"And unto the angel of the Church in Sardis write; These things saith He that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God."—Rev.iii. 1, 2.
Reading the last clause a little more literally will more fully bring out the meaning: "For I have found no works of thine fulfilled before My God."—R.V.
THE passage forms a picture—God on His throne, Christ by His side, the work of the Churches on earth travelling up to God, and presenting itself before the throne Divine, and Christ, as the Churches pass in procession, judging them. The religious activity of the Church in Sardis swept by before God's throne, under Christ's eyes, and as it passed He saw that not one single task undertaken by that Church was done fully; everything was half done, and therefore worthless. It was not that the church was doing nothing, but it was doing nothing worth doing. These were the facts. Christ's judgment on the facts is this: "Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead." A Church all whose labours are but half done is dead. Yet there were good men and women in the congregation at Sardis. If you read on you find this said byChrist: "Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments."
So, then, a Church may be dead though it contains living members. How can that be? A Church is not a mere number of individuals added to one another; something results from that combination of separate individuals; something very different, with fresh powers and added responsibilities, rises out of grouping together a number of individual Christians, that is a Church. A Church, a congregation (it is in that sense I use the word "Church" all through this discourse), has an individuality of its own; a Church has a character of its own; a Church has a spirit of its own; a Church has capacities of its own; a Church can do what no individual nor any mere number of individuals added together can do; a Church, as soon as it is constituted, creates a new kind of life, a new kind of being, a new kind of activities. No individual Christian, however good he may be, can out of himself make Christian fellowship, Christian devotion, Christian labour and co-operation, all that social life which springs from the union of severed individuals; no separate Christian, nor any number of separate Christians, can produce that. A Church, therefore, is something distinct from the individual members of whom it is built. A house is not a thousand bricks; it is something quite different, something made not merely by the presence of the bricks, but by their being built together. Each separate element of the building, when united, is able to do its share in the great work that none of them, or any member of them, could do without that combination which forms the edifice. A Church, a congregation, has its own character. Each provincial town in England has a character of its own;and an intelligent man, with quick sympathies, recognises the difference of spirit when he enters a town from that which was prevalent in the town he left. One is Radical, one is very Materialistic; one is full of poetry, and imagination, and literature; and the individual residing in the town is affected by the general spirit of that town. Every school has a character of its own, a spirit of its own; not that each boy in the school is just modelled on that type, but to a large extent each individual pupil is affected by the spirit of the school. The spirit of the school exists in the boys that dominate it. It is the same with Churches. In one congregation you are conscious of warmth, and enthusiasm, and friendliness, and love; in another congregation you are conscious of stiffness, and a rigid propriety, and distance, and coldness, and artificiality. In one Church you are conscious of a large, and liberal, and generous spirit; in another Church you are conscious of factions, fighting, and meanness and stinginess. That is a fact; you have felt it. A mere stranger entering the building on a Sunday morning feels it; it is there, there in the very faces of the people as they sit in their pews, there in the minister as he stands in the pulpit. A public speaker said to me this last week, "I may come with my address to a weekday meeting, but it all depends upon the spirit and mood of the meeting; it is one thing in one place, and another in another;" and if you have ever tried to speak in a Church or at a meeting you will have found it to be so. There may be a dozen men present in that meeting whose spirit is all that you may want, but they cannot make the result; the general result of it is determined by the mass. So it may come to pass that in a congregation there may be not a few individualmembers who are warm, living, earnest servants of Jesus Christ; but their goodness is not of the dominating kind; they have piety, but they lack manly power; they have good feeling and good intentions, but they have not character; they cannot command the whole; they cannot give their spirit to the mass of men; they just survive, but they cannot take the offensive; they have need of protection. They live themselves, but do not live half so strongly or half so healthily as they would in a congregation which was warm to the very tips of its fingers and the fringes of its garments; they are living, but the Church is dead.
What is the life of a Church? The life of a Church is loving loyalty to Jesus Christ, present more or less in the actual human heart of all the members; an inner, hidden thing, that you cannot weigh in a balance, that you cannot set down in figures in an annual report, that you cannot exhibit to a non-believer or a worldling, but the greatest, the most powerful force in all our world.
The life of a Church is a living, real presence of Jesus Christ, as a daily influence on the conduct, the thoughts, the words, the deeds of all the members of that Church. The life of a Church is the living presence of Jesus Christ in every committee of management, in every meeting of Sunday-school teachers, in every social gathering of the congregation; a living loyalty and devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ, born out of a grateful certainty that He died to save us, born out of a grand sympathy with Him, and under the belief that He is willing to save all the men and women and all the little children who are round about us. That is the living life of a Church, and nothing else is. You may have a perfect orthodoxy, and death; you may havegreat activity, and yet you may have death. Nothing is the life of a Church but actual living loyalty and love to the real living Lord of the Church, Jesus Christ.
