The World Rebuking the Church

“So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not.” — Jonah i. 6. “If the salt hath lost its savour, wherewith shall it he salted?” — Matt. v. 13.

HERE we may profitably consider in the first place, the rebuke administered to Jonah by the pilot; and, thereafter, the proposal made to him. The shipmaster has a proposal to make to him; “Arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not.” But first he rebukes him sharply: “What meanest thou, 0 sleeper?”

It is a melancholy scene: a scene for a friend of God to sorrow over; for His enemies to rejoice in. A prophet of the Lord rebuked by a heathen pilot! The Church reproved by the world! And not in mere insolence and enmity; not as the fruit of an ingenious search for something to hold up to scorn; but in a matter that needed not the keen scent of malice to hunt out — a matter that could not possibly be overlooked.

Ah! there is an enmity in the carnal heart towards God, that shows itself in malignant dislike of those that are His — of those that bear in any measure of distinctness His image, and that maintain with any degree of decision His cause. How often do worldly men maliciously search out the faults of the godly, applying to them an altogether different measure from what they mete out to their own worldly companions! The godliness of the godly provokes them. Conscience attests the superiority of the truly religious man, and that attestation rises in their souls whether they will or not. On that point, however, as on many more, they are at war with conscience, and labouring to suppress its dictates and decisions. They have a kind of perverse interest in making out the godly, with all their professions, to be no better

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than themselves. They would fain minister to their own ease, and suppress their own misgivings, by concluding that, after all, there is no reality — no permanent, effective, substantial reality — in the piety of those that shun their ways and testify against their wickedness. And in prosecution of this desire, how readily will they bring out to view, and harp upon, failings, infirmities, inconsistencies, such as, occurring in their earthly-minded companions, would never for a moment be mentioned! Eagerly they will seek out the evidence, long will they keep up the memory of such inconsistencies, such unworthiness, on the Christian’s part. They will watch for your halting; and when they find it, they will hail it with joy, and perpetuate its remembrance with delight.

But if they watch for your halting, and search out diligently your infirmity, what shall be said, if, without the need of their search at all, you put your infirmity in its worst form under their very eye? What if, in the very eye of the world, you sleep as do others — yea, sleep more soundly than others can? What if Jonah falls asleep, when even heathen pilots are awake?

What is to be expected then? Why should you look for anything but rebuke — for being put ignominiously to shame — for being covered with confusion. In such a case, you cannot attribute that rebuke to pure malice, to special enmity, to an oversearching inquiry into evidence, or an over-stern verdict on your sin. In no case, indeed, are you entitled to palliate your infirmity or abate your remorse and grief in bringing dishonour on your high name, on the ground that the world has dealt with you in keen and stern severity. Their motive in blaming will never attenuate your blameworthinesss. And even when clear malice can be proved against them, confounding your mere infirmity with sheer hypocrisy and wickedness, your grounds of sorrow still remain. But how unspeakably more poignant and piercing must your grief and contrition be, if you have so fallen, so sinned, so shown yourself indifferent to the will of God, as that, even in friendliness itself, the worldling could not help expostulating with you on your fall!

It was thus with Jonah, the servant and prophet of the Lord. It needed no malice, and it argued no enmity in the pilot to rebuke him. He could not, indeed, have done otherwise. The pilot spoke sharply, but he spoke well — better than he himself knew. The rebuke was’more fully deserved than the pilot himself understood. “What meanest thou, 0 sleeper?”

1. For, in the first place, and speaking merely negatively, Jonah deserved rebuke for what he did not do.

He was not bearing testimony for his God at this moment. He was not exhibiting the power of trust in God. He had a splendid opportunity of doing so, — and lost it. He lost a very remarkable opportunity of bearing a noble and timely testimony to the living and true God, “which hath made the sea and the dry land” (chap. i. 9), and who sitteth above the floods, and keepeth His people’s souls in peace. Amidst the crashing storm and the terror that reigned in the ship, Jonah, had he been in the way of duty instead of fleeing from it, and in the exercise of faith instead of worn out and worn down in a conflict with his own conscience, might have stood forth, as Paul on a similar occasion, fearless for himself — a sort of bulwark, a rock of strength to others also. In the way of his duty to a reconciled God, and in fresh and immediate confidence in Him, he might have been free from the exhaustion caused by a long spiritual conflict; awake; vigilant; in perfect peace, in holy calm; bold as a lion while others trembled; waxing stronger and stronger as the strength of others waned. Ah, the question might have been asked him then, “What meanest thou?” — but it would have had another import. How canst thou thus look on in peace, while heaven and earth seem dashed together and commingled? And he might have answered from the Psalm, — for he knew well the Psalms, as his prayer in the depths reveals, — he might have answered for himself and for all believing Hebrews, “God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble: Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled; though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof” (Ps. xlvi. 1-3). That would have glorified his God in the eyes of the heathen mariners. That would have been a testimony to the living power of the true God to support and strengthen His waiting ones in all circumstances. And doubtless such a testimony could not have been borne without making its own impression on all who saw it, evoking in substance the question put by the king to Daniel, “0 Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?” (Dan. vi. 20). O Jonah, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to give thee peace like this? Yes; “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee” (Isa. xxvi. 3).

