One need only name them side by side to feel the full force of the
intended contrast. On the one hand, the name of the Lord with all its
depths and glories, with its blaze of lustrous purity, and infinitudes
of inexhaustible power; and on the other, 'the rich man's wealth.'
What contempt is expressed in putting the two side by side! It is as
if the author had said, 'Look on this picture and on that!' Two
fortresses! Yes! The one is like Gibraltar, inexpugnable on its rock,
and the other is like a painted castle on the stage; flimsy canvas
that you could put your foot through--solidity by the side of
nothingness. For even the poor appearance of solidity is an illusion,
as our text says with bitter emphasis--'a high wall _in his own
conceit_.'
'The name of the Lord,' of course, is the Biblical expression for the
whole character of God, as He has made it known to us, or in other
words, for God Himself, as He has been pleased to reveal Himself to
mankind. The syllables of that name are all the deeds by which He has
taught us what He is; every act of power, of wisdom, of tenderness, of
grace that has manifested these qualities and led us to believe that
they are all infinite. In the name, in its narrower sense, the name of
Jehovah, there is much of 'the name' in its wider sense. For that name
'Jehovah,' both by its signification and by the circumstances under
which it was originally employed, tells us a great deal about God. It
tells us, for instance, by virtue of its signification, that He is
self-existent, depending upon no other creature. 'I AM THAT I AM!' No
other being can say that. All the rest of us have to say, 'I am that
which God made me.' Circumstances and a hundred other things have made
me; God finds the law of His being and the fountain of His being
within Himself.
'He sits on no precarious throne,
Nor borrows leave to be.'
His name proclaims Him to be self-existent, and as self-existent,
eternal; and as eternal, changeless; and as self-existent, eternal,
changeless, infinite in all the qualities by which He makes Himself
known. This boundless Being, all full of wisdom, power, and
tenderness, with whom we can enter into relations of amity and
concord, surely He is 'a strong tower into which we may run and be
safe.'
But far beyond even the sweep of that great name, Jehovah, is the
knowledge of God's deepest heart and character which we learn in Him
who said, 'I have declared Thy name unto My brethren, and will declare
it.' Christ in His life and death, in His meekness, sweetness,
gentleness, calm wisdom, infinite patience, attractiveness; yearning
over sinful hearts, weeping over rebels, in the graciousness of His
life, in the sacredness and the power of His Cross, is the Revealer to
our hearts of the heart of God. If I may so say, He has builded 'the
strong tower' broader, has expanded its area and widened its gate, and
lifted its summit yet nearer the heavens, and made the name of God a
wider name and a mightier name, and a name of surer defence and
blessing than ever it was before.
And so, dear brethren! it all comes to this, the name that is 'the
strong tower' is the name 'My Father!' a Father of infinite tenderness
and wisdom and power. Oh! where can the child rest more quietly than
on the mother's breast, where can the child be safer than in the
circle of the father's arms? 'The name of the Lord is a strong tower.'
Now turn to the other for a moment: 'The rich man's wealth is' (with
great emphasis on the next little word) '_his_ strong city, and
as a high wall in his own conceit.' Of course we have not to deal here
only with wealth in the shape of money, but all external and material
goods, the whole mass of the 'things seen and temporal,' are gathered
together here in this phrase.
Men use their imaginations in very strange fashion, and make, or fancy
they make, for themselves out of the things of the present life a
defence and a strength. Like some poor lunatic, out upon a moor, that
fancies himself ensconced in a castle; like some barbarous tribes
behind their stockades or crowding at the back of a little turf wall,
or in some old tumble-down fort that the first shot will bring
rattling down about their ears, fancying themselves perfectly secure
and defended--so do men deal with these outward things that are given
them for another purpose altogether: they make of them defences and
fortresses.
It is difficult for a man to have them and not to trust them. So Jesus
said to His disciples once: 'How hardly shall they that have riches
enter into the Kingdom'; and when they were astonished at His words,
He repeated them with the significant variation, 'How hard is it for
them that trust in riches to enter into the Kingdom of God.' So He
would teach that the misuse and not the possession of wealth is the
barrier, but so, too, He would warn us that, nine times out of ten,
the possession of them in more than a very modest measure, tempts a
man into confidence in them.
The illusion is one that besets us all. We are all tempted to make a
defence of the things that we can see and handle. Is it not strange,
and is it not sad, that most of us just turn the truth round about and
suppose that the real defence is the imaginary, and that the imaginary
one is the real? How many men are there in this chapel who, if they
spoke out of their deepest convictions, would say: 'Oh yes! the
promises of God are all very well, but I would rather have the cash
down. I suppose that I may trust that He will provide bread and water,
and all the things that I need, but I would rather have a good solid
balance at the banker's.' How many of you would rather honestly, and
at the bottom of your hearts, have that than God's word for your
defence? How many of you think that to trust in a living God is but
grasping at a very airy and unsubstantial kind of support; and that
the real solid defence is the defence made of the things that you can
see?
My brother! it is exactly the opposite way. Turn it clean round, and
you get the truth. The unsubstantial shadows are the material things
that you can see and handle; illusory as a dream, and as little able
to ward off the blows of fate as a soap bubble. The real is the unseen
beyond--'the things that _are_,' and He who alone really is, and
in His boundless and absolute Being is our only defence.
In one aspect or another, that false imagination with which my last
text deals is the besetting sin of Manchester. Not the rich man only,
but the poor man just as much, is in danger of it. The poor man who
thinks that everything would be right if only he were rich, and the
rich man who thinks that everything is right because he _is_
rich, are exactly the same man. The circumstances differ, but the one
man is but the other turned inside out. And all round about us we see
the fierce fight to get more and more of these things, the tight grip
of them when we have got them, the overestimate of the value of them,
the contempt for the people who have less of them than ourselves. Our
aristocracy is an aristocracy of wealth; in some respects, one by no
means to be despised, because there often go a great many good
qualities to the making and the stewardship of wealth; but still it is
an evil that men should be so largely estimated by their money as they
are here. It is not a sound state of opinion which has made 'what is
he _worth_?' mean 'how much of _it_ has he?' We are taught
here to look upon the prizes of life as being mainly wealth. To win
that is 'success'--'prosperity'--and it is very hard for us all not to
be influenced by the prevailing tone.
I would urge you, young men, especially to lay this to heart--that of
all delusions that can beset you in your course, none will work more
disastrously than the notion that the _summum bonum_, the shield
and stay of a man, is the 'abundance of the things that he possesses.'
I fancy I see more listless, discontented, unhappy faces looking out
of carriages than I see upon the pavement. And I am sure of this, at
any rate, that all which is noble and sweet and good in life can be
wrought out and possessed upon as much bread and water as will keep
body and soul together, and as much furniture as will enable a man to
sit at his meal and lie down at night. And as for the rest, it has
many advantages and blessings, but oh! it is all illusory as a defence
against the evils that will come, sooner or later, to every life.