Verse 31
Chapter 54
Prayer
Almighty God, thou dost take the years from us, one by one, silently but surely, and no man can lay his hand upon that which is gone and bring it back again and set it in its former place. Behold thou dost change our countenances, and send us away: little by little thou dost take the strength out of our bone and sinew; behold men are aged and bowed down before they have fully reckoned their years. So teach us to number our years as to apply our hearts unto wisdom. Are there not twelve hours in the day? and whilst we count them, they fly, and are less in number at the close than at the beginning. We have scarcely breath enough to say the year is born, until lo, it begins to wither away. O that we might buy up the opportunity, and redeem the time with fulness of love that knows no break in its sacred and ardent continuity. Help us to redeem the time, inspire us with the spirit of importunity which beats upon heaven's gate with the violence of both hands until it be opened and we be admitted into the higher places. Enable us to be amongst those wise servants who shall be found waiting when their Lord cometh, eagerly longing for him, and sometimes bitterly crying in their hearts because of his long delay.
Behold we meet this Christmastide, and Herod still is king. The young Child is fled away to Egypt, and we wonder why he abideth there. Our cry is Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing, and kings and rulers suppose themselves to be a match for the Lord and his anointed? Lord Jesus, come quickly: hear thy sighing Church, listen to thy moaning, wondering bride, hasten thy chariot wheels: we are poor without thee, we are cold without thee, we have no hope in thine absence; and our hearts are as lead within us and they fall down in the bitterness of dejection. Yet the times are in thy hand, thine eye is not slumbering, thine hand is not slack, thou dost move by a compass we cannot measure, thou dost take the circuit, the sweep whereof no figures can represent. A thousand years are in thy sight but as one day, and one day is as a thousand years. We cannot measure thy circle, we have no instruments by which to reckon up thy movements, we can but wait and long and love and serve and hope. O see thou that our oil does not run out, but may it be supplied by a secret hand; may the lamp be trimmed even whilst we sleep, lest our hope perish and we become a gazing stock and a mockery unto men.
Bring in the years as thou wilt: through all violence and tumult, through all uprising and rebellion, severe and uncontrollable discord, thou wilt bring in thy kingdom. Thou makest a road for its passage, thou wilt not fail of thy purpose, it is a purpose of love, it is a design of mercy, it is a plan of love we therefore wait for thee, and we would regard our impatience as impiety to be repented of, and our prayers wherein we would hasten thee, we would take as expressions of our weakness. O thou who dost rest in eternity, and come up from everlasting and stretch thy thoughts, to everlasting, give us somewhat of thine own quietness, make us calm with thine own peace, fill us with thine own spirit.
Help every good man to work on with a cheerful heart and an undiminished hope: now and again bring thy great encouragements to bear upon him and. they shall prove to be inspirations of strength, and extensions and deepenings of his confidence. The Lord grant unto us some sign of hopefulness: let us see the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear, then the yellowing, goldening harvest, and may we hear the sound of the angel's sickle as the wheat is gathered into God's garner.
We bless thee for all the mercies of the year now closing. Thou hast never forsaken us by land and by sea, by night and by day, in health and in sickness, in high energy and complaining infirmity, thou hast ever been by our side. If the shadows have been great, it is only because the light has been intense: who thou hast given much sorrow thou hast given greater comfort; where thou hast smitten the tree with the axe, thou hast also healed the heart with thy balm. The Lord receive our united praises for all the mercies of the year now dying: continue thy favour unto us in great abundance, establish us in the faith of Christ, who was born for the sins of the world, and who died and rose again for the same, whose great sweet name is linked up for ever with the world's great sin. Enable us to preach thy word with more fervour, simplicity, tenderness, unction, and determination to take the prey from the mighty: enable us to hear thy word with keener attention, with devouter thankfulness, with larger expectancy of soul. Enable us to love thy word with some hope that our lives may tell what our tongues can never speak.
