Sermons on Biblical Characters Part 8

And then Pharaoh offered a third compromise. He said, "I will let the people go, but they must not go far." Why was that? For the very human reason that he wanted the privilege of getting them back. He said, for instance, "I will obey G.o.d, but I do not want to promise to make my obedience permanent." You have seen plenty of instances of that. Here is a man who has decided to be a Christian, but he won't join the church. He wants to see how he gets along first. Such a man is already making provision for going back. "Take up thy bed," said the Master to the paralyzed man whom He had healed. He ever wants us to make a complete break with the past.

But the plagues grow worse. Pharaoh is becoming more and more frightened. While the scare is on he promises again and again that he will obey the Lord unconditionally. There was a terrible storm, you remember. The hail stones fell like shrapnel and the lightning dropped from the clouds and fairly played along the earth, and terror gripped the King's heart. And he sends for Moses. When Moses comes he tells him, all atremble, "I have sinned this time. I will let the people go." But when the storm ceases and the sun s.h.i.+nes out he is quite ashamed of his weakness. He is so ashamed that he forgets altogether the promise that he made when the fear of death was upon him.

This is a side of human nature that is a bit disgusting, yet we dare not shut our eyes to it. There are scores listening to me at this very moment who have acted for all the world as Pharaoh acted. And you have done so with all the light that he had and far more. I do not know of a man that is in greater danger of being ultimately lost than that man who never cares for religion except when he is scared. Because the truth of the matter is that a man of that kind does not care for goodness or for G.o.d at all. Not even in his moments of most abject terror does he want to be truly saved. He simply wants to escape the results of his sin. He does not want to pay the penalty for wrong doing. He wants to defeat the ends of justice. He is not interested in being good and pure and true. He is simply interested in keeping out of h.e.l.l.

How patient G.o.d was with Pharaoh. We are amazed at it till we think how infinitely patient He has been with ourselves. By storm, by black night, by adversity after adversity, G.o.d is doing His best to fight Pharaoh back from the Bed Sea. He is doing all He can to turn him away from committing suicide in body and suicide in soul. But Pharaoh, as some of ourselves, seemed absolutely greedy for d.a.m.nation. He seemed completely bent on working out his own utter destruction.

After the king had broken one vow after another and lied and lied and lied again, G.o.d brought the last dark providence into his life. He made one final effort to save him from his ruin. Pharaoh was called to kneel by the coffin of his first born. And his hard heart seemed softened at last. By the grave of the Crown Prince he made a solemn vow that he would obey G.o.d. And he set about putting the vow into execution at once. And the children of Israel were not only allowed to go, but they were hurried out of Egypt.

At last, at last, we say, with what infinite expense the man is brought to obey. But would you believe it the gra.s.s had not yet grown green upon the grave of his boy till he forgot his vow and turned back to the old life again. Oh, what a grip sin gets on us. Oh, how blind we become if we persistently refuse to follow the light. So Pharaoh brushed his tears out of his eyes, gathered his army and set out after the departing children of Israel.

I see the bustle and hurry of the setting out. I see the look of hate on the king's face as he comes within sight of his one time slaves. He laughs a mirthless laugh as he sees their predicament. They are shut in on either side. The sea is in front and he and his army in the rear. What a sweet revenge he is going to have.

But look. Something has happened. There is a path through the sea.

These hunted slaves are marching in. But it doesn't matter. Wherever Israel can go, the Egyptians can go. So he and his army march in behind. They keep the Israelites in sight. Now in the distance they see that the last Israelite has reached dry land.

And then there is a great shriek that is quickly choked. The waters have come together again. The sea waves roar about these struggling soldiers like liquid hate. The King is forgotten. His men are madly trying to save themselves. A jeweled hand flashes in the light for a moment. There is an oath, a cry for help, a gulp, and silence. And the hungry sea has its prey.

