Malachi iv. 5, 6. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before
the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall
turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the
children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a
curse.
These words are especially solemn words. They stand in an
especially solemn and important part of the Bible. They are the
last words of the Old Testament. I cannot but think that it was
God's will that they should stand where they are, and nowhere else.
Malachi, the prophet who wrote them, did not know perhaps that he
was the last of the Old Testament prophets. He did not know that no
prophet would arise among the Jews for 400 years, till the time when
John the Baptist came preaching repentance. But God knew. And by
God's ordinance these words stand at the end of the Old Testament,
to make us understand the beginning of the New Testament. For the
Old Testament ends by saying that God would send to the Jews Elijah
the prophet. And the New Testament begins by telling us of John the
Baptist's coming as a prophet, in the spirit and power of Elias; and
how the Lord Jesus himself declared plainly that John the Baptist
was Elijah who was to come; that is, the Elijah of whom Malachi
prophesies in my text.
Therefore, we may be certain that this text tells us what John the
Baptist's work was; that John the Baptist came to turn the hearts of
the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to the
fathers; lest the Lord should come and smite the land with a curse.
Some may be ready to answer to this, 'Of course John the Baptist
came to warn parents of behaving wrongly to their children, if they
were careless or cruel; and children to their parents, if they were
disobedient or ungrateful. Of course he would tell bad parents and
children to repent, just as he came to tell all other kinds of
sinners to repent. But that was only a part of John the Baptist's
work. He came to be the forerunner of the Messiah, the Saviour, the
Redeemer.'
Be it so, my friends. I only hope that you really do believe that
John the Baptist did come to proclaim that a Saviour was born into
the world--provided only that you remember all the while who that
Saviour was. John the Baptist tells you who He was. If you will
only remember that, and get the thought of it into your hearts, you
will not be inclined to put any words of your own in place of the
prophet Malachi's, or to fancy that you can describe better than
Malachi what John the Baptist's work was to be; and that turning the
hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the
children to the fathers, was only a small part of John the Baptist's
work, instead of being, as Malachi says it was, his principal work,
his very work, the work which must be done, lest the Lord, instead
of saving the land, should come and smite it with a curse.
Yes--you must remember who it was that John the Baptist came to bear
record of, and to manifest or show to the Jews. The Angels on the
first Christmas Eve told us--they said it was _The Lord_, 'Unto
you,' they said, 'is born a Saviour, who is Christ, _The Lord_.'
John the Baptist told you and all mankind who it was--that it was
The Lord. 'The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye
the way of _the Lord_!'
_The Lord_. What Lord--Which Lord? John the Baptist knew. Simeon,
Anna, Nathaniel, all righteous and faithful hearts who waited for
the salvation of the Lord, knew. The Pharisees and Sadducees did
not know. The men who wrote our Creeds, our Prayer Book, our Church
Catechism, knew. The Pharisees and the Sadducees in our day, who
fancy themselves wiser than the Creeds, and the Prayer Book, and the
Church Catechism, do not know. May God grant that we may all know,
not only with our lips, but with our hearts, our faith, our love,
our lives, who The Lord is.
Jesus Christ, the babe of Bethlehem, is The Lord. But who is He?
The Bible tells us; when we have heard what the Bible tells us we
shall be able better to understand the text. The Lord is He of whom
it is written, 'And God said, Let us make man in our image, after
our likeness.' And who is God's image and God's likeness? The New
Testament tells us--Jesus Christ. In Him man was made. He is the
Son of Man, who is in heaven--the true perfect pattern of man: but
He is also the image and likeness of God, the brightness of His
Father's glory, and the express image of His person. He is The
Lord. He is the Lord who instituted marriage, and said, 'It is not
good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help-meet for
him.' He is the Lord who said to man, 'Be fruitful and multiply:
fill the earth and subdue it.' He is the Lord who said to the first
murderer, 'Thy brother's blood crieth against thee from the ground.'
