'That we, through patience and comfort of the
Scriptures, might have hope.... 13. The God of
hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing,
that ye may abound in hope.'--ROMANS xv. 4, 13.
There is a river in Switzerland fed by two uniting streams, bearing
the same name, one of them called the 'white,' one of them the
'grey,' or dark. One comes down from the glaciers, and bears
half-melted snow in its white ripple; the other flows through a
lovely valley, and is discoloured by its earth. They unite in one
common current. So in these two verses we have two streams, a white
and a black, and they both blend together and flow out into a common
hope. In the former of them we have the dark stream--'through
patience and comfort,' which implies affliction and effort. The issue
and outcome of all difficulty, trial, sorrow, ought to be hope. And
in the other verse we have the other valley, down which the light
stream comes: 'The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in
believing, that ye may abound in hope.'
So both halves of the possible human experience are meant to end in
the same blessed result; and whether you go round on the one side of
the sphere of human life, or whether you take the other hemisphere,
you come to the same point, if you have travelled with God's hand in
yours, and with Him for your Guide.
Let us look, then, at these two contrasted origins of the same
blessed gift, the Christian hope.
I. We have, first of all, the hope that is the child of the night,
and born in the dark.
'Whatsoever things,' says the Apostle, 'were written aforetime, were
written for our learning, that we, through patience,'--or rather
_the brave perseverance_--'and consolation'--or rather perhaps
_encouragement_--'of the Scriptures might have hope.' The written
word is conceived as the source of patient endurance which acts as
well as suffers. This grace Scripture works in us through the
encouragement which it ministers in manifold ways, and the result of
both is hope.
So, you see, our sorrows and difficulties are not connected with, nor
do they issue in, bright hopefulness, except by reason of this
connecting link. There is nothing in a man's troubles to make him
hopeful. Sometimes, rather, they drive him into despair; but at all
events, they seldom drive him to hopefulness, except where this link
comes in. We cannot pass from the black frowning cliffs on one side
of the gorge to the sunny tablelands on the other without a
bridge--and the bridge for a poor soul from the blackness of sorrow,
and the sharp grim rocks of despair, to the smiling pastures of hope,
with all their half-open blossoms, is builded in that Book, which
tells us the meaning and purpose of them all; and is full of the
histories of those who have fought and overcome, have hoped and not
been ashamed.
Scripture is given for this among other reasons, that it may
encourage us, and so may produce in us this great grace of active
patience, if we may call it so.
The first thing to notice is, how Scripture gives encouragement--for
such rather than consolation is the meaning of the word. It is much
to dry tears, but it is more to stir the heart as with a trumpet
call. Consolation is precious, but we need more for well-being than
only to be comforted. And, surely, the whole tone of Scripture in its
dealing with the great mystery of pain and sorrow, has a loftier
scope than even to minister assuagement to grief, and to stay our
weeping. It seeks to make us strong and brave to face and to master
our sorrows, and to infuse into us a high-hearted courage, which
shall not merely be able to accept the biting blasts, but shall feel
that they bring a glow to the cheek and oxygen to the blood, while
wrestling with them builds up our strength, and trains us for higher
service. It would be a poor aim to comfort only; but to encourage--to
make strong in heart, resolved in will, and incapable of being
overborne or crushed in spirit by any sorrows--that is a purpose
worthy of the Book, and of the God who speaks through it.
This purpose, we may say, is effected by Scripture in two ways. It
encourages us by its records, and by its revelation of principles.
Who can tell how many struggling souls have taken heart again, as
they pondered over the sweet stories of sorrow subdued which stud its
pages, like stars in its firmament? The tears shed long ago which God
has put 'in His bottle,' and recorded in 'His book,' have truly been
turned into pearls. That long gallery of portraits of sufferers, who
have all trodden the same rough road, and been sustained by the same
hand, and reached the same home, speaks cheer to all who follow them.