Say to those whose days are numbered, that ending time is eternity begun, that when the body shall be thrown off, the soul shall be clothed upon with its house from heaven. Gather the young together into thine heart O throw around them thine infinite and most tender embrace, and by nearness to thee may they find wisdom and the sobriety of heart which is the beginning of joy. The Lord turn the attention of all men to the cross, bind all hearts to the cross, lead all sinners to the cross, unite the Church to fear, love, and trust the cross. O cross of Christ, lift up thyself above our guilt like a star above the darkness, and give us hope in the day of sore distress.
What we pray for ourselves we pray for all the Churches of the Saviour, for all good and earnest souls the world over, for our dear ones across the sea, for our children wandering in the ways of life and endeavouring to gain an honourable livelihood, for the sick and the poor, the friendless and the homeless good Lord, gather up thyself into some other and greater effort of providential visitation, and show the people again, as thou has continually done, that the Lord reigneth, and that there is rest in faith.
Regard the country: God bless our native land, whether it be this or that, whether it be near or far away bless with thy favour those who rule over us, direct and lead us, and inspire the sentiment of nations the Lord's light be round about them that they stumble not, and the Lord's spirit be in them that their thoughts may be right and their words may be wise.
The whole earth is thine: thou didst round it, thou didst fill it with waters and cover it with its flowers and its forests, thou didst make the birds to sing above it, and find their nests in its green places. The whole earth is thine, sinful, wandering, prodigal earth thou hast come after that which was lost, and thou wilt surely find it and set it again in the brotherhood of the stars, to go out no more for ever. Amen.
The Grain of Mustard Seed
Is it true that there is a conquering force in vitality? Do really good things always grow, and in their expansion offer hospitality and defence to others? May what is here said of the kingdom of heaven be said of every other kingdom that is true, grand, pure, and beneficent? If so, then surely it may be said of the kingdom of heaven with infinitely multiplied force, and with infinitely extended meaning. First of all, therefore, let us grapple with the case as an earthly one, and then look forward to its heavenly bearings and applications.
Take, for example, the mustard seed of liberty; would it be wise and right for any great historian or poet to say the kingdom of liberty is like unto mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is a little seed, but it so grows as to throw off all tyrannies and oppressions, and give the poorest man a status and a chance in life? Would that parable outrage any laws of intellectual conception or any laws of intellectual and patriotic expression? It would fit the case precisely, it would illustrate in picture one of the grandest doctrines that ever forced itself upon the attention of mankind. Liberty was the problem of parliaments, it has been the cause of wars; men have fought that other men might be kept in bondage, nations would not relax their grip upon the neck of millions of slaves but the little mustard seed of liberty was sown, and whatever has in it vitality given it of God must grow. The little seed will take root, the root will expand, and growing roots will split rocks as certainly as they can be sundered by gunpowder. That little root will never rest until it has broken up the huge rock so the seed of liberty grew and extended itself with beneficent expansion in England, and at the cost of millions of treasure human slavery was abolished as an iniquity and. a curse.
What is true of our country has been also true of other lands. Wars have been fought, intrigues have been entered into, the most desperate courses have been resorted to for the purpose of maintaining human slavery, but the little mustard seed of liberty has kept growing all the time, night and day, never ceasing to grow, and before its spreading roots the great stumbling-blocks have given way, and liberty is growing still, and must grow until the word slavery in all its baser applications is expunged from human speech, and hills and valleys rejoice in the light of universal and beneficent liberty. So far therefore the parable holds its place amongst purely human and political illustrations.
Take the mustard seed of genuine force of character, high quality of manhood would he be a mere romancist, who said, "The kingdom of noble, pure, heroic character is like a grain of mustard seed, little to begin with, but it will grow and develop and strengthen until the men who despised it shall seek the hospitality of its shadow?" Any man saying these words would be speaking no poetry except the highest, which is fact and logic on fire, the poetry of truth that that which is divine, simple, useful, beneficent, redeeming, must come to have the heathen for its inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for its possession. If you are a true man you cannot be kept down in the long run; if your character is right, it will in due time assert itself and claim its own. Men may proscribe you, condemn you, try to write you down, try to draw your clients, customers, patrons, and supporters from you, may indulge in every form of interference and unkind suppression known to the most mischievous genius, and yet not a hair of your head shall perish; no weapon formed against you shall prosper. Have we not seen this illustrated in countless instances is it not the very blossom and glory of human history is it not the confidence of all men who pray and wonder that the answer is long in coming? So far therefore the parable holds its own in purely human and social conditions; perhaps it may also hold its own in relation to that invisible, impalpable, immeasurable kingdom which we have come to know by the sweet name of heaven. Let us see.