Christ stands at the right hand of God, judging the Churches. He judges them by their works. But the life of a Church is not a thing of the hands or of the tongue; it is a thing of the heart. At the same time Christ has to make His judgment just; He has to go upon visible facts, and He can safely proceed upon the Church's work. Wherever there is life it cannot be still; it works, it moves, it beats, it becomes warmed; it must come out. If a Church has no works it has no life. What are those works which are the visible signs of a living Church? They are these: No dry, spasmodic zeal for orthodoxy when some heresy crops up which makes a public sensation; no straight, rigid propriety, and fineness of outward form, and æsthetic culture of ceremonial. The life that is loving loyalty to Christ, present in the heart of every individual member of a congregation, comes out in this way: it makes hearty singing on a Sunday. Even a man who has no musical voice, and who is a little weary, cannot help singing when his heart is stirred, even if he stops short in case he should make discord to his neighbours. It is all nonsense to say that people have grateful hearts to Christ when they sit with shut mouths to Christ's praise. I know well that habit has a great deal to do with it. It is the way of some Churches to sing heartily, and it is the way of some other Churches to let the choir do the singing; and I know, therefore, that you must not too absolutely take such a test as a standard by which you will judge whether or not there is a living warmth, and enjoyment, and cheering in the service and in the congregation. I believe all that, neverthelessI have seen the most stiff and silent congregation roused to sing when their hearts were aroused. Such silence is a bad habit. And how about the prayers? Men will not merely listen to the words, and will not criticise a man when he prays; men will be reverent; men will, by their very attitude, make it felt that souls are face to face with God. Men will not be sitting finding fault with all the blurs and blemishes that there are in the services (which there must be in every human service) when their hearts are being fed, and when their souls are going out to God. There will be no lack of Sunday-school teachers; and the Sunday-school teachers in such a Church will not do their work in a listless and negligent way, and fail in keeping their appointments and engagements, but will do it as if it were a pleasure. It is not the blame of Sunday-school teachers in a dead Church if they are teachers of that sort; it is the blame of the dead Church. How can they keep alive? Shall we put the penalty upon those who are partially living? No; it is the great mass of death, and decay, and coldness which is to blame. Let us visit the sins on the guilty parties.
A living Church will show its life in hearty, generous liberality to every good cause. A living Church will show its life by bravery and courage in taking up new responsibilities that may offer themselves, and working them most heartily. A living Church is living, not because it does one or all of these things, but because it loves loyalty to the Lord Jesus, who died for it, and feels that goodness and holiness are the grandest things in the world, and is eager to have all the children taught to love the Lord Jesus, and all the young people who are going out amid the temptations of life strengthened and helped to withstand them, and old peoplewhose lives are embittered when a disaster comes upon them made tender, and soft, and submissive, by the life of Christ in that Church and among their Christian neighbours. Yes, the life of a Church is not a mere liking for what Christ loves, and a wish to please Him, but real life and real love to Christ will come out, not in correctness of creed, but in life and in work. It is an awful thing when a Church is dead, with all the children in it gathering to go to a Church which is cold, and to a dragging service, and to spiritless singing, and to melancholy prayer, and to a dry preaching. Ay, I have seen children who hated religion, because their parents, as I believe, were living in a dead Church. I have often said, "Cut your connection with such a Church; go rather to another denomination, which has life." I venture to say that a father who loves his child will sacrifice anything in order that that child may have pleasant and attractive views of religion. But shall the child's first idea of religion come to him in the shape of a crippled and broken-down failure? Fathers and mothers are absolutely bound thus to promote the spiritual interests of their children; it is worth more than anything else that is done for them; and I say that a Church which is gathering those young people around it, and keeping them from more dangerous places, and leading them to have it in their hearts to come and sit down with Christian people, is doing more than all the world will ever do. It is worth taking a great deal of trouble to belong to a living Church, and it is the absolute duty of every member of every Church to do all he can not merely to make himself alive, but to make the whole Church full of warm, living life.
When a Church is dead, or only half alive, thedefect shows itself specifically and certainly in this manner: The Church's work is only half done, and can only half be fulfilled, when only a portion of its members fulfil their allotted task to their Master. If, in a Church which numbers five hundred, only fifty are doing the utmost they can do, the Church's measure of work will not be fulfilled before the judgment-seat of God. Fifty individuals cannot do what it takes five hundred to do. A half-done work, how it is spoiled! The army were defending the frontier bravely and successfully; but one cowardly regiment gave way, and the ranks were broken, and all the bravery, and the blood, and the death of the brave men were lost—lost by the cowardice. The work of a Church that is wearily done, in its life and extent, by a few living men and women in it, is poorly done; they do it with such a struggle; they are so weary and worn out; they have not pleasure, they have not enthusiasm, in doing it. How can they have? Oh, it is hard when a few men and women have to do all the teaching, and all the visiting, and all the work at the meetings! it spoils their work; it is not fair play. I appeal to you to determine whether I speak truly or not. One man cannot do another man's work. One link of a chain cannot do duty for another link, and if the one goes, sometimes the chain is worth nothing at all. The work of a dead or half-dead Church stands before God's judgment-seat unfulfilled. How can it tell on the careless? how can it tell on the worldly? Do you think that they will be just, and say, "Ah, look at what the fifty are doing"? No, you may be quite sure that they will look at the deficiency of the four hundred and fifty, and say, "Is this a Church of Christ?" Who blames them?