Pharaoh, why are you here? And if those dead lips could speak he would say, "I am here because I persistently refused to obey G.o.d. He offered me the best and I spurned it and spurned it again till at last He threw me here. He did it because I made it impossible for Him to do anything else." And as I look at this wreck I think how different the story might have ended. This man might have had a part in the making of a great people. He might have been a.s.sociated with Moses in giving to the world a new nation. He might even now be in the fellows.h.i.+p of Moses among the tall sons of the morning. For the difference between this man and the great man Moses is not in the fact that G.o.d purposed evil for the one and good for the other. It is in this, that one was obedient unto the heavenly vision, that one could say, "The grace that was bestowed upon me was not in vain," and the other resisted and kept resisting till he ran by every blockade that G.o.d could put in his path and plunged headlong into destruction.

IX

A SON OF SHAME--JEPHTHAH

_Judges 11:35_

"I have opened my mouth unto the Lord and I cannot go back." I like these big words. There is a ring of sterling strength in them. They have a robust masculinity that grips my heart. They are not the words of a weakling. They have absolutely no savor of softness or moral flabbiness. They are not cheap. They are high priced words. They are words made costly by a plentiful baptism of tragedy. They are words literally soaked in blood and tears.

This man Jephthah has made a vow. And now the hour is upon him in which it is his duty to make the vow good. His vow involves far more than he ever expected. But that fact does not cause him to be untrue.

He has given his promise. Pay day has come. His promise involves measureless sacrifice. To keep it is to put out every star in his sky.

It is to pluck up every flower in his garden. It is to change life's music into discord. It is to take from him the one he loves far better than he loves his own life. But even though the price is big, he will not refuse to pay it. Even though his promise is hard, he will keep it. "I have opened my mouth unto the Lord and I cannot go back."

Jephthah has had many hard things said about him. He has been wronged since before he was born. I do not think that justice has been done to his memory. Frankly, I think he is one of the most heroic souls of Old Testament history. It is true that he would not fully measure up to all our modern ideals, but remember this, he lived in the morning of human history. He lived when the light was dim. And he was true to the light that he had. He was true with a rugged fidelity that will cause him to rise up in the day of judgment and condemn many of us.

Jephthah, I say, has been greatly wronged. He never had a fair chance.

He was wronged in his very birth. He was the son of a father who was unfaithful to his marriage vows. Jephthah was a child of shame. His father had chosen to sacrifice upon the wayside altar. His father had had his fling. He had sown his wild oats, and of necessity there was a harvest. His father suffered, but sad to say, he was not the only sufferer.

How we need to be reminded again and again that no man ever sins alone.

No man ever walks from the path of virtue without he walks upon bruised and bleeding feet. He himself suffers, but what is sadder still, he causes somebody else to suffer. I cannot go to h.e.l.l alone. I cannot plunge out into the dark without involving another soul, at least in some measure, in my tragedy. This father sinned. It meant suffering for him. It also meant suffering for one who was altogether blameless.

It meant suffering for his boy.

Not only did Jephthah have as part of his life tragedy an unclean father, but he had an unclean mother as well. Jephthah's mother was not one of those unfortunate souls, more sinned against than sinning, who had made one false step for the sake of the man she loved. She was a professional outcast. She was a woman who made it her business day by day to sell herself over the counters of iniquity. She was one of those whose feet in all ages take hold on h.e.l.l.

So Jephthah had a bad chance. He was the fragment of a home that never was. He had no father that dared to own him. And the first eyes into which he looked were the eyes of an unclean woman. And the first lips that kissed him were lips soiled and stained by years of sinful living.

Poor little baby. Poor little foundling. Poor little outcast. How much he missed.

What are the most precious memories in your life to-night? What are the scenes to which you look back with deepest love and tenderness? I know. They are the scenes of your childhood's home.

"How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood, When fond recollection, presents them to view; The orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wildwood, And every loved spot that my infancy knew."

