It has been the
Lord’s way all along, to arrest the careless journeyer to the eternal
world, at some point in his career, by some burning bush at the wayside,
and then when turned aside to inquire about the matter, to press upon him
the duties and privileges of the service of God.
And all along when so arrested and urged to take
up the cross, it has been man’s way, to conjure up a host of difficulties,
as formidable as Pharaoh and his army to Moses; difficulties to be put down
only by Him who convinced and persuaded Moses by the leprous hand and the
changing serpent rod.
And what is true of the careless journeyer in
reference to conversion, is equally true of the Christian pilgrim in reference
to the second and deeper work of grace.
Indeed it often happens that it takes more to
arrest and convince, in the second than in the first
instance.
Abraham made his entrance upon the land of promise
by two stages, first from Ur to Haran, and then from Haran to Canaan. Doubtless
it cost many a sacrifice hard to make, and the sundering of many a tie hard
to break, at the first, when with his father he left the land of his birth
and the home of his youth, idolatrous though it was, to go forth into a strange
land amongst strangers. But when, after the death of his father, at Haran,
the command of the Lord came to strike tent and go forth again, he knew not
where, he had no father to lean upon, no dependence but God alone, and although
his faith did not fail, yet doubtless the second command tried it more than
the first.
The second is the higher stage, and more difficult
too. It is really harder to overcome sin in the heart, than to break away
from the world at first. And it is harder to come to the point of trusting
in Jesus to subdue one’s own heart entirely to himself, than to venture
upon him for the forgiveness of sin. We are slower to perceive that the work
of saving us from sin — of expelling sin from us — is Christ’s,
than to see that he has already suffered the penalty of sin and purchased
our pardon.
The children of Israel braved the Red Sea, and
passed it in triumph — but the Canaanites in the land, in their armor
of brass, and cities walled up to heaven, appalled them, and turned them
back into the wilderness to wander forty long years, before they were prepared
to set foot upon the land of promise.
Like them we have the two stages, and the two
works, and both by faith, and both to learn.
They got not their inheritance by crossing the
Red Sea alone. The Jordan must also be passed by faith between watery walls
on either hand, before they could learn the lesson that by faith,
they were to conquer their foes in the land, as well as gain deliverance
from foes in Egypt. A hard lesson as it proved in their case, and many another.
They were not stopped by the Red Sea, and they had their song of triumph
upon the far bank overlooking the waters whose walls had opened to give them
a dry passage, but closed upon their enemies and overwhelmed them. But when,
in that same year, they came to the borders of Canaan and sent out their
spies to view the land, and when the spies returned with their Eschol grapes,
borne upon a pole between two of them, but reported giants, the sons of Anak
in the land, and cities with walls great and exceeding high, they saw
all through the magnifying glass of fear and were palsied: difficulties
rose up and swelled out into the giant proportions of absolute impossibilities,
and they turned from them and set their faces to go back into Egypt, and
were about to murder Moses and Aaron. Nothing kept them from it but the terrible
judgments of God.
Strange that they could not see, and know that
the same hand that opened up the way out of the bondage of Egypt through
the Red Sea and through the wilderness, could and would open up the way into
the land of Canaan and subdue all their enemies under them. “The Sea,”
thought they, “God opened — none but God could do that.
But to conquer and subdue the land is our work, and we are not able to do
it.” So they shrunk back from it.
Just so it is with us. We break from the bondage
of the world. We fly to the Saviour for pardon and find it. We are happy
in it — we have our song of triumph after the passage of the sea, and
we go forward. Bitter waters are made sweet for us by the branch of the tree
of life cast in. Manna is given us to feast upon by the way. The Rock gives
us its living waters. The pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire guide us
all our journey through. But by and by the Canaanites in the heart begin
to be seen and felt in their power. And when we begin seriously to think
of their absolute subjection — we think of it as a work to be done by
us — not the Lord, and we shrink back from it as hopeless, and content
ourselves as well as we can with a life-long career of wandering in the
wilderness, simply because our faith fails us to strike for victory, trusting
in God alone to give it.
In this way multitudes are stopped, almost before
they have started: just when they have come to see the land before them,
but have not yet taken the first decisive step for its
possession.
Already in endeavoring to take up the “stumbling
stone” of perfectionism, one of the difficulties has been anticipated
and answered: and in meeting the special personal plea, “not for me,”
another has been sufficiently discussed, if not effectually
removed.
Others yet remain. God help us to see them, and
conquer them too. Satan will hinder if he can.
