: It is constitutionally impossible.
But now, while we cannot always be thinking of God, and always speaking
to God, we can always be mentally disposed toward Him, so that whatever
we are doing there can be a mental leaning or bias towards His most holy
will. Let me show you what I mean. We must reverently dare to reason in
this great matter as we reason in other relationships. Turn, then, for
an illustration, to common gymnastics. In physical gymnastics there is
no need for us to be always exercising, to be at it every moment of the
waking day. The body does not need it. Indeed, it would resent it, and
rebel against it. But here is the healthy genius of gymnastic exercises.
Regular exercises give the body a certain healthy pose, a certain vigour
and excellence of carriage, which the body retains between the exercises
when we are going about our accustomed work. That is to say, conscious
exercise makes unconscious habit. Our conscious exercise forces the body
into attitudes which persist as habits when we are doing something else.
We can retain the pose of the gymnasium on the street, and we can retain
it without thinking.
And so it is with spiritual exercises when they are as real as the
exercises in the gymnasium. When a man prays, and prays as deliberately
and purposely as he practices physical exercises, when he drills his
soul as he drills his body, he gives his mind and soul a certain pose, a
certain attitude, a certain stateliness and loftiness of carriage. He
gives his soul a healthy bias towards God, and the soul retains the bias
when he is no longer upon his knees. His soul carries itself Godward
even when he is earning his daily bread. God can get at him any time and
anywhere! The way is open, the communion is unbroken!
That is the vital logic of the matter. By regular spiritual exercises
we can subdue the soul to spiritual habit. Again and again throughout
the day it is possible for us, by a conscious upward glance, to confirm
the habit; until it happens that the soul is always in the posture of
prayer,--in business, in laughter, in trade, at home, or abroad, always
in prayer,--and therefore, in every part of the wide and varied
battleground of life receiving the all-sufficient grace and love of God.
And so the Christian soldier is to be "Praying always, with all prayer
and supplication in the spirit."
But the Christian soldier is not only a suppliant for his own spiritual
health. He is much more than this. The apostle counsels him to be a
suppliant for the health of the entire Christian army. "Praying always,
with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, and watching thereunto
with all perseverance and supplication for all saints." That is to say,
the Christian soldier not only prays for the health of his own spirit,
but for a healthy "esprit de corps" throughout the whole militant Church
of Christ. It is his duty and privilege to be prayerfully jealous for
all the saints, and for the spiritual equipment of all his
fellow-soldiers on the field.
Now this is a very wonderful privilege entrusted to the disciple of
Christ. To every believer there is entrusted the marvellous ministry of
helping others to receive the energies of divine grace, and to
strengthen them in the fierce combats of their own "evil day." For the
character of our evil days is very varied. Your evil day may not be
mine, and my evil day may not be yours. What makes an evil day for you
may never trouble me, and what makes my day difficult and tempestuous
may leave you perfectly serene. It is to be accounted for in many ways.
The differences in our circumstances account, to some extent, for the
differences in our evil days. The differences in our occupations create
great differences in our daily warfare in the spirit. The differences in
our temperaments make no two persons' battles quite alike. And yet, with
all our differences, we are all called upon to stand in our own evil
day, "and having done all, to stand." Peter's evil day would be very
different from John's. Thomas' evil day would be very different from
Nathanael's. Dorcas' evil day would be quite different to the evil days
which gloomed upon Euodia and Synteche. But blessed be God, by the holy
ministry of prayer we can strengthen one another to "stand in the evil
day." We can help every soldier to keep his spiritual roads open and to
prepare the way of the Lord. We are called upon to be sentinel
suppliants on their behalf, "watching thereunto with all perseverance
and supplication for all saints." We are to be ever on the look-out,
vigilant for the entire army of the Lord, divinely jealous for its
healthy spirit, and seeking for every man in the ranks the grace and
glory which we seek for ourselves. What a magnificent man this true
soldier of the Lord must be!
And then, just to finish it all, and by one example to show us how deep
and wide is this ministry of supplication, the apostle Paul asks the
young Ephesian soldiers to pray for him. "And for me, that utterance may
be given unto me." Let us carefully note this, and let us observe its
heartening significance. These young, immature Christians in Ephesus,
trembling in their early faith, are asked to pray for the old warrior in
Rome. He is now "an ambassador in bonds," held in captivity in imperial
Rome, and the young soldiers in Ephesus are asked to be
sentinel-suppliants for the stricken soldier far away. Do you believe
this? And what does he want them to pray for? Listen to him again. "And
for me, that utterance may be given unto me." Have you got the real
inwardness of that appeal? A poor slave in Ephesus may, by his own
prayer, anoint the lips of a great apostle with grace and power. What a
vista of powerful possibility! Do all congregations realize that
privilege and service concerning their ministers? "For me, that
utterance may be given unto me." Do I realize that my prayers, obscure
and nameless though I be, can give utterance to a Paul, a Livingstone, a
Moffatt, or a Chalmers? Do I realize that I can pour grace upon their
lips? What a brave and splendid privilege! Am I using it? I cannot get
out of my mind the vision of some poor slave in Ephesus pouring grace
and truth upon the apostle's lips in Rome, and I cannot get out of my
imagination the surprise which awaited the slave in glory, when Paul
asked him, as a fellow-labourer, to share in gathering in the sheaves.
"And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my
mouth boldly." And can we do that for a man, and do it by prayer? Can
one soldier give another soldier nerve, and can he do it by prayer? Can
he chase away his fears? Can he change timidity into pluck? Can he
transform a lamb into a lion? What a marvellous power has God given to
me and thee! The unbounded privilege of it all! Some slave in Ephesus
giving new boldness to Paul in Rome, and enabling Paul to take some new
ground and conquer it for the Lord! And once again I say, to be called
to share in the apostle's triumphs! If any one has prayed for me, your
fellow-soldier, that utterance and courage may be given unto me, and if
by my ministry some depressed and retreating soldier finds heart again,
and takes up his fallen sword, and fights anew the good fight, then that
suppliant shall share my holy conquest in the Lord, and the joy of the
Lord shall be his strength.
So once again, let us hear the apostle's counsel, and keep it in our
hearts. "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit,
and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all
saints; and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open
my mouth boldly, to make known the mysteries of the gospel."
IX
"WATCH YE!"
_Eternal God, we bow before Thee as the children of grace and
love. Purify our souls, make our eyes keen and watchful, in
order that we may discern Thy purpose at every turning of the
way. Help us to hallow all our circumstances whether they appear
friendly or adverse, and may we subdue them all to the King's
will. We pray that we may obtain new visions of the glory of
Christ. May His gospel of grace become more exceedingly precious
as we gaze into its unsearchable wealth. Let in the light as our
eyes are able to bear it. Tell us some of the many things which
are yet withholden because we are not able to bear them. May we
exercise our senses in discernment, that so we may be led into
the deeper secrets of Thy truth. And wilt Thou graciously grant
unto us new possibilities of service. May we light lamps on many
a dark road. May we give help to many a tired pilgrim who is
burdened by the greatness of the way. May we give cups of
refreshment to those who are thirsty and faint. And may our own
faith and hope restore the flickering light where courage is
nearly spent. Amen._
IX
WATCH YE!
"Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be
strong." I Corinthians 16:13.
This is the counsel of a brave warrior, experienced and weather-beaten,
writing to raw and comparatively untried recruits. One is reminded of
the veteran Lord Roberts when he lately spake to young English recruits
who had not yet been baptized in the actual flames of battle, advising
them about their own warfare of the spirit, and counselling them on no
account to forfeit their self-respect and self-control. And this tried
warrior, Paul, is addressing a little company of Christian recruits in
the city of Corinth. Corinth is now wiped out, buried in the accumulated
débris of the centuries. Here and there an excavated column bears
desolate witness to the glory of former days, but Corinth as a city is
sealed up in an unknown grave. But just behind the site of the city
there appears the Acrocorinthius, rising to the height of two thousand
feet. I climbed this famous hill in the spring because I wanted to see
the panorama on which the apostle had gazed, and also to see the setting
and relations of this once imperial city. It was a wonderful vision of
natural glory, with deep, far-stretching valleys, and distant gleams of
the sea, and range upon range of hills, many of them snow-covered and
glistening in the blazing sunshine of a splendid noon. There below was
the plain on which Corinth found her shelter, and beyond the plain the
narrow water-way, which gave her such intimate relations with the
commerce of the Mediterranean; and beyond the water-way there is a touch
of old romance, for there rise the shrines of the muses, the twin peaks
of Helicon and Parnassus.
Standing on this elevated eminence I tried to realize the conditions in
which this little company of Christian recruits had to live the
consecrated life. They had to fight the Christian warfare amid the soft
luxuriousness of Corinth, a luxuriousness which relaxed the moral fibre,
and made the Corinthians conspicuous for their depravity, "even amid all
the depraved cities of a dying heathenism." Corinth was a city of
abyssmal profligacy; "it was the Vanity Fair of the Roman Empire, at
once the London and Paris of the ancient world"! And it was in this
city, away there on the plain before me, that these untried Christian
recruits had to "fight the good fight of faith."
Then I thought of the little church in which they found their
fellowship. It was besieged by continual assaults of their Jewish foes.
It was torn with internal divisions. It was honeycombed by deadly
heresies. It was defiled by sensuality. Nearly all the members of the
church were of obscure origin and standing. Many of them were slaves. It
was in these conditions of fierce and growing difficulties that these
disciples had to be good soldiers of Jesus Christ. And it is to this
little company of Christian recruits that the apostle sends this
challenging letter in which is found the rousing bugle-peal of my text.
"Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong."
Now I will confess to you that times and again during the last few
months this trumpet-blast has sounded in my ears, as though it were a
clarion-call to the Christians of to-day. For we too have our warfare
upon a most exacting field. We have fallen upon gravely troubled times.
We are witnessing a resurgence of devilry that is perfectly appalling.
The baser passions have become frightfully aggressive, and a crude
animalism is at large like a surging, boiling sea which has burst its
dykes. Some of us had begun to dream that the sweet angel of peace was
almost at our gates, and that nothing could happen to drive her away;
and now, when we look out of the gate, it is no fair angel-messenger
which we see, but the red fury of unprecedented strife and slaughter.
And amid all this we have to live the Christian life.
But it is not only the "fightings without" which trouble us. There are
also "the fears within." Many of our venerable assumptions are lying in
ruin. Our spiritual world has suffered an upheaval as though with the
convulsion of an earthquake, and many of us are trembling and confused.
What then shall we do in this terrible hour? What path shall we take?
Can we settle our goings upon any promising road of purpose and
endeavour? Along what lines shall we pull ourselves together? And in
answer to all these questions I bring you this well-tried counsel of the
great Christian apostle, this bugle-peal from the first century, and I
ask you to let it be to you as the inspired word of the living God.
"Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong." Let
us examine the counsel in order that we may buckle it on to our souls.
Here then is the first note of this soldierly blast. "Watch ye!" The
phrase literally means "keep awake!" You perhaps think there is no need
of that counsel to-day. You probably think that in times like these our
difficulty is not to keep awake but to go to sleep. I am not so sure
about that. If we have loved ones at the war there will not be the
remotest peril of our going to sleep. Every post that comes to our door
will startle us like the crack of doom. Every headline in the daily
press will tighten our nerves in sleepless attention. But when we have
no flesh and blood at the front, when many miles roll between us and the
fields of war, when we are only spectators, a certain drowsiness is not
so far away as we may suppose. When we only read about things, things
become familiar, and the familiar is apt to lose its terror. Custom is a
dull narcotic, and frequent repetition dims our apprehension. When the
Titanic went down the whole city spoke in whispers, such a dread was
resting over our souls. But now a dreadnought goes down, or a half dozen
cruisers, and we scarcely catch our breath at the news. The cushion of
familiarity is thickening between us and realities, and awful facts do
not hit us on the raw. The awful becomes less awful by repetition, and
we grow less sensitive as the tragedies increase. The newspaper
statistics cease to be significant, and the descriptive adjectives
become the tamest blanks. And therefore there is need for the apostle's
trumpet blast to sound in our ears. "Keep awake!" Do not let familiarity
become an opiate, so putting the senses to sleep that the direst woes
become a painless commonplace. "Keep awake!" Make it a matter of will.
Bring the stream of vital thought to bear upon the field. Exercise the
imagination. Nourish the sympathies. We must keep awake, for our primary
hope of emancipation in this dark hour is to remain sensitive, to be
capable of being shocked and wounded with the appalling blows of every
succeeding day.
But it is not only wakefulness, but also watchfulness which the apostle
enjoins in the counsel of our text. The soldier of Jesus is to be awake
and watchful with all the keen quest of a sentinel peering about him
night and day. But our watchfulness must be intelligent and disciplined,
and we must carefully survey the entire field. We must keep awake, and
we must diligently watch for all enemies of the sanctified brotherhood
of the race, as a sentry would watch every suspicious movement in the
night. What are the real enemies behind all the appalling desolation and
sorrow of our time? Is it militarism? Then "Watch ye!" Is it something
deeper than militarism? Is it racial animosity and jealousy and
prejudice? Then "Watch ye!" Is it something even deeper than racial
antipathy? Is it a profound and deadly materialism in all the nations--a
materialism which has been tricked out in the ribbons of culture, and
disguised in the glamour of progress? Then "Keep awake, Watch ye!" Or is
it a faithless church, muttering many shibboleths, but confessing no
vital faith; a church which has been too much a pretense, offering no
strong moral and spiritual preservatives, and supplying no saving salt
to social fellowships, and, therefore, not exercising any restraint upon
moral degeneracy and corruption? "Keep awake, and Watch ye!" And amid
all the horrors and agonies of our day fasten your eyes upon the real
enemy of the Lord Jesus, the outstanding antagonist of His kingdom of
righteousness and truth.