This noble opportunity of witness-bearing for his God, however, Jonah allowed to pass unimproved. And do not we often allow many a precious opportunity to pass without taking advantage of it? Are you careful, believing brethren — ye who serve the living God, — ye whose consciences have been purged by the blood of Jesus from dead works to serve the living God, — are you careful, in time of trial, adversity, poverty, anxiety, or bereavement, to show the world how the grace of God, how the faith of Jesus, how the fellowship of the Spirit, can suffice to keep your soul in perfect peace and perfect patience! Do you loyally feel the duty lying upon you to your King, to prove to those who know Him not, and see not the light of His countenance, and receive not His supplies of strength, that the strength he gives is nevertheless very real, and that the light of His countenance sweetens the afflicted heart, and sustains the anxious, waiting, longhig desire, which being delayed would make the worldling’s heart altogether sick, while yours is strong? Do you feel the holy obligation, not merely of avoiding palpable and plain matter of offence, but of — over and above a certain style of innocence or inoffensiveness — positively causing your light to shine, so that others, seeing your good works, may glorify your Father which is in heaven? Deliberately think, now. What is it you do, what is it you design or attempt, in the way of positively commending the excellence, the acceptableness, the beauty of true Christian character, the value, the strength, the sweetness, the cordiality, the true cheerfulness of having trust and confidence in a reconciled God? Would the world be led to feel from you, and from what they see in you, that living piety, the piety of faith and fellowship with God, of God’s society and God’s service, is really excellent and precious — promotive of strength and purity of character, promotive of peace and power of mind, promotive of beneficial issues to yourself, and beneficent dispositions to your fellow-men — promotive alike of your comfort and usefulness here, as well as of your high hopes and prospects for hereafter? And when the dark night of trial and forebodings descends, and others lose all their comfort and all their courage; when, in the sight of death and eternal destinies, the hearts of others fail them; do you make it plain that in the faith of a crucified and risen Saviour there is a power which no adverse power can baffle, and a peace which no storm can break, and a hidden life — a life hid with Christ in God, in the secret of His presence, in the covert of His peaceful pavilion? Ah, then you are indeed among the children of light, not sleeping as do others, not sleeping as did Jonah; children of light — lights in the darkness; your light so shining that men shall glorify your Father in heaven.

But do you really watch thus to shine? Do you not often forget your duty thus to shine? And yet, why hast thou seen the light? Why hath the Lord thy God shone upon thee, and His glory risen upon thee? Why hath He given thee the light of salvation — the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ? Is it not that thou niayest reflect that light? If thou art not reflecting it, must thou not conclude that thou art receiving it in less measure than thou knowest? What meanest thou, O believer? — shining little; showing others little of the light, little of Christ; doing little to tell of thy Saviour, to shine upon thy brother as thy Saviour, thine Elder Brother has shone on thee? Arise; “what meanest thou?” Ay, what meanest thou? and what meaneth Jesus? Meanest thou other than He means? Breakest thou thy fellowship with Him in this matter? Jesus meaneth some light to others as well as to thee; He meaneth to show them some light by means of thee. To this end, wouldst thou but rise and reflect the light. He would shine on thee more sweetly, more brightly, than hitherto He has ever done. Come, and in the faith that Jesus shines upon thee, and will shine upon thee more and more unto the perfect day, arise thou and shine on others. “Arise, shine; for thy light hath come, and the glory of the Lord hath arisen upon thee” (Isa. Ix. 1).

Negatively, then, or in consideration of what he did not do, of what he omitted, of what he lost the opportunity of doing, Jonah merited the heathen man’s rebuke.

2. But, secondly, Jonah not only deserved his rebuke on negative grounds, but also because he was a positive scandal or stumbling-block in the circumstances. And from the picture, as it appeared, of shameful supineness, stupidity, and insensibility, which the prophet presented, the pilot was surely most justifiable in somewhat sharply, or even roughly, reproving him. No doubt the prophet’s sleep had a very diflTerent origin and cause from any that the pilot could have dreamt of or understood. Weary and worn with spiritual conflict, and anxiety, and sorrow, the exhausted fugitive sank to sleep, very much as the sorrowful Apostles at the gate of Gethsemane, — not from utter and shameful lack of feeling, but from wrongly governed strength of feeling. And it is, indeed, indicative of very poor powers of appreciation or sympathy with the spiritual mind to treat the prophet’s slumber as if it were quite parallel with the levity of lustdrugged apathy of the senseless or sensual sinner. With us, to whom the whole facts are revealed, it would be inexcusable to class the sleeping fugitive with worldly sleepers — with those that are at ease in Zion. But the astonished mariner had not the means of judging that we have. He knew not the explanatory circumstances that we know. The plain fact was before him, of the prophet’s slumber at such a time; his being fast asleep, while the storm had brought death to gaze upon them and to claim them. And so, O believer, it may be on an occasion with you. The evil in you that meets the world’s eye may be connected with your spiritual experience, with your knowledge and service of the living God, much more closely than the world can be expected to understand. Instead of arguing your utter hypocrisy — as the shallow world, with its short and easy method, its quick and off-hand receipts, is ever ready to argue — your infirmity may be such as could not exist, or at least not in you, in its particular form, save for your being, in the main, godly. For instance, you may be ill at ease in conscience concerning some duty omitted, or some offence given to your God. The iniquity may be such as the world would smile at thinking fitted to give any sane man trouble. It may be merely, — ah! you would not say riiierely, though they would, — it may be merely your want of realising positive and happy fellowship with Christ. You may have been growing strange towards your best Friend. Your enjoyment of His word and ordinances may have been growing tame and dull.