Fear of the
brand, is one great difficulty. Not merely the
brand of “perfectionism” — this aside — we shrink from
being marked as peculiar amongst Christians. We should not certainly greatly
fear to wear the star of an earthly nobility, in some countries at least,
but the star of nobility or knighthood in the army of Jesus is another
thing.
Havelock fought three battles against terrible
odds to gain his first honors from the Queen. But they were not his severest
struggles nor his greatest victories. Many more he fought afterwards before
he forced his way at last into Lucknow, but these were not his hardest contests
either. The two battles with his three-fold foe, the world, his own heart,
and Satan, the first on the General Kyd, and the last at Fort William were
the most trying of his life. Especially the last, when he put on the whole
armor of salvation, and determined to “stand up for Jesus,” even
though it should cost him the loss of all favor and friendship and promotion
from the crown. To be branded a “saint” was another and a very
different honor to look to, than to have the star of knighthood upon his
breast, and the title, “Sir Henry, K. C. B.,” prefixed and suffixed
to his name.
But so it is. This battle must be fought, and
he who conquers in it, comes to be willing to wear whatever title of reproach
the world may see fit to confer. There is no victory without
it.
Fear of becoming
ultra.
The danger of being led into fanaticism and error is another difficulty at
the outset. And there is danger of this. Satan delights in nothing
so much, if we will go forward, as to mislead us, or urge us on over the
bounds of truth and wisdom out into the fields of extravagance and folly.
Then, too, though old to the Bible, and to the experience of those who have
gone before us, every step of real progress is new to us. We are blind to
all before us, however clearly we see the ground already passed over, and
our subtle enemy is always ready to decoy us into the specious network of
some trap set for the unwary.
We cannot, therefore, be too careful. The fear is a wholesome one,
for the danger is real. We are not without melancholy warnings in the many
cases of those who have been duped in this way, and destroyed to all usefulness
in this world. The following instance of
She was no ordinary woman. Before she began the
course which ended in her being buried alive in that Protestant American
convent, a Shaker community, she was very discreet, very conscientious, very
amiable, very everything apparently lovely and good. If not, like Anna, a
widow of fourscore, she was yet a widow, and the widow of a respectable
clergyman, with a circle of children and grand-children and friends around
her, who loved and revered her. Of all women almost she seemed least in danger
of being carried away from solid Scripture moorings out into the sea of
fanaticism. Yet so it was. She had her weak side; there was a broad streak
of the imaginative in her; charming when it was kept in subjection to truth,
but inclining her to fanciful applications of the word of God. She revered
the Scriptures, and any idea, no matter how absurd, if yet it suited her
own fancy, and was also couched in the words of the Bible, she received as
God’s truth. She seemed to have forgotten that the devil can quote Scripture
to his purpose. And this, her weakness, the tempter, who even tried the Master
in the same way, was not slow to take advantage of. The specious and fanciful
interpretation of the Scriptures by the Millerites was the first to mislead
her. She went so far as to prepare ascension robes, and await the moment
of the Saviour’s second coming upon the day fixed by the leader, Miller,
himself. Then next she was induced to come out and denounce as deluded all
who did not receive the Millerite interpretation of the Bible; and that as
she supposed by the direct command of God. At a certain time, while meditating
upon these things, the words “Come out of Babylon” sounded in her
ears, and she settled it in a moment that it was the voice of God, commanding
her to separate herself from her church, amongst whom were her own beloved
children and the dearest friends she had in the world; and she came out and
denounced them all. After that again she was struck by the words, “Mortify
the flesh,” and from this she, with the little band of deluded ones
whom she joined took up the idea that all they could do to mortify themselves
before each other would be pleasing to God and purifying to themselves. And
they carried the matter to the absurd and ridiculous extreme of placing
themselves in all sorts of grotesque positions, or worse, in their meetings
for worship. This finally went so far as to shock her delicacy, and drive
her to renounce these Millerites in turn. And what now? Adrift once more,
did she not see her folly and turn again to the stronghold? No. But went
further and fared worse than ever. Meeting on board one of the lake steamers,
while crossing Lake Erie, a Shakeress, her fantastic dress and demure looks
attracted her, and they soon fell into conversation. Many of the fancies
of this Protestant nun found admiring reception from the widow. But of all
others the assurance that all the faithful have each some one of their own
dear departed relatives to go with them as guardian angels delighted her
most. And when her new friend said, “Does not the apostle ask, ‘are
they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them that shall
be heirs of salvation?’” the truth of all was sealed and certain
to the widow’s belief, as if it had been a voice from heaven, instead
of the Shakeress, speaking. She was fairly caught again. The net was of gossamer
texture, but yet strong enough to bind her and hold her. The Shakeress drew
her out to speak of her past history and of her departed friends, and soon
learned that of all the loved ones she had been called to mourn, not one,
not even her husband, was so dear to her memory as a favorite sister who
had been dead many years. Adroitly and demurely enough, after a while the
Shakeress told the widow that her own guardian spirit, who was constantly
with her had whispered that the favorite sister would henceforth attend the
widow wherever she went, if she would listen to her voice in her heart and
follow her counsels; and then left her to commune with her invisible attendant.