A living Church must work, and it must work on, and it must send life through every part and fragment of its whole frame, or else it has begun to die. It is not a small thing, of no concern, if some members of a Church are doing nothing by being idle. The work that a Church has to do is the creation of living Christian character, and of the conviction that being in Church on Sunday and belonging to a congregation make a man a kinder brother, or a more loving father or husband, and make a woman a better mother or a more kindly neighbour. That is the best work a Church can do, and that does not come to a man through a dead Church. A living Church must be making itself felt all around in the world outside by work of that kind; and I say that it is not a matter of no consequence if some members of a Church are not receiving and not transmitting that warmth and activity. It is not a small matter if one organ of my body be dying, be passing into mortification; it means death to the whole body, and I must cut it off unless life can be brought back again into it. It is the very law of life, as God has made it, that everything which has life in it must be working; it cannot stop. If your heart stops it is death; nothing else can make it stop but death. If any organ in your body is always receiving, but giving nothing, and not sending out what it gets, improved, to the rest, it means diseased life, it means death. Does the stomach receive its daily food to keep it to itself, as we so often receive the prayers and sermons in a Church? No; as soon as the feeding is done the hard work begins; the stomach gives it to the blood, and what does the blood do? As the great carrier of the system, it delivers it here and there—here a little to this muscle, there to that bone, there to thebrain, and all through the body. And what the muscles and the other parts have received do they keep? No; if the various portions of the body did not give out what they receive they would get choked; it would be death by surfeit; they must work. And so the circle of life goes round; stop it at any one point, and you spoil the whole circle. If the blood-vessels do not do their work, if the muscles do not do their work, and so on throughout the entire system, it means this, that that body is not healthy; it means death to the whole frame. A business man said to me yesterday, "As soon as a man ceases pushing his business, and does not endeavour to extend it, it falls off." He does not want actually to increase it, but he must adopt that plan to keep it up to its present mark. The Church, alas! has not been willing to increase its work, desiring to take on other responsibilities; it does not say, "I cannot rest while people are cold and not interested in doing the Church's work, not bent upon bringing in sinners, and bringing children into the Sunday-schools to be taught to love and reverence religion, and causing people whose life is sour and bitter to be soothed and comforted."
What I have been pressing upon you is the law of life. Is it a hard law? No, it is a kind law. That is how God rewards you for what you have done; He gives you more work to do. In reading the parable of the men to whom it was assigned to rule over the cities did you ever mark how they were rewarded? Here is a man who has actively and effectively used ten talents. How does his lord reward him—by giving him a sinecure? No; he says, "You shall be ruler over ten cities;" and in the same way the man who has been successful with five talents is made ruler over five cities.Did you ever know a man who had served his country well, and benefited it, wish to withdraw into a drawing-room, and spend the remainder of his life in luxury and ease? Did you ever know a successful general who wanted to get a big fortune and to retire? No; successful men cannot be rewarded better than by giving them a deal more to do—larger responsibilities, larger powers, a larger sense of strength successfully exerted. That is the blessing and the joy which shall go with larger toil, and grander accomplishment, and brighter goodness. The few who are used to work shall have plenty of work. I take it as a sign that God is pleased with the results of a Church when He gives them new work to do, and the heart to take it up. It is not extra work; it is the reward of the past, and it is a step that shall lead you to a higher throne. Nay, more; work is indispensable to the enjoyment of a Church's good. No Church can heartily enjoy what we call religious privileges unless it is working hard; and no individual member of that Church will get the good of it unless he is taking a part in the Church's work. He does not need to be an office-bearer or anything of that sort; his work may be just friendliness to others in the house of God, showing a kind spirit to them or taking an interest in them, showing neighbourliness by his Church character. Do not think that it is a high array of talents that is required; no, it is the Church's function of being "all of one mind," and knit together and helping one another, and sympathising with one another, being bound up in the common lot of disasters and trials. I say that no individual member, unless he is taking his part, is a living member of that Church. If people are very fastidious about the doctrines which are preached, if people are searching into the sense ofevery hymn or prayer, if people are finding fault with the way in which everything is done, then it may be that the Church is to blame; but if the Church is doing its work as well as any poor human Church can do it, I advise such a one to say to himself, "May not I be to blame?" If you think that the daily food which is provided for you is not properly cooked, and it is not of the proper sort, and does not taste well, is it not your doctor you want to go to, to ask him to cure you of dyspepsia? And in all probability he will recommend to you exercise and hard work. A hard-working man does not complain even of dry bread; he is not particular; he has an appetite. I have known, in the Church to which I belonged before I began to preach, how pleased I was even with sermons which had no originality in them if I saw that they were part of the common work. It was my home, and you do not criticise your own home; and you do not criticise your father and mother; you believe in the power which you get from your father, because he is yours. Throw yourself into the Church, become a part of it, take an interest in everything, and it is wonderful how little you will have of criticism about you. Take plenty of spiritual exercise, and you may be sure that even a bare and poor spiritual diet will agree wonderfully with you.