Take the mustard seed of a truly meritorious invention: go even to that purely materialistic and mechanical side of life. Is it possible to keep down anything that is really true in mechanics? I have read the history of English manufactures to little purpose if I have not found that it has always been impossible to keep out of the mill and the factory and the place of mechanical operations any invention that was really good and really useful, and that completely answered the purpose for which it was put forward. If I go back to the north of England some thirty, forty, or fifty years and read the history of manufactures there, I shall find that machinery was burnt, that factories were burnt to the ground, that workmen were proscribed, that masters were slandered, and that opposition of every kind was offered to this or that particular mechanical invention. The working classes would not have it, great combinations of men were established for the purpose of putting it down; but where is it today? It was like a grain of mustard seed; it had mechanical truth, it had commercial reality in it, it was able to bless the very people that cursed it; and so, under the Divine Providence that takes care of all things true and pure and useful, and includes them all in the kingdom of heaven, we have seen that man's opposition has been turned aside, and that true things have grown to fulfil their purpose; and so it must be to the end of time.
We see, therefore, that there are illustrations enough of the doctrine that truth is mighty and must prevail. You cannot permanently keep down whatever is true in doctrine, in manhood, in science, or in politics. Water cannot drown it, fire cannot burn it, contempt cannot discourage it, and perdition cannot overcome it. This is not the case, you see then, with theology alone. A thing is true to me because it is true to my whole nature, and to the whole outlook and reality of life. If it shall come and separate itself wholly from everything known to my consciousness and my experience, it will bring with it its own difficulty which may prove to be insuperable; but if it connect itself with all that I know best and have established most thoroughly and confidently, then it may lead me on step by step to its own higher self and its own broader claim.
It is thus that God comes to us. He does not strike upon the intellect like a great thunder blast that has no connection, reference, or illustration in any quarter of human consciousness, experience, or observation. He comes to establish himself in my confidence in this way, namely like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. As a nurse nourisheth and cherisheth her children, so the Lord. If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father, which is in heaven, give the Holy Spirit unto them that ask him. The argument is cumulative; it begins in the human, the known, that which is fully ascertained and established, and then it proceeds to what we know as transcendental and supernatural heights; but we trust by that which we do know, and can test and prove, and we calmly, lovingly wait the broader revelation; and in waiting we are inspired with noble hope, constrained to beneficent service, and are indulged with ineffable rewards.
This doctrine, therefore, is as true of medicine as it is of divinity, of mechanics as of the gospel, of navigation as of theology. Sometimes the full growth is long delayed; some men have to die as the price of their appreciation; some inventions and reforms have to flee into Egypt to escape the wrath of some angry Herod. Still the sovereign law holds good that truth, in all departments of life, must come uppermost and sit securely on its appointed and inevitable throne. Let this be your confidence, men and brethren. If it be your confidence you can wait without murmuring you can tarry without complaining; and when he comes who has been more misunderstood than you can possibly be, he will not forget his servant who has endeavoured to represent in speech and life that which he has felt to be true.
