'And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of His
grace....'--ACTS xx. 32.
I may be pardoned if my remarks now should assume somewhat of a more
personal character than is my wont. I desire to speak mainly to my own
friends, the members of my own congregation; and other friends who have
come to give me a parting 'Godspeed' will forgive me if my observations
have a more special bearing on those with whom I am more immediately
connected.
The Apostle whose words I have taken for my text was leaving, as he
supposed, for the last time, the representatives of the Church in
Ephesus, to whom he had been painting in very sombre colours the
dangers of the future and his own forebodings and warnings.
Exhortations, prophecies of evil, expressions of anxious solicitude,
motions of Christian affection, all culminate in this parting
utterance. High above them all rises the thought of the present God,
and of the mighty word which in itself, in the absence of all human
teachers, had power to 'build them up, and to give them an inheritance
amongst them that are sanctified.'
If we think of that Church in Ephesus, this brave confidence of the
Apostle's becomes yet more remarkable. They were set in the midst of a
focus of heathen superstition, from which they themselves had only
recently been rescued. Their knowledge was little, they had no
Apostolic teacher to be present with them; they were left alone there
to battle with the evils of that corrupt society in which they dwelt.
And yet Paul leaves them--'sheep in the midst of wolves,' with a very
imperfect Christianity, with no Bible, with no teachers--in the sure
confidence that no harm will come to them, because God is with them,
and the 'word of His grace' is enough.
And that is the feeling, dear brethren, with which I now look you in
the face for the last time for a little while. I desire that you and I
should together share the conviction that each of us is safe because
God and the 'word of His grace' will go and remain with us.
I. So then, first of all, let me point you to the one source of
security and enlightenment for the Church and for the individual.
We are not to separate between God and the 'word of His grace,' but
rather to suppose that the way by which the Apostle conceived of God as
working for the blessing and the guardianship of that little community
in Ephesus was mainly, though not exclusively, through that which he
here designates 'the word of His grace.' We are not to forget the
ever-abiding presence of the indwelling Spirit who guards and keeps the
life of the individual and of the community. But what is in the
Apostle's mind here is the objective revelation, the actual spoken word
(not yet written) which had its origin in God's condescending love, and
had for its contents, mainly, the setting forth of that love. Or to put
it into other words, the revelation of the grace of God in Jesus
Christ, with all the great truths that cluster round and are evolved
from it, is the all-sufficient source of enlightenment and security for
individuals and for Churches. And whosoever will rightly use and
faithfully keep that great word, no evil shall befall him, nor shall he
ever make shipwreck of the faith. It is 'able to build you up,' says
Paul. In God's Gospel, in the truth concerning Jesus Christ the divine
Redeemer, in the principles that flow from that Cross and Passion, and
that risen life and that ascension to God, there is all that men need,
all that they want for life, all that they want for godliness. The
basis of their creed, the sufficient guide for their conduct, the
formative powers that will shape into beauty and nobleness their
characters, all lie in the germ in this message, 'God was in Christ
reconciling the world unto Himself.' Whoever keeps that in mind and
memory, ruminates upon it till it becomes the nourishment of his soul,
meditates on it till the precepts and the promises and the principles
that are enwrapped in it unfold themselves before Him, needs none other
guide for life, none other solace in sorrow, none other anchor of hope,
none other stay in trial and in death. 'I commend you to God and the
word of His grace,' which is a storehouse full of all that we need for
life and for godliness. Whoever has it is like a landowner who has a
quarry on his estate, from which at will he can dig stones to build his
house. If you truly possess and faithfully adhere to this Gospel, you
have enough.
Remember that these believers to whom Paul thus spoke had no New
Testament, and most of them, I dare say, could not read the Old. There
were no written Gospels in existence. The greater part of the New
Testament was not written; what was written was in the shape of two or
three letters that belonged to Churches in another part of the world
altogether. It was to the spoken word that he commended them. How much
more securely may we trust one another to that permanent record of the
divine revelation which we have here in the pages of Scripture!
As for the individual, so for the Church, that written word is the
guarantee for its purity and immortality. Christianity is the only
religion that has ever passed through periods of decadence and purified
itself again. They used to say that Thames water was the best to put on
shipboard because, after it became putrid, it cleared itself and became
sweet again. I do not know anything about whether that is true or not,
but I know that it is true about Christianity. Over and over again it
has rotted, and over and over again it has cleared itself, and it has
always been by the one process. Men have gone back to the word and laid
hold again of it in its simple omnipotence, and so a decadent
Christianity has sprung up again into purity and power. The word of
God, the principles of the revelation contained in Christ and recorded
for ever in this New Testament, are the guarantee of the Church's
immortality and of the Church's purity. This man and that man may fall
away, provinces may be lost from the empire for a while, standards of
rebellion and heresy may be lifted, but 'the foundation of God standeth
sure,' and whoever will hark back again and dig down through the
rubbish of human buildings to the living Rock will build secure and
dwell at peace. If all our churches were pulverised to-morrow, and
every formal creed of Christendom were torn in pieces, and all the
institutions of the Church were annihilated--if there was a New
Testament left they would all be built up again. 'I commend you to God,
and to the word of His grace.'
