'Can two walk together, except they be agreed?'-AMOS III. 8.
They do not need to be agreed about everything. They must, however, wish
to keep each others company, and they must be going by the same road to
the same place. The application of the parable is very plain, though
there are differences of opinion as to the bearing of the whole context
which need not concern us now. The 'two,' whom the Prophet would fain
see walking together, are God and Israel, and his question suggests not
only the companionship and communion with God which are the highest form
of religion and the aim of all forms and ceremonies of worship, but also
the inexorable condition on which alone that height of communion can be
secured and sustained. Two _may_ walk together, though the one be God in
heaven and the other be I on earth. But they have to be agreed thus far,
at any rate, that both shall wish to be together, and both be going the
same road.
I. So I ask you to look, first, at that possible blessed companionship
which may cheer a life.
There are three phrases in the Old Testament, very like each other, and
yet presenting different facets or aspects of the same great truth.
Sometimes we read about 'walking before God' as Abraham was bid to do.
That means ordering the daily life under the continual sense that we are
'ever in the great Taskmaster's eye' Then there is 'walking after God,'
and that means conforming the will and active efforts to the rule that
He has laid down, setting our steps firm on the paths that He has
prepared that we should walk in them, and accepting His providences.
But also, high above both these conceptions of a devout life is the one
which is suggested by my text, and which, as you remember, was realised
in the case of the patriarch Enoch--'walking with God.' For to walk
before Him may have with it some tremor, and may be undertaken in the
spirit of the slave who would be glad to get away from the jealous eye
that rebukes his slothfulness; and 'walking after Him' may be a painful
and partial effort to keep His distant figure in sight; but to 'walk
with Him' implies a constant, quiet sense of His Divine Presence which
forbids that I should ever be lonely, which guides and defends, which
floods my soul and fills my life, and in which, as the companions pace
along side by side, words may be spoken by either, or blessed silence
may be eloquent of perfect trust and rest.
But, dear brother, far above us as such experience seems to sound, such
a life is a possibility for every one of us. We may be able to say, as
truly as our Lord said it, 'I am not alone, for the Father is with me.'
It is possible that the dreariest solitude of a soul, such as is not
realised when the body is removed from men, but is felt most in the
crowded city where there is none that loves or fathoms and sympathises,
may be turned into blessed fellowship with Him. Yes, but that solitude
will not be so turned unless it is first painfully felt. As Daniel said,
'I was left alone, and I saw the great vision.' We need to feel in our
deepest hearts that loneliness on earth before we walk with God.
If we are so walking, it is no piece of fanaticism to say that there
will be mutual communications. Do you not believe that God knows His way
into the spirits that He has endowed with conscious life? Do you not
believe that He speaks now to people as truly as He did to prophets and
Apostles of old? as truly; though the results of His speech to us of
to-day be not of the same authority for others as the words that He
spoke to a Paul or a John. The belief in God's communications as for
ever sounding in the depths of the Christian spirit does not at all
obliterate the distinction between the kind of inspiration which
produced the New Testament and that which is realised by all believing
and obedient souls. High above all our experience of hearing the words
of God in our hearts stands that of those holy men of old who heard
God's message whispered in their ears, that they might proclaim it on
the housetops to all the world through all generations. But though they
and we are on a different level, and God spoke to them for a different
purpose, He speaks in our spirits, if we will comply with the
conditions, as truly as He did in theirs. As really as it was ever true
that the Lord spoke to Abraham, or Isaiah, or Paul, it is true that He
now speaks to the man who walks with Him. Frank speech on both sides
beguiles many a weary mile, when lovers or friends foot it side by side;
and this pair of friends of whom our text speaks have mutual
intercourse. God speaks with His servant now, as of old, 'as a man
speaketh with his friend'; and we on our parts, if we are truly walking
with Him, shall feel it natural to speak frankly to God. As two friends
on the road will interchange remarks about trifles, and if they love
each other, the remarks about the trifles will be weighted with love, so
we can tell our smallest affairs to God; and if we have Him for our
Pilgrim-Companion, we do not need to lock up any troubles or concerns of
any sort, big or little, in our hearts, but may speak them all to our
Friend who goes with us.
The two _may_ walk together. That is the end of all religion. What are
creeds for? What are services and sacraments for? What is theology for?
What is Christ's redeeming act for? All culminate in this true, constant
fellowship between men and God. And unless, in some measure, that result
is arrived at in our cases, our religion, let it be as orthodox as you
like, our faith in the redemption of Jesus Christ, let it be as real as
you will, our attendances on services and sacraments, let them be as
punctilious and regular as may be, are all 'sounding brass and tinkling
cymbal.' Get side by side with God; that is the purpose of all these,
and fellowship with Him is the climax of all religion.
