On Being Right in the Main
“Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me. And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved; for he had great possessions.” — Mark x. 21, 22.
This young man presented some of the best and some of the worst aspects of human nature, — he may be regarded, therefore, as a representative man. First: He displayed a degree of moral earnestness, — “There came one running, and kneeled to him.” Running and kneeling, — speed and homage, what more could be required? Second: He employed the language of veneration, — “Good Master,” — character and authority, how high the eulogium! Third: He was well-instructed in Biblical ethics, — “All these have I observed from my youth.” He knew the law, revered the law, exemplified the law, yet he said — “What lack I yet?” Fourth: He was inordinately attached to worldly possessions, — “He was sad at that saying, and went away grieved;” he found that it was easier to “observe” than to “give.”
Christ’s conduct in the case shewed — First: That He compels men to look at the logical consequences of their own admissions. The young man said — “Good Master;” Christ answered, apparently but not really in correction, “Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is God;” — as if He had said — Mark the consequence of calling me “good;” if I am “good” then am I God, and being God, what I declare must be Divine and final! Second: That personal regard may be entertained where full moral approbation cannot be expressed. “Loved him, and said unto him, I One thing thou lackest.” There was a charm in the countenance of the enquirer, hope gleamed in his eye, and wonder broke his tones into a tremulous modesty; the outward man was prepossessing, but in the heart there was one grand lack.
Looked at as a whole, the text shows: —
I. The necessary limitations of the most careful religious training. The young man was no barbarian; the voices of the lawgivers and the prophets had resounded in his hearing, and he was familiar with the harp of the holy minstrels who had turned duty and sorrow, victory and defeat, into music. With practical theology as pronounced in statutes and commandments he was perfectly familiar, and even to practical religion in the life he declared himself no stranger, — “All these have I observed from my youth.” There may be most careful training of the memory, and most jealous watchfulness over the conduct among men, and yet the heart may not be the temple of God. Is such training, then, without advantage? Certainly not. By so much as the mind is occupied with right considerations it is indisposed towards that which is evil. Hence there is a great moral value in many pursuits which are not directly either religious or ethical. A young man, for example, cultivates the art of painting; day by day he watches the changing lights which play upon the landscape; he knows no greater gladness than to succeed in catching the precise expression of light and colour, and giving it a permanence on the canvass; — so far, good; refinement of taste is a high attainment, studying nature is an inspiring exercise, life on the mountain is incomparably better than existence in the den of the bacchanal. The study of art, then, which is not in itself religious, is of good tendency; by it the mind may be so pre-occupied that the force of many temptations may be broken. The power of temptation is in proportion to the nature of the soul tempted. A thoughtless miner takes an uncovered light into the mine; where there is but little gas there is but a wavering and flickering of a transient flame, — hardly flame indeed; but where there is an accumulation of gas, the uncovered light occasions an explosion which shivers the rocks and brings swift destruction upon all who are in the mine. In both cases it was the same mine, the same light, the same miner, but the condition of the air was different. So is it with the fiery darts of the wicked one; they are shot into all human hearts, and just in proportion to the materials, so to speak, which are found there, will be the success or failure of the enemy.
A formal religious education, then, may, by simply preoccupying the mind, break the force of temptation and save the soul from the more violent forms of depravity. Yet not necessarily so; and this shows the weakness of the most careful training. A case in point is before me now: a parent is determined to preserve his son from social contamination; that son was watched well-nigh day and night, was forbidden to speak to the servants lest he should be “corrupted,” was expected to read good books, and to attend public worship regularly, — was not this well? Was not this a beautiful picture of domestic government? That son felt the restraint, — the recoil was tremendous, — soon as he escaped parental surveillance he plunged into excess, and eventually was hanged as a felon!
The text shows: —
II. That the final attainment of education is the
CONQUEST OF THE HEART.
The young man knew enough; he was not perishing for “lack of knowledge,” light shone upon his intelligence, but his affections were self-enclosed and self-encoiled. There was one “cross” he could not lift, — one surrender he could not make! Only one, but that was all!
The conditions which Christ thus imposed show: —
1. That Christ-following involves self-abnegation. Men cannot have a little of Christ and a little of self, — in other words, true men cannot combine public profession and private self-gratification.
2. That Christ-following must be the expression of the soul’s supreme love. Men are not permitted to make a mere convenience of Christ. The young man loved his “possessions” more than Christ’s word. There are men who are prepared to “observe” any number of “commandments” provided they can also hoard wealth and indulge passion.
3. That Christ-following means self -giving. Christ was the Giver, and men are like Him in proportion as they “give.” Giving is not yet understood as a test of discipleship. Giving is understood as a patronage, but not as a self-sacrifice.
Giving means different things to different people. There are men who give a thousand guineas at once, yet is their gift without value. If certain rich merchants, whose purses are always accessible, would but utter two sentences distinctly in favour of Christ as their personal Saviour, such utterance, under given circumstances, would be a greater gift to the Christian cause than all the gold they ever lavished upon public institutions. Man must give himself, else he gives nothing. When a man gives a guinea where he should give a life, he mocks God to His face!
“The Christ Himself had been no Lawgiver,
Unless He had given the Life too with the Law.”
The text shows: —
III. That lack of one thing may be lack of everything.
The garden is beautifully laid out: the straight lines and the curves are exact; the terraces are arranged with artistic taste; but no seed is sown, — and the summer says — “One thing thou lackest.”
