Practical Religion Part 32

I feel it very important to touch on this point. I know how ready the heart of a believer is to faint, and how busy Satan is in suggesting doubts and questionings, when the body of a Christian is weak. I have seen something of the depression and melancholy which sometimes comes upon the children of G.o.d when they are suddenly laid aside by disease, and obliged to sit still. I have marked how p.r.o.ne some good people are to torment themselves with morbid thoughts at such seasons, and to say in their hearts, "G.o.d has forsaken me: I am cast out of His sight."

I earnestly entreat all sick believers to remember that they may honour G.o.d as much by patient suffering as they can by active work. It often shows more grace to sit still than it does to go to and fro, and perform great exploits. I entreat them to remember that Christ cares for them as much when they are sick as He does when they are well, and that the very chastis.e.m.e.nt they feel so acutely is sent in love, and not in anger.

Above all, I entreat them to recollect the sympathy of Jesus for all His weak members. They are always tenderly cared for by Him, but never so much as in their time of need. Christ has had great experience of sickness. He knows the heart of a sick man. He used to see "all manner of sickness, and all manner of disease" when He was upon earth. He felt specially for the sick in the days of His flesh. He feels for them specially still. Sickness and suffering, I often think, make believers more like their Lord in experience, than health. "Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." (Isaiah liii. 3; Matt. viii. 17.) The Lord Jesus was a "Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." None have such an opportunity of learning the mind of a suffering Saviour as suffering disciples.

(4) I conclude with a word of _exhortation_ to all believers, which I heartily pray G.o.d to impress upon their souls. I exhort you to keep up a habit of close communion with Christ, and never to be afraid of "going too far" in your religion. Remember this, if you wish to have "great peace" in your times of sickness.

I observe with regret a tendency in some quarters to lower the standard of practical Christianity, and to denounce what are called "extreme views" about a Christian's daily walk in life. I remark with pain that even religious people will sometimes look coldly on those who withdraw from worldly society, and will censure them as "exclusive, narrow-minded, illiberal, uncharitable, sour-spirited," and the like. I warn every believer in Christ who reads this paper to beware of being influenced by such censures. I entreat him, if he wants light in the valley of death, to "keep himself unspotted from the world," to "follow the Lord very fully," and to walk very closely with G.o.d. (James i. 27; Num. xiv. 24.)

I believe that the want of "thoroughness" about many people's Christianity is one secret of their little comfort, both in health and sickness. I believe that the "half-and-half,"--"keep-in-with-everybody"

religion, which satisfies many in the present day, is offensive to G.o.d, and sows thorns in dying pillows, which hundreds never discover till too late. I believe that the weakness and feebleness of such a religion never comes out so much as it does upon a sick bed.

If you and I want "strong consolation" in our time of need, we must not be content with a bare union with Christ. (Heb. vi. 18.) We must seek to know something of heart-felt, experimental _communion_ with Him. Never, never let us forget, that "union" is one thing, and "communion" another.

Thousands, I fear, who know what "union" with Christ is, know nothing of "communion."

The day may come when after a long fight with disease, we shall feel that medicine can do no more, and that nothing remains but to die.

Friends will be standing by, unable to help us. Hearing, eyesight, even the power of praying, will be fast failing us. The world and its shadows will be melting beneath our feet. Eternity, with its realities, will be looming large before our minds. What shall support us in that trying hour? What shall enable us to feel, "I fear no evil"? (Psalm xxiii. 4.) Nothing, nothing can do it but close communion with Christ. Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith,--Christ putting His right arm under our heads,--Christ felt to be sitting by our side,--Christ can alone give us the complete victory in the last struggle.

Let us cleave to Christ more closely, love Him more heartily, live to Him more thoroughly, copy Him more exactly, confess Him more boldly, follow Him more fully. Religion like this will always bring its own reward. Worldly people may laugh at it. Weak brethren may think it extreme. But it will wear well. At even time it will bring us light. In sickness it will bring us peace. In the world to come it will give us a crown of glory that fadeth not away.

