The Good News of God Part 18

You find it all through those glorious Psalms of his. He was no comfortable, book-read, second-hand Christian, who had an answer ready for every trouble, because he had never had any real trouble at all. David was not one of them. He had to go through a very rough training--very terrible and fiery trials, year after year; and had to say, again and again, 'I am weary of crying; my heart is dry; my heart faileth me for waiting so long upon my G.o.d. All thy billows and storms are gone over me. Thou hast laid me in a place of darkness, and in the lowest deep.' -

Not by sitting comfortably reading his book, but by such terrible trials as that, was David taught to trust G.o.d to the uttermost; and to learn that G.o.d's love was so perfect that he need never dread him, or torment himself with anxiety lest G.o.d should leave him to perish.

Hezekiah felt it, too, good man as he was, when he was sick, and like to die. And it was not for many a day that he found out the truth about these dark hours of misery, that by all these things men live, and in all these things is the life of the Spirit.

And this was Jacob's experience, too, on that most fearful night of all his life, when he waited by the ford of Jabbok, expecting that with the morning light the punishment of his past sins would come on him; and not only on him, but on all his family, and his innocent children; when he stood there alone by the dark river, not knowing whether Esau and his wild Arabs would not sweep off the earth all he had and all he loved; and knowing, too, that it was his own fault, that he had brought it all upon them by his own deceit and treachery.

Then, when his sins stared him in the face, and G.o.d rose up to judgment against him, he learnt to pray as he had never prayed before--a prayer too deep for words.

'And Jacob was left alone: and there wrestled a man with him till the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh; and the hollow of his thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, till thou bless me. And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of that place Peniel: for I have seen G.o.d face to face, and my life is preserved.'

So it may be with us. So it must be with us, in the dark day when our faith is really tried by terrible affliction.

We must begin as Jacob did. Plead G.o.d's promises, confess the mercies we have received already. 'I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies which thou hast showed to thy servant.'

Ask for G.o.d's help, as Jacob did: 'Deliver me, I pray thee, out of the hand of Esau my brother.' Plead his written promises, and the covenant of our baptism, which tell us that we are G.o.d's children, and G.o.d our Father, as Jacob did according to his light--'And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good.'

So the proud angry heart will perhaps pa.s.s out of us, and we shall set ourselves more calmly to face the worst, and to try if G.o.d's promises be indeed true, and G.o.d be indeed as he has said, 'Love.'

But do not be astonished, do not be disheartened, if, when the trouble comes, there comes with it, as to Jacob, a more terrible struggle far, a struggle too deep for words; if you find out that fine words and set prayers are nothing in the hour of need, and that you will not be heard for your much speaking. Ah! the darkness of that time, which perhaps goes on for days, for months, all alone between you and G.o.d himself. Clergymen and good people may come in with kind words and true words: but they give no comfort; your heart is still dark, still full of doubt; you want G.o.d himself to speak to your heart, and tell you that he is love. And you have no words to pray with at last; you have used them all up; and you can only cling humbly to G.o.d, and hold fast. One moment you feel like a poor slave clinging to his stern master's arm, and entreating him not to kill him outright. The next you feel like a child clinging to its father, and entreating him to save him from some horrible monster which is going to devour it: but you have no words to pray with, only sighs, and tears, and groans; you feel that you know not what to pray for as you ought, know not what is good for you; dare ask for nothing, lest it should be the wrong thing. And the longer you struggle, the weaker you become, as Jacob did, till your very bones seem out of joint, your very heart broken within you, and life seems not worth having, or death either.

Only hold fast by G.o.d. Only do not despair. Only be sure that G.o.d cannot lie; be sure that he who cared for you from your birth hour cares for you still; that he who loved you enough to give his own Son for you hundreds of years before you were born, cannot but love you still; do not despair, I say; and at last, when you are fallen so low that you can fall no lower, and so weak that you are past struggling, you may hear through the darkness of your heart the still small voice of G.o.d. Only hold fast, and let him not go until he bless you, and you shall find with Jacob of old, that as a prince you have power with G.o.d and with man, and have prevailed. And so G.o.d will answer you, as he answered Elijah, at first out of the whirlwind and the blinding storm: but at last, doubt it not, with the still small voice which cannot be mistaken, which no earthly ear can hear, but which is more precious to the broken heart than all which this world gives, the peace which pa.s.ses understanding, and yet is the surest and the only lasting peace.