Not, however, until she had taken good care to find out how much the widow
was worth, and present before her in the most attractive form the question
of taking all and going to the Shakers.
Left to herself, she set herself to listen to
the angel voice of her invisible sister. Shall I sell all; break up, leave
my children and grand-children and go? was the question silently asked. The
answer as silently given was, If a man forsake not all that he hath he cannot
be my disciple. If any one hate not father and mother and sister and brother
he cannot be my disciple. Her fertile fancy at once took this as infallible
counsel to sell all, take all and leave all and take the Shaker veil. Which
she did.
Now it is in ways like this, that satan draws
from the church the volunteer recruits, to keep that right wing of his army,
the Fanatics filled up. With instances like this, and worse, around us, we
do well to take heed. Let us beware first of all of taking impulse, or
suggestions, or the inner light for our guide. Let us bring our own impulses
and suggestions to the test of God’s holy word. The inner light if it
be not according to the revealed truth of God is only darkness. And if the
light within us be darkness how great is that darkness. The mariner
will hardly be so foolish as to supersede the chart, by following his own
fancies upon the sea. If he should, however, some rock or shoal or reef or
whirlpool would bring him up while he was sailing in fancied security and
scatter his hopes and his cargo and the fragments of his ship with his crew
and himself upon the raging waves of the deep. Satan has that man fairly
in his snares, whom he can get to put his own suggestions or impulses, under
any name whatever, whether of the inner light, or a guardian spirit or the
Spirit of God in place of the Bible as the chart of faith and of
life.
Let us make sure also that we have the Bible
truth and not merely Bible words. It is a favorite and frequent
thing with the arch deceiver to couch his own lies in words of the Scripture.
He takes out and leaves behind the kernels of truth and catches the unwary
with the empty chaff of mere Scripture phraseology. Beware of
him.
But then, if common sense and common prudence do demand of us care
lest we be deceived and ensnared, are we therefore to be stopped at the threshold
of all that is good and great? No.
Rather let us be sure we are right, and then with
our face as a flint, yet with the docility of the child, and with the firm
tread of a mind made up and a faith leaning upon God, let us push resolutely
forward to the conquest. There is just one thing that satan likes better
than to lure us into fanaticism, and that is to frighten us back from any
great step of real advancement into the wilderness of doubt, and the tortuous
paths of unbelief and sin.
Many are stopped at the outset, by reluctance
to give the world entirely up, and be wholly conformed to the will of
Christ.
A moderate, reasonable, half and half life in
the service of the Master they are willing to live. But to be wholly consecrated
to God is more than they can consent to.
Perhaps they find the yoke of Christ heavy and
galling to their necks, even when borne only in this their half and half
sort of a way. And they reason by the arithmetic of unbelief which tells
them that, if half and half service is all they can carry, then full service
would be twice as heavy and would break them down
altogether.
They fail to see that the Master gives grace and
strength to those who are wholly given up to him, to “mount up as on
eagles’ wings, and to run without weariness, and walk without
fainting.”
They overlook the lessons of the past, that the
Lord is the strength of those who lean wholly upon him, enabling them to
pass through floods dry shod, and through fire seven times heated unscathed,
to turn trials into joys, and even martyr flames into triumphs. While those
who stop half way, in his service, are left with enemies around them unsubdued,
unexpelled, ready to rise up and scourge them, whenever the Lord chooses
to let it be done — to humble them in the dust.
Suppose a husbandman, finding his fields over-run
with the noxious “Canada thistle,” should, instead of waging a
war of extermination, and destroying it root and branch, only make half and
half work of it, should cut down part, and leave part to ripen seed and give
to the winds for another crop, and so on and on from year to
year.
And suppose he should justify himself to himself
in this matter, by reasoning, that if it cost so much time and toil to keep
the noxious things under from year to year, when all he attempted was only
to keep them decently under, it would be more than he could do, if
he should make the attempt, to keep them exterminated.