Christ reckons with Churches—Christ at God's right hand, what is He about? When He was down here on earth He went hither and thither, seeking the lost; He forgave the woman that wept at His feet; He saved the dying thief. Oh, gentle, loving Saviour Jesus, "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever"! And at God's right hand He is loving, and pitying, and forgiving my sins, and pleased with my tears of repentance—forbearing,tender, saving Jesus! We preach that; we should not be men, we should not be Christians, if we did not preach that; we could not live without that thought of Jesus. But let us be true; do not let us hide facts. That same Jesus stands at God's right hand, judging the Churches, reckoning with them. Oh, to a penitent sinner He is all heart, but to a slothful servant He is a faithful Master! He reckons with Churches; He reckons with individuals. It would not be kind if He did not reckon with you. Would you wish Him not to reckon? Would you like to say, "I do not care whether He does anything with me or not"? Ah, I should begin to think that Christ did not love you at all if He did not reckon with you, if he were not grieved and angry when you did not do your duty to Him and to your neighbour! Where would be the dignity of life if we did not believe in a great last judgment, with a stern reckoning with sin? We should sink to the level of the animals if there were no judgment. It proves that man has an immortal spirit. What does it matter, with the animals, what they do? But God must reckon with man, and He would not be reigning if man had not to reckon on an awful judgment-day for every spirit. It is a proof to me that I am of moment, and that my human spirit has dignity; it makes clear to me my place in the universe, and my claim to immortality; it shows me that I am of sufficient importance to necessitate God's reckoning with me. Churches, too, must be reckoned with. It would argue that they were mere nurseries, were hospitals for people to be convalescent in, mere nonentities, counting for nothing in the great work of the world and the mighty purpose of God, if we did not know that Christ was to reckon with them. They have greatpowers given to them, they have great capabilities, they have tremendous responsibilities; they can fulfil God's purposes in the world, and nothing but their supineness and listlessness hinders them; and God and Christ must reckon with Churches. I would not have it different. Let Them reckon with them, and let me remember that They will reckon with me and my Church; and let me be full of good works. Christ must reckon with it, for the Church's sake. How could He but care? Oh, if we did but believe what we preach and what we read in our Gospels! It is that Jesus lost all things which men look for; that He turned aside from every joy of life; that He gathered sorrows around Him; that His great heart was broken upon the cross; that He spent all His life—for what? That He might save men from eternal banishment from God; that He might put happiness instead of misery into every house where there are unholiness and evil; that He might make men brighter and better. His great heart was all warm and eager for it. Oh, what He has sacrificed! He is a disappointed, lost man if He fails, and if He succeeds it must be done through His congregations, through His Churches, through men and women here. How can He but care? how can He but watch? As all the Church's activity goes by before God's throne, the recording angel takes it down. Does He see a Church whose members have taught the little children on the Sunday afternoon to love Him better; a Church which has made men whose faith in Him was nearly crushed out by sinful practices think again of Christ and heaven; a Church which has put a man once more on his feet, and given him to his wife and children, and they have been glad because the father and husband has loved them again? How can it but be that thosewho fight for Him should rejoice when a Church is thus acting for God, as compared with a Church that does nothing? Oh, if we could but believe and feel, when we come into church on a Sunday morning, that Jesus is watching all that is going on—watching to see if our hearts are made more soft and tender, more reverent and gentle, more full of kind thoughts to those who sit round about us—watching to see if we speak a kind word—watching to see if we resolve to do more for Him—watching to see if we can give liberally to help in what is being done for Him, and to support those who have special gifts for special work! The Lord Jesus has His eyes upon us in this spiritual Church framework. It does bind us together, and, thank God! I will say of ourselves has bound us together for much good work, and I believe will bind us more closely together. If every Sunday morning we only felt and believed it, and came and knelt and praised, and listened with light in our hearts, we should do our work well and have the reward of very faithful servants.
"Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the [en]feeble[d] knees; and make straight [smooth] paths for [with] your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed [or, in order that that which is lame may not be caused to go astray, but may rather be healed]."—Heb.xii. 12, 13.
SUBJECTED to severe and harassing persecution on account of their Christian faith, and plied by subtle arguments and doubts, which had all the more seductive powers from the immunity from suffering which would be gained by yielding to them, the members of the Church to whom this letter was addressed had become discouraged, depressed, perplexed, and some, staggered and tempted, were even in danger of renouncing their allegiance to Jesus of Nazareth. After warning them of the doom and misery of deserting the cross of Christ, inciting them to endurance by the long and shining roll of patriarchs, prophets, martyrs, and by the example of the dying Saviour, the Apostle explains to them how all this trial and suffering is the chastening of Fatherly love, destined to bring forth the peaceable fruit of righteousness, and finally exhorts them to rise above their despondency and enfeeblement, to advance with strong, unwavering faith in the right path, in order that thereby those who were crippled by doubt or temptation might be saved fromstraying quite away, helped over their difficulties, and in the end restored to firm and abiding faith.
