Acts 27:1-44

Chapter 101

Prayer

Almighty God, may we, being crucified with Christ, also rise with him, and prove our resurrection by setting our affections on things above and not on things on the earth. We would live in the spirit of the resurrection; we would be as men who have already passed the gates of death, and would live in the light of thy countenance, and walk all day in the strength of thy favour. This miracle thou canst work, thou God of wonders. Even now, so full may our heart be of Christ's own life, that the bitterness of death may be passed. Enable us to feel the mystery we cannot understand. May we walk as men over whom death has no more power, saying, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" Show us these things day by day that we be no longer in bondage through fear of death, but enjoy the peace, the gladness, the holy inspiration of immortality. We bless thee for Easter Day, day of triumph, day of trumpeting and singing on earth and in heaven. Thy Son, our Saviour, made every day he touched into a holy time. When he was born, the universe was re-created; when he died, creation became a sanctuary of darkness; when he rose again, the morning stars sang together for joy, and all heaven quivered with infinite rapture. This is the day of tender memory, compassion, grief, of the shining and speaking angels, of the heavens rent that we may see into the larger liberties. May we enter into the spirit of the day and be no longer sore of heart, or heavy of spirit; but, shaking off the clay, and ordering the common body to stand back, may we, in the power of the Spirit, join the songs of heaven. We entreat thee, on our own behalf, that as death was conquered, so sin may be overthrown; when the cause is destroyed the effect will cease. Abolish, by the mysterious power of the Cross of Christ, the presence and the dominion of evil in our hearts; then every morning will be resurrection-day, every noontide will be heaven. As for the few days we have to be on this side the golden gates, help us to be industrious, patient, large of mind, noble in charity. Knowing that at any moment the great golden portals may swing back for our entrance, may we be ready, washed in the blood of the Lamb, purified by the fire of the Holy Ghost, made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light; may we hold the world with a light hand, letting it slip without sense of loss or pain, the momentary deprivation being overcome and lost in the infinite realisation of heavenly bliss. Help us to bear the burden, to toil up the last hill; and at the end may our only ailment be weariness that will soon be healed. May there be no sin to heal, no guilt to cure, no unholiness to destroy; but, at the last, may we be simply weary, outworn, quite tired, the journey all behind us, and our eyelids trembling because we want to sleep. Then will come the one touch of peace that will make us forget our weariness for ever. Amen.

Christian Pilotage

Acts 27:0

( Continued )

The idea which I wish to make clear is, that as Paul was in that ship, so Christianity seeks to be in the world. We have spent a tempestuous month with all the sailors and prisoners, and we feel that the very spirit and destiny of the voyage are in us. We have seen what part Paul played in the tremendous tempest. What Paul was in that ship, Christianity seeks to be in the vessel of the world. The picture is a definite one: so definite that a child can follow its vivid lines. It is hung up before our vision now, and it will be for us to see, and having seen, to declare, that as Paul was in that storm-tossed ship, so Christianity seeks to be in the great ship of the earth.

What was Paul in that ship, tossed in Adria? He took upon himself the direction of common affairs; the master of the ship gave way, the centurion was no longer the centurion but in name, and the Apostle stood forward at the front and took upon himself the responsibility of the whole situation. That is what Christianity wants to do in the world, to be the senior member in every firm, to be the director of every company, to be the head of every family, to be the one lamp in the dark night time, and to assume the leadership and the benediction of the world; and that is what its own believers won't allow it to be and to do. They are willing to make an idol of it. The idol may choose the substance in which it will be represented, so far, so condescending does the patronage go. It says to the thing that is to be represented, "Shall it be ivory, white ivory, without stain or flaw, the dear little creature would like? or gold, pure, refined? Or shall it be some figure in diamonds and precious stones of every hue and water? You can choose the form in which you will be imaged to the eye; only express your wish, and to the last syllable it shall be realised." That is the very thing that Christianity declines to be and declines to do. Christianity says, "I will go to business with you; I will keep your books for you; I will issue all your papers sign and stamp them every one," and that is precisely what the hottest Christian on earth respectfully declines. Do we wonder then that the Church is empty, that the infidel is laughing, and that the great enemy is feasting himself at the table of prosperity? We have come under the domain of the unutterably evil sophism that Christianity is a set of theological views. Theological views cannot live long. Nobody wants them; there is nothing in them by themselves, limited to themselves, made to talk a metaphysical language which the earth and its children cannot understand. Christianity wants to take the captaincy of the world-ship. Can Christianity conduct the world-ship across the sea of space and time and bring it into the haven of rest? Yes; and. that is the only captaincy under which the happy issue can be realised. What is the use of your saying your prayer in a few curt words in the morning and leaving your Christianity behind you while you put on an atheist's hat and go down to town leaning upon an infidel's staff?

