There is a certain almost jaunty air of self-complacence about the man
and his facile promise. What he promised was no more than what Christ
requires from each of us, no more than what Christ was infinitely glad
to have laid at His feet. And he promised it with absolute sincerity,
meaning every word that he said, and believing that he could fulfil it
all. What was the fault? There were three: taking counsel of a
transitory feeling; making a vow with a very slight knowledge of what it
meant; and relying with foolish confidence on his own strength.
Vows which rest on no firmer foundation than these are sure to sink and
topple over into ruin. Discipleship which is the result of mere emotion
must be evanescent, for all emotion is so. Effervescence cannot last,
and when the cause ceases the effect ceases too. Discipleship which
enlists in Christ's army, in ignorance of the hard marching and fighting
which have to be gone through, will very soon be skulking in the rear or
deserting the flag altogether. Discipleship which offers faithful
following because it relies on its own fervour and force will, sooner or
later, feel its unthinkingly undertaken obligations too heavy, and be
glad to shake off the yoke which it was so eager to put on.
These three things, singly or combined, are the explanations, as they
are the causes, of half the stagnant Christianity that chokes our
churches. Men have vowed, and did not know what they were vowing,
pledging themselves, in a moment of excitement, to what after years
discover to them to be a hard and uncongenial course of life. They have
been carried into the position of professed disciples on the top of a
wave of emotion which has long since broken and retreated, leaving them
stranded and motionless in a place where they have no business to be.
Every community of professing Christians is weakened, and its vitality
is lowered, by the presence and influence of members who have said, 'I
will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest,' but whose vow was but a
flash in the pan, and never meant anything. They did not know what they
were saying. They had not stopped to think why they were saying it,
still less did they take the advice of the Master to count their forces
before they went into the battle, and see whether their ten thousand
could meet him that would come against them with twenty thousand.
I do not suppose that much of our modern religionism is in great danger
from too fervid emotion. That, certainly, is not the side on which our
average Christianity is defective. No feeling can be too fervid which
has been kindled by profound contemplation and hearty acceptance of
Christ's redeeming love. The facts to which sound religious emotion
looks, warrant, and the work in the Christian life which it has to do,
needs that it shall be at white-heat, if it is to be worthy of its
object and equal to its tasks. But there very often is emotion which is
too fervid for the convictions which are presumed to kindle it, and
which burns itself out quickly because it neither comes from principle
nor leads to action. No resolution to follow Christ can be too
enthusiastic, nor any renunciation for His sake too absolute, to
correspond to His supreme authority. But there may very easily be brave
words much too great for the real determination which is in them. A
half-empty bottle makes more noise, if you shake it, than a full one. We
cannot estimate the hindrances of the Christian life too lightly; if we
do so knowing them, and thinking little of them because we think so
joyfully of Christ our helper. But there may very easily be a
presumptuous contempt of these, which is only the result of ignorance
and self-confidence, and will soon be abased into dread of them, and
probably end in desertion of Him.
A sadly large number of professing Christians may see their own faces in
this mirror. How many of us are exactly like this man? Long, long ago we
vowed to follow Christ. Have we advanced a yard on the Christian course
since then, or do we stand very much at the same point as on that
far-off day? Some of us, who spent no breath in saying what we were
going to do, but used it in the prayer, 'Draw me, and I will run after
Thee,' have followed the Captain. Some of us have been like clumsy
recruits, who have only been marking time all the while, one foot up and
the other down, but always in the same place. That is the kind of
advance that the lightly formed resolution--formed in ignorance of what
it involved, and in foolish confidence in the resolver's strength--is
too apt to lead to. Is it not so in all life? No caravan ever starts
from a port on the coast to go up-country, but there is a percentage of
deserters in the first week. There are always, in every good work,
adherents, easily moved, pushing themselves into the front, full of
resolves in the beginning, and then, when the tug comes, they drop out
of the ranks and leave the quiet ones, that did not say, 'I am going to
do it,' but thought to themselves, 'I should uncommonly like to _try_
whether I can.' to bear the burden and heat of the march. A sad, wise,
self-distrustful valour is the temper that wins.
Let us see to it, dear brethren, not that our fervour be less--I do not
know how the fervour of some of you could be less and keep alive at
all--but that our principle be more; not that our resolutions be less
noble, but that they be more deeply engrained. You can light a fire of
the chips and paper in an instant, and the flimsier the material the
more quickly it will crackle; it takes a longer time to get coals in a
blaze, and they will last longer. Be your resolves slow to begin and
never-ending,' especially when you say, as we are all bound to say,
'Lord! I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest.'