The command in the text assumes the existence of two classes in the Church—those that need help, that must lean on others, and those who are able and ought to give help and support. Just as in a flock of sheep, so in the Church, there will be some strong, vigorous, active, and others weak, feeble-kneed, lame. Let us recognise this fact honestly, and be prepared to face it. Differences and degrees of faith, assurance, consistency, there are and must be. When the Church of Christ is oppressed by persecution, seduced by temptation, assailed by unbelief, do not be amazed to find that some spirits will be crippled, drawn away into wrong, just on the very point of being altogether perverted, and remember that there ought to be others who, by their indomitable perseverance, their immovable faith, the unbroken solidarity and persistence of their march, shall support and carry forward in safety those who, but for such environment and protection, if left to combat solitary and unaided, had stumbled and fallen in the storm of persecution and seduction, or been clean swept away by the waves of doubt and unbelief.
There are ever these two classes among the followers of Jesus—the strong, the brave, the helpful, the steadfast; the weak, the timorous, the dependent, the wavering. Brother, to which of these do you belong? Answer that question honestly, and then think what you should reply to this other question: To which class ought you to belong?
I am confident if Christian men and women would but enrol themselves not according to their meaner and unworthier inclinations, but in accordance with the voice of duty and the promptings of all that is mostnoble and generous in them, we should not have (as we do now) in the army of Christ the vast majority ranking as incapable and non-efficient, while only a small minority do the fighting and defending. Clearly my text supposes that the mass will be strong and helpful, with only one or two feeble, incompetent; just as in a flock of sheep the greater number are healthy, whole, and able-bodied, while only a few are disabled and lamed. It should be so in all our congregations. Perhaps in some the ideal is fairly realised. But looking at the Church as a whole, do I exaggerate in thinking that there are many, very many, who ought to be able-bodied and aidful, but who regard themselves as exonerated from active service, as incompetent to take part in any way in the warfare of the Cross, as persons to be defended, not to help in the defence?
How is it with each of you? What is your habitual attitude when goodness, truth, righteousness, Christ are assailed? In some social or intellectual company where the followers of Christ are in the minority, or it may be where you stand quite alone, you hear virtue or purity sneered at, condemned; or justice and mercy ridiculed, discredited; or the faith in things unseen rudely mocked and denied. Do you then always bravely speak out for the glory and majesty of purity and goodness, for the reality and grandeur of God and Christ? or do you yield to the craven cowardice that lurks even in regenerate men, and, saying it is for ministers, or apologists, or the strong and clever to defend Christ, meanly hold your peace? So far from dreaming that you are bound to defend the truth, you perhaps pity yourself for being subjected to such trial, and admire your own fidelity, that can survive such assaults. Instead of feeling yourself a coward, you rather regardyourself as a martyr, a person much to be commiserated and admired, and wonder how the Lord should so heartlessly expose your faith to such trials, while all the time you are in reality a weak, ignoble recreant. But you may say, "What! am I to speak when I know that I should only be ridiculed, laughed at, beaten in argument, when I am certain my effort would be defeated, rejected with ignominy?" But there is no necessity you should argue; nay, if your arguments will be foolish or weak it is your duty to keep them to yourself. But you are not bidden to argue, prove, demonstrate anything; only you are to confess, to protest against evil, and loyally side with the truth. And if you are not to do that except when you know you will be applauded and triumphant, what of your Master's conduct? He was laughed at, scorned, despised, rejected, defeated, and He knew it all from the first. Brother, you are to "follow Him" in all He did, and so you are to stand by the truth even when you know it will only bring scorn, scoffs, defeat, failure on you. Nevertheless be sure in such a defeat and failure only you shall suffer. As in Christ's death, though He dies, the truth triumphs, and the crown of thorns becomes a crown of glory.
This sin of selfish indolence, of weak-minded inaction, carries its own penalty with it. Who of us has not learned the terrible retribution by bitter experience? If you who ought to have been strong, who ought to have defended your Lord, were guilty of timidly shirking your duty, of feebly failing to declare your faith, then your faith will seem to you a poor, weakly thing, and Christianity itself feeble and infirm. In these days of outspoken unbelief, of staggering attack, and of widespread defection, if you think only of yourself, feelno obligation of defence, yield aggrievedly to terror and alarm, regarding yourself as wronged in being exposed thus, and reproaching others who, you think, ought to have been able to silence such foes and quite shelter you from seduction, then your faith will be shaken, your hands hang down, and your knees tremble. But if you felt yourself bound to be considerate of others, to be one of the strong, not one of the feeble, to defend the infirm and the timid, how different it would be with yourself! you would have courage, faith, strength; in this fashion doing the will of God, you would learn that the doctrine was of God.
In the case of Christianity men act as they would be ashamed to act in other situations. You who are so given over to alarms, so hopeless of the faith, suppose you were in a ship that has sprung a leak, how should you act? Should we find you among the timid and the hysterical, who lose head and heart, refuse to help at the pumps, fling themselves in despair on the deck, and do their best to dishearten and impede the brave men who, keeping their misgivings to themselves, toil on with bravery to try and save the lives of all? There are some constituted with such despondent, enfeebled nerves as to be excusable for such conduct, but in the Christian Church there are many with no such justification, who shake their heads gloomily, cry despairingly that the Church is in danger, the faith abandoned, do their utmost to weaken and dispirit their brethren, all the time never dreaming how weak and cowardly is their conduct, or that they ought rather to be comforters, helpers, defenders.