The time is short. The fas.h.i.+on of this world pa.s.seth away. A few more sicknesses, and all will be over. A few more funerals, and our own funeral will take place. A few more storms and tossings, and we shall be safe in harbour. We travel towards a world where there is no more sickness,--where parting, and pain, and crying, and mourning, are done with for evermore. Heaven is becoming every year more full, and earth more empty. The friends ahead are becoming more numerous than the friends astern. "Yet a little time and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry." (Heb. x. 37.) In His presence shall be fulness of joy.

Christ shall wipe away all tears from His people's eyes. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death. But he shall be destroyed. Death himself shall one day die. (Rev. xx. 14.)

In the meantime let us live the life of faith in the Son of G.o.d. Let us lean all our weight on Christ, and rejoice in the thought that He lives for evermore.

Yes: blessed be G.o.d! Christ lives, though we may die. Christ lives, though friends and families are carried to the grave. He lives who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel. He lives who said, "O death, I will be thy plagues: O grave, I will be thy destruction." (Hos. xiii. 14.) He lives who will one day change our vile body, and make it like unto His glorious body. In sickness and in health, in life and in death, let us lean confidently on Him. Surely we ought to say daily with one of old, "Blessed be G.o.d for Jesus Christ!"

XVI

THE FAMILY OF G.o.d

"_The whole family in heaven and earth._"--Ephes. iii. 15.

The words which form the t.i.tle of this paper ought to stir some feelings in our minds at any time. There lives not the man or woman on earth who is not member of some "family." The poorest as well as the richest has his kith and kin, and can tell you something of his "family."

Family gatherings at certain times of the year, such as Christmas, we all know, are very common. Thousands of firesides are crowded then, if at no other time of the year. The young man in town s.n.a.t.c.hes a few days from business, and takes a run down to the old folks at home. The young woman in service gets a short holiday, and comes to visit her father and mother. Brothers and sisters meet for a few hours. Parents and children look one another in the face. How much there is to talk about! How many questions to be asked! How many interesting things to be told! Happy indeed is that fireside which sees gathered round it at Christmas "the whole family!"

Family gatherings are natural, and right, and good. I approve them with all my heart. It does me good to see them kept up. They are one of the very few pleasant things which have survived the fall of man. Next to the grace of G.o.d, I see no principle which unites people so much in this sinful world as family feeling. Community of blood is a most powerful tie. It was a fine saying of an American naval officer, when his men insisted on helping the English sailors in fighting the Taku forts in China,--"I cannot help it: blood is thicker than water." I have often observed that people will stand up for their relations, merely because they _are_ their relations,--and refuse to hear a word against them,--even when they have no sympathy with their tastes and ways.

Anything which helps to keep up family feeling ought to be commended. It is a wise thing, when it can be done, to gather together at Christmas "the whole family."

Family gatherings, nevertheless, are often sorrowful things. It would be strange indeed, in such a world as this, if they were not. Few are the family circles which do not show gaps and vacant places as years pa.s.s away. Changes and deaths make sad havoc as time goes on. Thoughts will rise up within us, as we grow older, about faces and voices no longer with us, which no Christmas merriment can entirely keep down. When the young members of the family have once begun to launch forth into the world, the old heads may long survive the scattering of the nest; but after a certain time, it seldom happens that you see together "the whole family."

There is one great family to which I want all the readers of this paper to belong. It is a family despised by many, and not even known by some.

But it is a family of far more importance than any family on earth. To belong to it ent.i.tles a man to far greater privileges than to be the son of a king. It is the family of which St. Paul speaks to the Ephesians, when he tells them of the "whole family in heaven and earth." It is the family of G.o.d.

I ask the attention of every reader of this paper while I try to describe this family, and recommend it to his notice. I want to tell you of the amazing benefits which members.h.i.+p of this family conveys. I want you to be found one of this family, when its gathering shall come at last,--a gathering without separation, or sorrow, or tears. Hear me while, as a minister of Christ, and friend to your soul, I speak to you for a few minutes about "the whole family in heaven and earth:"--

I. First of all, _what is this family_?

II. Secondly, _what is its present position_?

III. Thirdly, _what are its future prospects_?

I wish to unfold these three things before you, and I invite your serious consideration of them. Our family gatherings on earth must have an end one day. Our last earthly Christmas must come. Happy indeed is that Christmas which finds us prepared to meet G.o.d!

