persuaded that the man who is genuinely Christian in his attitude
toward money will be Christian in every other relationship of life.
And I am likewise fully persuaded that the man who fails here, who
falls short of the standard of goodness here, will fall short
everywhere. A man may be a liberal man and fail to be a good man, but
no man can be a good man and at the same time be a gripping, grasping,
covetous man. It is an utter impossibility. Barnabas got a degree in
goodness, and the first course he mastered was a course in Christian
Stewardship.
Second, Barnabas was proficient in that difficult branch that we call
faith. He had acquired faith till he was full of it. Faith in God?
Yes, he had faith in God. That lies back of all that he did and all
that he became. But the faith that shows itself most in his life, as
we see it, is his faith in men. How he did believe in folks!
Confidence in men is an essential to true goodness. I do not believe
that any cynic was ever a really good man. I know we sometimes pride
ourselves on being hard to fool. We congratulate ourselves at times on
being able to see more through a key-hole than other folks can see
through a wide-open door. We boast of our ability to read character
and to see behind the scenes and to detect sham where other folks
dreamed there was sincerity. And I am not arguing for blindness or
stupidity, but what I do say is this: that the really good men are the
men who believe in their fellows.
You have met the man who says that every fellow has his price. But
whenever you hear a man say that you may know that there is at least
one man who does have his price, and that is the man who is making the
statement. You can compromise till you come to persuade yourself that
compromise is the law of life. You can play with honesty till you come
to believe in the dishonesty of the whole world. And the man without
confidence in his brother is a man who personally knows that he himself
would not do to trust.
Barnabas believed in men. One of the greatest enemies that the Church
ever had returned one day from a tour of persecution in Damascus. He
declared that he had been converted on the way, but nobody in Jerusalem
believed him. Yes, there was one glorious exception. That exception
was Barnabas. He believed in Paul, staked his reputation, his life,
his Church, which was dearer to him than his life,--he staked all these
upon his faith in Paul's sincerity. But for that, Paul might have been
lost to the Church.
And here is another instance: Paul and Barnabas are on their first
missionary tour. With them is a young man named Mark. He has been
tenderly nurtured. He finds the missionary life harder than he
expected. He proves a coward and goes home. Years after, when the
faces of Paul and Barnabas are again set to the battle front, Mark once
more offers his service. But Paul will not accept him. He knows that
the mission field is no place for parlor soldiers. And so he flatly
refuses to allow him to become a part of the army of invasion.
But Barnabas,--somehow he cannot bring himself to give him up. He
believes that even if a man failed once he may succeed at a second
trial. He believes that a coward may become a hero, that a deserter
may yet become a trusted and faithful soldier. And so he stands by
John Mark even at the great price of parting company with Paul. And
his confidence was gloriously justified, as our confidence so often is.
Who wrote the second Gospel--one of the choicest pieces of literature
in the world? It was written by John Mark, the deserter.
Then years later, when bitter days of persecution have come, Paul is in
prison. He especially needs men about him now on whose loyal courage
and devotion he can count absolutely. For whom does he now ask?
Listen! "Take Mark and bring him with thee, for he is profitable to me
for the ministry." Mark has come back. He has been saved to Christ
and to the Church. And the one to whom we are mainly indebted for his
salvation is none other than the good man Barnabas. And Barnabas won
because of his sturdy, persistent faith.
Now to some this virtue may seem a bit of a weakness, but if weakness,
how like it is to the weakness of Christ Himself! For certainly one of
the most marvelous characteristics of Jesus is His faith in men. How
Jesus could expect that the poor slattern who was dragged into His
presence taken in adultery could be utterly different from that hour, I
do not know. I certainly would not have expected it of her, but He
did. And I hear Him saying to her, "Go and sin no more." How Jesus
could expect that twelve faulty, unlearned, self-seeking men, such as
His disciples were, would ever be the means of remaking the world, I
cannot for a moment see. They failed Him in His hour of supremest
need. They slept in the garden and ran like frightened sheep when He
was arrested. And yet, knowing their cowardice and their weakness, He
tumbles the responsibility of world conquest upon their frail shoulders
with the declaration that "the gates of hell should not prevail against
them." Certainly the wildest faith that was ever exercised is the
faith that God exercises in men. And the faith of this man Barnabas
was a quality born of a goodness that was close akin to the goodness of
God.
