Verses 1-32
Chapter 92
Prayer
Almighty God, may we, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, be counted worthy at the last to take part in the song of Moses and the Lamb. We have hope that this shall be so, if our hearts condemn us not. We believe that thou dost speak through them the word of confidence. We feel that we must take part in the song which praises thee, for our whole life answers thy life, our whole nature rises in response to thy light. We love thee; we love thy Son, by whom alone we know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. Knowing the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, we would praise the great Three-One now and evermore. May we not lose the inspiration of the sanctuary, but rule the whole week with it, controlling and subduing everything by its holy power. Spirit of the living God, dwell in our hearts, burn in the sanctuary of our love, and let the radiation of thy glory touch every point of our life and make us beautiful with light. Sometimes we are standing quite near thee: we are upon the mountain whilst the dew is there; we are lifted up so high in soul that we can see beyond the boundary and hear voices from upper lands. These are the days of the Son of man upon the earth; these are the times that transfigure our life and make it burn with transcendent glory. Then we come down to fight the battle to be stunned by the tumultuous fray in the valley; then we forget the glory and cease to think of thee, and miss not, as we ought to do, the presence Divine. But thou knowest it all; our life is not hidden from thee. Thou didst make it in all its curiosity and mystery, and strange wonder and terrible painfulness. It is thy life, not ours; it is part of thine own eternity. Thou hast entrusted it to us; and we know not, oftentimes, what to make of it. We say we would not live alway; we pine for rest, we cry for sleep: we know that unconsciousness has its blessing as well as consciousness. So thou dost take us aside awhile; thou hast made a bed for us soft and warm; thou dost lay us down in our weariness and watch us in our helplessness, and in the morning we start again with new youth and new hope. This is thy way; half day, half night is our life half battle, half sleep. This is thy love, thou God of light. Thou dost recover us in sleep; thou dost redeem our life by rest. Thou art alway redeeming the children of men. We bless thee for all upward ways; for all hills lifting themselves towards the blue sky they are helps. To climb is to pray; to ascend the mountain is to get away from the place of graves. Thou hast set the mystery of thy mercy round about us, and within us and above us, and every place is the gate of heaven. We have come together to be blessed, to feel forgiven through the infinite love of the Son of God. We have brought our burdens, knowing that we shall not take them away again. We will try to sing thy praise, for thou art worthy to receive our adoration and our love for all thou hast done for us. We pray always for one another; we find words for each other's speechlessness; we pray in the language of our friends, and in their sighing we intercede. Give the old man to know that there is no old age, that life is one ascent into eternal youth. Let the beginner know that there are no endings in thy circle, and charm him with the confidence that in thy strength he will make his life a victory. Speak to the man bent on wrong courses; strike him down, not with lightning, but with light, so that though he be blind for a day or two, he may by-and-by receive his vision. Let the little ones be first remembered, for thou lovest them most of all. They are thy Church, though we know it not. We are still turning the children away, away from thy table because they do not understand it as if a child did not understand it better than a grown man. Behold the little ones here and at home, and make them glad with purest joy, and hopeful because of thy presence and strength. As for those who are putrid dead thou art the Resurrection and the Life. O Christ! we must leave our dead at thy feet. We tried to save them and we failed they would die. We leave them in thy hands. Comfort the poor sick ones who want to be with us today, but are bowed down by weakness. Bless every one who goes out to try to make the world better by teaching and proclaiming thy word, by offering prayer in ears unaccustomed to hear the sacred eloquence. And the Lord grant that at the eventide we may be stronger than in the morning, and that having fought the battle, we may be but the eagerer to renew the fray. Amen.
1. Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Thou art permitted to speak for thyself. Then Paul stretched forth the hand, and answered for himself:
2. I think myself happy, king Agrippa, because I shall answer for myself this day before thee touching all the things whereof I am accused of the Jews:
3. Especially because I know thee to be expert in all customs and questions which are among the Jews: wherefore I beseech thee to hear me patiently.
4. My manner of life from my youth, which was at the first among mine own nation at Jerusalem, know all the Jews;
5. Which knew me from the beginning, if they would testify, that after the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.
6. And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers;
7. Unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come. For which hope's sake, king Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews.
8. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?
9. I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
10. Which thing I also did in Jerusalem: and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them.
11. And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities.
12. Whereupon as I went to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests,
13. At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed with me.
14. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
15. And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.
16. But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee,
17. Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee,
18. To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.
19. Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision:
20. But shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judæa, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.
21. For these causes the Jews caught me in the temple, and went about to kill me.
22. Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come:
23. That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.
24. And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.
25. But he said, I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness.
26. For the king knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak freely: for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for this thing was not done in a corner.
27. King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest.
28. Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.
29. And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.
30. And when he had thus spoken, the king rose up, and the governor, and Bernice, and they that sat with them:
31. And when they were gone aside, they talked between themselves, saying, This man doeth nothing worthy of death or of bonds.
32. Then said Agrippa unto Festus, This man might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed unto Cæsar.
Paul Before Agrippa
Here is all that Christianity ever asked for: an opportunity to speak for itself. This is just what Christianity wants the Agrippa of all time to say: "Christianity, thou art permitted to speak for thyself." The answer of Christianity is the answer which must always be returned: "I beseech thee to hear me patiently." In that high courtesy the noble discourse begins. Christianity always appears in person, its witnesses are always at hand, the court is never disappointed, the judge has never to wait: Christianity is an incarnation; not an argument in words, but logic in life. But Christianity must be heard patiently. Only the candid hearer can listen well. If we have put into our ears prejudices, foregone conclusions, obstinate convictions, through such impediments the music of Christianity cannot make its way. The mind must say, "For the time being I put myself at thy disposal; write upon me what thou hast to write; I will hear thee to the very end." That is the difficulty which we have to contend with. We are troubled by interruption. Who can sit still? Though we do not loudly and audibly interrupt, we may interrupt silently and mentally. We should allow the word free course through the mind, and, when it has completed its deliverance, then we may make reply. It seems so easy to listen; and yet there is nothing more difficult. It may be questioned whether six men in any congregation ever do listen. To listen is a discipline. We hear the broad sounds, not the fine ones; we pick out the great words that is, words of bulk and great size but not all the little beautiful jewels of speech that make up the wealth of the glorious exposition and appeal. Christianity simply wants to be heard to be heard candidly, patiently, thoroughly; and, when Christianity has ceased to ply us with her exposition and exhortation, she will be willing to return the courtesy and to hear what reply can be made. This is what Christianity cannot get the opportunity of making itself heard. She has to speak in the crowd, to compete with the clatter of machinery, to make her voice penetrate through the rattle of wheels on hard pavements. The world that should make a theatre for her, and sit without breathing till the magical eloquence is done, listens with impatience, and therefore does not listen at all interrupts vocally or mentally, and therefore spoils the wizardry; and so the one speech that could and should convert the world, the world never hears. There should be but one sermon one day with Christ should have converted the world if the world would have listened.
Here is the only answer which is universally available. The defence of Christianity stands precisely at this point today, in so far as it is effective. This is the only answer that ever made any converts. Other answers make defenders and controversialists and pedants; this answer makes Christians and workers. But the world wants something larger the world likes to be imposed upon by bulk. As Christian churches and Christian preachers, we ought to take our definite stand just here, and when Paul is done, we should say, one and all, "That is our answer."
Let us examine it.
It is personal testimony. Paul talks about nobody else but himself. He says, in effect, "This happened to me; had it occurred to some one beside, I might have mistaken the statement. I might have dropped some links of the chain, I might have misconceived the purpose of the speaker; but this happened to me. If you contradict this statement, you contradict me; you make me a false witness." That throws new elements into any great controversy, and Christianity alone can bear that application of the personal element. It swallows up all egotism. If we have nothing to say out of our own consciousness and experience, we cannot preach. He only can preach who can say, "I was struck with light and made blind; for three days I saw nothing, and then new sight was given to me." "If Christianity were a wrangle in words, I cannot tell who might arise to make new terms and to insist upon new definitions, but I stand," says the great Pauline preacher, "not upon ever-changing opinions, but upon indestructible instincts and indisputable facts." We are afraid to speak about ourselves; and, in truth, I am not surprised at the fear. We are so humble that we dare not speak about our experience; we think it ought to be something between ourselves and God. Paul never thought so; he began in the morning by saying, "By the grace of God, I am what I am"; and at night, when he put away the sword and the shield for the day, he said, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." He was not so humble as we are; we rebuke him, we shame him.
