this passage and you read it with a gasp: "And he came and sat down
under a juniper tree," etc. And down by the print of your foot you saw
the big footprint of the old prophet and you said, "After all, we are
very much alike. After all, he got in the dumps, fretted and broke his
heart with the blues, even as I."
Now, what was the matter with Elijah? He was not a natural and
deliberate pessimist. There are some folks that are, you know. There
are some people who study to be pessimistic. They are the
"self-appointed inspectors of warts and carbuncles, the self-elected
supervisors of sewers and street gutters." They pride themselves on
being guides to the Slough of Despond and on holding a pass key to the
cave of Giant Despair.
One such woman, being asked how she felt, said, "I feel good to-day.
But I always feel the worst when I feel the best because I know how bad
I am going to feel when I get to feeling bad again." Two buckets went
to a well one day. One sobbed and said, "Oh, me! it breaks my heart to
think that however full we go away from the well, we always come back
empty." And its companion laughed outright and said, "Why, I was
congratulating myself on the fact that however empty we come to the
well, we always go away full."
One morning when the world was brimming with spring, two little girls
ran out into a garden where the dewdrops and the sunlight and God had
wrought the miracle of a hundred full-blown roses. They looked at the
lovely scene and one went back and said tearfully, "Oh, mother, the
roses are blooming, but there is a thorn for every rose." The other
looked and went back singing and said, "Mother, the roses are blooming
and there is a rose for every thorn."
No, this man was not a deliberate pessimist. Had he been his name and
memory would have rotted long ago, for the men that bless us are the
hopeful men, the forward-looking men. I read of a man who was put in
jail during the Boer War simply because he was always prophesying
disaster. He was a discourager. He refused to see anything hopeful.
And a man of that kind ought to be in jail because he is as harmful as
a man with the small-pox. "He who steals my purse steals trash, but he
who filcheth from me" my sunny outlook, my expectation of the dawn of a
to-morrow, "takes that which not enriches him, but makes me poor
indeed."
What was the matter with Elijah? Well, in the first place, he was
tired. He was utterly spent. He had just passed through a very trying
and exacting ordeal. We can well imagine that the days just preceding
the test upon Carmel were toilsome days and the nights were sleepless
nights. Then came the great day of contest and victory. There was, of
course, no rest that day. And, in the exhilaration of victory, you
know how he ran before the chariot of Ahab from Carmel to Jezreel, a
distance of seventeen miles.
Arrived there, he got a message from Jezebel threatening his life. He
had expected, of course, that the men who had shouted "The Lord He is
God" would stand by him. But they did not. He had expected that even
Jezebel would be afraid to lift her voice in defense of the old
defeated heathenism of the past. But here again he was much mistaken.
In fact, instead of tamely acknowledging defeat she sends him this
word: "So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life
as the life of one of them by to-morrow about this time."
Jezebel's threat totally upset the prophet's sense of victory. He came
to feel that he had not won after all. For the first time he gave way
to fear. Cowardice rushed upon him and drove him, without rest, down
the road that led into the wilderness. The terminus of this road was,
quite naturally, the juniper tree.
So one source of his discouragement, one secret of his being in the
blues, was that he was utterly tired. It is hard indeed for a man to
be hopeful when his nerves are on edge. It is hard for him to keep out
of the blues when he is completely exhausted. As a tired body yields
at such times far more readily to physical disease, so does it yield
more readily to the exquisite torture of discouragement and depression.
A second reason for his collapse was a lost sense of the divine
fellowship. Up to this time Elijah's every step had been ordered of
the Lord. He had a sense of the Divine Presence that was continuous.
But Jezebel's threat had made him believe that he must look out for
himself. So he took his case into his own hands. And that is the road
that must always lead to the juniper tree.
Such a collapse is next to impossible as long as we keep on intimate
terms with God. Yonder is man named Paul on a ship that is going to
pieces. The sea "curls its lips and lies in wait with lifted teeth as
if to bite." The sailors' faces are ghastly with hunger and panic.