That is the way, I think, that this man got his name. You know they
did not always call him Barnabas. The folks over in Cypress knew him
as Joses. They named him Barnabas because that was the word that best
described him. It was a verbal picture of the man. What does it mean?
A son of consolation. Isn't that fine? James and John were called the
sons of thunder. That speaks of power, might, dash, the lightning's
flash, the thunder's crash. There is storm wrapped up in their
personalities. But Barnabas is the peaceful sunset after the storm.
He is the light at eventide. He is a son of consolation.
Now, if there is anything finer than that I do not know just what that
something might be. To be incarnated encouragement, embodied comfort,
flesh and blood consolation,--it would be hard to find a better
vocation than that. This man had the tongue of the learned that he
might be able to speak a word in season to him that was weary. He
delivered men from the bondage of their self-despisings, from the
burden of their self-contempt. He brought hope where there had been
despair and turned the westward gaze toward the east. He pointed out
the streaks of dawn that were lighting the sky. He made men hear the
bird's song within the voiceless egg and to catch the perfume of
flowers under the snow. He was a son of consolation. "Be pitiful,"
says Dr. Watson, "for every man is having a hard time." There are some
folks who depress us. There are some wet blanket personalities who
stifle us. And there are others like Barnabas who refresh us, and when
they come and knock at our doors we pass out of the stuffy atmosphere
of a mental prison into a flower garden where the air is fresh and
sweet with perfume and musical with the morning song of birds.
Third, this man was thoroughly missionary. He had taken a course in
God's doctrine of evangelism. He believed that the Gospel was for all
mankind. Some Christians of that day were trying to keep it a Jewish
sect. When they heard that folks were actually being converted down in
Antioch there seems to have been not the least bit of joy in the fact.
But under the leadership of the Spirit they sent Barnabas to
investigate. He came and saw the same light in their faces down in
Antioch that was in the faces of those who were Spirit-baptized up in
Jerusalem. And the story says that when he saw the work of the Lord he
was glad. And not only was he glad, but he threw himself at once into
the work of evangelizing that foreign city.
Then he did another big thing. Seeing the great opportunity that was
there, he went and sought Paul out over at Tarsus and brought him over
as his helper. And it was there as they labored together and
ministered to the Lord and fasted that the Holy Ghost said, "Separate
me Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereunto I have called them." And
they went forth as the world's first foreign missionaries. An army has
gone forth since that day,--the choicest spirits that this world has
ever seen. And those who have gone have consecrated the soil of every
continent by their prayers, their tears and their sacrifices. Their
ashes rest to-day upon every shore and the songs of the redeemed are
sung to-day under every sky because they have labored. Who was the
vanguard of that great army whose going forth was as the going forth of
the morning? The vanguard was made up of two men. One of them was
Paul, the other Barnabas, a man not marvelously clever, not greatly
gifted. His supreme merit was just this, that in a real and genuine
sense he was a good man, full of faith.
And last of all, Barnabas was a spiritual man. The inspired writer
says that he was full of the Holy Ghost. And that implied, of course,
that Barnabas was a man fully given up to God, There can be no deep
spirituality apart from that. Our surrender is the condition of our
being full of the Spirit. "For we are His witnesses of these things,
as is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey Him."
So you can readily see why Barnabas has a right to the fine compliment
that is paid him here by the writer of the Acts. Barnabas was generous
with his possessions. He had the Christian attitude toward money.
Barnabas was generous in his judgments. He had a brother's attitude
toward his fellows. He was thoroughly missionary. He made Christ's
program for world conquest his own. He was profoundly and genuinely
spiritual. And because of these fine qualities one who knew him well
said of him, "He was a good man."
