ancient times, it has nothing to do with us. All these things were
written for our example. This chapter tells us not merely how Ahab was
tempted, but it tells us how _we_ are tempted, every one of us, here in
England, in these very days. As it was with Ahab, so it is with us.
Every wilful sin that we commit we give room to the devil. Every wrong
step that we take knowingly, we give a handle to some evil spirit to lead
us seven steps further wrong. And yet in every temptation God gives us a
fair chance. He is no cruel tyrant who will deliver us over to the
devil, to be led helpless and blindfold to our ruin. He did not give
Ahab over to him so. He sent a lying spirit to deceive Ahab’s prophets,
that Ahab might go up and fall at Ramoth-Gilead; but at the very same
time, see, he sends a holy and a true man, a man whom Ahab could trust,
and did trust at the bottom of his heart, to tell him that the lie was a
lie, to warn him of his ruin, so that he might have no excuse for
listening to those false prophets—no excuse for following his own pride,
his own ambition, to his destruction. So you see, “Let no man say, when
he is tempted, I am tempted of God, for God tempteth no man, but every
one is tempted when he is led away by his own lust and enticed.” Ahab
was led away by his own lust; his cowardly love of hearing what was
pleasant and flattering to him, rather than what was true—rather than
what he knew he deserved; that was what enticed him to listen to Zedekiah
and the false prophets, rather than to Micaiah the son of Imlah. _That_
is what entices us to sin—the lust of believing what is pleasant to us,
what suits our own self-will—what is pleasant to our bodies—pleasant to
our purses—pleasant to our pride and self-conceit. Then, when the lying
spirit comes and whispers to us, by bad thoughts, by bad books, by bad
men, that we shall prosper in our wickedness, does God leave us alone to
listen to those evil voices without warning? No! He sends His prophets
to us, as He sent Micaiah to Ahab, to tell us that the wages of sin is
death—to tell us that those who sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind—to
set before us at every turn good or evil, that we may choose between
them, and live or die according to our choice. For do not fancy that
there are no prophets in our days, unless the gift of the Holy Spirit,
which is promised to all who believe, be a dream and a lie. There are
prophets nowadays,—yea, I say unto you, and more than prophets. Is not
the Bible a prophet? Is not every page in it a prophecy to us,
foretelling God’s mercies and God’s punishments towards men. Is not
every holy and wise book, every holy and wise preacher and writer, a
prophet, expounding to us God’s laws, foretelling to us God’s opinions of
our deeds, both good and evil? Ay, is not every man a prophet to
himself? That “still small voice” in a man’s heart, which warns him of
what is evil—that feeling which makes him cheerful and free when he has
done right, sad and ashamed when he has done wrong—is not that a prophecy
in a man’s own heart? Truly it is. It is the voice of God within us—it
is the Spirit of God striving with our spirits, whether we will hear, or
whether we will forbear—setting before us what is righteous, and noble,
and pure, and what is manly and God-like—to see whether we will obey that
voice, or whether we will obey our own selfish lusts, which tempt us to
please ourselves—to pamper ourselves, our greediness, covetousness,
ambition, or self-conceit. And again, I say, we have our prophets.
Every preacher of righteousness is a prophet. Every good tract is a
prophet. That Prayer-book, those Psalms, those Creeds, those Collects,
which you take into your mouths every Sunday, what are they but written
prophecies, crying unto us with the words of holy men of old, greater
than Micaiah, or David, or Elijah, “Hear thou the word of the Lord?” The
spirits of those who wrote that Prayer-book—the spirits of just men made
perfect, filled with the Spirit of the Lord—they call to us to learn the
wisdom which they knew, to avoid the temptations which they conquered,
that we may share in the glory in which they shared round the throne of
Christ for evermore.
And if you ask me how to try the spirits, how to know whether your own
thoughts, whether the sermons which you hear, the books which you read,
are speaking to you God’s truth, or some lying spirit’s falsehood, I can
only answer you, “To the law and to the testimony”—to the Bible; if they
speak not according to that word, there is no truth in them. But how to
understand the Bible? for the fleshly man understands not the things of
God. The fleshly man, he who cares only about pleasing himself, he who
goes to the Bible full of self-conceit and selfishness, wanting the Bible
to tell him only just what he likes to hear, will only find it a sealed
book to him, and will very likely wrest the Scriptures to his own
destruction. Take up your Bible humbly, praying to God to shew you its
meaning, whether it be pleasant to you or not, and then you will find
that God will shew you a blessed meaning in it; He will open your eyes,
that you may understand the wondrous things of His law; He will shew you
how to try the spirit of all you are taught, and to find out whether it
comes from God.
