Our second text brings into view the outer side of the devout life, that
which is turned to the world. The word is to be hidden in the heart, for
this very end of being then revealed in the life. For what other purpose
is it to be set in the centre of our being and applied to the springs of
action, than to mould action, and so to be displayed in conduct? It is
not to be hid like some forgotten and unused treasure in a castle vault,
but to be buried deep in a living person, that it may affect all that
person's character and acts. 'There is nothing hidden, but that it
should come abroad.' The deepest, sacredest, most secret Christian
experiences are to be operative on the outward life. A man may be caught
up into the third heavens and there hear words which mortal speech
cannot utter, but the incommunicable vision should tell on his patience
and fortitude, and influence his Christian work. Nor is our
manifestation of the springs of our action to be confined to conduct.
However eloquent it is, it will be all the more intelligible for the
commentary supplied by confession with the mouth. Speech for Christ is a
Christian obligation. 'What ye hear in the ear, that proclaim ye on the
housetops.' True, there is a legitimate reticence as to the depths of
personal religion, which needs very strong reasons to warrant its being
broken through. Peter told Mark nothing of the interview which he had
with Christ on the Resurrection morning, but he must have told the fact.
We shall do well to be silent as to what passes between Jesus and us in
secret; but we shall not do well if, coming from our private communion
with Him, we do not 'find' some to whom we can say, 'We have found the
Messiah,' and so bring them to Jesus.
The word, if hid in the heart, will certainly be manifest in the life.
For not only is it impossible for a man who deeply and continually
realises God's will, and lives in touch with Jesus Christ, to prevent
these experiences from visibly affecting His life and conduct, but also
in the measure in which we have that conscious inward possession of the
divine word and the divine Christ we shall be impelled to manifest them
to our fellows by every means in our power. What, then, is the inference
to be drawn from the fact that there are thousands of professing
Christian people in Manchester, who never felt the slightest touch of a
necessity to make known the Master whom they say they serve? They must
be very shallow Christians, having no depth of experience, or that
experience would insist on coming out. True Christian emotion is like a
fire smouldering within some substance, that never rests till it burns
its way to the outside. As one of the prophets puts it, 'I said I will
speak no more in Thy name'; he goes on to tell how his resolve of
silence gave way under the pressure of the unuttered speech--'Thy word
shut up in my bones was like a fire, and I was weary of forbearing and I
could not stay.' So it will always be. Every genuine conviction demands
utterance. A full heart needs the relief of speech. If you feel no need
to show your allegiance and love to Christ by speech as well as by life,
I shrewdly suspect you have little love or allegiance to hide.
Further, the more we show it, the more need there is for us to cultivate
the hidden element in our religion. If I were talking to ministers I
should have a great deal to say about that. There are preachers who
preach away their own religion. The two attitudes of mind in imparting
and in receiving are wholly different; and if one is allowed to encroach
upon the other, nothing but harm can come. 'As thy servant was busy here
and there, he was gone,'--that is the short account of the decay of
personal religion in many a life outwardly diligent in Christian work.
If there is a proportionate cultivation of the hidden self, then the act
of manifesting will tend to strengthen it. It is meant that our
Christian convictions and affections should grow in strength and in
transforming power upon ourselves, by reason of utterance; just as when
you let air in, the fire burns brighter. But it is quite possible that
we may dissipate and scatter our feeble religion by talking about it;
and some of us may be in danger of that. The loftier you mean to build
your tower, the deeper must be the foundation that you dig. The more any
of us are trying to do for Jesus Christ, the more need there is that we
increase our secret communion with Jesus Christ.
We may wrongly hide our religion so that it evaporates. Too many
professing Christians put away their religion as careless housewives
might do some precious perfume, and when they go to take it out, they
find nothing but a rotten cork, a faint odour, and an empty flask. Take
care of burying your religion so deep, as dogs do bones, that you cannot
find it again, or if you do discover, when you open the coffin, that it
holds only a handful of dry dust. The heart has two actions. In one it
opens its portals and expands to receive the inflowing blood which is
the life. In the other it contracts to drive the life through the veins.
For health there must be both motions; the receptiveness, in the secret
'hiding of the word in the heart'; the expulsive energy in the 'not
hiding Thy righteousness in my heart.'