But while despair grips every other heart and while death laughs with
hollow laughter amidst the popping timbers of this wrecking ship, this
man steadies himself and shouts, "Be of good cheer." What is the
secret of his cheer? "There stood by me this night the angel of God
whose I am." He was saved by an intimate and personal sense of the
Divine Presence. Elijah had lost this sense of the Divine. Hence the
deep, dark night of utter discouragement was upon him.
Thus utterly wearied and his old intimacy with the Lord gone, the worst
naturally followed. All his hopes seemed to fall about him. There
came to him a heart-breaking sense of personal failure. He sobbed out
the complaint: "I am no better than my fathers. They allowed Israel to
drift into idolatry. I have not been able to bring it back. I have
accomplished nothing. I toiled long and hard, dreaming that at the end
I would clasp the warm, radiant hand of success and victory, but in
reality I only clasp the skeleton hand of failure."
Have you ever had a feeling that you were of no account and never would
be; that in spite of all that God had done for you, you were a failure?
There are few things more fraught with heartache and bitterness and
discouragement than that. That is something that makes you want to sob
and give over the fight utterly. And there are a lot of folks that
allow themselves to come to that dismal conviction. They work, and
nobody seems to appreciate it. They toil, and nobody compliments them.
Then they decide that they do not amount to anything, and they feel
like giving over the fight.
I read the other day a fascinating essay from Frank Boreham. In this
essay the author spoke of a certain discouraged friend of his. He
declared it his purpose to help this friend by sending him a present.
And the strange present that he was going to send him was an onion.
Yes, he was going to wrap this onion in lovely tissue paper and put it
in a beautiful candy box and tie it with pink ribbon and post it to his
friend at once.
Now, why send him an onion? Well, for the simple reason that though an
onion is one of the most valuable of all vegetables, though it is the
finest of relishes, though it has added piquancy to a thousand feasts,
yet nobody praises the onion. Of course you know the author is right
here. You may have read some great poetry in your time, poems on
daffodils, violets, roses, daisies. Even you have known a great poet
who could write about a louse and a field mouse, but where do you find
a poem about an onion? What orator waxes eloquent in its praise? What
bride ever carries a bouquet of onions as a bridal bouquet?
This is true, of course, but why is it true? Not because the onion is
useless. The real reason is because it is so strong. It is harder to
grow sentimental over great strong things,--though tears have been shed
over onions, as our essayist has pointed out. There are some we
praise, you know, because we think that they need it to keep them
going. They are weak. There are others we do not praise because they
are so strong, or because, being strong, we expect strong things of
them. The football hero receives an ovation when he makes a touchdown,
but no greater than the baby receives when it takes its first step.
There was more noise in the former case, but only because there was a
larger crowd of spectators. So it is not wise to conclude that because
nobody is praising you, you are of no account in the world.
Not only did Elijah for the moment lose faith in himself, but he lost
faith in others as well. He thought there was not a good man in all
Israel. And if you want a short cut to wretchedness, get to a place
where you do not believe in anybody. Some people seem to cultivate
this disposition as if it were an asset. It is not an asset. It is
the worst possible liability. If you want to make a hell for yourself
in the here and now, cultivate the habit of seeing a selfish motive
back of every seemingly unselfish act. School yourself to believe that
all men and all women have their price. Say not in haste, but
deliberately, that "All men are liars."
That is the leading characteristic of the devil. "Hast thou considered
my servant, Job," the Lord asked, "that there is none like him?"
"Yes," replied the devil, "I have considered him. I know him through
and through. I know him better than you do. He is deceiving you. He
is putting it over on you. You think he loves you for yourself,--I
know that he loves you simply, because you are feeding him bonbons.
Let me touch him and he will curse you to your face." That is the
devil's habit. That is what makes him such a success as a devil.
If you do not believe in people no wonder you are miserable. If you do
not believe that a fluctuating Simon can be changed into a rock; if you
do not believe that a Magdalene can, through the grace of God, become a
herald of the resurrection; if you do not believe that this world of
men is a salvable world; then it is not to be wondered at that you are
blue. If you do not believe in the honesty and goodness and purity of
at least a few, I do not see how you can be in any other place than a
veritable perdition.