SERMON IX.
HELL ON EARTH.
MATTHEW, viii. 29.
“And behold the evil spirits cried out, saying, What have we to do
with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of God? Art Thou come hither to torment
us before the time?”
THIS account of the man possessed with devils, and of his language to our
Lord, of our Lord’s casting the devils out of the poor sufferer, and His
allowing them to enter into a herd of swine, is one that is well worth
serious thought; and I think a few words on it will follow fitly after my
last Sunday’s sermon on Ahab and his temptations by evil spirits. In
that sermon I shewed you what temper of mind it was which laid a man open
to the cunning of evil spirits; I wish now to shew you something of what
those evil spirits are. It is very little that we can know about them.
We were intended to know very little, just as much as would enable us to
guard against them, and no more. The accounts of them in the Scriptures
are for our use, not to satisfy our curiosity. But we may find out a
great deal about them from this very chapter, from this very story, which
is repeated almost word for word in three different Gospels, as if to
make us more certain of so curious and important a matter, by having
three distinct and independent writers to witness for its truth. I
advise all those who have Bibles to look for this story in the 8th
chapter of St. Matthew, and follow me as I explain it. {92}
Now, first, we may learn from this account, that evil spirits are real
persons. There is a notion got abroad that it is only a figure of speech
to talk of evil spirits, that all the Bible means by them are certain bad
habits, or bad qualities, or diseases. There are many who will say when
they read this story, ‘This poor man was only a madman. It was the
fashion of the old Jews when a man was mad to say that he was possessed
by evil spirits. All they meant was that the man’s own spirit was in an
evil diseased state, or that his brain and mind were out of order.’
When I hear such language—and it is very common—I cannot help thinking
how pleased the devil must be to hear people talk in such a way. How can
people help him better than by saying that there is no devil? A thief
would be very glad to hear you say, ‘There are no such things as thieves;
it is all an old superstition, so I may leave my house open at night
without danger;’ and I believe, my friends, from the very bottom of my
heart, that this new-fangled disbelief in evil spirits is put into men’s
hearts by the evil spirits themselves. As it was once said, ‘The devil
has tried every plan to catch men’s souls, and now, as the last and most
cunning trick of all, he is shamming dead.’ These may seem homely words,
but the homeliest words are very often the deepest. I advise you all to
think seriously on them.
But it is impossible surely to read this story without seeing that the
Bible considers evil spirits as distinct persons, just as much as each
one of us is a person, and that our Lord spoke to them and treated them
as persons. “What have _we_ to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of God?
Art Thou come hither to torment _us_ before the time?” And again, “If
Thou cast _us_ out, suffer us to go into the herd of swine.” What can
shew more plainly that there were some persons in that poor man, besides
himself, his own spirit, his own person? and that _he_ knew it, and Jesus
knew it too? and that He spoke to these spirits, these persons, who
possessed that man, and not to the man himself? No doubt there was a
terrible confusion in the poor madman’s mind about these evil spirits,
who were tormenting him, making him miserable, foul, and savage, in mind
and body—a terrible confusion! We find, when Jesus asked him his name,
he answers “_Legion_,” that is an army, a multitude, “for we are many,”
he says. Again, one gospel tells us that he says, “What have _I_ to do
with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of God?” While in another Gospel we are told
that he said, “What have _we_ to do with Thee?” He seems not to have
been able to distinguish between his own spirit, and these spirits who
possessed him. They put the furious and despairing thoughts into his
heart; they spoke through his mouth; they made a slave and a puppet of
him. But though he could not distinguish between his own soul and the
devils who were in it, Christ could and Christ did.
The man says to Him, or rather the devils make the man say to Him, “If
Thou cast us out, suffer us to go into the herd of swine, and drive us
not out into the deep.” What did Christ answer him? Christ did not
answer him as our so-called wise men in these days would, ‘My good man,
this is all a delusion and a fancy of your own, about your having evil
spirits in you—more persons than one in you—for you are wrong in saying
_we_ of yourself. You ought to say “I,” as every one else does; and as
for spirits going out of you, or going into a herd of swine, or anything
else, that is all a superstition and a fancy. There is nothing to come
out of you, there is nothing in you except yourself. All the evil in you
is your own, the disease of your own brain, and the violent passions of
your own heart. Your brain must be cured by medicine, and your violent
passions tamed down by care and kindness, and then you will get rid of
this foolish notion that you have evil spirits in you, and calling
yourself a multitude, as if you had other persons in you besides
yourself.’
