Acts 20:20-23

Chapter 77

Prayer

Almighty God, we would be swallowed up of love; we would be lifted up far beyond the earth and sense of time, and begin already to know somewhat of the tender mystery of eternal peace. Why this longing of the heart? Why this discontent with time and sense? This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. Thou dost make us miracles unto ourselves. Thou dost write strange writing upon our heart and mind, and cause us to be sorely puzzled by its great meaning. Thou hast made man a revelation of God. Surely we may say, This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven, when we feel this sacred pressure after things not seen and eternal. This desire is no invention of ours; this longing after immortality is no earth-born inspiration. This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, wondrous in counsel and excellent in working. We know that we are made after the image and likeness of God when we thirst for the Living God as the hart panteth after the waterbrooks. We bless thee that all our questionings are answered by Jesus Christ, and that the gracious replies are written in his own blood as he dies upon the tree. Jesus Christ thou hast made our Saviour. He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross, that we might know release from sin, the pardon of guilt, and enter into the joy of our Lord. This mystery of love is our delight: we feel its sublimity; we respond to its infinite grandeur; we see the heavenly wisdom and the heavenly righteousness in the sacred Cross, and, being enabled to exercise faith in Christ Jesus, we now feel upon our awakening souls the tender, morning light of a land in which there is no death. Thou dost love us every one. Thy heart stands open like a great door night and day, and into it we may run and find love and safety, and assurance of adoption into thy family. This is the salvation that cometh down from above; there is no strain in its overflowing strength; there is no effort in its omnipotence; there is no endeavour simply to cover the extremity of our guilt; it is an abounding salvation, an overflowing grace, a redundant and infinite compassion and love. Where sin abounds grace doth much more abound. Who can overtake thy love? What sin can equal thy grace? Is not the great hell itself but a tiny spark in the infinite amplitude of thy radiant kingdom? Thou, O Christ, shalt reign over all hearts. The universe is thine in every light and shadow, and surely thou wilt have it all by right of ownership, or by right of redemption. Thy sceptre is an everlasting sceptre, and thy throne is for ever and ever. Every week we grow downwards and away from the light, because of the continual action of time upon us; but on the Lord's Day are we not lifted up into newness of life, taken away to the tops of exceeding high mountains, whence we can see what lies beyond of beauty and life and comfort? May we thus from week to week make steady advance in upward paths, until dying shall be living, until the farewell to one world shall be the salutation of the next. We lay our sins before the Cross and see them melting away. We speak our contrite speech into the ear of Christ, and whilst we are talking to him in heart-brokenness and penitence, all the old light returns, and the assurance of adopting love is given again, so that we, who but yesterday were the bondsmen of our own guilt, are today the freemen of Christ's love. We give one another to thee friend prays for friend. Some have been surprised by great goodness; they have suddenly seen the angel of the Lord, and are glad; they knew not what to do with the chain until the angel touched it and the iron melted away. Some have seen light springing up in darkness. There was to them no earth, no sky, no beyond only an all-enclosing and all-burdening darkness; and lo, suddenly, as the midnight hour paled, there struck through the darkness a gleam of light from heaven, and there was daylight in the very centre of the cloud. And some are still dejected of heart; their eyes are red with crying, and their limbs fail for want of strength. They are alway with us; we commend them to the great Friend and Healer of men the honest worker, who is baffled at every turn; the heroic woman-heart that wants to do so much, but has no chance to do it; the brave soul that wants to be free and yet must live in servitude; the perplexed; the disappointed; the secretly sorrowing; those who are praying in whispers because they would be ashamed to be overheard, so halting and poor their prayer we commend to thee for recognition, deliverance, and comfort, and pray that they may receive, according to their necessity and their pain, the great gift of the grace of God. Let this morning be a time of gladness to us; may hearts melt; may stubborn wills yield; may those who have hitherto been deaf hear for the first time Gospel music, and may all the appeals of heaven, made through the Cross of Christ, through the blood and priesthood of Christ, be answered by the whole congregation in dedicated hearts, in lives laid on the altar, with the only regret that the oblation is not complete. Amen.

