CHARITY AND REBUKE.
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest
of these is charity.--1 COR. xiii. 13.
The second main point of difference between a true and a false
Charity, we want to remark, is, _Divine Charity is not only
consistent with, but it very often necessitates, reproof and rebuke
by its possessor_. It renders it incumbent on those who possess it
to reprove and rebuke whatever is evil--whatever does not tend to
the highest interests of its object.
This Charity conforms in this, as in everything else, to its Divine
model--"As many as I love I rebuke and chasten"--when necessary for
the good of its object, for He doth not _willingly_ afflict or
grieve the children of men, any more than a father willingly
chastises a disobedient child; but, if he be a wise father, he will
do it because he loves it. Just so the possessor of this Divine
Charity can afford to rebuke and reprove sin wherever he finds it. He
will not suffer sin upon his neighbor, but will in any wise reprove
him, and strive to win him to the right. We will just turn to a
beautiful illustration (there are many, if we had time to go into
them) of the working of this Divine Charity in the heart and life of
the very apostle who wrote this 13th of Corinthians. We cannot get
wrong, because it is Paul himself. (Gal. ii. 11-15.)
"But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face,
because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James,
he did eat with the Gentiles; but when they were come, he withdrew
and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.
And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that
Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. But when I
saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the
Gospel, I said unto Peter before _them_ all"--
Well done, Paul,--noble, gloriously courageous Charity that! He did
not go and mutter behind Peter's back and stab him in the dark--
"I said unto Peter _before them all_, If thou, being a Jew, livest after
the manner of the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou
the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? We _who are_ Jews by nature, and
not sinners of the Gentiles."
You want a characteristic of true Charity. Now, listen to it. It
would be exceedingly painful to Paul thus publicly to rebuke Peter.
They loved one another, for we find Peter, long after this, in one of
his Epistles, calling Paul "our beloved brother, Paul." They loved
one another. Paul understood the claims of true Charity, for he wrote
this thirteenth of Corinthians. If he loved Peter, and if he
understood the claims of true Charity, why did he thus openly rebuke
Peter, why did he inflict upon himself the pain of doing it?
Faithfulness to Peter himself, faithfulness to the truth,
faithfulness to Jesus Christ demanded it; therefore, he sacrificed
his own personal feelings, and inflicted this pain upon himself,
rather than allow Peter to go wrong, the Romans to be misled, and the
Jews to be carried away with worldly policy. Paul set himself to
rebuke Peter in the presence of all, for truth lay, as it very often
does, with the minority; nearly all the influence was on the side of
the circumcision. _They_ were the most influential of the
brethren, and Paul set himself against all this influence in his
rebuke of Peter. Why? Because faithfulness to the truth demanded it,
and Divine Charity is FIRST PURE.
There is a greater example still in our Lord Himself, in the Master
whose whole soul was love, whose life was one sacrifice for the good
of His creatures; and yet how faithfully He reproved His own when
they erred from the truth, and how fearlessly He exposed and
denounced the shallowness and hypocrisy of those who professed to
love God, and yet contradicted this profession in their lives. How
fearlessly He reproved sin everywhere. He said to his disciples on
one occasion, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the
Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." As
if He had said, you ought to have learned this before now.
On another occasion, He said, "Are ye also yet without
understanding?" And again, "Get thee behind me, Satan, for thou
savourest not the things that be of God;" that was Divine Charity,
that was faithful love, that dared to rebuke, rather than let the
object of it do wrong, and sin against God. And again, when He goes
to the hypocrites and Pharisees, He says, "Ye say ye are the children
of Abraham"--(it was as difficult for Jesus Christ to confute the
professors of His day, as it is for His ambassadors to confute the
professors of this day, who are living inconsistently with their
professions)--He said, "Ye say that ye are the children of Abraham;
if ye were the children of Abraham, ye would listen to me; or, if ye
were the children of God, ye would believe in me, for I came out from
God. No! ye are the children of your father, the devil, and his works
ye do." And yet His Divine heart was full, to breaking, of love, and
broke itself on the cross for them, and prayed, "Father, forgive
them; for they know not what they do." Oh, that your Charity and mine
might not lack this lineament of the Divine likeness! Would to God
there were more of this faithful, loving Charity, that dares to
reprove sin, and to rebuke its brother, instead of the false Charity
that fawns on a man to his face, and goes behind him and stabs him in
the back.