But the secret of the fascination of those dear scenes is this, that we saw them by the glow of the light of love. We think tenderly of our early homes because they were presided over by a father and mother who knew G.o.d. And the one cord that has failed to snap between us and a good life is the cord that ties us still to the faith of our fathers and our mothers.

But Jephthah missed all this. His father was unfaithful. His mother was an unclean woman. There were no tender and holy a.s.sociations that made it easy for him to be good. There were no memories to come in after years and whisper old half forgotten prayers. There were no fond recollections to lay their hands upon him with angelic tenderness and lead him away from his City of Destruction. He was a child of sin, a child of blackness and of night, a child bereft of the inspiration of a good mother's life and the sweet uplift of a pious home.

And not only was this man wronged in what he missed, he was equally wronged in what he suffered. Early he was branded with a shame not his own. I know of few places where society has been so unjust and unkind as it has in its condemnation of those innocent ones who are the victims of another's sin. We forget that every child comes into the world with the Father's kiss upon its clean soul regardless of the circ.u.mstances of its birth. We forget also that that child is no more to blame for those circ.u.mstances than it is to be blamed for the currents of the sea or for the darkness of the night.

But Jephthah was blamed. Ugly names were flung at him before he was old enough to know their dark and sinister meaning. He was forbidden to go to the big house of his father before he knew why he was not allowed to go. He was excluded from the games of those more fortunately born than he, when he could no more understand why he was excluded than he could keep back the bitter tears of childish disappointment. I can see him as he watches his half brothers and sisters play in the distance, and his little heart is lonely and he is hungry for a playmate. And the gate is shut in his face, the gate of a shame not his own.

By and by youthhood comes, and early manhood. The parental estate is to be divided. Jephthah is disinherited. He is driven from among his people. He is forced to flee for his life. And he goes to take refuge in Tob with its mountain fastnesses and with its rude heathens who are less unkind than those kinsmen of his who claim to be wors.h.i.+ppers of Jehovah.

So we have here the material out of which this young man is called on to build a life. He has no parentage. He has no kindred. He has no friends. n.o.body believes in him. Everybody expects him to go wrong.

It seems even at times as if everybody wanted him to go wrong. They said, "Oh, yes, I know him. I used to know his mother. She died in the gutter. You can't expect anything of him."

And it is not at all difficult to go down when everybody expects you to go down. It is a great thing to have somebody to trust you. That is a tremendous help. As long as you feel that there is somebody who counts on you, who believes in you, you are not without an anchor. I read the other day of a little newsboy who was given a quarter that he might get change. And on his way back he was run over and crushed by an auto.

And the last word he said was, "Be sure and hunt him up and give him back the change. He trusted me." But here is a young fellow exiled, robbed, persecuted and mistrusted. And out of this charred and ugly material he is called upon to build a life.

And what is the result? Well, he refused to surrender. He said, "If n.o.body else will believe in me I will believe in myself. Since n.o.body else will help me, I will help myself. If I am to be robbed of my inheritance I will make a way of my own." And so he set to work. He did not spend his time hunting up his neighbors to tell them of his misfortunes. He did not put in his time boasting of what he would do if he were as well off as his half brothers down in Israel. He went to work to build his fortune in the here and now. And little by little he won.

And then one day a runner came to him in the field and said, "Jephthah, you have company at your house." And the man looked up in surprise and said, "Company! Who is it?" "A committee of elders from Israel." And Jephthah is astonished. He is filled with wonder. He is trying to guess why they came. And with the problem unsolved he goes to meet his guests.

These elders greet him like a long lost son. They tell him how they rejoice in his prosperity. They informed him how they had always known that he would make good. They let him know that they would never have sent him out of Israel if they had had their way about it. And then at last they gather courage to tell him their errand. And they say, "Israel is being besieged by the Ammonites and we want you to come and be the commander-in-chief of our armies."

