Acts 18:24-28

Chapter 69

Prayer

Almighty God, thou dost say with kingly love to every one coming to thee in Christ Jesus, the Priest and the Saviour of man, "What is thy petition? and what is thy request? and it shall be granted unto thee." Thou art not as the kings of the earth, reserving unto themselves half their kingdom when they make great promises. Thou hast given unto thy Church all things all height, all depth, all riches, all spaces, all duration; all things are ours, and we are Christ's, and Christ is God's. Wilt thou give us to feel the infinity of our riches, that there may be no longer any word or tone of poverty upon our lips, but that we may speak as rich men, to whose wealth there is no end, and whose joy is wide and lasting as God's heaven. We are children of the dust, and our lower nature drags us down to its own beginning; but we are also children of light, children of the Holy One; and thou dost give us lifting up of heart and thought according to the measure of our dignity in Christ Jesus. Our hope in him is that the higher will destroy the lower, and that in thine own good time and way we shall be made like unto the angels, stainless, infinite in the whiteness of purity, loving God with undistracted heart, and serving him with undivided strength. Having this hope in us we would purify ourselves; having within us this most sacred joy, we would be no longer children of the night, but would become children of the day; loving the light; loving the noontide most because the noontide is brightest; crying for higher heavens and brighter light; moved by a sacred and Divine ambition to which there is no answer in things that can be seen or spoken of. For the holy feeling of this aspiration we bless thee. When it comes upon us in the full tide of its power we feel like men who shake off their chains and rise into places fit for souls that are unstained. This is thy Sabbath blessing. This is the Lord's day. We have come to thee from the battle of the week, and we have come to praise thee for some defeats which have been real successes, and for some victories that have caused us pain. We would no longer be as those who undertake to see and hear and act for themselves. We will do no such thing; thou shalt be our eyes, our ears, and our hands; and we will stand behind and hear thy report, and answer thy command, and follow it so far thou dost give us strength by the mystery of thy will and love. We want to live so. Our desire is to live and move and have our being in God. We would be swallowed up of love. We would know nothing that is not thine, and do nothing that is not according to the good pleasure of thy will. This we have learned in Christ, and not out of him; out of thy Son no such lesson can be learned. This knowledge is born of the agony of sacrifice; herein is the Cross of Christ in all its infinite meaning. We would be crucified with Christ; we would glory in the Cross of Christ; we would bear the name of Christ. Help us to know what it is to carry his flag, to breathe his name, and to represent his court, feeling the dignity of the call and the solemnity of the obligation. May we throw open our window seven times towards the Jerusalem that is above, day by day, and thus live in fellowship with God, and stoop to earth merely as a temporary discipline. Some whom them lovest are sick. Thou canst help them. Thou knowest every bone and every member of the body, for thou didst make it all with the infinite cunning of Omniscience. Heal those whom thou hast laid down after a time, and during that time may their thought be moving upward in loving and anxious desire. Guide the perplexed. They do not know whether to go to this side or to that; they might as well be blind. Take hold of the hand that is groping in the darkness, and lead thou on. Comfort the broken-hearted; turn tears into jewels; make sighing equal to prayer; and may those who are ill at ease be brought into the sanctuary of Christ. Foil the enemy; break him down in the very power of his pride; when he is about to strike what would be the fatal blow, do thou bend back his arm and cover his eyes with eternal night. The Lord lift up all the children, that they may feel safe in thine arms, and may return with childish laughter the light of thy smile. The Lord hear; the Lord read our unspoken thought; the Lord exalt himself by forgiving sin through the infinite merits of the blood of Christ. Amen.

Act 18:24-28

24. Now [ while Paul was progressing through Phrygian Galatia towards Ephesus, God was preparing his way in that city:] a certain Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by race, a learned [G. "eloquent"] man, came to Ephesus; and he was mighty in the Scriptures.

25. This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he spake and taught carefully [G. " accurately"; so far as he had learned them] the things concerning Jesus, knowing only the baptism of John [ Act 19:3-4 ]:

26. And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilia and Aquila heard him, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more carefully [G. "with fuller accuracy "].