Not only was this personal testimony, but it was an instance of personal conversion. Are you ashamed of that old word? Men used to be converted; now they change their opinion and their standpoint and their attitude. Mountebanks! In the old time souls were converted turned right round and of this heroic time Paul is the most illustrious instance and example. See where he began "which knew me from the beginning, if they would testify, that after the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee." That was the starting-point; what was the end? "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." That is what we mean by conversion. The definition is concrete and absolute. Paul was not a profligate to be touched by emotions, for a moment to cry over his sins and for another moment to affect contrition for them. Paul's was not a vacant mind, ready for any new impression, anxious to receive one, earnestly desirous for some new thought to come and take possession of the unfurnished brain. Paul was not a fanatic, fond of exciting adventures, as there may be amongst ourselves, persons who go the round of the sects, who make friends today and renounce them tomorrow, and rush with irrational enthusiasm into new alliances on the third day. This is the kind of man he was: "my manner of life from my youth" I go back to first days "after the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee." He was stubborn, haughty, utterly convinced; his mind was verily preoccupied. "I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which thing I also did in Jerusalem: and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them." That was the man at the first; at the last what was that same man? Ready to be offered, looking for the crown of righteousness which the Lord Christ, the righteous Judge, would give to him. That is what we mean by conversion that is to say, turning right round and going straight away in the other direction. And if the Christian Church does not affect that kind of good, I know not that any other kind of good is really worth effecting, except as a means to an end. But with how bad a skill have we modified the word "conversion." We move now on a pivot; we turn round and round and call it progress. If any one should ask us what we mean by conversion, we would point to the case of Paul.
Here is a conversion based upon a distinct history. Ours is not so romantic, but it is quite as real. This is our life. The incidents were individual and local, but all the significance is universal, both as to nature and as to place. Look at those incidents. Christianity meets men on wrong courses: Paul, then called Saul, was on his way to Damascus, intent upon doing a wrong thing. Are we not also on the wrong road with a wrong purpose, armed by the power of a wrong authority? There is nothing so romantic in this as at first we may have supposed. So far, I have been with this very man; I remember him, I remember his distended nostrils, his fire-lighted eye, the fierce blow of his fist; I once touched him, I was once mistaken for him a man on the wrong road. "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way." Do not fasten your attention upon the word Damascus and say you were never there. Damascus in this history is a symbolical word, and stands for wrong courses, wrong purposes, wrong destinies. Christianity fights with the weapon of light: "I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun." I have seen that light; this is my own experience. Where is the so-called romance? I remember the moment of illumination; my mind goes back to the point of intensity; I exclaimed, "I see it now! I see the hideous iniquity, I see the shameful ingratitude, I see the infinite love, I see the sacrificial Blood yes, I see it!" That is conversion. Christianity is the religion of light, the religion of mental illumination and mental explanation and mental liberation. Never did you find Christianity lead man from a great place into a little one, from a grand view to a circumscribed point. Christianity never made any man less than he was before. Christianity is the religion of evolution in respect of bringing men up to their higher selves, their nobler powers, their sublimer capacities. Man does not know what he is until he has been touched by the full meaning of the Cross of the Son of God.
