'The remnant of Jacob shall be as a dew from the Lord in the midst of
many nations.' What made Israel 'as a dew'? One thing only; its
religion, its knowledge of God, and its consequent purer morality. It
could teach Greece no philosophy, no art, no refinement, no
sensitiveness to the beautiful. It could teach Rome no lessons of policy
or government. It could bring no wisdom to Egypt, no power or wealth to
Assyria. But God lit His candle and set it on a candlestick, that it
'might give light to all that were in the house.' The same thing is true
about Christian people. We cannot teach the world science, we cannot
teach it philosophy or art, but we can teach it God. Now the possibility
brings with it the obligation. The personal experience of Jesus Christ
in our hearts, as the dew that brings to us life and fertility, carries
with it a commission as distinct and imperative as if it had been pealed
into each single ear by a voice from heaven. That which made Israel the
'dew amidst many nations,' parched for want of it, makes Christian men
and women fit to fill the analogous office, and calls upon them to
discharge the same functions. For--in regard to all our possessions, and
therefore most eminently and imperatively in regard to the best--that
which we have, we have as stewards, and the Gospel, as the Apostle
found, was not only given to him for his own individual enjoyment,
elevation, ennobling, emancipation, salvation, but was 'committed to
his charge,' and he was 'entrusted' with it, as he says, as a sacred
deposit.
Remember, too, that, strange as it may seem, the only way by which that
knowledge of God which was bestowed upon Israel could become the
possession of the world was by its first of all being made the
possession of a few. People talk about the unfairness, the harshness, of
the providential arrangement by which the whole world was not made
participant of the revelation which was granted to Israel. The fire is
gathered on to a hearth. Does that mean that the corners of the room are
left uncared for? No! the brazier is in the middle--as Palestine was,
even geographically in the centre of the then civilised world--that from
the centre the beneficent warmth might radiate and give heat as well as
light to 'all them that are in the house.'
So it is in regard to all the great possessions of the race. Art,
literature, science, political wisdom, they are all intrusted to a few
who are made their apostles; and the purpose is their universal
diffusion from these human centres. It is in the line of the analogy of
all the other gifts of God to humanity, that chosen men should be raised
up in whom the life is lodged, that it may be diffused.
So to us the message comes: 'The Lord hath need of thee.' Christ has
died; the Cross is the world's redemption. Christ lives that He may
apply the power and the benefits of His death and of His risen life to
all humanity. But the missing link between the all sufficient redemption
that is in Christ Jesus, and the actual redemption of the world, is
'the remnant of Jacob,' the Christian Church which is to be 'in the
midst of many people, as a dew from the Lord.'
Now, that diffusion from individual centres of the life that is in Jesus
Christ is the chiefest reason--or at all events, is one chief
reason--for the strange and inextricable intertwining in modern society,
of saint and sinner, of Christian and non-Christian. The seed is sown
among the thorns; the wheat springs up amongst the tares. Their roots
are so matted together that no hand can separate them. In families, in
professions, in business relations, in civil life, in national life,
both grow together. God sows His seed thin that all the field may smile
in harvest. The salt is broken up into many minute particles and rubbed
into that which it is to preserve from corruption. The remnant of Jacob
is in the _midst_ of many peoples; and you and I are encompassed by
those who need our Christ, and who do not know Him or love Him; and one
great reason for the close intertwining is that, scattered, we may
diffuse, and that at all points the world may be in contact with those
who ought to be working to preserve it from putrefaction and decay.
Now there are two ways by which this function may be discharged, and in
which it is incumbent upon every Christian man to make his contribution,
be it greater or smaller, to the discharge of it. The one is by direct
efforts to impart to others the knowledge of God in Jesus Christ which
we have, and which we profess to be the very root of our lives. We can
all do that if we will, and we are here to do it. Every one of us has
somebody or other close to us, bound to us, perhaps, by the tie of
kindred and love, who will listen to us more readily than to anybody
else. Christian men and women, have you utilised these channels which
God Himself, by the arrangements of society, has dug for you, that
through them you may pour upon some thirsty ground the water of life? We
could also help, and help far more than any of us do, in associated
efforts for the same purpose. The direct obligation to direct efforts to
impart the Gospel cannot be shirked, though, alas! it is far too often
ignored by us professing Christians.
But there is another way by which 'the remnant of Jacob' is to be 'a dew
from the Lord,' and that is by trying to bring to bear Christian
thoughts and Christian principles upon all the relations of life in
which we stand, and upon all the societies, be they greater or
smaller--the family, the city, or the nation--of which we form parts. We
have heard a great deal lately about what people that know very little
about it, are pleased to call 'the Nonconformist conscience,' I take the
compliment, which is not intended, but is conveyed by the word. But I
venture to say that what is meant, is not the 'Nonconformist'
conscience, it is the _Christian_ conscience. We Nonconformists have no
monopoly, thank God, of that. Nay, rather, in some respects, our friends
in the Anglican churches are teaching some of us a lesson as to the
application of Christian principles to civic duty and to national life.
I beseech you, although I do not mean to dwell upon that point at all at
this time, to ask yourselves whether, as citizens, the vices, the
godlessness, the miseries--the removable miseries--of our great town
populations, lie upon your hearts. Have you ever lifted a finger to
abate drunkenness? Have you ever done anything to help to make it
possible that the masses of our town communities should live in places
better than the pigsties in which many of them have to wallow? Have you
any care for the dignity, the purity, the Christianity of our civic
rulers; and do you, to the extent of your ability, try to ensure that
Christ's teaching shall govern the life of our cities? And the same
question may be put yet more emphatically with regard to wider subjects,
namely, the national life and the national action, whether in regard to
war or in regard to other pressing subjects for national consideration.
I do not touch upon these; I only ask you to remember the grand ideal of
my text, which applies to the narrowest circle--the family; and to the
wider circles--the city and the nation, as well as to the world. Time
was when a bastard piety shrank back from intermeddling with these
affairs and gathered up its skirts about it in an ecstasy of unwholesome
unworldliness. There is not much danger of that now, when Christian men
are in the full swim of the currents of civic, professional, literary,
national life. But I will tell you of what there is a danger--Christian
men and women moving in their families, going into town councils, going
into Parliament, going to the polling booths, and leaving their
Christianity behind them. 'The remnant of Jacob shall be as a dew from
the Lord.'