He is the Lord who talked with Abraham face to face as a man talks
with his friend; who blest him by giving him a son in his old age,
that he might be the father of many nations. He is the Lord who, on
Mount Sinai, gave those Ten Commandments, the foundation of all law
and right order between man and God, between man and man:--'Thou
shalt honour thy father and thy mother. Thou shalt do no murder.
Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt
not bear false witness in courts of law or elsewhere. Thou shalt
not covet thy neighbour's property.'
This is The Lord. Not a God far away from men; who does not feel
for them, nor feel with them; not a God who despises men, or has an
ill-will to men, and must be won over to change his mind, and have
mercy on them, by many supplications and tears, and fear and
trembling, and superstitious ceremonies. But this is The Lord, this
is the babe of Bethlehem, this is He whose way John the Baptist came
to prepare--even He of whom it is written, that He possessed wisdom,
the simple, practical human wisdom, useful for this everyday earthly
life of ours, which Solomon sets forth in his Proverbs, in the
beginning before His works of old; and that when He appointed the
foundations of the earth, that Wisdom was by Him, as one brought up
with Him, and she was daily His delight; rejoicing alway before Him;
rejoicing in the _habitable_ parts of the earth; and her delights
were _with the sons of men_.
In one word, He is the Lord, in whose likeness man is made. Man's
justice is a pattern of His; man's love is a pattern of His; man's
industry a pattern of His; man's Sabbath-rest, in some unspeakable
and eternal way, a pattern of His. Man's family ties are patterns
of His. God the Father is He, said St. Paul, from whom every
fathership in heaven and earth is named, that we may be such fathers
to our children as God is to us. God The Son is He who is not
ashamed to call us brethren, and to declare to us the glorious news,
that in Him we, too, are the sons of God, that we may be such sons
to our heavenly Father--ay, and to our earthly fathers also, as the
Lord Jesus was to His Father.
Yes--and even more wonderful still, and more blessed still, the Lord
is not ashamed to call himself a husband. Our human wedlock and
married love is a pattern of some divine mystery. 'Husbands love
your wives, as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for
it, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not
having spot or wrinkle, but that it should be holy and without
blemish.' Blessed words, which we cannot pretend to explain or
understand, but can only believe and adore, and find, as we shall
find, in proportion as we are loving and faithful in wedlock, that
God's Spirit bears witness with our spirit, that they are
reasonable, blessed, true; true for ever.
This, then, was the Lord who was coming to judge these Jews; not
merely a god, but _The_ God. The Lord, in whose likeness man was
made; who had appointed men to be fathers, sons, husbands, citizens
of a nation, owners of property, subject to laws, and yet _makers_
of laws; because all these things, in some wonderful way, are parts
of His likeness. He was coming to this nation of the Jews first,
and then to all the nations of the earth, to judge them, Malachi
said, with a great and terrible day. To lay the axe to the root of
the tree; to cut down from the very root the evil principles which
were working in society. His fan was in His hand; and He would
thoroughly purge His floor; and gather His wheat into the garner,
for the use of future generations: but the chaff, all that was
empty, light, and useless, He would burn up and destroy utterly out
of the way, with unquenchable fire. He would inquire of every man,
How have you kept my image; my likeness, in which I made you? What
sort of husbands, fathers, sons, neighbours, subjects, and
governors, have you been? And above all, Malachi says, the root
question of all would be, what sort of fathers have you been to your
children? What sort of children to your fathers? Does that seem to
you a small question, my friends? Would you have rather expected to
hear John the Baptist ask, what sort of saints they had been? What
sort of doctrines they were professing?
A small question? Look at these two little words, Father and Son.
Father and Son! Are they not the most deep and awful, as well as
the most blessed and hopeful words on earth? Do they not tell us
the very mystery of God's being? Are they not the very name of God,
God The Father and God The Son, knit together by one Holy Spirit of
Love to each other and to all, who proceeds alike from The Father
and from The Son? And then, will you think it a light matter to ask
fallen creatures made in the likeness of that perfect Father and
that perfect Son, what sort of fathers and sons they have been? God
help us all, and give us grace to ask ourselves that question
morning and night, before the great and terrible day of the Lord
come, lest He come and smite this land with a curse.