I. _What is that family_ which the Bible calls "the whole family in heaven and earth"? Of whom does it consist?

The family before us consists of all real Christians,--of all who have the Spirit,--of all true believers in Christ,--of the saints of every age, and Church, and nation, and tongue. It includes the blessed company of all faithful people. It is the same as the election of G.o.d,--the household of faith,--the mystical body of Christ,--the bride,--the living temple,--the sheep that never perish,--the Church of the first-born,--the holy Catholic Church. All these expressions are only "the family of G.o.d" under other names.

Members.h.i.+p of the family before us does not depend on any earthly connection. It comes not by natural birth, but by new birth. Ministers cannot impart it to their hearers. Parents cannot give it to their children. You may be born in the G.o.dliest family in the land, and enjoy the richest means of grace a Church can supply, and yet never belong to the family of G.o.d. To belong to it you must be born again. None but the Holy Ghost can make a living member of His family. It is His special office and prerogative to bring into the true Church such as shall be saved. They that are born again are born, "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of G.o.d." (John i. 13.)

Do you ask the reason, of this name which the Bible gives to the company of all true Christians? Would you like to know why they are called "a family"? Listen and I will tell you.

(_a_) True Christians are called "a family" because they have all _one Father_. They are all children of G.o.d by faith in Christ Jesus. They are all born of one Spirit. They are all sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty. They have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby they cry, Abba Father. (Gal. iii. 26; John iii. 8; 2 Cor. vi. 18; Rom. viii. 15.) They do not regard G.o.d with slavish fear, as an austere Being, only ready to punish them. They look up to Him with tender confidence, as a reconciled and loving parent,--as one forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, to all who believe on Jesus,--and full of pity even to the least and feeblest. The words, "Our Father which art in heaven," are no mere form in the mouth of true Christians. No wonder they are called G.o.d's "family."

(_b_) True Christians are called "a family," because they all _rejoice in one name_. That name is the name of their great Head and Elder Brother, even Jesus Christ the Lord. Just as a common family name is the uniting link to all the members of a Highland clan, so does the name of Jesus tie all believers together in one vast family. As members of outward visible Churches they have various names and distinguis.h.i.+ng appellations. As living members of Christ, they all, with one heart and mind, rejoice in one Saviour. Not a heart among them but feels drawn to Jesus as the only object of hope. Not a tongue among them but would tell you that "Christ is all." Sweet to them all is the thought of Christ's death for them on the cross. Sweet is the thought of Christ's intercession for them at the right hand of G.o.d. Sweet is the thought of Christ's coming again to unite them to Himself in one glorified company for ever. In fact, you might as well take away the sun out of heaven, as take away the name of Christ from believers. To the world there may seem little in His name. To believers it is full of comfort, hope, joy, rest, and peace. No wonder they are called "a family."

(_c_) True Christians, above all, are called "a family" because there is so strong _a family likeness_ among them. They are all led by one Spirit, and are marked by the same general features of life, heart, taste, and character. Just as there is a general bodily resemblance among the brothers and sisters of a family, so there is a general spiritual resemblance among all the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty. They all hate sin and love G.o.d. They all rest their hope of salvation on Christ, and have no confidence in themselves. They all endeavour to "come out and be separate" from the ways of the world, and to set their affections on things above. They all turn naturally to the same Bible, as the only food of their souls and the only sure guide in their pilgrimage toward heaven: they find it a "lamp to their feet, and a light to their path." (Psa. cxix. 105.) They all go to the same throne of grace in prayer, and find it as needful to speak to G.o.d as to breathe. They all live by the same rule, the Word of G.o.d, and strive to conform their daily life to its precepts. They have all the same inward experience. Repentance, faith, hope, charity, humility, inward conflict, are things with which they are all more or less acquainted. No wonder they are called "a family."