Do you suppose that the great mass of the professors of this
generation think one another to be right? Take almost any given
church. Do you suppose that the great mass of the members of that
church suppose in their hearts that their fellow members, brothers
and sisters in church communion, are living consistently--I don't
mean in _things_ only, but in heart--that they are living really
godly lives? Alas! witness what they say behind each other's backs.
They believe no such thing; they know perfectly well it is not so,
and they take care to tell other people so; and yet there is not one
in a thousand of them ever went privately to his brother, and took
lovingly hold of his hand, and reproved him for his sinful and
backsliding conduct.
What would be thought of any woman who were to go, after being to
church the day before, and ask for a private interview with Mrs. ----,
and, when alone with her, with tears in her eyes, and deep
earnestness in her voice, were to say, "Dear Mrs. ----, I have come to
see you on a very painful errand, but will you suffer a word of
exhortation from one so unworthy and weak as I feel myself to be, and
yet, I trust, one who has the Spirit of God, which urges me to come
to you? Will you allow me to say that I was much pained with your
attitude at church, yesterday. It seemed to me that your mind was not
at all occupied with the solemnity of the service, but seemed to be
occupied in criticising the person's dress in the seat opposite to
you, and I could not help noticing that when you got outside the
doors you began to laugh and talk in a way quite incompatible with
the service you had been attending?" If she were to say, "Dear Mrs. ----,
I have not mentioned this to a soul, not even to my husband, but I
have come to tell it to you; let us go down before the Lord and ask
Him for the Holy Spirit, that He may show you how wrong you are, and
how you are sliding away from the love of God"--what would be the
thought, what would be said, of such conduct?
If everybody who sees sin upon his neighbor would do that--if he
would take the Lord's counsel and go and see his brother alone, and
tell him his fault--how many would be saved from backsliding, and how
many a disgraceful split and controversy in churches might be saved!
But where are the people who will do it? I don't mean there are not
any--God forbid--I know there are; but I am speaking comparatively.
Where is the man who will inflict pain upon himself?--for that is the
point. If it were a pleasant duty, he would do it easily enough; but
it is a painful duty, he does not like to screw himself up to it.
Where is the man that will do it, rather than suffer his brother to
go to sleep in his sin, and rather than the precious cause of Christ
shall be disgraced and injured? Where are the saints who will go in
meekness and in love to try to reclaim the one who has erred? I hope
you know a great many. I am sorry to say I know only a few. If you
know many, I am very glad, and the more you know the better I am
pleased. If you are one of these, that is one, at all events. If
every Christian would have this sort of Charity, what a change would
soon come about. That is what the church wants--people who can afford
to rebuke and reprove, because they don't care what men think of THEM
--who are set only on pleasing their Lord and Master, and doing His
will.
Have you got this Charity that seeketh not her own? What a contrast
between Saul and Paul. Did you ever think about it? What does he say?
"I went about to establish my own righteousness." That was his
inspiring motive; that was the spring of his action, before he got
true Charity; not that he cared for the kingdom of God, but he cared
for his own honor, glory, and exaltation, and wanted to stand well
with his nation. Then contrast him when he becomes Paul. What does he
say? "For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my
brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." _There_ is
Charity, if you like. These were the very people with whom he had
been so anxious to stand well, and whose good word he wanted; but,
when the Holy Ghost had come, and Paul had got the Divine Charity,
and got his eyes opened to see their devilish and lost condition, he
so weeps over them that he says, "I have great heaviness and
continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were
accursed from Christ, for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the
flesh."
_There is a contrast_. He does not care now, what they think of
HIM; he is going about, trying to open their eyes and make them see
that they are not the children of Abraham, but the children of the
devil, that they are going to the bottomless pit, and that, unless
they turn round and seek the God of their fathers, they must perish.
