_Ah_ LORD GOD! _they say of me_, _Doth he not speak parables_?
EZEKIEL had been commissioned with the utterance of a warning, in
figurative but very intelligible language, that GOD was about to bring a
great calamity upon Jerusalem and all Judah; that young and old, good and
bad, should be affected by it—“I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall
devour every green tree and every dry tree”; that the judgment should be
irresistible “the flaming flame shall not be quenched,” and the
destruction universal; “all faces from the south to the north shall be
burned therein.” According to some expositors, as soon as he received
this commission, concluding from his past experience that the Jews would
profess not to understand his message, or would say, that it was an
exaggeration, or that it did not apply to them, and so disregard it, he
entreated of GOD, in the words of the text, that such an excuse might be
taken away by the delivery instead of a plain and unmistakeable warning:
“O LORD, not a parable. Thy people will not heed parables.” Whereupon
GOD, in gracious condescension to His prophet, in determination to be
heard and understood by the people, substituted for this first message,
not indeed wholly unfigurative language, but a simpler parable, which
carried with it to all its own interpretation. But it is better, I
think, to suppose, that Ezekiel does not here anticipate the people’s
perversity, and so persuade GOD at once to withdraw His words; but that
he narrates and grieves over the actual reception which the message,
faithfully delivered, had encountered. The people would not hear it.
They said it was obscure: a parable, an enigma, a poetical exaggeration.
GOD did not speak to them by it; or, if He did, they could not tell what
He said. “Ah! LORD GOD—alas! it is the old tale—I told them Thy words,
but they would not hear; they turned away from me, saying, Surely we
cannot understand him.”
Whichever was the case, whether Ezekiel only expected, or actually
experienced this treatment, we are sure that it was not wholly on account
of special obscurities which veiled the matters he had to declare, nor on
account of any special deafness and hardness of heart which belonged to
that people. For every Christian teacher has had reason to anticipate,
has actually endured the like from Christian congregations.
Often and often in preparing for the pulpit, is the preacher tempted to
set aside some important theme, to withhold some wonderful truth, to
forbear even to suggest some glorious consolation, because he believes
that in uttering it, he will not have the ears, or, if he has the ears,
he will not have the minds of his hearers; that they will not understand
his saying; and so, of course, will not receive it. Often and often,
too, when having used the full liberty of a Christian prophet and
whatever ability GOD has given him, of simplifying to the utmost, and
recommending with all his energy, the Gospel message, he is constrained
to feel, he is made, perhaps, by men’s open speech to know, that he is
regarded as the setter-forth of unmeaning, extravagant, or inapplicable
words. Of course, this charge is not always unfounded. We are not
inspired: we often speak our own words; our minds may not have rightly
conceived the subject we would discuss, or we may be wanting in ability
to express clearly what we understand. Under various influences we do,
too, at times speak more or less extravagantly, and our knowledge and
discretion are not so complete, that we invariably select what is
precisely suited to our hearers. In such cases, we ought to expect, we
have no right to complain of, the rejection, the disregard, or the
fruitlessness of our preaching. But, brethren, when we are sure that the
fault lies not in the preacher, when he has taken pains to enter into and
reveal the mind of the Spirit, to teach what he knows GOD would have you
understand and believe, to urge what he knows GOD would have you do, to
describe and recommend what he knows GOD would have you love and
seek—when he has done this, and you receive not his words, excusing
yourselves by saying that he is obscure, or over-strict, or fanciful, or
enthusiastic, or anything else—oh! then has he not a right to complain to
GOD? yea; and is it not his duty to remonstrate with you? Brethren, we
charge not such as you who are here assembled with the wilfulness of
Ezekiel’s hearers. In you we do not suppose there is any actual
unbelief, or deliberate dislike of the truth. It is not forced in your
case upon unwilling ears: for you come to hear it. It is not rejected
because you hate it. Nevertheless, we have somewhat against many of you
of Ezekiel’s complaint, respecting your treatment of the read or preached
Word of GOD.
We have to complain, brethren, that many of you are under the mistaken
notion that you have almost a right to select the preacher’s theme, at
least to dictate its mode of treatment; and that if your right is
disregarded, then you are justified in excusing yourselves for not
profiting or heeding. Bear with me, beloved. Is it not the case, that
you sometimes find fault with the subject of the sermon? You do not want
to hear so much about man’s depravity: you do not like the preacher to
make such a point of observing religious ordinances: what a high standard
of morality he sets up; how strict is the holiness he describes; why will
he discourse of the horrors of hell? So, again, of the manner of
treatment. You do not care for argument; you cannot enter upon theories;
you are weary of quotations of historical illustrations; the style is too
florid, or too bald: it is poetical; or it is commonplace; or somehow it
is not what you like; and therefore—I would not say you turn away from
it, but you do not try, as much as you ought, to heed it; and you excuse
yourselves for not improving under it by blaming the preacher.
