'Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?'
It is all but impossible to invest that well-known thought with any
fresh force; but, perhaps, if we look at it from the special angle from
which the Prophet here regards it, we may get some new impression of the
old truth. That special angle is to bring into connection the Eternal
Word and the transient vehicles and hearers of it.
Did you ever stand in some roofless, ruined cathedral or abbey church,
and try to gather round you the generations that had bowed and
worshipped there? Did you ever step across the threshold of some ancient
sanctuary, where the feet of vanished generations had worn down the
sand-stone steps at the entrance? It is solemn to think of the fleeting
series of men; it is still more striking to bring them into connection
with that everlasting Word which once they heard, and accepted or
rejected.
But let me bring the thought a little closer. There is not a sitting in
our churches that has not been sat in by dead people. As I stand here
and look round I can re-people almost every pew with faces that we shall
see no more. Many of you, the older _habitués_ of this place, can do the
same, and can look and think, 'Ah! _he_ used to sit there; _she_ used to
be in that corner.' And I can remember many mouldering lips that have
stood in this place where I stand, of friends and brethren that are
gone. 'Your fathers, where are they?' 'Graves under us, silent,' is the
only answer. 'And the prophets, do they live for ever?' No memories are
shorter-lived than the memories of the preachers of God's Word.
Take another thought, that all these past hearers and speakers of the
Word had that Word verified in their lives. 'Took it not hold of your
fathers?' Some of them neglected it, and its burdens were upon them,
little as they felt them sometimes. Some of them clave to it, and
accepted it, and its blessed promises were all fulfilled to them. Not
one of those who, for the brief period of their earthly lives, came in
contact with that divine message but realised, more or less consciously,
some blessedly and some in darkened lives and ruined careers, the solemn
truth of its promises and of its threatenings. The Word may have been
received, or it may have been neglected, by the past generations; but
whether the members thereof put out a hand to accept, or withheld their
grasp, whether they took hold of it or it took hold of them--wherever
they are now, their earthly relation to that word is a determining
factor in their condition. The syllables died away into empty air, the
messages were forgotten, but the men that ministered them are eternally
influenced by the faithfulness of their ministrations, and the men that
heard them are eternally affected by the reception or rejection of that
word. So, when we summon around us the congregation of the dead, which
is more numerous than the audience of the living to whom I now speak,
the lesson that their silent presence teaches us is, 'Wherefore we
should give the more earnest heed to the things that we have heard.'
II. Let us note the abiding Word, which these transient generations of
hearers and speakers have had to do with.
It is maddening to think of the sure decay and dissolution of all human
strength, beauty, wisdom, unless that thought brings with it
immediately, like a pair of coupled stars, of which the one is bright
and the other dark, the corresponding thought of that which does not
pass, and is unaffected by time and change. Just as reason requires some
unalterable substratum, below all the fleeting phenomena of the
changeful creation--a God who is the Rock-basis of all, the staple to
which all the links hang--so we are driven back and back and back, by
the very fact of the transiency of the transient, to grasp, for a refuge
and a stay, the permanency of the permanent. 'In the year that King
Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne'--the passing away of
the mortal shadow of sovereignty revealed the undying and true King. It
is blessed for us when the lesson which the fleeting of all that _can_
flee away reads to us is that, beneath it all, there is the Unchanging.
When the leaves drop from the boughs of the trees that veil the face of
the cliff, then the steadfast rock is visible; and when the generations,
like leaves, drop and rot, then the rock background should stand out the
more clearly.
Zechariah meant by the 'word of God' simply the prophetic utterances
about the destiny and the punishment of his nation. We ought to mean by
the 'word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever,' not merely the
written embodiment of it in the Old or New Testament, but the Personal
Word, the Incarnate Word, the everlasting Son of the Father, who came
upon earth to be God's mouthpiece and utterance, and who is for us all
_the_ Word, the Eternal Word of the living God. It is His perpetual
existence rather than the continuous duration of the written word,
declaration of Himself though it is, that is mighty for our strength and
consolation when we think of the transient generations.
Christ lives. That is the deepest meaning of the ancient saying, 'All
flesh is grass.... The Word of the Lord endureth for ever.' He lives;
therefore we can front change and decay in all around calmly and
triumphantly. It matters not though the prophets and their hearers pass
away. Men depart; Christ abides. Luther was once surprised by some
friends sitting at a table from which a meal had been removed, and
thoughtfully tracing with his fingers upon its surface with some drop of
water or wine the one word 'Vivit'; He lives. He fell back upon that
when all around was dark. Yes, men may go; what of that? Aaron may have
to ascend to the summit of Hor, and put off his priestly garments and
die there. Moses may have to climb Pisgah, and with one look at the land
which he must never tread, die there alone by the kiss of God, as the
Rabbis say. Is the host below leaderless? The Pillar of Cloud lies still
over the Tabernacle, and burns steadfast and guiding in front of the
files of Israel. 'Your fathers, where are they? The prophets, do they
live for ever?' 'Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to-day and for
ever.'