In the light of these human, social illustrations, let us see how the parable fulfils all the conditions of things as they are clearly known by us, every one. First of all, the kingdom of heaven is not ashamed of small beginnings. Herein it startles me very much. I should have thought that if the kingdom of heaven were coming amongst men it would have made for itself a great rent in the sky, and with blast of trumpets and rollings of thunder and flashings of lightning, amid the pomp of heaven's hierarchy and the whole muster of its angel crowd, it would have come down lo the earth and dazzled and confounded men by its infinite blaze of glory. God does not so come: he is not ashamed to illustrate his progress by the development of small and relatively contemptible things. He is as the dawning of the day, he is as the growing of the mustard seed: he begins in a whisper, he challenges one and then another, he works in the individual heart, setting up there a good conviction, kindling an unquenchable enthusiasm, nourishing and cherishing a holy purpose then another is added and the plural thus begins, and the two go forth together to seek a third; and thus the kingdom grows, friend finding friend, the evangelist finding the prodigal and bringing him home, the hopeful soul speaking the word of cheer to the dejected spirit, and thus the kingdom grows.
Be rebuked then, O impatient man, thou who dost want, with great demonstration and force of arms, to impose the kingdom of heaven upon men. Let it grow according to its own law. Despise not the day of small things. A little one may become a great nation, and a small one an immeasurable people. Believe in the truth, and not in its merely numerical and demonstrative force have faith in anything that is true and good, because it is true and good, and deliver yourself from the miserable fallacy and most mischievous sophism that a crowd is necessary to success, and that multitudinousness is a proof of truth or of reality. All history condemns such violent reading, and all history confirms the sublime teaching that whatever is true may have a small beginning; but it must overturn, overturn, overturn, until all hindrances are levelled with the dust. Thus and thus God's kingdom comes and his will is done on earth as it is done in heaven.
In the next place the kingdom of heaven connects itself with the greatest law known amongst us namely, the law of growth. It grows in the individual mind, it grows in the national mind, it grows from alphabetical forms into broader substances and expressions, and then away again from all that is formal and mechanical up into the purely spiritual regions wherein we are enabled to say, because we are enabled to see, that God is a Spirit.
If the kingdom of heaven is associated with the law of growth, then it must proceed silently. I know of no growths that are noisy; the great oak makes no noise as it strengthens itself with the growing years. So is it with the kingdom of heaven: it grows silently in the heart, yet men take knowledge of the enriched character of the expanded mind, of the nobler tone, of the broader generosity; and they say, "This is growth in grace." If it associates itself with growth, then the progress of the kingdom of heaven will often be invisible in its minuter movements. Whoever saw a flower grow from this point to that whilst waiting and looking on? This flower has nothing to show for any one moment of its existence; the flower or the tree is not to be reckoned up from day to day: leave it for a month, leave the tree for a year, for ten years, and then return and remember that all this accretion has been going on without a single created eye observing the increase. We like to see things grow. Sometimes the child takes a little spade and digs up the seed to see if it has begun to grow. Perhaps we have all done this, and have been proud to see how the little white life, or green life, was coming up out of the seed we sowed, and then we have put it back again; and again we have come back to observe the growing, and yet we have never seen the operation. We have seen the results, but how they came to be results is a mystery to us, and must be a lesson.
Ay, the mysteriousness of growth who can understand it, who knows how much goes to the making up of it the earth, the sun, the rain, the dew, the light, the wind what chemical elements are set in motion, thrown into combination; what ejections, what absorptions, what strange and subtle combinations, and the whole thing moving on to express a purpose in the mind of the Creator? It hath pleased God to say, whilst we are looking upon all the vegetable kingdom, "My heavenly kingdom, my larger kingdom, is just like that as silent, as invisible, as mysterious, as certain, growing up to the full expression of the purpose which was in my heart when I created this great theatre of the universe and sent man into it to fulfil his destiny."