But what is the secret of this strange awful struggle? Can you or I change G.o.d's will by any prayers of ours? G.o.d forbid that we should, my friends, even if we could; for his will is a good will to us, and his name is Love.

Do not be afraid of him. If you do, you are not made perfect in love; you have not yet learnt perfect the lesson of his great love to you. But what is the secret of this struggle? Why has any poor soul to wrestle thus with G.o.d who made him, before he can get peace and hope? Why is the trouble sent him at all? It looks at first sight a strange sort of token of G.o.d's love, to bring the creatures whom he has made into utter misery.

My friends, these are deep questions. There are plenty of answers for them ready written: but no answers like the Bible ones, which tell us that 'whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth; that these sorrows come on us, and heaviness, and manifold temptations, in order that the trial of our faith, being much more precious than that of gold, which perishes though it be tried with fire, may be found to praise, and honour, and glory at the appearance of Jesus Christ.' This is the only answer but it does not explain the reason. It only gives us hope under it. We do not know that these dreadful troubles come from G.o.d. The Bible tells us 'that G.o.d tempts no man; that he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.' The Bible speaks at times as if these dark troubles came from the devil himself; and as if G.o.d turned them into good for us by making them part of our training, part of our education; and so making some devil's attempt to ruin us only a great means of our improvement. I do not know: but this I do know, the troubles are here, and G.o.d is love. At least this is comfortable, that G.o.d will let no man be tempted beyond what he is able: but will with the temptation make a way for us to escape, that we may be able to bear it. At least this is comfortable, that our prayers are not needed to change G.o.d's will, because his will is already that we should be saved; because we are on his side in the battle against the devil, or the flesh, or the world, or whatever it is which makes poor souls and bodies miserable, and he on ours: and all we have to do in our prayers, is to ask advice and orders and strength and courage from the great Captain of our salvation; that we may fight his battle and ours aright and to the end. And, my friends, if you be in trouble, if your heart be brought low within you, remember, only remember, who the Captain of our salvation is. Who but Jesus who died on the cross--Jesus who was made perfect by sufferings, Jesus who cried out, 'My G.o.d! my G.o.d! why hast thou forsaken me?'

If Christ had to be made perfect by sufferings, much more must we.

If he needed to learn obedience by sorrow, much more must we. If he needed in the days of his flesh, to make supplication to G.o.d his Father with strong crying and tears, so do we. And if he was heard in that he feared, so, I trust, we shall be heard likewise. If he needed to taste even the most horrible misery of all; to feel for a moment that G.o.d had forsaken him; surely we must expect, if we are to be made like him, to have to drink at least one drop out of his bitter cup. It is very wonderful: but yet it is full of hope and comfort. Full of hope and comfort to be able, in our darkest and bitterest sorrow, to look up to heaven, and say, At least there is one who has been through all this. As Christ was, so are we in this world; and the disciple cannot be above his master. Yes, we are in this world as he was, and he was once in this world as we are, he has been through all this, and more. He knows all this and more. 'We have a High Priest above us who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, because he has been tempted in all things like as we are. yet without sin.'

Yes, my friends. Nothing like one honest look, one honest thought, of Christ upon his cross. That tells us how much he has been through, how much he endured, how much he conquered, how much G.o.d loved us, who spared not his only-begotten Son, but freely gave him for us. Dare we doubt such a G.o.d? Dare we murmur against such a G.o.d? Dare we lay the blame of our sorrows on such a G.o.d--our Father?

No; let us believe the blessed message of our confirmation, which tells us that it is his Fatherly hand which is ever over us, and that even though that hand may seem heavy for awhile, it is the hand of him whose very being and substance is love, who made the world by love, by love redeemed man, by love sustains him still. Though we went down into h.e.l.l, says David, he is there; though we took the wings of the morning, and fled into the uttermost part of the sea, yet there his hand would hold us, and his right hand guide us still.

