"And Abimelech gat him up to Mount Zalmon, he and all the
people that were with him, and Abimelech took an ax in his
hand, and cut down a bough from the trees, and took it, and
laid it on his shoulder.... And all the people likewise cut
down every man his bough, and followed Abimelech, and put them
to the hold, and set the hold on fire upon them; so that all
the men of the tower of Shechem died also, about a thousand
men and women."--JUDGES ix: 48, 49.
Abimelech is a name malodorous in Bible history, and yet full of
profitable suggestion. Buoys are black and uncomely, but they tell
where the rocks are. The snake's rattle is hideous, but it gives
timely warning. From the piazza of my summer home, night by night I
saw a lighthouse fifteen miles away, not placed there for adornment,
but to tell mariners to stand off from that dangerous point. So all
the iron-bound coast of moral danger is marked with Saul, and Herod,
and Rehoboam, and Jezebel, and Abimelech. These bad people are
mentioned in the Bible, not only as warnings, but because there were
sometimes flashes of good conduct in their lives worthy of imitation.
God sometimes drives a very straight nail with a very poor hammer.
The city of Shechem had to be taken, and Abimelech and his men were to
do it. I see the dust rolling up from their excited march. I hear the
shouting of the captains and the yell of the besiegers. The swords
clack sharply on the parrying shields, and the vociferation of two
armies in death-grapple is horrible to hear. The battle goes on all
day, and as the sun is setting Abimelech and his army cry "Surrender!"
to the beaten foe. And, unable longer to resist, the city of Shechem
falls; and there are pools of blood, and dissevered limbs, and glazed
eyes looking up beggingly for mercy that war never shows, and dying
soldiers with their head on the lap of mother, or wife, or sister, who
have come out for the last offices of kindness and affection: and a
groan rolls across the city, stopping not, because there is no spot
for it to rest, so full is the place of other groans. A city wounded!
A city dying! A city dead! Wail for Shechem, all ye who know the
horrors of a sacked town!
As I look over the city I can find only one building standing, and
that is the temple of the god Berith. Some soldiers outside of the
city, in a tower, finding that they can no longer defend Shechem, now
begin to look out for their own personal safety, and they fly to this
temple of Berith. They get within the door, shut it, and they say,
"Now we are safe. Abimelech has taken the whole city, but he can not
take this temple of Berith. Here we shall be under the protection of
the gods." Oh, Berith, the god! do your best now for these refugees.
If you have eyes, pity them. If you have hands, help them. If you have
thunderbolts, strike for them.
But how shall Abimelech and his army take this temple of Berith and
the men who are there fortified? Will they do it with sword? Nay.
Will they do it with spear? Nay. With battering-ram, rolled up by
hundred-armed strength, crashing against the walls? Nay. Abimelech
marches his men to a wood in Zalmon. With his ax he hews off a limb of
a tree, and puts that limb upon his own shoulder, and then he says to
his men, "You do the same." They are obedient to their commander.
Oh, what a strange army, with what strange equipment! They come to the
foot of the temple of Berith, and Abimelech takes his limb of a tree
and throws it down; and the first platoon of soldiers come up and they
throw down their branches; and the second platoon, and the third,
until all around about the temple of Berith there is a pile of
tree-branches. The Shechemites look out from the windows of the temple
upon what seems to them childish play on the part of their enemies.
But soon the flints are struck, and the spark begins to kindle the
brush, and the flame comes up all through the pile, and the red
elements leap to the casement, and the woodwork begins to blaze, and
one arm of flame is thrown up on the right side of the temple, and
another arm of flame is thrown up on the left side of the temple,
until they clasp their lurid palms under the wild night sky, and the
cry of "Fire!" within, and "Fire!" without announces the terror, and
the strangulation, and the doom of the Shechemites, and the complete
overthrow of the temple of the god Berith. Then there went up a shout,
long and loud, from the stout lungs and swarthy chests of Abimelech
and his men, as they stood amid the ashes and the dust, crying:
"Victory! Victory!"
