III. Our Lord teaching us how to think of the certain issues of His
work and ours.
'They shall hear My voice, and there shall be one fold and one
Shepherd.' We may regard these words as embracing two things; a nearer
issue, namely, the response that will always attend His call; and a
more remote, namely, the completion of His work. There is, of course, a
very blessed sense in which the latter words are true now, and have
been ever since Paul could say to those who had been aliens from the
commonwealth of Israel, 'He hath made both one. Now, therefore, ye are
no more foreigners but fellow-citizens with the saints.' But the fold
which now exists, limited in numbers, with its members but partially
conscious of their unity, and surrounded by those who follow hireling
shepherds, does not exhaust these great words. They shall not be
accomplished till that far-off future have come.
But for the present we have the predictions of the former clause, 'They
shall hear My voice.' What manner of expectations does it teach us to
cherish? It seems to speak not of universal reception of Christ's
message, but of some as hearing and some as forbearing. It teaches us
to look for divers results attending our missionary work. There will
always be a Dionysius the Areopagite, the woman Lydia, the kindly
barbarians, the conscience-stricken jailer. There will always be the
scoffers, who mock when they hear of 'Jesus and the resurrection'; the
hesitating who compound with conscience by promising to hear again of
this matter, the fierce opponents who invoke constituted authorities or
mob violence to crush the message.
Again, the words seem to contemplate a long task. There is nothing
about the rate at which His Kingdom shall spread, not a syllable to
answer inquiries as to when the end shall come. The whole tone of the
language suggests the idea that bringing back the sheep is to take a
long time, and to cost many a tedious journey into the wilderness. Not
a sudden outburst, but a slow kindling of the flame, is what our Lord
teaches us here to expect.
But while thus calm in tone and moderate in expectation, the words
breathe a hope as confident as it is calm, as clear as it is moderate.
There will always be a response. His voice shall never be lifted up in
the snow-storm or lonely hillsides only to be blown back into His own
ears, unheard and unheeded. Be they few or many, they shall hear. Be
the toil longer or shorter, more or less severe, it shall not be in
vain.
And to these expectations we shall do wisely if we attune ours. Omit
from your hopes what your Lord has omitted from His promises; do not
ask what He has not told. Do not wonder if you encounter what He met,
for the disciple is not greater than his Master, and only if they have
kept My saying will they keep yours also. But, on the other hand,
expect as much as He has prophesied; accept it when it comes as the
fruit of His work, not of yours, and build a firm faith that your
labour shall not be in vain on these calm and prescient words.
So much for the course of the kingdom. And what of the end? One by one
the sheep have been brought, at last they are all gathered in, not a
hoof left behind. The stars steal singly into their places in the
heavens as the darkness deepens, and He 'bringeth them forth by
number,' until at the noon of night the sky is crowded with their
lights, and 'for that He is great in power, not one faileth.' What
expectations are we here taught to cherish then of the final issue?
Mark, to begin with, that there is implied the ultimate universality of
His dominion and sole supremacy of His throne. There is to be but one
Shepherd, and over all the earth a great unity of obedience to Him.
Here is the knell of all authority that does not own Him, and the
subordination of all that does. The hirelings, the blind guides, that
have misled and afflicted humanity for so many weary ages, shall be all
sunk in oblivion. The false gods shall be discrowned, and lie shattered
on their temple-sill, and there shall be no worshippers to care for or
to try to repair their discomfiture. Bow your heads before Him,
thinkers who have led men on devious paths and spoken but a partial
truth and a wisdom all confused with foolishness! Lower your swords
before Him, warriors who have builded your cities on blood and led men
like sheep to the slaughter! He is more glorious and excellent than the
mountains of prey. Cast your crowns before Him, princes and all judges
of the earth, for He is King by right of the crown of thorns! This is
the Lord of all—Teacher, Leader, Ruler of all men. All other names
shall be forgotten but His shall abide. If they have been shepherds who
would not come in by the door, a ransomed world shall rejoice over
their fall with the ancient hymn, 'Other gods beside Thee have had
dominion over us; they are dead, they shall not live, Thou hast
destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish.' If they have been
subject to the chief Shepherd and ensamples to the flock, they will
rejoice to decrease before His increase, and having helped to bring the
Bride to the Bridegroom, will gladly stand aside and be forgotten in
the perfect love that enters into full fruition at the last. Then when
none contest nor intercept the reverential obedience that the whole
world brings to Him, shall be fulfilled the firm promise which declared
long ago: 'I will set up one Shepherd over them, and He will feed them
and be their Shepherd.'