Now, there are compliments more flashy than being called good. There
are encomiums that are much fuller of glitter, but in spite of that, I
am convinced that nothing greater or better could possibly be said
about any one of us living to-day or any one that ever has lived than
just this that is written about Barnabas: "He was a good man." I had
rather my boy would be able to say that about me when he stands by my
grave, sunken and grass-grown, than to say anything else in all the
world.
Brother, let us covet goodness. Let us seek that rare treasure. For
there is nothing better or finer or more beautiful or more useful.
"Goodness." It is the fairest flower that can ever bloom in your soul
garden. It is the sweetest music that even God's skilled fingers will
ever be able to win from your thousand stringed heart harp. It is the
virtue in those we love that grips us tightest and holds us longest.
And wonderful to say, it is within reach of every one of us.
There are certain fine things that you and I can never possess. We
know that. Genius, greatness,--they are high and forbidding mountain
peaks. Their sides are rugged and precipitous. They have pulled iron
hoods of snow and ice upon their brows. But goodness,--that is a peak
that may be scaled by the tender feet of little children and by the
tottering feet of old age. It may be scaled by the reluctant feet of
those in life's prosaic middle passage. Let us address ourselves then
to this high task. Let us matriculate this morning in God's school for
this degree, the degree of "goodness." And one day it may be written
of us as it was written of Barnabas, "He was a good man."
VIII
THE INQUEST--PHARAOH
_Exodus 14:30 and 9:16_
In Exodus 14:19 we read these words: "And Israel saw the Egyptians dead
upon the seashore." It is rather a ghastly and grewsome sight. There
they lie, the soldiers of the once proud army of Egypt. They are in
all sorts of positions, these dead men. Some have their heads pillowed
peacefully upon their arms as if in sleep. Others have their hard
faces half buried in the sand. Others still lie prone upon their backs
with bits of seaweed in their hair and their sightless eyes staring in
terror at nothing.
They are very much alike, these corpses. But here is one that is
different. Look at the rich costume in which it is dressed. Look at
its bejewelled fingers. There is no crown upon its brow. There is no
sceptre in that nerveless hand. Yet it is easy to guess that this
corpse, this "pocket that death has turned inside out and emptied" was
once a king. Yes, this is the body of Pharaoh, the one time ruler of
Egypt. But here he lies to-day among the meanest of his soldiers. He
is sprawled in unkingly fashion upon his face as if the sea had spit
him out in sheer nausea and disgust.
And now comes the big question that we want to consider. How came this
famous Egyptian here? He was once a king, you remember. He was ruler
over the proudest nation in the world. And here we find him dead. He
died away from home. He died a violent death. Let us hold an inquest
over him for a moment and see how he came to die. He did not leave
Egypt and march into the Red Sea for that purpose. He never intended
that life should end thus. Nor is he here because his enemy Israel has
proven stronger than himself. What is the cause? And the question is
answered by the voice of God. We read it in Exodus 9:16, "For this
cause have I raised thee up that I might show forth my power in thee."
Will you notice what this strange text says. Without the least
equivocation it says that God raised this man Pharaoh up that He might
show forth His power in him. And that purpose He accomplished. This
ghastly piece of royal rottenness has not been thrown upon this shore
by the hand of man. As we look at him we see in him a monument of the
power of God. And strange to say, he is not a monument of God's power
to save and to keep and to utilize, but of God's power to thwart and to
disappoint and to wreck and to utterly destroy. And in his destruction
God tells us that He has achieved His purpose.
You will agree with me that this is an amazing statement. The teaching
seems to be that God has raised this man up that He might glorify
Himself by making a complete and utter wreck of him. I wonder if that
can be true. We agree, I suppose, all of us who believe the Bible,
that God has a plan for every life. All nature tells of a planning
God. All revelation teaches it also. We have the message direct from
the lips of the Lord, "As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you."
But in admitting that God plans every life, can we believe that He
plans for some to go wrong and for others to go right? Can we believe
that He plans for one to become a Judas and the other a St. John? Is
it the purpose of God that one shall develop into a Moses and the other
right at his side shall grow up into a miserable and distorted wreck
that we call Pharaoh? In other words, is Judas as much a part of the
plan of God as John? If so we are of all men most miserable because we
have a wicked God.