I have been led to think deeply and to speak openly upon this solemn
matter, my friends, by seeing, as who can help seeing, the great
division and estrangement between the old and the young which is
growing up in our days. I do not, alas! I cannot, deny the
complaints which old people commonly make. Old people complain that
young people are grown too independent, disobedient, saucy, and what
not. It is too true, frightfully, miserably true, that there is not
the same reverence for parents as there was a generation back;--that
the children break loose from their parents, spend their parents'
money, choose their own road in life, their own politics, their own
religion, alas! too often, for themselves;--that young people now
presume to do and say a hundred things which they would not have
dreamed in old times. And they are ready enough to cry out that all
this is a sign of the last days, of which, they say, St. Paul speaks
in 2 Tim. iii. 4--when men 'shall be disobedient to parents,
unthankful, boasters, heady, high-minded, despisers of those who are
good, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.' My friends, my
friends, it is far better for us who have children, instead of
prying into the times and seasons which God has kept in His own
hand, to read our Bibles faithfully, and when we quote a text, quote
the whole of it, and not just those bits of it which help us to
throw blame on other people. What St. Paul really says, is that 'in
the last days evil times will come;' just as they had come, he
shows, when he wrote; and what he means I will try and show you
presently. And, moreover, remember that Malachi says, that the
hearts of the parents in Judea needed turning to their children, as
well as the hearts of the children to their parents. Take care lest
it be not so in England now. Remember that St. Paul, in that same
solemn passage, gives other marks of 'last days,' which have to do
with parents as well as with children, and some which can only have
to do with parents--for they are the sins of grown-up and elderly
people, and not of young ones. He says, that in those days men
shall also be 'covetous, proud, without natural affection, breakers
of their word, blasphemers; having a form of godliness, but denying
the power thereof.' Will none of these hard words hit some grown
people in our day? Will not they fill some of us with dread, lest
the parents now-a-days should be as much in fault as the children of
whom they complain; lest the parents' sins should be but too often
the cause of the children's sins? Read through St. Paul's sad list
of sins, and see how every young man's sin in it has some old man's
sin corresponding to it. St. Paul does not part his list, and I
dare not, and cannot. St. Paul mixes the parents' and the
children's sins together in his words, and I fear that we do the
same in our actions.
Oh! beware, beware, you who complain of the behaviour of children
now-a-days, lest your children have as much cause to complain of
you. Are your children selfish, lovers of themselves?--See that you
have not set them the example by your own covetousness or laziness.
Are they boastful?--See that your pride has not taught them.
Incontinent and profligate?--See that your own fierceness has not
taught them. If they see you unable to master your own temper, they
will not care to try to master their appetites. Are they
disobedient and unthankful?--See, well, then that your want of
natural affection to them, your neglect, and harshness, and want of
feeling and tenderness, has not made the balance of unkindness
fearfully even between you. Are your children disobedient to you?--
See that you have not taught them to be so, by breaking your word to
them, by letting them see you deceitful to others, till they have
lost all trust in you, all reverence for you. Above all, are your
children lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God?--Oh! beware,
beware, lest you have made them so,--lest you have been blasphemers
against God, even when you have been fancying that you talked
religion. Beware lest you have been teaching them dark, cruel,
superstitious thoughts about God,--making them look up to Him not as
their heavenly Father, but as a stern taskmaster whom they must
obey, not from gratitude, but from fear of hell, and so have made
God look so unlovely in their eyes that 'there is no beauty in Him
that they should desire Him.' Can you wonder at their loving
pleasure rather than loving God, when you show them nothing in God's
character to love, but everything to dread and shrink from? And
last of all, are your children despisers of those who are good,
inclined to laugh at religion, to suspect and sneer at pious people,
and call them hypocrites? Oh! beware, beware, lest your lip-
religion, your dead faith, your inconsistent practice, has not been
the cause of it. If you, as St. Paul says, have a form of
godliness, and yet in your life and actions deny the power of it, by
living without God in the world, and following the lowest maxims of
the world in everything but what you call the salvation of your
souls, what wonder if your children grow up despisers of those who
are good? If they see you preaching one thing, and practising
another, they will learn to fancy that all godly people do the same.