But there is a further word to say about our vigilance. We must keep
awake and watchful, not only to detect the busy lurking, ambushed foes,
but also to see all the bright and wonderful things of the hour, all the
splendid happenings which are favourable to the holy will and Kingdom of
our Lord. What should we think of a sentinel who could not distinguish
between enemy and friend? And what shall we say of a soldier-sentinel of
Christ who has no eye for the great and friendly happenings on the
field? Watch ye, and behold the growing seriousness of the world;
frivolity has almost begun to apologize for itself, and tinselled gaiety
is ill at ease. Watch ye, and behold the unsealing of multitudinous
springs of human sympathy, and the flowing of holy currents from the
ends of the earth. Watch ye, and behold the magnificent courage which in
every land of strife is purging families from the dross of indolence and
indifference, and educing the gold of chivalry and sacrifice. Watch ye,
and behold the marvellous re-equipment of Christian motive--thousands
upon thousands of Christian disciples realizing as they have never done
before that the world needs the vital redeeming grace of the Lord Jesus,
and that without Him human brotherhood will remain a phantom and a
dream. A real wakeful watchman will see these things. He will not only
record the things of the night and the nightmares, but he will be as
"they who watch for the morning." The Moslem priest appears on the tower
of his mosque half an hour after sunset to call the people to prayer,
but he also appears on the tower half an hour before sunrise, when the
grey gleams of morning are faintly falling upon the night. And we too,
watchmen of Jesus, must watch for the sunrise as well as for the
sunsets, and we too must tell what fair jewels of hope we see shining on
the dark robe of the night. Brethren, the Lord Jesus Christ is abroad!
"Watch ye, for at such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man will
come."
Now let us consider the second note of the counsel which is given by
this warrior, Paul. "Stand fast in the faith." Just try to realize that
bracing counsel coming to these young recruits in the city of Corinth.
Let me try to paraphrase it as I think it would be interpreted to them.
"When the soft, enervating air of Corinth's luxuriousness steals over
you like the mild air of Lotus-Land, 'Stand fast in the faith'! When the
cold wind of persecution assails you like an icy blast from the north,
'Stand fast in the faith'! If some supercilious philosopher comes along
and breathes cynically upon your new-found piety and devotion, 'Stand
fast in the faith'! Stand fast in your faith and meet all your
antagonisms there."
And has that counsel no pertinency for the Christian believers of our
own time? There are some among us who are ready, because of the
unspeakable horrors through which we are passing, to throw their faith
away like obsolete arms and armour. Now men who can drop their faith in
the day of real emergency have never been really held by it. That is
surely true; men who can drop their faith like a handkerchief have never
known their faith as a strong and vital defence. And yet that is what
you sometimes find them doing in modern novels. They just drop their
faith as they would drop a pair of gloves. Robert Elsmere, in Mrs.
Humphry Ward's story of twenty years ago, dropped his faith in about ten
days. If my memory serves me truly, George Eliot dropped her faith in
about the same length of time. If our faith has ever meant anything
vital, it will be as difficult to drop it as to drop our skin. But it is
the inexperienced who are in peril. It is the young recruit who is
dangerously convulsed by the upheavals of our day, and it is to him I
bring the nerving counsel of the Lord: "Stand fast in the faith!"
"Stand fast in the faith!" What faith? "The faith once for all delivered
to the saints." Stand fast in the faith of the atoning Saviour as the
secret of the reconciliation of mankind. Stand fast in the faith of the
risen Lord as the secret and promise of racial union and brotherhood.
Stand fast in the faith of the Holy Spirit as the source of all the
light and cheer which illumines the race. Stand fast in your own
personal faith in the exalted Lord. Don't doubt Him! Don't suspect Him!
Don't desert Him! Above all, don't sell Him! In this hour of darkness,
when devilry seems to be pulling down the very pillars of the temple,
stand fast in the faith, and let this be your strong but humble cry:
"Although the fig-tree shall not blossom,
Neither shall fruit be in the vines;
The labour of the olive shall fail,
And the fields shall yield no meat;
The flock shall be cut off from the fold,
And there shall be no herd in the stalls:
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will joy in the God of my salvation."
And the third note in the great apostle's counsel in this: "Quit you
like men." Our translators have taken four words to express a single
word in the original letter. We have no one English word which can carry
the splendid load of meaning. It really means--play the man! It really
means--no funk! All the school children will know the value of that
word. It is a good strong vital English word, and I am sure it expresses
the spirit of the apostle's counsel to these young recruits. Lowell uses
it in the Bigelow Papers: "To funk right out o' p'litical strife ain't
thought to be the thing." No funk, soldiers of Christ! I have sometimes
heard men talk of late as though the Lord were dead, and the game is up,
and the Kingdom is in ruins. "Play the man!" The European soldiers of
every nation are showing the world in their own sphere what it means to
play the man. Some of us are becoming almost afraid to call ourselves
soldiers of Jesus when we see what a true soldier really is. Think of
it! Think of his readiness for the front! Think of his laughter in
sacrifice! Think of his song in the midst of danger and pain! Think of
his endurance even unto death! And then, think how we stand up and sing
"Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war"! And shall we funk in
the day of darkness and disaster, and after months of appalling
bloodshed and woe shall we talk as if the campaign of righteousness were
ended, and the Kingdom of Jesus is overturned? Let us stop this kind of
talk. Let us silence this sort of fear. Let us crush this type of
disloyalty. It is an insult to our flag; it is a dishonour to our Lord.
"Quit you like men, be strong!" Put strength into everything, and do
everything strongly. Do not let us speak or serve in a faint, lax,
irresolute, anæmic, dying sort of way. "Be strong!" Be strong in your
prayers. Be strong in your moral and spiritual ambitions. Be strong in
your visions and hopes. Be strong in your beneficence; strengthen it to
the vigour of sacrifice. And if there be a devil, as more than ever I
believe there is, let the Church surprise him by her strength. Let her
turn the day of calamity into the day of opportunity. Let her
transfigure the hour of disaster into the hour of deeper consecration.
Let us make new vows. Let us enter into new devotion. Let us exercise
ourselves in new chivalry. Let us go out in new ways of sacrifice. My
brethren, God is not dead! "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you
like men, be strong!"
"Stand up, stand up for Jesus!
The trumpet call obey;
Forth to the mighty conflict
In this His glorious day.
Ye that are men now serve Him
Against unnumbered foes,
Let courage rise with danger
And strength to strength oppose.
"Stand up, stand up for Jesus!
Ye soldiers of the Cross.
Lift high His royal banner,
It must not suffer loss.
From victory unto victory
His army shall He lead,
Till every foe is vanquished,
And Christ is Lord indeed!"
X
ENDURING HARDNESS
_Heavenly Father, may all our hearts be filled with Thy praise.
May the spirit of Thanksgiving fill all our days, and deliver us
from the mood of murmuring and complaint. Graciously remove the
scales from our eyes, so that we may look upon our life with
eyes anointed with the eye-salve of grace. Help us to discern
Thy footprints in the ordinary road. Grant that we may now
review our yesterdays and see the providences which have crowded
our paths. Help us to see Thy name on blessings that we never
recognized, so that we may now be praiseful where we have been
indifferent. Redeem us from our spiritual sloth. Awake us out of
our perilous sleep. May our consciences goad us when we are in
peril. May the good desires within us be so strengthened as to
destroy every desire that is vain. Sow in our hearts the word of
Thy truth. Guard the seed with the vigilance of Thy blessed
Spirit, and let it appear in our life as a fragrant and
bountiful harvest. Graciously watch us and defend us and make us
mighty in consecration, and may we place our all upon the altar.
Amen._
X
ENDURING HARDNESS
"Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus
Christ." 2 Timothy 2:3.
Any military metaphor which is used to-day will surely have a very
arresting significance. Many of our hymns are crowded with military
terminology. In the Wesleyan Methodist Hymn-Book there is a whole
section entitled "For Believers Fighting." We are all familiar with
these martial hymns: "Onward, Christian Soldiers", "The Son of God goes
forth to war", "Soldiers of Christ arise", "Stand up, stand up, for
Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross", "Oft in danger, oft in woe, onward
Christians, onward go." But too often the soldier-like hymn is only a
bit of martial poetry which pleases the emotions but does not stir the
will. We like the swing of the theme. It brings a sort of exhilaration
into our moods, just as lively dance music awakes a nimble restlessness
in our feet. Too often it is the song of the parade ground, and it is
not broken with the awful thundering of the guns in actual war. But just
now when we hear the phrase, "Endure hardness as a good soldier," our
thoughts are carried away to the battlefields of Europe. We recall those
roads like deeply ploughed fields! Those fields scooped by the shells
into graves in which you can bury a score of men! Those trenches filling
with the rain or snows, the hiding place of disease, and assailed
continually with the most frightful engines of destruction! Pestilence
on the prowl! Frost stiffening the limbs into benumbment! Death always
possible before the next breath! These military metaphors in our hymns
get some red blood into them when we use them against backgrounds and
scenes like these. "Endure hardness as a good soldier."
Now the apostle calls for this soldierly spirit in Thessalonica. He is
writing to young recruits in the army of the Lord. They are having their
first baptism of fire. Their enemies are strong, subtle, ubiquitous. To
be a Christian in Thessalonica was to face the fierce onslaught of
overwhelming odds. But indeed in those early days, Christian believers,
wherever they lived, had to be heroic in the defence of their faith and
obedience. Everywhere circumstances were hostile. Nothing was won
without sacrifice. Nothing was held without blood. To be a witness was
to be a martyr. If a believer would be faithful to his Lord he must
"fight the good fight of faith"; if he would extend the frontiers of the
Kingdom of Heaven he must endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus
Christ.
What are the circumstances amid which the modern Church is placed? The
Christian believer in our day is confronted with stupendous
difficulties. Look at the present field on which our Christian warfare
is to be waged. When the European war broke out I was staying at a quiet
seaside village, from which I could see the soft green beauty of the
mountains which encircle the English lakes. On the morning that war was
proclaimed I felt as though some venerable and majestic temple had
suddenly crumbled into dust. One of my most intimate friends, a noble
German, was staying in my home, and we both felt as though some devil of
mischief and disaster had toppled human affairs into confusion. The
quiet sequence of human progress seemed to have been smashed at a
stroke. The nations drew apart, and gulfs of isolation yawned between
them, and down the gulfs there swept the cruel shrieking blasts of
racial hatred and antipathy. Holy ministries which had been leagued in
sacred fellowship were wrenched asunder. Spiritual communions which had
been sweet and welcome curdled in the biting blast of resentment. The
work of the Kingdom of our Lord was smitten as by an enemy; ploughshares
were beaten into swords; pruning-hooks were transformed into spears; and
instead of the fir and the myrtle-tree there sprang up the thorns and
the briars. And then, to crown our difficulties, the red fury of war
leaped into countries where our missionaries are proclaiming the gospel
of peace, and the passion of battle began to burn where they are telling
the story of the passion of Calvary, that holy passion of sacrifice
which brought to the whole world redemption from sin, and reconciliation
with God, and the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is
to come.
Our immediate circumstances do not offer the soldiers of Jesus an easy
parade ground where we can just loll and sing our lilting songs; they
rather offer us a fearfully rugged and broken field which demands as
heroic and chivalrous virtues as ever clothed a child of God. What shall
we do? Is it the hour for craven fear or for a noble courage? What shall
we do on our mission fields? Shall we cry "forward," or shall we sound
the depressing and despairing note of retreat? Shall we throw up the
sponge, or shall we, in the spirit of unprecedented sacrifice, march
forward in our campaign, and endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus
Christ?
First of all, we must keep our eyes steadily fixed upon the object for
which Christ died, that solemn and holy end for which He created and
appointed His own Church. And what is that object? It is to let "all men
know that all men move under a canopy of love" as broad as the blue sky
above. It is to break down all middle walls of partition, and to merge
the sundered peoples in the quickening communion of His grace. It is to
unite all the kingdoms of the world in the one and radiant Kingdom of
His love. That is the aim and purpose of our blessed Lord, and in all
the shock and convulsions of to-day we must keep that object steadfastly
in sight. It was said of Napoleon that "he never for a moment lost sight
of his way onward in the dazzle and uproar of present circumstances."
That is to say, Napoleon was never blinded by the glare of victory or by
the lowering cloud of defeat. "He saw only the object." Quietness did
not throw its perilous spell about him. Calamity did not turn his eyes
from the forward way. He saw only the object, and the glory of the goal
sent streams of energy into his will and into his feet at every step of
the changing road.