But we know that such is not the case. God never planned that any man
should go wrong. He is not willing that any should perish, but that
all should come to repentance. He is the eternal lover. He loved
Moses, but He loved Pharaoh no less. And Judas was as dear to God's
heart as John. And whatever failure they made of their lives, and
whatever failure you and I make of our lives, we do not make because
God forces us to do so. In whatever way we go wrong, we do not do so
because God planned that we should. We do it because of our own
willfulness and wicked rebellion against God.
In other words, though God plans your life and mine, He cannot in the
very nature of things, force us to enter into His plan. You who are
fathers and mothers realize that. Many parents have made beautiful
plans for their children only to have those plans despised. Our
children are not ourselves. They have independent wills. They have
the capacity for entering into our purposes for them and thus bringing
us joy unspeakable. They have also the capacity for despising those
purposes and breaking our hearts.
How, then, do we explain this strange text, "For this cause have I
raised thee up that I might show forth my power in thee"? Because it
is a fact that this death in the Red Sea was not an accidental death.
It is a fact that this corpse here upon the beach is not here by mere
chance. This king was flung here by the power of a disappointed and
grieved and rejected God. He lies here dead upon the shore according
to the deliberate plan and purpose of God. But while this is true, we
need to keep this big fact in mind: Though Pharaoh lies here according
to the purpose of God, this was not God's first and highest purpose for
him. But Pharaoh resisted and rejected every noble and worthy purpose
that God had in his life. By his own rebellion he made it impossible
for God to realize any purpose in him at all save the last and the
worst.
Do you remember that story in Jeremiah? One day the word of the Lord
came unto the prophet Jeremiah saying, "Arise and go down to the
Potter's house and there I will cause thee to hear my word." And
Jeremiah went down and heard the message. Arrived within the Potter's
house, three objects at once drew his attention. There was a man
working, the Potter. There was the instrument with which he worked,
the wheel. And there was the substance upon which he worked, the clay.
In the Potter's hand the clay was misshapen and unsightly. The cup was
not yet finished in the Potter's hand. But there was a place where it
was finished, and that was in the mind of the Potter. The Potter could
already see the finished product. He was trying to make the cup
according to the ideal that he had in his mind.
But we read that the cup was marred in the making. That is, there was
something in the clay that resisted the Potter. Now, what did he do
with the marred cup? We would have expected him to throw it away, but
he did not. He made it again. What a gospel that is for failing and
sinning men like ourselves. How glorious that, when we resist God's
purpose and all but wreck ourselves, He will make us again. Truly we
would be a hopeless race but for the fact that we have a mighty God who
is able to remake us even when we have rebelled against Him and have
thwarted His blessed plans for us.
He made it again. Yes, but notice this. He made it again "another
vessel." He changed his plan for this latter vessel. He realized that
he could not make it according to the fine ideal that was in his mind
for the first vessel. That one refused to realize the best, therefore
he made it into another vessel. He sought to make it realize the
second best.
There is a truth here of tremendous importance that we are prone to
forget, and that truth is this, that having rejected and resisted God
for days and months and years, God cannot make of us what He could have
made if we had entered into His plans from the beginning. If you
reject God's best for you, then He tries to get you to realize His
second best. If you reject this, then He seeks to bring you to the
next best. But remember this, God cannot, in the very nature of
things, make as much out of a fraction of a life as He can out of the
whole of a life.
Now, suppose, the clay upon which the Potter was working had been
marred again. Again he would have undertaken to have made it into
another vessel. But all the while that clay would have been becoming
less and less plastic. All the while it would have been becoming more
and more difficult for the Potter to shape it according to his purpose.
Thus the time would inevitably come when it would no longer be capable
of being shaped by his hand at all. Then what would be the result?
Step outside the Potter's house and you are in the Potter's field.
About you lie broken crockery and shattered earthenware. Why is it
there? Not because the Potter made vessels for the stupid purpose of
breaking them to pieces. They are there because there was something in
the clay that so resisted the hand of the Potter that he was able to
make nothing of them but these shattered and misshapen and broken
wrecks.