Act 20:20-23

20. How that I shrank not from declaring unto you anything that was profitable [cause of above tears and trials], and teaching you publicly and from house to house,

21. Testifying both to Jews, and to Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

22. And now, behold, I go bound in the Spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there:

23. Save that the Holy Ghost testifieth unto me in every city [Acts 13:2 ; Act 21:4-11 ], saying that bonds and afflictions abide me.

The Man and the Doctrine

Paul considered his hearers; he acted as a wise physician; so far as was possible he studied each individual case and gave to each a portion of meat in due season. There are great public utterances to be made, and there are private interpretations, or secret comforts, or individual messages to be attended to. Paul considered the hearer: he seemed to say about every one, "What does this particular man most need? what is his peculiar temperament? what are his peculiar temptations? I must study every man as if he were the only man, and thus minister the word of grace according to the singular characteristic and special necessity of each living soul." We know that to be impossible in detail; yet are we charmed by the loving and helpful spirit that would so study each case if it could. This Gospel is not to be roughly delivered, with want of discrimination as to particular soul-conditions and soul-developments. What the Gospel would do is to speak to every soul as if it were the solitary occupant of the universe the one creature in the presence of the Creator. This kind of secret ministry, concentrated upon the one soul, comes out of continuous and devout reading of the Holy Book in the solitude of our own companionship. It is then we see the brightest gleams of heavenly light; it is then we feel the nearness to a Spirit that has no name adequate to the mystery of its operation, but which we signalize by temporary names for the purpose of assisting our recollection and fixing in our hearts great spiritual occurrences. Each preacher can consider his own congregation where he cannot consider each member of it. All congregations are not alike; what would be suitable to one congregation might be unsuitable to another. Where the congregation is composed of all classes and conditions of men, and in no small degree of men who are inquiring, of men who are religiously numbered with nobody, who are wondering, speculating, often sinning, often curiously praying saying words unfamiliar to Christian atmospheres; rugged mem; daring men; men who are better often than they seem; men who try to laugh off their religion when they are feeling it most poignantly then we must have a ministry adapted to such peculiarities, and overspreading them all with something like infinite sympathy and compassionateness, so that every soul may feel as if the preacher had no acquaintance but himself. This is the gift of God. The ruthless preacher who treats every soul alike will have no souls deeply attached to him. He who makes great allowances, who enlarges the church door to admit those for whom it would otherwise be too strait, may seem to be liberal, but his liberality is only in seeming, for no liberality can equal the love which has made all the firmament a great shining door that swings back at the penitential touch to allow the penitent to enter into his Father's house. If there is not room for man in the Church of God, there is room for him nowhere. The largest house in the universe is God's house; he never adds to the building, but he continually points out the mansions we, ourselves, had not yet discovered. There is no human case that is not considered by the Gospel, and provided for by the Gospel. I care not how strange the case, how vivid its peculiarities, how repellant some of its features, how crying and bitter its moral agony there is provision for it in the great Gospel scheme, the sweet Gospel thought that cares as much for the little as for the great, for the poor as for the rich; nay, before it there can be no littleness, no greatness, no poverty, no wealth all these distinctions are lost in the infiniteness of its own sublimity. So let no man stand outside the gate of heaven and say that he was not foreseen when the boundaries of heaven were established.