Another thing is that the kingdom of heaven carries its greatness even when it is in its most minute and microscopic form. The greatness is in the seed itself: if we had instruments fine enough to look really into the seed, we would see the mustard tree in the mustard seed, the oak in the acorn, the great cedar in the seed out of which it grows. The cedar, the oak, any other tree or flower is not something added afterwards, but it is in reality in the root or seed which is in the earth. We are prevented seeing it simply because of our want of natural or instrumental vision. So it is with the kingdom of heaven. Men do not take on other selves and other manhoods as they advance in life, but they fulfil a writing and a destiny in themselves not only from the moment of their birth, but through eternity. Nothing happens as a surprise, nothing is written on the margin of the divine programme as an afterthought; everything is fore-appointed, fore-ordained, elect, standing fast in the counsel of God, and is a surprise only to our weakness. So the kingdom of heaven is always great: great when you are teaching it in the Sunday-school to a little child, when you are writing about it on the blackboard, when you are endeavouring to put its mysteries into words of one syllable, so as to lodge the truth in the little mind of the little hearer; it is the kingdom of heaven still, compressed, condensed, simplified, made easy, but carrying in it all the force that shall conquer creation, all the mystery that shall spread itself out before the admiring and grateful gaze of men as the revelation of God's mercy and love and grace in Christ Jesus. The planet is in the molecule; tell me the creation was made out of the molecule, and I find but the broader confirmation of the truth of my text in that statement. A molecule will do to begin with, but what a molecule, that has grown and split itself off into constellations and suns and universes, and which astronomy has no tape long enough to throw round to take the measure of the circumference thereof. What a mustard seed it must have been!
So with God's kingdom; it will grow until Christ shall have the heathen for his inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession, and the handful of corn upon the top of the mountain shall grow until the harvest, waving in the south wind, goldened by all the suns of the universe, shall proclaim the fulfilment of the divine purpose, and angels shall gather it and sing the harvest home.
The last confirmatory point is that the kingdom of heaven is available for other uses than those which are sometimes thought to be distinctively religious as with the mustard seed grown into a tree, the birds come and lodge in the branches of it; did the tree grow for the sake of the birds, or did the birds avail themselves of the hospitality of the tree? It is even so with the kingdom of heaven; whatever is true has a right to be in the Church, all art and science, all commerce and literature, all recreation and joy do not banish these sacred birds from the branches of the Church tree, for they all are God's, and if they do not receive hospitality in the Church, they will find it elsewhere, and the Church will be the loser in the long run.
Take the broadest view of the Church; it should offer hospitality to all the birds of the air, to all creatures that need lodgment and help, defence, education, strength it should throw itself out in loving and mighty appeal in every direction and offer the hospitality of heaven to all the children of earth. Open your churches for music, open your pulpits for lectures, open your schoolrooms for amusements, open all your premises that you may spread a meal for the hungry and offer rest to the weary, and by-and-by men and women will say, "Where are we? This is a wondrous song, this is inspiring music, this is bread truly useful for us in the hunger of life where are we? What is this building? there is something strange about it. What is that in which the man stands and from which he speaks and what are those seats, and those books lying here and there?" and it may come to dawn upon them that they are in their Father's house, and they who came to hear the entertainment, or be fascinated for a moment by some transient enjoyment, may remain to pray. Do not drive the birds away, do not starve the birds: the Church was not distinctively built for any of these outward or collateral purposes, but as the birds of the air came and lodged in the full-grown mustard tree, so may many birds, and men, and women, and little children, and outcasts, hopeless and heartless ones, come and find it warm in the Church and be drawn by its glow of charity still further, until at last they enter the sanctuary of its truth.
I am thankful for this suggestion of growth: it does not affright me, it gives me the true law of judgment; night and day the kingdom grows, it makes no noise, it resorts to no violence, but quietly and sublimely and solemnly it comes to the perfectness and grandeur of God's purpose. Sometimes when we awake to an appreciation of summer growth we say, "The flowers, the trees, seem to have come out in the night time: what a change! how sudden!" Mayhap it will be thus with Messiah's kingdom. To-day Herod is on the throne, today the sword is slaying the innocent, today he who is born Christ the King is taken away to Egypt, the upper hand seems to have been given to those who devise evil purposes and carry out mischievous intentions but still the kingdom moves, still the seed develops, still the growth expands; some day it may appear to us as if quite suddenly the consummation had been realised, and we shall say to one another, "This is none other than God's kingdom come, and the earth has been warmed by the summer of heaven."
To that end let us work, and let us, from that purpose, gather courage to speak the broader, bolder prayer at the throne of the heavenly grace.
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