The fact is, there is too often a great forgetfulness of the fact, that
when the preacher speaks to you it is your part to be as listeners and
learners of GOD. It is not for you to choose the subjects, nor to
dictate the method of teaching. It is true, perhaps, that your taste and
aptitude are greater for some subjects than others: it is true that you
are more easily enlightened, and impressed, and influenced in some ways
than in others. It is natural, and I would not say it is wrong, for you
to prefer those subjects and ways; but be sure nevertheless, that it is
the very contrary of wisdom and humility, of reverence for GOD, of regard
for duty and interest, not to give the most earnest heed to whatever GOD
says to you through His servant, to dare to treat it lightly, because
either of the topic or the way of handling it. When a message comes to
you from GOD, surely it is no reason for not receiving it, that you would
prefer a message about something else! And if the diction in which that
message is clothed is hard or distasteful to you, while you may lament
it, may ask for an explanation, may solicit consideration for your taste,
or help in overcoming your distaste, you may not on any account disregard
what has been said. The word gone forth shall not return. Where the
seed has been sown, increase shall be expected. The day is coming, when
all your opportunities and means of knowing GOD’S will, and all your
incentives to serve Him, shall be taken account of by Him Who has
afforded them, and then shall the worst preacher, the most apparently
obscure and inapplicable sermon you ever heard be a witness for or
against you, to testify what regard you had for GOD’S message, what
humility, what teachableness, what readiness to receive and to do what
was clear, what anxious diligence and pains to understand what was
obscure.
Brethren, you may choose what subjects you will hear discussed in the
secular lecture-hall, and if you do not like the entertainment you may
refuse to be entertained by it, and resolve to hear no more of it, to
dismiss it altogether from your thoughts. But you do not come to church
to be entertained; you have no option there of selecting or rejecting.
It is your misfortune (though it may be his fault) if the preacher does
not interest you, or the sermon immediately commend itself to your mind,
and to your heart; but, being there, you must hear whatever is said, and
however it is said; and having heard, be sure you must give account to
GOD of the hearing! Settle this in your minds, impress yourselves with
the solemn authority of the preacher, and with the importance and
responsibility of heeding him, and it will be very seldom that you will
object even in thought, “Doth he not speak parables?”
But there are particular complaints, about which I would say a few words
specially.
First, there is a complaint against the preaching of mysterious and
profound truths. If the preacher dwells upon such a subject as the
Incarnation of CHRIST, the nature of CHRIST’S presence with His Church,
of the Spirit’s indwelling, or the rationale of the efficacy of the means
of grace; or if he attempts to explain any difficult text, no matter what
pains he may take to simplify the subject, how he may labour to show its
importance and to recommend its consideration, he is met at once with the
objection that he speaks parables, and so with a tacit refusal to heed.
“Why puzzle one’s brains,” it is urged, “with such matters, when there
are so many simple themes and easy lessons in the Gospel. I cannot
understand such things. They are too profound. The preaching of them
may be clever, but it is thrown away upon me. I do not want to work and
task my mind, but to warm my feelings.” Such is the reward the preacher
often gets for taking unusual pains to edify his hearers! Such is the
wilful, the determined ignorance of many of GOD’S people respecting those
truths, the understanding of which most concerns them, and honours Him.
It ought to be sufficient to correct these unwise and unwilling, to
remind them that whatever GOD has revealed He requires to be accepted,
and that as there can be no acceptance of that which is not understood,
it is a foremost duty of the Christian preacher and the Christian learner
to employ themselves in the solution of Scripture difficulties, and the
comprehension of revealed mysteries. Such objectors do not intend it,
but they grievously slight GOD when they refuse to heed so much of His
teaching, yea, they even cast a slur upon His wisdom in striving to teach
what, according to them, cannot be learnt. And are they not unjust to
themselves? Have they really such narrow and shallow understandings, so
impossible to widen and deepen? Would they confess to such incapacity if
they were listening to a scientific lecture? would they complain if the
lecturer introduced them to new facts, showed them fresh experiments,
suggested to them explanatory theories, sought to make them wiser than
they were? Would they shut their ears at the sound of the first new
term: would they shrink back at the first invitation to tread upon
unfamiliar ground; would they protect themselves against being
enlightened, by claiming to be hopelessly ignorant? Would they not
rather make the most of the opportunity, opening ear and stretching mind
to catch all they could, finding pleasure in being carried beyond and
above themselves, resenting indignantly a hint that the thing was out of
their reach, professing, somewhat ostentatiously pretending a greater
delight and fuller understanding than they really had? O why is it the
fashion to claim to be so wise in secular matters, to boast of ignorance
in religion? It is well, indeed, that men should not sham to be wise in
GOD’S presence, but it is ill, very ill, that they sham to be ignorant,
or that they should be content to be ignorant when they might be wise,
ignoring and disowning the powers which GOD has given them!