In recounting his ministry, Paul said, "I have showed you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house." One would like a record of his house-to house talk, but the scribes have done little for us beyond tracing the main, broad outline of the Apostolic ministry. To have heard Paul speak on great themes in a little sphere would have been an education. What child has not been fascinated by seeing what appeared to be the whole sun inside a frail dewdrop? And what traveller has not paused a moment to see some kind star condescending enough to hide itself in the depth of a crystal well, as if it were shining in two heavens at once? To have seen Paul at the fireside, or to have heard him talking to some little child, or to have watched him at some bedside near the dying sufferer to have heard his voice when it was attuned to the hearing of one listener alone! These opportunities we can never enjoy. We do not always get the full man even in the elaborate biography which has been written of him. When we have read all the biographer can say, perhaps in some stray letter which was never intended to be published we may find one little sentence which will throw more light upon the man's character than the whole biography has thrown. Men are seen in little things, on small occasions; in one stoop to the ground we may get a better gauge of the condescension of the spirit than in more elaborate humility. So the Paul that is before us is only treading great broad lines we want the house-to-house-preaching Apostle. Blessed be God, this great Gospel will go anywhere, and be just the same whether drawn on a large scale or a little one; it does not hide itself until an adequate theatre is prepared for its display; it is not a scenic Gospel; it is not part of some grand thing that has to be done by a large number of persons. It will preach under great roofs with modulated thunder which fills the house and makes every ear glad with its tunefulness, and it will be just as fascinating and thrilling when it drops its voice into a whispered prayer gently insinuating doctrine to the listener as well as enlarging into copious prayer, special intercession for his comfort and illumination. The Apostle Paul could discharge both ministries. There is only one Apostle Paul. Do not be discouraged because you can only discharge a public ministry; and do not you be discouraged, rural pastor, or city shepherd, because you can only discharge the house-to-house ministry. The one ministry may be as important as the other, but do not expect that, taking ministers as a body, every one can be the same in public as in private, in private as in public. Each man has his own gift of God. Happy he who works his own gift and not another man's, and wise the people who, recognizing the one gift, do not bemoan the absence of other accomplishments.

What did the Apostle say both "publicly and from house to house"? The same great doctrine he preached in both cases. This you find in the 21st verse: "Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." That was the grand substantial doc trine; of how many modifications it admits only those who have gone carefully into its study and application can tell. This doctrine never changes; this holy substance can never be taken out of the volume. Why should we be unwilling if scholars rearrange the order of the Biblical books? Why should we moan if they correct our notions as to the chronology of the succession of the prophets? Why should we feel that the foundations are out of course because a complete and intelligent scholarship brings new light to bear upon old constructions? The one thing that cannot be changed is the message which the Gospel has to deliver to the human heart, and that message cannot be expressed in more symbolic and significant terms than "repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." Who has ventured to change the terms? If your religion rested upon other foundations, I wonder not that it has been much troubled by modern scholarship and by contemporary challenge and assault, but if your religion finds its foundations in the 21st verse "repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ" it cannot be touched. Where is there a heart that can say in its most serious moments that it has no need of repentance? Do not let us appeal to the flippant man upon this subject, but to the man who knows life, who has felt its temptations and its pressures of every kind. No such man will ever say that he lives beyond the necessity of repentance. He could detain you all day by a recital of his shortcomings and his sins. That he is dumb about them shows not the littleness of the list, but its endlessness. Why begin what can never be finished? Why not express by a bowed head what never can be uttered in the most elaborate confession? What man is there that does not feel, under the pressure of his own guilty memories, that he needs a help other than his own? He has no hand with which he can help himself, for his hand, as well as his head, is involved in the terrific and fatal paralysis. He cannot open an eye to see his way, for on his eyelids rests the accumulated darkness of self-accusation. If that man has to be delivered, he must be delivered by another hand than his own, and that action is best represented by the words "faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." Yet the faith is not in the man, but in the Christ; but Christ works so mysteriously as to make us creditors in the matter of the faith, and says in the end, when the soul is delivered, and whitened with the purity of heaven, "Thy faith hath made thee whole." Yet faith is the gift of God; faith is the communication of God; faith is no merely human faculty, yet it pleases God, who wants to make more of us than we are if he can, to say that our faith hath made us whole. "Repentance" is a word which may be broken up according to the sinfulness of the individual sinner. Some men can never know the agony of repentance without great demonstration of feeling. Other souls pass through the same agony, but the observer is not allowed to trace the sacred pain. The repentance does not consist in the public demonstration, but in the inward and spiritual feeling. God must judge whether my repentance is sincere.

