'And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but
rather reprove them.'--Eph. v. 11.
We have seen in a former sermon that 'the fruit,' or outcome, 'of the
Light' is a comprehensive perfection, consisting in all sorts and
degrees of goodness and righteousness and truth. Therefore, the
commandment, 'Walk as children of the light,' sums up all Christian
morality. Is there need, then, for any additional precept? Yes; for
Christian people do not live in an empty world. If there were no evil
round them, and no proclivity to evil within them, it would be amply
sufficient to say to them, 'Be true to the light which you behold.' But
since both these things are, the commandment of my text is further
necessary. We do not work _in vacuo_, and therefore friction and
atmosphere have to be taken account of; and an essential part of
'walking as children of the light' is to know how to behave ourselves
when confronted with 'the works of darkness.'
These Ephesian Christians lived in a state of society honeycombed with
hideous immorality, the centre of which was the temple, which was their
city's glory and shame. It was all but impossible for them to have
nothing to do with the works of evil, unless, indeed, they went out of
the world. But the difficulty of obedience does not affect the duty of
obedience, nor slacken in the smallest degree the stringency of a
command. This obligation lies upon us as fully as it did upon them, and
the discharge of it by professing Christians would bring new life to
moribund churches.
I. Let me ask you to note with me, first, the fruitlessness inherent in
all the works of darkness.
You may remember that I pointed out, in a former discourse on the
context, that the Apostle, here and elsewhere, draws a very significant
distinction between 'works' and 'fruit,' and that distinction is put
very strikingly in the words of my text. There are works which are
barren. It is a grim thought that there may be abundant activity which,
in the eyes of God, comes to just nothing; and that pages and pages of
laborious calculations, when all summed up, have for result a great
round 0. Men are busy, and hosts of them are doing what the old fairy
stories tell us that evil spirits were condemned to do--spinning ropes
out of sea-sand; and their life-work is nought when they come to reckon
it up.
I have no time to dwell upon this thought, but I wish, just for a moment
or two, to illustrate it.
All godless life is fruitless, inasmuch as it has no permanent results.
Permanent results of a sort, indeed, follow everything that men do, for
all our actions tend to make character, and they all have a share in
fixing that which depends upon character--viz. destiny, both here and
yonder. And thus the most fleeting of our deeds, which in one aspect is
as transitory as the snow upon the great plains when the sun rises,
leaves everlasting traces upon ourselves and upon our condition. But yet
acts concerned with transitory things may have permanent fruit, or may
be as transient as the things with which they are concerned. And the
difference depends on the spirit in which they are done. If the roots
are only in the surface-skin of soil, when that is pared off the plant
goes. A life that is to be eternal must strike its roots through all the
superficial _humus_ down to the very heart of things. When its roots
twine themselves round God then the deeds which blossom from them will
blossom unfading for ever.
Think of men going empty-handed into another world, and saying, 'O Lord!
I made a big fortune in Manchester when I lived there, and I left it all
behind me'; or, 'I mastered a science, and one gleam of the light of
eternity has antiquated it'; or, 'I gained prizes, won my aims, and they
have all dropped from my hands, and here I stand, having to say in the
most tragic sense: Nothing in my hands I bring.' And another man dies in
the Lord, and his 'works do follow' him. It is not every vintage that
bears exportation. Some wines are mellowed by crossing the ocean; some
are turned into vinegar. The works of darkness are unfruitful because
they are transient.
And they are unfruitful because, whilst they last, they yield no real
satisfaction. The Apostle could say to another Church with a certainty
as to what the answer would be, 'What fruit had ye _then_'--when ye were
doing them--'in the things whereof ye are now ashamed?' And the answer
is 'None!' Of course, it is true that men do bad things because they
like them better than good. Of course, it is true that the misery of
mankind is that they have no appetite in the general for the only real
satisfaction. But it is also true that no man who feeds his heart and
mind on anything short of God is really at rest in anything that he does
or possesses. Occasional twinges of conscience, dim perceptions that
after all they are walking in a vain show; glimpses of nobler
possibilities, a vague unrest, an unwillingness to reflect and look the
facts of their condition in the face, like men that will not take stock
because they half suspect that they are insolvent--these are the
conditions that attach to all godless men's lives. There is no real
fruit for their thirsty lips to feed upon. The smallest man is too large
to be satisfied with anything short of Infinity, The human heart is like
some narrow opening on a hill-side, so narrow that it looks as if a
glassful of water would fill it. But it goes away down, down, down into
the depths of the mountain, and you may pour in hogsheads and no effect
is visible. God, and God alone, brings to the thirsty heart the fruit
that it needs.
Another solemn thought illustrates the unfruitfulness of a godless life.
There is no correspondence between what such a man does and what he is
intended to do. Think of what the most degraded and sensuous wretch that
shambles about the slums of a city, sodden with beer and rotten with
profligacy, could be. Think of the raptures of devout contemplation and
the energies of holy work which are possible for that soul, and then
say--though it is an extreme case, the principle holds in less extreme
cases--Are these things that men do apart from God, however shining,
noble, illustrious they may be in the eyes of the world, and trumpeted
forth by the mouthpieces of popular opinion, are these things worth
calling fruits fit to be borne by such a tree? No more than the cankers
on a rose-bush or the galls on an oak-tree are worthy of being called
fruit are these works that some of you have as the only products of a
life's activity. 'Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth
grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?'