Acts 18:7-11

Chapter 66

Prayer

Almighty God, we come to thee in Jesus Christ thy Son, the door that is ever open, and the only door by which men can come to the Father. We bless thee for that open door. May we hasten to it and enter, lest by delay we find that the door is shut when we come! We would ask for large room in thine house, and being in it we would abide there for ev. Who would wish to leave thy table? In our Father's house there is bread enough and to spare. Once we perished with hunger when we were in a far land, and no man gave unto us; but now we are in our Father's house, and thou hast said unto us, "Eat and drink abundantly, O beloved, and let your souls delight themselves in fatness." We wish to come to thee through great increase of faith. Our prayer is that every doubt and hesitation may be destroyed, and that our hearts, being filled with faith and burning with love, may have no question to ask concerning the nearness, the goodness, and the infinite sufficiency of God. Thou knowest what temptations assail us, thou knowest how our hearts are often hardened by unbelief, and thou knowest how our eyes are often blinded because of disobedience. Thou dost receive us in thine house that thou mayest do us good. Thou wilt reply to every heart's necessity; every life has its own prayer, weak or strong, earthly or full of heavenliness, and thou wilt listen to every heart's own speech, and answer it with appropriate love. Thou hast called us to growth, and in calling us to growth, thou hast given the sun to warm us, and the rich rains to refresh the roots of our faith. May we accept the gracious gifts of heaven, and answer them by daily increase of strength, and continual growth in loveliness and beauty. We would be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus; we would be men of God; we would be thoroughly furnished unto all good works. Our desire, created by thyself, and therefore to be satisfied by thyself alone, is that we may be temples of the Holy Ghost, wise unto salvation, well-instructed in the heavenly testimony, baptized into the very Spirit of Christ, and being filled with his Spirit, to wait in patience, and toil in hopefulness, until the day of maturity and reward. Do thou, by the gracious ministry of the Holy Spirit, work in us all the good pleasure of thy will, and the work of faith with power; may there be no remnant of the old nature left in us. May the city of God within our hearts lie four-square, the length and the breadth and the height of it being equal; so that being perfected according to thy purpose, our life, washed with the blood of Christ, and made to glow by the purifying energy of the Holy Ghost, may be lifted up into heavenly service, and comforted with heavenly rest. We remember because thou dost put it into our hearts the sick, the poor, the wandering, and those that are ill at ease men who cannot find rest at night or work by day; lives that knock at doors that never open; wanderers that search and cry, but never find or hear the friendly voice. Thou knowest those who are on the sea, in trouble and fear. Thou knowest the loved ones from whom we are parted as by the stroke of a sharp knife. They are all present to thee, the good and the bad, the wheat and the tares, those who are nearly angels, and those that are nearly lost. The Lord's pity weep for them, the Lord's love go out after them, the Lord's grace be as a portion of meat in due season to every soul suffering the pain of hunger. What we most need we cannot tell thee in words, but thou readest the speechless prayer. Look upon us. Read our thoughts we cannot speak, and enter into covenant with us, pledging that whatsoever our sin may have been, thy grace is infinitely more, and will surely drown it, as the stone is lost in the sea. What we forget thou wilt remember. If we have omitted from our prayer any name, or life, or interest, thou wilt not omit it from thy love. We give one another to thee standing hand in hand fathers, mothers, children, friends, neighbours, acquaintances, pastor, people standing heart in heart, hand in hand, we say, at the Cross, and in the name of him who died upon it, take us all, love us all, cast none away. Amen.

Act 18:7-11

7. And he departed thence [from the synagogue, where the words of the previous verse were spoken], and went into the house of a certain man named Titus Justus, one that worshipped God [a proselyte], whose house joined hard to the synagogue.

8. And Crispus [ 1Co 1:14 ], the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord [G. believed the Lord], with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized.

9. And the Lord said unto Paul in the night by a vision: Be not afraid, but speak, and not hold thy peace;

10. For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to harm thee, for I have much people in this city.

11. And he dwelt [G. "tarried," as Luk 24:49 ] there a year and six months, teaching the Word of God among them [writing thence two Ep. to the Thess., the earliest of all the N. T. writings].