Any one who spoke in this manner nowadays would be thought very
reasonable and very kind. Why did not our Lord speak so to this man, for
there was no outward difference between this man’s conduct and that of
many violent mad people whom we see continually in England? We read,
that this man possessed with devils would wear no clothes; that he had
extraordinary strength; that he would not keep company with other men,
but abode day and night in the tombs, exceeding fierce, crying and
cutting himself with stones, trying in blind rage, which he could not
explain to himself, to hurt himself and all who came near him. And,
above all, he had this notion, that evil spirits had got possession of
him. Now every one of these habits and fancies you may see in many
raging maniacs at this day.
But did our Lord treat this man as we treat such maniacs in these days?
He took the man at his word, and more; the man could not distinguish
clearly between himself and the evil spirits, but our Lord did. When the
devils besought Him, saying, “If thou cast us out, suffer us to go into
the herd of swine,” our Lord answers “Go;” and “when they were cast out,
they went into the herd of swine; and, behold, the whole herd of swine
ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the
waters.”
It was as if our Lord had meant to say to the bystanders,—ay and to us,
and to all people in all times and in all countries, ‘This poor possessed
maniac’s notion was a true one. There were other persons in him besides
himself, tormenting him, body and soul: and, behold, I can drive these
out of him and send them into something else, and leave the man
uninjured, _himself_, and only himself, again in an instant, without any
need of long education to cure him of his bad habits.’ It will be but
reasonable, then, for us to take this story of the man possessed by
devils, as written for our example, as an instance of what _might_, and
perhaps _would_, happen to any one of us, were it not for God’s mercy.
St. Peter tells us to be sober and watchful, because “the devil goes
about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour;” and when we look at
the world around, we may surely see that that stands as true now as it
did in St. Peter’s time. Why, again, did St. James tells us to resist
the devil if the devil be not near us to resist? Why did St. Paul take
for granted, as he did, that Christian men were, of course, not ignorant
of Satan’s devices, if it be quite a proof of enlightenment and superior
knowledge to be ignorant of his devices,—if any dread, any thought even,
about evil spirits, be beneath the attention of reasonable men? My
friends, I say fairly, once for all, that that common notion, that there
are no men now possessed by evil spirits, and that all those stories of
the devil’s power over men are only old, worn-out superstitions has come
from this, that men do not like to retain God in their knowledge, and
therefore, as a necessary consequence, do not like to retain the devil in
their knowledge; because they would be very glad to believe in nothing
but what they can see, and taste, and handle; and, therefore, the thought
of unseen evil spirits, or good spirits either, is a painful thing to
them. First, they do not really believe in angels—ministering spirits
sent out to minister to the heirs of salvation; then they begin not to
believe in evil spirits. The Bible plainly describes their vast numbers;
but these people are wiser than the Bible, and only talk of _one_—of
_the_ devil, as if there were not, as the text tells us, legions and
armies of devils. Then they get rid of that one devil in their real
desire to believe in as few spirits as possible. I am afraid many of
them have gone on to the next step, and got rid of the one God out of
their thoughts and their belief. I said I am afraid, I ought to have
said I _know_, that they have done so, and that thousands in this day who
began by saying evil spirits only mean certain diseases and bad habits in
men, have ended by saying, “God only means certain good habits in man.
God is no more a person than the evil spirits are persons.”
I warn you of all this, my friends, because if you go to live in large
towns, as many of you will, you will hear talk enough of this sort before
your hairs are grey, put cleverly and eloquently enough; for, as a wise
man said, “The devil does not send fools on his errands.” I pray God,
that if you ever do hear doctrines of that kind, some of my words may
rise in your mind and help to shew to you the evil path down which they
lead.
We may believe, then, from the plain words of Scriptures, that there are
vast numbers of evil spirits continually tempting men, each of them to
some particular sin; to worldliness, for instance, for we read of the
spirit of the evil world; to filthiness, for we read of unclean spirits;
to falsehood, for we read of lying spirits and a spirit of lies; to
pride, for we read of a spirit of pride;—in short, to all sins which a
man _can_ commit, to all evil passions to which a man can give way. We
have a right to believe, from the plain words of Scripture, that these
spirits are continually wandering up and down tempting men to sin. That
wonderful story of Job’s temptation, which you may all read for
yourselves in the first chapter of the book of Job, is, I think, proof
enough for any one.
