ever-present kingdom of God are facts, not dreams. Whether men believe
it or not, it is true that the power, glory, and righteousness of His
kingdom may be known unto men; that His kingdom is an everlasting
kingdom, and His dominion endureth throughout all ages; that The Lord
upholds all such as fall, and lifts up those that are down; that the eyes
of all wait on Him, that He may give them their meat in due season; that
He opens His hand, and filleth all things living with plenteousness; that
the Lord is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works; that He
is nigh to them that call upon Him, yea to all who call upon Him
faithfully. He that planted the ear, shall He not hear? He that made
the eye, shall He not see? He that chastiseth the nations; it is He that
teacheth man knowledge: shall He not punish?
Whether men believe it or not, that is true which the Psalmist
said--Whither shall I flee from His Spirit, or whither shall I go from
His presence? If I climb up to heaven, He is there; if I go down to
hell, He is there also. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in
the uttermost part of the sea, even there shall His hand lead me, His
right hand hold me still.
Whether men believe it or not, that is true which Christ spake on
earth--That the Father hath committed all judgment to Him, because He is
the Son of man; that to Him is given all power in heaven and earth; and
that He is with us, even to the end of the world.
Whether men believe it or not, that is true which S. Paul spake on Mars'
hill, saying that the Lord is not far from any one of us, for in Him we
live and move and have our being; and that He hath appointed a day in
which He will judge the world in righteousness, by that Man whom He hath
ordained, and raised from the dead.
Whether men believe it or not, that is true which Christ spake--Heaven
and earth shall pass away; but My words shall not pass away; at least
till He has put down all rule and all authority and power, and delivered
up the kingdom to God, even the Father, that God may be all in all.
"That one far-off divine event, toward which the whole creation moves,"
will be, not the resumption, but the triumph, of Christ's rule; of a rule
which began before the world, which has endured through all the ages,
which endures now, punishing or rewarding each and every one of us, and
of our children's children, as long as there shall be a man upon the
earth. For by Christ's will alone the world of man consists; in Christ's
laws alone is true life, health, wealth, possible for any man, family or
nation; out of His kingdom He casts, sooner or later, all things which
offend, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. He said of
Himself--Whosoever falleth on this rock shall be broken; but on
whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder.
SERMON X. THE LAW OF THE LORD.
PSALM I. 1,2.
Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly,
nor stood in the path of sinners, nor sat in the seat of the scornful.
But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law will he
exercise himself day and night.
The first and second Psalms, taken together, are the key to all the
Psalms; I may almost say to the whole Bible. I will say a few words on
them this morning, especially to those who are coming to the Holy
Communion, to shew their allegiance to that Lord, in whose law alone is
life, and who sits on the throne of the universe, King of kings, and Lord
of lords: but I say it to the whole congregation likewise; nay, if there
were an infidel or a heathen in the Church, I should say it to them. For
in this case what is true of one man is true of every man, whether he
knows it or not.
We all should like to be blessed. We all should like to be, as the Psalm
says, like trees planted by the waterside, whose leaves never wither, and
who bring forth their fruit in due season. We should all wish to have it
said of us--Whatsoever he doeth it shall prosper. Then here is the way
to inherit that blessing--"_Blessed is the man whose delight is in the
law of the Lord_, _and who exercises himself in His law day and night_."
The Psalmist is not speaking of Moses' Law, nor of any other law of forms
and ceremonies. He says expressly "The law of the Lord"--that is, the
law according to which the Lord has made him and all the world; and
according to which the Lord rules him and all the world. The Psalms--you
must remember--say very little about Moses' law; and when they do, speak
of it almost slightingly, as if to draw men's minds away from it to a
deeper, nobler, more eternal law. In one Psalm God asks, "Thinkest thou
that I will eat bulls' flesh, and drink the blood of goats?" And in
another Psalm some one answers, "Sacrifice and burnt-offering thou
wouldest not. Then said I, Lo I come, to do thy will, O God. Thy law is
within my heart." This is that true and eternal law of which Solomon
speaks in his proverbs, as the Wisdom by which God made the heavens, and
laid the foundation of the earth; and tells us that that Wisdom is a tree
of life to all who can lay hold of her; that in her right hand is length
of days, and in her left hand riches and honour; that her ways are ways
of pleasantness; and all her paths are peace.
This is that law, of which the Prophet says--that God will put it into
men's hearts, and write it in their minds; and they shall be His people,
and He will be their God. This is that law, which the inspired
Philosopher--for a philosopher he was indeed--who wrote the 119th Psalm,
continually prayed and strove to learn, intreating the Lord to teach him
His law, and make him remember His everlasting judgments. This is that
law, which our Lord Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled, because the law was
His Father's law, and therefore His own law, and therefore he perfectly
comprehended the law, and perfectly loved the law; and said with His
whole heart--I delight to do Thy will, O God.
