Living in the Streets

“Beware of the dogs” (Phil. iii. 2, 3).

There is no more familiar sight in Eastern cities than the herds of dogs which prowl about “without a home and without an owner, feeding on the refuse and filth of the streets, quarrelling among themselves, and attacking the passer-by.” And it is in this vagrant, outside life that the Apostle finds his figure of speech. It was a favourite figure by which the Jew expressed his conception of the conditions of the Gentile world. All who were beyond the circle of his own race were outside the home, living in the streets, feeding on garbage and uncleanness, or on the crumbs and offal of life’s feast. But the Apostle lays hold of the figure, reverses the application, and uses it to express the condition of the Jews.

And this is the form of his indictment: It is you who are living in the outside streets. It is you who are contented with the externals, and satisfied with the mere crumbs of religious nutriment. You give the emphasis to life in the flesh, and you ignore the inner sanctuary of the Spirit. You think much of the “mutilation” of the body, and you give little concern to the consecration of the soul. You abide in ordinances, you boast of fleshly pedigrees, you glory in “outward things.” And what is this but the life of dogs — life spent in the streets? And it is all the more pathetic because you are called to something infinitely better, even the settled life of the home, the bounty of a well-filled table, and all the gracious intimacies of a spiritual feast.

And so the great Apostle bids his readers beware of this most seductive peril in religion, the peril of dwelling in the streets. Streets are not homes — they are only the helpful means by which we reach our homes. But we are continually tempted to remain in the streets instead of walking through them to our homes. Ritualism is a street, and to many people an exceedingly pleasant and inviting one, and when used as a means and not an end it is often a most gracious convenience for reaching “the secret place” of our Lord. But it is possible so to emphasise the ritual as to forget “the secret place” to which it is meant to lead, and to find so much delight in the mode of approach that we never arrive. We may think more of a posture than we do of a disposition, more of a form of prayer than of the spirit of prayer, more of a sacrament than of the Lord. And this is to be “dogs” picking up things in the streets, instead of “children” sitting with our Father at “the feast of fat things” which He has provided for them that love Him.

And so it behoves us to “beware.” There are always evil-workers about, men and women who will drag down the high spiritualities of religion and ensnare us in the small temporalities of external ordinance and worship. They will emphasise circumcision and fasting, and the wearing of phylacteries, and the washing of hands; but they have no mind for the humility which weeps and prays in secret, which rears a sanctified altar where the sound of human applause is never heard, and which shuts out all earthly clamour in order that it may listen to the voice of the Eternal God. And it is so easy to listen to these superficial callings, to forsake the “Holy of holies,” and to loiter in the outer halls and passages of religion, and even to find our satisfaction in the streets. And the Apostle therefore unfolds the true life of the child, the rich, intimate life of God’s family circle, as opposed to this precarious life of the dogs in the streets. To “worship God in the Spirit,” our feet are not to halt until we have reached the inner and most holy realm of the Spirit. Every street must lead up to this. Every bit of ritual must be a finger-post pointing to this. Every form and ceremony, every posture, every means of grace, every sacrament must bring us into “the secret place of the Almighty.” Even the Bible must not be our goal; it must be a street through which we pass to our Lord. “Ye search the Scriptures... and ye will not come to Me.” We must press through all these external ministries until, having left them all behind, we are temporarily independent of them, and we breathe and hold communion in the glorious fellowship of the Holy Ghost.

“And glory in Christ Jesus.” Here is a second characteristic of the inner life, the spiritual home-life, as contrasted with the life of the streets. Men who abide in the outsides of things have their eyes fastened upon the shrine, and not upon the treasure it contains. They think more of the material temple than of “the invisible Church,” more of an ecclesiastical privilege than of a spiritual grace, more of a fleshly pedigree than of a mystic kinship with the Lord. They put their “confidence in the flesh,” and they glory in the things of the flesh. But the child of the home of God experiences a certain detachment from these externals; the material obtrusiveness drops away as soon as he comes into the presence of the Lord. The flame of the little lamp is no longer wanted when it has led us into the radiant home of God. It can then be put out. We will give thanks for its kindly ministry but in the brightness of

His presence we will glory in the Lord. Let us never allow the flesh to usurp the throne of the spirit. Let us never burn incense to our nets. “He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord.”