SUNDAY MORNING No. 32.
Present Suffering
Christ as a sufferer. -- A material part of his sufferings mental. -- The
cause of them in the godless state of men. -- An affectionate believer sure to
have similar experience. -- A more difficult martyrdom than the faggot. -
Martyrdom and penances vain. -- God pleased only with loving obedience. -- The
age of true martyrdom not passed away. -- Two kinds of deprivation. -- Self-
denial and faith. -- The honour of pleasing God. -- Hope with fear. -- The
necessity of earnest heed. -- The power of the fear of God. -- The fit and the
unfit for the kingdom of God. -- The reasonableness of the divine principle of
retribution. -- Picture of a cemetery. -- The resurrection. -- After that, God's
business. -- Who fit for it. -- Those who have sought first the kingdom. -
Misplaced moderation. -- Unheeded exhortation. -- The right course. -- The last
speech. -- The glorious day coming. -- Its foundation.
IT belongs to us, brethren and sisters, peculiarly on the present occasion, to
contemplate "the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow." Of
course, we can only do so in a cursory and superficial manner, for the phrase
when thoroughly followed out in all its significance covers the whole ground of
what God has been pleased to reveal to us, both in its practical bearing upon us
in the matter of duty, and in its future relation to us as a matter of hope.
Still, a little edification is better than none, and we cannot look upon the
sufferings of Christ, or the glory which is to follow, without being edified.
Christ was a sufferer in a sense which perhaps few people realize. The majority
of persons are apt to look at the cross, and the cross only, and to imagine that
the sufferings of Christ relate only to the physical pain he experienced in
being put to so cruel a death, or at most to the anguish of feeling to which he
was subjected in being mocked and insulted by a crowd of soldiery. To those,
however, who study Christ's life attentively, and particularly in the light of
what the spirit of Christ has testified in the Psalms as to the sufferings of
Christ, it becomes manifest that those sufferings were much more widely spread
over his life than is popularly imagined; that they consisted largely of the
mental suffering caused by the present evil state of things among men; that, in
fact, he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. His sorrow and his
grief were of a sort that many, and we might add, that nearly all, are
unsusceptible of. Christ had a high conception -- far higher than ever we can
hope to reach -- of what men ought to be, and of the position that God ought to
occupy among men, and therefore he felt a pain that none could experience who
were not of the same state of mind, in mingling with men who were, on the whole,
as regards God, like the brutes. We find that we come into fellowship with the
sufferings of Christ in proportion as we grow up to him, and become like him,
drinking in his spirit, sharing his tastes, and laying hold of his hopes. We
come to find that it is no empty metaphor which likens the people of God to
strangers and pilgrims, having here no continuing city. We come to feel that
David did not speak extravagantly when he said, "My flesh longeth as in a dry
and thirsty land, where no water is." "I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I
am like an owl of the desert." If you examine the Psalms where these expressions
of misery occur, you will find that they all have relation to the moral and
mental attitude of the men around him. David suffered from the godlessness of
those who became his enemies, and from the proud indifference or brutish inertia
of men whose portion is in this life, and who have not set God before them. In
this, David was a preliminary exhibition of Christ, for the spirit of Christ was
in him and made use of him to paint, in advance, so to speak, the portrait of
the inner personal experiences of the Lord.
Now anyone who lays hold of the things concerning the kingdom of God and the
name of Jesus Christ, with the result which those things were given to produce,
will feel in fellowship with his sufferings on these points; he will feel alone;
he will feel that the present is an evil world in a high sense; he will feel a
pilgrim in the midst of it. It is well to see this; for in proportion as we see
it, we are able to reconcile ourselves to our position and to go through our
course with much less chafe than we should experience if we were to go upon the
supposition that we were to find things satisfactory in the present. If we act
upon the idea that we are now to find edification, comfort, pleasure in all
around, or to any great extent anywhere, we shall be grievously disappointed,
because we shall be finding at every step that it is impossible at present to
realize the aspirations of our hearts -- impossible for a great variety of
reasons. Even if the world were all we could wish, we are now in ourselves only
flesh and blood, and that is a weak thing both physically and spiritually. We do
not require to live in the first century to fellowship the sufferings of Christ.