Take these remarks, dear brethren, into your serious consideration.
Remember that GOD has given you intelligent minds, in order that you
might think of and serve Him with understanding. Much, indeed, about Him
is absolutely incomprehensible; much has He designedly withheld; before
many mysteries, has He put up the warning, “Draw not nigh hither;” but
much has He told you plainly, and much has He propounded in sufficiently
obscure or difficult terms, to task and exercise your minds in their
necessary unravelling. With respect to these things, as it is only by
much resistance that you can withstand the temptations to which you are
exposed; as it is only by great efforts that you can acquire the holiness
without which no man shall see the LORD, so is it, only by real and often
hard study, that you can attain unto the knowledge of which GOD has made
you capable, and in which He bids you grow. The elementary, the vitally
necessary truths of the Gospel are, it may be, within the immediate
comprehension of the simplest and most uncultivated understanding; but
shall it, therefore, be said to you, shall you be allowed to say of
yourselves, that you need not be concerned about anything beyond? Would
you be satisfied if you had only so much secular education as would
enable you to spell out sign-post directions? Would it be no reproach to
you, having so many faculties and opportunities, only to be able to read
and count? Would you miss nothing of duty, of interest, of pleasure, if
your intellect were uncultivated, if you were wholly unacquainted and
totally unable to appreciate arts and sciences, poetry, music,
literature, or any facts or theories not connected with your worldly
calling, not necessary to procure your daily bread? Would not life be
irksome and intolerable, if held only on such terms? Would you not be
ashamed of attempting to hold it on these terms? Would you not consider
that you were robbing yourselves of all that was worth having? Would you
not admit that you had missed and ignored your high calling, your power
to be enlightened and wise beings, and had sunk shamelessly and guiltily
to the level, below the level—for he answers the end of his creation—of
the irrational brute? And shall you who feel such shame for worldly
ignorance, shall you who make such efforts to gain secular knowledge, who
are ever widening your minds, and storing up in them as much as they will
hold, who delight in growing wiser and more learned, who will study
unwearily, and exercise all your intellect, and consume I know not what
time, in unravelling the worthless mystery of some enigmatical line in a
poem of fiction—shall you contentedly pass over the difficulties, and
remain ignorant of the mysteries which meet you in nearly every verse of
the Word of GOD? Shall you be otherwise than glad and attentive when the
preacher draws your attention to them? Shall you even unfairly and
ungratefully charge him with _speaking_ parables, when he is really
_explaining_ parables?
Dear brethren, it is rarely that the public preacher, who has to take
thought for the simpler ones of the flock, can enlarge upon profound
truths. When he does, take care that you make the most of the rare
occurrence, and compensate for the forbidden frequency, by diligent
private study, by ready use of that individual aid which the clergyman is
as rejoiced, as he is bound, to afford you. Acquaint yourselves now, as
far as may be, with GOD, and the things of GOD. Furnish yourselves with
the answer, the want of which was such a reproach to Nicodemus, to the
question—“How can these things be?” Show, at least, as much interest in
salvation, in sanctification, in heaven, in eternal bliss, as will lead
you to inquire what they are, and require, and promise. Get now the germ
of that knowledge, which is to expand hereafter albut to an infinite
grasp, and is to revel in spiritual science. Cast away the reproach of
knowing not; provide against the doom which awaits him that improves not
the talents entrusted him: “From him that hath not, shall be taken away
even that he seemeth to have.”
There is another class of objectors—to another kind of preaching. Those,
namely, who resist the force of plain exhortations to repentance,
self-denial, submission, obedience, holiness, and the like; by persuading
themselves that the preacher urges these severely and unduly. Doth he
not speak parables, they say, exaggerating—describing ideal duties?
Surely, what he urges is not the thing really required of us; surely, if
we escape not with impunity, yet some allowance will be made for our want
of it. Would he bring in all guilty? Would he cross every delight and
desire of our life? Would he expect us so to subdue the spirit, so to
overcome natural impatience, as never to resent, to shrink, to murmur?
