Christ's Success as a Preacher
Almighty God, whilst our eyes are lifted up unto the bills whence cometh oui help, may nothing rise between them and the sight they seek to prevent the glory and completeness of the vision. The enemy would deter us from prayer; many a worldly memory, many an unhappy anxiety, would torment our worship and break its peace. Do thou, therefore, lift up thy spirit as a standard against the foe, so that we may have full advantage of the opportunity which thou hast created for us in thy good providence. To-day we publicly meet one another at the cross of Christ — we who are so different the one from the other find in Jesus a common meeting-point. We are one in sin, in want, in pain. There is but one Healer — thanks be unto God, his name is Wonderful and his power is infinite.
We come to confess our sins — how can we begin the dreary tale, for it is without beginning in our recollection, as it is without end in our fear. We cannot tell when we did not sin; we were born in sin, we were shapen in iniquity, we are the children of wrath, there is no sunlight to guide us to a time when we did no sin. But thy love is older than our guilt. Jesus is the lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. Thy grace did anticipate our apostacy, and because of the infinitude of thy wisdom and thy purpose we had no sooner sinned than thou didst show us the delivering cross. Wash us all in the sacred blood, it penetrates the inner life, it finds its holy, redeeming way into the recesses of the spirit; where the guilt is deepest, there its triumphs are most astounding. Help us to believe in the sufficiency of Christ; remove all doubt and fear from our mind when it looks to the tree on which the Saviour died; beyond all that is little and limited in the letter, may we see the Infinite gospel of the infinite love, and may our heart go out towards it in great bursts of sacred passion and grateful delight.
Our life is in thy keeping — we cannot keep it ourselves. WTien we think we have seized it, behold it has eluded our grasp. We suppose, in our ignorant wisdom, that we have taken the measure thereof and stated it in clear numbers, when behold it clothes itself with immortality and stands up immeasurable as thine own purpose. Help us to know that we are the temples of the Holy Ghost; forbid that we should call ourselves little or mean or unclean, for is not thy stamp upon us, and do not men read upon one another a superscription not written by human hands? Help us to realise our preatness in thy purpose, our littleness in our own deeds, our majesty in creation, our utter apostnc%’ in our evil behaviour, and thus seeing how great we are Rnd how small may we cro out of ourselvr’s to find the answer to the painful mystery, nor rest until we fimi it in the holy, only Son of God.
Thy word is dear to us every day; it speaks to us with a new accen every time we hear it; it lias tor us a deeper answer to our deepening poverty; it has a gospel for every pain and ache and sorrow and sore agony. Verily this is the word of God and none other. Other words all do fail, but this abideth for ever. May we be comforted by it this day as by a gospel old as eternity, yet new as the pain that kills us now. Thus may we delight in all the venerableness of truth, and in all its newness, according to the newness of our desire and our fear. We have been foolish before thee — the whole ten virgins have been fools; we have wasted our life, we have neglected our opportunities, we have been the willing slaves and dupes of the eager devil, we have done evil with both hands earnestly, we have drunk poison out of golden goblets and earthen vessels — wheresoever we could find it we have drunk it with the thirst of fire. God be merciful unto us sinners; now let this be the day of wisdom, the time of the coming of a new light into the soul, the hour of holy vow and sacred oath — may every man lay his trembling right hand upon the blood-altar and say, “Hence on, I am Christ’s and he is mine.”
Nourish and comfort thy people as children who wait upon thy table and have no other feast to eat; see that none goes without his daily bread. Dry the tear that no human hand can reach; turn into hymn and psalm and glad anthem the groaning and the sighing which lie beyond all our curatives, and this day may there be joy in Zion such as never was known before.
Pardon our last transgression, our newest sin do thou cover up with all the waves of the sea. Regard us as old men and as little children, as men whose business is in the open world, as women who wait at the fireside and make up the bed of sickness and pain. Regard us as high and low, rich and poor, and by reason of the inflow of the infinite compassion of Christ into our souls, may we forget all these accidents of age and station and time, and enter into a communion that shall be rapturous, a fellowship that shall make us one.
Pity our littlenesses and infirmities: some we cannot help, some are our very selves, and without them men would not know us. Whilst thou dost pity what is little, pardon what is sinful with all the pardon of pardons which thou hast treasured up in the all-forgiving heart of Christ.
If any are here under special circumstances, let thy grace overflow the occasion and make it more memorable stUl. Bless the bridegroom and the bride, the stranger within our gates, the widow and the orphan, the sad and the lonely, the wrecked and the ruined, the prodigal who dare not pray, the wanderer who thinks he is too far ofE ever to return. Amen.