Well, now that was a shock. Here was a young fellow who began with nothing, and worse than nothing. But instead of whining, instead of quitting, instead of complaining that he had no chance, instead of putting in his time wis.h.i.+ng that he was somewhere else, he did his duty where he was. And folks found it out and came to kneel at his feet and ask him for help. And I am not saying, young man, that every man gets his just deserts, but I do say that in the overwhelming majority of cases, if a man is really any account, sooner or later somebody will find it out. It may be true that

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear.

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

But I doubt if any gem of real human worth ever lies permanently concealed. I seriously question if any radiant flower of human character ever wastes its sweetness on the desert air. Learn to do something that the world needs to have done and men will make a path to your door even if you live in a desert.

They came and asked Jephthah for help. It is a humiliating experience.

Now, I suppose those half brothers of Jephthah's down in Israel, those fellows who had scorned him in his childhood, those fellows who had robbed him of his share in the estate,--I suppose they did some loud talking about the general being a kinsman of theirs. Oh, they are very much like we are. We seldom boast of our relations.h.i.+p to an outcast, but if we are one hundred and first cousin to somebody who is prominent we are mighty apt to go about telling it.

Jephthah heard their request and promised to help them. I think that was fine of him. It would have been so easy for him to have said, "Oh, yes, you kicked me out when I was a little helpless waif. When I needed help you would not give it. When I needed help you laughed at my childish tears. Now you need help, I will laugh at you." But there was nothing of revenge in him. Wronged as he had been, he would not nurse his wrongs. He would not allow his bitter treatment to make him bitter.

I wish we all were so wise. You were injured years ago by somebody.

That somebody perchance was in the church. And so you have never had any use for the church since. You have never had any use much for anybody since. You have been snarling and snapping. Do you remember Miss Harrisham in "Great Expectations"? She was to be married. All arrangements were made. The wedding cake was on the table. But at twenty minutes to nine a cruel note came telling her that the groom was not coming. Therefore, the clocks were all stopped at twenty minutes to nine. The cake stood upon the table till it rotted. The blinds remained drawn and no sunlight was ever allowed in the house again.

And life for her stopped at twenty minutes to nine. One disappointment wrecked her, embittered her, made her throw her life away. But Jephthah refused to be embittered.

He consented to go. But before he undertook the campaign he stood beside the altar of G.o.d. This man had lived for years among heathens, but they had not heathenized him. He still stood true by the altar.

Circ.u.mstances were against him, but religion is not simply for the easy situations in which we find ourselves. Your test, as one has said, is not how good you can be if you have a devoted saint on either side of you down at the office. Your test is what your religion can do for you in the midst of a G.o.dless crowd. Daniel's G.o.d was tested not in the pleasant situations of his early home life. The test was among his foes. It is amidst the horrors of a lion's den that the king's question echoes, "Oh, Daniel, servant of the living G.o.d, is thy G.o.d whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee?"

Jephthah went to battle from the altar of prayer. As he went he made a vow. It is the vow for which he has been most severely criticized. It is a vow that has caused his name among some to be branded with shame.

He vowed that if G.o.d would give him the victory he would offer to Him whatever first came out of the door of his house to meet him on his return. It was a rash vow, I am ready to admit. Yet rash as it was, I do not find it in my heart to be severely critical of him. I rather join with Dr. Peck in my admiration. You know what is the matter with a great many of us smug church members? We are so prudent. We have such admirable possession of all our faculties. We are in danger of dying of self-control. This man in the white heat of his enthusiasm made a solemn pledge to the Lord of that which was destined to be infinitely the most precious thing in his life. But some of us in our prudence will not even make a pledge of a few dollars. We say we do not know how well we will be fixed next week or next month or next year.

You have heard of the man who subscribed $50 and refused to pay it, saying that he was too religious that day to look after his own interests. Some of us never get that religious. But all the encomiums throughout the Word of G.o.d are uttered upon those who are utterly rash in their giving. The widow foolishly gave away all that she had. And Mary squandered a whole box of ointment when a few drops would have been amply sufficient. But it was their mad recklessness that made them immortal.