Now our temptation is to permit events to determine our sight. There is
the shimmer of gold on the right hand, and we turn to covet. There is
the gleam of the sword on the left hand, and we turn in fear. We allow
circumstances to govern our aims. Our eyes are deflected from their
object by the dazzle or the uproar around us. And here is the peril of
it all. When we lose the object of our warfare we begin to lose the
campaign. And, therefore, one of the first necessities of the Christian
Church in the present hour is to have our Lord's own purpose steadily in
view, to keep her eyes glued upon that supreme end, and to allow nothing
to turn her aside. "Let thine eyes look right on;" "Thy kingdom come;"
"The kingdoms of this world shall become the Kingdom of our God;" "He
must reign until He hath put all enemies under His feet." This, I say,
is the pressing and immediate need of the good soldier of Christ Jesus,
to refuse to have his single aim complicated by the entanglement of
passing circumstances, and to constantly "apprehend that for which we
also were apprehended by Christ Jesus our Lord."
What else shall we do in this hour of upheaval and disaster? The Church
must eclipse the exploits of carnal warfare by the more glorious warfare
of the spirit. Just recall the heroisms which are happening every day in
Europe, and on which the eyes of the world are riveted with an almost
mesmerized wonder! Think of the magnificent sacrifices! Think of the
splendid courage! Think of the exquisite chivalry! Think of the
incredible powers of endurance! And then, further, think that the Church
of Christ is called upon to outshine these glories with demonstrations
more glorious still.
This was surely one of the outstanding distinctions of apostolic life.
Whenever hostilities confronted the early Church, whenever the first
disciples were opposed by the gathered forces of the world, wherever the
sword was bared and active, wherever tyranny exulted in sheer brutality,
these early disciples unveiled a more splendid strength, and threw the
carnal power into the shade. They faced their difficulties with such
force and splendour of character that their very antagonisms became only
the dark background on which the glory of the Lord was more manifestly
revealed. Their courage rose with danger and eclipsed it!
Let me open one or two windows in the apostolic record which give us
glimpses of this conquering life. Here, then, is a glimpse of the
hostilities: "Let us straightly threaten them that they speak henceforth
to no man in this name." There you have the naked tyranny of carnal
power, and there you have the threat that burns through carnal speech.
And now, over against that power put the action of the Church: "And they
spake the word of God with boldness!" They were good soldiers of Jesus
Christ, and by that boldness the tyranny and threat of carnal power were
completely eclipsed.
Here is another glimpse of those heroic days: "And when they had called
the apostles, and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak
in the name of Jesus." There again you have the demonstration of carnal
power; and here again is the demonstration of the power of the spirit:
"And they departed from the presence of the counsel, rejoicing that they
were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And they ceased not to
teach and preach Jesus Christ." I say that this "rejoicing" eclipses
that beating, and the good soldier of Jesus Christ puts the Roman
soldier into the shade.
Let me open another window: "And they cast Stephen out of the city and
stoned him." Get your eyes on that display of carnal passion and
tyranny; and then lift your eyes upon the victim of it: "And he kneeled
down and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their
charge." Who is the conqueror in that tragedy, the stoners or the
stoned, the ministers of destruction or the good soldier of Jesus
Christ? The carnal power was terrific and deadly, but it was utterly
eclipsed by the power of grace, the power which blazed forth in this
redeemed and consecrated life. Open yet another window upon this day of
shining exploits: "Having stoned Paul they drew him out of the city,
supposing he had been dead." That incident seems to record the
coronation and sovereignty of brutal strength. Now read: "And they
returned again to Lystra." Paul went back to the place where he had been
stoned, to tell again the good news of grace, and to carry to broken
people the ministries of healing. And I say that this bruised man,
beaten and sore, returning again to the scene of the stoning, is a good
soldier of Jesus Christ, and by his magnificent courage and grace he
eclipsed all the rough strength of the world and threw its achievements
into the shade.
But it is not only in apostolic days that you can find these brilliant
contrasts. The Church has been distinguished by such demonstrations of
spiritual glory all along her history. When material power has been
riotous and rampant, when rude, crude passions have blazed through the
earth, the chivalry of the Church has shone resplendent in the murky
night, and she has eclipsed the dread shocks of the world and the flesh
and the devil by her noble sacrifices, and by her serenity, and by her
spontaneous joy. The Church has distinguished herself by her
manifestations of spiritual strength, by her lofty Christian purpose, by
her glowing devotional enthusiasm, and this over against gigantic
obstacles, and in the face of enemies who seemed to be overwhelming.
I think of James Chalmers, the martyred missionary of New Guinea. How
well I remember the last time I met him; his big, powerful body, his
lion-like head, his shock of rough hair, his face with such a strange
commingling of strength and gentleness, indomitableness and grace! And
what he went through in New Guinea in carrying to the natives the story
of our Saviour's love! And then, having gone through it all, he stood up
there in England, on the platform of Exeter Hall, and said: "Recall
these twenty-one years, give me back all its experiences, give me its
shipwrecks, give me its standings in the face of death, give it me
surrounded with savages with spears and clubs, give it me back again
with spears flying about me, with the club knocking me to the ground,
give it me back, and I will still be your missionary." What is happening
in Europe just now that can put that exploit in the shade? I do not
wonder that when that man thought of heaven he used these words: "There
will be much visiting in heaven, and much work. I guess I shall have
good mission work to do, great, brave work for Christ. He will have to
find it, for I can be nothing else than a missionary." James Chalmers
went back to New Guinea to tell and retell to the natives why Jesus came
to thee and me and all men, and he won the martyr's crown. The love of
Christ constrained him. And again I ask, what incidents in carnal
warfare are not eclipsed by shining heroisms like these?
I might go on telling you these glorious exploits of grace, but I hasten
to say that it is our privilege to continue the story. To-day carnal
strength is stalking in deadly stride through a whole continent. And
to-day the Church must do something so splendid and so heroic as will
outshine the glamour of material war. This is the hour when we must send
out more men and women who are willing to live and toil and die for the
Hindu, and for the Turk, and the Persian, and the Chinese and the
Japanese, and all the dusky sons of Africa. I verily believe that if the
apostle Paul were in our midst to-day, with the war raging in Europe, he
would sound an advance all along the line. He would call us in this hour
to send out more men and women to save, and to comfort, and to heal; men
and women who will lay down their lives in bringing life to their
fellow-men. We must send forth new army corps of the soldiers of Christ,
and we must give them more abundant means, endowing them so plentifully
that they can go out into the needy places of Asia and Africa, and
assuage the pains and burdens of the body, and dispel the darkness of
the mind, and give liberty to the imprisoned spirit, and lead the souls
of men into the life and joy and peace of our blessed Lord. If the
Church would, and if the Church will, she can so arrest the attention
and win the hearts of the natives of Africa and Asia with the grace and
gentleness of the Lord Jesus, a grace and gentleness made incarnate
again in you and me, and in those whom we send to the field, that the
excellent glory of the Spirit shall shine pre-eminent, and in this hour
of world-wide disaster the risen Lord shall again be glorified.
Shall we quietly challenge ourselves amid all the awful happenings of
to-day? Here are the terms of the challenge. Shall the good soldier of
Christ Jesus be overshadowed by the soldiers of the world? Or shall the
courage and ingenuities of the world be eclipsed by the heroism and the
wise audacity of the Church? Shall we withdraw our army from the field
because the war is raging in Europe, or shall we send it reinforcements?
Shall we practice a more severe economy and straiten our army's
equipment for service; or shall we practice a more glorious
self-sacrifice, and make its equipment more efficient? Shall we exalt
and glorify our Saviour, or shall we allow Him to be put in the shade?
Shall we endure hardness, as good soldiers of Christ, or shall we take
to the fields of indulgence, and allow the Church of the Living God to
be outshone by the army of the world? Which shall it be?
Our holy battlefield is as wide as the world. The needs are clamant. The
opportunities of victory are on every side. Our Captain is calling! What
then, shall it be? Advance or retreat? What answer can there be but one?
Surely the answer must be that we will advance, even though it mean the
shedding of the blood of sacrifice.
One of our medical missionaries was Dr. Francis J. Hall of Peking,
China. He had been graduated with high honours at the Johns Hopkins
Medical School in Baltimore, and had consecrated his life to medical
missionary work in China, where his large abilities promptly won him
wide influence. In 1913 he said to one of his associates: "I have just
been called to a Chinese who has typhus fever. Many physicians have
died of that disease, but I must go." Two weeks later he was stricken.
As he lay dying his mind wandered, and he was heard to exclaim: "I hear
them calling, I must go; I hear them calling!" Do we hear them calling?
Is the answer "Yes"? Then let us joyfully register a vow that, God
helping us, the army of the Lord shall not be maimed because of our
indifference, but as good soldiers of Jesus Christ we will, if need be,
endure hardness, and give of our possessions, even unto the shedding of
our blood.
XI
THE INVISIBLE COMMANDER
_Eternal God, we rejoice in the security that is offered to us
in our midnights and in our noons. Thou wilt not leave us to the
loneliness of self-communion, but Thou wilt hold fellowship with
us along the way. Come to us as the Lord Jesus came to the men
who were journeying to Emmaus, and make our hearts burn within
us in the revelation of light and grace. Especially in these
bewildering times wilt Thou steady our minds with Thy councils
and inspire our hearts in the assurance of Thy sovereign love.
Lead us along our troubled road. Let the heavenly light break
upon our darkness. Help us to believe in Thy peace even when the
world is at strife. Let Thy kingdom come. Even when the world is
filled with the smoke of battle may we discern the presence of
the Lord. Save us from the sin of unbelief. Reveal to us, we
humbly pray Thee, the sin in which this strife has been born,
and help the nations to turn from it in new consecration to
Thee. In this gracious purpose wilt Thou possess our services.
Help us to look beyond the seen into the strength and glory of
the unseen. Cheer us with Thy consolations. Uphold us with Thine
hand, and impart to us the gift of Thy gracious peace. Amen._
XI
THE INVISIBLE COMMANDER ON THE FIELD
"And He will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will
hiss unto them from the end of the earth." Isaiah 5:26.
"And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall hiss
for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of
Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria." Isaiah
7:18.
That was a startling word to fall upon the ears of the people of Judah.
It shocked them into confusion. It was an altogether revolutionary word.
It played havoc with their traditional beliefs. It smashed up all their
easy securities. It turned their world upside down, and all their
ancient confidences were broken. Let us try to feel the shock of the
message. The people had come to regard their land as a sort of divine
reservation, and they looked upon their nation as a specially favoured
instrument in the hand of the Lord. They esteemed themselves as being in
the friendly grip and fellowship of the Lord of hosts. All their
movements were the inspirations of His counsels, and in the strength of
His providence their nation's progress and destiny were assured. They
lived in the assumption that every step in their national life was
foreseen, and planned, and provided for, and that they were always being
led towards divinely appointed goals. There was nothing of chance in
their journeyings, and nothing of uncertainty in their ends. For them
there was no blind groping in the darkness, for the Lord of hosts had
charge of their national life; and "the sure mercies of David" would
secure it from calamity and destruction.
That was what they thought about themselves. What did they think of the
nations beyond their frontier? That was quite another story. They looked
upon other nations as struggling blindly, and in their dark rage
imagining vain things. These other nations had the promptings of
passion, but they had no divine and mystic leadership. They moved
hither and thither, but it was under no divine appointment, and a
thousand traps were laid for their unhallowed feet. Yonder was Assyria,
full of strength and full of movement, expressing herself in the might
of tremendous armies, but she was under no divine command or
inspiration. Assyria was like a boat in unknown waters, without a pilot,
and she was marked for inevitable destruction. And yonder was proud
Egypt, swelling with her power and renown, colossal in her material
achievements, but she had no divinely enlightened eyes, she was blind in
her goings, and her marching was in reality a staggering towards doom.
And yonder were other nations from afar; but they were all just chance
masses, looked upon as existing outside the frontier line of divine
favour and enlightenment. They dwelt in some hinterland of life where
God's gracious decrees do not run. They were beyond the orbit of divine
thought and grace. Now that was the kind of thinking which the prophet
had to meet. Judah regarded herself as nestling within the home circle
of Providence, and all other nations were outcasts living beyond the
sacred pale.
And now perhaps we shall be able to feel something of the astounding
effect of the prophet's words. "And the Lord shall lift up an ensign to
the nations from far." Far-away peoples are to move under the impulse
and inspiration of the Lord, and in the light of His guiding command.
"The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the
rivers of Egypt." A far-away nation, thick as flies, is to move under
the touch and ordination of God! "The Lord shall hiss for the bee that
is in the land of Assyria." A far-away nation, thick as a hive of bees,
is to move under the controlling purpose of the Lord! Can you feel the
shock of the prophet's words? It is the shock of a larger thought which
shakes the nations out of their small and cosey contentment. They had
conceived the divine Providence as being confined exclusively to Judah's
particular guidance and defence. They had thought within the limits of a
country; they are now bidden to cross the frontier and conceive a
Providence which encircles a continent and a world. The fly in Egypt,
and the bee in Assyria, raising their wings at the touch of the
Lord,--it staggered them into incredulity!
Now we can see what the prophet was doing. He was seeking to enlarge
their sense of the orbit of the divine movement. For the little ripples
on their pool he was substituting the ocean tides. For the circle of
their native hills and valleys he was substituting a line which embraced
the uttermost parts of the earth. And that is what I wish to do in this
meditation. I wish to proclaim the vastness of the divine orbit, the
tremendous sweep of the divine decrees, and I wish to emphasize the
teaching of this great prophet, that momentous destinies may be born in
far-away places, even at the very end of the world. "The Lord shall hiss
for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and
for the bee that is in the land of Assyria."