The will of God. For in one word, this Law, which we have to learn, and
by keeping which we shall be blessed, is nothing else than God's Will.
God's Will about us. What God has willed and chosen we should be. What
God has willed and chosen we should do. The greatest philosopher of the
18th century said that every rational being had to answer four
questions--Where am I? What can I know? What must I do? Whither am I
going? And he knew well that--as the Bible tells us throughout--the only
way to get any answer to those four tremendous questions is--To delight
in the law of the Lord; to struggle, think, pray, till we get some
understanding of God's will; of God's will about ourselves and about the
world; and so be blessed indeed.
But to do that, it is plain that we must heed the warning which the first
verse of the Psalm gives us--"Blessed is the man that hath not walked in
the counsel of the ungodly." For it is plain that a man will never learn
God's will if he takes counsel from ungodly men who care nothing for
God's will, and do not believe that God's will governs the world. Neither
must he, as the Psalm says, 'stand in the way of sinners'--of profligate
and dishonest men who break God's law. For if he follows their ways, and
breaks God's law himself, it is plain that he will learn little or
nothing about God's law, save in the way of bitter punishment. For let
him but break God's law a little too long, and then--as the 2nd Psalm
says--'God will rule him with a rod of iron, and break him in pieces like
a potter's vessel.' But there is even more hope for him--for he may
repent and amend--than if he sits in the seat of the scorners. The
scorners; the sneering, the frivolous, the unearnest, the unbelieving,
the envious, who laugh down what they call enthusiasm and romance; who
delight in finding fault, and in blackening those who seem purer or
nobler than themselves. These are the men who cannot by any possibility
learn anything of the law of God; for they will not even look for it.
They have cast away the likeness of rational men, and have taken upon
themselves the likeness of the sneering accusing Satan, who asks in the
book of Job--"Doth Job serve God for nought?" When the greatest poet of
our days tried to picture his idea of a fiend tempting a man to his ruin,
he gave his fiend just such a character as this; a very clever,
courteous, agreeable man of the world, and yet a being who could not love
any one, could not believe in any one; who mocked not only at man but at
God and tempted and ruined man, not out of hatred to him, hardly out of
envy; but in mere sport, as a cruel child may torment an insect;--in one
word, a scorner. And so true was his conception felt to be, that men of
that character are now often called by the very name which he gave to his
Satan--Mephistopheles. Beware therefore of the scornful spirit, as well
as of the openly sinful or of the ungodly. If you wish to learn the law
of the Lord, keep your souls pious, pure, reverent, and earnest; for it
is only the pure in heart who shall see God; and only those who do God's
will as far as they know it, who will know concerning any doctrine
whether it be true or false; in one word, whether it be of God.
And now bear in mind secondly, that this law is the law of the Lord. You
cannot have a law without a lawgiver who makes the law, and also without
a judge who enforces the law; and the lawgiver and the judge of the law
of the Lord is the Lord Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Remembering Him, and that He is King, we can understand the fervour of
indignation and pity, with which the writer of the 2nd Psalm bursts
out--"Why do the heathen rage, and why do the people imagine a vain
thing? The kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers take counsel
together, against the Lord, and against His Anointed--
"Let us break their bonds asunder and cast away their cords from us."
For the great majority of mankind, in every age and country, will not
believe that there is a Law of the Lord, to which they must conform
themselves. Kings, and governments, and peoples, are too often all alike
in that. They must needs have their own way. Their will is to be law.
Their voice is to be the voice of God. They are they who ought to speak;
who is Lord over them? And because the Lord is patient and
long-suffering, and does not punish their presumption on the spot by
lightning or earthquake, they fancy that He takes no notice of them, and
of their crimes and follies; and say--"Tush, shall God perceive it? Is
there knowledge in the most High?" But sooner or later, either by sudden
and terrible catastrophes, or by slow decay, brought on sometimes by
their own blind presumption, sometimes by their own luxury, they find out
their mistake when it is too late. And then--
"He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn. The Lord shall
have them in derision. For He has set His King upon the throne" of all
the universe.
Yes, Christ the Lord rules, and knows that He rules; whether we know it
or not. Christ's law still hangs over our head, ready to lead us to
light and life and peace and wealth, or ready to fall on us and grind us
to powder, whether we choose to look up and see it or not. The Lord
liveth; though we may be too dead to feel Him. The Lord sees us; though
we may be too blind to see Him. Man can abolish many things; and does
both--wisely and unwisely--in these restless days of change. But let him
try as long as he will--for he has often tried, and will try again--he
cannot abolish Christ the Lord.