It is a lie black, flat, blasphemous. There are Christian people who say, "Leave to men of the world the direction of the world." No. As soon say, "Leave to agriculture the lighting of the stars." Men of the world are the most ignorant of men, the most impotent of men, the lamest, feeblest of men. In their mind there is no background, no perspective; there is no horizon in their thinking. Christians are the true statesmen, the true politicians, the true merchants; only they have never realised their calling and election of God. They have allowed themselves to be dwarfed and humiliated into certain chatterers of pious phrases; they have not seized the captaincy and proved that they were meant to lead the world. Behold the Apostle prisoner, yet captain; standing uppermost in the ship; exerting a mysterious and other-world influence upon rough men; doing just what he pleases. That is where Christianity should be in the navigation of the world. Christianity understands everything. The praying man is the great man he who sees God, and grasps in his all but infinite vision the petty details that make up what we call earthly life. The master of the ship and the centurion at first edged Paul back into the stern, but they were obliged at the last to allow him to come forward. So it will be in the end of things: the captain that will take the ship in is Christianity, or the ship will never go in.

What did Paul do in that ship, tossed and torn by the rough and angry wind? He maintained the supremacy of God. In the twenty-fifth verse, he says, "I believe God." That is what Christianity seeks to be and to do in the world to utter the word God in a tone that will amount to argument, with a pathos that will ensure conviction. The danger is that we pronounce the word God as if it were part of a common language and not a whole vocabulary in itself. We can degrade any word by the manner of its pronouncement. You can say the word "heaven" so flippantly as to take all the light out of it and quench all its thundering of music. You can pronounce the word "father," or "mother," or "home," so lifelessly that nobody will know you have uttered the sacred term. The meaning is in the pronunciation. The printer lags behind the speaker, trying to do the impossible, for soul will not be printed. Do we pronounce the word God just as an infidel would pronounce it? No wonder we lose the argument. The word is nothing if it be not full of soul, passion, fire, blood. The utterance of the word should be a sacrifice. Christianity seeks to remind the world every day of the existence, government, personal superintendence, fatherly love, and motherly care of God. God is not an Old Testament word only. It is curious to observe how some words hardly carry themselves into the new covenant writing. They were noble words in the old book, they were part of it, they belonged to it, there was a kind of nativity about their position and relationship; but they could not transfer themselves into the new music; but the word God came right across from Judaism into Christianity. "The peace of God," "the love of God," "the God of Zion" became intelligible to Christian students under the definition of Love "God is Love." If any man really and truly believed God, he could never be in fear, he could never commit sin, he could never be unhappy. Do we believe God? No. We do not disbelieve him, and our want of disbelief is so complete as to amount to a kind of intellectual assent to the proposition that there is a God; but if we believed God our joy would be too great for time and earth. Still we must maintain the ideal. We expect the preacher for the moment to be the ideal man and to maintain the ideal doctrine; but no man can fulfil his own prayers, no man can live up to his own sermons. Still there is the ideal. We cannot touch the sun, or lodge in his infinite effulgence, but we can walk in his light and rejoice in his splendor. So with the great ideal God; we cannot realize it to the full extent of its meaning, or we should ourselves be gods; but we can behold its effect, we can enjoy its comfort, we can respond to its inspiration. There is a religion in the world that proclaims God personal, living, near, redeeming. That religion, by the very energy of its declaration, is keeping right the balance that would soon lose its equipoise. Let us be thankful for every testimony of a higher life; for every man that gives us to know that the earth has a sky above it, and that the little known is meant to be but a syllable towards the whole world unknown. So I welcome every book that enlarges my thought. I do not care to agree with it. Who am I that I should agree with any other man, or any other man agree with me? What I want is intellectual enlargement, spiritual enthusiasm, a daily baptism of the imagination, continual leading forth into the wonder-spaces where I am filled with an astonishment that must pray and with a rapture that must sing. When any man amongst us writes a book that shows us that things are larger than we have imagined, he is sent of God with a gospel. The gospel never shows us that things are less than we have supposed them to be: the Gospel always shows us that our dream is but a little hint, our highest imagining a dim questioning of things, and that as the heaven is high above the earth, so is God's purpose above our wit and thought.