Well then, under the power of this teaching, let us think in wider
orbits of the divine inspiration of nations. For we are apt to imprison
our thought within very narrow and artificial restraints. Much of our
thought about providential movements shuts God up to the circle of
so-called Christian nations: But what if a fierce and decadent
civilization is to be corrected by the inspired influence of such
peoples as are described by Rudyard Kipling as "lesser breeds without
the law?" What if our God will hiss for the fly and the bee among just
such peoples as we are inclined to patronize or despise? Let us imagine
some modern Isaiah standing up in London or New York and uttering words
like these;--"The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost
part of China, and for the bee that is in the land of India." I know
that such a doctrine shocks our national susceptibilities, just as a
similar doctrine shocked the national pride of the ancient Jews. But
such a doctrine offers the only true interpretation of the range of the
divine orbit. It may be that the reinforcements of civilization are to
come from the movements of the stagnant waters of China. It may be that
rivers of vitality are to flow into our life from the meditative,
contemplative, philosophic, mystic races of India. Just think of their
quiet, lofty, serious brooding, stealing into our feverish materialism
and sobering the fierceness of the quest. I cannot but wonder what the
good Lord, in the vastness of His orbit, is even now preparing for the
world on the far-away plains of India and China.
Let your imagination exercise itself again in the larger orbit, and
think of some modern prophet standing up in London with this message
upon his lips;--"The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the
uttermost parts of Russia." The message strikes us as incredible, but it
is only because, like the people of Judah, our conception of the divine
orbit is so small and circumscribed. I for one am watching with
fascinated eyes the movements of Russia. I am wondering what is coming
to us from that great people, so long and patiently sad, so full of
reverence, going on long, weary pilgrimages to bow at holy shrines.
Superstition? Yes, if you please. But I am wondering what is going to
happen when the dogged strength of that superstition becomes an
enlightened faith. I am wondering what will happen when that rich,
fertile bed of national reverence begins to bear the full and matured
fruits of the Spirit. What then? I know it is not easy to think it. It
is not easy to widen the orbit of one's thought. It is never easy to
stretch a neglected or unused muscle. But the wider thought is the orbit
of our God, and in the mysterious land of Russia untold destinies may be
even now at the birth.
And so do I urge that we think in vaster orbits of the divine
inspiration of nations. Let us reject the atheism of incredulity, and
let us encourage ourselves in the boundless hope of an all-encompassing
God of the human race. The great God journeys on in His tremendous
orbit, and who knows from what unlikely peoples the rejuvenation of the
world is to come? "The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the
uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the
land of Assyria."
Now I want to go further, and under the power of the prophet's teaching
I would urge that we think in wide orbits of the divine raising of the
heroic leaders of men. In what wide and mysterious sweeps the great God
works when He wants a leader of men! The man is wanted here at the
center, but he is being prepared yonder on the remote circumference! God
hisses for the fly or the bee, and He calls it from very obscure and
unlikely fields.
Here is ancient Israel. Her altars are defiled, and her balances are
perverted. She is hollow in worship, and she is crooked in trade, and
the people are listless in their debasement. A leader is wanted to awake
and scourge the people. Where shall he be found? The Lord hisses for a
fly in Tekoa, a wretched little village, in a mean and scanty setting;
and the fly was a poor herdman, following the flock, and eking out his
miserable living by gathering the figs of the sycamore. And this Amos
was God's man! A prophet of fire was wanted in Bethel, and God prepared
him in Tekoa! But what an orbit, and who would have thought that Tekoa
would have been a school of the prophets?
Stride across the centuries. The religion of Europe has become a gloss
for indulgence. Nay, it has become an excuse for it. The Father's house
has become a den of thieves. The doctrines of grace have been wiped out
by a system of man-devised works. Religion is devitalized, and morals
have become dissolute. Wanted, a man, who shall be both scourge and
evangelist! Where shall he be found? "The Lord hissed for the fly" that
was in Eisleben, in the house of a poor miner, and Martin Luther came
forth to grapple with all the corruptions of established religion. But
what an orbit! A fire was wanted to burn up the refuse which had
accumulated over spiritual religion, and the fire was first kindled in a
little home, in a little village, far away from the broad highways of
social privilege and advantage. Again, I say, what an orbit!
March forward again across the years. Here is England under the
oppression of a king who claims divine sanction for his oppression.
There is no tyranny like the tyranny which stamps itself with a holy
seal. And in those old days of Charles I, tyranny wore a sacred badge.
Tyranny carried a cross. It was tyranny by divine right. Wrong was
justified by grace. I say, of all tyrannies, this is the most
tyrannical. Wanted, a man to meet and overthrow it! Where will he be
found? Will he be found in some national centre of learning where
wealthy privilege holds her seat? Oh, no! The Lord hissed for a fly on
the fens, from a little farm at Huntington, and Oliver Cromwell
emerged, to try swords with the king on his throne! Let me give the
familiar glimpse which Sir Philip Warwick offers us of Cromwell making
his first speech in the House of Commons. "I came into the House one
morning, well clad, and perceived a gentleman speaking whom I knew not,
very ordinarily appareled, for it was a plain cloth suit, which seemed
to have been made by an ill country tailor. His linen was plain and not
very clean, and I remember a speck or two of blood upon his little band,
which was not much larger than his collar. His hat was without a
hat-band. His stature was of a good size; his sword stuck close to his
side; his countenance swollen and reddish; his voice sharp and
untunable, and his eloquence full of fervour." And there is God's man!
But what an orbit! A man was wanted for the defence of liberty and
spiritual religion, and God prepared this man in the obscurity of a
little farm among the fens. What an orbit is marked by the goings of the
Lord. The Lord hissed for the fly on the fen.
March forward across the centuries. Here is slavery in the American
republic. In spite of the noble words of the Declaration of
Independence: "That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"--in spite of these ringing
human claims slavery nestled beneath the American flag. Well, wanted a
man to deal with it! Where will he be found? Will he be found in some
university centre? Will he be a paragon of intellectual learning and
accomplishment? Oh no! The Lord hissed for a fly in Harden, in a scraggy
part of Kentucky, Harden with its "barren hillocks and weedy hollows,
and stunted and scrubby underbush,"--and there in a dismal solitude, and
in a cheerless home, and in the deepest poverty, the great God made His
man, and Abraham Lincoln came forth to cross swords with the great
wrong, and to ring the bells of freedom from the "frozen North to the
glowing South, and from the stormy waters of the Atlantic westward to
the calmer waters of the Pacific Main." But what an orbit of divine
providence! Who would have guessed that just there, in that poor,
unschooled, and unprivileged family the great God was doing His
momentous work? And I wonder where now in the vast orbit of His
providence He is rearing the leaders of to-morrow? Our God moves in
mighty sweeps, and He is even now at work in the mysterious ministries
of His grace. "The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost
part of the rivers of Egypt and for the bee that is in the land of
Assyria."
And then, under the influence of the prophet's teaching I want once more
to urge that we think in wider orbits of the divine presence in the
individual life. For instance, in what sweeping orbits the Lord moves on
His journeys in seeking to bring us to Himself, and to fashion us into
the strength and beauty of His own image. He lifts an ensign to some
remote circumstance, and from afar there comes an influence which sets
me on the road to God. He calls a ministry from distant Egypt, or from
far off Assyria, and my life is turned to the home of my Lord.
Here is a careless young son of wealth in Cambridge University. Life for
him is just an idle sport, a careless revel, a jaunty outing, an
enjoyable extravagance. Life is just a shallow, shimmering pool; not an
ocean with momentous tidal forces, and with the voice of the great
Eternal speaking in its mighty tones. Wanted a man to awake this
indolent son of wealth! And in what an orbit God moved to find the man!
The Lord hissed for a fly in Massachusetts, and there, in Northfield,
was a poor homestead, encumbered with mortgage; and a poor widow with
seven children, so poor that the very kindling wood was taken by the
creditors from the shed. And there in that poor woman's house God made
His man, and Dwight Moody came forth, and went to Cambridge University,
and proclaimed the evangel of grace, and by the love of God won this
young fellow from a loose and jaunty and indifferent life, and kindled
in him a passionate devotion to Christ which is now blazing away on the
Southern Soudan in a campaign to light a line of Christian beacon-fires
which shall stretch from coast to coast! But what an orbit! From a poor
widow's homestead in Northfield to a sporting young fellow in Cambridge
University!
I met a cultured man the other day, a man who has enjoyed all the
academic advantages that money can provide, a man of university culture
and distinction, but whose life has been spiritually indifferent, and
who has held coldly aloof from God and the Kingdom of God. And in the
vast orbit of His providence the great God brought this man into
communion with Billy Sunday, and all the stubble of his neglected life
was burned up in the consuming fire of his kindled love for the Lord.
But just think of the orbit! The Lord hissed for His fly, and from the
apparently incredible circumstance of a slangy evangelist this man was
brought to his Father's House in reconciliation and peace. Again I say,
what an orbit! "I will bring the blind by a way that they know not," and
under His wide and mysterious leadership the blind find themselves at
home.
And so, my friends, our God is still moving in these vast orbits. He
hisses for a disappointment, and it comes and throws its shadow upon our
life, but the shadow is purposed to be one of the healing shadows of
grace. "I will command the clouds, saith the Lord." Yes, even our cloudy
experiences move under command. They travel in the tremendous orbit of
His providence. "I will command the ravens, saith the Lord God." Yes,
there are diverse circumstances that come to us on wings,--kind words,
cheering messages, bright inspirations, and they are the commanded
ministers of God's providence. They are God's messengers on wings!
We can never tell in what remote circumstances the good Lord is even now
preparing our to-morrow. But of one thing we may be perfectly sure, the
great Lord is at work, and He is at work over wide fields. "Rest in the
Lord, and wait patiently for Him." "The Lord is thy keeper.... The Lord
shall keep thee from all evil, He shall keep thy soul. The Lord shall
keep thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for
evermore."
XII
THE SOLDIER'S FIRE
_Heavenly Father, may we experience that deepest of all joys
which is born of holy communion with Thee. Lead us into new
fields of our wonderful inheritance in Christ. May we have new
surprises of grace. May some fresh revelations of Thy love break
upon our astonished vision. Remove the scales from our eyes, so
that we may see clearly the things which are waiting to be
unveiled. Graciously make known to us what Thou wouldst have us
be in order that we may then more clearly apprehend what Thou
wouldst have us do. Help us to remember what we ought not to
forget, and help us to forget what we ought not to remember. May
our minds be the servants of Thy truth. Let the beams of
heavenly light chase out the darkness of error and let it be all
glorious within. We humbly pray Thee to deliver us from our
selfishness, and enlarge and refine our sympathies until they
express themselves in willing sacrifice. May we feel the pains
of others, and carry their burdens and share their yokes. May
the circles of our compassion grow larger every day. Let the
ends of the earth be at our own doors, and so may we hear the
cry which is very far off. Illumine our lives in this service,
and send us forth to enlighten and kindle the lives of others.
Make us missionaries of Thy truth and ambassadors of Thy grace
and love. May we be quick to discern opportunity, and ready to
use it in the service of the King. Amen._
XII
THE SOLDIER'S FIRE
"He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire."
Matthew 3:11.
Such is the divine promise. Let me read the story of its fulfilment.
"And when the day of Pentecost was fully come they were all with one
accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a
rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were
sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire,
and it sat upon each of them." Do not let us become victims of the
letter and become entangled in the symbolism. It is possible so to
regard material signs as to lose their spiritual significance. A musical
word may conceal its own thought. Words are purposed to be the vehicles
of mind. Symbols are intended to be transparencies, losing themselves
in something better. They are ordained to be thoroughfares through which
we pass to nobler destinations. The sign is to be the servant of its own
significance.
Here then are men and women who are about to receive the promised gift
of the Spirit of God. They have been waiting as their Master directed,
waiting in prayer, and in prayer incalculably strengthened by community
of desire, waiting in trembling watchfulness and expectation. Then the
much-hoped-for day arrives and their spirits receive the infinite
reinforcement of the gift of the Holy Spirit.
We have a very pale reflection of this experience when two human spirits
are given to each other in deep and vital communion. When David received
the gift of Jonathan's spirit, and Jonathan received the gift of David's
spirit, each of them obtained immeasurable enrichment. When Robert
Browning received the gift of Elizabeth Barrett's spirit, and Elizabeth
Barrett received the gift of Robert Browning's spirit, who can calculate
the wealth which each of them found in the other's possession?
But these examples, and others even more sacred which we could gather
from our own experience, are only pale and wan and shadowy, compared
with the wonder which breaks upon the soul when the spirit of man
receives the gift of the Spirit of God, and the two dwell together in
mystic and glorious communion. What happens to the human spirit is
suggested to us under the familiar symbols of wind and fire. "Like unto
a rushing mighty wind;" "like unto fire." Do not let us be enslaved by
any hampering details in the figures. Let us seek their broad
significance. And what is the characteristic of a rushing mighty wind?