Now, I learn first from this subject the folly of depending upon any
one form of tactics in anything we have to do for this world or for
God. Look over the weaponry of olden times--javelins, battle-axes,
habergeons--and show me a single weapon with which Abimelech and his
men could have gained such complete victory. It is no easy thing to
take a temple thus armed. I saw a house where, during revolutionary
times, a man and his wife kept back a whole regiment hour after hour,
because they were inside the house, and the assaulting soldiers were
outside the house. Yet here Abimelech and his army come up, they
surround this temple, and they capture it without the loss of a single
man on the part of Abimelech, although I suppose some of the old
Israelitish heroes told Abimelech: "You are only going up there to be
cut to pieces." Yet you are willing to testify to-day that by no other
mode--certainly not by ordinary modes--could that temple so easily, so
thoroughly have been taken. Fathers and mothers, brethren and sisters
in Jesus Christ, what the Church most wants to learn this day is that
any plan is right, is lawful, is best, which helps to overthrow the
temple of sin, and capture this world for God. We are very apt to
stick to the old modes of attack.
We put on the old-style coat of mail. We come up with the sharp, keen,
glittering steel spear of argument, expecting in that way to take the
castle, but they have a thousand spears where we have ten. And so the
castle of sin stands. Oh, my friends, we will never capture this world
for God by any keen saber of sarcasm, by any glittering lances of
rhetoric, by any sapping and mining of profound disquisition, by any
gunpowdery explosions of indignation, by sharp shootings of wit, by
howitzers of mental strength made to swing shell five miles, by
cavalry horses gorgeously caparisoned pawing the air. In vain all the
attempts on the part of these ecclesiastical foot soldiers, light
horsemen, and grenadiers.
My friends, I propose this morning a different style of tactics. Let
each one go to the forest of God's promise and invitation, and hew
down a branch and put it on his shoulder, and let us all come around
these obstinate iniquities, and then, with this pile, kindled by the
fires of a holy zeal and the flames of a consecrated life, we will
burn them out. What steel can not do, fire may. And I, this morning,
announce myself in favor of any plan of religious attack that
succeeds--any plan of religious attack, however radical, however odd,
however unpopular, however hostile to all the conventionalities of
Church and State. We want more heart in our song, more heart in our
alms-giving, more heart in our prayers, more heart in our preaching.
Oh, for less of Abimelech's sword, and more of Abimelech's
conflagration! I have often heard
"There is a fountain filled with blood"
sung artistically by four birds perched on their Sunday roost in the
gallery, until I thought of Jenny Lind, and Nilsson, and Sontag, and
all the other warblers; but there came not one tear to my eye, nor one
master emotion to my heart. But one night I went down to the African
Methodist meeting-house in Philadelphia, and at the close of the
service a black woman, in the midst of the audience, began to sing
that hymn, and all the audience joined in, and we were floated some
three or four miles nearer heaven than I have ever been since. I saw
with my own eyes that "fountain filled with blood"--red, agonizing,
sacrificial, redemptive--and I heard the crimson plash of the wave as
we all went down under it:
"For sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains."
Oh, my friends, the Gospel is not a syllogism; It is not casuistry, it
is not polemics, or the science of squabble. It is blood-red fact; it
is warm-hearted invitation; it is leaping, bounding, flying good news;
it is efflorescent with all light; it is rubescent with all glow; it
is arborescent with all sweet shade. I have seen the sun rise on Mount
Washington, and from the Tip-top House; but there was no beauty in
that compared with the day-spring from on high when Christ gives light
to a soul. I have heard Parepa sing; but there was no music in that
compared with the voice of Christ when He said: "Thy sins are forgiven
thee; go in peace." Good news! Let every one cut down a branch of this
tree of life and wave it. Let him throw it down and kindle it. Let all
the way from Mount Zalmon to Shechem be filled with the tossing joy.
Good news! This bonfire of the Gospel shall consume the last temple of
sin, and will illumine the sky with apocalyptic joy that Jesus Christ
came into the world to save sinners. Any new plan that makes a man
quit his sin, and that prostrates a wrong, I am as much in favor of as
though all the doctors, and the bishops, and the archbishops, and the
synods, and the academical gownsmen of Christianity sanctioned it. The
temple of Berith must come down, and I do not care how it comes.