Must obedience be so uncompromising, so constant, so perfect, to be
obedience at all? Is holiness so imperatively necessary? Surely the
preacher is unreasonable, he is extravagant, he speaks parables. These
objectors are easily answered. In this matter no teaching of our own can
be more explicit, more exacting, more positive, and more unsparing, than
that of the New Testament. When we enforce these things, we are backed
by an authority which cannot be questioned; and are able to prove that
our words are those of soberness and truth. “Except ye repent, ye shall
all likewise perish.” “If any man will come after me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” “Whosoever doth
not this, cannot be my disciple.” “Whosoever loveth me, keepeth my
commandments.” “If any man love not the LORD JESUS, let him be anathema
maranatha.” “Without holiness no man shall see the LORD.” Are these
words parables, are they untrue, figurative, extravagant? And if not,
what that we say, or can say, on this head, may be resisted or slighted,
under the plea, that is a parable?
Once more. When we discourse from the pulpit, on a living and near
Saviour, an indwelling Sanctifier, a surrounding spiritual tempter, on
heaven or hell, on enduring as seeing Him who is invisible, on having our
conversation in heaven, on the evidence of things unseen, on the feeling
and grasping, so to speak, as though they were substantial and at hand,
of things hoped for—oh! then, how many there are who hear us as though we
were dreamers or narrators of fables, speakers who should be allowed some
poetic license; who, to make their speech attractive, or perhaps from the
spontaneous dictation of their enthusiasm, use figures of rhetoric and
speak parables! I do not mean that these persons wilfully take up this
position, that they are intentionally, or in desire, gainsayers of the
truth, but merely that they do not enter into its conception, and cannot
rise to its height. They lag behind, they are earthy, they see only the
visible, feel only the tangible to bodily senses. The temporal to them
is real; the spiritual, not through unbelief, nor obstinacy, nor moral
blindness, but from infirmity, and earthly-mindedness, and
unspirituality, is regarded too nearly as unreal; and, therefore, when it
is discoursed upon, they seem to be listening to empty dreams, and the
preacher to be displaying flights of fancy.
Dear brethren—I speak to such—I know that many of you wish it were
otherwise; you would that your mind could conceive, and that your heart
could feel, these truths. In your best moments, you more than suspect
that the preacher is right after all, and you are wrong; that _you_ are
dreaming, and not he; that his words are a parable only to those who will
not see and hear. It is not in man to afford you much help, in coming to
a right state. If I refer you to the Bible, which we do but echo from
the pulpit, you will still say, Ah! but does not this, too, speak
parables? If I bid you go and exercise your reason, or consult others
who have done so, it is more than possible that you will come away from
the consultation—alas! many do—more convinced than before that we _do_
speak parables, that each one is a GOD to himself, that there is no other
devil than a man’s own evil passions, that there is no hell but in a
remorseful conscience, that eternity does not mean “for ever!” No; there
is no help for you in man, in yourselves, or in others. You must,
indeed, purify and elevate your affections, so that they may wish for
better things; you must bring down your reason from the high seat where
it sits, and speculates, and dictates; you must try to accept the truth
that the natural man cannot receive nor judge of spiritual things; but,
then, you must go to GOD Himself, and humbly, teachably, earnestly ask
for that spiritual discernment which alone can see, and feel, and love
the things of GOD. Do this, not once, but often; not negligently or
hastily, but earnestly and perseveringly; and presently, if not all at
once, yet gradually, most surely, your spiritual eyes shall be opened,
you shall see GOD, you shall love CHRIST, you shall perceive the motions
of the Holy Spirit. The invisible world shall be unveiled, and shall be
found to contain all the beauties, all the horrors, and to hold out all
the hopes and fears, to be as real, as near, as sure to be ours, for weal
or woe, according as we are, or are not, Christians, as the preacher or
the Bible, of which he is the expounder, asserts. Thenceforth you will
not complain of spiritual teaching that it is parabolic, of strong
assertions of the obligation of Christian graces, that they are
immoderate, too exacting, too severe. No! heart and mind will testify,
and life will approve, “Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no
proverb.” Yes; and knowing somewhat of GOD, and your relation to Him,
and desiring to know more, whenever in your private reading of the Bible
a difficulty meets you, or whenever the preacher discourses, as it seems,
in parables, you will give the most earnest and interested heed, to see
if you cannot divine the mystery; and failing that, instead of remaining
in willing ignorance, you will use all the means placed within your
reach, the comparing of parallel places, your commentaries, and the
private instructions of your clergyman, pleading all the while with
CHRIST, and urgently beseeching of Him, “LORD, thou knowest all things,
declare unto me this parable.”
Thus doing, you will soon find that to you it is given to know the
mysteries of religion; and the knowledge, sanctified by the Spirit, will
assuredly work in you a greater love of GOD, a more consistent and more
successful pursuit of holiness, a growing taste and eagerness for that
better state, whence ignorance, in all its degrees, shall be banished for
ever, and where we shall know even as now we are known.
SERMON XVII.
LIVING AND DYING UNTO GOD.