JEHOSHAPHAT'S SHIPPING.
Your attention is called to a Bible incident that you may not have noticed.
Jehoshaphat was unfortunate with his shipping. He was about to start
another vessel. The wicked men of Ahaziah wanted to go aboard that vessel
as sailors. Jehoshaphat refused to allow them to go, for the reason that he
did not want his own men to mingle with those vicious people.
In other words, he knew what you and I know very well, that it is never
safe to go in the same boat with the wicked. But there are various
applications of that idea. We too often forget it, and are not as wise as
Jehoshaphat was when he refused to allow his men to be in companionship in
the same boat with the wicked men of Ahaziah.
The principle I stated is appropriate to the formation, in the first place,
of all domestic alliances. I have often known women who married men for the
purpose of reforming them from dissipated habits. I never knew one
successful in the undertaking. Instead of the woman lifting the man up, the
man drags her down. This is inevitably the case. The greatest risk that one
ever undertakes is attempting the voyage of life in a boat in which the
wicked sail; this remark being most appropriate to the young persons who
are in my presence. It is never safe to sail with the sons of Ahaziah. The
aged men around me will bear out the statement that I have made. There is
no exception to it.
The principle is just as true in regard to all business alliances. I know
it is often the case that men have not the choice of their worldly
associations, but there are instances where they may make their choice, and
in that case I wish them to understand that it is never safe to go in the
same boat with the vicious. No man can afford to stand in associations
where Christ is maligned and scoffed at, or the things of eternity
caricatured. Instead of your Christianizing them, they will heathenize you.
While you propose to lift them up, they will drag you down. It is a sad
thing when a man is obliged to stand in a business circle where men are
deriding the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. For instance, rather than
to be associated in business circles with Frothinghamite infidelity, give
me a first-class Mohammedan, or an unconverted Chinese, or an unmixed
Hottentot. There is no danger that they will draw me down to their
religion.
If, therefore, you have a choice when you go out in the world as to whether
you will be associated in business circles with men who love God, or those
who are hostile to the Christian religion, you might better sacrifice some
of your financial interests and go among the people of God than risk the
interests of your immortal soul.
Jehoshaphat knew it was unsafe for his men to go in one boat with the men
of Ahaziah, and you cannot afford to have business associations with those
who despise God, and heed not His commandments. I admit the fact that a
great many men are forced into associations they despise, and there are
business circles in which we are compelled to go which we do not like, but
if you have a choice, see that you make an intelligent and safe one.
This principle is just as true in regard to social connections. Let no
young man or woman go in a social circle where the influences are vicious
or hostile to the Christian religion. You will begin by reproving their
faults, and end by copying them. Sin is contagious. You go among those who
are profane, and you will be profane. You go among those who use impure
language, and you will use impure language. Go among those who are given to
strong drink, and you will inevitably become an inebriate. There is no
exception to the rule. A man is no better than the company he continually
keeps.
It is always best to keep ourselves under Christian influences. It is not
possible, if you mingle in associations that are positively Christian, not
to be made better men or women. The Christian people with whom you
associate may not be always talking their religion, but there is something
in the moral atmosphere that will be life to your soul. You choose out for
your most intimate associates eight or ten Christian people. You mingle in
that association; you take their counsel; you are guided by their example,
and you live a useful life, and die a happy death, and go to a blessed
eternity. There is no possibility of mistaking it; there is not an
exception in all the universe or ages--not one.
For this reason I wish that Christians engage in more religious
conversation. I do not really think that Christian talk is of so high a
type as it used to be. Some of you can look back to your very early days
and remember how the neighbors used to come in and talk by the hour about
Christ and heaven and their hopes of the eternal world. There has a great
deal of that gone out of fashion.
I suppose that if ten or fifteen of us should happen to come into a circle
to spend the evening, we would talk about the late presidential election,
or the recent flurry in Wall street, and about five hundred other things,
and perhaps we would not talk any about Jesus Christ and our hopes of
heaven. That is not Christianity; that is heathenism. Indeed, I have
sometimes been amazed to find Christian people actually lacking in subjects
of conversation, while the two persons knew each of the other that he was a
Christian.
You take two Christian people of this modern day and place them in the same
room (I suppose the two men may have no worldly subjects in common). What
are they talking about? There being no worldly subject common to them, they
are in great stress for a subject, and after a long pause Mr. A remarks:
"It is a pleasant evening."
Again there is a long pause. These two men, both redeemed by the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ, heaven above them, hell beneath them, eternity
before them, the glorious history of the Church of Jesus Christ behind
them, certainly after a while they will converse on the subject of
religion. A few minutes have passed and Mr. B remarks: "Fine autumn we are
having."
Again there is a profound quiet. Now, you suppose that their religious
feelings have really been dammed back for a little while; the men have been
postponing the things of God and eternity that they may approach the
subject with more deliberation, and you wonder what useful thing Mr. B will
say to Mr. A in conversation.
It is the third time, and perhaps it is the last that these two Christian
men will ever meet until they come face to face before the throne of God.
They know it. The third attempt is now made. Mr. A says to Mr. B: "Feels
like snow!"
My opinion is, it must have felt more like ice. Oh, how little real,
practical religious conversation there is in this day! I would to God that
we might get back to the old-time Christianity, when men and women came
into associations, and felt, "Here I must use all the influence I can for
Christ upon that soul, and get all the good I can. This may be the last
opportunity I shall have in this world of interviewing that immortal
spirit."
But there are Christian associations where men and women do talk out their
religion; and my advice to you is to seek out all those things, and
remember that just in proportion as you seek such society will you be
elevated and blessed. After all, the gospel boat is the only safe boat to
sail in. The ships of Jehoshaphat went all to pieces at Eziongeber.
Come aboard this gospel craft, made in the dry-dock of heaven and launched
nineteen hundred years ago in Bethlehem amid the shouting of the angels.
Christ is the captain, and the children of God are the crew. The cargo is
made up of the hopes and joys of all the ransomed. It is a ship bound
heavenward, and all the batteries of God will boom a greeting as we sail in
and drop anchor in the still waters. Come aboard that ship; it is a safe
craft! The fare is cheap! It is a certain harbor!
The men of Ahaziah were forbidden to come aboard the ships of Jehoshaphat,
but all the world is invited to board this gospel craft. The vessel of
Jehoshaphat went to pieces, but this craft shall drop anchor within the
harbor, and mountains shall depart, and hills shall be removed, and seas
shall dry up, and time itself shall perish, but the mercy of the Lord is
from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him.