'Then they said one to another, We do not well; this day is a day of
good tidings, and we hold our peace; if we tarry till the morning
light, some mischief will come upon us; now therefore come, that we may
go and tell the king's household.'--2 KINGS vii. 9.
The city of Samaria was closely besieged, and suffering all the horrors
of famine. Women were boiling and eating their children, and the most
revolting garbage was worth its weight in silver. Four starving lepers,
sitting by the gate, plucked up courage from the extremity of their
distress, and looking in each other's bloodshot eyes, whispered one to
another, with their hoarse voices: 'If we say we will enter into the
city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there; and if we
sit still here we die also. Now therefore come, and let us fall unto
the host of the Syrians; if they save us alive we shall live; and if
they kill us we shall but die.' So in the twilight they stole away. As
they come near the camp there is a strange silence; no guards, no stir.
They creep to the first tent and find it empty; and then another, and
another, and another, till at last it admits of no doubt that certainly
the enemy has gone, leaving all his baggage behind him, So for awhile
they feast and plunder--small blame to them! And then conscience wakes,
and the same thought occurs to each of them: 'This is not patriotic;
this is scarcely human; it is a shame for us to be sitting here gorging
ourselves whilst a city is starving within a stone's-throw.' So they
say one to another in the words of my text.
Now these men's consciousness of the obligation imposed upon them by
the knowledge of glad news, their self-reproach for their silence,
their conviction that retribution would fall on them if it continued,
and their resolve therefore to clear themselves, may all be transferred
to higher regions, and may fairly illustrate Christian responsibilities
and duties.
I wish to say one or two very homely, plain things about Christian
men's obligation to speech, and the sin of their silence. My remarks
will have no special reference to any particular forms of Christian
activity, but if I succeed in impressing on any a deeper sense of duty
in reference to declaring the Gospel than they possess, then all forms
of it will be prosecuted with greater vigour and consecration.
I. I wish first to dwell for a moment on that--I was going to use a
plain word and say--_hideous_; I will substitute a milder term, and
say--_remarkable_, fact of Christian silence.
I take this congregation as a fair average representative of the
ordinary habitudes of professing Christians of this generation. How
many men and women there are sitting in these pews, who, if I asked
them the question, would say that they were Christians? and what
proportion of these, if I asked them the further question, 'Did you
ever tell anybody anything about Jesus Christ?' would say, 'No, never!'
I know this, that in regard to all the recognised and associated forms
of Christian work which cluster round a Christian congregation, it is
the same handful of people that do them all. It is just like the bits
of glass in a kaleidoscope, there are not many of them though you can
shake them up into a great number of patterns, but they are always the
very same bits. So I could go through pew after pew, if it would not be
very personal, and find men and women, one after another--rows of
them--that, so far as any of the united work of a church goes, are
absolutely idle. They are worthy kind of people, too, with some real
religion in them; but yet, partly from shyness, partly from indolence,
partly because (as they think) they have so much else to do, and for a
number of other reasons that I do not need to dwell upon, they fall
into the great army of idlers, and are just so much dead weight and
surplusage, as far as the work of the Church is concerned.
Now I do not mean to say that, because professing Christian people do
not work in any recognised forms of Christian service which are
attached to a congregation, therefore they are not doing anything. God
forbid! There are many of you, for instance, mothers of families, whose
best service is to speak about Jesus Christ to your children, and to
live according as you speak, and that is work enough for you. There are
many more of us, who, for various legitimate reasons, are precluded
from taking part in organised forms of Christian service. Do not so
fatally misunderstand me as to suppose that I am merely beating a drum
to get recruits for societies. What I want to impress upon every
Christian person listening to me now is simply this, the anomaly of the
fact, if it be a fact, that you are a _dumb_ Christian. You can all
speak, if you will; you all have people with whom your speech is
weighty and powerful. There are doors open before each of you. Ask
yourselves, have you gone in at the open doors? or is it true about you
that you have never felt the obligation to make your Master known to
others, or, at all events, have never felt it so strongly that it
compelled you to obey? The strange fact of Christian silence is one
that I emphasise to begin with.