Self is lost sight of altogether, now; Paul's heart and soul and
efforts are set on the salvation of men. If they choose to; praise
him, he takes it as a matter of course; if they choose to condemn
him, he takes that as a matter of course, too. He is seeking the
kingdom, and, however men treat him, the kingdom he seeks, right on
to martyrdom. He runs the gauntlet of their direst hate and malice,
that he may open their eyes and turn them from Satan to God, and from
sin to righteousness. Self is lost sight of; it is not Paul now--it
is Christ and His kingdom.
False Charity is the opposite of this. Its possessor is most
concerned about what people think of HIM; not how they treat his
professed Lord. The possessor of false Charity cannot afford to
reprove anybody. Oh, dear, no! he would faint at the very idea; and
he calls people hard and legal and censorious who dare to do it--poor,
sneaking coward! but he will not be afraid to stab a man behind
his back. The speech of this false Charity betrayeth it, it
flattereth with its lips; honey is on its tongue, but the poison of
asps is underneath; beware of it! Even when it professes to commend a
brother, or neighbor, it rolls up its sanctimonious eyes, and always
puts a "but" in--one of the devil's "buts." "Oh, he is a good man,
but--." "Yes, I have a great esteem for him, only there is such and
such a thing." Oh, it is very Divine. The devil can put on a garb of
light when it answers his purpose. Oh, the fair reputations that this
slime of the serpent has trailed over! Oh, the influence for good
that this venom of the devil has poisoned and ruined, for it has
been, truly said, "There is no virtue so white that back-wounding
calumny will not strike"--even in God's perfect man, those who are
watching and seeking to betray can find something on which to ground
their accusations.
I say, mind which Charity you have got True Charity, rejoiceth not
in iniquity. Are you conscious in your soul of a feeling of triumph
when anybody that you don't like happens to fall on some evil thing?
If you have, look out--the devil has got hold of you. Do you rejoice
in iniquity when it happens to an enemy? If so, woe be to you, unless
you get that venom out. God won't have it in Heaven. _One man with
that venom in him would damn Paradise_, "Love your enemies"--love
them; "bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and
pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye
may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven." Now, my
brother, my sister, try yourself. "We shall meet again, and you will
find that these are no imaginary vagaries that I have been talking
of; they are realities--though these great realities of our Christianity
are seldom preached in these days; but they are _here_, and there is no
truth in you if you have not got the Charity which hates evil as evil,
and which will reprove it, and root it out, and have it _cured_!"
Here, again, false Charity is the very antipodes of the Divine. It
does not care much about righteousness. Quietness is its beau ideal
of all that is lovely and excellent. It says, "Let us be quiet; you
must not disturb the peace of the church." It cries, "Peace, peace!"
when there is no peace. It says, "We cannot help these evils. Every
man must look after himself; we are not responsible for our
neighbor." It knows very often that there are continents of dirt
underneath--"things," and "systems," and men--which it chooses to
patronize; but then, it is covered up, and so it says, "Let it alone;
we cannot have a smudge. Let it alone. Peace! Peace! Never mind
righteousness--the church must be supported, if the money does come
out of the dried-up vitals of drunkards and harlots; never mind, we
must have it. Never mind if our songs are mixed with the shrieks of
widows and orphans, of the dying and damned! Sing away, sing away,
and drown their voices. Never mind; we cannot have it looked into,
and rooted out, and pulled up. Peace; we must have peace!" And they
call you, as Ahab did Elijah, the disturber of Israel, if you dare to
touch the sore place and exhibit their putrifying wounds and bruises;
and when you say to them, "The law of life is, 'Do unto others as you
would they should do unto you,'" they impudently turn upon you and
say, "But we are not expected to be perfect in this life," and so
they throw a thicker covering over the filth, and on it goes.
This is the devil's Charity; and the more the better for his
purpose. But the Charity and the wisdom which is from above, is first
pure, and then peaceable! I would rather be in everlasting warfare in
company with that which is fair, and true, and good, than I would
walk in harmony with that which is hollow, and rotten, and vile, and
destined for the bottomless pit. The Lord help you to make the same
choice!