Peter felt uneasy in the presence of that pure eye, and he also
felt, and was mistaken in feeling, that somehow or other he would be
safer if he was not so near the Master. Well, if it were true that
Jesus Christ brought God near to him, and if it were true that the
proximity of God was the revelation of his blackness and the
premonition and prophecy of evil to himself, would getting Christ
out of the boat help him much? The facts would remain the same. The
departure of the physician does not tend to cure the disease; and
thus the cry,' Go away from me because I am sinful,' was all but
ludicrous if it had not been so tragical in its misapprehension of
the facts of the case and the cure for them.
Now the parallel to that, with you and me, is--what? How do we
commit this same error? By trying to get rid of the thoughts which
evoke these uncomfortable feelings of being impure and in peril. But
does ceasing to remember the facts make any difference in the facts?
Surely not. Just recall for a moment the many ways in which people
manage to blind themselves to these plain, and to some of us
unwelcome, truths. You may do it by availing yourselves of that
strange power that we all have, of not attending to things that we
do not like to think about. It is a strange thing that a man should
be able to do that; it is a sad thing that any man should be fool
enough to do it. But there are many among my hearers, I have no
doubt whatever, who know that if they were to let their thoughts
dwell on the facts of their own characters and relation to God they
would be uncomfortable, and who, therefore, do their best to keep
such thoughts at a safe distance. So, as soon as the sermon is over,
some of you will begin to criticise me, or to discuss politics, or
gossip, and so get rid of the impressions that the truth might
produce. Or you fling yourselves into business. One of the reasons
for the fierce energy which some men throw into their common
avocations is their knowledge that if they have leisure, there may
come into their chambers, and sit down beside them there, these
unwelcome thoughts, that kill mirth. Some of you try to get rid of
the Christ out of your boat by another way. You plunge into
sensualism, and live in the low, vulgar atmosphere of fleshly
delight and sensuous excitements in order to drown thought. And some
of you do it by the even simpler process of merely giving no heed to
such thoughts when kindled. The fire, unfed and unstirred, goes out.
That is one way in which people come to have consciences, to use the
dreadful words of the New Testament, 'seared as with a hot iron.' If
you will only never listen to it, it will stop speaking after a
while, and then you will have an exemption from all these thoughts.
When Felix first heard about temperance and righteousness and
judgment to come he trembled, but paid no heed to his tremor, and
said, 'Go away for this time, and when I am not busy at anything
else, I will have thee back again.' He did have Paul back again many
a time, and communed with him, but we never read that he trembled
any more. The impression is not always reproduced, although the
circumstances that produced it at first may be. The most
impenetrable armour in which to clothe oneself against the sword of
the Spirit is hammered out of former convictions that were never
acted on. A soul cased in these is very hard to get at.
But consider the folly of seeking to get rid of truth, however
unwelcome, under the delusion that it ceases to be true because we
cease to look at it. Christ's leaving the boat would not have helped
Peter. The facts remained, however he refused to look at them. If he
could have changed them by getting rid of Him who reminded him of
them, it might have been worth while to send Him away--but to
dismiss the physician is a new way of curing the disease. Pain is an
alarm bell for the physical nature to point to something wrong
there, and this sense of evil, this shrinking from God regarded as
the judge, is the alarm bell in the spiritual nature to warn of
something wrong there. Do you think that you banish the danger for
which the alarm bell is rung because you wrap a clout round the
clapper so as to prevent it from sounding? and do you think that you
make it less true that 'every transgression and disobedience shall
receive its just recompense of reward' by bidding your conscience
hold its peace when it tells you so, or by trying to drown its voice
amidst the shouts of revelry, or the whirr of spindles, or the roar
of traffic? By no means. The facts remain; and nothing except what
deals with the facts is the cure which a wise man will adopt.
You remember the old story of the king of Babylon who sat feasting
on the night when the city was captured. When the Finger came out
and wrote upon the wall, 'Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin,' it did not
stop the feast. They went on with their rioting, and whilst they
were carousing, the enemy was creeping up the dried bed of the
diverted river, 'and in that night was Belshazzar slain' amidst his
wine-cups, and the flowers on his temples were dabbled with his
blood. No more insane way of curing the consciousness of sin and the
dread of judgment than that of stifling the voice that evokes it was
ever dreamed of in an asylum.