For Christ is set upon the throne of the universe. The Father of all--if
we may dare to hint even in Scriptural words at mysteries which are in
themselves unspeakable--is eternally saying to Him--Thou art my Son, this
day have I begotten Thee. And Christ answers eternally--I come to do Thy
will, O God. The nations are Christ's inheritance; and the utmost parts
of the earth are His possession, now, already; whether we or they think
so or not.
And there are times--there are times, my friends--when the awful words
which follow come true likewise--"Thou shalt bruise them with a rod of
iron, and break them in pieces like a potter's vessel."
For as to this world in which we live, so to the God who created that
world, there is a terrible aspect. There is calm: but there is storm
also. There is fertilizing sunshine: but there is also the destroying
thunderbolt. There is the solid and fruitful earth, where man can till
and build; but there is the earthquake and the flood likewise, which
destroy in a moment the works of man. So there is in God boundless love,
and boundless mercy: but there is, too, a wrath of God, and a fire of God
which burns eternally against all evil and falsehood. And woe to those
who fall under that wrath; who are even scorched for a moment by that
fire.
"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God."
We are all ready enough to forget this; ready enough to think only of
God's goodness, and never of His severity. Ready enough to talk of
Christ as gentle and suffering; because we flatter ourselves that if He
is gentle, He may be also indulgent; if He be suffering, He may be also
weak. We like to forget that He is, and was, and ever will be--Lord of
heaven and earth; and to think of Him only in His humiliation in Judaea
1800 years ago, forgetting that during that very humiliation, while He
was shewing love, and mercy, and miracles of healing, and sympathy and
compassion for every form of human sorrow and weakness, He did not shrink
from shewing to men the awful side of His character; did not shrink from
saying, "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. Ye serpents,
ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?"--did
not shrink from declaring that He was coming again, even before that very
generation had passed away, to destroy, unless it repented, the wicked
city of Jerusalem, with an utter and horrible destruction.
Think of these things, my friends: for true they are, and true they will
remain, whether you think of them or not. And take the warning of the
second Psalm, which is needed now as much as it was ever needed--"Be wise
now therefore, O ye kings, be learned, ye that are judges of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice unto Him with reverence. Worship
the Son, lest He be angry, and so ye perish from the right way. If His
wrath be kindled, yea, but a little, blessed are all they that put their
trust in Him."
But you are no kings, you are no judges. Is it so? And yet you boast
yourselves to be free men, in a free country. Not so. Every man who is
a free man is a king or a judge, whether he knows it or not. Every one
who has a duty, is a king over his duty. Every one who has a work to do,
is a judge whether he does his work well or not. He who farms, is a king
and a judge over his land. He who keeps a shop, a king and a judge over
his business. He who has a family, a king and a judge over his
household. Let each be wise, and serve the Lord in fear; knowing that
according as he obeys the law of the Lord, he will receive for the deeds
done in the body, whether good or evil.
Not kings? not judges? Is not each and every human being who is not a
madman, a king over his own actions, a judge over his own heart and
conscience? Let him govern himself, govern his own thoughts and words,
his own life and actions, according to the law of the Lord who created
him; and he will be able to say with the poet,
My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such perfect joy therein I find
As far exceeds all earthly bliss.
But if he governs himself according to his own fancy, which is no law,
but lawlessness: then he will find himself rebelling against himself,
weakened by passions, torn by vain desires, and miserable by reason of
the lusts which war in his members; and so will taste, here in this life,
of that anger of the Lord of which it is written; "If His wrath be
kindled, yea, but a little, ye shall perish from the right way."
Therefore let each and all of us, high and low, take the warning of the
last verse, and worship the Son of God. Bow low before Him--for that is
the true meaning of the words--as subjects before an absolute monarch,
who can dispose of us, body and soul, according to His will: but who can
be trusted to dispose of us well: because His will is a good will, and
the only reason why He is angry when we break His laws, is, that His laws
are the Eternal Laws of God, wherein alone is life for all rational
beings; and to break them is to injure our fellow-creatures, and to ruin
ourselves, and perish from that right way, to bring us back to which He
condescended, of His boundless love, to die on the Cross for all mankind.
SERMON XI. GOD THE TEACHER.
PSALM CXIX. 33, 34.
Teach me, O Lord, the way of Thy statutes, and I shall keep it unto
the end. Give me understanding, and I shall keep Thy Law; yea, I
shall observe it with my whole heart.
This 119th Psalm has been valued for many centuries, by the wisest and
most devout Christians, as one of the most instructive in the Bible; as
the experimental psalm. And it is that, and more. It is specially a
psalm about education. That is on the face of the text. Teach me, O
Lord, Thy statutes, and I shall keep them to the end. These are the
words of a man who wishes to be taught, and therefore to learn; and to
learn not mere book-learning and instruction, but to acquire a practical
education, which he can keep to the end, and carry out in his whole life.