But next, and I wish you to pay special attention to this point: We have
no right to believe,—we have every right _not_ to believe, that these
evil spirits can make us sin in the smallest matter against our own
wills. The devil cannot put a single sin into us; he can only flatter
the sinfulness which is already in us. For, see; this pride, lust,
covetousness, falsehood, and so on, to which the Bible tells us they
tempt us, have roots already in our nature. Our fallen nature of itself
is inclined to pride, to worldliness, and so on. These devils tempt us
by putting in our way the occasion to sin, by suggesting to us tempting
thoughts and arguments which lead to sin; so the serpent tempted Eve, not
by making her ambitious and self-willed, but by using arguments to her
which stirred up the ambition and self-will in her: “Ye shall be as gods,
knowing good and evil,” the devil said to her.
So Satan, the prince of the evil spirits, tempted our Lord. And as the
prince of the devils tempted Christ, so do _his_ servants tempt _us_,
Christ’s servants. Our tempers, our longings, our fancies, are not evil
spirits; they are, as old divines well describe them, like greedy and
foolish fish, who rise at the baits which evil spirits hold out to us.
If we resist those baits—if we put ourselves under God’s protection—if we
claim strength from Him who conquered the devil and all His temptations,
then we shall be able to turn our wills away from those tempting baits,
and to resign our wills into our Father’s hand, and He will take care of
them, and strengthen them with His will; and we shall find out that if we
resist the devil, he will flee from us. But if we yield to temptations
whenever they come in our way, we shall find ourselves less and less able
to resist them, for we shall learn to hate the evil spirits less and
less; I mean we shall shrink less from the evil thoughts they hold out to
us. We shall give place to the devil, as the Scripture tells us we
shall; for instance, by indulging in habitual passionate tempers, or
rooted spite and malice, letting the sun go down upon our wrath: and so a
man may become more and more the slave of his own nature, of his own
lusts and passions, and therefore of the devils, who are continually
pampering and maddening those lusts and passions, till a man may end in
_complete possession_; not in common madness, which may be mere disease,
but as a savage and a raging maniac, such as, thank God, are rare in
Christian countries, though they were common among our own forefathers
before they were converted to Christianity,—men like the demoniac of whom
the text speaks, tormented by devils, given up to blind rage and malice
against himself and all around, to lust and blasphemy, to confusion of
mind and misery of body, God’s image gone, and the image of the devil,
the destroyer and the corrupter, arisen in its place. Few men can arrive
at this pitch of wretchedness in a civilised country. It would not
answer the evil spirit’s purpose to let them do so. It suits _his_
spirits best in such a land as this to walk about dressed up as angels of
light. Few men in England would be fools enough to indulge the gross and
fierce part of their nature till they became mere savages, like the
demoniac whom Christ cured; so it is to respectable vices that the devil
mostly tempts us,—to covetousness, to party spirit, to a hard heart and a
narrow mind; to cruelty, that shall clothe itself under the name of law;
to filthiness, which excuses itself by saying, “It is a man’s nature, he
cannot help it;” to idleness, which excuses itself on the score of
wealth; to meanness and unfairness in trade, and in political and
religious disputes—these are the devils which haunt us Englishmen—sleek,
prim, respectable fiends enough; and, truly, _their_ name is Legion! And
the man who gives himself up to them, though he may not become a raving
savage, is just as truly possessed by devils, to his own misery and ruin,
that he may sow the wind and reap the whirlwind; that though men may
speak well of him, and posterity praise his saying, and speak good of the
covetous whom God abhorreth, yet he may go for ever unto his own, to the
evil spirits to whom his own wicked will gave him up for a prey. I
beseech you, my friends, consider my words; they are not mine, but the
Bible’s. Think of them with fear;—and yet with confidence, for we are
baptised into the name of Him who conquered all devils; you may claim a
share in that Spirit which is opposite to all evil spirits,—whose
presence makes the agony and misery of evil spirits, and drives them out
as water drives out fire. If He is on your side, why should you be
afraid of any spirit? Greater is He that is in you than he that is
against you; and He, Christ Himself, is with every man, every child, who
struggles, however blindly and weakly, against temptation. When
temptation comes, when evil looks pleasant, and arguments rise up in your
mind, that seem to make it look right and reasonable, as well as
pleasant, _then_, out of the very depths of your hearts, cry after Him
who died for you. Say to yourselves, ‘How can I do this thing, and
offend against Him who bought me with His blood?’ Say to Him, ‘I am
weak, I am confused; I do not see right from wrong; I cannot find my way;
I cannot answer the devil; I cannot conquer these cunning thoughts; I
know in the bottom of my heart that they are wrong, mere temptations, and
yet they look so reasonable. Blessed Saviour, _Thou_ must shew me where
they are wrong. Thou didst answer the devil Thyself out of God’s Word,
put into _my_ mind some answer out of God’s Word to these temptations;
or, at least, give me spirit to toss them off—strength of will to thrust
the whole temptation out of my head, and say, I will parley no longer
with the devil; I will put the whole matter out of my head for a time. I
don’t know whether it is right or wrong for me to do this particular
thing, but there are twenty other things which I _do_ know are right.
