'For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall
there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another
place; but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who
knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as
this?'--ESTHER iv. 14.
All Christians are agreed in holding the principles which underlie our
missionary operations. They all believe that the world is a fallen
world, that without Christ the fallen world is a lost world, that the
preaching of the Gospel is the way to bring Christ to those who need
Him, that to the Church is committed the ministry of reconciliation.
These are the grand truths from which the grand missionary enterprise
has sprung. It is not my intention to enlarge on them now. But in this
and in all cases, there are secondary motives besides, and inferior to
those which are derived from the real fundamental principles. We are
stimulated to action not only because we hold certain great
principles, but because they are reinforced by certain subordinate
considerations.
It is the duty of all Christians to promote the missionary cause on
the lofty grounds already referred to. Besides that, it may be in a
special way our duty for some additional reasons drawn from
peculiarities in our condition. Circumstances do not make duties, but
they may bring a special weight of obligation on us to do them. Times
again do not make duties, but they too make a thing a special duty
now. The consideration of consequences may not decide us in matters of
conscience, but it may allowably come in to deter us from what is on
higher grounds a sin to be avoided, or a good deed to be done. Success
or failure is an alternative that must not be thought of when we are
asking ourselves, 'Ought I to do this?' but when we have answered that
question, we may go to work with a lighter heart and a firmer hand if
we are sure that we are not going to fail.
All these are inferior considerations which do not avail to determine
duty and do not go deep enough to constitute the real foundation of
our obligation. They are considerations which can scarcely be shut
out, and should be taken in determining the weight of our obligation,
in shaping the selection of our duties, in stimulating the zeal and
sedulousness with which we do what we know to be right.
To a consideration of some of these secondary reasons for energy in
the work of missions I ask your attention. The verse which I have
selected for my text is spoken by Mordecai to Esther, when urging her
to her perilous patriotism. It singularly blends the statesman and the
believer. He sees that if she selfishly refuses to identify herself
with her people, in their calamity, the wave that sweeps them away
will not be stayed outside her royal dwelling; he knows too much of
courts to think that she can stand against that burst of popular fury
should it break out. But he looks on as a devout man believing God's
promises, and seeing past all instruments; he warns her that
'deliverance and enlargement shall arise.' He is no fatalist; he
believes in man's work, therefore he urges her to let herself be the
instrument by which God's work shall be done. He is no atheist; he
believes in God's sovereign power and unchangeable faithfulness,
therefore he looks without dismay to the possibility of her failure.
He knows that if she is idle, all the evil will come on her head, who
has been unfaithful, and that in spite of that God's faithfulness
shall not be made of none effect. He believes that she has been raised
to her position for God's sake, for her brethren's sake, not her own.
'Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as
this?' There speaks the devout statesman, the court-experienced
believer. He has seen favourites tended and tossed aside, viziers
powerful and beheaded, kings half deified and deserted in their utmost
need. Sitting at the gate there, he has seen generations of Hamans go
out and in; he has seen the craft, the cruelty, the lusts which have
been the apparent causes of the puppets' rise and fall, and he has
looked beyond it all and believed in a Hand that pulled the wires, in
a King of Kings who raiseth up one and setteth down another. So he
believes that his Esther has come to the kingdom by God's appointment,
to do God's work at God's time. And these convictions keep him calm
and stir her.
We may find here a series of considerations having a special bearing
on this missionary work. To them I ask your attention.
I. God gives us our position that we may use it for His cause, for the
spread of the Gospel.
In most general terms.
(a) No man has anything for his own sake--no man liveth to himself. We
come to the kingdom for others. Here we touch the foundation of all
authority; we learn the awful burden of all talents, the dreadful
weight of every gift.
(b) No man receives the Gospel for his own sake. We are not
non-conductors, but stand all linked hand in hand. We are members of
the body that the blood may flow freely through us. For no loftier
reason did God light the candle than that it might give light. We are
beacons kindled to transmit, till every sister light flashes back the
ray.
(c) We especially have received a position in the world for the
conversion of the world. Our national character and position unite
that of the Jew in his two stages--we are set to be the 'light of the
world,' and we are 'tribes of the wandering foot.' Our history, all,
has tended to this function, our local position, our laws, our
commerce. We are citizens of a nation which 'as a nest has found the
riches' of the peoples. In every land our people dwell.
Think of our colonies. Think that we are brought into contact with
heathen, whether we will or not. We cannot help influencing them.
'Through you the name of God is blasphemed amongst the Gentiles.'
Think of our sailors. Why this position? What is plainer than that all
this is in order that the Gospel might be spread? God has ever let the
Gospel follow in the tracks made for it by commercial law.
This object does not exclude others. Our language, our literature, our
other rich spiritual treasures, we hold them all that we may impart.
But remember that all these other good things that England has will
spread themselves with little effort, people will be glad to get them.
But the Gospel will not be spread so. It must be taken to those who do
not want it. It must be held forth with outstretched hands to 'a
disobedient and gainsaying people.' It is found of them that seek it
not.
Like the Lord we must go to the wanderers, we must find them as they
lie panting and thirsty in the wild wilderness. Therefore Christian
men must make special earnest efforts or the work will not be done.
They must be as the 'dew that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for
the sons of men.'
And again, such action does not involve approval of the means by which
such a position has become ours. Mordecai knew what vile passions had
been at work to put Esther there, and did not forget poor Vashti, and
we have no need to hide conviction that England's place has often been
won by wrong, been kept by violence and fraud, that, as she has strode
to empire, her foot has trodden on many a venerable throne unjustly
thrown down, and her skirts have been dabbled with 'the blood of poor
innocents,' splashed there with her armed hoof. Be it so!--Still!
'Thou makest the wrath of man to praise Thee.' Still--'we are debtors
both to the Greek and barbarian,' and all the more debtors because of
ills inflicted. God has laid on us a solemn responsibility. Over all
the dust of base intrigues, and the smoke of bloody battles, and the
hubbub of busy commerce, His hand has been working, and though we have
been sinful, He has given us a place and a power, mighty and awful. We
have received these not for our own glory, not that we should boast of
our dominion, not that we should gather tribute of gain and glory from
subject peoples, not even that we should carry to them the great
though lesser blessings of language, united order, peaceful commerce,
sway over brute nature, but that we should give them what will make
them men--Christ.
We have a work to do, an awful work. To us all as Christians, to us
especially as citizens of this land and members of this race, to us
and to our brethren across the Atlantic the message comes, by our
history, our manners, etc., as plainly as if it were written in every
wave that beats around our coast. 'Ye are my witnesses, saith the
Lord.'
II. God lays upon us special missionary work by the special
characteristics of the times.
'Such a time as this!' Was there ever such a time?
Look at the condition of heathenism. It is everywhere tottering. 'The
idols are on the beasts, Bel boweth down.' The grim gods sit half
famished already. There is a crack in every temple wall.
Mahommedanism, Buddhism, Brahminism--they are none of them
progressive. They are none of them vital. Think how only the Gospel
outleaps space and time. How all these systems are of time and
devoured by it, as Saturn eats his own children. They are of the
things that can be shaken, and their being shaken makes more certain
the remaining of the things that cannot be shaken.
Look at the fields open. India, China, Japan, Africa, in a word, 'The
field is the world' in a degree in which it never was before. 'Such a
time'--a time of seething, and we can determine the cosmos; a plastic
time, and we can mould it; it is a deluge, push the ark boldly out and
ransom some.