Mark again the blessed nature of the relation between Christ and all
men which is here foretold. From of old, the shepherd has been in all
nations the emblem of kingly power, of leadership of every sort. How
often the fact has contradicted the symbol let history tell. But with
Jesus the reality does not only contradict, but even transcends, the
tender old comparison. He rules with a gentle sway. His sceptre is no
rod of iron, but the shepherd's crook, and the inmost meaning of its
use is that it may 'comfort' us, as David learned to feel. There gather
round the metaphor all thoughts of merciful guidance, of tender care,
of a helping arm when we are weak, of a loving bosom where we are
carried when we are weary. It speaks of a seeking love that roams over
every high hill till it finds, and of a strong shoulder that bears us
back when He has found. It tells of sweet hours of rest in the hot
noontide by still waters, of ample provision for all the soul's
longings in green pastures. It speaks of footsteps that go before, in
which men may follow and find them ways of pleasantness. It speaks of
gentle callings by name which draw the heart. It speaks of defence when
lion and bear come ravening down, and of safe couching by night when
the silent stars behold the sleeping sheep and the wakeful shepherd. He
Himself gives its highest significance to the emblem, in the words of
this great discourse, when He fixes on His knowledge, His calling of
His sheep, His going before them, His giving His life for them. Such
are the gracious blessings which here He teaches us to think of as
possessed in the happy days that shall be, by all the world.
And, on the other hand, the symbol speaks of confiding love in the
hearts of men, of a great peacefulness of meek obedience stilling and
gladdening their wills, of the consciousness of His perfect love, and
the knowledge of all His gracious character, of sweet answering
communion with Him, of safety from all enemies, of freedom, of familiar
passage in and out to God. Thus knit together shall be the one fold and
the one Shepherd. 'They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures
shall be in all high places. They shall not hunger nor thirst, neither
shall the heat nor sun smite them, for He that hath mercy on them shall
feed them, even by the springs of water shall He guide them.'
Mark again what a vision is here given of the relations of men with one
another.
They are to be all gathered into a peaceful unity. They are to be one
because they all hearken to one voice. It is to be observed that our
Lord does not say, as our English Bible makes Him say, that there is to
be one fold. He drops that word of set purpose in the latter clause of
our text, and substitutes for it another, which may perhaps be best
rendered flock. Why this change in the expression? Because, as it would
seem, he would have us learn that the unity of that blessed future time
is not to be like the unity of the Jewish Church, a formal and external
one. That ancient polity was a fold. It held its members together by
outward bonds of uniformity. But the universal Church of the future is
to be a flock. It is to be really and visibly one. But it is to be so,
not because it is hemmed in by one enclosure, but because it is to be
gathered round one Shepherd. The more closely they are drawn to Him,
the more near will they be to each other. The centre in which all the
radii meet keeps them all in their places. 'We being many are one
bread, for we are all partakers of that one bread.' In the ritual of
the Old Covenant, the great golden candlestick with its seven branches
stood in the court of the Temple, emblem of the formal oneness of the
people, which was meant to be the light of the Lord to a dark world. In
the vision of the New Covenant, the seer in Patmos beheld not the one
lamp with its branches, but the seven golden candlesticks, which were
made into a holier and a freer unity because the Son of Man walked in
their midst—emblem of the oneness in diversity of the peoples, who were
sometimes darkness, but shall one day be light in the Lord. There may
continue to be national distinctions. There may or there may not be any
external unity. But at all events our Lord turns away our thoughts from
the outward to the inward, and bids us be sure that though the folds be
many the flock shall be one, because they shall all hear and follow
Him.
The words, however, suggest for us the blessed thought of the peaceful
relations that shall then subsist among men. The tribes of the earth
shall couch beside each other like the quiet sheep in the fold, and
having learned of His great meekness, they shall no more bite nor
devour one another. Alas! alas! the words seem too good to be true.
They seem long, long of coming to pass. Ever since they were spoken the
old bloody work has been going on, and the old lusts of the human heart
have been busy sowing the dragon's teeth that shall spring up in wars
and fightings. In savage lands warfare rages on, ceaseless, ignoble,
unrecorded, and seemingly purposeless as that of animalcules in a drop
of water. On civilised soil, men, who love the same Christ and worship
Him in the same tongue, are fronting each other at this hour. The war
of actual swords, and the war of conflicting creeds, and the jostling
of human selfishness in the rough road of life, are all around us, and
their seeds are within ourselves. The race of men do not live like
folded sheep, rather like a flock of wolves, who first run over and
then devour their weaker fellows.