The cause of this ignoble conduct seems to me to consist in the fact that many Christians have got to see only one side of Christianity, and that the selfish orpersonal side. They have learned that by becoming Christ's He undertakes to save them, but they have failed to apprehend that, on the other hand, this relation involves that they are to serve Him. Again, their notion of what is implied in entering the membership of the Church is quite as one-sided. They consider that the purpose of this tie is that you may be cared for, guarded, developed by the Church—all which is true; but then they quite fail to see that also you are bound to aid, defend, and protect the Church. How many Christians are there who never dream of owing any duty to the Church, but consider it to be simply constructed for the purpose of doing everything for them needful for salvation. Within it they are to be surrounded by sanctifying influences, fed by ordinances, guarded in its holy atmosphere from the world's miasma; in a word, they are to be fostered, preached to, prayed for, visited, tended, and all the time they have nothing whatever to do for the Church. But while all this is done by the Church, that is not the only nor the cardinal conception of either the Church or its members. Brethren, the Church of Christ is a great army of valiant and able-bodied soldiers, sent out to battle with evil, led on by officers who ought indeed to encourage and care for the men, but whose main duty, nevertheless, is to lead them to conflict and conquest. According to this modern notion, that Church members are to do nothing but be cared for and protected, the Church is made to be more a sort of great nursery or convalescent hospital, provided with a staff of doctors, nurses, and visitors, and the Church members are not soldiers, but rather a sect of weaklings, invalids, and infirm, who are just kept in life by ceaseless care and nursing.
From this mistaken and perverted notion of what it means to belong to Jesus Christ, from the miserable failure to recognise the public and primary obligations resting on all the Lord's followers, from forgetting that the kingdom of God is founded not merely to foster and ripen those in it for heaven, but that they may extend its conquering boundaries over all the world; from these unhappy errors spring the impotency, the half-heartedness, the dispirited timidity of so large a part of the Church in the present day. This is the origin of that general sort of notion as if we should be thankful if Christians just survived; as if it were natural and changeless that the Church should be despised and scorned; as if against unbelief Christianity should not venture to raise her voice very assuredly, but stand on the defensive, and be thankful if she can just hold her own; as if it were natural and normal that Christians should find their faith hard pressed, hardly able to stand its ground, and they themselves feel weak, timid, alarmed, and helpless.
But perchance you may be inclined to defend this state of mind and this selfish notion of Christianity; nay, you may think that you have Scripture on your side. In opposition to the assertion that in place of being merely cared for, you are to fight, and in place of being timid, you are to be brave, you may recall the fact that Christ compares His people to sheep whom He shelters safely and tends in a snug fold, free from struggle and terror; and urge that sheep are not suggestive of combativeness, and that it is natural for them to tremble when a lion roars outside, and to count on the shepherd driving the evil beast away, while nobody expects them to face the ravager. But do you not see that our Lord meant that comparison to illustrate onlyHis relationship to them and His treatment of them? while if you are to infer from it also that He meant them, in their attitude to the world and unbelief, to be timid and helpless as sheep, then how do you explain that elsewhere they are compared to soldiers, commanded to be valiant, fearless, daring? If they are to do no fighting, then why are they told to put on the whole armour of God, to be faithful unto death, to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ? Ah, we are very fond of these pleasant, comfortable comparisons, and are constantly perverting them by misapplying them to positions they have nothing to do with. But you may reply, "Did not our Lord say Himself, to His disciples, that He sent them out as sheep among wolves?" Yes, indeed, but only to inform them of what treatment they might expect from the world, not surely with the intention of indicating that they were to meet the world's hostility as a sheep meets a wolf's, cowering, trembling, fleeing. If He meant that they were to be timid, helpless, sheeplike, why did He say also, "I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy"? why did He send them out to conquer the world? How was it that the disciples so thoroughly misunderstood the command? When Peter, facing the hostile judges, avowed that he would obey God, and not them, that was not timid, that was not sheeplike. When Paul fought with wild beasts at Ephesus, that, too, was not at all in the manner of a sheep among its foes. When the Apostle, in the same Epistle, bids the readers resist unto blood, when you remember how so many of our Lord's followers have indeed sealed their witness with their lives, surely it is plain that we have forgotten one side of our Christian duty. We ought tobe "wise as serpents" in dealing with the foe, "harmless as doves" to our brethren and friends; but that is very much inverted now, and the chief characteristic of many a soldier of the Cross is just his perfect harmlessness in the combat. Brethren, you look for the crown of righteousness that sparkled before Paul's closing eyes, bright amid the gathering shades of his martyr death. But that crown was not gained without hazard, not won by slothful ease, but earned on many a bloody, painful field, while he "fought the good fight." Believe me, there shall be no crown for you unless, like Paul, you too have fought that fight, and kept that faith, for which he bravely lived and bravely died.