It dispels the fog. It freshens the atmosphere. It gives life and
nimbleness to the air. It is the minister of vitality. And the breath of
God's Spirit is like that; it clears the human spirit, and freshens it,
and vitalizes it; it acts upon the soul like the air of a spiritual
spring. And as for the symbol of the fire; fire is the antagonist of all
that is frozen; it is the antagonist of the torpid, the tepid; it is the
minister of fervour, and buoyancy, and expansion. The wind changes the
atmosphere, the fire changes the temperature; and the holy Spirit of
God changes the atmosphere and temperature of the soul; and when you
have changed the atmosphere and temperature of a soul you have
accomplished a mighty transformation. It is about this change in the
moral and spiritual temperature that I want to meditate, the gift of
fire which we receive in the baptism of the Holy Ghost. If the spirit of
man and the spirit of God come into blessed communion, and the fire of
God is given, how will it reveal and express itself? For if there be a
gift of fire in the soul we shall most surely know it. Fire is one of
the things which cannot be hid. You can hide a painted sun in your
parlour and no one will know it is there, but you cannot hide a glowing
fire. A man can hide a denominational label, he cannot possibly hide the
holy fire of God. How, then, shall we know that the fire is there?
First of all I think I should look for the holy fire on the common
hearthstone of human love. If the fire of God does not warm up the
affections I fail to recognize what its heat can be worth. The first
thing to warm up is the heart. The intimate friend of the Holy Spirit
is known by the ardour of his affections. He loves with a pure heart
fervently. He is baptized with fire. Now I need not seek to prove the
existence of cold hearts among us. I am afraid we must accept them
without question. Whether there are hearts like fire-grates without a
spark of fire I cannot tell. Personally, I have never met with anyone in
whose soul the fire of love had gone quite out. I think that if we
sought very diligently among the gray dusty ashes of any burnt-out life
we should find a little love somewhere. Yes, even in Judas Iscariot, or
in the dingy soul-grate of old frozen-out Scrooge. But there are surely
souls so cold, and so destitute of love, that the poor fire never leaps
up in dancing, cheering, welcome flames. Their temperature is zero.
There are other souls with a little fire of love burning, but it is very
sad, very sodden, very sullen, very dull. There is more smoke than fire.
There is more surliness than love. Their fire is not inviting and
attractive. There is a little spitting, and spluttering, and crackling,
but there is no fine, honest, ruddy glow. Their temperature is about
ten above freezing. They are not frozen but they are not comforting.
There are other lives where the fire of affection is burning more
brightly, and certainly with more attractive glow, but where it seems as
if the quality of the fuel must be poor because the fire gives out
comparatively little heat. The heart sends out a cheery beam across the
family circle, but it does not reach beyond. There is no cordial warmth
for the wider circles of fellowship. The fire burns in the home but it
does not affect the office. It encompasses the child but it has no cheer
for the stranger. What is the temperature of such a life? It is very
difficult to appraise it. Perhaps it will be best to say that in one
room of the soul the temperature is 60, while in all the other rooms it
is down towards freezing.
And, therefore, I need not say how profound is the need in the world for
warm, glowing, affectional fires. What awfully cold lives there are in
the city, just waiting for the cheer of "the flame of sacred love!"
There are souls whose fires have died down at the touch of death. There
are others whose glow has been dulled by heavy sorrow. There are others
whose love has been slaked by the pitiless rains of pelting defeat.
There are others again whose hearts are cold in the midst of material
wealth. They have richly furnished dwellings, but their hearts are like
ice. They are unloved and unlovely, and they are frostbitten in the
realms of luxury. Wealth can buy attention; it can never purchase love.
My God! What cold souls there are in this great city!
And, therefore, what a clamant and urgent need there is for love-fires
at which to kindle these souls that are heavy, and burdened, and cold.
And when the Holy Spirit is given to a man, and he is baptized with
fire, it must surely, first of all, be the fire of cordial, human
affection. And such is the teaching of experience. When John Wesley came
into the fulness of the divine blessing in a little service at
Aldersgate Street, London, he said that he "felt his heart strangely
warmed." He was receiving the gift of holy fire. And I cannot but think
that Charles Wesley was thinking about his brother's experience on that
day when he wrote his own immortal hymn which includes the prayerful
lines:
"Kindle a flame of sacred love
In these cold hearts of ours."
You find and feel the glow of that love-fire throughout the New
Testament Scriptures. They who have the most of God's Spirit have the
most of the fire. There was Barnabas, who was declared to be "full of
the Holy Spirit," and he is also described as "the son of consolation."
What a consummate title! Cannot we feel the love-fire burning and
glowing in all his ample ministry? Full of the Spirit, and therefore
full of consolation! The truth of the matter is this,--we cannot be much
with the Spirit of Christ, and not take fire from His presence. In these
high realms, communing is partaking, and we kindle to the same affection
as fills the heart of the Lord. "We love because He first loved us." His
fire lights our fire, and we burn in kindred passion. So do I proclaim
that when the fire of God falls upon our spirits the sacred gift kindles
and inflames the soul's affections. When we are baptized with the Holy
Ghost and with fire, we receive the glowing power of Christian love.
Where else shall we look for that holy fire in human life? I think I
should look for the presence of the fire of the Holy Ghost in fervent
enthusiasm for the cause of Christ's Kingdom. And that indeed is what I
find. The New Testament instructs me in this, and it teaches me that
where man is baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire his own spirit
becomes fervent. He is declared to be "_fervent_ in spirit," and the
original word means to bubble up, to boil, as in a boiling kettle; it is
the emergence of the mighty power of steam. And so the significance is
this: the fire of God generates steam, it creates driving power, it
produces forceful and invincible enthusiasm. You will find abundant
examples of this spiritual miracle in the Acts of the Apostles; perhaps
the Book might be more truly named "The Acts of the Holy Spirit," for
all the glorious activity is generated by His holy fire. Let your eyes
glance over the apostolic record. Mark how the fire of God endows man
with the power of magnificent initiative. Take the apostle Peter;--once
his strength was the strength of impulse, a spurt and then a collapse, a
spasm and then a retreat, proud beginnings bereft of patience and
perseverance. But see him when the Spirit of God has got hold upon him,
and what a gift he has received of initial and sustained enthusiasm!
"And Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit!" You should see him then, and
note the strength of his drive, and the ardour of his enterprise! And
the example of Peter would be confirmed by the examples of all the other
apostles, if only we knew their personal history and experience. I wish
there had been given to us just a glimpse of doubting Thomas, slow,
hesitant, reluctant, uncertain, when the Holy Spirit had him in
possession. "And Thomas filled with the Holy Spirit,"--I would give
something to know the end of that sentence. And I wish we had one
glimpse of timid, fearful, night-walking Nicodemus, when the fire of
God's Spirit blazed in his soul. "Then Nicodemus, filled with the Holy
Spirit,"--I wonder what notable exploits would complete that unfinished
sentence. This we know; the holy fire transformed the timid into the
courageous, the lukewarm into the fervent, it generated a moral steam
which made them invincible.
The first apostles drove through tremendous obstacles. Indeed, they
never had the comfort of an open and unimpeded road. Every road was
thick with adversaries. What then? Through them or over them! "But,
Sire," said a timid and startled officer to Napoleon, on receiving
apparently impossible commands, "But, Sire, there are the Alps!" "Then
there must be no Alps," replied his audacious chief. "There must be no
Alps!" That was the very spirit of the first apostles. Mighty
antagonisms reared themselves in their way,--ecclesiastical prejudices,
the prejudices of culture, social hostilities, political expediences,
and all the subtle and violent contrivances of the world, the flesh and
the devil. "But, Sire, there are the Alps!" "There must be no Alps!"
Through them! Over them! What that coward Peter got through when the
fire of God glowed in his soul! When a man has the holy fire of God
within him he has a boiling fervency of spirit, and he can drive through
anything.
And that same holy fire gives the same terrific power to-day, the same
driving enthusiasm, the same patient, dogged, invincible perseverance.
If a man declares that he has received the fire of God's Holy Spirit, I
will look eagerly for the impetus of his sacred enthusiasm. If he be a
preacher I will look for labour in the passion, and the unsnarable
energy and patience which he will assuredly put into his work. If he be
a teacher, I will examine the generated steam, and note how much he can
do, how far he can travel, and how long he can hold out in the service
of his Lord. If he be a man who has set himself to some piece of social
reconstruction I will watch with what ardour, and ingenuity, and
inevitableness he is moving towards his goal. Is it the smashing of the
saloons? "Then Peter, filled with the Holy fire;"--what if that power
were harnessed to the enterprise? Or is it the awful plague and blight
of impurity; or is it the cleaning up of politics; the establishment of
rectitude in civic and national life? Whatever it be, the holy fire of
God will reveal its presence in the soul of man in an ardent enthusiasm
which cannot be quenched. It is the promise of our God, and shall He not
do it? "He maketh His ministers a flaming fire,"--and that fire can
never be blown out in the darkest and most tempestuous nights.
And lastly, I shall look for the signs of the presence of the Holy
Spirit in the fire of sacred resentment. If a man is baptized with the
Holy Ghost, and with fire, I shall expect to see the presence of that
fire in the capacity of hot and sensitive indignation. I need not say
that there is a mighty difference between hot temper and hot
indignation. Hot temper is a firing of loose powder upon a shovel. It is
just a flare, and an annoyance, and a danger. But hot indignation is
powder concentrated in the muzzle of a gun, and intelligently directed
to the overthrow of some stronghold of iniquity. Hot temper is the fire
of the devil. Hot indignation is the fire of God; it is the wrath of the
Lamb. What is this capacity of indignation? It is the opposite to frozen
antipathy, to tepid curiosity, to sinful "don't care," to all immoral
coldness and calculated indifference. There are many people who can be
irritated, but they are never indignant. They can be offended, but they
are never nobly angry. The souls who are possessed with the fire of God
are the very opposite to all these. I said at the very beginning of this
meditation that the breath of God is like the quickening atmosphere of
the Spring; but it is equally true to say that it can be like the
destructive blast of the African sirocco--"The grass withereth and the
flower fadeth _because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it_." The hot
breath of God is like unto a blast that scorches things in their very
roots. And if we share the breath of God's Spirit we too shall be
endowed with the ministry of the destructive blast, even the power of a
consuming indignation. Any form of public iniquity will make our fire
blaze with purifying wrath. Corruption in civic or national government,
inhumanity in the treatment of the criminal and the unfortunate, the
oppression of the poor, the brutal disregard of the rights of the weak
and the defenceless, any one of these will draw out our souls in the hot
and aggressive indignation which is the imparted fire of the Holy Ghost.
If any one claims to have been baptized with the Holy Ghost and with
fire, and he is indifferent in the presence of licensed iniquity, and
apathetic and lukewarm when gigantic wrongs glare and stare upon him,
that man's spiritual baptism is a pathetic fiction, and his boasted fire
is only a painted flame.
But if a man suffer a personal injury, if some wrong is done to him,
what kind of fire shall I expect to see in his life if he is filled with
the Holy Ghost? Yes, if some one has done an injury to another, and the
other has been baptized with the Holy Ghost, what kind of fire will he
reveal? Listen to this: "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst,
give him drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his
head!" It is the very fire that rains upon us from the Cross of our
Lord: "And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary,
there they crucified Him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand and
the other on the left. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do." What kind of fire is that? It is the same holy
fire which flowed from the soul of the martyr Stephen as he was being
stoned to death: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." It is a
marvellous fire, a most arresting fire; and we simply cannot withstand
it. It is the very fire of grace; it is live coal from the altar of God.
So this is the sort of fire I look for when a man claims to be filled
with the Holy Spirit,--the glowing fire of humble affection, the glowing
fire of noble enthusiasm, the glowing fire of indignation, and the
marvellous fire of self-forgetting grace. "He shall baptize you with the
Holy Ghost and with fire."
"He came in tongues of living flame,
To teach, convince, subdue,
All powerful as the wind He came,
And viewless too.
Spirit of purity and grace,
Our weakness, pitying see,
Oh, make our hearts Thy dwelling-place,
And worthier Thee."
XIII
VICTORY OVER THE BEAST
_Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for our knowledge that all our
springs are in Thee. Wilt Thou deliver us from any sense of
self-dependence, and lead us into an intimate fellowship with
the ministers of Thy grace. If any triumph has made us
self-confident, if any earthly success has made us proud, may
Thy Holy Spirit lead our spirits into the lowliness which is the
beginning of true wisdom and strength. We humbly ask that Thou
wilt deliver us from the sins which have become our masters, and
in which we find unholy delight. Incline our hearts unto Thy
law, and help us to find pleasure in obedience to Thy holy will.
Graciously redeem us from every care which fetters our souls,
and give us such an assurance of Thy providential love that we
may exult in the glorious liberty of the children of God.
Graciously remember us one by one. Be very near to those who
scarcely have the heart to pray. Mercifully meet with those who
have been stunned with sorrow, and who have not yet regained the
comforts of Thy peace. Remember all who are in grave perplexity,
and graciously light Thy lamp on their bewildered way. Receive
all our little ones into the circle of Thy blessing, and may
they early rejoice in Thy friendship and become devoted to Thy
holy will. Amen._
XIII
VICTORY OVER THE BEAST
"And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and they
that had gotten the victory over the beast." Revelation 15:2.