Hearts wrung by cruel partings from those dearer to them than their
own souls, turn to the pages which tell how Abraham, with calm
sorrow, laid his Sarah in the cave at Macpelah; or how, when Jacob's
eyes were dim that he could not see, his memory still turned to the
hour of agony when Rachael died by him, and he sees clear in its
light her lonely grave, where so much of himself was laid; or to the
still more sacred page which records the struggle of grief and faith
in the hearts of the sisters of Bethany. All who are anyways
afflicted in mind, body, or estate find in the Psalms men speaking
their deepest experiences before them; and the grand majesty of
sorrow that marks 'the patience of Job,' and the flood of sunshine
that bathes him, revealing the 'end of the Lord,' have strengthened
countless sufferers to bear and to hold fast, and to hope. We are all
enough of children to be more affected by living examples than by
dissertations, however true, and so Scripture is mainly history,
revealing God by the record of His acts, and disclosing the secret of
human life by telling us the experiences of living men.
But Scripture has another method of ministering encouragement to our
often fainting and faithless hearts. It cuts down through all the
complications of human affairs, and lays bare the innermost motive
power. It not only shows us in its narratives the working of sorrow,
and the power of faith, but it distinctly lays down the source and
the purpose, the whence and the whither of all suffering. No man need
quail or faint before the most torturing pains or most disastrous
strokes of evil, who holds firmly the plain teaching of Scripture on
these two points. They all come _from_ my Father, and they all
come _for_ my good. It is a short and simple creed, easily
apprehended. It pretends to no recondite wisdom. It is a homely
philosophy which common intellects can grasp, which children can
understand, and hearts half paralysed by sorrow can take in. So much
the better. Grief and pain are so common that their cure had need to
be easily obtained. Ignorant and stupid people have to writhe in
agony as well as wise and clever ones, and until grief is the portion
only of the cultivated classes, its healing must come from something
more universal than philosophy; or else the nettle would be more
plentiful than the dock; and many a poor heart would be stung to
death. Blessed be God! the Christian view of sorrow, while it leaves
much unexplained, focuses a steady light on these two points; its
origin and its end. 'He for our profit, that we may be partakers of
His holiness,' is enough to calm all agitation, and to make the
faintest heart take fresh courage. With that double certitude clear
before us, we can face anything. The slings and arrows which strike
are no more flung blindly by an 'outrageous fortune,' but each bears
an inscription, like the fabled bolts, which tells what hand drew the
bow, and they come with His love.
Then, further, the courage thus born of the Scriptures produces
another grand thing--patience, or rather perseverance. By that word
is meant more than simply the passive endurance which is the main
element in patience, properly so called. Such passive endurance is a
large part of our duty in regard to difficulties and sorrows, but is
never the whole of it. It is something to endure and even while the
heart is breaking, to submit unmurmuring, but, transcendent as that
is, it is but half of the lesson which we have to learn and to put in
practice. For if all our sorrows have a disciplinary and educational
purpose, we shall not have received them aright, unless we have tried
to make that purpose effectual, by appropriating whatsoever moral and
spiritual teaching they each have for us. Nor does our duty stop
there. For while one high purpose of sorrow is to deaden our hearts
to earthly objects, and to lift us above earthly affections, no
sorrow can ever relax the bonds which oblige us to duty. The solemn
pressure of 'I ought,' is as heavy on the sorrowful as on the happy
heart. We have still to toil, to press forward, in the sweat of our
brow, to gain our bread, whether it be food for our bodies, or
sustenance for our hearts and minds. Our responsibilities to others
do not cease because our lives are darkened. Therefore, heavy or
light of heart, we have still to stick to our work, and though we may
never more be able to do it with the old buoyancy, still to do it
with our might.