Christianity entrusts with new missions. "Rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister." Christianity does not perform in the mind the miracle of eviction, casting out of the mind all that was in it, without furnishing the mind with thoughts, convictions, and sublimities of its own. The reason why so many people have turned away from Christ is, that, though they have seen the light, they have not discharged the ministry they were content with the vision; they forgot the obedience. The grandest sermon may be forgotten; the brightest vision from heaven may become but an impression gradually fading away upon the inattentive memory. We must keep up visions by services; we must maintain theology by beneficence. We cannot live upon the sublime incidents of external life; we can only persevere in grace by persevering in goodness. Are we certain that we have seen the light? We cannot be certain unless we are quite sure that our last action in life was to do some good to mankind. Instead of sitting down and analysing feelings, frames, moods, sensations, and impressions, in order to find out whether we are really Christians or not, we should go out and call the blind and the halt and the poor, the maimed and the friendless to a daily feast, and in that act we should see how truly we are accepted of God. If Paul had retired as a gentleman of leisure, he might have forgotten the vision, or have contracted it into an anecdote; but he made it the starting-point of a new life, and in war, suffering, and agony, he got the confirmation of his best impressions. A working Church is a faithful Church; an honest, earnest, self-sacrificing Church is always orthodox. This is the argument which can be translated into all languages, adapted to all intellectual capacities, and pressed upon all sorts of hearers, so as utterly to silence their objections. There is no reply to self-sacrifice for Christ's sake.
Christianity sustains by Divine inspirations. Paul said in the twenty-second verse, "Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue " Conversion is followed by confirmation. The great point of illumination is sustained by continual gifts from heaven to the waiting and obedient heart. Paul did not eat bread once for all: he sat daily at the table of the Lord; he obtained help of God. He needed it all; every night he needed the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost to sustain him after the wearing fray. His life was oozing out of him, his nerves were shattered, his hopes were put to a greater distance; the enemy seemed to be stronger than he was, so much so, that tomorrow he could not have gone out had he not obtained help of God. Ministers, that is how we must live; we must obtain help from heaven; then we shall be able to say, "Though the outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day," and out of the grave of the night must come the resurrection of the morning. Then shall we be to ourselves and to our friends a surprise of power, a revelation of the sustaining grace of God.
This is the answer of Christianity to ever-questioning Agrippa. Difficult argument there is none; verbal refinement and curiosities there are none. There is experience, there is faithfulness to the facts of life, there is the assignment of a cause equal to the sublimest effect We have wandered from these lines; hence our loss and weakness. We ourselves have ceased to be the living logic, the incarnate argument. We now refer the inquiring Agrippa to the ponderous volume he has no heart to read, instead of pointing him to a life pure as light, undivided as love, unreserved in sacrifice.
Chapter 93
Prayer
Almighty God, thou art always giving unto us a new hope. Thou art the God of hope; thou art pointing us every day to the day that is yet to come the bright day, the Sabbath day, the day without night. This hope have we in thy Son. He hath abolished death and brought life and immortality to light. So now our conversation is in heaven, our expectation is in the skies. We expert the Lord Jesus, who shall change our common body and make it like unto his own glorious body, according to the power whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself. The power is one; the power is infinite. All power, in heaven and on earth, was given unto him on the third day, and that power is the defence of his redeemed. We abide under the shadow of the Almighty; we do not trust to our own weakness it is a daily disappointment and humiliation we trust to the Infinite Strength, the eternal Son of God the One Priest, whose prayer is our intercession. We bless thee for every ray of light: it is always a kindly surprise; the morning always exceeds our expectation and finds our imagining at fault. We cannot overtake the splendour of thy light; we know not the fulness of thy glory. When we think we have seen it all, behold, a new gleam throws all other light into darkness, and we stand in the rapture of a glad amazement. Thou hast yet more light to break forth; we have not seen the morning of which all other mornings are but types. We shall be satisfied, when we awake, with thy likeness. In the presence of that likeness, we shall need nor sun, nor moon, nor summer day, for thy countenance is its own noontide, and thy smile is our heaven. For all thy training of our life how can we bless thee? We have not understood it; sometimes we have appeared to resent it; we did not know what thou wast doing with us. Thou didst cause us to be driven away into the wilderness, to be sold into far-off lands, to undergo captivities and humiliation; thou didst strip us and rob us and beat us with great violence; and we knew not that we needed it all to make us men. The chastening for the time being was not pleasant or joyous, but grievous; but now, even in this little afterward, we begin to see somewhat of its gracious intent, and by-and-by, when the light is sufficient and our vision is enlarged and purified, we shall see thy purpose, we shall kiss thy rod, we shall bless thy chastisements. We pray thee for the great outlook, for the eyes that can see the unseen, for the great and Divine heart that knows without learning, that sees without looking that secret, sympathetic power which knows and feels and rejoices by a law which men have not yet put into words. Give us an unction from the Holy One, and we shall know all things, and know them not the less that we are wholly unable to explain them. We bless thee that our explanation runs short; we thank thee for fountains that have no equivalent vessels. We bless thee for these inner knowings these charges of knowledge and of power which we cannot express in words, and have weighed in scales made by men. We know that we know. Our knowledge is an inspiration, our attainment is a gift of the Holy Ghost; we have communications from the skies. Enrich us with all needful knowledge in Christ Jesus, thy dear Son. May we grow in acquaintance with the purpose of his heart; may we burn with Christ; may we sometimes be almost unable to say what is the difference between him and ourselves because we are so absorbed in his love, so filled with his spirit, so desirous to obey his will. Comfort the weary; give joy to those who sit in desolation; bring back the sunny hope that has fled from the young heart for a little while; make our houses homes; in the grate may a fire burn that does not consume the dwelling, but which shall interpret to us, in a thousand agonies and beauties, the Great Fire thy very Self that warms the universe. As for our sin, thou hast answered it. We bring it to thee, for thou alone canst heal the leper-heart; with thee is all cleansing, thou dying, rising, triumphing, interceding Son of God. Amen.