It is also the secret of all blessedness, the only thing that will make
a life absolutely sovereign over sorrow, and fixedly unperturbed by all
tempests, and invulnerable to all 'the slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune.' Hold fast by God, and you have an amulet against every evil,
and a shield against every foe, and a mighty power that will calm and
satisfy your whole being. Nothing else, nothing else will do so. As
Augustine said, 'O God! Thou hast made us for Thyself, and in Thyself
only are we at rest.' If the Shepherd is with us we will fear no evil.
II. Now, a word, in the next place, as to the sadly incomplete reality,
in much Christian experience, which contrasts with this possibility.
I am afraid that very, very few so-called Christian people habitually
feel, as they might do, the depth and blessedness of this communion. And
sure I am that only a very small percentage of us have anything like the
continuity of companionship which my text suggests as possible. There
may be, and therefore there should be, running unbroken through a
Christian life one long, bright line of communion with God and happy
inspiration from the sense of His presence with us. Is it a line in _my_
life, or is there but a dot here, and a dot there, and long breaks
between? The long, embarrassed pauses in a conversation between two who
do not know much of, or care much for, each other are only too like
what occurs in many professing Christians' intercourse with God. Their
communion is like those time-worn inscriptions that archæologists dig
up, with a word clearly cut and then a great gap, and then a letter or
two, and then another gap, and then a little bit more legible, and then
the stone broken, and all the rest gone. Did you ever read the
meteorological reports in the newspapers and observe a record like this,
'Twenty minutes' sunshine out of a possible eight hours'? Do you not
think that such a state of affairs is a little like the experience of a
great many Christian people in regard to their communion with God? It is
broken at the best, and imperfect at the completest, and shallow at the
deepest. O, dear brethren! rise to the height of your possibilities, and
live as close to God as He lets you live, and nothing will much trouble
you.
III. And now, lastly, a word about the simple explanation of the failure
to realise this continual presence.
'Can two walk together except they be agreed?' Certainly not. Our
fathers, in a sterner and more religious age than ours, used to be
greatly troubled how to account for a state of Christian experience
which they supposed to be due to God's withdrawing of the sense of His
presence from His children. Whether there is any such withdrawal or not,
I am quite certain that that is not the cause of the interrupted
communion between God and the average Christian man.
I make all allowance for the ups and downs and changing moods which
necessarily affect us in this present life, and I make all allowance,
too, for the pressure of imperative duties and distracting cares which
interfere with our communion, though, if we were as strong as we might
be, they would not wile us away from, but drive us to, our Father in
heaven. But when all such allowances have been made, I come back to my
text as _the_ explanation of interrupted communion. The two are _not_
agreed; and that is why they are not walking together. The consciousness
of God's presence with us is a very delicate thing. It is like a very
sensitive thermometer, which will drop when an iceberg is a league off
over the sea, and scarcely visible. We do not wish His company, or we
are not in harmony with His thoughts, or we are not going His road, and
therefore, of course, we part. At bottom there is only one thing that
separates a soul from God, and that is sin--sin of some sort, like tiny
grains of dust that get between two polished plates in an engine that
ought to move smoothly and closely against each other. The obstruction
may be invisible, and yet be powerful enough to cause friction, which
hinders the working of the engine and throws everything out of gear. A
light cloud that we cannot see may come between us and a star, and we
shall only know it is there, because the star is _not_ visibly there.
Similarly, many a Christian, quite unconsciously, has something or other
in his habits, or in his conduct, or in his affections, which would
reveal itself to him, if he would look, as being wrong, because it blots
out God.
Let us remember that very little divergence will, if the two paths are
prolonged far enough, part their other ends by a world. Our way may go
off from the ways of the Lord at a very acute angle. There may be
scarcely any consciousness of parting company at the beginning. Let the
man travel on upon it far enough, and the two will be so far apart that
he cannot see God or hear Him speak. Take care of the little divergences
which are habitual, for their accumulated results will be complete
separation. There must be absolute surrender if there is to be
uninterrupted fellowship.
Such, then, is the direction in which we are to look for the reasons for
our low and broken experiences of communion with God. Oh, dear friends!
when we do as we sometimes do, wake with a start, like a child that all
at once starts from sleep and finds that its mother is gone--when we
wake with a start to feel that we are alone, then do not let us be
afraid to go straight back. Only be sure that we leave behind us the sin
that parted us.
You remember how Peter signalised himself on the lake, on the occasion
of the second miraculous draught of fishes, when he floundered through
the water and clasped Christ's feet. He did not say then, 'Depart from
Me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!' He had said that before on a similar
occasion, when he felt his sin less, but now he knew that the best place
for the denier was with his head on Christ's bosom. So, if we have
parted from our Friend, there should be no time lost ere we go back. May
it be true of us that we walk with God, so that at last the great
promise may be fulfilled about us, 'that we shall walk with Him in
white,' being by His love accounted 'worthy,' and so 'follow' and keep
company with, 'the Lamb whithersoever He goeth!'