to march round the city once a day, with the priests going before,
blowing their trumpets; this was to be done six days in succession, but
on the seventh day they were to march seven times round the city, with
the priests leading the way, blowing the rams' horns. The first day
the inhabitants of Jericho rushed to their walls, and watched, and
wondered. The second day they saw the same procession go round the
town. It had ended in nothing on Sunday, so they laughed and pointed
at them. What a ludicrous sight! All those men armed with swords and
spears, who do not use them, those priests blowing the horns as to
encourage the Israelites to battle, and not one rushing forward to
scale the walls. The third day all the women and children were on the
walls, marching round and mimicking them, blowing toy trumpets. What
jokes! What jeers shouted from the walls! So on to the Friday. On
the Sabbath the people got rather tired of this same scene. It was
growing monotonous; so they did not come in such numbers. However,
after the Israelites had marched round once, they began to march round
a second time. Here was something new! Something still more
nonsensical; and the people of Jericho came out on their walls again to
flout them, and pass their jokes. When the Israelites had been round
twice, they started to go round a third time, then a fourth, then a
fifth, then a sixth. The mocking grew more excessive, the ridicule
more keen. But, when the circuit of the city was made the seventh
time, then, the walls of the city fell down, and the Israelites rushed
in over the ruins, and killed all they came across. On whose side was
the laugh then?
II. As I told you at the beginning of my sermon, if you will live
godly in Christ Jesus, you must expect persecution, and the only sort
of persecution you will get is Ridicule.
Therefore, if you will live godly in Christ Jesus, you must be prepared
to be taunted, and made fun of, and teased. The tongues will wag and
say all sort of hard things about you; You are a hypocrite, or you are
going too far, or you are a fine person to set up to be a saint! but
be of good cheer, do not mind the laughter, it is only for a while, and
then the tables will be turned, and the laugh will be on your side.
It is very unpleasant to be made a butt for ridicule. Of course it is,
but it is not so unpleasant as to have your flesh torn off with redhot
pincers. The early Christians who would live godly in Christ Jesus had
to expect that.
It is very galling to have bitter things said of you, often unjust and
untrue, only because you have begun to serve God, and lead a better
life. Of course it is, but it is not so bitter to bear as a cruel
death, and that is what the early Christians had to expect if they
would live godly in Christ Jesus.
Then again. As the Master was used, so the servant must expect to be
treated. Jesus Christ had not only to endure the cruelty of wicked
men, but their ridicule as well, "They laughed Him to scorn."
CONCLUSION.--Pluck up a little courage, my brethren, and do not be such
cowards. If you lack courage, ask of God, and He will give it you.
The Spirit of Fortitude is one of the gifts of the Holy Ghost. He gave
it to the martyrs to strengthen them under torment, and they were able
to endure and not forsake their Lord. Then surely He will give to you
that measure of fortitude which will enable you to stand up against
Ridicule.
LXII.
_WHAT LASTS, AND WHAT PASSES AWAY._
25th Sunday after Trinity.
S. Matthew xxiv., 35.
"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My word shall not pass away."
INTRODUCTION.--Yes! all will pass away! This beautiful world and all
that is on it. Our houses, our churches, our cities, will crumble
away; the very earth with its mountains and rivers, and plains, and
seas, will pass away. The stars will fall from heaven, the sun will
have exhausted its fires, the moon will sink into night. But the words
of Christ will last.
SUBJECT.--Incessant is the change. Ever are things present passing
away, but there is still something that remains. Things pass in their
present fashion, but in substance remain.
I. S. Paul, in his 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, says (vii. 31):
"The fashion of this world passeth away." It is as though this world
were a theatre, on which pass many scenes. The curtain rises, and we
see first Eden, all beautiful; there is no sin, no death; how lovely is
the world in its maiden freshness and innocence, the flowers are
blooming, and the birds are singing, and Adam and Eve stand surrounded
by the beasts, which fawn on them, and fear them not. O that this
lovely scene might remain! But no! "The fashion of this world passeth
away."
Another scene. The Angel armed with the flaming sword drives our
parents forth, the earth brings forth thorns and briars. Man slays the
beasts to provide him with food and clothing. The earth is full of
violence, Cain raises his hand against Abel. All flesh is corrupt
before God. "The fashion of this world passeth away."