Nevertheless there will always be among Christ's disciples those that are weak-handed, feeble-kneed, and lame; some permanently and constitutionally affected with feebleness and infirmity; and now and again a strong one maimed, injured by extreme and undue exposure, or crippled by some untoward accident. It was so among these Hebrew Christians. Intimidated by persecution, disheartened by the spoiling of their goods, shaken by the arguments of unbelief, several grew less steadfast in their confession of Christ, others were perplexed and confused, and some were just on the verge of deserting and abandoning the faith. Among us there is no more imprisoning, goods spoiling and persecution to stagger our faith in Christ, but there are instead a whole world of seductions, of discouragements, of mockeries, and of unbelieving sneers. Still, too, there are with us the weak, the maimed, the misled; many who never have attained to much spirituality or consistency; others who for a time went well, but became entangled in the mazes of the world's sinful attractions, or were overtaken by sudden temptation,enfeebled by persistent opposition and ridicule, paralysed by difficulties, disappointments, doubts, or unbelief.
I wish we did more fully realise and constantly remember that there are to be among Christ's own ones really such as these, weaklings, cripples, tempted, fallen; brethren overtaken by snares, seductions, unbelief, whom we ought to pity, whom we ought to help. Only it is needful to bear in mind that we are not to conclude that every one who gives himself out as such is really a wounded brother, to be sympathised with and aided. For there are many who only imagine themselves distressed, who give themselves out as greatly tried and buffeted, more from a kind of mental hypochondriasis or foolish fondness for being talked of and fussed over. This is especially so in the matter of doubt and religious difficulty. For just as it happens that in the fashionable world it is sometimes proper to have a lisp or limp, in imitation of some dignitary, so, unfortunately, at the present day it has become fashionable to go halt of one foot in faith; and there are persons, thoroughly excellent and orthodox in reality, who are impelled to let all their acquaintances know what dark struggles of soul they pass through, and of how much it costs them to face the unbelieving spectres of their minds. Brethren, when a man has a real skeleton in his closet he does not go round the circle of his friends, flaunting that unpleasant fact in their faces. When a man tells you, with a smile of complacent superiority on his face, of his conflicts with doubt, you need not expend much sympathy or anxiety on him; like all other affectations, this one may be left to die a natural death. No, the man to whom doubt is a real spectre, a veritable agony, does not blazon his painabroad; like Jacob's wrestle with his dread midnight foe, the real soul-struggles are fought out in darkness and alone. It is these who are truly stricken, wounded, well-nigh carried away—these, and these alone, whom you are asked to pity and to help.
But as a matter of fact, how do we Christian men and women who have not fallen treat such weaker brethren, I mean persons who have really been crippled, really erred? The text very plainly implies that we are not to cast them off, but to compassionate them and seek to recover them. Nay, mere human kindness would require the same. As soldiers seek to rescue, not to slay, a comrade well-nigh carried off by the foe, so surely we Christians should not attack, but strive to regain a brother captured in the meshes of temptation or unbelief. And no doubt to a very large extent true Christians do act so, though I fear not with that unvarying pitifulness that ought to extend the same charity to all. Do we not make unrighteous differences, leaving room for restoration to some of the erring, and closing heart and door against others? Partly from thoughtlessness, partly from prejudice, partly from contempt of what is weakness or cowardice, there are some falling, straying souls whom we treat too much like those evil animals that whenever one of the herd is wounded or crippled fall upon the victim and tear him in pieces. When we hear of a brother falling, doubting, denying, have we not all sometimes felt only anger, reprobation—nay, uttered sharp, cruel, merciless words of final condemnation and irretrievable doom? Do we not often treat erring ones so? It is very natural, for these feeble-handed, weak-kneed, crippled ones are an eye-sore, unpleasant to have to do with, a discredit to the Church and the most convenient plan is to cast themoff. Nevertheless, it is most inhuman, most unchristian, and can only spring from one of two errors. Either you do not have that fraternal love for all your brethren in Christ which you ought to have. When your brother after the flesh, or your son, catches a deadly complaint (it may be through his own recklessness and disobedience), or is wounded by some hostile assault, you do not in anger cast him out to die, for you love him. Would God we had more love among Christians! Or it may be the reason of your harsh treatment is that you mistake your straying, doubting brother for an enemy, and fail to see that he is a victim. Of course there is a great distinction between one of Christ's little ones swept into doubt, and a hostile, malignant unbeliever, seeking to harm the flock. This last you must indeed oppose, and seek to drive out of the fold, though even then you will feel for him as our Lord did when He wept over Jerusalem, and on the cross prayed, "Father, forgive them." But it is not of such we speak now, only of those who are themselves not wolves, but wounded, wandered sheep. Remember, therefore, that they are your brethren, and pity and help them.
Perhaps you say, "What! can it be right to feel pity, kindness, compassion, love for men who have gone astray from Christ, rebelled against the Master, forsaken and denied the Saviour?" Remember how Jesus treated the eleven, who deserted Him, Peter, who denied Him, Thomas, who would not believe. Nay, more, can you for one moment doubt the rightfulness of feeling so to sinning brethren, be they as bad as they may, and of treating them so, you who do believe that from all eternity God set His love, compassion, saving purpose on sinners—rebellious, hateful sinners—without one spark of merit or goodness in them to deserve it?Brethren, it is not wrong, it is not weak, it is noble, Christlike, Godlike to pity, to love, to tenderly seek and save the lost, the sinning, the erring, the fallen.