Paul Before Agrippa
( Continued )
Paul uses an expression which is full of significance in regard to all speakers: "I think myself happy." Now we shall hear him! You do not hear any man until he is happy. Speaking under constraint, you get a wrong idea and measure of the man, for he cannot do justice to himself, nor can he do justice to any great theme. Paul is happy: we shall therefore get his power at its very best; the audience fits him: he can fly in this firmament. Conditions have much to do with speech and with hearing. The man is not the same man under all conditions. We say about other things and say truly "Circumstances alter cases." Paul seems to have liked a Roman hearing. There was something in the augustness and imperial grandeur of the circumstances that touched him and brought him up to his very best. Even before Felix he said he would the more cheerfully answer for himself because that bad procurator had been a judge for a longer period than others. Before Agrippa he says, "I think myself happy." Now he will spread himself out; he will spare nothing; we shall hear all the music of his soul. It should mark a crisis in a life to hear Paul's defence. Why do we not make more red-letter days in our life? To read this defence sympathetically, to get into the swing and rhythm of this noble eloquence, should make us young again with hope and fearlessness and confident triumph, at the last, in Christ. Hearers make speakers: the pew makes the pulpit. Give any apostle an opportunity of feeling happy, and you will at once evoke from his soul music which would otherwise lie dumbly and hopelessly within him. We are to hear a happy speaker. The opportunity given to Paul is to speak for himself; how does he do it? By unfolding the Gospel. "But he was not asked to preach." But Paul cannot open his mouth without preaching to speak is to preach, to breathe is to pray, to be is to plead for Christ. "But the audience, as to its judicial structure, is a Roman one." No matter; Paul makes known the riches of his Lord's grace. When Agrippa said unto Paul, "Thou art permitted to speak for thyself," we expected that Paul would have defended himself according to Roman law. Paul makes no reference to Roman law. Paul always took the broad and vast view of things, and looking upon all life from the highest elevation, he saw it in its right proportion and colour and measure. He was never overwhelmed by details: he had the great religious art of putting things right back from him that he might look at them as they really were. These details leap upon us, clutch us, sting us, take away from us a large portion of our best strength. We have not that sovereign power, that sacred spiritual energy which can take hold of them and say to them, "Stand back, till I see what you really are in number, force, and value." Consider the opportunity and then consider the use made of it. Paul is all the while speaking about himself, and yet all the while he is preaching such a sermon as even he never preached before. He keeps to the point and yet takes a long tether; he never leaves the first personal attitude and relation, and yet all the while he is rebuilding all the Christian argument and reuttering in new tones and with new stretches of allusion and meaning the whole Gospel of salvation. This should be a lesson to all men. We may speak about ourselves and yet hide ourselves in the glory of Another. We need not make our experience egotistic even the use of the first personal pronoun need not imply any self-consciousness: it may be used without being abused. If we could have heard Paul say "I," we should have seen that it but helped him to hook himself on to the Christ in whose being his own was lost. There is a way in all things; there is a manner self-explaining. The thing to be noticed is, that Paul never glories except in the Cross of Christ. Standing before kings, he never changes his theme. Happy in his opportunities, he is only happy because he can draw a fuller portraiture of the One Saviour of the world.