The symbolism of the city of God as given in the Book of Revelation
represents the character of its citizens, and all the glories of the new
Jerusalem have correspondences in the souls who live and move in that
radiant land. The sea of glass represents a spiritual character of regal
serenity, a character transparent in its limpid depths, and reflecting
in its stillness the very image of the Lord. And the sea of glass,
"mingled with fire," is significant of character made fervent by holy
love, purity made genial, righteousness changed into goodness by the
permeating heat of affectional enthusiasm and devotion.
And now I wish to examine the next descriptive sentence, which tells us
something of the history and experiences of those who have arrived at
the sea of glass, and who have attained the serene and genial purity of
those who hold immediate communion with God. And this is the sentence
which records some of the happenings which have befallen them on the
road; "_They have gotten the victory over the beast._" It is a very
striking conjunction, this which tells me that they who dwell by the sea
of glass have come by the way of the beast, and that they have conquered
the beast by the way. What was the beast which these men and women had
faced and conquered as they moved onward to the crystal sea? I do not
profess to know the precise historic interpretation. The beast may have
been the malignant and vindictive antagonism of the Emperor Nero. He may
have been the beast. The beast may have been the hostile and suffocating
pressure of the Roman Empire. The beast may have been the stealthy
seductions of the imperial city of Rome. The beast may have been the
fascinating and paralyzing charm of the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Anyone or all of these together may have been the beast which straddled
across the road and opposed these Christians on their journey towards
home. I do not know, and I frankly confess I am not deeply concerned to
know. The general boldness of the figure is quite enough for me.
Whatever else the beast may mean it must essentially mean anti-God,
anti-Christ, the antagonist of the divine. It must mean the animal side
of our nature seeking to invade the realm of the spirit, to force its
way among the executive powers of the soul, and to usurp the throne of
God. The beast is triumphant when the flesh and all the works of the
flesh have ousted the forces of the spirit. The beast is conquered when
the powers of the spirit never surrender their holy sovereignty, when
the forces of the flesh have been ordered to their place among the rank
and file, and when they are never allowed to wear the honours and
prerogatives of the commander-in-chief. "They that have gotten the
victory over the beast." The beast is just anti-Christ, in whatever form
he may appear.
Let us spend a little while in first of all examining this beast who
claims the control and mastery of our souls. Everybody has a vivid
experience of his power, but it may help to clarify our minds if we
consider what has been said about him by the recognized masters and
counsellors of the soul. Let us turn, then, to the pages of literature,
and first of all let us turn to the inspired literature itself. You have
scarcely opened the Word of God before the beast makes his appearance in
the form of a serpent. "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast
of the field." And who has not experienced the wiles of the serpent when
he approaches the soul in some charming seduction, in some fascinating
crookedness, in some wriggling sophistry, in some twisted excuse, in
some winding compromise? Who has not seen the beast when he has sought
to persuade the soul that the wriggle is the most graceful form of
motion, and that the curve is more acceptable than the straight line?
Who has not heard him when he has argued that the detour is the shortest
way home, and that a slight deviation from rectitude will lead to the
noblest ends? Yes, this beast is the apostle of the serpentine, and this
is his creed,--the wriggle is the best way to your goal. "The serpent
was more subtle than any beast of the field."
I turn over the pages of the old book, and I am confronted with an
extraordinary change in the form of the beast. He is no longer a
wriggling serpent but a prowling lion. "The devil goeth abroad like a
roaring lion." He no longer makes a seductive approach to the intellect
with his advocacy of the crooked way; he makes a passionate assault upon
the spirit with all the fiery forces of the flesh. It is no longer the
wriggle but a terrific leap. And who has not known him in this wild
approach? It is just the tremendous weight and pounce of anti-spiritual
impulse, the mighty onrush of carnal longing and desire. The lion is
sheer mass and weight of hungry craving. Who has not known the lion in
the way?... And yet beside the crystal sea are those "who have gotten
the victory over the beast."
Again I turn over the pages of the old book, and once again the form of
the beast has changed and he appears before me in the guise of a fox. It
is our Master's name for the foe. And who has not known the beast when
he has assailed the soul in the manner of a fox? It is the assault of
cunning, when things are made to appear in semblance what they are not
in spirit and in truth. Nay, it is the very art of foxiness that the fox
itself is made to look like a goose, and the wolf is given the
appearance of a lamb. Vice is dressed up like virtue. Falsehood moves
about in white robes and innocently accosts us in the dress of a white
lie. License tricks itself out as gaiety. Sin clothes itself in the
fashions of the hour and hides its talons in silks. I say this is the
very genius of the fox,--he makes you think you are having converse with
a harmless old goose! Who has not known the fox when he cunningly tried
to persuade us that the devil was God, and that hell was heaven, and
that death was.... But, O no, he never mentions death! In his scheme it
is part of the trick that death shall never be known. The old fox! And
yet, in spite of fox and lion and serpent, there were those beside the
sea of glass "who had gotten the victory over the beast."
Let me lead you further, for a moment or two, into the pages of a wider
literature, and let it be into the pages of Dante and John Bunyan. In
his immortal book Dante tells us that when he turned his feet to the
pilgrim road he was successively confronted by three beasts which sought
to stop his journey. And first he met a leopard:
"And lo! just as the sloping side I gained,
A leopard, subtle, lithe, exceeding fleet,
Whose skin full many a dusky spot did stain;
Nor did she from before my face retreat;
Nay, hindered so my journey on the way,
That many a time I backward turned my feet."
The leopard which confronted Dante was the symbol of sensuous beauty
which sought to block his road and ensnare his feet. Next he was
confronted by a lion:
"Yet o'er me, spite of this, did terror creep--
From aspect of a lion drawing near.
He seemed as if upon me he would leap,
With head upraised and hunger fierce and wild,
So that a shudder through the air did sweep."
The lion was to Dante the symbol of worldly pride. And next he met a
wolf:
"A she-wolf, with all ill-greed defiled,
Laden with hungry leanness terrible."
And the wolf was to Dante the lean symbol of a hungry greed; it was the
beastly type of avarice. And who has not shared the experience of Dante
on his own road and encountered the leopard, the lion and the wolf?...
And yet there were those before the sea of glass who had got the victory
over the beast.
Turn to John Bunyan. There is a wonderful passage in the early part of
John Bunyan's "Holy War," in which he describes the preparations which
the beast has made for his attack upon the soul. He tells how beast held
counsel with beast, and how it was agreed that they should assume forms
with which the soul was quite familiar; such as were accounted harmless,
lest the soul should be alarmed when they made their deadly approach.
"Therefore let us assault the soul in all pretended fairness, covering
our intentions with all manner of lies, flatteries, and illusive words;
feigning things that will never be, and promising that to them which
they shall never find." And so they marched toward the soul, "all in a
manner invisible," save only one, and he took on a shape as harmless and
familiar as a bird, and when he spoke he spake with such gentleness "as
if he had been a lamb." And I for one put myself side by side with John
Bunyan, for I too have known the beast when he has come disguised, and
has addressed me with all the harmlessness and innocence of a lamb.
I will add one further word in our consideration of the beast. When I
look around on the world to-day, upon the appalling scenes of passion
and hatred and slaughter,--it is to me very significant that so many of
the national emblems, which represent the corporate life of peoples, are
different types of beasts. It is the beast which still provides the
symbols of our national life. There is the lion; there is the bear;
there is the wolf, and I know not what besides! We talk of rousing the
bear and of twisting the lion's tail! Our national emblems are beasts.
The American nation has happily discarded the beast, but it has chosen
one of the fiercest among the birds--the bird whose talons are more
obtrusive than its song. I am suggesting the significance of the fact
that we have found nothing above the beast to symbolize the
individuality of national life. Perhaps some day we may "move upward,"
and we may erase the beasts from our emblems, but it will only be when
we have driven the beasts from our souls!
Well, then, after this swift glimpse into inspired and general
literature, and this glance upon the typical symbols of the national
life, we are more disposed than ever to say that the beast is just
anti-Christ, the presumptuous claim of the animal to take the place of
the spiritual, the defiant claim of the devil to usurp the throne of
God. But here are men and women whose triumph is recorded in my text,
who have conquered the beast, and who have attained a strong and fervent
purity in which the spirit is all in all. What was the secret of their
triumph? By what means and ministries did they conquer the beast?
Happily we are left in no manner of doubt, and the means by which they
conquered are offered to you and me. What says the Old Book?--"They
overcame by the blood of the Lamb." Let us tell their secret very
quietly and very simply, without any waste of words,--they shared the
blood of Jesus Christ and it changed them into giants. In some way or
other a communion was formed between their life and His life, and His
mighty life flowed into their life as vine-blood flows into the branch
of the vine. They shared the strength of Him who fought the beast in the
wilderness of Judea, and who fought him again in still more alluring
forms in the courts of Jerusalem and by the shores of the Lake of
Galilee. Yes, if you had asked these radiant victors by the sea of glass
to tell you how they triumphed, they would have reverently turned their
faces towards the Lord and eagerly answered, "By the blood of the Lamb!"
"I asked them whence their victory came,
They with united breath
Ascribed their conquest to the Lamb,
Their triumph to His death."
And the second secret of their triumph is to be found in their
continual warfare. They drank his blood to fight his fights. It is a
fight that knows no armistice. It acknowledges no flag of truce. Eternal
vigilance and eternal struggle is the price of spiritual freedom. Life
is warfare; it is never parade-drill; it is never holiday review; we are
never off duty; the contest is constant, and the close of every day
records a victory or a defeat. Our Master never promised his soldiers a
life of ease. The beast promises roads which are pleasant as field paths
that lead through grassy meadows. There shall be no flints, no thorns,
no briars; and if we choose, we can lie down in the meadows morning,
noon and night! That is the promise that the beast makes,--a promise
which is always broken. Our Lord always calls us to battles, to noble
crusades and prolonged campaigns. "His blood-red banner streams afar!"
He calls us to share the travail that makes His Kingdom come. Yes, He
calls us to glorious, endless battles, but He promises sure and certain
victory if we drink His blood along the way.
And so they conquered the beast by the blood of the Lamb. They
conquered by the continual battles of their faith. And lastly they
conquered by their songs of victory. They sang their way to the sea of
glass, and their songs were songs of victory all along the road. They
did not moan in misereres; they did not wail in lamentations as if the
beast were mightier than their Lord. They knew their Lord was mightier
than all; and their songs of victory were the beginning of their
triumph. O, the singing that abounds in the Word of God! O, the singing
you may hear in the Acts of the Apostles! And, O, the singing that
sounds through the Book of Revelation; the song of victory, the song of
Moses and the Lamb! At the battle of Dunbar, in the great critical days
of English freedom, Cromwell's troops sang their way to victory. They
could hear the roaring of the sea. The land was swept with deluges of
rain. But above the roar of the sea, and the sound of the pelting rain,
they lifted their voices in praise to God, and as they swept into battle
their song rang out; "God is our refuge and strength, a very present
help in time of trouble; therefore will we not fear if the earth be
removed and the mountains be shaken in the heart of the seas! The Lord
of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge!" Their song was
part of their armour; it was indeed the armour of their souls. I greatly
like that word of the Christian, Appollinaris, in Ibsen's play,--"The
Emperor Julian," which he spake when the forces of the beast were massed
against the soldiers of the cross;--"Verily I say unto you, so long as
song rings out above our sorrows, Satan shall never conquer!" Verily, I
too will say that our praise is an invincible armour,--we sing our way
to the triumph we seek!
Men and women, the beast can be conquered, for the mouth of the Lord
hath spoken it! You and I may stand at the sea of glass, pure,
transparent, fervent with divine love, victors over the beast, through
the blood of the Lamb, through constancy in battle, and in songs which
ring out above our sorrows, as we push along life's way.
"Soldiers of Christ, arise!
And put your armour on;
Strong in the strength which God supplies
Through His eternal Son.
From strength to strength go on,
Wrestle, and fight and pray;
Tread all the powers of darkness down
And win the well-fought day."
XIV
THE COMING GOLDEN AGE
_Holy Father, we thank Thee for the privilege of fellowship, and
for the help which we can give to one another. May the faith of
everyone be strengthened by the faith of all. May our penitence
be deepened because we are all engaged in common confession. May
our joys be enriched because we are all contemplating the
unsearchable riches of Christ. May our obedience become more
devoted because we all drink of the waters of inspiration.
Impart unto us the grace of sacred sympathy. May we reverently
bear one another's burdens and carry them in the arms of
intercession. We beseech Thee to grant unto us visions of Thy
glory in so far as our eyes are able to bear them. May we make
new discoveries among the mysteries of Thy truth. May the whole
worship prepare us for a larger ministry in the service of Thy
kingdom. Wilt Thou give us the armor we need for the great
campaign. Especially may we receive the endowment of the love
that never grows faint. Reveal to us our work, and then lead us
into a devotion which will never be satisfied until the work is
finished. Look upon the whole world in this hour of desolation
and woe. Enlarge our hearts to comprehend the sorrow, and may we
share the sufferings of our Lord in sacrificial labors. Let Thy
kingdom come, O Lord, and let Thy will be done on earth as it is
in heaven. Amen._
XIV
THE COMING GOLDEN AGE
"And many people shall go up and say, Come ye and let us go up
to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob;
and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths:
for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord
from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall
rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into
ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall
not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war
any more." Isaiah 2: 3, 4.