Such a farmer would make himself the laughingstock
of the whole countryside. They would give him the title of “Canada
Thistle” Smith or Johnson, or whatever his name might be. And many a
homely hearty joke would be made at his expense.
But his reasoning would be — no better it
is true — but just as good as that of the half and half disciple, who
shrinks from whole souled consecration, because he thinks it would be so
much harder than the half and half life he now lives.
But there are those who, though once willing,
are now unwilling to be wholly given up to the service of Christ, hard or
easy. They have not yet got enough of the world, though once they thought
they had. The world has its charms for them which they are not willing to
forego. Its bloom is not all shed. True they have enlisted under the banner
of Christ, and in the hour of need they stand ready for the battle. They
work manfully in revivals, and keep up the daily drill of closet and family
worship, and the weekly duties of the sanctuary, and Sabbath school, and
prayer meeting. And yet, after all; they are a sort of militia, not regulars;
a citizen soldiery, ready to volunteer or be called out on occasion. Having
arms and uniform hung up ready for use, but only put on and used when the
occasion requires. And between whiles, attending to their citizen avocations
as men of the world. And not willing at all to leave all, forsake kindred,
and home, and business and all; or rather to consecrate all to the Lord,
and make all subservient to the interests of his cause.
Upon such, argument will be lost. Let them take
their course. They will learn by and by that Christ is made of God unto us
wisdom, as well as righteousness. And that the world is folly
and madness to all its votaries. Bitter in the mouth will it be to
them, if at last God shall be obliged to cut down their gourds, and dash
the cup of worldly pleasure from their hand.
These aside — there is another class, nearly
allied to those named already before these last, to be
mentioned.
Those who would gladly give themselves wholly
up to Christ, but are stopped at the threshold by false or distorted ideas
of what a life of entire consecration to God is.
They have the view of it which has led hundreds of thousands to go
into convents and monasteries. The idea that to serve God entirely, business
must be abandoned for some sort of religious occupation. But a glance will
unmask this deception. A glance will serve to show that there are thousands
who are engaged in religious occupations who are not wholly consecrated to
God. Some, alas, who are not Christians at all. While amongst the holiest
people of the world there are some soldiers, some sailors, some merchants,
some lawyers, some physicians, some mechanics, some wives, mothers,
house-keepers.
The truth is, a man may preach for himself to
get a living or gain a reputation, just as easily as a lawyer can plead for
his fees or his fame. And a merchant can make money for his Master, or a
house-keeper meet her daily duties for the Lord just as well as a minister
can study and teach for him.
Or they have taken up the notion that to be wholly
consecrated, they must dress peculiarly — never smile — never make
others smile — must wear a sanctified look, and speak in a sanctified
tone, and all that. Satan helps on these distorted views of
consecration.
And there is one of the wise and good counsels
of our Saviour that the adversary loves to pervert for this purpose —
“Count the cost.” “Yes,” says Satan, “Count the
cost. Look the whole ground over. Take everything into view. Sum it all up.
Lest haply having begun to build you shall not be able to finish, and lest
having engaged in the battle you shall be put to the
route.”
The arithmetic he would have us use in counting
the cost, is not that of figures. which cannot lie, but of fictions which
cannot speak the truth. He would have us add together sacrifices, never demanded;
duties, never required; and difficulties, never existing, into a fabulous
sum, entirely too great for our resources to compass.
It would be useless for satan to ply us Protestants
with the peculiarities urged upon Romanists. We could not be driven into
petticoats, dignified as robes; nor to imprison ourselves in dungeons, called
convents; nor to count beads, and call it prayers; nor to lash our own bare
backs, thinking to scourge away sin. He plies us with notions more protestant,
but not one whit less fictitious and deceptive. “Would you be a whole
souled disciple of Christ,” he says, “Your person: — You will
have to conform all your personal.habits to a rigid rule first of all. You
must put on the straight jacket of propriety tight-laced. It would ill become
one wholly consecrated to God to wear ornaments or elegancies. Gold and jewelry
and costly array must be wholly eschewed. Luxuries of the table must never
be touched; superfluities, like tea and coffee, and everything else but the
coarsest fare must be let alone, or rather denounced as a wicked waste of
money.
Your reading must be solidly and only religious.
Your associates must be Christians only, and those the best. Your conversation
should never be gay. Your face should be solemn and your words measured.