27. And when he was minded to pass over into Achaia, the brethren encouraged him, and wrote to the disciples to receive him [1 Corinthians 3:1 . Note this evidence of a Church having been founded at Ephesus]: and when he was come, he helped them much which had believed [which he did] through grace:

28. For [as only grace could have enabled him to do] he powerfully confuted the Jews, and that publicly, showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ [1 Corinthians 3:6 . Bengel's note on Apollos is, "he watered, but did not plant"].

A New Man In the Church

HOW marvellous is the preeminence of individual men. Herein is the continual miracle of daily Providence. The great man always comes; yet few can tell how or whence. God is pleased to make sudden revelations of power. He is pleased to surprise men themselves by unexpected accessions of strength, so that the feeble man becomes as the mighty, and the obscure man steps up to the very summit of prominence and renown. Elijah comes without warning, and is Elijah all at once. Other men have been found on the same lines and have challenged society with equal suddenness. Men are so much alike up to a given point, and then without potent reason they separate from one another into individualities, assuming distinctive colours, and going out on separate and independent missions. It is not the first hundred feet that give a mountain its name, but the last ten feet. Just that little peak will get the mountain a name among mountains; that little hardly visible outline will create the fame of the hill. It is so that God is always distributing human power, talent, and influence. We have very much in common, and then after that which is common we have that which is individual, and so become particularized into glittering units, each standing alone, yet each having subtle relations to the whole. Study the miracle of the succession of the generations, those of you who have what you call your "doubts" about historical miracles. The anecdotal miracles have passed away, but there is an eternal miracle, and men would see it but for the impoverishing familiarity which takes no notice of the sunlight because it is so regular, so common, and so plentiful. Yet we are all one, centrally and morally. The little bird that can fly seems to have a larger liberty than man who can only walk; but the air is only the wider earth it is all earth; the air belongs to us, and though birds can fly in it, they never get away from the earth really. So with the great mental eagles, flying souls, minds that open the broad pinions of immeasurable power and flap them at heaven's gate they all belong to us; they are bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. Argumentative Paul and eloquent Apollos are brethren with us, sitting at the same table and kneeling at the same altar. If we could get that view of our leaders we should destroy all envy, suspicion, distrust, rivalry, and jealousy, because Apollos would be my larger self, and Paul in his noblest moods would be myself transfigured. We should glorify God in the greatness of our brethren.

Let us look at the preeminence of Apollos and study the characteristics which were natural and inimitable and those which were acquired and therefore possible of reproduction by ourselves. Apollos was "an eloquent man," and therefore his temptations were great. It is difficult for any eloquent man to be what is popularly known as honest It is a tremendous trial of integrity, as usually understood, to have great command of language. Do not suppose that the eloquent man hears his own eloquence as we hear it; he is told about it. If he be artificial in his eloquence he hears every tone of it; but if inspiredly eloquent he is himself a hearer as well as a speaker. How does it come to be almost impossible for an eloquent man to be popularly considered as honest? Because he sees so many colours in words, so many critical variations of meaning. He does not speak with broad vulgarity any word that he utters; and when I suggest the difficulty of an eloquent man being honest I am bound to add that he is often thought to be dishonest when he is not really so. He is speaking another language. Some persons have only two colours black and white. What can they know of the revelations of colour which God has granted to these latter times? Some voices have only two movements loud and low, they have no internal line, no broken, mysterious, weird tones. They are either speaking very loudly or very lowly, and they know nothing of the mystery of the mind which sees a whole apocalypse in the action of intonation. In English we have only two numbers. We are a concise people; we speak of "singular and plural." But there are other languages that have more numbers than two. In English we have but three cases; but there are other languages that have six cases, as many of my junior hearers know only too painfully. In a language that divides everything into singular and plural there can be, so far, no great mystery. In a language that has only the nominative, possessive, and objective he would be a backward boy who could not master that little variety of case in one short day. But where language becomes more subtle, complicated, and involved, men may be saying things which to the simpler mind appear to be of the nature of tergiversation and even lying, which are in their substance critically and punctiliously true. We know that there are men among us healthy men of large and active digestion, who say, "Yes or no!" They mistake their abruptness for frankness, and their violence for candour. "Yes" and "No" are not the poles of truth and integrity. Here Apollos cannot be reproduced by us. Eloquence cannot be acquired; it is the gift of tongues.