It is holding and guiding every one of us now, through storm as well as through suns.h.i.+ne, through grief as well as through joy; let us humble ourselves under that mighty hand, and it will exalt us in due time. He knows, and must know, when that due time is, and, till then, he is still love, and his mercy is over all his works.

SERMON XXIX. G.o.d'S CREATION

GENESIS i. 31.

And G.o.d saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good.

This is good news, and a gospel. The Bible was written to bring good news, and therefore with good news it begins, and with good news it ends.

But it is not so easy to believe. We want faith to believe; and that faith will be sometimes sorely tried.

Yes; we want faith. As St. Paul says: 'Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of G.o.d; so that things which are seen were not made of things which appear.'

No one can prove to us that G.o.d made the world; yet we must believe it; and what is more, we DO believe it, and are certain of it. But all the proving and arguments in the world will not make us CERTAIN that G.o.d made the world; they will only make us feel that it is probable, that it is reasonable to think so. What, then, does make us CERTAIN that G.o.d made the world?--as certain as if we had seen him make it? FAITH, which is stronger than all arguments. Faith, which comes down from heaven to our hearts, and is the gift of G.o.d. Faith, which is the light with which Jesus Christ lights us. Faith, which comes by the inspiration of G.o.d's Holy Spirit.

So, again, when we have to believe not only that G.o.d made the world, but that all things which he has made are very good.

So it is, and you must believe it. G.o.d is good, the absolute and perfect good; and from good nothing can come but good: and therefore all which G.o.d has made is good, as he is; and therefore if anything in the world seems to be bad, one of two things must be true of it.

1. Either it is NOT bad, though it seems so to us; and G.o.d will bring good out of it in his good time, and justify himself to men, and show us that he is holy in all his works, and righteous in all his ways.

Or else--If the thing be really bad, then G.o.d did not make it. It must be a disease, a mistake, a failure, of man's making, or some person's making, but not of G.o.d's making. For all that he has made he sees eternally; and behold, it is very good.

Now, I can say that; and I believe it; and G.o.d grant I may never say anything else. And yet I cannot prove it to you by any argument.

But I believe it; and I dare say many of you believe it (you all must believe it, before all is over), by something better than any argument. By faith--faith, which speaks to the very core and root of a man's heart and reason, and teaches him things surer and deeper than all sermons and books, all proofs and arguments.

May G.o.d, our Heavenly Father, fill our hearts with his Holy Spirit of faith, that we may believe utterly in his goodness, and therefore believe in the goodness of all that he has made.

For at times we shall need that faith very much indeed, not only about our neighbours, but about ourselves. We shall find it hard to believe that there is goodness in some of our neighbours; and the better we know ourselves, we shall find it very difficult to believe that there is goodness in us.

For surely this is a great puzzle.

'G.o.d saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good.'

And G.o.d made you and me. Are we therefore very good? Or were we ever very good? Here is a great mystery. It would seem as if we must have been very good if G.o.d made us. For G.o.d can make nothing bad. Surely not. For he who makes bad things is a bad maker; he who makes bad houses is a bad builder; and he who makes bad men is a bad maker of men. But G.o.d cannot be a bad maker; for he is perfect and without fault in all his works. Yet men are bad.

Yet, on the other hand, if G.o.d made us, and the Bible be true, there must be good in us. When G.o.d said, Let that man be; when G.o.d first thought of us, if I may so speak, before the foundation of the world- -he thought of us as good. He created each of us good in his own mind, else he would not have created us at all. But why were we not good when we came on earth? Why do we come into this world sinful?

Why does G.o.d's thought of us, G.o.d's purpose about us, seem to have failed? We do not know, and we need not know. St. Paul tells us that it came by Adam's fall; that by Adam's fall sin entered into the world, and each man, as he came into it, became sinful. How that was we cannot understand--we need not understand. Let us believe, and be silent; but let us believe this also, that St. Paul speaks truth not in this only but in that blessed and glorious news with which he follows up his sad and bad news. 'As by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men to justification of life.'