It is that dogged persistence in plain duty, that tenacious
continuance in our course, which is here set forth as the result of
the encouragement which Scripture gives. Many of us have all our
strength exhausted in mere endurance, and have let obvious duties
slip from our hands, as if we had done all that we could do when we
had forced ourselves to submit. Submission would come easier if you
took up some of those neglected duties, and you would be stronger for
patience, if you used more of your strength for service. You do well
if you do not sink under your burden, but you would do better if,
with it on your shoulders, you would plod steadily along the road;
and if you did, you would feel the weight less. It seems heaviest
when you stand still doing nothing. Do not cease to toil because you
suffer. You will feel your pain more if you do. Take the
encouragement which Scripture gives, that it may animate you to bate
no jot of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer right onward.
And let the Scripture directly minister to you perseverance as well
as indirectly supply it through the encouragement which it gives. It
abounds with exhortations, patterns, and motives of such patient
continuance in well-doing. It teaches us a solemn scorn of ills. It,
angel-like, bears us up on soft, strong hands, lest we bruise
ourselves on, or stumble over, the rough places on our roads. It
summons us to diligence by the visions of the prize, and glimpses of
the dread fate of the slothful, by all that is blessed in hope, and
terrible in foreboding, by appeals to an enlightened self-regard, and
by authoritative commands to conscience, by the pattern of the
Master, and by the tender motives of love to Him to which He,
Himself, has given voice. All these call on us to be followers of
them who, through faith and perseverance, inherit the promises.
But we have yet another step to take. These two, the encouragement
and perseverance produced by the right use of Scripture, will lead to
hope.
It depends on how sorrow and trial are borne, whether they produce a
dreary hopelessness which sometimes darkens into despair, or a
brighter, firmer hope than more joyous days knew. We cannot say that
sorrow produces hope. It does not, unless we have this connecting
link--the experience in sorrow of a God-given courage which falters
not in the onward course, nor shrinks from any duty. But if, in the
very press and agony, I am able, by God's grace, to endure nor cease
to toil, I have, in myself, a living proof of His power, which
entitles me to look forward with the sure confidence that, through
all the uproar of the storm, He will bring me to my harbour of rest
where there is peace. The lion once slain houses a swarm of bees who
lay up honey in its carcase. The trial borne with brave persistence
yields a store of sweet hopes. If we can look back and say, 'Thou
hast been with me in six troubles,' it is good logic to look forward
and say, 'and in seven Thou wilt not forsake me.' When the first wave
breaks over the ship, as she clears the heads and heels over before
the full power of the open sea, inexperienced landsmen think they are
all going to the bottom, but they soon learn that there is a long way
between rolling and foundering, and get to watch the highest waves
towering above the bows in full confidence that these also will slip
quietly beneath the keel as the others have done, and be left
harmless astern.
The Apostle, in this very same letter, has another word parallel to
this, in which he describes the issues of rightly-borne suffering
when he says, 'Tribulation worketh perseverance'--the same word that
is used here--'and perseverance worketh' the proof in our experience
of a sustaining God; and the proof in our experience of a sustaining
God works hope. We know that of ourselves we could not have met
tribulation, and therefore the fact that we have been able to meet
and overcome it is demonstration of a mightier power than our own,
working in us, which we know to be from God, and therefore
inexhaustible and ever ready to help. That is foundation firm enough
to build solid fabrics of hope upon, whose bases go down to the
centre of all things, the purpose of God, and whose summits, like the
upward shooting spire of some cathedral, aspire to, and seem almost
to touch, the heavens.
So hope is born of sorrow, when these other things come between. The
darkness gives birth to the light, and every grief blazes up a
witness to a future glory. Each drop that hangs on the wet leaves
twinkles into rainbow light that proclaims the sun. The garish
splendours of the prosperous day hide the stars, and through the
night of our sorrow there shine, thickly sown and steadfast, the
constellations of eternal hopes. The darker the midnight, the surer,
and perhaps the nearer, the coming of the day. Sorrow has not had its
perfect work unless it has led us by the way of courage and
perseverance to a stable hope. Hope has not pierced to the rock, and
builds only 'things that can be shaken,' unless it rests on sorrows
borne by God's help.