Still further, I learn from this subject the power of example. If
Abimelech had sat down on the grass and told his men to go and get the
boughs, and go out to the battle, they would never have gone at all,
or, if they had, it would have been without any spirit or effective
result; but when Abimelech goes with his own ax and hews down a
branch, and with Abimelech's arm puts it on Abimelech's shoulder, and
marches on--then, my text says, all the people did the same. How
natural that was! What made Garibaldi and Stonewall Jackson the most
magnetic commanders of this century? They always rode ahead. Oh, the
overcoming power of example! Here is a father on the wrong road; all
his boys go on the wrong road. Here is a father who enlists for
Christ; his children enlist.
I saw, in some of the picture-galleries of Europe, that before many of
the great works of the masters--the old masters--there would be
sometimes four or five artists taking copies of the pictures. These
copies they were going to carry with them, perhaps to distant lands;
and I have thought that your life and character are a masterpiece, and
it is being copied, and long after you are gone it will bloom or blast
in the homes of those who knew you, and be a Gorgon or a Madonna. Look
out what you say. Look out what you do. Eternity will hear the echo.
The best sermon ever preached is a holy life. The best music ever
chanted is a consistent walk.
I saw, near the beach, a wrecker's machine. It was a cylinder with
some holes at the side, made for the thrusting in of some long poles
with strong leverage; and when there is a vessel in trouble or going
to pieces out in the offing, the wreckers shoot a rope out to the
suffering men. They grasp it, and the wreckers turn the cylinder, and
the rope winds around the cylinder, and those who are shipwrecked are
saved. So at your feet to-day there is an influence with a tremendous
leverage. The rope attached to it swings far out into the billowy
future. Your children, your children's children, and all the
generations that are to follow, will grip that influence and feel the
long-reaching pull long after the figures on your tombstone are so
near worn out that the visitor can not tell whether it was in 1885, or
1775, or 1675 that you died.
Still further, I learn from this subject the advantages of concerted
action. If Abimelech had merely gone out with a tree-branch the work
would not have been accomplished, or if ten, twenty, or thirty men had
gone; but when all the axes are lifted, and all the sharp edges fall,
and all these men carry each his tree-branch down and throw it about
the temple, the victory is gained--the temple falls. My friends, where
there is one man in the Church of God at this day shouldering his
whole duty there are a great many who never lift an ax or swing a
blow.
Oh, we all want our boat to get over to the golden sands, but the most
of us are seated either in the prow or in the stern, wrapped in our
striped shawl, holding a big-handled sunshade, while others are
blistered in the heat, and pull until the oar-locks groan, and the
blades bend till they snap. Oh, religious sleepy-heads, wake up! While
we have in our church a great many who are toiling for God, there are
some too lazy to brush the flies off their heavy eyelids.
Suppose, in military circles, on the morning of battle the roll is
called, and out of a thousand men only a hundred men in the regiment
answered. What excitement there would be in the camp! What would the
colonel say? What high talking there would be among the captains, and
majors, and the adjutants! Suppose word came to head-quarters that
these delinquents excused themselves on the ground that they had
overslept themselves, or that the morning was damp and they were
afraid of getting their feet wet, or that they were busy cooking
rations. My friends, this is the morning of the day of God Almighty's
battle! Do you not see the troops? Hear you not all the trumpets of
heaven and all the drums of hell? Which side are you on? If you are on
the right side, to what cavalry troop, to what artillery service, to
what garrison duty do you belong? In other words, in what
Sabbath-school do you teach? in what prayer-meeting do you exhort? to
what penitentiary do you declare eternal liberty? to what almshouse do
you announce the riches of heaven? What broken bone of sorrow have you
ever set? Are you doing nothing? Is it possible that a man or woman
sworn to be a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ is doing nothing? Then
hide the horrible secret from the angels. Keep it away from the book
of judgment. If you are doing nothing do not let the world find it
out, lest they charge your religion with being a false-face. Do not
let your cowardice and treason be heard among the martyrs about the
throne, lest they forget the sanctity of the place and curse your
betrayal of that cause for which they agonized and died.
