Our Deposit with Christ
“Wearily my spirit sinketh
Into Jesus’ heart and hands,
Calmly trusting, though the journey
Lie through strange, untrodden lands. All my spirit is at rest On the loving Father’s breast.”
In one of his epistles St. Paul tells us of a trust which he had committed to Christ. Speaking of him with whom he had made this deposit, he says he knows him whom he has trusted. Christ was no stranger to him, no untried friend. He could not have trusted him with such tremendous interests if he had not known him. Very foolish is the young person who puts confidence in a stranger, admitting him to the place of a friend. She would be a very careless, thoughtless mother who would commit the keeping of her child to a nurse concerning whose character she had not thoroughly satisfied herself. Men who are prudent will not invest money in an institution which they do not reasonably believe to be safe. If you were going to cross the sea, you would want to be well assured of the stanchness and seaworthiness of the ship to which you commit your life.
St. Paul knew him whom he had trusted as his Saviour. Some people know a great deal about Christ, yet do not know him. You may read or hear much concerning a man while you have never seen him. But one day you meet this man, and he becomes your friend. That is the way St. Paul knew Christ, — “I know him.” It was no hearsay knowledge on which he based his confidence.
There are some people whom the better we know the less we trust. Acquaintance reveals faults and flaws in their character. We find they are not trustworthy, cannot be depended on. Their friendship is inconstant, fickle, uncertain. When we know them well we learn that we would better not commit ourselves to them. We read that on one occasion Jesus did not commit himself to certain people because he knew what was in men; he knew he could not trust himself in their hands, that they would not prove true to him. This is the outcome of acquaintance in too many cases — we may not safely intrust our interests to men’s keeping.
Others there are whom the better we know the more implicitly we trust. We find them faithful and true in every feeling, in every word, in every act. They never disappoint us, nor fail us, nor harm us. Every thought of their heart is loyal. They would make any sacrifice for our sake. Such a friend is Christ.
If you are travelling in a strange land, you may feel a little uncertain at first about your guide, not having tried him before; but as you go on, and he shows familiarity with the way and ability to conduct you on your journey, you learn to trust him, and at length all fear gives way to complete confidence. So it is that trust in Christ grows as we go on with him, and find him always faithful and wise. He never disappoints us. In all experiences of need or trial he proves his love. Sometimes he denies us what we ask, but we always learn in the end that he was right. Thus it is that we learn to know Christ — by trying and trusting him.
St. Paul then tells us that he has placed a sacred deposit in the hands of Christ, and that he knows it is absolutely secure. “I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed unto him against that day.” The figure is of a deposit one would make intrusted keeping, as of rare and costly jewels which the owner might put into the hands of one who would safely guard them, delivering them up in due time.
What was it that St. Paul had thus deposited with Christ? For one thing, it was his soul. It was a guilty soul when the young rabbi first met Christ; he had been openly fighting against Jesus. It was a hurt soul; he had wounded himself in his resistance. That guilty, hurt soul he had committed to the keeping of Christ; and he was sure Christ would guard it sacredly, and save it unto life eternal. Paul never worried about his own salvation after making this committal. He knew that all was safe in Christ’s hands, and he then gave up his life to the service of Christ.
No one but Christ can keep our soul. There are no other hands in which we may place this sacred deposit. No gentlest, purest, wisest mother can take charge of her own child’s soul. She cannot cleanse its heart of evil dispositions and tendencies. She cannot keep it from the power of evil, and shelter it from temptation. She cannot put upon its nature Christ’s likeness. She may care for its body, and train its mind, but she cannot save and keep its soul. Only Christ can do this.
There is a wonderful verse in the little letter of Jude, which reads: “Unto him that is able to guard you from stumbling, and to set you before the presence of his glory without blemish in exceeding joy ... be glory and majesty, dominion and power.” That which he is able to do is to guard us from stumbling on our way through this world, and at the end present us without blemish before God. The same confidence is in St. Paul’s words: “He is able to guard that which I have committed unto him against that day.” This keeping is no easy task. There are a thousand things that may hurt a life. Evil lurks in sunshine and shadow, in joy and sorrow, in pleasure and pain, in success and failure, in health and sickness, in companionship and loneliness, in prosperity and adversity.