Encouragements Divine and Human

IN the fifth verse we read that "Paul was pressed in the spirit;" in the seventeenth chapter and the sixteenth verse we read that Paul's "spirit was stirred in him." In both cases there was a paroxysm. It was not a little transient excitement, or momentary ruffling of the feelings, it was really what we ourselves never feel now agony. He could stand it no longer; his soul was in pain. He would have been more accustomed to it now. Would God we could recall our early enthusiasm, our virgin passion, our first burning hate of sin. We are familiar with it; we pat its black head! There was a time when Paul could not look upon idolatry without his soul writhing in pain, and when he could not look upon Jewish obstinacy and unbelief without his breast heaving with violent paroxysm. We can now drive through whole miles of idolatry, unbelief, worldliness, and sensuality, and sit down at the other end to the smoking feast, as if we had come through hell blindfolded. Familiarity has its acute and terrible danger. Paul was a man of conviction. He really believed in his soul that there was no other name given under heaven among men whereby they could be saved but the name of Christ. That faith will not lodge in the same heart with indifference. That faith wants a whole heart to itself. It says, "If this salvation is worth anything, it is worth everything." That old martyr-faith is dead.

In the sixth verse we read, "And when they opposed themselves" literally, set themselves in battle array "and blasphemed, he shook his raiment [symbolically], and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles." We do sometimes long to be missionaries; to plough a virgin soil; to name the name of Christ to men for the very first time; to meet men to whom the Gospel would be news. Paul did not say he would give up the work. Paul was not the man to lay hold upon the plough of the heavenly kingdom, and to turn back; Paul would not even keep company with a young man who had broken faith with him in the Christian work; so if he himself had at last broken down in the middle of it, surely then the pillars of heaven would have been rottenness, and earth's base built on stubble! He went clear through with it to the end. The old Paul "such an one as Paul the aged" sat down and said, "I have fought a good fight"; lay back in his bed, and said, "I have finished my course." Let us never give up the work. We may give up this corner of the vineyard or that; we may leave localities, but we must not leave the Cross. We may turn in vexation of soul from stolid unbelief and preach to ignorant and bewildered heathenism, but do not let the work have less of our energy because we have been disappointed in this or that particular circle.

A little encouragement would cheer us now. One ray of sunlight shooting athwart this gathering gloom would make us young again. Here it is in the seventh verse. Paul departed from that quarter of Corinth, "and entered into a certain man's house, named Justus, one that worshipped God, whose house joined hard to the synagogue. And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing, believed and were baptized." "One that worshipped God"! Is there any greater phrase in all human speech? Perhaps you are waiting in order to know something about God before you worship him. You can never know anything about God except GOD! But the little, inventive, ingenious, industrious, fussy human brain wants to define God and classify his attributes, and practise upon him a kind of spiritual vivisection. The firmament will not be taken to pieces! I preach GOD, not some view of God. If you begin to have "views" of God, you will begin to have sects and classes, orthodoxies and heterodoxies, divisions, and whole libraries of pamphlets with nothing in them but words. Worship is greater than any definition of worship. God is the undefinable term. The soul knows him, but cannot get the mouth to speak Him. In this stupendous temple words may soon be lies. What is your feeling? Is there an uprising in your heart that can only say, "Abba!" "Father!" That uprising of the heart is the miracle of Christ, the inward and wondrous working of the Holy Ghost. Why do you not order back your obtrusive intellect, and tell it to be still in the presence of such an experience? Many of us could be almost good if we could hold our tongues! Some of us could almost pray if we were dumb!

When Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed, many of the Corinthians thought they would believe too. A quaint commentator has said that great men are the looking-glasses into which ordinary men look to see what they ought to be like. There was much human nature among the Corinthians! It is so with all departments of life and thought. This is not an argument on one side only, but on every side of human life. What we want, then, is courage on the part of those whose influence is legitimately beneficial and extensive. If you, the head of the house, could say, "Let us worship God," many within the house might respond affectionately and earnestly, "So be it." We must have leadership may that leadership always be in an upward and solar direction.

A little encouragement now, I say, would come in well. Here it is again in the ninth verse, in another form. "Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace; for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city." These words express a Divine encouragement; they are addressed to every sincere heart; they were not spoken once for all and limited to a personality and a place, they are spoken from the heavens every day to every earnest labourer. The time of visions has not gone for ev. To-day it is possible to hold heart-to-heart fellowship with God. Even now the spirit can assure itself that it is reading the very will of God and doing the very behest of heaven. Paul was accustomed to visions. The first vision startles a man; the second is expected; the third longed for; and the last hailed with thankfulness and expectation, for it is the vision of heaven the vision of rest. God took the census of Corinth from a religious point of view; he said, "I have much people in this city." He was going to work miracles in Corinth. Apparently there was not a saint in the whole place. As Athens was "wholly given to idolatry," so Corinth was, apparently, wholly given to sensuality. We cannot tell where God's people are. The ancient prophet thought that he alone was left; but God told him that he knew of seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal. Surely there are more good and brave souls and Christ-worshippers and Christ-seekers than we have yet supposed. I see no reason why in the presence of this tenth verse we should not take a more hopeful view of human society. "How can I give thee up?" Even yet he expects some of us to pray; even yet he knows that many of us will come home. The Christian Gospel is not an exclusive one; whoever is excluded from its hospitality is self-expelled. God is looking for his own. He is looking for the religious among the irreligious; and one of the most gracious surprises in store for the Church is that there will be more people in God's pure home heaven than it may have entered into the most generous human heart to conceive or venture to anticipate.