But here is a fairer hope, and it will be fulfilled when all evil
thoughts, and all selfish desires, and all jealous grudgings shall
vanish from men's hearts, as unclean spirits at cockcrow, and shall
leave them, self-forgetful, yielding of their own prerogatives,
desirous of no other man's, abhorrent of inflicting, and patient of
receiving wrong. There will be no fuel then to blow into sulphurous
flame, though all the blasts from hell were to fan the embers. But
peace and concord shall be in all men, for Christ shall be in all.
National distinctions may abide, but national enmities—the oldest and
deepest, shall disappear. There shall still be Assyria, and Egypt, and
Israel, but their former relation will be replaced by a bond of amity
in their common possession of Him who is our peace. 'In that day shall
Israel be the third with Egypt, and with Assyria, even a blessing in
the midst of the land, whom the Lord shall bless, saying, Blessed be
Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine
inheritance.' God be thanked! that though we see, and our fathers have
seen, so much that seems to contradict our hopes of a peaceful world,
and though to-day the hell-hounds of war are baying over the earth, and
though nowhere can we see signs even of the approach of the halcyon
time, yet we can wait for the vision, knowing that it will come at the
appointed time, when
'No war or battle's sound
Is heard the world around,
The idle spear and shield are high uphung;
The trumpet speaks not to the armed throng,
And Kings sit still, with awful eye,
As if they surely knew their Sovereign Lord was by.'
Such are the thoughts which our Lord would teach us as to the present
and as to the future of our missionary work. For the one, moderate
expectations of success, not unchequered by disappointment, and a brave
patience in long toil. For the other, hopes which cannot be too
glowing, and a faith which cannot be too obstinate. The one is being
fulfilled in our own and our brethren's experience even now; we may be
therefore all the more sure that the other will be so in due time. If
we look with Christ's eyes, we shall not be depressed by the apparent
unbroken surface of heathenism but see, as He did, everywhere souls
that belong to Him, who may and must be won; we shall joyfully embrace
the work which He has given us to do; we shall arm ourselves against
the discouragements of the present, by living much in the past at the
foot of the Cross, till we catch the true image of the Saviour's love,
and much in the future in the midst of the ransomed flock, till we too
behold the roses blossoming in the wilderness, the bright waters
covering all the dry places in the desert, and the families of men
sitting, clothed and in their right mind, at the feet of Jesus.
Our missionary work is the pure and inevitable result of a belief in
these words of my text. Can a man believe that Christ has other sheep
for whom He died because He must bring them in, whom He will bring in
because He died, and _not_ work according to his power in the line of
the divine purposes? The missionary spirit is but the Christian spirit
working in one particular direction. Missionary societies are but one
of the authentic outcomes of Christian principles, as natural as
holiness of life, or the act of prayer.
To secure, then, a more vigorous energy in such work, we need chiefly
what we need for all Christian growth—namely, more and deeper communion
with Christ, a more vivid realisation of His grace and love for
ourselves. And then we need that, under the double stimulus of His love
and of His commandment—which at bottom are one—our minds should be more
frequently occupied with this subject of Christian missions. Most of us
know too little about the matter to feel very much. And then we need
that we should more seriously reflect upon the facts in relation to our
own personal responsibility and duty. You complain of the triteness of
such appeals as this sermon. Brethren, have you ever tried that recipe
for freshening up well-worn truths, namely, thinking about them in
connection with the simplest, most important of all questions—what,
then, ought I to do in view of these truths? Am I exaggerating when I
say, that not one-half of the professing Christians of our day give an
hour in the year to pondering that question, with reference to
missionary work? Oh! dear friends, see to it that you live in Christ
for yourselves, and then see to it that you think His thoughts about
the heathen world, till your pity is stirred and your mind braced to
the firm resolve that you too will work the works of Christ and bring
in the wanderers.
We have had as large results as Christ has led us to expect, and far
larger than we deserved. Christian missions are yet in their
infancy—alas! that it should be so. But in these seventy years since
they may be said to have begun, what wonderful successes have been
achieved. We are often told that we have done nothing. Is it so? The
plant has been got together, methods of working have been systematised,
mistakes in some measure corrected. We have spent much of our time in
learning how to work, and that process is by no means over yet. But
with all these deductions, which ought fairly to be made, how much has
been accomplished? The Bible has been put into the languages of seven
hundred millions of men. The beginnings of a Christian literature have
been supplied for five-sixths of the world. Half a million of professed
converts have been gathered in, or as many as there were at the end of
the first century, after about the same number of years of labour, and
with apostles for missionaries and miracles for proof. And if these
still bear on their ankles the marks of the fetters, and limp as they
walk, or cannot see very clearly at first, it is no more than might be
expected from their long darkness in the prison-house, and it is no
more than Paul had to contend with at Ephesus and Corinth.