An hour’s association with one not good may leave in a soul a suggestion of evil which shall work the life’s utter ruin in the end. A happy home by its very happiness may become the enemy of the spiritual life, drawing thought, love, and devotion from God and from the higher things of God’s service to things lower and earthly. Business success may lead to moral failure; or, on the other hand, failure in business may dishearten and break the spirit. A time of sickness may breed discontent and fretfulness. Invalidism may make one selfish and exacting; or unbroken health may weaken the sense of dependence on God, or may rob the heart of patient sympathy, making one harsh and ungentle towards others in their infirmities. Too much companionship or too great absorption in work may interfere with the soul’s communion with God; or too much aloneness may make one’s life morbid, unwholesome, self-absorbed, and out of sympathy with others.
These are suggestions of the possible evils that lurk in the common experiences of even the most sheltered life. This is not an easy world to live in and in which to keep one’s self unspotted. It is not easy amid such antagonisms to grow into Christly beauty. One who has sincerely tried to keep himself pure, loving, gentle, unselfish, rich-hearted in all sympathy and helpfulness, generous, patient, true, and sweet in all ways, even for one little day, knows that it is no easy task. But that is what Christ is able to do for us, — to guard that which we have committed to him until the day of final revealing.
In another burst of confidence, just before his martyrdom, St. Paul used these remarkable words: “The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom.” He was in Nero’s hands, and soon would die; but his deposit was still safe, and would be guarded until it should be presented in glory.
Our affairs are also a part of this deposit. We soon learn that we cannot be master of our own condition and circumstances. We cannot make our environment helpful to our spiritual growth. We cannot bring good out of evil, blessing out of pain, victory out of defeat. Take the story of Joseph as an example. Wrong and cruelty seemed to be utterly destroying his young life in its early years. But the strange, tangled experiences were in the hands of God, and out of them all came in due time great blessing for Joseph and for the world. To have broken into that story with human interference at any point, in those days of trial, would have been to spoil the outworking of a beautiful divine plan.
“Because I was impatient, would not wait, But thrust my impious hands across thy threads, And marred the pattern drawn out for my life — O Lord, I do repent.”
There is a special phase of the lesson which emerges at this point. You are suffering wrong from others. They are unkind to you, unjust, treating you injuriously. What is your duty as a Christian in this case? Is it not the quiet committal of all the hurts and wrongs into Christ’s hands? You are not a judge; you have nothing whatever to do with judgment. Your whole duty is to put the matter absolutely and forever out of your own hands into Christ’s, and to leave it there. It is not your province to set wrong things right, to vindicate yourself from false blame, to avenge injustice or injury inflicted upon you.
In another passage of the Scriptures we are told what Jesus himself did with the wrongs he suffered: “Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.” We have also this counsel:
“Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit their souls in well doing unto a faithful Creator.”
How simple this teaching makes all life if only we learn the lesson! Our soul’s salvation, the keeping of our life in the midst of this world’s dangers and enmities, the outworking of all experiences, the direction of our affairs, the adjustment of all wrongs and inequities, the overruling of all evil, so as to bring us home at last to glory without blemish, — all this is to be committed to Christ, left absolutely, without question, doubt, or fear, in his strong and skilful hands. Our one duty is always to do God’s will as it is made known to us, and then leave all the tangles with Christ. In one of the Psalms the lesson is put very clearly: —
“Commit thy way unto the Lord;
Trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass.
And he shall make thy righteousness to go forth as the light,
And thy judgment as the noon-day.
Then, St. Paul’s words of confidence and assurance come in again with wondrous strengthening for our hearts: “I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed unto him against that day.” Thus assured, faith can sing: —
“I will not doubt, though all my ships at sea Come drifting home with broken masts and sails; I will believe the Hand which never fails From seeming evil worketh good for me: And though I weep because those sails are tattered3 Still will I cry, while my best hopes lie shattered, I trust in thee.’”