Finally, remark how the text suggests that you are to render them assistance and support. Suppose it is a brother becoming involved in worldly or dangerous entanglements, lapsing into doubtful courses, or yielding to the freezing influence of ungodly or sceptical companions. Now, direct interference, immediate intervention, is not always possible, is often difficult, sometimes impossible. Besides, often the mischief is already done ere you perceive it. Or again, it is intellectual difficulty or doubt that you have to deal with. To meet the objections, to remove the doubts, would be well, but perchance you are not skilled, competent to do that; or it may be they are such as cannot be removed. Here, again, direct remedies may be impracticable. Are you, then, powerless, helpless to aid? Far from it. A method better than all immediate and special action lies open for you, for all Christian men and women. "Make straight, smooth paths with your feet." It may be you cannot personally do anything to support the maimed or arrest the erring, but you can nevertheless render most important service. As a flock of sheep, by all moving on regularly in one united mass, with their feet smooth down the roughnesses and entanglements of the way, breaking down the entrapping brambles, clearing away the furze and tripping briers, leaving behind them a plain and open track, trodden down and freed of obstructions, stones, and stumbling-blocks, so that the weak and crippled are not turned aside or overthrown; so if the strong and whole body of Christian men and women will but move steadfastly on amidthe mazes of temptation and over the stumbling-stones of evil, the feeble, tempted, erring will be helped forward, and, borne along in the united, combined advance, will not fall behind or be baffled, overthrown, or led astray by difficulties and impediments. Yes, infinitely more powerful than any isolated rebuke, or warning, or intervention, is the force of united Christian example and protecting aid, to keep in the right path the halt, the maimed, the blind. What the tempted, the world-seduced, the doubting, the unbelieving need is not rebukes, cautions, exhortations, refutations of objections, but it is to be drawn out of the cold, freezing world of evil and doubt into the warm, living, breathing atmosphere of loving, real Christian fellowship; to be surrounded by the resistless progression in rectitude, in faith and love, of Christlike, God-fearing souls. With blows of reprimand and logical argument you may pound and break the ice of sin and unbelief, but though broken, it remains cold, winter ice, freezing still. Bring it into the summer radiance, the golden sunshine of warm Christian life; then it will be melted away, and the hard heart grow soft and tender in the breath of the all-quickening Spirit.
Brethren, it is for this that the Master has gathered us into families and homes, friendly circles and fellowships, congregations and churches. It is because some of His own will be very weak, timid, facile to fall, lukewarm, tempted, erring, doubting. Have you settled it with yourself, strong, high-principled, undoubting Christian, that the Church is not a club of stainless, perfect souls, but that there are to be in it such foolish, feeble, ignoble ones, real doubters, backsliders, wanderers, and that yet they are your brethren, little ones of the common Lord? And it is just for their sake, thatthey may be saved, that He has caused us to be knit together into one flock, that they may be kept from falling, restored when they err, strengthened, cheered, loved, and helped. Ah, we know not for the most part how much there is of strength and comfort for us in this! For all of us there is, for even the very strong, they that have comforted most, sometimes will be very weak themselves, and long for sympathy and support. Once even the blessed Master Himself in broken-hearted agony besought that help, and prayed His followers, "Tarry ye here, and watch with Me." My brother, if you can remember a time when you were enabled to endure, to conquer, because Christian friends stood around you and watched with you, then be pitiful to your tempted brother now. It may be that his limping, stumbling gait is very unpleasant to you, and you do not care to be known as of his company; his halt, ungainly walk does not look well beside your high, triumphal march. Perchance in heaven there is more good pleasure over his paltry pace than over your proud progress. Ah, friends, we see too little now to judge, who know not one another's hurts and trials! We who have the sunshine on our path, and bounding vigour in our tread, forget, I fear, how to many struggling souls the path is very flinty, rough, and hard, swept by wild storms of passion and rushing floods of fierce temptation; while the thick darkness and awful solitude, haunted by mocking spectres of death-like doubts and fears, wrap them round with a chill, paralysing shroud of despair. You who have never been so tempted, give God thanks and be humble, very humble, and lowly, and merciful. Have infinite forbearance and compassion. Remember that one harsh word, one hopeless look from you may numb a last feeble grasp on goodness,and sink a brother despairing in the black abyss; while a kindly look, a helping hand, a loving, free, generous pardon and word of hope from you may be to him the voice of eternal forgiveness in heaven, and power of restoration even now.
Brethren, when, against some brother who has fallen, sinned or gone astray, quick anger flames in your heart, and to your lips sharp, cutting words of reprobation leap, let this word of Christ ring in your ears: "Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." And as that word of dreadful condemnation awes each lurid spark of hasty anger from your soul, let these words of endless peace, and joy, and mercy steal in, and soften all your spirit into gentlest pity, tenderness, and love: "Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins." "Wherefore let us lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and let us make straight paths with our feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed."