brightly, and certainly with more attractive glow, but where it seems as
if the quality of the fuel must be poor because the fire gives out
comparatively little heat. The heart sends out a cheery beam across the
family circle, but it does not reach beyond. There is no cordial warmth
for the wider circles of fellowship. The fire burns in the home but it
does not affect the office. It encompasses the child but it has no cheer
for the stranger. What is the temperature of such a life? It is very
difficult to appraise it. Perhaps it will be best to say that in one
room of the soul the temperature is 60, while in all the other rooms it
is down towards freezing.
And, therefore, I need not say how profound is the need in the world for
warm, glowing, affectional fires. What awfully cold lives there are in
the city, just waiting for the cheer of "the flame of sacred love!"
There are souls whose fires have died down at the touch of death. There
are others whose glow has been dulled by heavy sorrow. There are others
whose love has been slaked by the pitiless rains of pelting defeat.
There are others again whose hearts are cold in the midst of material
wealth. They have richly furnished dwellings, but their hearts are like
ice. They are unloved and unlovely, and they are frostbitten in the
realms of luxury. Wealth can buy attention; it can never purchase love.
My God! What cold souls there are in this great city!
And, therefore, what a clamant and urgent need there is for love-fires
at which to kindle these souls that are heavy, and burdened, and cold.
And when the Holy Spirit is given to a man, and he is baptized with
fire, it must surely, first of all, be the fire of cordial, human
affection. And such is the teaching of experience. When John Wesley came
into the fulness of the divine blessing in a little service at
Aldersgate Street, London, he said that he "felt his heart strangely
warmed." He was receiving the gift of holy fire. And I cannot but think
that Charles Wesley was thinking about his brother's experience on that
day when he wrote his own immortal hymn which includes the prayerful
lines:
"Kindle a flame of sacred love
In these cold hearts of ours."
You find and feel the glow of that love-fire throughout the New
Testament Scriptures. They who have the most of God's Spirit have the
most of the fire. There was Barnabas, who was declared to be "full of
the Holy Spirit," and he is also described as "the son of consolation."
What a consummate title! Cannot we feel the love-fire burning and
glowing in all his ample ministry? Full of the Spirit, and therefore
full of consolation! The truth of the matter is this,--we cannot be much
with the Spirit of Christ, and not take fire from His presence. In these
high realms, communing is partaking, and we kindle to the same affection
as fills the heart of the Lord. "We love because He first loved us." His
fire lights our fire, and we burn in kindred passion. So do I proclaim
that when the fire of God falls upon our spirits the sacred gift kindles
and inflames the soul's affections. When we are baptized with the Holy
Ghost and with fire, we receive the glowing power of Christian love.
Where else shall we look for that holy fire in human life? I think I
should look for the presence of the fire of the Holy Ghost in fervent
enthusiasm for the cause of Christ's Kingdom. And that indeed is what I
find. The New Testament instructs me in this, and it teaches me that
where man is baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire his own spirit
becomes fervent. He is declared to be "_fervent_ in spirit," and the
original word means to bubble up, to boil, as in a boiling kettle; it is
the emergence of the mighty power of steam. And so the significance is
this: the fire of God generates steam, it creates driving power, it
produces forceful and invincible enthusiasm. You will find abundant
examples of this spiritual miracle in the Acts of the Apostles; perhaps
the Book might be more truly named "The Acts of the Holy Spirit," for
all the glorious activity is generated by His holy fire. Let your eyes
glance over the apostolic record. Mark how the fire of God endows man
with the power of magnificent initiative. Take the apostle Peter;--once
his strength was the strength of impulse, a spurt and then a collapse, a
spasm and then a retreat, proud beginnings bereft of patience and
perseverance. But see him when the Spirit of God has got hold upon him,
and what a gift he has received of initial and sustained enthusiasm!
"And Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit!" You should see him then, and
note the strength of his drive, and the ardour of his enterprise! And
the example of Peter would be confirmed by the examples of all the other
apostles, if only we knew their personal history and experience. I wish
there had been given to us just a glimpse of doubting Thomas, slow,
hesitant, reluctant, uncertain, when the Holy Spirit had him in
possession. "And Thomas filled with the Holy Spirit,"--I would give
something to know the end of that sentence. And I wish we had one
glimpse of timid, fearful, night-walking Nicodemus, when the fire of
God's Spirit blazed in his soul. "Then Nicodemus, filled with the Holy
Spirit,"--I wonder what notable exploits would complete that unfinished
sentence. This we know; the holy fire transformed the timid into the
courageous, the lukewarm into the fervent, it generated a moral steam
which made them invincible.
The first apostles drove through tremendous obstacles. Indeed, they
never had the comfort of an open and unimpeded road. Every road was
thick with adversaries. What then? Through them or over them! "But,
Sire," said a timid and startled officer to Napoleon, on receiving
apparently impossible commands, "But, Sire, there are the Alps!" "Then
there must be no Alps," replied his audacious chief. "There must be no
Alps!" That was the very spirit of the first apostles. Mighty
antagonisms reared themselves in their way,--ecclesiastical prejudices,
the prejudices of culture, social hostilities, political expediences,
and all the subtle and violent contrivances of the world, the flesh and
the devil. "But, Sire, there are the Alps!" "There must be no Alps!"
Through them! Over them! What that coward Peter got through when the
fire of God glowed in his soul! When a man has the holy fire of God
within him he has a boiling fervency of spirit, and he can drive through
anything.
And that same holy fire gives the same terrific power to-day, the same
driving enthusiasm, the same patient, dogged, invincible perseverance.
If a man declares that he has received the fire of God's Holy Spirit, I
will look eagerly for the impetus of his sacred enthusiasm. If he be a
preacher I will look for labour in the passion, and the unsnarable
energy and patience which he will assuredly put into his work. If he be
a teacher, I will examine the generated steam, and note how much he can
do, how far he can travel, and how long he can hold out in the service
of his Lord. If he be a man who has set himself to some piece of social
reconstruction I will watch with what ardour, and ingenuity, and
inevitableness he is moving towards his goal. Is it the smashing of the
saloons? "Then Peter, filled with the Holy fire;"--what if that power
were harnessed to the enterprise? Or is it the awful plague and blight
of impurity; or is it the cleaning up of politics; the establishment of
rectitude in civic and national life? Whatever it be, the holy fire of
God will reveal its presence in the soul of man in an ardent enthusiasm
which cannot be quenched. It is the promise of our God, and shall He not
do it? "He maketh His ministers a flaming fire,"--and that fire can
never be blown out in the darkest and most tempestuous nights.
And lastly, I shall look for the signs of the presence of the Holy
Spirit in the fire of sacred resentment. If a man is baptized with the
Holy Ghost, and with fire, I shall expect to see the presence of that
fire in the capacity of hot and sensitive indignation. I need not say
that there is a mighty difference between hot temper and hot
indignation. Hot temper is a firing of loose powder upon a shovel. It is
just a flare, and an annoyance, and a danger. But hot indignation is
powder concentrated in the muzzle of a gun, and intelligently directed
to the overthrow of some stronghold of iniquity. Hot temper is the fire
of the devil. Hot indignation is the fire of God; it is the wrath of the
Lamb. What is this capacity of indignation? It is the opposite to frozen
antipathy, to tepid curiosity, to sinful "don't care," to all immoral
coldness and calculated indifference. There are many people who can be
irritated, but they are never indignant. They can be offended, but they
are never nobly angry. The souls who are possessed with the fire of God
are the very opposite to all these. I said at the very beginning of this
meditation that the breath of God is like the quickening atmosphere of
the Spring; but it is equally true to say that it can be like the
destructive blast of the African sirocco--"The grass withereth and the
flower fadeth _because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it_." The hot
breath of God is like unto a blast that scorches things in their very
roots. And if we share the breath of God's Spirit we too shall be
endowed with the ministry of the destructive blast, even the power of a
consuming indignation. Any form of public iniquity will make our fire
blaze with purifying wrath. Corruption in civic or national government,
inhumanity in the treatment of the criminal and the unfortunate, the
oppression of the poor, the brutal disregard of the rights of the weak
and the defenceless, any one of these will draw out our souls in the hot
and aggressive indignation which is the imparted fire of the Holy Ghost.
If any one claims to have been baptized with the Holy Ghost and with
fire, and he is indifferent in the presence of licensed iniquity, and
apathetic and lukewarm when gigantic wrongs glare and stare upon him,
that man's spiritual baptism is a pathetic fiction, and his boasted fire
is only a painted flame.
But if a man suffer a personal injury, if some wrong is done to him,
what kind of fire shall I expect to see in his life if he is filled with
the Holy Ghost? Yes, if some one has done an injury to another, and the
other has been baptized with the Holy Ghost, what kind of fire will he
reveal? Listen to this: "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst,
give him drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his
head!" It is the very fire that rains upon us from the Cross of our
Lord: "And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary,
there they crucified Him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand and
the other on the left. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do." What kind of fire is that? It is the same holy
fire which flowed from the soul of the martyr Stephen as he was being
stoned to death: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." It is a
marvellous fire, a most arresting fire; and we simply cannot withstand
it. It is the very fire of grace; it is live coal from the altar of God.
So this is the sort of fire I look for when a man claims to be filled
with the Holy Spirit,--the glowing fire of humble affection, the glowing
fire of noble enthusiasm, the glowing fire of indignation, and the
marvellous fire of self-forgetting grace. "He shall baptize you with the
Holy Ghost and with fire."
"He came in tongues of living flame,
To teach, convince, subdue,
All powerful as the wind He came,
And viewless too.
Spirit of purity and grace,
Our weakness, pitying see,
Oh, make our hearts Thy dwelling-place,
And worthier Thee."
XIII
VICTORY OVER THE BEAST
_Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for our knowledge that all our
springs are in Thee. Wilt Thou deliver us from any sense of
self-dependence, and lead us into an intimate fellowship with
the ministers of Thy grace. If any triumph has made us
self-confident, if any earthly success has made us proud, may
Thy Holy Spirit lead our spirits into the lowliness which is the
beginning of true wisdom and strength. We humbly ask that Thou
wilt deliver us from the sins which have become our masters, and
in which we find unholy delight. Incline our hearts unto Thy
law, and help us to find pleasure in obedience to Thy holy will.
Graciously redeem us from every care which fetters our souls,
and give us such an assurance of Thy providential love that we
may exult in the glorious liberty of the children of God.
Graciously remember us one by one. Be very near to those who
scarcely have the heart to pray. Mercifully meet with those who
have been stunned with sorrow, and who have not yet regained the
comforts of Thy peace. Remember all who are in grave perplexity,
and graciously light Thy lamp on their bewildered way. Receive
all our little ones into the circle of Thy blessing, and may
they early rejoice in Thy friendship and become devoted to Thy
holy will. Amen._
XIII
VICTORY OVER THE BEAST
"And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and they
that had gotten the victory over the beast." Revelation 15:2.
The symbolism of the city of God as given in the Book of Revelation
represents the character of its citizens, and all the glories of the new
Jerusalem have correspondences in the souls who live and move in that
radiant land. The sea of glass represents a spiritual character of regal
serenity, a character transparent in its limpid depths, and reflecting
in its stillness the very image of the Lord. And the sea of glass,
"mingled with fire," is significant of character made fervent by holy
love, purity made genial, righteousness changed into goodness by the
permeating heat of affectional enthusiasm and devotion.
And now I wish to examine the next descriptive sentence, which tells us
something of the history and experiences of those who have arrived at
the sea of glass, and who have attained the serene and genial purity of
those who hold immediate communion with God. And this is the sentence
which records some of the happenings which have befallen them on the
road; "_They have gotten the victory over the beast._" It is a very
striking conjunction, this which tells me that they who dwell by the sea
of glass have come by the way of the beast, and that they have conquered
the beast by the way. What was the beast which these men and women had
faced and conquered as they moved onward to the crystal sea? I do not
profess to know the precise historic interpretation. The beast may have
been the malignant and vindictive antagonism of the Emperor Nero. He may
have been the beast. The beast may have been the hostile and suffocating
pressure of the Roman Empire. The beast may have been the stealthy
seductions of the imperial city of Rome. The beast may have been the
fascinating and paralyzing charm of the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Anyone or all of these together may have been the beast which straddled
across the road and opposed these Christians on their journey towards
home. I do not know, and I frankly confess I am not deeply concerned to
know. The general boldness of the figure is quite enough for me.
Whatever else the beast may mean it must essentially mean anti-God,
anti-Christ, the antagonist of the divine. It must mean the animal side
of our nature seeking to invade the realm of the spirit, to force its
way among the executive powers of the soul, and to usurp the throne of
God. The beast is triumphant when the flesh and all the works of the
flesh have ousted the forces of the spirit. The beast is conquered when
the powers of the spirit never surrender their holy sovereignty, when
the forces of the flesh have been ordered to their place among the rank
and file, and when they are never allowed to wear the honours and
prerogatives of the commander-in-chief. "They that have gotten the
victory over the beast." The beast is just anti-Christ, in whatever form
he may appear.
Let us spend a little while in first of all examining this beast who
claims the control and mastery of our souls. Everybody has a vivid
experience of his power, but it may help to clarify our minds if we
consider what has been said about him by the recognized masters and
counsellors of the soul. Let us turn, then, to the pages of literature,
and first of all let us turn to the inspired literature itself. You have
scarcely opened the Word of God before the beast makes his appearance in
the form of a serpent. "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast
of the field." And who has not experienced the wiles of the serpent when
he approaches the soul in some charming seduction, in some fascinating
crookedness, in some wriggling sophistry, in some twisted excuse, in
some winding compromise? Who has not seen the beast when he has sought
to persuade the soul that the wriggle is the most graceful form of
motion, and that the curve is more acceptable than the straight line?
Who has not heard him when he has argued that the detour is the shortest
way home, and that a slight deviation from rectitude will lead to the
noblest ends? Yes, this beast is the apostle of the serpentine, and this
is his creed,--the wriggle is the best way to your goal. "The serpent
was more subtle than any beast of the field."
I turn over the pages of the old book, and I am confronted with an
extraordinary change in the form of the beast. He is no longer a
wriggling serpent but a prowling lion. "The devil goeth abroad like a
roaring lion." He no longer makes a seductive approach to the intellect
with his advocacy of the crooked way; he makes a passionate assault upon
the spirit with all the fiery forces of the flesh. It is no longer the
wriggle but a terrific leap. And who has not known him in this wild
approach? It is just the tremendous weight and pounce of anti-spiritual
impulse, the mighty onrush of carnal longing and desire. The lion is
sheer mass and weight of hungry craving. Who has not known the lion in
the way?... And yet beside the crystal sea are those "who have gotten
the victory over the beast."
Again I turn over the pages of the old book, and once again the form of
the beast has changed and he appears before me in the guise of a fox. It
is our Master's name for the foe. And who has not known the beast when
he has assailed the soul in the manner of a fox? It is the assault of
cunning, when things are made to appear in semblance what they are not
in spirit and in truth. Nay, it is the very art of foxiness that the fox
itself is made to look like a goose, and the wolf is given the
appearance of a lamb. Vice is dressed up like virtue. Falsehood moves
about in white robes and innocently accosts us in the dress of a white
lie. License tricks itself out as gaiety. Sin clothes itself in the
fashions of the hour and hides its talons in silks. I say this is the
very genius of the fox,--he makes you think you are having converse with
a harmless old goose! Who has not known the fox when he cunningly tried
to persuade us that the devil was God, and that hell was heaven, and
that death was.... But, O no, he never mentions death! In his scheme it
is part of the trick that death shall never be known. The old fox! And
yet, in spite of fox and lion and serpent, there were those beside the
sea of glass "who had gotten the victory over the beast."
Let me lead you further, for a moment or two, into the pages of a wider
literature, and let it be into the pages of Dante and John Bunyan. In
his immortal book Dante tells us that when he turned his feet to the
pilgrim road he was successively confronted by three beasts which sought
to stop his journey. And first he met a leopard:
"And lo! just as the sloping side I gained,
A leopard, subtle, lithe, exceeding fleet,
Whose skin full many a dusky spot did stain;
Nor did she from before my face retreat;
Nay, hindered so my journey on the way,
That many a time I backward turned my feet."
The leopard which confronted Dante was the symbol of sensuous beauty
which sought to block his road and ensnare his feet. Next he was
confronted by a lion:
"Yet o'er me, spite of this, did terror creep--
From aspect of a lion drawing near.
He seemed as if upon me he would leap,
With head upraised and hunger fierce and wild,
So that a shudder through the air did sweep."
The lion was to Dante the symbol of worldly pride. And next he met a
wolf:
"A she-wolf, with all ill-greed defiled,
Laden with hungry leanness terrible."
And the wolf was to Dante the lean symbol of a hungry greed; it was the
beastly type of avarice. And who has not shared the experience of Dante
on his own road and encountered the leopard, the lion and the wolf?...
And yet there were those before the sea of glass who had got the victory
over the beast.
Turn to John Bunyan. There is a wonderful passage in the early part of
John Bunyan's "Holy War," in which he describes the preparations which
the beast has made for his attack upon the soul. He tells how beast held
counsel with beast, and how it was agreed that they should assume forms
with which the soul was quite familiar; such as were accounted harmless,
lest the soul should be alarmed when they made their deadly approach.
"Therefore let us assault the soul in all pretended fairness, covering
our intentions with all manner of lies, flatteries, and illusive words;
feigning things that will never be, and promising that to them which
they shall never find." And so they marched toward the soul, "all in a
manner invisible," save only one, and he took on a shape as harmless and
familiar as a bird, and when he spoke he spake with such gentleness "as
if he had been a lamb." And I for one put myself side by side with John
Bunyan, for I too have known the beast when he has come disguised, and
has addressed me with all the harmlessness and innocence of a lamb.
I will add one further word in our consideration of the beast. When I
look around on the world to-day, upon the appalling scenes of passion
and hatred and slaughter,--it is to me very significant that so many of
the national emblems, which represent the corporate life of peoples, are
different types of beasts. It is the beast which still provides the
symbols of our national life. There is the lion; there is the bear;
there is the wolf, and I know not what besides! We talk of rousing the
bear and of twisting the lion's tail! Our national emblems are beasts.
The American nation has happily discarded the beast, but it has chosen
one of the fiercest among the birds--the bird whose talons are more
obtrusive than its song. I am suggesting the significance of the fact
that we have found nothing above the beast to symbolize the
individuality of national life. Perhaps some day we may "move upward,"
and we may erase the beasts from our emblems, but it will only be when
we have driven the beasts from our souls!
Well, then, after this swift glimpse into inspired and general
literature, and this glance upon the typical symbols of the national
life, we are more disposed than ever to say that the beast is just
anti-Christ, the presumptuous claim of the animal to take the place of
the spiritual, the defiant claim of the devil to usurp the throne of
God. But here are men and women whose triumph is recorded in my text,
who have conquered the beast, and who have attained a strong and fervent
purity in which the spirit is all in all. What was the secret of their
triumph? By what means and ministries did they conquer the beast?
Happily we are left in no manner of doubt, and the means by which they
conquered are offered to you and me. What says the Old Book?--"They
overcame by the blood of the Lamb." Let us tell their secret very
quietly and very simply, without any waste of words,--they shared the
blood of Jesus Christ and it changed them into giants. In some way or
other a communion was formed between their life and His life, and His
mighty life flowed into their life as vine-blood flows into the branch
of the vine. They shared the strength of Him who fought the beast in the
wilderness of Judea, and who fought him again in still more alluring
forms in the courts of Jerusalem and by the shores of the Lake of
Galilee. Yes, if you had asked these radiant victors by the sea of glass
to tell you how they triumphed, they would have reverently turned their
faces towards the Lord and eagerly answered, "By the blood of the Lamb!"
"I asked them whence their victory came,
They with united breath
Ascribed their conquest to the Lamb,
Their triumph to His death."