Thou and All Thy House
“Who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved.” Acts xi. 14.
GOD’S hand in providence is always busy, bringing the saving word to bear on the lost that they may be saved. Ordinarily, the process is conducted behind the scenes, in secret; but now and then, as in the cases of Moses and Cornelius, the curtain is drawn aside and the whole machinery exposed to view, that we may learn the method of the Divine government. The centurion is dwelling quietly in his own house at Csesarea; he is training his children and servants in the right way as far as he knew it: he is rinding out every frail widow and every helpless orphan in the neighbourhood, supplying the necessary food and clothing from his own stores as long as they lasted, and begging from his friends when they were done. Feeling his own need meantime he is crying unto God for help. God in heaven hears the cry, and determines to answer it; but a complicated machinery must be set in motion ere the water of life reach this thirsting soul. The method is not in this case a whit more complicated than that which is adopted in the daily course of the Divine administration. This case is uncovered as an illustrative specimen; all the rest are of the same character although they are concealed from view; messages from heaven are sent both to Peter and to Cornelius; and when speaker and hearer have been separately prepared, they are brought together. They meet; and at the point of contact the water of life flows from the charged into the empty vessel. The word of salvation, already through grace dwelling richly in the Lord’s apostle, overflowed into the open and prepared heart of the Roman centurion. By that word the man was saved.
In the Garden of Plants at Paris, a certain rare tree grew for many years. It was a thriving, mature plant. Year by year it was covered with blossom, and year by year the blossom was shed on the ground, leaving no fruit behind. After every promise, it remained barren still. At last one season, although nothing extraordinary had been observed, after the flower came fruit. The fruit swelled apace, and in due time ripened. The tree for the first time formed and brought to maturity self -propagating fruit. They sought and found the cause. Another tree of the same species, but bearing flowers the counterpart and complement of this one, had that season for the first time blossomed in a garden at some distance. The small white dust from the flowers of that other tree, necessary to make the flowers of this tree fruitful, had been borne on the feet of bees, or wafted by the wind into their bosom, and forthwith they bore fruit. This, in the natural department, is the work of that same allwise God who prepared the heart of Cornelius for receiving Peter’s word, and brought Peter with the word to Cornelius. In both departments He is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working. The devout Roman centurion was a goodly tree, spreading its leaves and opening its blossoms to the sun year by year on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, very hopeful, and very promising, but bare and desolate, until words, as if wafted on the wind, came from J oppa by the ministry of an apostle and fell upon the open, receptive, thirsting soul. Life sprang from that union.
You have passed ten or twenty or fifty years in this life. If you have passed over from death unto life, it is well. Hold the beginning of your confidence steadfast unto the end. But if not, think how much has been done to spare your life and your reason; how much has been done to bring message after message to you. Be on the watch, lie open; at a time when you think not the hour may come, and the man, and the word — the word whereby you may be saved. The word may come to you at a moment when you are open for the word, as accidentally and yet as definitely determined and designed as the dust which makes the flower fruitful is brought on the feet of unconscious insects, or wafted on the bosom of the wind. But if your heart be closed and cold, when the word of life comes, you will be left in your sins. Beware lest you miss the word which is sent to quicken you.
Machinery boxed-in goes round and accomplishes its work as well as if it were all exposed to view. At one extremity the raw material goes in, and at another the manufactured article comes out. This is all that the visitor sees. For once, and to instruct a stranger, the master may take the covering off, and lay bare the intricate system of cylinders and wheels; but soon he shuts the door again. Under cover all the work goes on as steadily as when the observer’s eye was watching it. Thus has the author of salvation, in the case of Cornelius and some others, opened up the processes of his providence, which are usually conducted in secret; but to-day, and here, he as truly works, and as wonderfully, in preparing hearts for receiving the seed of the word, and bringing vessels charged with seed to the right place at the right time. By the ministry, it may be, of angels unseen, or I by the ministry of naming fire and stormy winds unsuspected, or by the ministry of men whom I have not yet met, the word of salvation is coming to me. All things are now ready; be thou ready also, 0 my soul.
The words which Peter brought to Cornelius were intended and offered for the saving not of himself only, but also of all his house. The prayer of the centurion is not recorded. It is written that he prayed, but his prayer is not written. We have, however, the means of knowing what was in his prayer. As you may thoroughly know a man’s countenance by seeing it reflected in a mirror, although at the moment a partition wall stands between him and you, so, from the answer which a suppliant receives, you may learn what he asked. The message sent to Cornelius in answer to his prayer tells him how both he and his house may be saved; therefore we know he had asked salvation for his family as well as for himself.
Wife, children, domestics, and the soldiers who waited upon him continually, bulked largely in the supplication of that earnest striver into the kingdom. He prayed in secret, and therefore we know not in the first instance what he put into his prayer; but God rewarded him openly, and by learning what he received, we learn what he asked.
If I am told in general terms of a mother that she has gone to the studio of a photographic artist to obtain a portrait of herself; and if the question afterwards arises, Did she sit alone, or did she group the children round her feet, and hold the infant on her knee? I do not know, for I was not there; but show me the glass which the artist has just taken out from a vessel of liquid in a dark room, and is holding up to the light. What figures are these that are gradually forming upon its surface, like hoar-frost on the window on a wintry day? In that glass, dimly at first, like a thought springing in the soul, but anon with greater distinctness, like articulated language on the lips, rises the outline of that matron’s form; and see, the forms of the children come gradually in, variously grouped around her, and the infant sleeping in her lap. Ah, I know now, though I was not present at the operation, that this mother sat not alone when the sun in the heavens painted her picture in that glass.
Thus, by observing the group that cluster round Cornelius in the answer to his prayer, I learn who were crowding round his heart and rising to his lips, when he pressed his own need before the throne of grace.
We pray in secret; it is a privilege. We enter our closet and shut the door, as the Lord commanded — permitted us to do when we pray to our Father. No one knows our thoughts and words; none knows except the Hearer of prayer, who feels our longings pressing on the mercy-seat. But suppose our prayers — all their thoughts — were somehow impressed on a prepared plate, to start out in full outline, and be shown to our neighbours; what then? Then shame only to the Pharisees; but as many true wrestlings would be seen as might win a whole world to the Lord. It was this thought that was in Paul’s mind when he said, “Would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you.”
1. Parents and masters! God has placed the young under your charge, that you may bring them to him in prayer, and by instruction bring him to them. Nature’s affections are at once soft and strong to draw them by. Are there ten in your house, yourself and nine besides, all leprous by a birth in sin? You, conscious of your disease, come to Jesus for healing, but if you come alone, he will miss the rest. He is still the same, and he will certainly complain. His complaint will be, Were there not ten souls in that house; and where are the nine?
If you bring them, as Cornelius did, to the Lord in prayer, you will also like him bring them to the word and ordinances of God when an opportunity is offered. Cornelius was able to say, before Peter began to preach, We are all here before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God.
2. The children. — The word that is sent to the father and mother of a family, is a word that saves the children, and servants too, if they receive it. The parents who receive the word cannot save the children. For the natural life the children must get and take sustenance for themselves. The bread that their parents eat will not preserve the children alive. So the life of parents, when it is hid with Christ in God, will not carry the children into heaven. I am the vine, ye are the branches. Every branch in me, etc.
Cling with all your strength, not to your godly father, but to your father’s God.