Jesus Christ achieved great fame as a preacher. The fame of him went abroad through the city where he was and all the region round about. Perhaps we have not sufficiently considered the value of fame. It arrests attention, it begets interest first, perhaps confidence subsequently. Some men are famous preachers to children, others are famous with women, others with scholars, others with sectarians. That is not fame. Because it has no deepness of earth it will soon wither away. There are some who are great Church of England preachers, others who are great Dissenting preachers, but if either the one qualifying term or the other is needed, there is no greatness and there can be no immortality. He only can be immortal who speaks to the universal heart, that is, who speaks all languages, sympathises with all emotions, is acquainted with and can answer all the mysteries of the soul.
Such a preacher will of course have a mixed congregation. Such a congregation had Jesus Christ always round about him. Now we say of this man or of that, “He has a very select congregation.” Poor soul! we say, and think it a compliment that he has a picked audience. Mean man! Jesus Christ had all the world to hear him, the old man and the little child and the wondering woman, the scholar, the peasant, the prodigal, the Pharisee, the publican — had he a very select assembly? The man who has a select assembly lives in a very poor twilight, and wields a very poor influence. Jesus Christ had a great hearty therefore all men came to him. The Man who preached about rest was sure to have a large company of hearers. For we are all weary, weary all over, and if any man or woman shall rise to offer rest, the offer has music enough in it to make a gospel. We are not all glad, but we are all sorrowful. Gladness is a transient light, a partial ^lory; but sorrow’s gloom is a night big as our world, and it gloomily encloses every heart. Jesus Christ spoke to sorrow, to sin, to the deepest necessities of the heart. He always touched that deeper, hidden inner string that nobody else could get at, and because of his so doing all the world went out after him to hear his gracious words. A man who should come to you all the year round speaking of laughter and comedy and farce would be a man who would soon wear out your patience; he who spoke of the deeper things, of the need of pardon and the want of rest, and the offer of peace and the possibility of heaven, might be dull now and then, but the year round he would be God’s angel to you. If your days are a thousand, you want such a man for more than nine hundred of them.
There was a marvellous tmity, or combination, of qualities in the preaching of Christ. Combination is itself an excellence. The charm may be of the very fact of multitudinous and many-coloured union. I can show you red and amber and blue and purple, separately, here, there, and yonder, and in many places not to be numbered; but if you want to see them altogether, and what they can be and can do, at their best, you must wait till the sun turns the storm into a rainbow. In the union you will see a charm all its own. No separate colour can claim the whole charm; you need them all, and all blended as God blends colours on his palette, and then will you see that combination itself is a mystery and a perfection. So in the case of Jesus Christ. Miracles had been performed before Jesus Christ was born into the world. Parables, graphic and beautiful, had been spoken by Old Testament Prophets, sermons had been delivered to the people from time immemorial, from wooden pulpit and rocky platform and in temples of the wilderness, but in the unity of these things Jesus Christ stood alone. King of kings. Lord of lords, solitary, unapproachable, a veryy rainbow for combination and unity, gathering up into himself all colours, lights, beauties, and shaping them into a grace complete and infinite.
Jesus Christ despised fame as an end: he used it as a means. He did not want to be merely talked about, he was afraid lest devotion should ooze away in flattering speech. That is the fear of the ministry to-day, it is the fear of the New Testament, it is the fear of every parable and every sermon in the New Covenant, that our worship should perish in eulogium. Jesus Christ would rather be contradicted and opposed than merely thanked and forgotten. This is wonderfully set forth in the book of the prophecies of Ezekiel: “Also, thou son of Man, the children of thy people still are talking against thee by the walls and in the doors of houses, and speak to one another, every one to his brother, saying. Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from the Lord. And they come unto thee, as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them, for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness, and lo! thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument, for they hear thy words but they do them not. And when this cometh to pass (lo! it will come) then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them.” This was the fear of Jesus Christ, lest the people should praise his voice, praise his tones, praise his way, praise his mouth, and never get at the story of blood, the gift of pardon, and never hear the cry of God in heaven over their perishing souls. How is it with us? Are we men who praise the vessel and forget to drink the living wine? Are we those who look in upon the banquetting room and say, “Well laid — well spread,” and carry our hunger away? Let us bethink ourselves, lest a prophet has been in our midst and we have mistaken him for a common man!