If they see your religion a sham, they will learn to fancy all
religion false also. Oh! woe, woe, most terrible, to those who thus
harden their own children's hearts, and destroy in them, as too many
do, all faith in God and man, all hope, all charity! Woe to them!
for the Lord Himself, who came to lay the axe to the root of the
tree, said of such, 'If any man cause one of these little ones to
offend, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about
his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea.'
So it is too often now-a-days, and so it will be, until people
condescend to learn over again that simple old Church Catechism
which they were taught when they were little, and to teach it to
their children, not only with their lips but in their lives.
'The Church Catechism!' some here will say to themselves with a
smile, 'that is but a paltry medicine for so great a disease--a
pitiful ending, forsooth, to such a severe sermon as this, to
recommend just the Church Catechism!' Let those laugh who will, my
friends. If you think you can bring up your children to be
blessings to you,--if you think you can live so as to be blessings
to your children, without the Church Catechism, you can but try. I
think that you will fail. More and more, year by year, I find that
those who try do fail. More and more, year by year, I find that
even religious people's education of their children fails, and that
pious men's sons now-a-days are becoming more and more apt to be
scandals to their parents and to religion. If any choose to say
that the reason is, that the pious men's sons were not of the number
of the elect, though their fathers were, I can only answer, that God
is no respecter of persons, and that they say that He is; that God
is not the author of the evil, and that they say that He is. If a
child of mine turns out ill, I am bound to lay the fault first on
myself, and certainly never on God,--and so is every man, unless the
inspired Scripture is wrong where it says, 'Train up a child in the
way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.'
And the fault _is_ in ourselves. Very few people really teach their
children now-a-days the Church Catechism; very few really believe
the Church Catechism; very few really believe that God is such an
one as the Church Catechism declares to us; very few believe in the
Lord, in whose image and likeness man is made, whose way John the
Baptist prepared by turning the hearts of the fathers to the
children. They put, perhaps, religious books into their children's
hands, and talk to them a great deal about their souls: but they do
not tell their children what the Church Catechism tells them,
because they do not believe what the Church Catechism tells them.
What that is; what the Church Catechism does tell us, which the
favourite religious books now-a-days do not tell us; and what that
has to do with turning the hearts of the fathers to the children, I
must tell you hereafter. God grant that my words may sink into all
hearts, as far as they are right and true; if sooner or later we are
not all brought to understand the meaning of those two simple words,
Father and Son, neither Baptism, nor Confirmation, nor Schools, nor
this Church, nor the very body and blood of Him who died for us, to
share which you are all called this day, will be of avail for the
well-being of this parish, or of this country, or any other country
upon earth. For where the root is corrupt, the fruit will be also;
and where family life and family ties, which are the root and
foundation of society, are out of joint, there the Nation and the
Church will decay also; as it is written, 'If the foundations be
cast down, what can the righteous do?'
And whensoever, in any family, or nation and church, the root of the
tree (which is the conduct of parents to children, and of children
to parents) grows corrupt and rotten, then 'last days,' as St. Paul
calls them, are indeed come to it, and evil times therewith; for the
Lord will surely lay the axe to the root of it, and cut it down and
cast it into the fire: neither will the days of that family, or
that people, or that Church, be long in the land which the Lord
their God has given them. So it has been as yet, in all ages and in
all countries on the face of God's earth, and so it will be until
the end. Wheresoever the hearts of the fathers are not turned to
the children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers, there
will a great and terrible day of the Lord come; and that nation,
like Judaea of old, like many a fair country in Europe at this
moment, will be smitten with a curse.