Every church that has engaged in the toil has shared in the blessing,
and has its own instances of special prosperity. We have had Jamaica;
the London Missionary Society, Madagascar, and the South Seas; the
Wesleyans, Fiji; the Episcopal Societies, Tinnevelly; the American
brethren, Burmah, and the Karens. Some of the ruder mythologies have
been so utterly extirpated that the children of idolaters have seen the
gods whom their fathers worshipped for the first time in the British
Museum. While over those more compact and scientific systems which lie
like an incubus on mighty peoples, there has crept a sickening
consciousness of a coming doom, and they already half own their
conqueror in the Stronger One than they.
'They feel from Judah's land
The dreaded Infant's hand.'
'Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, the idols are upon the beasts.' Surely
God has granted us success enough for our thankful confidence, more
than enough for our deserts. I repeat it, it is as much as He promised,
as much as we had any right to expect, and it is a vast deal more than
any other system of belief or of no belief, any of your spiritualised
Christianities, or still more intangible creeds has ever managed, or
ever thought of trying. To those who taunt us with no success, and who
perhaps would not dislike Christian missions so much if they disliked
Christian truth a little less, we may very fairly and calmly
answer—This rod has budded at all events; do you the same with your
enchantments.
But the past is no measure of the future. From the very nature of the
undertaking the ratio of progress increases at a rapid rate. The first
ten years of labour in India showed twenty-seven converts, the seventh
ten showed more than twenty-seven thousand. The preparation may be as
slow as the solemn gathering of the thunder-clouds, as they noiselessly
steal into their places, and slowly upheave their grey billowing
crests; the final success may be as swift as the lightning which
flashes in an instant from one side of the heavens to the other. It
takes long years to hew the tunnel, to 'make the crooked straight, and
the rough places plain,' and then smooth and fleet the great power
rushes along the rails. To us the cry comes, 'Prepare ye in the desert
an highway for our God.' The toil is sore and long, but 'the glory of
the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.' The
Alpine summits lie white and ghastly in the spring sunshine, and it
seems to pour ineffectual beams on their piled cold; but by slow
degrees it is silently loosening the bands of the snow, and after a
while a goat's step, as it passes along a rocky ledge, or a breath of
wind will move a tiny particle, and in an instant its motion spreads
over a mile of mountain side, and the avalanche is rushing swifter and
mightier at every foot down to the valley below, where it will all turn
into sweet water, and ripple glancing in the sunshine. Such is our
work. It may seem very hopeless, and be mostly unobservable in surface
results, but it is very real for all that. The conquering impulse, for
which our task may have been to prepare the way, will be given, and
then we shall wonder to see how surely the kingdom was coming, even
when we observed it not.
Ye have need of patience, and to feed your patience, ye have need of
fellowship with Christ, of faith in His promises, of sympathy with His
mind. God has given us, dear brethren, special reason for renewed
consecration to this service in the blessings which have during the
year terminated our anxieties and crowned our work for our own Society.
But let us not dwell upon what has been done. These successes are
brooks by the way at which we may drink—nothing more. We ought to be
like shepherds in the lonely mountain glens, who see in the
fast-falling snow and the bitter blast a summons to the hillside, and
there all the night long wherever the drift lies deepest and the wind
bites the most sharply, search the most eagerly for the poor half-dead
creatures, and as they find each, bear it back to the safe shelter, nor
stay behind to count the rescued, nor to rest their weariness, for all
the bright light in the cottage and the blackness without, but forth
again on the same quest, till all the Master's sheep have been rescued
from the white death that lay treacherous around, and are sleeping at
peace in His folds. A mighty Voice ought ever to be sounding in our
ears, 'Other sheep I have,' and the answer of our hearts and of our
lives should be, 'Them also, O Lord! will I try to bring.' Not till the
far-off issue is accomplished shall we have a right to rest, and then
we, with all those He has helped us to gather to His side, shall be
among that flock, whom He who is at once Lamb and Shepherd, our Brother
and our Lord, our Sacrifice and King, 'shall feed and lead by living
fountains of waters,' in the sweet pastures of the upper world, where
there are no ravening wolves, nor false guides to terrify and bewilder
His flock any more at all for ever.