You should never smile yourself or cause others to do it. Every garment,
every movement, every word, every tone of your voice, should tell all around
you that you are holy in no common degree.
Then as to your home: carpets and curtains, parlor
ornaments and table elegancies would ill become one who professes to be wholly
given up to the Lord.
Bare floors, hard chairs, plain tables and mirrors,
no pictures or expensive works of art, no elegant books, no costly comforts,
but everything the plainest and cheapest would better suit your professions.
It would never do for you to own fine carriages and splendid horses, or spend
money and time in ornamenting your grounds.
And as to your church: You would have to see to
it that minister and people should come up to your standard. Rebuke them,
privately first, if they did not. Rebuke them publicly afterward, if they
should not heed you at first. And, if still obdurate, denounce them and .leave
them. Exclude them from your fellowship. Testify against them in action as
well as in words, and, if need be, set up on your own account, all alone,
a church by yourself, and let the world have the benefit at least of the
example of one who would have no fellowship with the works of
darkness.”
So he goes on from church relations to charities
representing the demands of the gospel as oppressive and impoverishing in
the extreme; and from charities to business, making it out an impossibility
to pursue any ordinary avocation upon strictly Christian principles: and
from business to politics and from politics to social life, adding absurdity
to impossibility, endlessly almost. It would be tedious to follow the arch
arithmetician of lies in his sum of addition. It is enough to say that he
never stops until he has thoroughly frightened the half-hearted disciple
back from any attempt at compliance; or if determined to go ahead blindfold,
has led him on into a sea of troubles, where he must perish, if the Master
does not stretch forth his hand and save him.
It will be observed that this application of our
Saviour’s counsel to count the cost is a complete perversion. There
is nowhere in the Bible one single line or precept of rigid requirement binding
the Christian to any rigid rules about living and dress, or anything of the
sort. Much less a single word, making such things a condition of salvation,
whether of justification or sanctification. Christ is the free gift of God
to sinners, and all who believe in him really and truly will be saved, whether
arrayed like Solomon in his glory in purple and gold, or like John the Baptist
in a coarse garment, with a heathen girdle; and whether, like Solomon, living
in palaces of marble upon the delicacies of every clime, amid the spicery
of the south and the jewels of the east, and the splendors of pencil and
chisel, or living in a cave in the wilderness upon locusts and wild honey,
as did the greatest of all the prophets.
The kingdom of God is not in meat and drinks,
nor in broadcloth and satins, or plate and perfumery and jewels, nor in the
absence of these things.
The truth is, that we are never really, entirely
the Lord’s freemen, until we are free from the trammels of all these
trivial questions, and at full liberty to follow the Lord in whatever dress
or position or business or company or circumstances the providence of God
and our own judgment of proprieties and our own ability and taste may dictate
or require.
One class more, and the last demanding notice,
of those who are stopped at the outset, may be mentioned. There are some
— many it may be — who would gladly follow the Lord wholly, like
Joshua, and who have just views of what it is to be given up entirely to
him, but who see not how they can be sustained in entire consecration, if
they make it. They do not see the hand of God out-stretched to lift them
up, and sustain them; and they dare not trust to his promise, and therefore
they are afraid to start.
In some respects they are like Peter in the prison
at Jerusalem. They are in bondage to sin, at least, as he was to the Romans;
and they know it. Their chains they have felt binding them to the world,
as he felt his binding him to the soldiers by either arm. Their prison-house
of darkness, with its iron gate and mail-clad watcher, has enclosed them.
And a hundred difficulties in armor of brass and arms of steel, like the
four quaternions of soldiers shut them in.
In this situation the gospel comes to them as
the angel of the Lord came to Peter, while he slept between his keepers —
and arouses them, saying, Arise, gird thyself and follow
me.
But now comes a contrast.
The apostle arose, put on his sandals, begirt
himself and followed, almost as in a dream. But they sit half up, in chains
still, and say, “0 these chains — how are they to be broken off?
And the soldiers on either side — who shall free me from their weapons
— and the iron gate, with its iron doors, bolts and bars, and mail-clad
watchers outside, and the hundred soldiers, and the great iron gate leading
to the city, and the darkness of the way?“ Alas for them. The difficulties
in the way appall and palsy them. If they would but arise at the call of
the gospel, give themselves up implicitly and entirely to follow the Lord
Jesus, he would go with them, and the way would open up in the light of his
presence, and every enemy would sleep on, every barrier would swing wide
open, all would go easy and delightfully. The whole way would be a way of
happiness, and all the path a path of peace.