Now this is the story of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. God had a noble
purpose in this man's life to begin with. He gave him every
opportunity. He brought to bear all that infinite love and mercy could
bring to bear to get Pharaoh to be a good man. The reason Pharaoh
ended as he did end was not because God did not love him and did not do
His infinite best to save Him. It was because Pharaoh resisted and
resisted, rebelled and rebelled till at last he threw himself a corpse
upon this distant seashore. And the message we hear from his clammy
lips this night is this, "Look at me and see what a terrible thing it
is to rebel against God. Behold me and see the tragic failure of the
man that persistently throws himself in wicked madness against the
bosses of the buckler of the Lord Almighty."
Look now how hard God tried to make something of Pharaoh. In the first
place, He gave to him a great and faithful minister. Pharaoh had the
privilege of knowing Moses. He had an opportunity of hearing about the
greatest individual that the world has ever seen. He threw himself
away, did Pharaoh. He chose God's worst instead of God's best, but he
did not do it because he did not know better. Neither are you wasting
your life because you do not know better. If you have not had a
teacher great as Moses, you have yet been faithfully warned, and in
your sin you are without excuse.
God gave Pharaoh a chance to cooperate with Him, to help Him in saving
Israel and making her into a great nation. Moses' first word to
Pharaoh was this, "The God of Israel saith, Let my people go." Now,
Pharaoh's answer to this demand was haughty enough. He answers, "Who
is the God of Israel? I do not know him." And he didn't, though he
might have known Him. But God did not throw him away after this one
chance. On the contrary, He gave him ample opportunity to know Him.
With this end in view God brought His infinite energies into play.
Wonder after wonder He worked in the presence of Pharaoh by the hand of
Moses. At first these wonders were imitated by the magicians. These
fakes, by their cunning, made it easy, at least for a while, for
Pharaoh to resist God. They helped the King to close his royal eyes to
the truth. They helped him to start with decision on his course of
rebellion.
But the magicians were soon outdone. Moses began to perform wonders
that they could not imitate. And they themselves were forced to
believe in the presence and might and reality of God. And they who had
helped their king to go wrong, turned to him with this acknowledgment
on their lips, "It is the finger of God." But it is easier to lead a
man astray than it is to lead him back. It is easier for you, by your
godless and worldly life, to lead your children to despise Christ and
the Church than it is to lead them back after they have gone astray.
Pharaoh listened to the magicians when they counseled him to do wrong,
but he turned a deaf ear to them when they counseled him to do right.
Then followed that series of plagues upon Egypt that were always
preceded and always followed by this demand of God spoken through the
lips of Moses, "Let my people go that they may serve me." You see what
God was demanding of Pharaoh. It is the same that He demands of you
and me, obedience--that is all. He is commanding us to surrender
ourselves to Him, to enter into His purpose. And the one thing that
God wanted was the one thing that Pharaoh did not want. But he was
becoming afraid and so he proposed to compromise.
In his fright he tells Moses that he will obey. He will let the people
go. That is, he said, "I will let part of them go. I will let the men
go. Leave the children here." Pharaoh knew that just so long as he
kept the children in Egypt, just so long would Israel remain in
bondage. And the devil knows to-day just so long as our homes remain
unchristianized, just so long will the world remain unchristianized.
We will never bring in the Kingdom by simply seeking to save an adult
generation. We must give God a chance at the children or the cause of
righteousness is going to be defeated. But if we will save the child,
we will surely save the world.
Then Pharaoh offered a second compromise. He said, "I will let you and
the children go, but you must leave your cattle and your sheep. You
must leave all your flocks and your herds." That is, you may go into
Canaan if you must, but leave your business in Egypt. And the devil
to-day is perfectly willing that you and I be just as pious and
prayerful as we want to be on Sunday, provided we forget all about such
things on Monday. He is willing for you to be devoutly religious if
you will only confine your religion to the church. But a religion that
does not permeate and purify and uplift and sanctify business and
business relations is not the religion of Jesus Christ.