The flood has purified earth, but now men are scattered through the
confusion of tongues, and go over all the world colonising, cutting
down trees, planting corn, hunting wild beasts, pasturing cattle, and
having flocks of sheep. "The fashion of this world passeth away."
Great empires arise, the Chaldean or Assyrian, the Persian, the Greek,
these three. Do they last? "The fashion of this world passeth away."
A fourth arises; the mighty Roman Empire, extending over the whole
known world. The Roman poet wrote of it in the name of his false god,
Jupiter, "I put no bounds to this empire, neither of space nor of time,
I give it a kingdom without end." Was it so? We find scattered almost
everywhere in the old world where we travel traces of this mighty
empire, its roads, its castles, its palaces, its coins, but it is gone,
gone utterly away, swept away by the hordes of Gothic barbarians. "The
fashion of this world passeth away."
If we look back at the past times of our own country, what changes do
we see! the fashion ever changing, the fashion of government, the
fashion of religion, the fashion of dress, the fashion of architecture,
all is change, change, and change.
Have you ever seen fireworks? Have you seen the rockets rush up into
the air, casting a golden light, pouring forth sparks, and then
bursting, this one into a silvery globe of light, that one into a
thousand stars, crimson, blue, green, yellow, that again into sparks of
curling fire-dust? What became of them? Down they fall, and all that
remains is a stick and a bit of smouldering brown paper. The fashion
has wondrously changed. Are not these rockets figures of the life of
man? Up we rush in the eagerness of youth, and cast a light about us,
up, up, growing brighter, throwing out our stars and globes of light,
and then, "the fashion changeth," and we come down and are laid in our
graves, a little ash. Here is the man who was full of wealth and
honour, how he blazed as a sun, how he scattered his gold. "The
fashion changeth." He is now a crumbling bit of clay.
Here is the man who made such a noise in the parish, such a boaster, so
quarrelsome, so litigious, no one could come near him. "The fashion
changeth." He lies still as a mouse now, and can resent no injury done
to his dust.
Here is the active housewife, whose hand was always busily employed
sewing, darning, scouring, never idle for one minute, keeping her house
clean, and her children tidy. "The fashion changeth." She can stir no
hand, can think for no one any more.
II. Evilmerodach, king of Babylon, was wroth with Daniel, because he
denied that Bel was a god. Meats were placed on the altar before the
idol every night, and before morning they had vanished. "Therefore,"
said the king, "Bel must be a god." But Daniel got fine ashes and
strewed the temple floor, and locked the doors. Next morning he came
with the king to the temple, and when the doors were opened, the king
saw that all the meat was gone, then he cried out that Bel was a god.
But Daniel pointed to the floor, and there, in the ashes, were the
prints of many feet, for the priests had a secret door under the altar,
and in the night they came out with their wives and children, and ate
what had been offered to the idol. Then Evilmerodach had them all
slain.
Now, my brethren! Job says of God: "Thou lookest narrowly unto all my
paths," or, as it might be better rendered, "my footprints." That is,
Thou, O God, seest my traces where I have been, and Thou wilt take
account of what I have done. Mark this!--The steps pass away, but the
footprints do not pass away. The steps go on into Endless Life or
Eternal Death, but the footprints remain to shew where you have walked.
Your fashion in this world may pass away, but your footprints remain to
tell tales of you; they pass not away.
You house-father! You house-mother! you will go your way, but your
traces will remain in your family, the good you have done, or the bad,
these cannot be wiped out.
You who have done any dishonest act, spoken falsehood, dealt
deceitfully, all your dishonest acts, and false words, and deceitful
dealings, will pass away, but the traces will remain, and God will look
narrowly at them.
You have been given talents, intelligence, physical strength, spiritual
opportunities; these pass away, but not their traces.
You have been a boy, a youth, a man, and are now old. Each age has
passed away, but not the footsteps, they shall not pass away. What you
did when first you got your reason, your childish acts, are passed
away, but not the results. Your actions when young,--did you yield to
your passions or conquer them? those acts are passed away, but not the
results. In your manhood, what have you done in your family, what
example have you set? You are now old and white-headed. Vigorous
manhood is over, passed away, but the footsteps, the tell-tale
footsteps remain.