Another consideration to be drawn from this contrast is, since we have
this abiding Word, let us not dread changes, however startling and
revolutionary. Jesus Christ does not change. But there is a human
element in the Church's conceptions of Jesus Christ, and still more in
its working out of the principles of the Gospel in institutions and
forms, which partakes of the transiency of the men from whom it has
come. In such a time as this, when everything is going into the
melting-pot, and a great many timid people are trembling for the Ark of
God, quite unnecessarily as it seems to me, it is of prime importance
for the calmness and the wisdom and the courage of Christian people,
that they should grasp firmly the distinction between the divine
treasure which is committed to the churches, and the earthen vessels in
which it has been enshrined. Jesus Christ, the man Jesus, the divine
person, His incarnation, His sacrifice, His resurrection, His ascension,
the gift of His Spirit to abide for ever with His Church--these are the
permanent 'things which cannot be shaken.' And creeds and churches and
formulas and forms--these are the human elements which are capable of
variation, and which need variation from time to time. No more is the
substance of that eternal Gospel affected by the changes, which are
possible on its vesture, than is the stateliness of some cathedral
touched, when the reformers go in and sweep out the rubbish and the
trumpery which have masked the fair outlines of its architecture, and
vulgarised the majesty of its stately sweep. Brethren! let us fix this
in our hearts, that nothing which is of Christ can perish, and nothing
which is of man can or should endure. The more firmly we grasp the
distinction between the permanent and the transient in existing
embodiments of Christian truth, the more calm shall we be amidst the
surges of contending opinions. 'He that believeth shall not make haste.'
III. Lastly, the present generation and its relation to the abiding
Word.
Zechariah did not hesitate to put himself in line with the mighty forms
of Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and Hosea. He, too, was a prophet.
We claim, of course, no such authority for present utterers of that
eternal message, but we do claim for our message a higher authority than
the authority of this ancient Prophet. He felt that the word of God that
was put into his lips was a new word, addressed to a new generation, and
with new lessons for new circumstances, fitting as close to the wants of
the little band of exiles as the former messages, which it succeeded,
had fitted to the wants of their generation. We have no such change in
the message, for Jesus Christ speaks to us all, speaks to all times and
to all circumstances, and to every generation. And so, just as Zechariah
based upon the history of the past his appeal for obedience and
acceptance, the considerations which I have been trying to dwell upon
bring with them stringent obligations to us who stand, however unworthy,
in the place of the generations that are gone, as the hearers and
ministers of the Word of God. Let me put two or three very simple and
homely exhortations. First, see to it, brother, that you accept that
Word. By acceptance I do not mean a mere negative attitude, which is
very often the result of lack of interest, the negative attitude of
simply not rejecting; but I mean the opening not only of your minds but
of your hearts to it. For if what I have been saying is true, and the
Word of God has for its highest manifestation Jesus Christ Himself, then
you cannot accept a person by pure head-work. You must open your hearts
and all your natures, and let Him come in with His love, with His pity,
with His inspiration of strength and virtue and holiness, and you must
yield yourselves wholly to Him. Think of the generations that are gone.
Think of their brief moment when the great salvation was offered to
them. Think of how, whether they received or rejected it, that Word took
hold upon them. Think of how they regard it now, wherever they are in
the dimness; and be you wise in time and be not as those of your fathers
who rejected the Word.
Hold it fast. In this time of unrest make sure of your grasp of the
eternal, central core of Christianity, Jesus Christ Himself, the
divine-human Saviour of the world. There are too many of us whose faith
oozes out at their finger ends, simply because they have so many around
them that question and doubt and deny. Do not let the floating icebergs
bring down _your_ temperature; and have a better reason for not
believing, if you do not believe, than that so many and such influential
and authoritative men have ceased to believe. When Jesus asks, 'Will ye
also go away?' our answer should be, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou
hast the words of eternal life.'
Accept Him, hold Him fast, trust to His guidance in present day
questions. Zechariah felt that his message belonged to the generation to
whom he spoke. It was a new message. We have no new message, but there
are new truths to be evolved from the old message. The questionings and
problems, social, economical, intellectual, moral--shall I say
political?--of this day, will find their solution in that ancient word,
'God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish.' There is the key to all
problems. 'In Him are hid all the treasures and wisdom of knowledge.'
Zechariah pointed to the experiences of a past generation as the basis
of his appeal. We can point back to eighteen centuries, and say that the
experiences of these centuries confirm the truth that Jesus Christ is
the Saviour of the world. The blessedness, the purity, the power, the
peace, the hope which He has breathed into humanity, the subsidiary and
accompanying material and intellectual prosperity and blessings that
attend His message, its independence of human instruments, its
adaptation to all varieties of class, character, condition, geographical
position, its power of recuperating itself from corruptions and
distortions, its undiminished adaptedness to the needs of this
generation and of each of us--enforce the stringency of the exhortation,
and confirm the truth of the assertion: 'This is My beloved Son; hear ye
Him!' 'The voice said, Cry. And I said, What shall I cry? All flesh is
grass, and all the goodliness thereof as the flower of the field: the
grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the Word of
our God shall stand for ever.' Three hundred years after Isaiah a
triumphant Apostle added, 'This is the word which by the Gospel is
preached unto you.' Eighteen hundred years after Peter we can echo his
confident declaration, and, with the history of these centuries to
support our faith, can affirm that the Christ of the Gospel and the
Gospel of the Christ are in deed and in truth the Living Word of the
Living God.