Having laid down some outline of his manner of life and doctrine, the Apostle comes to a point of departure. "And now," said he, "behold, I go bound in the Spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there: save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me." It was a dark outlook; how is the darkness relieved? In this case as in all others: by an immediate and definite reference to Divine providence. "I go bound in the Spirit unto Jerusalem." This is destiny; some men would call it Fate. "I move because I cannot help it, except in a sense which would involve positive and profane disobedience. To turn the other way would be to turn from myself, from my convictions, from a distinct and solemn conception of personal destiny." When a man lives in this doctrine, he may go forward into darkness, but he goes forward with a solid and solemn step. If you think that the cloud that is before you is of your own creation, you may well be dejected as you look upon its magnitude and density; but if you can say, "This also is part of the school discipline of God; this great breadth of darkness must be traversed inch by inch; this land of graves must be travelled over mile by mile; this wilderness of sand is the creation of a Providence that means by it my spiritual culture and noblest education," you will advance without laughter, but with a solemn joy, a grand, deep joy, full of melancholy, full of expectation: not a discipline undergone because the imposer of it is stronger than you are, but undergone with solemn cheerfulness because of the conscious assurance of your own heart that every stroke is meant for your good, and every loss is a contribution to your gain.

Not one ray of hope in all the outlook! "In every city bonds afflictions." No friend in any city; bound when I have done nothing worthy of bonds; afflictions heaped upon a man who ought to be hailed with hallelujahs and acclaims of thankfulness. Yes. What a tribute to the sustaining power of the doctrine he had taught! No man can "go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem" to face "bonds and afflictions in every city" merely for the sake of bearing such accumulated griefs and distresses. That were but a temporary bravado. That were an unremunerative sentiment that would soon be chastised and scourged out of a man. The bonds were many, the afflictions were heavy; what outweighed them all? The sense of God's presence and God's favor. The spiritual can outweigh the material. You can be in such a state of soul-wealth as to forget the poverty of earth and time; you can be so fed in the very soul as to be forty days and forty nights without food or lodging, and not to know that you have not been all the time in heaven. If one thing above another has been demonstrated by Christian history, it is that the Christian spirit may be so vital in a man as to make him forget all care and pain and labour and sorrow, and make him triumph and glory in tribulation also. Such feelings are not to be dismissed by being ascribed to fanaticism. We have had ample opportunity of judging the character of a man like the Apostle Paul, and we have always been bound to admit, however great his excellency, however high above us his spiritual ecstasy, he has shown an intellectual capacity, a mental sternness, a grip and force of mind that have compelled the admiration of those who have sometimes wondered about, if not questioned, his divine inspiration. What comforted Paul will comfort us. This is the eternal quantity of the Gospel never changing, never lessening. There are amongst us men who can rise in the Church today and say, "But for the grace of God, I would not have been a living man this day"; "But for the grace of God, I should have been the victim or the dupe of temporary, but uncontrollable, insanity"; "But for the grace of God, this day my life would have been sunk in despair." The men who would render such testimonies are men whose intellectual sagacity has been tested and proved in the marketplace, in the realm of politics, along the lines of ordinary social life. There is no dispute about their mental soundness, and yet, with ardour and emphasis and gratitude, they can make this testimony about the sustaining and comforting power of the grace of God. I have buried the child of a man who had no consciousness of God, no realization of the presence of Christ in his life, and I have seen that man reel back from his child's open grave mad with hopeless grief. I have also buried the child of parents who have lived in God, who have loved the Saviour, and humbly endeavoured to serve him, and as the little coffin has been let down and the farewell words have been spoken, they have been enabled to say, "It is well with the child." Be that religion mine! Let me live the life of the Christian; let me die the death of the righteous; let me, when pressed into close quarters, thrust upon by every spear in the armoury of the enemy, be able to say, "Into thy hands, Lord Jesus, I commend my spirit." In such extremities we find out the value of man's religion. In cloud, in storm, in rough wind, in bare upland, in hot wilderness, in death's own black night we find out what men's faith really is; and tested by those tremendous tests, the faith of our Lord Jesus stands up this day the only faith that has sustained intelligent men, reason-loving men, all kinds and conditions of men the faith that took them to the one end of the valley of the shadow of death, and never left them till it introduced them into the light at the other end, and received them from the waving hand of the delivered one a tribute to a constancy that never failed, and to a grace that was always more than equal to the agony of the occasion.