August 17

If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. — John xv. 20.

We may fairly infer that in the reception a disciple of Christ August 17.

may expect from the world, we have one of the points in

which, very specially, the likeness of a true disciple to the Master will be

brought out. If they have called Him Beelzebub, they will not grace us

with the fine names of approbation and flattery.” If they have not

received My sayings,” they will turn a deaf ear to yours.” If ye were of

the world, the world would love its own.” Now, let me say a plain word

about this matter. That law is in a fashion abrogated now. Nineteen

centuries have not passed in vain. The “world” — meaning thereby the

aggregate of godless men, “society,” to use a modern phrase — has been

largely leavened by Christian principles and sentiment. An atmosphere

has been created, else all these centuries would have passed in vain. But

whilst that is quite true, and I suppose in lands like ours we do not

need to be afraid of the rougher forms of the world’s enmity, it does not

seem to me that in substance this law has ceased to operate, nor will it,

until either the Church has become wholly worldly — which, thank God! it

never will do — or until the world has become wholly Christ’s. There are

plenty of evidences round us that it still remains true that an out-and-out

consistency of Christian conduct shall be unwelcome to the mass of society.

You have only to look at the bitter antagonism to aggressive Christianity

which is manifested in much of our popular literature to see that. They

used to burn us; they only sneer at us nowadays; but the sentiment is

pretty much the same. In your Christian activity, touch the social sins of

this generation, and you will see the claws come out fast enough, and

scratch deep enough, for all the velvet skin and the purring that sometimes

is heard. Let a man live the life, and shape himself .ifter Christ’s pattern,

and he will not miss having to bear his share of the treatment given to his

Master. If we take Him for our pattern, and try to be like Him, we have

to make up our minds to “go forth unto Him without the camp, bearing

His reproach,” and to live a godly life amidst ungodly people; and that

will never be done without some experience of the deep-seated antagonism

lpetween the true disciple and the world.