There are bad men, vicious men, godless men, but they are not all so.
Do not believe that they are.
"There are loyal hearts, there are spirits brave;
There are souls that are good and true,
Then give the world the best you have
And the best will come back to you.
"Give love, and love to your heart will flow
And strength for your utmost need.
Give faith and a score of hearts will show
Their faith in your worldly deed.
"Give truth and truth will be paid in kind,
And honor will honor meet;
And a smile that is sweet is sure to find
A smile that is just as sweet.
"For life is the mirror of king and slave;
It's just what we are and do.
Then give the world the best you have
And the best will come back to you."
But if you frown at the world the world is going to frown at you, and
if you mistrust it, it will mistrust you. I used to stand as a boy on
the river bank on my father's farm and shout at the great rugged cliff
across the silver Buffalo River. If I spoke kindly to the grim old
cliff, its answer would be in the same kindly tone. If there was
harshness and menace in my voice, it came back the same way. And life
is a big echo. It speaks to us in the tone of our own voice. It gives
us the faith or the unbelief that we ourselves give.
And with faith in self gone and also faith in men, it is not to be
wondered at that Elijah requested for himself that he might die. But
though he made this request, it is not the real sentiment of his heart.
It is not the real Elijah speaking. A man ought never to make an
important decision when he is in the blues. He is not himself any more
than is a man under the influence of drink. Elijah is not himself
here. How do we know? He really doesn't mean what he is saying. How
do we know that?
Well, he is requesting for himself here that he, might die. Now, if he
was really in earnest about dying, Jezebel would have attended to that
for him without any prayer on his part, if he had just stayed round
Jezreel for a while. The truth of the matter is that the love of life
is strong in him. The truth of the matter also is that he still
believes somewhat in himself and in God and in men. He is just in the
blues now and is not saying what he really believes when he is at his
best.
When you get in the dumps and fret and fume and wish you were dead,
just stop right there and tell yourself that you are a liar. You do
not wish anything of the kind. I heard of a man once who was always
threatening to commit suicide. He had a good friend who was a pious
man and who was grieved by such threats. But he heard them till he
knew they meant nothing, so one day he stepped into this man's room at
the hotel, laid an ugly looking revolver down on the dresser and said,
"John, old man, you have been threatening to take your own life for
some time. I do not want you to do it. It is murder and you will have
no chance to repent. I love you as I love myself. For this reason I
have decided to kill you. I will live long enough to repent. So get
over there at the table and make your will." And the man's face went
white and he wanted to wait till to-morrow.
How did God cure this man who was in the blues? First, He used a very
commonplace remedy. He put him to sleep. He let him rest. Rest is a
very religious thing for a tired man. Now, a man who has overworked
himself needs to rest from his work. A lot of blue people need rest
from idleness. One big reason they are blue is because they have
nothing else to do. God gave this man a rest. That was the first step.
In the second place, He showed him his sin. He showed him where he was
wrong and brought him to repentance and thus restored the old
relationship of the past. He asked him this question: "What doest thou
here, Elijah?" The emphasis is on the "doest." Elijah must have
blushed at that question. And he said, "Oh, I am whining. I am
complaining. I am trying to keep books, to add up a few columns of
figures and test by that as to whether I am a success or a failure."
Now, what the Lord wanted Elijah to learn is just what He wants you and
me to learn, that our job in this world is not bookkeeping. It is not
for us to try to sum up the amount of good we have done. It is not for
us to test whether we have succeeded or whether we have failed. The
truth of the matter is that we are not always competent to tell the
difference between success and failure. There are some seeming
successes that in reality are failures and there are some of the
supreme failures that have turned out to be the most glorious successes.
The greatest failure in the eyes of men that was ever made, was the
failure on Calvary, and yet it came to pass that the world's darkest
night was in reality the mother of its brightest day; that its grimmest
desert became its sweetest flower garden. Do not break your heart and
tear your hair keeping books.