I’ll go and do _them_, and let this wait awhile.’
Believe me, my friends, you _can_ do this—you can resist these evil
spirits which tempt us all; else why did our Lord bid us pray, “Lead us
not into temptation, but deliver us from evil?” Why? Because our Father
in heaven, if we ask Him, will _not_ lead us _into_ temptation, but
_through_ it safe. Tempted we _must_ be, else we should not be men; but
here is our comfort and our strength—that we have a King in heaven, who
has fought out and conquered all temptations, and a Father in heaven, who
has promised that He will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are
able, but will, with the temptation, make a way to escape, that we may be
able to bear it.
Again, I say, draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Resist the
devil, and he will flee from you.
SERMON X.
NOAH’S JUSTICE.
GENESIS, vi. 9.
“Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked
with God.”
I INTEND, my friends, according as God shall help me, to preach to you,
between this time and Christmas, a few sermons on some of the saints and
worthies of the Old Testament; and I will begin this day with Noah.
Now you must bear in mind that the histories of these ancient men were,
as St. Paul says, written for our example. If these men in old times had
been different from us, they would not be examples to us; but they were
like us—men of like passions, says St. James, as ourselves; they had each
of them in them a corrupt _nature_, which was continually ready to drag
them down, and make beasts of them, and make them slaves to their own
lusts—slaves to eating and drinking, and covetousness, and cowardice, and
laziness, and love for the things which they could see and handle—just
such a nature, in short, as we have. And they had also a spirit in each
of them which was longing to be free, and strong, and holy, and wise—such
a spirit as we have. And to them, just as to us, God was revealing
himself; God was saying to their consciences, as He does to ours, ‘This
is right, that is wrong; do this, and be free and clear-hearted; do that,
and be dark and discontented, and afraid of thy own thoughts.’ And they
too, like us, had to live by faith, by continual belief that they owed a
_duty_ to the great God whom they could not see, by continual belief that
He loved them, and was guiding and leading them through every thing which
happened, good or ill.
This is faith in God, by which alone we, or any man, can live
worthily,—by which these old heroes lived. We read, in the twelfth
chapter of Hebrews, that it was by faith these elders obtained a good
report; and the whole history of the Old-Testament saints is the history
of God speaking to the hearts of one man after another, teaching them
each more and more about Himself, and the history also of these men
listening to the voice of God in their hearts, and _believing_ that
voice, and acting faithfully upon it, into whatever strange circumstances
or deeds it might lead them. “By faith,” we read in this same
chapter,—“by faith Noah, being warned of God, prepared an ark to the
saving of his house, and became heir of the righteousness which is by
faith.”
Now, to understand this last sentence, you must remember that Noah was
not under the law of Moses. St. Paul has a whole chapter (the third
chapter of Galatians) to shew that these old saints had nothing to do
with Moses’ law any more than we have, that it was given to the Jews many
hundred years afterwards. So these histories of the Old-Testament saints
are, in fact, histories of men who conquered by faith—histories of the
power which faith in God has to conquer temptation, and doubt, and false
appearances, and fear, and danger, and all which besets us and keeps us
down from being free and holy, and children of the day, walking
cheerfully forward on our heavenward road in the light of our Father’s
loving smile.
Noah, we read, “was a just man, and perfect in his generations;” and why?
Because he was a faithful man—faithful to God, as it is written, “The
just shall live by his faith;” not by trusting in what he does himself,
in his own works or deservings, but trusting in God who made him,
believing that God is perfectly righteous, perfectly wise, perfectly
loving; and that, because He is perfectly loving, He will accept and save
sinful man when He sees in sinful man the earnest wish to be His
faithful, obedient servant, and to give himself up to the rule and
guidance of God. This, then, was Noah’s justice in God’s sight, as it
was Abraham’s. They believed God, and so became heirs of the
righteousness which is by faith; not their own righteousness, not growing
out of their own character, but given them by God, who puts His righteous
Spirit into those who trust in Him.