Jesus Christ’s success as a preacher was attained by his prof ound exposition of the Scripture. That is the only success worth having — a success that comes up out of the Scripture that abideth for ever will partake of the quality of the Scripture and will endure long. Jesus Christ’s expositions of the Scripture were always new. How we mistake that matter of novelty! Our want is always new, our sin is always fresh, our hunger is always a novelty. You cannot become accustomed to hunger or to thirst. You may indeed be benumbed in a sense by their long continuance, but there is a loss going on all the time. If we brought to the church the originality of hunger, the preacher would supply the originality of answer. But if we drag our cold bodies and colder minds into God’s house, if we constitute such a mass of commonplace that no human tongue can reach us or penetrate us, it is unreasonable to suppose that we shall be startled and dazzled by the originalities of a man who is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. The demand will determine the supply. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. God shall always be new to him whose sin is vividly remembered and whose heart-want is actually felt
CHRfST AS A PREACHER. 29I
The people who heard Jesus supposed that they knew the Bible. The everlasting delusion, the all-ruining sophism! No man knows the Bible! no man has read the Bible through, except in the letter. I have not read the first chapter of the book of Genesis, except in the poverty of its syllables — its music, its reckoning, its sweep, its conception, its poetry, its pathos, amaze me every time I read the wondrous words. The Bible holds its influence over men not because it is a thousand years old or ten thousand, but because it is the present answer to our present need. A book that is merely venerable will outgrow itself — there is a possibility, as we all know, of a man outliving his own reputation, or surviving himself — so will it be with any book that has nothing to plead in its own favour but its venerableness. The Bible is not only venerable in point of age, it answers to-day my sharpest pain, my hottest tears, my brightest joys. When I lose my child to-day, it says, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” When I dig my mother’s grave to-day it brings the largest lapful of freshest flowers to put around and upon the tomb, so deep, so dark. When all the blinds are down and the fine house is shrunken into a shadow, it is then I ask for God’s book, and then it is most clearly God’s.
Do you suppose you know the Bible? The Sadducees thought they did, and when they came to Jesus Christ he said, “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures.” The Scribes thought they knew the Scriptures;] indeed they were the very men who wrote the holy words and read them; they were, so to speak, the custodians or treasurers of the Divine literature, and if they did not know the Scriptures who did? You would think the people who live in a mountainous country would love the mountains best. You and I have gone through Alpine villages in which the people evidently looked upon the mountains with eyes unlighted, without wonder, without emotion. Why? Because of their familiarity with those gigantic and glorious hills. It was so with the Scribes; they were so familiar with the letter that they did not understand the spirit, as we may be so familiar with church ordinances as merely to observe the ceremony and never realise the Divine intent and music. Jesus Christ said, “Search the Scriptures.” Have we understood that word search? You have seen a man dig for silver? That is one help towards the meaning of the term “search.” You have seen a woman light a candle and sweep the floor and seek diligently till she found the piece she had lost? That is a hint towards the meaning of the word “search.” You have seen a man looking for one document which if he could find would make him a peer of the realm? Look at him, with spectacled eyes, with busy fingers, with bent form, with eager face — look how he listens to any suggestion, what letters he sends out to registrars, clerks, beadles, sextons, clergymen, any person or persons likely to help him. Have you seen such a process?
That will give you some idea of what Jesus meant when he said “Search.” He did not mean that we were to look round with cold, indifferent eyes, and take up anything that might happen to occur in our process of blind lookingl He meant the industry of the soul, the very agony of the spirit, a searching, seeking, digging, groping, striving, that meant the very agony of the combined faculties which make us men,
Jesus did not come with a new Bible. He read the old one, and when he read it men’s hearts burned within them. We cannot read it so, in the same degree; yet in our own degree we can read it after that very self-same sort. You hear one man pronounce a word, and you think nothing about it; another man says the same word and it sounds like a call to battle, or like the dropping of a mother’s benediction. When Jesus read the Scriptures men contested amongst themselves whether he was reading out of the very scroll or not. We need no new Bible — we need the right heart to read the old one, and then it will make the heart that so reads it glow with sacred emotion, it will lift up that heart to heights of rapture and triumph, in the feeling of which time will be but a passing shadow, and earth a speck neither to be mentioned nor named.
Look at that first chapter of the book of Genesis, at the very first verse.
It will always remain to be explained. In the beginning” That
would prove the Scripture to be inspired, to me. I want nothing more The subtlety of the suggestion, the infinity of the wisdom, not to fix a date where no date could be fixed, where the astounding figures would absorb our arithmetic and want another a million times larger, and would mock it in proportion to its swollen magnitude. If there arise men who say that the world has been existing sixty thousand years, the “BEGINNING “swallows up the sixty thousand as the Atlantic swallows up a stone. When the great man has turned all the rocks into slate and all the forests into pencil, and filled his huge slate with ciphers, with the largest unit at their head,” In the BEGINNING “swallows up him and his slate, and lo! it stands the only truth. Parable is larger than dogma, “In the beginning” is the dateless date, the immeasurable and unnameable period.
For any man to have written that word of his own accord seems to me to be impossible. Look at all other men — take ourselves as an example — we want to find the date: this man did not. How did he come to be different from us? We turn wrinkled and grey, and our backs stoop because of our sedentary devotion to the slate, because we want to find out the exact date. That is human: intensely, awfully, comically human He would be a man bigger than all others who could come into an assembly and say, “Gentlemen, this world was made on January the 13th, seventeen thousand eight hundred and fifty seven years and five months ago.” Aye, what a great man he would be!