II. So much then for the genealogy of one form of the Christian hope.
But we have also a hope that is born of the day, the child of
sunshine and gladness; and that is set before us in the second of the
two verses which we are considering, 'The God of hope fill you with
all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope.'
So then, 'the darkness and the light are both alike' to our hope, in
so far as each may become the occasion for its exercise. It is not
only to be the sweet juice expressed from our hearts by the winepress
of calamities, but that which flows of itself from hearts ripened and
mellowed under the sunshine of God-given blessedness.
We have seen that the bridge by which sorrow led to hope, is
perseverance and courage; in this second analysis of the origin of
hope, joy and peace are the bridge by which Faith passes over into
it. Observe the difference: there is no direct connection between
affliction and hope, but there is between joy and hope. We have no
right to say, 'Because I suffer, I shall possess good in the future';
but we have a right to say, 'Because I rejoice'--of course with a joy
in God--'I shall never cease to rejoice in Him.' Such joy is the
prophet of its own immortality and completion. And, on the other
hand, the joy and peace which are naturally the direct progenitors of
Christian hope, are the children of faith. So that we have here two
generations, as it were, of hope's ancestors;--Faith produces joy and
peace, and these again produce hope.
Faith leads to joy and peace. Paul has found, and if we only put it
to the proof, we shall also find, that the simple exercise of simple
faith fills the soul with '_all_ joy and peace.' Gladness in all
its variety and in full measure, calm repose in every kind and
abundant in its still depth, will pour into my heart as water does
into a vessel, on condition of my taking away the barrier and opening
my heart through faith. Trust and thou shalt be glad. Trust, and thou
shalt be calm. In the measure of thy trust shall be the measure of
thy joy and peace.
Notice, further, how indissolubly connected the present exercise of
faith is with the present experience of joy and peace. The exuberant
language of this text seems a world too wide for anything that many
professing Christians ever know even in the moments of highest
elevation, and certainly far beyond the ordinary tenor of their
lives. But it is no wonder that these should have so little joy, when
they have so little faith. It is only while we are looking to Jesus
that we can expect to have joy and peace. There is no flashing light
on the surface of the mirror, but when it is turned full to the sun.
Any interruption in the electric current is registered accurately by
an interruption in the continuous line perforated on the telegraph
ribbon; and so every diversion of heart and faith from Jesus Christ
is recorded by the fading of the sunshine out of the heart, and the
silencing of all the song-birds. Yesterday's faith will not bring joy
to-day; you cannot live upon past experience, nor feed your souls
with the memory of former exercises of Christian faith. It must be
like the manna, gathered fresh every day, else it will rot and smell
foul. A present faith, and a present faith only, produces a present
joy and peace. Is there, then, any wonder that so much of the
ordinary experience of ordinary Christians should present a sadly
broken line--a bright point here and there, separated by long
stretches of darkness? The gaps in the continuity of their joy are
the tell-tale indicators of the interruptions in their faith. If the
latter were continuous, the former would be unbroken. Always believe,
and you will always be glad and calm.
It is easy to see that this is the natural result of faith. The very
act of confident reliance on another for all my safety and well-being
has a charm to make me restful, so long as my reliance is not put to
shame. There is no more blessed emotion than the tranquil happiness
which, in the measure of its trust, fills every trustful soul. Even
when its objects are poor, fallible, weak, ignorant dying men and
women, trust brings a breath of more than earthly peace into the
heart. But when it grasps the omnipotent, all-wise, immortal Christ,
there are no bounds but its own capacity to the blessedness which it
brings into the soul, because there is none to the all-sufficient
grace of which it lays hold.
Observe again how accurately the Apostle defines for us the
conditions on which Christian experience will be joyful and tranquil.