We may have thought so in the first days of our spiritual childhood. We all, no
doubt, had the idea that we required to be put in prison, and to have the
officer of the law come into our houses and take our things, or that we should
be led forth to the stake or have our heads cut off, before we should suffer
with Christ. We come to see the fallacy of that idea as we grow older. In one
respect we are called upon to endure a more difficult martyrdom than the faggot
or the block. Many have undergone that kind of martyrdom whom Christ will not
acknowledge in the day of his coming. In the early centuries, many rushed into
that kind of martyrdom upon the same principle as that which leads the votaries
of the Roman Catholic religion to submit to painful penances. Dreadful things
have been suffered in the way of penances. The Emperor Charles V, who was one of
the mightiest potentates in Europe for nearly half a century, after his
abdication, lacerated his flesh, with thorns and instruments of torture, ordered
his coffin and lay in it, conducted his own burial service, and went through
many physical sufferings, with the idea that by going through all those
sufferings he would appease God for all the misdeeds of his life, and earn a
place in the world to come. But Charles V was an unjustified sinner. We know
that God is not pleased with will worship, that is, with anything man can devise
for His satisfaction. He is pleased only with our compliance with what He
appoints; and all His appointments aim at the very contrary result secured by
penances. For, if you examine such matters to the root, you will find that they
have their root in self-satisfaction and the desire to pay God off. Wicked
people feel that God has a claim on them, so to speak, and they want to pay Him
off, and be independent; whereas, the true worship which God exacts excludes
that feeling entirely, and brings us to the recognition of the fact that we
cannot pay God off. All we can do is to obey Him in thanksgiving for His
goodness in offering us forgiveness on the recognition of our position. The poor
creatures who allow themselves to be crushed under the car of Juggernaut have
just as much ground for hoping they will be saved as the Emperor Charles V, and
the multitudes who, under the influence of a similarly perverted idea, in the
second, third and fourth centuries, rushed to the faggot under the delusion that
they were making themselves sure of a heaven before uncertain. It is painful to
read the writings of professed Christians of that time. One of the fathers of
the so-called Christian Church -- Ignatius -- takes the lead in that kind of
pernicious teaching, by which men were taught to regard martyrdom as the true
way into the kingdom of God.
The age of true martyrdom has not passed away. We are invited to offer ourselves
as living sacrifices to God, and that is a far more difficult kind of sacrifice
to offer than that which is at an end almost as soon as the pain is felt. Death
by the sword or at the stake is sharp, short, and decisive, but a living
sacrifice is a living martyrdom. It is a living mortification -- a tedious and
protracted suffering; it is a waiting for God in the midst of a crooked and
perverse generation; it is an obeying of commandments which are irksome to the
natural man it is submitting to a trial which is not joyous, but grievous. How
is that? Because God forbids those who are invited to be heirs of His kingdom to
be friends with the world, or to seek for pleasure in the present time. Those
who are at liberty to be friends with the world, and to seek for pleasure in the
present time, have a great deal to entertain them; and those who accept the
calling to which God has called all who have ears to hear, experience the
deprivation; though I admit that after a while, the deprivation is felt in a
different direction. What I mean by that is this: they do not feel the
deprivation of present gratifications such as they are called upon to leave, for
they learn to hate these, seeing that they are built on the wrong foundation.
The world disregards God; they follow pleasure for its own behoof, and a saint
learns to have no pleasure in anything from which God is absent, so that if he
could, he would not take part; but he feels the deprivation in another way. He
learns not only to hate those things, but to love another set of things, and the
things he loves are not present to him except by faith. If they were present to
us now, there would be thousands who would make the exchange; indeed, it is
possible that three-fourths of the human race would make the exchange at once,
if as soon as a man believed and obeyed the Gospel he became immortal, and the
subject of glory and honour. But then, they would do it for the sake of getting
something better than they had, and God is not pleased to bestow the highest
good on that principle. He offers the highest good on condition of pleasing Him,
and not pleasing ourselves. This uninviting religion of faith gives us that
opportunity. God is not pleased with anything short of it. "Without faith it is
impossible to please him"; but He has given us an opportunity of pleasing Him.
What a great honour if we could only realize it! What a great dignity for mortal
men to have placed in their hands the power of giving satisfaction to the
Creator of heaven and earth. He has given us that opportunity in Christ; but in
giving us that opportunity He requires that the good things spoken of in the
Gospel he postponed, and the deprivation, therefore, relates to our being cut
off, for the time being, from the things that are to come.
Nevertheless, we see them. Abraham saw them: he lived a long time ago, but he
saw them, and was glad. That is Jesus' testimony: "Your father Abraham rejoiced
to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad." Abraham is the father of the
faithful; that is, he is the leading specimen of the kind of people with whom
God is well pleased. We also look forward; we see, and we are glad; but our
rejoicing is only in hope, and is mixed with weakness and with fear. We are told
to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Why with fear? The question
is answered: "Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering
into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it." That is an apostolic
reply to the question. With all our joy in looking forward to the rest before
us, our rejoicing is moderated by the apprehension that possibly we may fail to
enter in. Christ said, when Peter asked him upon the point, that many should
seek to enter in but should not be able. Why not able? Because they are not in
earnest about it; they do not give enough energy to it. "We ought to give the
more earnest heed," says Paul, "to the things which we have heard, lest at any
time we should let them slip." Many fail to attend to the things in this earnest
way; they lay hold of the kingdom of God, but, at the same time, keep hold of
twenty other things. They devote their best faculties and their principal time
to the promotion of objects unconnected with Christ entirely, and which are not
even necessary for them in the provision of their livelihood. A man, of course,
must labour for his daily bread, and, in fact, that may be made a service of
God; for it is one of the teachings of Paul that whatever a man doeth, he is to
do it heartily as to the Lord, and not unto men. He says that to servants; so we
have it in our hands to turn everything to spiritual account if we are wise. I
am referring, however, to people who are under no obligation to attend to things
they have in hand, but who choose them as a matter of special taste, as a matter
of honour, or as a matter of respectability. These things engross all their
energies, run away with their time, and steal their hearts, so that the things
of God have little hold upon them, and, therefore, they fail.
Our rejoicing therefore is mixed with fear, and ought to be so. No one should
slacken his hand until his course is run. Never put off the day of wisdom. If we
reject wisdom for our own convenience, wisdom will reject us. It is one of the
delusions we have to be on our guard against.
"While the lamp holds out to burn,
The vilest sinner may return."
That is what is said by the false prophets of modern religion. The Spirit of
God says: "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that
shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap
corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life
everlasting." It will be too late for a man to hurry up and to be spiritually-
minded when he finds himself in the grasp of death.
What a refreshing thing it is to see men and women under the power of the fear
of God. We need not fear men; we need not fear what brother this or brother that
may say, because in a short time, in the order of nature, all men will be in
their graves, and there will be no reality in relation to us then except God,
His mind, His purpose, and His judgment. Therefore we need not vex ourselves, or
encumber our spiritual operations with anxieties about the opinions of our
fellows; let us be right with Christ. To be right with him, requires that we be
in earnest, and all the time in earnest. Recollect his somewhat abrupt
declaration to a young man who came to him, saying, "Lord, I will follow thee,
but suffer me first to go and bury my father," and to whom Jesus said, "Let the
dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God." What is the
application of that saying, unless it be to suggest that the young man in
question by proposing to do something else besides seeking the kingdom of God,
was as a man turning his hand from the plough? Christ's stern declaration is
that such a man is not fit for the kingdom of God. That implies that there are
some who are "fit," and some who are "not fit," and it also shows who are they
that are "fit." Those who are fit are those who lay hold with full purpose of
heart and accept the calling in Christ in its entirety. That calling is a thing
that is very exacting indeed; it claims absolute ascendancy with those of whom
it lays hold. It is a very different thing from the religion preached from the
pulpits of the churches and chapels. The clergy give the people to understand,
though they do not say so in express words, that they need not be very much
taken up with religion, that a sprinkling of it will be sufficient; whereas the
truth of Christ demands to be the object of life, the principle of action, the
subject of supreme affection -- the engrossing thing.
How reasonable this seems when we allow ourselves to realize all the surrounding
facts of the case, and the end of every human being. Walk through a cemetery,
for instance, and read the tombstones. There you have a sleeping congregation of
people, who have done with life. There are all sorts -- from the grey-haired
captain who acquired military or naval honours in various parts of the world,
and in the language of Parliamentary compliment, "deserved well of his country,"
to the unknown pauper who drivelled out his inglorious days in the workhouse.
There are merchants under these sods, who, in their day, had risen to the top of
the social scale by their industry and by talents which were highly applauded as
their own, and who died in the lap of luxury. And there are beautiful daughters
of rich men, who pined away in the surfeit of luxury, when, perhaps, a fair
battle with the rough responsibilities of life might have saved them from an
early grave. And there are also strong young men and beautiful children, with
whom parents had to part, and whom, too, notwithstanding breaking hearts, they
have had to follow into the grave. There they lie a common mass of corruption,
"unknowing and unknown," forgotten in the land of the living.