CONCLUSION.--Now then, considering this, I urge you sincerely to live
each day as if the last, to live so that you may not be afraid of your
footsteps that will betray of what sort your life has been.
LXIII.
_THANKFULNESS TO GOD._
Harvest
S. Matthew xxii., 21.
"Render--unto God, the things that are God's."
INTRODUCTION.--David says in the 8th Psalm, "What is man, that Thou art
mindful of him: and the son of man that Thou visitest him? Thou makest
him to have dominion of the works of Thy hands; and Thou hast put all
things in subjection under his feet, all sheep and oxen; yea, and the
beast of the field, the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea."
I. The mastery of man is even more extensive than this; he controls
the elements. The earth he tills and makes it bring forth fruit and
corn, as he wills. He will not suffer it to run wild, but schools and
disciplines it. He hedges it about, and ploughs, and sows, and reaps.
He burrows into it for fuel and for metals, he cuts roads over its face.
The air he makes use of also, it is his servant to turn the sails of
his wind-mills, to grind his corn, it fills out the sails of his ships
to carry his merchandise from one land to another.
Fire, that most terrible of elements, he dominates and makes into a
slave, it smelts the ore for him, it raises the steam that drives the
engines, it heats his house, it lights it, it cooks his food.
Water is also under control, he leads it where he will in canals and
pipes, he makes it turn the wheels of water-mills, it is used for
drinking, and for washing. And yet even that is not all. Man controls
the lightning, he makes of that a slave to carry messages round the
world, and he carries it into globes, and lights streets and railway
stations, and shop windows with it.
When man was innocent in Eden, the beast and birds were his familiar
friends, but when he sinned they fled from him. God said to Noah, "The
fear of you, and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the
earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the
earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea, into your hand are they
delivered."
See how the animals have been subjected to man; the horse, the useful
cow, the dog, and the sheep have been tamed, the horse which once roved
wild submits to have a saddle on his back, and a bit in his mouth. The
cow gives her milk and her meat, and the sheep both wool and meat, for
the nourishment and the clothing of man; the dog, which, when wild, was
fierce as his brother the wolf, has become the friend and companion of
man; even the gigantic elephant has become docile, and the Indian
mother leaves her babe under its charge, that the monster may brush
away the flies from the sleeping infant with a branch.
We have dominion over the birds in the air, we have tamed the domestic
fowls and make them yield us their eggs, and we keep the pigeons about
our homes that we may kill their young; we snare and shoot them as we
will, their high flight and rapid wings are no protection for them.
We have dominion over the fishes of the sea, we strew the net and bring
them in for our food; we hunt the whale for his oil and for the fringe
of bone in his mouth; we dive into the sea after the oyster that we may
extract from it the pearl, and we strip the shell of its
rainbow-coloured scales to inlay therewith our furniture.
II. What follows from all this? Is not this enough to make man proud,
to exalt him in his own conceit? unfortunately it would seem so, but
the lesson I would draw from all this is, Render unto God that service
which is due to God, as all inferior creatures render unto you the
service you demand of them.
An old writer (Hugo Victorinus) beautifully says--"It is as though the
earth appealed to man, and said to him, See how He loved thee who made
me for thee. I serve thee because I was made for thee, and do thou
serve Him who made thee and me."
Suppose a king were to take you by the hand and lead you into a
beautiful estate, and say to you, "Here, I give you this mansion, with
the park and the fields, and the woods and the river, you may do what
you will with it, hunt, and shoot, and fish, and till the soil, and
pasture sheep, and cattle, I give it you all freely and entirely, I ask
of you nothing but that you will recognise me as your king and not join
my enemies in fighting against me." Then, I think, you would embrace
the offer with the greatest eagerness. Now this is just what God has
done to you; He has brought you into the world, and has given you power
over the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, the fishes of the
sea, He has given you the earth to grow your corn, and on which to
pasture your cattle, He has given you dominion over the elements, and
all He asks in return is that you will recognise Him as the Giver, and
not join His enemies. "Render unto God that honour and homage that be
God's."