May the eternal God rouse us all to action! As for myself, I feel I
would be ashamed to die now and enter heaven until I have accomplished
something more decisive for the Lord that bought me. I would like to
join with you in an oath, with hand high uplifted to heaven, swearing
new allegiance to Jesus Christ, and to work more for His kingdom. Are
you ready to join with me in some new work for Christ? I feel that
there is such a thing as claustral piety, that there is such a thing
as insular work; but it seems to me that what we want now is concerted
action. The temple of Berith is very broad, and it is very high. It
has been going up by the hands of men and devils, and no human
enginery can demolish it; but if the fifty thousand ministers of
Christ in this country should each take a branch of the tree of life,
and all their congregations should do the same, and we should march on
and throw these branches around the great temples of sin, and
worldliness and folly, it would need no match, or coal, or torch of
ours to touch off the pile; for, as in the days of Elijah, fire would
fall from heaven and kindle the bonfire of Christian victory over
demolished sin. It is kindling now! Huzzah! The day is ours!
Still further, I learn from this subject the danger of false refuges.
As soon as these Shechemites got into the temple they thought they
were safe. They said: "Berith will take care of us. Abimelech may
batter down everything else; he can not batter down this temple where
we are now hid." But very soon they heard the timbers crackling, and
they were smothered with smoke, and they miserably died. And you and I
are just as much tempted to false refuges. The mirror this morning may
have persuaded you that you have a comely cheek; your best friends
may have persuaded you that you have elegant manners. Satan may have
told you that you are all right; but bear with me if I tell you that,
if unpardoned, you are all wrong. I have no clinometer by which to
measure how steep is the inclined plane you are descending, but I know
it is very steep. "Well," you say, "if the Bible is true I am a
sinner. Show me some refuge; I will step right into it."
I suppose every person in this audience this moment is stepping into
some kind of refuge. Here you step in the tower of good works. You
say: "I shall be safe here in this refuge." The battlements are
adorned; the steps are varnished; on the wall are pictures of all the
suffering you have alleviated, and all the schools you have
established, and all the fine things you have ever done. Up in that
tower you feel you are safe. But hear you not the tramp of your
unpardoned sins all around the tower? They each have a match. They are
kindling the combustible material. You feel the heat and the
suffocation. Oh, may you leap in time, the Gospel declaring: "By the
deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified."
"Well," you say, "I have been driven out of that tower; where shall I
go?" Step into this tower of indifference. You say: "If this tower is
attacked, it will be a great while before it is taken." You feel at
ease. But there is an Abimelech, with ruthless assaults, coming on.
Death and his forces are gathering around, and they demand that you
surrender everything, and they clamor for your immortal overthrow, and
they throw their skeleton arms in the windows, and with their iron
fists they beat against the door; and while you are trying to keep
them out you see the torches of judgment kindling, and every forest is
a torch, and every mountain a torch, and every sea a torch; and while
the Alps, the Pyrenees, and Himalayas turn into a live coal, blown
redder and redder by the whirlwind breath of a God omnipotent, what
will become of your refuge of lies?
"But," says some one, "you are engaged in a very mean business,
driving us from tower to tower." Oh, no. I want to tell you of a
Gibraltar that never has been and never will be taken; of a wall that
no satanic assault can scale; of a bulwark that the judgment
earthquakes can not budge. The Bible refers to it when it says: "In
God is thy refuge, and underneath thee are the everlasting arms." Oh,
fling yourself into it! Tread down unceremoniously everything that
intercepts you. Wedge your way there. There are enough hounds of death
and peril after you to make you hurry. Many a man has perished just
outside the tower, with his foot on the step, with his hand on the
latch. Oh, get inside! Not one surplus second have you to spare.
Quick, quick, quick!
Great God, is life such an uncertain thing? If I bear a little too
hard with my right foot on the earth, does it break through into the
grave? Is this world, which swings at the speed of thousands of miles
an hour around the sun, going with tenfold more speed toward the
judgment-day? Oh, I am overborne with the thought; and in the
conclusion I cry to one and I cry to the other: "Oh, time! Oh,
eternity! Oh, the dead! Oh, the judgment-day! Oh, Jesus! Oh, God!"
But, catching at the last apostrophe, I feel that I have something to
hold on to: for "in God is thy refuge, and underneath thee are the
everlasting arms." And, exhausted with my failure to save myself, I
throw my whole weight of body, mind, and soul on this divine promise,
as a weary child throws itself into the arms of its mother; as a
wounded soldier throws himself on the hospital pillow; as a pursued
man throws himself into the refuge; for "in God is thy refuge, and
underneath thee are the everlasting arms." Oh, for a flood of tears
with which to express the joy of this eternal rescue!