Apollos was not only "eloquent," he was "fervent in the spirit." There he may not be imitated. You can paint fire, but it will never warm you. Fire is the gift of God. He fixes the temperature of the blood, the scope and fervour of the mind. Men who are not fervent are not to be blamed. You would not blame a man for being born blind. You are not cruel in your judgment of a man who is lame from his birth. In those physical instances you can see the meaning of the truth; that same truth has also its inner and spiritual meaning with regard to intellectual faculties and moral qualities. Fire can read the Scriptures; fire is at home in the Bible. It is like blaze mingling with blaze when fervent Apollos reads burning Isaiah. How the flames leap together and form one grand oblation at the altar of the sun! The difficulty here is lest men who are not fervent should blame men who are fervent; and lest fervent men should be impatient with men who are not fervent. Here also we belong to one another. Human nature is incomplete without the smallest, youngest, frailest child that ever crawled in the dust. The door must not be shut upon the gathered hosts until the last little creeper has been brought in and sat at the Father's table. Men who are not fervent are often most useful. There is a purpose to be served in the economy of things by ice as well as by fire only do not let them quarrel. Do not let ice say, "You, fire, exaggerate things"; and do not let fire say, "You, ice, are an offence to every planet that burns in the sky." We are all treated by the same Maker, and we shall be judged by Infinite Justice.

Apollos was not only "eloquent" and "fervid," he was "mighty in the Scriptures." There we cannot imitate him. Might in Bible reading is the gift of God. It is a wondrous word. To read the Bible so as to become mighty in it requires insight, sympathy, kinship with the writers, a spiritual knowledge of the language, identification with the Spirit of God. All men cannot read some schoolmasters cannot read; some preachers cannot read. Therein so many blunders are made. To become mighty in the Scriptures is to know such a variety of mind: Moses, and the prophets, and the minstrels of Israel, and Christ, and the Apostles who can comprehend all that gamut of inspired utterance? We may be able to repeat every word of the Bible, and yet know nothing about the inner Scriptures. The Scriptures are in the Bible; the Scriptures are within the Scriptures. "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." We can toil at this service. Some of us can understand one portion of Scripture who cannot understand another. We must not begrudge one another the partial gift, nor endeavour to reduce it to contempt. There are some hearts mighty in the Psalms; there are other minds mighty in the histories of the Bible; there are others with a special gift for taking hold of, and explaining, Christ. We must all work together. No one minister is the whole ministry. To hear the sermon which is preached in London today you must add all the individual sermons, and when they have gathered themselves up into one sublime thunder, you have heard the sermon preached today in the name of Christ. You should go further still and take in, not one capital, but all cities, not one empire, but all kingdoms, nations, and states; add into one mighty sum all that has been spoken in them, and then you will have preached in the ear of inspired fancy the complete sermon heard today respecting Jesus Christ. I claim for every servant his own place; for every minister his own special vocation; and I would have every teacher, minister, speaker, honoured according to the particular gift that is in him.

Apollos was not only "eloquent," "fervent," and "mighty in the Scriptures"; he was "instructed in the way of the Lord." There we may join him. He spoke through instruction, which is the surest basis of inspiration. We are not to suppose that inspiration excludes instruction. Instruction is the proof of inspira-tion that is to say, the inspired Word so comes down into the life as to prove itself along the line of our intelligence and moral responsibility. How few people are "instructed in the way of the Lord." There is nothing in this world more astounding than its ignorance. There are preachers gifted with an imagination, I know not whence descended, that speak of "this large and intelligent assembly"; you cannot tell anything about the intelligence of an assembly until you have examined man by man alone in any book in the sacred record. There is a gift of kind heaven by which a man can publicly look much wiser than he really is. "Instructed in the way of the Lord." Why, these words involve the devotion of a lifetime. The "way of the Lord" is in the deep waters, and in the secret places, and in the tabernacles of the thunder, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. He speaks riddle and enigma, and utters words that startle us by reason of their peculiarity and utter strangeness. What scope for industry! What a field for teachableness!