“In the beginning, GOD” — the name out of which all other names come, the life-name, the name which encloses within itself Father, Mother, Child, Helper, Saviour, Lord, King: for are not all these but sparkles of an infinite glory, and not final terms which begin and end in themselves? GOD — so multitudinous yet so lonely, so awful yet so familiar, so necessary yet so appalling, who has yet defined God and set a ring of empty words around him which shall stand as the equivalent of his infinity? That God is a whole number — who has found out all the fractions that completely represent him? That is the unceasing mystery and the unceasing torment of the human mind.
“In the beginning, God CREATED.” We are familiar with that word created now; but think yourselves back and tell me what it means. It was a new word in human speech. We know what artifice is, and manufacture, and handiwork — but what is created? It has no equivalent in all our literature. It is a word at once familiar as light and inaccessible as a star. Beware lest your familiarity deprive you of originality. Beware lest, having said “created,” you think that utterance is definition. “Beginnifig” stands undefined; “6^t?^” undefined; “created” undefined. To live within little literary definitions is to live on sand, when we might be revelling in the Paradise of God.
Another element in the success of Jesus Christ as a preacher was the continual and healthy excitement which his preaching occasioned. Nobody could listen to Jesus Christ with indifference. I have heard of men listening in London city, and that not a great way from here, as if they were not listening. I have heard of men talking while great preachers were delivering their discourses under swelling domes. I have been present when people were gathered around a preacher, and who were paying not the slightest attention to him, and my wonder was why they should have come at all, chaffering and chattering as they were in their seats. Jesus Christ’s preaching excited everybody. It maddened some people — and unless our preaching does that it is of no use. If a man goes to church and sleeps, I do not care who the preacher is, he is not equal to the miracle of doing that man any good, and if a sermon be so simple and nice and beautiful and so charming as to roll over the hearer as water rolls over an oiled surface, it will do the hearer no good. I like to be turned into a frenzy by a preacher. I like to contradict him, to ask him questions, to say “Stop,“” at the time he torments me and makes me writhe under him; but afterwards I feel as if I had been at school, or on a battlefield, or on a mountain, drinking the wine ot the fresh wind, and receiving baptisms and benedictions.
The failure of Jesus Christ, upon which I spoke last, was local and temporary — his success is universal and everlasting. Jesus Christ is preaching to-day All the congregations gathered this morning all over the globe are gathered around Jesus: all the hymns that are sung to-day by congregated millions are sung in honour of Jesus; every trembling prodigal that comes home to-day saying, “1 am no more worthy to be called thy son,” is brought in by Jesus; every emotion that swells our hearts to-day, every hope that breaks upon the lowering cloud and cleanses the sky of such gloom, is a miracle of Jesus. He still turns the water into wine, he still gives us our dead back in great resurrections, he still turns the corruption of our life into the incorruption of our immortality. Without Christ there would be no preaching to-day.
Let us beware how we use that word “success” in connection with spiritual things. It is not an arithmetical term. A man is not failing because his pews are empty — a ministry is not necessarily a failure because there may not be numerical additions to the visible church. A man is not necessarily succeeding because his pews are crowded and because thousands enroll themselves on the register of the visible fellowship. We have nothing to do with either failure or success; we are called to sow the seed, to do the work, to suffer and endure and wait and hope, and God giveth the increase. Poor father and mother, you think you have had no reward in your family? Cheer up, you will have good harvest yet. You nave planted and sown and watered? Yes. God giveth the increase, thou canst not tell how or when or which way — leave it, dear honoured parent, and it will be well with the child.
Ministers of Christ, you say you have cried your very eyes out, and worked until your heart has been sore, and ached with great agonies, and no good seems to have come of your labour. Wait. In the morning sow thy seed, in the evening withhold not thine hand, for thou knowest not which shall prosper, or whether both shall be alike good. Cast thy bread upon the waters, and after many days thou shall find it. God is not mocked: whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. Labour more abundantly and more hopefully, and leave the Harvest to God, as he has left the seed time to you.
You say, “There has not been much success in the church, we only added one last year.” I am not speaking now about any particular church, but about a church in which such circumstances may easily have occurred. “We only added one last year.” Who was that one? “Well, it was a poor washerwoman.” O indeed. Any family? “Large family; six boys that we know of.” And you added the mother of six boys to your church? Who can tell how many you added when you added that poor laundress? These may be six kings, six leaders of men, six apostles. And you say you only added one last year. What was his name? “His name? I think his nam.e was Robert Moffat.” And you only added Robert Moffat to the church in one vear Do you know who Robert Moffat is! When you added Robert Moffat to the church you added a WORLD!