Now, let us imagine that we are included in that congregation, as we certainly
shall be if the Lord arrest not the course of nature by his coming, and let us
imagine the time for resurrection come. On the one side of the resurrection-line
there is the past -- the human past, with its dropped burden of human anxieties
and human business; and on the other side, what is there? God's business; God's
business on a large scale. Christ is at the head of it. He puts aside the kings
first and all their governments, and his great business is to exalt the name of
God in the earth, and to bring the nations into subjection and harmony with him.
Now, whom of all that congregation of the dead, whose mortal days and mortal
concerns are all gone, whom of them would you select to be companions of Christ
in this mighty work upon earth, which has as its object the exaltation of the
honour of God's name for ever and ever, in the countless population with which
the earth is yet to be peopled? Would you think it a large price to ask of any
of that dead, rotting congregation, for the privilege of immortal partnership in
this work, that they should have devoted their mortal affections, their mortal
energies, their mortal day, their mortal opportunities, to holding up the name
of Christ in the day of his disgrace? I am sure that no one realizing the matter
would falter in the decision. Everyone would say, it was most reasonable that
people who lived for themselves should reap what they had sown. The great
majority of the dead lived for mortal life; and they cannot complain that they
get and perish for what they worked. All they worked for was to have good things
to put into their mouths, fine clothes to put on their backs, and the
satisfaction of "respectability" in their day and generation. They got what they
worked for; they had their reward; therefore, what would you bring them forward
into the kingdom of God for? The kingdom of God is for those only who seek it
first, and work for it in a practical, enthusiastic way, and are considered
fools for their pains. Let us then, brethren, never listen for a moment to those
who would hinder in the good fight by recommending what is called "temperance"
and "moderation" in the things of Christ. Their exhortations are altogether
misplaced, and altogether uncalled for. The tendencies of the sluggish beast of
the natural man are sufficiently powerful in that direction to render it quite
needless for anyone to exhort us in that line. We need exhorting the other way.
We want continually to be pulled up in the direction of the path which the
Captain of our Salvation himself has trodden before us, and in which he is, so
to speak, leading us on. We know what sort of path that was. We know he was no
"mild" and "moderate" man in the things of God. We know he had no schemes in
hand but the one scheme of God's purpose. We know that he was never found
trimming his sails to worldly breezes, or emulating or inculcating worldly
principles; he devoted himself solely to the work which the Father gave him, and
his relation to the world was one of continued antagonism. Our work, and our
attitude, if we are his brethren, will be the same. The work may be different
now in its external form, but it is the same work for all that, based upon the
same testimonies and the same principles, and aiming at the same end - - the
purifying of a peculiar people for the inheritance of the kingdom of God. Let us
not fear to give ourselves to it with all our hearts. We shall not regret it
when that day comes to us, or when we shall gasp out the vital energy which
keeps us going for the time being. We shall look back with satisfaction on our
little course if we are able to say, "Well, I know my efforts were weak, and I
know my shortcomings were many, but I have sought to serve Christ to the extent
of my mortal possibilities as circumstances allowed, and although it has been a
toilsome career, hard work, and unsatisfactory in some respects, I am glad to
look back upon it, and would do as I have done if I have to live it over again."
On the other hand, the men or the women who have merely mild notions of Christ,
and who have been devoting themselves to personal aims connected with this
mortal life, as the object of their exertions, when they get through their
comfortable drive and come to die, will be far other than satisfied with the
account they will have to look upon; they will be filled with consternation when
they come to present it.
It is a glorious day that is coming, but glorious only in a certain line of
things. The greatness and the glory of the day of Christ are all on a certain
foundation. The glory, and the foundation of the glory, are both visible in the
Psalm that has been read. Let us glance at them for a moment. "The Lord reigneth."
What is the leading feature of the system of government and of human life when
the Lord reigneth? "The Lord is great in Zion; he is high above all the people.
Let them praise thy great and terrible name; for it is holy." "Exalt ye the Lord
our God, and worship at his footstool; for he is holy." The recognition of the
greatness of God is the foundation of the glory of those glorious "good times
coming." It is testified that all nations shall come and worship before God; and
that the knowledge of the glory of God shall cover the earth as the waters cover
the sea; God's will shall be done upon earth as it is done in heaven. There will
be glory to God in the highest at the time that there is peace on earth.
Now, in contrast to this, just look at the world at present. What does it know
or care for the greatness and the glory of God? What conception has it of His
holiness? Speak to it of such matters, and your speech is to them the speech of
a madman. This helps us to realize how thoroughly evil the world is. Some people
have a difficulty in realizing the truth on this point. They certainly think the
world was bad at the time of the Roman emperors, and at the time that Christ
appeared; but they have an idea that now we are advancing by slow degrees
towards an age of progress and enlightenment, and that in fact the world as a
whole is already tolerably righteous. The prevalence of this idea is only proof
of the ignorance that exists as to the nature of true enlightenment and true
civilization. The world lieth in wickedness now as much as it did in the days of
John. The wickedness has only changed its form a little. Wickedness in our day
is refined; it is cultivated; it is methodical; it has got on a beautiful skin
outside, but according to the Divine standard, it is, perhaps, more reprobate
than the untutored barbarism of early days. It is more proud and more blind to
its weakness and dependence. The barbarians had some notion of a God, and
entertained some idea that they must give some service to that God; but this
miserable world of modern civilization is like to burst with exaggerated notions
of its own importance. It is ripe for destruction. It is respectable enough
according to current notions of respectability; but, in the eyes of God, it is
sunk in corruption as much as it was before the flood, when mankind had
corrupted His way upon the earth. Mankind have now utterly corrupted His way,
and are walking after a thousand imaginations of their evil hearts, fearing not
the Possessor of heaven and earth, regarding not His law, nor caring to know the
state of the poor. Christ is, with them, a byword. We are close to the time when
it is revealed that the angel -- the symbolic angel with the sickle -- will
gather the harvest of the earth and cast it into the great winepress of the
wrath of God, that it may be trodden by him to whom alone is allotted this great
mission, even the Man of Sorrows who, in his day, bore testimony to the
wickedness of the world; who upheld the faith and the honour of God, and who is
to have the great honour of executing the work of judgment when the time
arrives. To that work and that great honour we are called if we are of his
spirit, if we are his brethren, if we have a family likeness to him. The family
likeness in this case, is a thing of principle and not of flesh and blood, and
the principle shines through the gorgeous picture of the kingdom presented in
this Psalm. It is the greatness of God and holiness unto Him. "Be ye holy,"
Christ said to his disciples, and, therefore, to us. We may imagine him standing
here this morning and saying, "Be ye holy"; and his apostles coming after him
and saying the same thing: "Be ye holy in all manner of conversation." This is a
practical exhortation. There are things which we ought to dismiss as
inconvenient and unbecoming in sons of God, and Paul mentions among them
covetousness, jesting, and foolish talking. These are things which waste and
burn up the mind. There are indulgences in common follies which dry up the
spiritual sap and engender aversion to spiritual things. Let us avoid them.
Remember, we are going on to the state symbolized by the four heraldic living
creatures of the Israelitish commonwealth, full of eyes, and which rest not day
and night, saying, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and
is to come ... Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power:
for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were
created." We are to be incorporated in those four living ones if we are
acceptable to Christ at his coming; and that acceptability will only exist then
if we are now constituents of the peculiar people. Christ is working now;
purifying the people unto himself, and he has been working at this work ever
since he went away, through the instrumentality employed.
It is hard work in our generation. The world is in such a wretched plight with
regard to the truth, that we cannot begin where the apostles began. The apostles
began straight off, whereas we have to convince men of the elementary
principles. We have to begin at the very foundation, and show that man is
mortal; that Christ is coming, and that the kingdom of God is to be established
on earth. Consequently, there is the tremendous danger that people getting to
know these elementary things may think they are all right, whereas the fact of
the matter is that the foundation is only laid for the work of fashioning them
into the likeness of the people prepared for the Lord. Well, if the difficulties
are great, no doubt Christ's sympathies are great; if our situation is
peculiarly discouraging, no doubt our welcome before him, if we overcome, will
be correspondingly cordial. He may say: "Many believed on me who saw the signs
and wonders of the apostolic age, but ye saw them not, and yet believed: blessed
are ye; enter now into the glory revealed." In prospect of that, and with the
desire for such a reception, let us continue patient in this well-doing;
breaking bread from Sunday to Sunday, daily reading the word and persevering
under all circumstances, however discouraging, in the patient observance of all
the things that Christ has commanded.