In the next place, observe Paul's peculiar, but ever-available way of illustrating religious mysteries. Paul illustrated religious mysteries by relating personal miracles. Observe what a wonderful connection there is between the eighth verse and the ninth. Suddenly Paul breaks out with the inquiry, "Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?" Then as suddenly he reverts to his own case: "I verily thought with myself " Observe the word "thought" in both verses: first, "Why should it be thought a thing incredible"; and then, "I verily thought with myself" about myself "that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth." What is the argument? Evidently this: there are incredible things in theology, but there are also incredible things in personal history; seeing that the incredible things in personal history occur every day face us and challenge us at every turn of life; seeing that we must accept them why should it be thought a thing incredible that along theological lines there should be mysteries equally direct and equally stubborn as to apprehension and solution? That is the key of true learning. Paraphrased, the case might stand thus: "I know it is a marvellous thing that God should raise the dead, but God has raised me from the dead; I was dead in trespasses and in sins, I was the captive of death quite dead and God raised me; if, therefore, he has raised me having worked a miracle of resurrection or regeneration in my heart I can see how the same God could work the same miracle on another ground and under other circumstances." Such is the way to lay hold upon religious mysteries and their sacred and infinite meaning. We must avail ourselves of personal analogies, experiences, and wonders wrought in our own heart and life. God asks us to look within, that we may find the key to his kingdom. Where we have erred so much and lost so much is that we have been looking for the key in the wrong place. We ourselves are witnesses. There is not a miracle in all the Bible that has not been wrought, in some form of counterpart or type, in our own life. Paul got such a view of himself as to entitle him to set against outward religious mysteries the miracles which had been wrought in his own nature. You can steal my Christianity if it is only a theory; you cannot break through nor steal if it is hidden in my heart as a personal and actual experience. There should be less discussion and more life; there should be less challenge to the controversial foe and more beneficence, humbleness of mind, snow-white pureness of soul; and with these you may strike the most audacious enemy dumb. If you come to consider the resurrection of the dead from a merely intellectual point of view, it cannot be explained. Everything that is merely intellectual is, more or less, either a difficulty in the way of the resurrection or a circumstance which renders it impossible. The resurrection of the dead does not come within the reason of the mind. I will therefore search my life, and I find that I myself, a. Christian man, may say I have been raised from the dead. There is nothing more remarkable in the rising of the sheeted dead from the deep grave, than in my being what I now am as compared with what I once was. This is Paul's argument. He said, "When they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities and now I count myself unhappy, except in their society. The God that did that can raise the dead. I am myself a miracle, and therefore, from the height of my own experience and in the bliss of my own consciousness, I can receive as an august article in my theological creed the article that God can raise the dead." Paul drives the inquiry home. "Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you?" you limit the Holy One of Israel; you enlarge yourselves at the Divine expense; you put things wholly out of right relation and colour; in doubting the resurrection of the dead, you set up the idolatry of yourselves. We must not measure the Divine by the human, but the human by the Divine. Deepen your Christian experience, enlarge and ennoble your intercourse with God in the secret places of the sanctuary; draw to him more wrestingly and lovingly, and, rising from the altar where you have been lost to time and sense, you will see all things in a new light, and when objections and difficulties are put in your way you will be able to reply, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." We deal with weak men when we deal with persons who have no answer in themselves. You may have lost your argument because you had to take down a book to prove it, and the book was not in the library when you wanted it. When shall we get rid of the notion that Christianity is to be defended by books? It is to be illustrated by them; it is to be magnified, in some of its human aspects, by books; but the defence of the Christian mystery must be in the Christian consciousness. In this great argument, grace is genius, experience is eloquence. So it is with all preaching and teaching: we do but recite a lesson unless we speak out of the deep, true experience of the renewed and sanctified heart and will.