The machinery is perfect: cylinder, piston, valve, are in excellent order; no flaw is in the wheel, no obstruction in the flue; finer engine never stood on the iron way; everything is there but steam, — and the intending traveller says — “One thing thou lackest.”
The watch has a golden case, the dial is exquisitely traced and figured, the hands are delicate and well-fixed; everything is there but the mainspring; and he who inquires the time says — “One thing thou lackest.”
Conduct may be regulated in two ways: — 1. By the hand; 2. By the heart: as with a watch so with the life. The face of the watch may be made to represent the truth by simply altering the hands, or it may be corrected by touching the interior works. Here is a young man who says — What shall I do to make my watch tell the hour accurately? He is answered: — Thou knowest the great clocks by which time is kept in the city. He replies: — “All these have I observed.” He is then told to open his watch and correct the regulator. So is it with human life: many seek to correct it by the outside; they search for models, they inquire for foot-prints; but they neglect the life-spring within, and consequently never get beyond the affectation of artificialism, or the stiffness of Pharisaic conceit.
Observation is continually noticing instances in which “one thing” seems to be everything; it is so in common life, it is so in all life. Here is a man listening to the most exquisite music; peal of trumpet, clash of cymbals, roll of drum, sweetness of the lute, sharpness of the clarionet, crash of a hundred brass instruments; — to him it is simply a tumult, he sees no idea in the tempest, he does not rise and fall with the swelling rhythm of the wave and billow. Why? What is wanting? “One thing thou lackest,” — that one thing is an ear for music! Of what account is it that jewellery sparkles on his fingers, or that perfume is shed by every waive of his hand, or that the finest cloth covers his shoulders? The man is harmonically dead, and the music which rushes like a storm through the appreciative soul is to him “sound and fury signifying nothing.”
Two men walk by the same path: the gold of the same sunset is lavished on their way; they look at the same objects, and move towards the same goal. One of them reaches home enriched with many mental pictures; the landscape is impressed upon his memory; the clouds are massed and coloured in his soul; he is not a tenant but a proprietor: his hand may be poor, but his spirit revels in affluence. The other traveller saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing; his eye was on the road, merely the servant of his feet, not the servant of his soul. “One thing thou lackest,” — an eye for the beautiful! It is only one thing, yet everything turns upon it, and without it garden and wilderness are equal in charm.
These reflections may serve to show the tremendous danger of the fallacy that if a man is right in the main he will be admitted into heaven. The man who had no ear for music was right in the main; he was well-educated, well-connected, rich and generous, yet all this did not interpret one passage of the music to his dormant soul. The man who saw nothing in the landscape was right in the main; he was honest, persevering, modest and gentle, yet his eye was blind to beauty, and he cared not for hill or dale, or stream or luxuriant wood. So is it with regard to the higher life; we may have much and yet have nothing. A man may walk well without being able to swim at all, yet all his strength as a pedestrian will not save him in the sea! The lack of “one thing” may involve ruin. A merchant may have a musical voice, but if he have no money he cannot maintain his credit; an orator may have great muscular strength, but if his voice should fail, what then!
Place yourself at the railway terminus: a traveller is there who has no ticket; is that of any consequence? It is only “one thing;” a very insignificant thing; why should the man be detained for want of it? He has an address card; he has a wedding card; he has a visiting card; will they not do? No! “One thing thou lackest.” That “one thing” represents law, order, equivalent, authority, and in the absence of that one particular thing a thousand other things go for nothing!
Are we not thus all through life continually reminded that the absence of “one thing” is the ruin of all? The text shows: —
IV. That the sincerity of men must be tested according TO THEIR PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES.
This young man had “great possessions,” consequently the test had relation to the worldliness of his spirit. What is a test to one man may be no test to another: hence the difficulty of one man appreciating the “cross” of another, and expressing intelligent sympathy. No other test would have met the peculiarity of this young man’s case; he might have fasted long and prayed much, or even given liberally to the poor, but to “sell all” that he had was a test which shook his soul. Here, then, is the rule of right self-crucifixion. A man must be prepared to surrender what he values most, or he must subdue, mortify, and annihilate the passion which rules his spirit, i. Covetous man; 2.
Haughty disposition; 3. Self-indulgent nature; 4. Censorious tone; 5. Vanity of heart; 6. Love of approbation. The personal cross must be determined by the personal constitution. To one man it is no cross whatever to address a thousand hearers, yet to that very man it may be a heavy cross to speak a word for Christ to one individual. He is not, then, taking up a cross in addressing the multitude; his cross lies in another direction, and Christ points him to it.
The young, in particular, are apt to be impatient with this requirement of self-denial as the condition of entrance into the kingdom of heaven. Is their impatience reasonable? Is Christ demanding a condition which is out of harmony with the general process of life? Not for a moment. What Christ requires in the particular matter of Christianity, is required as a condition of entrance into all foreign kingdoms. Has the student not to deny himself? Has the explorer not to deny himself? Has the apprentice not to deny himself? Has the soldier not to deny himself? Trace practical life through all its variations, and it will be found that all promotion, progress, and extension of influence, demand self-denial as a fundamental condition; yes, and even the man who goes down to hell “denies himself” in a sense more appalling than can be expressed. There is no escape from self-denial; choose ye whether it shall be self-denial towards heaven, or self-denial towards hell!