Yes; we may say boldly now, Whatever has been; whatever sin I inherited from Adam; however sinful I came into this world, G.o.d looks on me now, not as I am in Adam, but as I am in Christ. I am in Christ now, baptized into Christ, a new creature in Christ; to Christ I belong, and not to Adam at all; and G.o.d looks now, not on the old corrupt nature which I inherited from Adam, but on the new and good grace which G.o.d meant for me from all eternity, which Christ has given me now. It is that good and new grace in me which G.o.d cares for; it is that good and new grace which G.o.d is working on, to strengthen and perfect it, that I may grow in grace, and in the likeness of Christ, and become at last what G.o.d intended me to be, when he thought of me first before the foundation of all worlds, and said, 'Let us make man [not one man, but all men, male and female] in our image, after our likeness.'

This, again, is a great mystery. Yet our own hearts will tell us, if we will look at them, that it is true. Are there not, as it were, two different persons in us, fighting for the mastery? Are we not so different at different times, that we seem to ourselves, and to our neighbours, perhaps, to be two different people, according as we give way to the better nature or to the worse? Even as David--one year living a heroic and n.o.ble life by faith in G.o.d, writing Psalms which will live to the world's end, and the next committing adultery and murder. Were those two Davids the same David? Yes; and yet No. The good and n.o.ble David was David when he obeyed the grace of G.o.d. The base and foul David was David when he gave way to his fallen and corrupt nature.

Even so might we be. Even so, in a less degree, are we sometimes so unlike ourselves, so ashamed of ourselves, so torn asunder with pa.s.sions and l.u.s.ts, delighting in G.o.d's law and all that is good in our hearts, and yet finding another law in us which makes us slaves at moments to our basest pa.s.sions--to anger, fear, spite, covetousness--that when we think of it we are ready to cry with St.

Paul, 'Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?'

Who? Who but he of whom St. Paul tells us, gives the answer in the very next verse, 'I thank G.o.d, that G.o.d himself will, through Jesus Christ our Lord.'

Oh, my friends, whosoever of you have ever felt angry with yourselves, discontented with yourselves, ashamed of yourselves (and he that has not felt so knows no more about himself than a dumb animal does)--you that have felt so, listen to St. Paul's glorious news and take comfort. Do you wish to be right? Do you wish to be what G.o.d intended you to be before all worlds? Do you wish that of you the glorious words may come true, 'And G.o.d saw all that he had made, and behold it was very good?'

Then believe this. That all which is good in you G.o.d has made; and that he will take care of what he has made, for he loves it; that all which is bad in you, G.o.d has NOT made, and therefore he will destroy it; for he hates all that he has not made, and will not suffer it in his world; and that if you, your heart, your will, are enlisted on the good side, if you are wis.h.i.+ng and trying that the good nature in you should conquer the bad, then you are on the side of G.o.d himself, and G.o.d himself is on your side; and 'if G.o.d be for you, who shall be against you?' Before all worlds, from eternity itself, G.o.d said, 'Let us make man in our own likeness;' and nothing can hinder G.o.d's word but the man himself. The word of G.o.d comes down, says the prophet, as the rain and the dew from heaven, and, like the rain and dew, returns not to him void, but prospers in the thing whereto he sends it; only if the ground be hard and barren, and determined to bring forth thorns and briars, rather than corn and fruit, is it cursed, and near to burning; and only if a man loves his fallen nature better than the n.o.ble, just, loving, generous grace of G.o.d, and gives himself willingly up to the likeness of the beasts which perish, can G.o.d's purpose towards him become of none effect.

Take courage, then. If thou dislikest thy sins, so does G.o.d. If thou art fighting against thy worse feelings, so is G.o.d. On thy side is G.o.d who made all, and Christ who died for all, and the Holy Spirit who alone gives wisdom, purity, n.o.bleness. How canst thou fail when he is on thy side? On thy side are all spirits of just men made perfect, all wise and good souls and persons in earth and heaven, all good and wholesome influences, whether of nature or of grace, of matter or of mind. How canst thou fail if they are on thy side?

G.o.d, I say, and all that G.o.d has made, are working together to bring true of thee the word of G.o.d--'And G.o.d saw all that he had made, and behold it was very good.' Believe, and endure to the end, and thou shalt be found in Christ at the last day; and, being in Christ, have thy share at last in the blessing which the Father p.r.o.nounces everlastingly on Christ, and on the members of Christ, 'This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.' Amen.

SERMON x.x.x. TRUE PRUDENCE

MATTHEW vi. 34.