III. Balaam, the prophet and seer, rode on his ass to go to Balak,
king of Moab. God had forbidden him to go and curse the chosen people
of God, but Balaam, moved by covetousness, and eager for honours from
the king, started on his way to go. Then an angel stood in the way
with a drawn sword to stop him. Balaam did not see the angel, but the
ass did, and fell down under Balaam. Then he cried out in a rage, "I
would there were a sword in mine hand, for now would I kill thee," and
he beat the ass savagely with his stick. Do you see! Balaam expects
the ass to obey him blindly, to go where he chooses; but he himself
will not obey God, and refrain from going whither he is forbidden.
How is it with you? Is it not with you as with Balaam? You expect the
earth to yield you what you choose, and are wroth if it withholds the
crop; but you do not yield to God what He desires, and show a harvest
of good fruit unto life everlasting from the seed of Grace He has sown
in you. You expect your sheep to give their wool, and your cows their
milk, and to obey you, and come into the fold, or go out into the
pasture, docile to your will. But do you act thus to God? Are you
docile to His will? Do you eat that heavenly food He has prepared for
you in the pastures of his Church? You expect your orchard to yield
you apples. Do you show any fruit of the Spirit? When Christ comes
and searches among the leaves of your profession, does He find any
fruit of good works there?
CONCLUSION.--Then, Brethren, in your farm-work, bear this ever in mind,
that as you expect the fields and the cattle to yield to you what is
your due, so render also yourselves unto God that honour, that worship,
that gratitude, which are God's.
LXIV.
_THE FORMATION OF HABITS._
School Sermon.
Proverbs xxii. 6.
"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will
not depart from it."
INTRODUCTION.--There is a district, high up in the Black Forest, where
the ground is full of springs. It is a plain some nine hundred feet
above the sea. Thousands upon thousands of little springs gush out of
the soil; you seem to be on the rose of a vast watering-can. Now, from
this great source flow a good many rivers, and they flow in very
different, nay, opposite directions. There rises the Danube, which
runs East and dies in the Black Sea, and also the Neckar and a hundred
other tributaries of the Rhine, which flows West, and falls into the
North Sea. A very little thing on that plain--a slight rise or fall in
the ground, this way or that--decides the direction in which a river
shall run. You can easily make a little stream run this way and feed
the Rhine, or that way and swell the Danube; but after a few miles all
control over the stream is gone. It runs on, and will run on to the
end in the direction you have given it, or which it took by chance when
it started.
It is the same with children. All these little springs of vigorous
life are bubbling up round us, and whither shall they flow? To the
right or to the left? To Life or to Death? We can give them their
direction now. A few years hence, and all power over them will be gone.
SUBJECT.--As a habit is formed in early youth, so it remains to old
years.
I. We take our children and we train them for God. God has given them
to us for this, to train them as citizens of His kingdom. We neglect
our duty if we neglect this. He placed the flexible little characters
in our hands to bend this way or that, expecting us to make them grow
upright and not crooked, to look to Heaven, instead of trailing on
earth. They are a solemn trust for which we must give account.
It would have been one of the chief woes of Hell to Dives, if he had
his five brethren there to reproach him for having set them a bad,
selfish, luxurious example. Think how bitter your future state would
be, if your children in the outer darkness were to be for ever
reproaching you, "You brought us up to the world and not to God, you
fed our bodies but not our souls, you set before us the transitory life
as the one thing to care for, and did not teach us to lay up treasure
and toil for the life eternal!" Think, also, how it will increase your
happiness to have your children in Life Eternal, and to receive their
blessing, and experience their gratitude for having so taught them, by
word and example, that they have through life walked in the narrow path
that leads to the gates of Heaven.
"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will
not depart from it." You teach your children obedience, in order that
when young they may form the habit of submitting to rule. When they
are old they will not depart from it. God has His laws. God exacts
their obedience. They learn now to bow to the commands of a teacher
whom they can see, they will obey afterwards the invisible Divine
Teacher. You teach your children order and method when young, that
they may live an orderly life when they grow older. You teach them
self-control now, that they may be able to exercise it in greater
matters hereafter.
II. Habits of obedience, and order, and self-control, acquired in
childhood will be confirmed in manhood, and will remain to the end of
life. A man of business, who has spent his youth and manhood in
looking after his shop, or attending to his office, is miserable in old
age when he gives up his business and retires; he misses the old
routine, he would be happier if he could go on in the accustomed round
till he drops. The days hang heavy on his hands. The relaxation to
which he had looked forward, and for which he had worked, palls on him.