There is something almost unreal in these words when they are read
aloud in the times through which we are passing. They sound like the
voice of a mocking-bird calling from the midst of the dust and the
débris of a ruined world. It is like hearing the gentle peal of church
bells on the bloody field of battle. It is like anything you choose
which has become unreal, and which has been transferred from the healthy
book of noble prophecy to the bitter pages of satire and the sour lips
of the cynic. Yes, I grant that the great passage unfolds ideals which
have become mere scraps of paper, torn and retorn into a thousand
pieces, and blown about like withered leaves in an autumn gale. What,
then, are we to do? I am reminded of what Lord Morley said in Manchester
a few weeks ago. "When the war is ended,--this mournful chapter of sore
bereavement and wasted treasure, when all that is gone, I ask is there
not a moral loss which ought to be counted, a moral loss in the wreck of
ideals in which the men of my generation were deeply concerned? That
loss has got to be counted and retrieved. The fabric of those ideals has
to be built up again in the hearts and minds of men and women." Surely
that is an opportune word, and it offers both counsel and warning to the
Christian Church. We must not just sit down in the bloody dust, and wail
our misereres in deadly impotence. We have got to reconstruct the ruined
pile, and we must begin the reconstruction by rebuilding the golden
palace of our dreams.
And if we are going to rear again that stately temple of vision and
dream, who can give us nobler help than the Hebrew prophets, and who
among the prophets can help us more than Isaiah? Isaiah was a prophet
interpreting the mind of God. He was a statesman with a keen and
comprehensive outlook on human affairs. He was also a poet bringing to
human problems the illuminating imagination of the seer. He lived in a
time of grave national disloyalties, a time when peoples were abandoning
their most sacred trust. His were days of international strife and
convulsion, days witnessing vast world movements in which empires were
seen at their birth, and empires were seen in withering decline and
death. Isaiah was a man whose thought was distinguished by breadth and
depth and length. He saw things broadly, he saw things deeply, and he
also saw the things which gleamed afar. And as he looked out upon the
world to his vision the troubled and chaotic day merged into a
reconstituted order of active concord and peace. Isaiah was a confirmed
optimist. He had a keen sense of the future. He felt the days before
him. He could scent the waving harvest while yet the snow was on the
ground. He could catch the sound of harvest-home while the wintry wind
was whistling across the ice-bound field. And looking out over the dark
scene of convulsion and disaster, and amid the rude and brutal clamour
of international strife, he sang this song of the morning,--"They shall
beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into
pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither
shall they learn war any more." If we are purposing to rebuild the
fallen ideals of our own day, and so reconstruct our common life, can we
do better than stand near this man for guidance and inspiration?
How, then, does this man say that the golden dream is to be realized?
Through what preparatory stages are we to pass before we reach the
shining consummation? Isaiah declares that the fulfilment of the dream
is to begin in _the profound revival of spiritual religion_. "It shall
come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord's house
shall be established at the head of the mountains, and shall be exalted
above the hills." That is to say, the dominant peak in the reconstructed
landscape is to be a shining spirituality of pure and undefiled
religion. Man's relationship to God is to be the supreme relation
overtopping and overseeing everything else. "And many peoples shall say,
Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of
the God of Jacob, and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in
His paths." That is to say, in the golden age this is to be the common
aspiration; spiritual desire and spiritual ambition are to be dominant;
the biggest thing in life is to be the yearning for the divine
communion, the gladsome craving for fellowship in the heavenly quest.
That is how the golden dream is to begin to be fulfilled; it is to begin
in the recovery of vital worship, in the profound revival of spiritual
religion.
Now, all the best things can be mimicked in the cheapest counterfeits!
Pearls can be so skilfully manufactured that even the expert eye can be
deceived. There are diamonds about, common as window glass, and their
dancing gleams can delude the very elect. Yes, the best things can be
cleverly imitated, and their counterfeits can move unsuspected in the
most exalted places. It would be an amusing trait, if it were not a
tragic characteristic of human nature, how willing we are to borrow the
clothes of realities, and just strut about in our cheap and glittering
attire. And it is so easily done! Anybody can borrow the jolly meters of
Rudyard Kipling and put their own tawdry stuff into his caskets; and a
thousand people have done it! Anybody can borrow the disorderly
irregularities of Walt Whitman, and into his eccentric bottles they can
pour their own cheap wine; and crowds of people have done it! It is so
easy to borrow clothes, and bottles, and outer forms. Yes, and it is so
easy to borrow the outer garments of religion and to move about in the
mere trappings of devotion. We can borrow the sacramental cup and put
into it the thinnest and the most diluted wine of life. Our apparent
religion can be just an affair of clothes, a borrowed skin, an acted
thing, a play, a theatricality with feigned postures and emotions,
altogether devoid of blood-red life, and having no deep and vital
commerce with the Infinite. Religion can be conventional, having no
inner sanction of fine awe and godly fear. We can get religion while all
the time religion has not got us. It can be just a light performance, a
social convention and not a solemn travail in which the soul is doing
great business in deep waters in communion with the eternal God.
Now, is not this the religious condition into which the world has
drifted in these latter days? I do not make exception of any country,
not even of America. This country is delivered from the horrors of the
European convulsion, not by a separating gulf of moral and spiritual
condition, but by 3,000 miles of sea. If the coast line of America had
been twenty-five miles from the coast of Europe she would have been
involved in the woes of the boiling cauldron. And therefore do I put the
inclusive question,--and I venture to challenge your judgments,--is not
the religious condition which I have suggested one into which the entire
Christian world appears to have fallen? Multitudes of Christian people
are just wearing the clothes of religion. We have religious professions
without spiritual possessions. We have religious conventionality without
devotional vitality. We have the show without the life. We have the skin
of religion without its sacrificial heart. We have the crucifix without
the Saviour. We have the altar but not the open heaven.
You may make the test in any way you please. Let us test our condition
by any one of the primary characteristics of true and vital religion.
Let us apply one test. Let us test our condition by our own secret and
personal communion with the Lord. I am speaking in a Christian church,
and I am addressing professedly Christian people; well, how do we stand
the test? What proportion of the members of the Church of Christ in this
country have a really living and fruitful fellowship with God? How many
have walked the way of communion so frequently that it is now a
much-beloved and well-trodden road, along which they can easily and
naturally make their way in the dark, yea, even in the stormy midnight
when the floods are out, and the tempest howls about their ways?
For we cannot have religion with God wiped out! If religion is only
beneficence, if it is only decent, respectable living, if it is only a
comfortable conformity with accepted social standards,--if that is all
it is, then let us say so and have done with it. Let us pull down our
altars and fling their useless stones to the winds. But this is not
religion. True religion is more than this. True religion is the reverent
and most solemn recognition of the eternal God. It is the conscious
prostration of the soul in His most holy Presence. It is the free
because reverent fellowship of a child with the Father. It is the loyal
acceptance of the Father's will. It is the humble reception of His grace
as offered to us in Jesus Christ our Lord. It is the assumption of our
life as a sacred trust accepted from the hands of God. It is the
anticipation of His glory in our eternal home. Religion has great human
relationships with our fellowman, and these shall not be overlooked. But
for the moment, I am speaking of the fontal relationship of the soul
with God, that fundamental fellowship in which all other worthy
fellowships are born, and I ask you whether all the peoples of all
professing Christian nations have not wandered far from the vitalizing
bond of this primary communion? Let your eyes roam over the darkened
world; dense clouds are still rising everywhere on the ominous horizon.
How is that night-time to be turned into day, yea, into a day like unto
a lovely summer's morning? Here is the answer of the greatest of the
prophets when he, too, was confronted with tempest and night;--the first
thing we have to pray for, and work for, and seek for, in every
Christian country, is a profound revival of spiritual religion, when
"the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established at the head of
the mountains, and when many peoples shall say, Let us go up to the
mountain of the Lord, and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk
in His paths." This, I say, is needed in every country, until in every
country all who profess the Saviour's name shall cry out in the fervour
of a great and quenchless desire,--"As the hart panteth after the water
brook, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God!"
Now look at the second stage in the realization of the golden dream.
"He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths.... And He
shall judge between the nations." That is to say, a profound revival of
spiritual religion will be accompanied by _loftier and more exacting
moral standards_. He will teach and we will walk. Morals always grow lax
when piety gets cool. When religion becomes a mere conventionality,
morality always loses its awful sanctions. Wipe out God and your moral
standards will surely fall. If I neglect the temperature of my
greenhouse, or if I play fast and loose with it, my tender plants will
assuredly droop. And if I neglect my spiritual temperature, which is the
climate of my soul, my moral and spiritual flowers will be smitten and
pinched. We cannot lower our spirituality and yet have our morality keep
its winsome bloom. Let me ask you,--have you ever known anyone grow
loose and careless in their religion, and at the same time become
correspondingly nobler and purer, and more scrupulously faithful in
their daily life? Have you ever known anyone drop Christ and then become
more like Him? Have you ever had occasion to whisper this secret
concerning any living woman,--"O, yes, she broke off communion with
Christ, and then she put on moral grace and beauty like a robe?" The
very question is an insult to our intelligence, as it is an affront to
our experience; for this is the eternal law, whose workings can be
witnessed every day,--when the spirit deteriorates the moral life
becomes diseased.
On the other hand, let there be an enrichment in vital godliness and
our conduct will begin to shine like burnished gold. "He will teach,"
says the prophet, "and we will walk." _He_, with Whom we hold vital
communion, _He_ will be the teacher of the spirit, and the illuminant of
the conscience and the inspiration of the will; a nobler conduct will be
born of that fellowship as surely as the choicest grapes are the
children of the healthiest vines. When we are all in living and deep
communion with Christ, truly worshipping in the innermost secret
place,--English, and German, and American, and Japanese,--a finer spirit
of judgment will be abroad in the earth, a healthier moral climate, and
we shall naturally and instinctively seek to do what Jesus did, and in
the way that Jesus did it, when He came and dwelt among us as a
carpenter's Son, Son of Mary, Son of Man, Son of God!
Only one thing remains to be said as to the process by which the
radiant dream of the prophet is to be fulfilled. When there has come a
profound revival of spiritual religion, and, consequently, a loftier and
more exacting moral standard, there will be a wonderful conversion of
destructive forces in the personal and national life. "They shall beat
their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks." I
want you carefully to notice that the sword is not to be destroyed; it
is to be transformed; it is to become a ploughshare. The spear is not to
be broken and thrown away; it is to be converted into a pruning-hook.
That is to say, the rudely destructive energies in human life are to be
changed into constructive energies. What was darkly negative is to
become brightly positive. The martial is to be transformed into the
pastoral. The rude implement of slaughter is to become the breaker of
the earth-clod or the helpful friend of the vine. "They shall beat their
swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks." After the
first historic siege of Antwerp, the cannon balls were taken and
converted into church bells; and may the gracious and holy Lord grant
that there may speedily come such a transformation in modern Antwerp,
when all the ministers of carnage shall be changed into sweet and sacred
ministers of worship and devotion!
But now, if swords are to be beaten into ploughshares and spears into
pruning-hooks, where must that work begin? It must begin in the
individual heart. We are never going to get the swords out of the
nations until we have got them out of the hearts. There is a sword in
the heart, a cruel sword, a minister of destruction. There is a sword in
the German heart, and a sword in the English heart, and a sword in the
American heart, and that sword has got to be transformed before the
material sword can become a ploughshare of the field! We are all
familiar with our own swords; perhaps I had better say, we are all
acquainted with one another's swords. There is the sword of ill-will.
There is the spear of deadly gossip. There is the sword of evil
prejudice. There is the spear of petty spite and contempt. Yea, surely
there is a sordid armoury in the soul. And this has to be converted into
a tool-house of a noble Christian culture before the material armouries
can be emptied and the sound of war is heard no more.
And therefore, the great national revolution is to begin in individual
conversions, and these are to be the children of a vital and saving
religion. The transformation of the world is to begin in the conversion
of people like you and me. There is no other way. When our own
militaristic armour, the one stored in our own soul, is changed into a
garden tool-house,--malice changed into good-will, suspicion into
enlightened understanding, cynicism into genial and gracious esteem, and
foul hatred into Christ's own strong and fruitful love, then we are
bringing the day nearer of which the herald angels sang, when there
shall be "peace on earth and good will among men."
All this cannot be done by scholarship. We cannot do it by legislation.
We cannot do it by commerce. It is the vital work of salvation, and it
only can be done by the Saviour of the world. And He must do it in His
own way, and His work must be thorough, profound, fundamental. He must
search the very cellarings of our being, seeking out our wickednesses as
with a candle, and cleansing and purifying us in the deepest and most
secret rooms of the soul. And when we thus come to know our Saviour, we
shall most surely come to know our brother, for we shall see him with
ourselves in the radiant light of the same eternal grace and love. Then
will our swords be beaten into ploughshares and our spears into
pruning-hooks and we shall learn war no more!