One of the sanest things I ever heard was spoken by an able preacher
who came one day to preach in my town. There was almost nobody out to
hear him. And he preached a wonderful sermon and closed with this most
sensible word: "I don't know what I have accomplished by coming to this
town. I only know that I have come with God in my heart and have done
my best. I am not keeping books. God is doing that. Some day on the
other side of the River I am going to take down my book and look at
it,--God will let me,--and I am going to see just what I accomplished
when I came to your town." That is sensible and that is religious.
And so the Lord was saying to Elijah: "It is not your business to keep
books. You do not know how to keep them, in the first place. You
added up a column of figures and got zero. I added it up and got
7,000. Yes, there are 7,000 that have not bowed the knee to Baal. You
have been a help. You have been an inspiration. You have not been a
failure, because you have walked with me." God doesn't fail and the
man who walks with him will not fail. He may not accomplish his
ambition. He may not realize many of the great hopes of his life, but
if he lives in the secret place of the Most High his life will never be
a failure.
I read not long ago of a young woman who consecrated her life to God
for mission work in India. She was ready for the great enterprise, but
just before she was to set sail for that far country, her mother was
taken sick with a lingering disease. She had to stay and nurse her for
some three years. Then the Angel of Release came and the mother went
home.
Preparations were made a second time for her setting out to India. But
from a little home in the distant west there came a call for help. A
widowed sister of this would-be missionary was sick and there were
three little children to be cared for. She went to her sister's
bedside. In a short time the sister died and the three little orphans
were left on her hands, and the one big hope of her life had to be
given up. It seemed strange. It seemed hard. Yet she remained true
to the task that lay nearest. At last all three children were able to
look after themselves. But by that time she herself was too old to go
to her loved mission field.
Then one day one of those orphans for whom she had given up her life's
dream put her arms around her neck and told her that she was going to
be a missionary and that the field that she had chosen was India. And
in later days the other two told the same story. So they all three
went away to India to which she had so longed to go. And as they
passed out to the land of her love and her prayers this heroic soul
knew that she had not failed. And so God's call to Elijah, to you and
to me is to leave off our heart-breaking bookkeeping, to put our hands
in His and to resume the journey. And as we go we shall in some way
shake off our discouragement as a hampering garment and we shall find
ourselves in the sunlight once more. And we shall come to know for
ourselves that "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is
stayed on Thee."
XI
THE SUPREME QUESTION--THE PHILIPPIAN JAILER
_Acts 16:30, 31_
"What must I do to be saved?" That question was asked by a startled
jailer. He was amidst strange and perplexing happenings. He had just
seen wonderful sights. He was being shaken by unfamiliar terrors. For
these terrors he sought relief and so he asked this infinitely wise
question: "What must I do to be saved?"
But this jailer is not the only man that has ever asked that question.
He is not the first man that asked it. This is a universal question.
Men of all times and of all climes have asked and sought an answer to
this question. The cultured Greeks tried to answer it by building
altars to many gods. Then realizing that they had missed it, they
sought further by building an altar to "the Unknown God." It was in an
effort to answer this question that children were once sacrificed to
the fire god, Moloch. And it is the struggle to answer the same
question that causes the Indian mother to-day to cast her baby into the
Ganges and to come home with empty arms and with an empty heart.
I heard a missionary from the heart of Africa say some years ago that
he used to live among the savage tribes of the far interior. They were
people of the lowest type. They wore no shred of clothing. But in
their wild and barbarous religious dances they would swing round and
round till they frothed at the mouth and fell down rigid. It was their
way, said the missionary, of asking the supreme question: "What must I
do to be saved?"
This was a dramatic moment in this jailer's life. It was a moment big
with blessing. Look at the picture. Two strange preachers have come
to this Roman city of Philippi. Their preaching has brought them into
conflict with the authorities. They are drawn before the magistrates.
Their clothing is torn from them and they are severely beaten.