But it is more. It is, to my mind, as much a theological psalm as it is
an experimental psalm; and it is just as valuable for what it tells us
concerning the changeless and serene essence of God, as for what it tells
us concerning the changing and struggling soul of man.
Let us think a little this morning--and, please God, hereafter also--of
the Psalm, and what it says. For it is just as true now as ever it was,
and just as precious to those who long to educate themselves with the
true education, which makes a man perfect, even as his Father in heaven
is perfect.
The Psalm is a prayer, or collection of short prayers, written by some
one who had two thoughts in his mind, and who was so full of those two
thoughts that he repeated them over and over again, in many different
forms, like one who, having an air of music in his head, repeats it in
different keys, with variation after variation; yet keeps true always to
the original air, and returns to it always at the last.
Now what two thoughts were in the Psalmist's mind?
First: that there was something in the world which he must learn, and
would learn; for everything in this life and the next depended on his
learning it. And this thing which he wants to learn he calls God's
statutes, God's law, God's testimonies, God's commandments, God's
everlasting judgments. That is what he feels he must learn, or else come
to utter grief, both body and soul.
Secondly: that if he is to learn them, God Himself must teach them to
him. I beg you not to overlook this side of the Psalm. That is what
makes it not only a psalm, but a prayer also. The man wants to know
something. But beside that, he prays God to teach it to him.
He was not like too many now-a-days, who look on prayer, and on
inspiration, as old-fashioned superstitions; who believe that a man can
find out all he needs to know by his own unassisted intellect, and then
do it by his own unassisted will. Where they get their proofs of that
theory, I know not; certainly not from the history of mankind, and
certainly not from their own experience, unless it be very different from
mine. Be that as it may, this old Psalmist would not have agreed with
them; for he held an utterly opposite belief. He held that a man could
see nothing, unless God shewed it to him. He held that a man could learn
nothing unless God taught him; and taught him, moreover, in two ways.
First taught him what he ought to do, and then taught him how to do it.
Surely this man was, at least, a reasonable and prudent man, and shewed
his common-sense. I say--common-sense.
For suppose that you were set adrift in a ship at sea, to shift for
yourself, would it not be mere common-sense to try and learn how to
manage that ship, that you might keep her afloat and get her safe to
land? You would try to learn the statutes, laws, and commandments, and
testimonies, and judgments concerning the ship, lest by your own
ignorance you should sink her, and be drowned. You would try to learn
the laws about the ship; namely the laws of floatation, by fulfilling
which vessels swim, and by breaking which vessels sink.
You would try to learn the commandments about her. They would be any
books which you could find of rules of navigation, and instruction in
seamanship.
You would try to learn the testimonies about the ship. And what would
they be? The witness, of course, which the ship bore to herself. The
experience which you or others got, from seeing how she behaved--as they
say--at sea.
And from whom would you try to learn all this? from yourself? Out of
your own brain and fancy? Would you invent theories of navigation and
shipbuilding for yourself, without practice or experience? I trust not.
You would go to the shipbuilder and the shipmaster for your information.
Just as--if you be a reasonable man--you will go for your information
about this world to the builder and maker of the world--God himself.
And lastly; you would try to learn the judgments about the ship: and what
would they be? The results of good or bad seamanship; what happens to
ships, when they are well-managed or ill-managed.
It would be too hard to have to learn that by experience; for the price
which you would have to pay would be, probably, that you would be wrecked
and drowned. But if you saw other ships wrecked near you, you would form
judgments from their fate of what you ought to do. If you could find
accounts of shipwrecks, you would study them with the most intense
interest; lest you too should be wrecked, and so judgment overtake you
for your bad seamanship.
For God's judgment of any matter is not, as superstitious people fancy,
that God grows suddenly angry, and goes out of His way to punish those
who do wrong, as by a miracle. God judges all things in heaven and earth
without anger--ay, with boundless pity: but with no indulgence. The soul
that sinneth, it shall die. The ship that cannot swim, it must sink.
That is the law of the judgments of God. But He is merciful in this;
that He rewardeth every man according to his work. His judgment may be
favourable, as well as unfavourable. He may acquit, or He may condemn.
But whether He acquits or condemns, we can only know by the event; by the
result. If a ship sinks, for want of good sailing or other defect, that
is a judgment of God about the ship. He has condemned her. She is not
seaworthy. But if the ship arrives safe in port, that too is God's
judgment. He has tried her and acquitted her. She is seaworthy; and she
has her reward.
How simple this is. And yet men will not believe it, will not understand
it, and therefore they wreck so often each man his own ship--his own life
and immortal soul, and sink and perish, for lack of knowledge.
For each one of us is at sea, each in his own ship; and each must sail
her and steer her, as best he can, or sink and drown for ever.