XV
MORE THAN CONQUERORS
_Heavenly Father, wilt Thou graciously redeem us from any
perilous mood of independence which sets our wills against
Thine. Help us to find ourselves in Thee, and to come to our
inheritance in the riches of Thy grace. Give us that lowliness
of spirit which will enable us to find the gate of higher life
and to enter in. Forgive the sin that binds our judgment and
enable us through a pure heart to see ourselves in Christ, and
to behold ourselves perfected in the power of His love. Save us
from low ideals. Lift us out of the thoughts that belittle us
and which check and destroy our powers of growth. Give us wider
and deeper conceptions of all things. May the experiences of our
life come to us as helpful disciplines, through which we may
apprehend more of Thy purpose, and more swiftly put on the
likeness of our Lord. May we not be mastered by our
circumstances, but may we be so strong in Thy strength, that
every circumstance may be our servant, adding some fresh grace
to our spirits, and some new influence to our lives. May we lose
the things we ought not to keep, and may we desire the things we
ought to find. Control us, O Lord, by Thy spirit, taking us away
from the shallows of common life into the great deep privileges
of communion with Thee. Amen._
XV
MORE THAN CONQUERORS
"In all these things, we are more than conquerors." Rom. 8:37.
Was the writer of these words himself a conqueror? To whom is he making
the proud boast? He is writing his letter to the people of Rome. And it
is in this letter to Rome that the apostle claims to be a conqueror. If
he had been writing to a little company of people living in some quiet
and remote district in Asia Minor, far away from the movement and
pageantry of imperial life, his boast of being a conqueror might have
been received without surprise. But think of the daring of making his
claim in a letter to the Romans, who were accustomed to gaze upon their
conquerors as they returned in glory from triumphant wars of conquest,
dragging their distinguished captives at their chariot wheels! When the
apostle claims to be a conqueror he is using a word which to the Romans
is weighted with pomp and glory, suggesting cities ablaze with emblems
of festivity, and streets thronged with cheering multitudes, and a hero
upon whom favours are being showered thick as the flowers which are
flung upon his triumphal car. When Paul dares to call himself a
conqueror in a letter to the Romans he is using a word significant of
all this wealth and effulgence, and he is using it to describe the
passage of his own life down the ways of time. "We are more than
conquerors." Such a claim would surely strike the Roman reader with
amazement.
What was there in the apostle's life to correspond to the claim? What
was there about it which in any way recalled the radiant entry of an
acclaimed warrior into the festive city of Rome? Let us glance at the
external circumstances of his Christian life. Is there anything in these
circumstances of pomp, and flowers, and favour, and acclamation? Run
your eye over the apostle's road. What are its features? What is it like
as it stretches from Damascus to Rome? In peril of his life in Damascus,
his enemies watching the gates day and night to kill him; coldly
suspected by his fellow-believers in Jerusalem; persecuted at Antioch;
assaulted in Iconium; stoned in Lystra; beaten with many stripes in
Philippi; attacked by a lewd and envious crowd in Thessalonica; pursued
by callous enmity in Berea; despised in Athens; blasphemed in Corinth
and dragged before the judgment-seat; exposed to the fierce wrath of the
Ephesians; bound with chains in Jerusalem, and finally imprisoned at
Rome! Such is the character of his cold, storm-swept, painful road. And
yet he dares to call himself a conqueror, and to so style himself to the
men of imperial Rome! When I turn away from the gay and rapturous
streets, through which the Roman conqueror made his tumultuous entry,
and then gaze on the long, dark, cruel road on which this man trudged
throughout all his public days, his life seems to be broken up in
successive tragedies, and to sink at last in the black defeat of utter
and complete eclipse. And yet he sings aloud in joyful pride: "We are
more than conquerors"! Where, then, shall we look for the signs of
conquest, and for the waving banners, and the rapturous shouts?
There are two ways of estimating a triumphant life. We may trace the
line of external circumstances, and we make an inventory of the material
treasures, and the flattering diplomas, and the public honours that have
been gained along the way. That road winds by the bank, and the Stock
Exchange, through Wall Street, or Threadneedle Street, and thence it
stretches away through fair suburbs of material comforts, and through
gardens of enticing ease, ascending even to lofty eminences of public
favour and regard. We may walk along this road in our desire to estimate
a man's standing, and to reckon the degree and quality of his conquests.
And judged by that standard Paul's circumstances were disastrous, and
his life was just a dismal succession of appalling defeats. Indeed the
apostle himself has given his own verdict upon his life when it is
judged by the standard of Wall Street, and he has done it in two words
of pregnant and sweeping brevity--"having nothing"! And yet he claimed
to be "more than conqueror"!
But there is another way of judging the failure or triumph of a life. We
may follow the line of character. We may register the success of the
soul in its mastery of circumstances, in its refusal to be submerged by
evil antagonisms, in its preservation of a diamond-like translucency
amid engulfing floods of defilement, in its buoyancy in the days of
prolonged disappointment, in its quiet and firm ascendency over the
beast, in its inevitable emergence from every kind of hostility in
increasing majesty and strength. These are the two lines of
investigation. These are the possible criteria of judgment. On the one
hand we may measure the success of a life by the progressive enrichment
of circumstances; on the other hand we may estimate its conquests by the
progressive growth of the soul. We may make our valuation in the
material world or in the spiritual world; that is to say, we may value
the man or we may value his possessions.
Now the circumstantial happenings in a life had little or no interest
for the apostle Paul. All his concern followed the inward line of the
spirit. He kept his eyes on spiritual processes and never on material
results. He did not busy himself with a man's happenings; he busied
himself with the effect of the happenings on the man. Always and
everywhere he pressed through condition to character; his thought always
took the short cut to the soul. If in the streets of Rome or of Ephesus
you had pointed out to him some rich man, Paul would have immediately
leaped the adjective and inquired about the noun. He would have had no
interest whatever in the man's riches; riches are no criterion of
triumph; but he would have been devouringly interested in what the
riches had done with the man. While the man has been making riches, what
have riches made of the man? Measure the man! Is the man who is within
the riches a victor or a victim, a noble master or a poor ignoble slave.
And so also do I believe that if you had pointed out to the apostle
some poor man, he would have left the adjective and fixed upon the noun.
What about the man inside the poverty? What about the soul so ill-housed
in indigence? Is the soul royal or servile? Is it crouching or has it a
noble and stately rectitude? That would be the concern of the apostle
Paul. He would get behind the riches to the man. He would get behind the
poverty to the man. For every external happening or every material
possession is only a house, and within the happening there is the man or
the woman, the tenant of the house. What about them? What about the
quality of their manliness or womanliness? That was the apostle's line
of investigation. The apostle Paul was not much concerned about the
character of the road, whether it was bare or flowery, but he was
vitally concerned with the spiritual condition of the traveller. How is
it with the pilgrim soul? What spiritual conquests has the soul made
along the road? That is the apostle's standard of measurement, and by
its records he registers life's conquests or defeats.
Well, then, what was the quality of his own life when it is measured by
these interior standards? For, after all, these are the only standards
worth naming, as in our sober and thoughtful moments we all very well
know. We are not here to make fortunes, we are here to grow souls. How
then does the apostle bear the supreme test of his own spiritual
standards? Is he master or slave? Are the streets of his soul festive
with triumph, or are they dull and cheerless in defeat? Is he more than
conqueror?
Let us begin the test with a day when his external circumstances were
brilliant. Brilliant days came but rarely to the apostle Paul; they were
as infrequent as oases in Sahara's thirsty waste. Test him then on one
of his rare, brilliant days, for the dazzling circumstance is often our
severest test. Some souls shrivel in the bright sunshine. They grow less
in their enlarging circumstances as some nut-kernels contract in the
expanding shell. Here is Paul on a great day, when by the mighty grace
of God he has made an impotent man to walk. How is the deed regarded?
What does the crowd think about him? Listen to the records: "And when
the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying
in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness
of men. And they called Barnabas, Jupiter; and Paul, Mercurius, because
he was the chief speaker. Then the priest of Jupiter, which was before
their city, brought oxen and garlands unto the gates, and would have
done sacrifice with the people." How now? The public favour is dazzling!
What about the man inside the dazzling happenings? Is the man
contracting in pride or is his soul expanding in humility? "Which, when
the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and
ran in among the people, crying out, and saying, Sirs, why do ye these
things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you
that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made
heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein." Do you
mark that? This man shines in the sunshine. Popular favour made him
kneel before his God, and God's gentleness made him great. The
circumstances did not lessen him. His soul did not shrivel and wither in
the popular blaze. His soul grew larger, and the man mastered his
circumstances; he was bigger than his blazing fate, he was "more than
conqueror."
But I have said that brilliant days were rare with the apostle Paul:
Let us test him, then, when his days were frowning, when the clouds were
lowering, and when his circumstances nipped him like the winter frosts.
Does his soul expand in the winter, or does it shrink like frostbitten
fruit? Take this little glimpse of one of his days: "And there came to
Lystra certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people,
and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been
dead." Having stoned Paul, they dragged him out of the city. How swift
and red is the record! Did he grow hard in the stoning? Did he become
small and petty and peevish and revengeful? Let me read to you: "And
when they had preached the gospel to that city, and had taught many,
they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch, confirming
the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith,
and that we must through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of
God." This man's fruit grew sweeter at the touch of the frost. This soul
grew larger in the season of apparent defeat. He was "more than
conqueror."
Look again through this window. Here is a very dark and bitter
happening: "And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast
them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely: who, having
received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made
their feet fast in the stocks." How now? Will this man Paul scowl in the
darkness? Will his magnanimity sour into the bitter mood of revenge?
Listen to the record: "And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang
praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them." Do you mark that? This
man was a victim but he was also a victor. We almost forget his
sufferings in the sound of his praise. Adversity did not rob him of his
crown. He was "more than conqueror."
And so I might go on introducing instance after instance, in every
record of his turbulent life, showing how he attained to magnificent
mastery in the spirit. When Paul speaks of being a "conqueror" he means
that he is on the top of his circumstances and not beneath them. To be
more than conqueror is to be on the top of your wealth and not beneath
it; to be on the top of your poverty and not beneath it; to be on the
top of your joy and not beneath it; to be on the top of your sorrow and
not beneath it; to be on the top of your disappointment and not beneath
it. To be more than conqueror is to be on the top of the old serpent,
and, as Browning says, to stand upon him and to feel him wriggle beneath
your feet! The real conqueror, the only one worthy of that royal name,
is he who makes every circumstance his subject, permitting no
circumstance to be the lord and master of his soul. He is "more than
conqueror."
And what is the secret of such conquest? Here is the secret: "We are
more than conquerors _through Christ that loved us_." It is conquest
through the energy of an imparted love. Nay, it is much more than that.
It is conquest through humble yet intimate communion with the eternal
Lover. You remember what conquests the knights of the olden time could
achieve when they were conscious that love-eyes were fixed upon them in
the jousts. And if this were so with knights of ancient chivalry, when
love inspired them in the fray, how infinitely more must it be so with
the knights of King Jesus' Order when they know that the love-eyes of
the Lord are always fixed upon them in the field! "He loved me" sings
the greatest of the apostolic knights. "He loved me and gave Himself for
me." What tremendous exploits of patience and of service lie latent in
that supreme assurance!
For, mark you, all love conveys the lover to the beloved. The very
secret of love is self-impartation to the beloved. Love can never
content herself with the gifts of things. Charity gives things. Love
always gives herself. Yes, the lover gives herself! And if love is thus
self-giving tell me, then, what inconceivable giving is wrapped up in
the love of Christ for Paul, and in the love of Christ for thee and me?
In an infinitely deeper and richer sense than ever a loving bridegroom
gives himself to his loving bride, our great and gracious Lover, the
Christ, gives Himself to all who will receive Him. The Saviour's love is
the giving of Himself.
Shall I now dare to put that vast and awe-inspiring content into my
text? Listen again to the text: "We are more than conquerors through
Christ who loved us." Now hear it: "We are more than conquerors through
Him who has given himself to us." That word expresses the very gospel of
His grace. The Christian believer faces all his circumstances, not
merely with a love but with a Lover, and with a Lover who Himself
mastered every circumstance, and was the conqueror of sin and death. So
this is how the Gospel music rings: "We are more than conquerors through
Him the Conqueror"! By reverent faith we share His very love, we drink
His very blood, and all our circumstances are made to pay tribute to the
health and welfare of our souls. We are more than conquerors through Him
Who is ever riding forth, conquering, and to conquer.
Now I think I can go back to those streets of Rome where we began, and
where we watched the triumphant conqueror returning home with his
spoils. And now I am not surprised at Paul's daring to use the glowing
word "Conqueror" to portray the glorious victories of the soul. When I
go into the realm of his soul the roadway is lined with a cheering
multitude; he is "compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses." A
blood-red banner is waving triumphantly in all his goings; "His banner
over me is love!" A garland of victory awaits the victor's brow;
"henceforth there is laid up for me a crown." And as for his spirits,
they are festive in the love of the Lord, and they dance in the joy of
blessed assurance. "I know in whom I have believed!" "I can do all
things through Christ who strengtheneth me!" We are more than conquerors
in the conquering fellowship of our holy and gracious Lord. And this
song of the conqueror is intended to be sung by thee and me. O, let us
believe it!
"Shall this divinely-urgéd heart
Half toward its glory move?
What! shall I love in part--in part
Yield to the Lord of love?
O sweetest freedom, Lord, to be
Thy love's full prisoner!
Take me all captive; make of me
A more than conqueror!"
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