What did Paul do in the ship? He cheered the distracted and helpless. Said he, in the twenty-second verse: "And now I exhort you to be of good cheer." That is what Christianity would do in the world: it would make us all glad; it would have us sing songs in the night time. Christianity would have us regard the raging of the sea with perfect equanimity; when the sea roars and is troubled Christianity would have us rise and fall with the rhythm of the hurrying tempest. Christianity never said it wished to darken any man's window, silence the singing birds which he had in his house, put out his fire, limit his food, and make his life into a pain or a fear. When Christianity meets men, it says, "All hail! This is Sabbath day; the bitterness of death is past: be glad." The glad heart can never go far wrong. The great, big soul that guests the angel of joy, that has in it the singing one, can never do anything unworthy. Joy is a protective influence; gladness sends men home to sing their loudest, sweetest song. Christianity is the religion of joy. Who would think it to look upon Christian countenances? for if there is a dreary-looking set of men on the face of the whole earth, you will find those men in the various places of worship today. A more pitiful-looking set of persons it would be impossible for earth and time to produce. What wonder if people run away from us and little children are glad when we shut the gate and are gone for the day? What wonder if all the little folks at home watch the old man totter down the garden path and clang the little iron gate behind him and then feel as if the day of jubilee had come? Why are we not more glad? Why do we not breathe the very spirit of joy wherever we go? In so far as we carry any other spirit with us I care not how we pray or preach or otherwise profess we are not lying unto men, we are lying unto God. Faith comes to take away the burden; the mission of Christianity is to destroy night and fear and the accusing voice. Christianity always wants to kill another fatted calf, light another lamp, strike the drum with a stronger force, and increase the music until it affrights the Pharisees and makes the earth a sympathising listener.

What did Paul do in the ship? He blessed the food of men: "Paul besought them all to take meat, saying, This day is the fourteenth day that we have tarried and continued fasting, having taken nothing.... And when be had thus spoken, he took bread, and gave thanks to God in presence of them all." It is but a little food we need, but the blessing may be immeasurable. You have mistaken this matter of eating and drinking: you thought it was a merely bodily exercise. Eating and drinking are religious acts. When you brake bread this morning, at your table, if you did it in the right spirit, you brake the Lord's body. When you drank to quench your thirst this morning, if you did it in the right spirit, you drank the Lord's blood. We have lost the sacramental idea. We have allowed the world to debase everything we do, and to take out of it dignity and music and hope. When you washed yourself this morning, you did in symbol what the soul must do in faith be washed in the blood of the Lamb. Why do we allow everything to be depleted, impoverished, and to have all its holy thought and suggestion torn out of it? Christianity would bless the food of every man; and being so blessed, it becomes the nutritious food. The crust is a feast when Christ breaks it for us; the little table, with room for only two, becomes a great banqueting-board when Jesus lays his hand upon it. There is no poverty, there is no want to them that fear him; the little is much, the bitter is sweet, and the whole occasion is so enlarged and glorified by an invisible but felt Presence, that even the earth becomes none other than the house of God. With Christ in the house, we have blessed bread, a table lighted by the Son, water better than all the wine of all the vineyards of the earth; and when we lay down to sleep, the pillow itself will receive us as with a mother's benediction.

In the last part of the chapter, do we not see, in some sense, a picture of the final salvation of the human race? "The centurion commanded that they which could swim should cast themselves first into the sea, and get to land: and the rest, some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass, that they escaped all safe to land." May it be so with us! May no wanderer be lost! It is of little matter how we come as to mere method and circumstance, compared with the great matter of reaching shore, touching land. Some of us will get in with difficulty, but, thank God! we will get in. Some will swim, some will seize boards, others will clutch broken pieces of the ship; but if we only all land! That is my heart's desire and prayer to God. "Would you not like to see some of your enemies drowned?" Not one of them. "Are you willing that all should go into port?" Yes, every soul of man. Some would like to go in under a full sail, with strains of music and singing, songs of triumph floating in the blue and sunny air. But I fancy that our going in will be very much like this escape from the sea some swimming, some on boards, some on broken pieces of the ship; the old earth-ship broken up, every soul saved; the old vessel gone, but no life lost. That is the inquiry we always make when great catastrophes occur; though we may be sorry that property is destroyed, and that certain temporary relations are shattered, yet when we know that no sacrifice of life has taken place, we experience a grateful relief. Poor old earth-ship! We like it, we are friends even of the ship; but it must go. It was made for a temporary purpose; it was never meant to stand for ever; it will be broken up, burned; it shall pass away, but no life lost. Poor prodigal, thou must be saved; hopeless man, the Captain wants to save you. We do not want any life lost. Towers and palaces and temples may fall, the earth itself be torn in pieces and destroyed; but we want every human creature to escape safe to land!