Paul, having thus shown us his way of regarding religious mysteries, proceeds to reveal his method of testing heavenly visions. In the nineteenth verse Paul said, "Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." The argument is, that visions are to be tested by obeying them. Visions will break down in the obedience if they are only nightmares. You cannot keep a nightmare about you for a long time with any consent of the will, with any sympathy of the soul, or turn it to any high utility. Then Paul sets forth a very wonderful doctrine here namely, that he was not irresistibly converted driven against his will to certain conclusions; scourged to the stake; made to go. Even here he asserts the freedom of the will the attribute that makes a man. Plainly, Paul consented to this: "I was not disobedient"; in other words: "Whereupon I obeyed, I answered affirmatively, I gave my consent; I consented to the vision as certainly as I once consented to the death of the Christians." The way, then, to test all visions is to take them into the life, and see how they will bear the agony of daily strain. I am content to have all theology tested by this one process. You say you believe in God; what use have you made of him? You insult God by merely intellectually entertaining him. He says, "I must go with you" in the going he proves himself. "Where wilt thou go?" "Everywhere!" That is the proof. If your god will not submit to that test, he is but a Baal, on whom you cannot safely rely a Baal who will shame you on Carmel, who, when he finds you a hundred strong, will let you cry to the empty heavens, and take no notice of your piteous appeal. The God of the Bible says, "I will go with you: now we will go to business; now we will go out into the summer fields, and read the apocalypse of nature; now we will suffer in the sick-chamber; now we will go into the churchyard, and lay our dear dead down there; now it is dark, you must sleep, and I will watch you." That is the God in whom I want to believe. His appeal is its own proof; what he wants to do is the thing that proves his reality. So it is with all Christian doctrine. Take the Sermon upon the Mount: the way to test it is to obey it. Some of us have fallen short of that high mark. What we have done with the Sermon upon the Mount is this: we have analysed it, we have parsed its grammar, we have discussed its theories, we have marvelled at its liquid music, we have admired it, we have recited it, we have bound it in leather and in gold; having so treated it, any man can steal it from us. But if we were to obey it make it part and parcel of the substance of our nature if we were to regulate the step of our life by its solemn music, it would become so inwrought into the very fibre and tissue of our nature as to be inseparable from us; we would live the wondrous speech, and be an epistle known and read of all men. You are troubled in your theology because you are disobedient in your heart. If you would only live your theology, you would put an end to all controversy. Prove prayer by praying; prove the inspiration of the Scriptures by being inspired by their speech. Obedience, let us say again and again, is the true confirmation of vision and of knowledge; and where the obedience brings joy, rest, hope, strength where it lifts us up to a new stature, broadens us with a nobler expansion, attunes us to a Diviner music we may be sure that the vision which originated it was a vision that shone from heaven.
Here is also Paul's way of proving his sanity: by being what the world calls mad. Festus had never heard such a speech before; Festus was not as happy as Paul; Festus was out of this high running. He "said with a loud voice" quite startled out of his cold Roman propriety "Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad." Festus thought it was learning that is, letter-learning, book knowledge, a marvellous upgathering and focalising of information and pieces of wonderful news. Festus did not know the meaning of the word inspiration a word so much higher than information as the heaven is high above the earth. Festus, therefore, thought Paul was mad. So he was from the point of view occupied by Festus. Christianity is madness if materialism is true. If this world is all; if that distant, grey, mocking thing you call the horizon is the boundary; if the stars are mere glints of wandering fire that cannot be accounted for, and that are working out no purpose; if the heaven is an infinite emptiness; if the Cross of Christ is not the means of saving the world then there can be no such madness as spiritual religion, Christian faith, and Christian hope. It is one of two things with us: we are either right, or we are not merely wrong mad; obviously and scandalously wrong, absurd, frantic, imposed upon, and impostors in relation to other people. I know that we have fallen into a tepid state; I am aware that we have lost our first love, and have taken up with some new philanthropising; but in the days that revealed Christianity, in the days that created the Church, no man Festus, Felix, Agrippa no man, however low or high, could look at the Christians without feeling that they were the great men of the world. They gave up everything: "they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented." Poor fools! they might have dined at good tables, they might have drunk foaming wines, and they might have made quite a figure in many a social circle; but "they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword." Then they were mad, or inspired!
Be the first to react on this!