And these are habits of industry. Bad habits retain a stronger hold on
man. A bad youth and a bad manhood make a vicious old age. Many an
old man who had led a disorderly life retains his wicked habits, though
they afford him no pleasure. He goes on in vice merely because vice
has become habitual, not because it is pleasurable.
Eli, as we read in the 4th chap. I Sam., when aged ninety and eight
years, and his eyes were dim, that he could not see, "sat upon a seat
by the wayside watching." What is the meaning of this? The old man of
nearly a hundred has his chair brought outside the temple, and sits
there looking up the street, and that although his eyes are so covered
with a mist that he can see nothing. The sacred writer does not say
that Eli sat on the seat by the wayside seeing what went on, but only
straining his sightless eyeballs up the street. If we turn back to the
first chapter, we shall see that this was a habit with Eli. When he
was many years younger, some thirty years before, when Hannah came up
to Shiloh to entreat the Lord to have mercy on her and take away her
reproach, we read "Now Eli, the priest, sat upon a seat by the post of
the temple of the Lord." And his eyes, then sharp and clear, were
peering about and watching all that was going on, and examining the
faces of the people who were coming in and going out, and were engaged
in prayer. One would have thought that common decency would have kept
him from watching the face of the poor woman who was engaged in prayer,
but Eli had not acquired control over his eyes--indeed, his great
amusement was peering into people's faces and guessing what was going
on in their minds. Hannah wept as she prayed, "And it came to pass, as
she continued praying to the Lord, that Eli marked her mouth. Now
Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was
not heard,"--then with that want of charity, and tendency to think evil
which so commonly goes with peeping and prying--"Eli thought she had
been drunk." He saw what was not--drunkenness--in the weeping,
sorrowful-hearted woman, but he saw not the wickedness which was in his
disorderly sons. Here is an illustration of how habits last. Eli had
acquired this habit of sitting in the gate and watching what went on,
when he was a man in the vigour of his days, and when he was a very old
man and blind, the habit continued. He had his chair brought out into
the street that he might look up and down it, though his eyes were dim
and he could see nought.
III. Now the great advantage of a school to a child is that therein
the child is taught good habits. The child has got certain talents,
but cannot turn these talents to any good account without application.
In school he is given the habit of application; that is, of keeping his
attention fixed on one subject.
But application is not all; to that must be added perseverance. No
advance will be made in anything, unless a man first applies his mind
to his task, and then perseveres in it till he has fulfilled what he
undertook. Nothing is more common than to begin a thing and to be
disheartened at the first difficulty, and to throw it up. At school
the child is given the habit of perseverance.
That is not all. No work will be carried out thoroughly without order
and system. You see people who work all day and work hard, but never
make any way, because they work in a muddle, and with no regular plan.
At school the child is given the habit of orderliness.
I have instanced only a few of those necessary habits which we try to
impress on children at school. We endeavour to impress them on the
young, because then they are open to instruction, their characters are
soft and take impressions, as warm wax does from a seal. We train them
up in the way in which they should go, trusting that when they are old
they will not depart from it. We teach what is good, that good may
become a habit with them, and when anything has become a habit, it
sticks. It is not shaken off.
LXV.
_RELIGIOUS ZEAL._
Dedication Festival
Ps. lxix., 9.
"The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up."
INTRODUCTION.--David spoke the truth. The one great desire of his
heart was the glorification of God by the erection of a temple
befitting His worship at Jerusalem. Although he had plenty of cares to
distract him, yet he never had this out of his heart. "I will not come
within the tabernacle of mine house; nor climb up into my bed; I will
not suffer mine eyes to sleep, nor mine eyelids to slumber; neither the
temples of my head to take any rest; until I find out a place for the
temple of the Lord; an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob."
One of the first things he did after he was anointed King over Israel,
was to go to Kirjath-jearim, and bring up thence the ark of God from
the house of Abinadab in which it had lodged. And David went before
the ark playing his harp, and his heart was so full of joy that he
danced before the ark, singing and striking the strings of his harp.
Then Michal his wife, Saul's daughter, looked out of a window, and
sneered at him, "and despised him in her heart." She was one of your
cold-blooded people, with no enthusiasm in her, with no zeal for God,
no heart for God's glory. Better David dancing for joy of heart, than
captious Michal with a contemptuous curl of her lips.