It seems that this would have been shame enough and pain enough, but it
was not. They were then turned over to a callous and cruel Roman
jailer with the order that he should keep them fast. So he threw them
into the inner dungeon and made their feet fast in the stocks. The
place was foul and cold and dark. Their backs were lacerated and
bleeding. And this wag their reward for seeking to bring to men the
unsearchable riches of Christ.
Now it was dark enough for these two. But they did not lose heart.
First they prayed. I can imagine they prayed secretly and then they
prayed aloud. And those people in prison heard the voice of prayer for
possibly the first time in their lives. Now, real prayer always makes
things different. It brings us a consciousness of God. And so as
these men prayed their hearts grew warm and joyous till by and by
prayer gives place to praise and they begin to sing.
I have wondered what these people sang that night. It might have been
the Twenty-third Psalm. Or they might have sung, "I will bless the
Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My
soul shall make her boast in the Lord. The humble shall hear thereof
and be glad." Or the Thirty-seventh Psalm would have sounded well in
the darkness of that hideous dungeon,--"Fret not thyself because of
evil doers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.
For they shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither as the green
herb." But I think the most likely of all is the Forty-sixth: "God is
our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore
will we not fear though the earth be removed and though the mountains
be carried into the midst of the sea."
Whatever they sang it was great singing. I think the angels opened the
windows when they heard it. I think it made the very heart of our Lord
glad. What a surprise it was to those in that gloomy old prison. They
had heard the walls ring with groans and shrieks. They had heard
bitter oaths in the night, but songs with the lilt of an irrepressible
joy in them--they had never heard anything like that before.
Now as the melody rang through the gloomy cells something else
happened. The old building seemed to be shaking with the very power of
the music. An earthquake was on and God took this petty prison in His
hand and shook it as a dicer might shake his dice box, and all its
doors were thrown open and the fetters were shaken from the feet of
those that were bound. And the old jailer is shaken out of his
complacency and out of his bed and a great terror grips him.
I can see him as he picks himself up and looks about him in dismay.
The doors are open. He is sure that the prisoners are gone. He knows
that his life will be to pay. He will not face the shame of it. He
will inflict justice upon himself. He draws his sword and prepares to
thrust it through him, but Paul's eyes were upon him, and knowing his
purpose he shouts at him, "We are all here, Jailer. Do thyself no
harm."
There is love in that cry, tenderness in it, longing in it that the
jailer could not understand. Neither could he fail to realize the
might of it. It touches him deeply. He is gripped by another terror,
the terror that has come through the presence of these strange men who
have brought the things of eternity to seem real to him. And urged on
by that new terror he rushes to these men of bleeding backs and
tattered garments and throws himself at their feet with this great
question in his heart and upon his lips, "Sirs, what must I to do be
saved?"
Now, I am aware of the fact that this jailer was a heathen and I am not
accusing him at all of being a great theologian. I do not know how
learned he was. I do not know whether he could read or write or not.
I do not know whether he was widely traveled or not. He may have never
been beyond the precincts of his own city. But what I do know is this,
that he asked the biggest question that ever fell from human lips.
There can be no greater. It was the greatest for him. It is the
greatest for you. It is the greatest for me. "What must I do to be
saved?" There is no question quite so big as that.
And I am wondering now if it is a big question to you. Remember, it is
not: What must I do to be decent? It is not: What must I do to be
respectable? These things are all right, but they are not supreme. It
is not: What must I do to get rich? Millions of us are asking that
question as if it were the one question of eternal importance. But you
know that it is not. It is not: What must I do to be beautiful? Some
of us are asking that question too, and some of us, I am sorry to say,
are missing the answer to it very much. But that is not the big
question. The supreme question is: "What must I do to be saved?"
What is implied in this question when it is asked intelligently? There
is implied first of all that there is an absolute difference between
being saved and lost. There is implied in it that there are two
classes of people, not the cultured and the uncultured, not the learned
and the unlearned. They are the saved and the lost. They are those
that have life and those that do not have life.