This family likeness among true believers is a thing that deserves special attention. To my own mind it is one of the strongest indirect evidences of the truth of Christianity It is one of the greatest proofs of the reality of the work of the Holy Ghost. Some true Christians live in civilized countries, and some in the midst of heathen lands. Some are highly educated, and some are unable to read a letter. Some are rich and some are poor. Some are Churchmen and some are Dissenters. Some are old and some are young. And yet, notwithstanding all this, there is a marvellous oneness of heart and character among them. Their joys and their sorrows, their love and their hatred, their likes and their dislikes, their tastes and their distastes, their hopes and their fears, are all most curiously alike. Let others think what they please, I see in all this the finger of G.o.d. His handiwork is always one and the same.

No wonder that true Christians are compared to "a family."

Take a converted Englishman and a converted Hindoo, and let them suddenly meet for the first time. I will engage, if they can understand one another's language, they will soon find common ground between them, and feel at home. The one may have been brought up at Eton and Oxford, and enjoyed every privilege of English civilization. The other may have been trained in the midst of gross heathenism, and accustomed to habits, ways, and manners as unlike the Englishman's as darkness compared to light. And yet now in half an hour they feel that they are friends! The Englishman finds that he has more in common with his Hindoo brother than he has with many an old college companion or school-fellow! Who can account for this? How can it be explained? Nothing can account for it but the unity of the Spirit's teaching. It is "one touch" of grace (not nature) "that makes the whole world kin." G.o.d's people are in the highest sense "a family."

This is the family to which I wish to direct the attention of my readers in this paper. This is the family to which I want you to belong. I ask you this day to consider it well, if you never considered it before. I have shown you the Father of the family,--the G.o.d and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I have shown you the Head and Elder Brother of the family,--the Lord Jesus Himself. I have shown you the features and characteristics of the family. Its members have all great marks of resemblance. Once more I say, consider it well.

Outside this family, remember, there is no salvation. None but those who belong to it, according to the Bible, are in the way that leads to heaven. The salvation of our souls does not depend on union with one Church or separation from another. They are miserably deceived who think that it does, and will find it out to their cost one day, except they awake. No! the life of our souls depends on something far more important. This is life eternal, to be a member of "the whole family in heaven and earth."

II. I will now pa.s.s on to the second thing which I promised to consider.

_What is the present position_ of the whole family in heaven and earth?

The family to which I am directing the attention of my readers this day is divided into two great parts. Each part has its own residence or dwelling-place. Part of the family is in heaven, and part is on earth.

For the present the two parts are entirely separated from one another.

But they form one body in the sight of G.o.d, though resident in two places; and their union is sure to take place one day.

Two places, be it remembered, and two only, contain the family of G.o.d.

The Bible tells us of no third habitation. There is no such thing as purgatory, whatever some Christians may think fit to say. There is no house of purifying, training, or probation for those who are not true Christians when they die. Oh no! There are but two parts of the family,--the part that is seen and the part that is unseen, the part that is in "heaven" and the part that is on "earth." The members of the family that are not in heaven are on earth, and those that are not on earth are in heaven. Two parts, and two only! Two places, and two only!

Let this never be forgotten.

Some of G.o.d's family are safe _in heaven_. They are at rest in that place which the Lord Jesus expressly calls "Paradise." (Luke xxiii. 43.) They have finished their course. They have fought their battle. They have done their appointed work. They have learned their lessons. They have carried their cross. They have pa.s.sed through the waves of this troublesome world and reached the harbour. Little as we know about them, we know that they are happy. They are no longer troubled by sin and temptation. They have said good-bye for ever to poverty and anxiety, to pain and sickness, to sorrow and tears. They are with Christ Himself, who loved them and gave Himself for them, and in His company they must needs be happy. (Phil. i. 23.) They have nothing to fear in looking back to the past. They have nothing to dread in looking forward to things to come. Three things only are lacking to make their happiness complete.

These three are the second advent of Christ in glory, the resurrection of their own bodies, and the gathering together of all believers. And of these three things they are sure.