It is 'in believing,' not in certain other exercises of mind, that
these blessings are to be realised. And the forgetfulness of that
plain fact leads to many good people's religion being very much more
gloomy and disturbed than God meant it to be. For a large part of it
consists in sadly testing their spiritual state, and gazing at their
failures and imperfections. There is nothing cheerful or
tranquillising in grubbing among the evils of your own heart, and it
is quite possible to do that too much and too exclusively. If your
favourite subject of contemplation in your religious thinking is
yourself, no wonder that you do not get much joy and peace out of
that. If you do, it will be of a false kind. If you are thinking more
about your own imperfections than about Christ's pardon, more about
the defects of your own love to Him than about the perfection of His
love to you, if instead of practising faith you are absorbed in
self-examination, and instead of saying to yourself, 'I know how foul
and unworthy I am, but I look away from myself to my Saviour,' you
are bewailing your sins and doubting whether you are a Christian, you
need not expect God's angels of joy and peace to nestle in your
heart. It is 'in believing,' and not in other forms of religious
contemplation, however needful these may in their places be, that
these fair twin sisters come to us and make their abode with us.
Then, the second step in this tracing of the origin of the hope which
has the brighter source is the consideration that the joy and peace
which spring from faith, in their turn produce that confident
anticipation of future and progressive good.
Herein lies the distinguishing blessedness of the Christian joy and
peace, in that they carry in themselves the pledge of their own
eternity. Here, and here only, the mad boast which is doomed to be so
miserably falsified when applied to earthly gladness is simple truth.
Here 'to-morrow _shall_ be as this day and much more abundant.'
Such joy has nothing in itself which betokens exhaustion, as all the
less pure joys of earth have. It is manifestly not born for death, as
are they. It is not fated, like all earthly emotions or passions, to
expire in the moment of its completeness, or even by sudden revulsion
to be succeeded by its opposite. Its sweetness has no after pang of
bitterness. It is not true of this gladness, that 'Hereof cometh in
the end despondency and madness,' but its destiny is to 'remain' as
long as the soul in which it unfolds shall exist, and 'to be full' as
long as the source from which it flows does not run dry.
So that the more we experience the present blessedness, which faith
in Christ brings us, the more shall we be sure that nothing in the
future, either in or beyond time, can put an end to it; and hence a
hope that looks with confident eyes across the gorge of death, to the
'shining tablelands' on the other side, and is as calm as certitude,
shall be ours. To the Christian soul, rejoicing in the conscious
exercise of faith and the conscious possession of its blessed
results, the termination of a communion with Christ, so real and
spiritual, by such a trivial accident as death, seems wildly absurd
and therefore utterly impossible. Just as Christ's Resurrection seems
inevitable as soon as we grasp the truth of His divine nature, and it
becomes manifestly impossible that He, being such as He is--should
be holden of death,' being such as it is, so for His children, when
once they come to know the realities of fellowship with their Lord,
they feel the entire dissimilarity of these to anything in the realm
which is subjected to the power of death, and to know it to be as
impossible that these purely spiritual experiences should be reduced
to inactivity, or meddled with by it, as that a thought should be
bound with a cord or a feeling fastened with fetters. They, and
death, belong to two different regions. It can work its will on 'this
wide world, and all its fading sweets'--but is powerless in the still
place where the soul and Jesus hold converse, and all His joy passes
into His servant's heart. I saw, not long since, in a wood a mass of
blue wild hyacinths, that looked like a little bit of heaven dropped
down upon earth. You and I may have such a tiny bit of heaven itself
lying amidst all the tangle of our daily lives, if only we put our
trust in Christ, and so get into our hearts some little portion of
that joy that is unspeakable, and that peace that passeth
understanding.
Thus, then, the sorrows of the earthly experience and the joys of the
Christian life will blend together to produce the one blessed result
of a hope that is full of certainty, and is the assurance of
immortality. There is no rainbow in the sky unless there be both a
black cloud and bright sunshine. So, on the blackest, thickest
thunder-mass of our sorrows, if smitten into moist light by the
sunshine of joy and peace drawn from Jesus Christ by faith, there may
be painted the rainbow of hope, the many-coloured, steadfast token of
the faithful covenant of the faithful God.