So far Apollos out-soars us, but this cannot be all; even in Apollos there must be a weak point. Let us find it out indeed no long quest is needed, for we are told distinctly in the twenty-fifth verse that Apollos knew "only the baptism of John." If he could be so eloquent about water, what will he be when he comes to speak of blood? We shall find this man doing wonders in the Church. If he could burn so in the very soul when he knew only the initial baptism, what will he be when he sees and feels the Cross, the Blood, the Sacrifice, and understands somewhat of the forgiveness of sins, and the glory of immortality, and the splendour of the Christian heaven? It is possible to teach even the alphabet earnestly. Apollos knew only the alphabet, but he taught the separate letters as if they were separate poems. It is quite possible to repeat the alphabet as though it contained nothing, and it is possible to repeat the letters of the alphabet as if they were the beginnings of temples, libraries, and whole heavens of intelligence and revelation and spiritual possibility. The fervent man touches everything with his fervour; even when he repeats the alphabet it is repeated as with fire. Do not despise the teachers who are not teaching exactly the fulness of the Gospel. If they are teaching up to the measure of their intelligence, thank God for their co-operation. There are men in all great cities who are teaching the baptism of John, who are teaching the elements of morality, and who are endeavouring to save the world by political elevation and the larger political truth. They must not be undervalued; they must not be talked about scornfully; they ought to be treated exactly as Aquila and Priscilla treated Apollos. If the offer of further information is declined or resented, the offer has been made and the responsibility has thus been discharged. But do not despise men who do not teach your particular phase of doctrine. They may be earnest and not belong to your Church; they will, however, show their earnestness by their teachableness. The moment a man, in the Church or out of it, puts on the priest and enters a claim for personal infallibility, that moment he is a trespasser in the sanctuary of God. The oldest of us has hardly begun his lesson; the wisest of us will be the first to receive another suggestion; the most advanced scholar will be the most docile learner. You may not have come to my Gospel of forgiveness of sins through the blood of the Cross, but you are here, in the sacred place, to-day I will set that fact down to your credit. If you go to church I will make that out a line in your favour. You may not have travelled far along the road, but your face is in the right direction, and that is a circumstance that must not be undervalued. The Cross of Christ was set up not to destroy men's lives, but to save them.

"Aquila and Priscilla took Apollos unto them and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly." Thus, in an indirect way, Apollos became a pupil of St. Paul himself. Paul will probably one day get hold of him, and when the two fires meet the light will be seen and the warmth will be felt afar. These men are ours. The sun belongs to the very poorest man that lives. The sun belongs to the blind man who can only feel the warm beam upon his dark face. The great things are all ours. We cannot go into the rich man's house or room and warm our cold hands at his blazing fire; but the coldest child can hold up its little hands to God's sun, and, so to speak, bathe them in its impartial warmth. The capital of the country belongs to every villager. The obscure dweller in the obscure hamlet cannot claim the secondary cities in the same way in which he can claim the metropolis. The metropolis does not belong to any one particular set of inhabitants; it is the Imperial city; it belongs to every one in the whole empire. To go to the metropolis is indeed to go to the mother city; to go, in a sense, home, and to have some well-established right to be there. So with the great Pauls and Apolloses, and the mighty speakers and teachers, poets and thinkers they belong to us, every one. The language of the country belongs to every man, woman, and child in the country, simply because of its largeness. If it were a patois it would belong to its valley, or a particular hill-side; but being the pure speech of the country it belongs to every one who can utter its words; and it is "enough to fill the ambition of a common man that Chatham's language was his mother-tongue." So the higher we go the more we own. "All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." This is Paul's own inventory of our property; let us claim it, every whit and line.