II. Secondly, notice the possible benefit of the silencing of the
_human_ voice.
Paul puts together his absence and the power of the word. 'Now I know
that you will see my face no more'--'I commend you to God.' That is to
say, it is often a good thing that the voice of man may be hushed in
order that the sweeter and deeper music of the word of God, sounding
from no human lips, may reach our hearts. Of course I am not going to
depreciate preachers and books and religious literature and the thought
and the acts of good and wise men who have been interpreters of God's
meaning and will to their brethren, but the human ministration of the
divine word, like every other help to knowing God, may become a
hindrance instead of a help; and in all such helps there is a tendency,
unless there be continual jealous watchfulness on the part of those who
minister them, and on the part of those who use them, to assert
themselves instead of leading to God, and to become not mirrors in
which we may behold God, but obscuring _media_ which come between us
and Him. This danger belongs to the great ordinance and office of the
Christian ministry, large as its blessings are, just as it belongs to
all other offices which are appointed for the purpose of bringing men
to God. We may make them ladders or we may make them barriers; we may
climb by them or we may remain in them. We may look at the colours on
the painted glass until we do not see or think of the light which
strikes through the colours.
So it is often a good thing that a human voice which speaks the divine
word, should be silenced; just as it is often a good thing that other
helps and props should be taken away. No man ever leans all his weight
upon God's arm until every other crutch on which he used to lean has
been knocked from him.
And therefore, dear brethren, applying these plain things to ourselves,
may I not say that it may and should be the result of my temporary
absence from you that some of you should be driven to a more first-hand
acquaintance with God and with His word? I, like all Christian
ministers, have of course my favourite ways of looking at truth,
limitations of temperament, and idiosyncrasies of various sorts, which
colour the representations that I make of God's great word. All the
river cannot run through any pipe; and what does run is sure to taste
somewhat of the soil through which it runs. And for some of you, after
thirty years of hearing my way of putting things--and I have long since
told you all that I have got to say--it will be a good thing to have
some one else to speak to you, who will come with other aspects of that
great Truth, and look at it from other angles and reflect other hues of
its perfect whiteness. So partly because of these limitations of mine,
partly because you have grown so accustomed to my voice that the things
that I say do not produce half as much effect on many of you as if I
were saying them to somebody else, or somebody else were saying them to
you, and partly because the affection, born of so many years of united
worship, for which in many respects I am your debtor, may lead you to
look at the vessel rather than the treasure, do you not think it may be
a means of blessing and help to this congregation that I should step
aside for a little while and some one else should stand here, and you
should be driven to make acquaintance with 'God and the word of His
grace' a little more for yourselves? What does it matter though you do
not have nay sermons? You have your Bibles and you have God's Spirit.
And if my silence shall lead any of you to prize and to use _these_
more than you have done, then my silence will have done a great deal
more than my speech. Ministers are like doctors, the test of their
success is that they are not needed any more. And when we can say,
'They can stand without us, and they do not need us,' that is the crown
of our ministry.
III. Thirdly, notice the best expression of Christian solicitude and
affection.
'I commend you,' says Paul, 'to God, and to the word of His grace.' If
we may venture upon a very literal translation of the word, it is, 'I
lay you down beside God.' That is beautiful, is it not? Here had Paul
been carrying the Ephesian Church on his back for a long time now. He
had many cares about them, many forebodings as to their future, knowing
very well that after his departure grievous wolves were going to enter
in. He says, 'I cannot carry the load any longer; here I lay it down at
the Throne, beneath those pure Eyes, and that gentle and strong Hand.'
For to commend them to God is in fact a prayer casting the care which
Paul could no longer exercise, upon Him.
And that is the highest expression of, as it is the only soothing for,
manly Christian solicitude and affection. Of course you and I, looking
forward to these six months of absence, have all of us our anxieties
about what may be the issue. I may feel afraid lest there should be
flagging here, lest good work should be done a little more languidly,
lest there should be a beggarly account of empty pews many a time, lest
the bonds of Christian union here should be loosened, and when I come
back I may find it hard work to reknit them. All these thoughts must be
in the mind of a true man who has put most of his life, and as much of
himself as during that period he could command, into his work. What
then? 'I commend you to God.' You may have your thoughts and anxieties
as well as I have mine. Dear brethren, let us make an end of solicitude
and turn it into petition and bring one another to God, and leave one
another there.
This 'commending,' as it is the highest expression of Christian
solicitude, so it is the highest and most natural expression of
Christian affection. I am not going to do what is so easy to do--bring
tears at such a moment. I do not purpose to speak of the depth, the
sacredness of the bond that unites a great many of us together. I think
we can take that for granted without saying any more about it. But,
dear brethren, I do want to pledge you and myself to this, that our
solicitude and our affection should find voice in prayer, and that when
we are parted we may be united, because the eyes of both are turned to
the one Throne. There is a reality in prayer. Do you pray for me, as I
will for you, when we are far apart. And as the vapour that rises from
the southern seas where I go may fall in moisture, refreshing these
northern lands, so what rises on one side of the world from believing
hearts in loving prayers may fall upon the other in the rain of a
divine blessing. 'I commend you to God, and the word of His grace.'