But the twelfth verse seems to contradict the vision. We no sooner hear of the vision than we learn that "the Jews made insurrection with one accord against Paul, and brought him to the judgment seat, saying, This fellow persuadeth men to worship God contrary to the law." What a violent transition in personal experience! At night, lost in the ecstasies of Divine fellowship, in the morning dragged before the judgment seat by an incensed mob! Is it thus that Providence contradicts itself? Apparently so, but not really. Good will come out of this evil; character will be developed; friendships will be tested; the way will be broadened and improved, and evil shall be overruled for good.

You may probably have read the "History of Civilization in England," by Mr. Buckle. Mr. Buckle has, in that most refined and erudite work, made no concealment of his opposition to what are called Christian missions. He refers to certain good-natured and well-intentioned people, whose motives he would not question for a moment, who have gone to distant parts of the world to propagate the Christian faith. He says they bring home, or send home, very interesting reports of spiritual successes gained in the mission-field; but he says he has taken pains to test the accuracy of those reports. He sets side by side along with them the testimony of impartial, independent, well-instructed travellers not religious agents of religious societies and those travellers say in the distinctest terms that whilst many heathen populations have received Christian baptism and taken upon themselves Christian forms of worship, they are destitute of the spirit of Christianity, and if they could be seen, and lived with, by men who believed in missionary reports, those men might very possibly have their faith in missions considerably shaken. How can we, after reading such a testimony, take any part in missionary operations? This, unfortunately for Mr. Buckle's originality, was recognized in the Bible itself some hundreds of years before he lived. It is beautiful to notice the verdant simplicity of men who have just discovered that converted people nominally converted and baptized people are not angels. They write it in their books as if it were news. They quote from "impartial and independent travellers" as if at last they had found the reality of the case. "Independent travellers" have never written such burning, scorching words against Christian converts as Paul wrote. Mr. Buckle has written most classic and refined English, but he does not touch the moral agony, the sublime vehemence of the Jew, who nearly nineteen hundred years ago wrote words of condemnation regarding Christian converts, which probably are unequalled in the most energetic eloquence of the world. Take Corinth as described by Canon Farrar one of the most learned and eloquent Christian writers and preachers of this day. These are his words: "Corinth was the Vanity Fair of the Roman Empire, at once the London and the Paris of the first century after Christ.... But there was one characteristic of heathen life which would come home to Paul at Corinth with overwhelming force, and fill his pure soul with infinite pain. It was the gross immorality of a city conspicuous for its depravity, even amid the depraved cities of a dying heathenism. Its very name had become a synonym for reckless debauchery.... East and West mingled their dregs of foulness in the new Gomorrah of classic culture." Out of that city Paul brought some converts! But "impartial and independent travellers" testify that they were not angelic in spirit and temper and character! Take ancient Corinth as described by Frederick William Robertson, of Brighton, the prophet and the martyr of his age. These are his words: "The city was the hotbed of the world's evil, in which every noxious plant, indigenous or transplanted, rapidly grew and flourished; where luxury and sensuality throve rankly, stimulated by the gambling spirit of commercial life. All Corinth now, in the apostolic time, as in previous centuries, became a proverbial name for moral corruption." That was the field in which the Apostle Paul had to labour. "Many of the Corinthians hearing, believed and were baptized "; but "impartial and independent travellers" testify that even after that they were not so good as they might have been. Did Paul set them forth to be perfect men? Read his Epistles to the Corinthians. Read above all a passage, the whole of which I dare not read in public Paul's description of heathenism as given in the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, and then say whether any "impartial and independent traveller" is to testify against a man who used such accusatory language. We must not give up missionary work simply because some "impartial and independent travellers" interrupt their geographical business by little scrutinies into the spirit and manners of people who had been baptized into the name of Christ. Let us go to the States the Southern States of America. You talk about Freedom; you boast about Liberty; you have written odes and sonnets and poems of divers length to the Spirit of freedom and liberty. I will show you what it is. Here are some millions of black men who used to be slaves, and at that time the auctioneer who sold them used to give them really very nice characters, spoke of them in really creditable terms, and so put up their price. But now that they have become freed men look at them; lounging about the streets; lying and basking like dogs in the sunshine; going to the tavern; rising late; doing next to nothing that freedom! And yet your poet says