your joyful and cordial communion with Him desultory; your alacrity and happiness in His service may have greatly diminished, and your work for Him who loved you been hanging heavy on your hands. You are ill at ease; and no wonder. Your conscience upbraids you. You are uncomfortable. You are almost irritable. You become unsocial, ungenial, uncongenial, sour, fretted, an unhappy and unpleasant companion. The very worldling can afford to point to you as far inferior, in real frankness, and freeness, and cordiality of feeling, to many who make nothing like your professions of piety to God and charity to man. True, the worldling cannot appreciate, and will not make allowance for, those elements of Christian integrity with which your temporary peevishness and fretf ulness, your present want of social kindliness and geniality of temperament, are connected. And, in one sense, it is very easy for him to cast a stone at you. It is very easy for him, on his smooth sea, and with his shining sky; and coasting gaily along in his tiny shallop, to blame on your part the anxious face, and knitted brow, and hard compressed lips, and abstracted air, and unsocial bearing, while all the waves and billows of inward anxiety are passing over j’ou. It is very easy for him to blame you; and it is very hard that such as you should be blamed by such as he. Still the question is, What can the world take you for, but what you appear to be? And if inevitably they must form a judgment that will not take all the trials of your conflict into account, are you not the more bound to see that in that conflict you so fight by faith, and, having done all, so stand, that the cheerfulness of true Christian peace shall, if not uniformly, yet usually, be seen shining upon you, while the joy of the Lord shall be your strength.

The worldling’s conscience has not the tenderness of the Christian’s conscience, and therefore is not so readily pained. The worldling’s peace has not the purity of the Christian’s peace, and therefore is not so readily marred. It is easy for the one to take things coolly; to be quite gay and cheerful, frank, and free-hearted, and joyous in his way; while the soul shaken with eternal verities, and watching to walk with a holy and eternal God, may oftentimes be deeply tried, and liable to be greatly fretted. And it is easy for the shallow, earthly-minded man, who has let alone Christ, and whom now in judgment Christ is well-nigh letting alone; it is easy for him, knowing nothing of the trials, the terrors of sin finding him out, of God mercifully not letting him alone, but proving, chastising, disciplining him, lest Satan should gain dominion over him: it is easy for him to make a mock of a sensitive, scrupulous, conscientious soul, under the hiding of God’s countenance for sin, and backsliding, and unbelief. But still the question returns. What right have you to be bringing up an ill report on the religion of the Son of God, as if they who profess it lose much in the way of cheerfulness, joyousness, sweetness of temper, geniality of disposition, frankness of heart and manner, which those who profess it not may retain? Brinono such scandal on the brotherhood — on those that are within. Be no such stumbling-block to those that are without. Let there be nothing which the world can point to and say concerning it. We are more distinguished for this excellence than you, — we, who make no profession, than you, whose profession is great. Hast thou no inward peace to sit enthroned on an open placid brow? Hast thou no joy within to break into a peaceful, placid smile, the smile of frank and loving joy, that would tempt the very child to flee to thee, as, in its innocence, its very choice and chief companion? Hast thou too much inward anguish with sin, — with great and weary thoughts of life, and death, and everlasting things? And, as on a very sea of trouble, with the wind boisterous, art thou so filled with anxiety and fear, as that tender Christian peace and the lovely garniture of attractive Christian graces have little chance to be seen in thee? Behold, 0 brother, a mild majestic form walking on those very waters, wending His way towards thee! Dost thou not recognise Him? “It is the Lord.” Canst thou not say, “Lord, bid me that I come vmto Thee;” or, “Come Thou, good Lord, into the ship, and dwell with me “? And as you go to meet Him, even walking on the waters, or, as you welcome Him into the ship, — and behold! there is a great calm, — 0 learn, while now peacefully sharing His dominion over all waves and winds. His victory over all tempests and trials — learn in His society to cultivate all those graces which shone in Him; the mildness, the meekness, the genial lowliness and kindliness that made even the face of “the Man of Sorrows” shine joyfully on the children, and made His bosom the refuge where they might so securely reckon on a place of nestling and of love.

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Why should the Church allow the world to bear away the palm in reference to any one element of excellence whatsoever — candour, courtesy, charity, kindliness, large-mindedness, liberality, self-denial, any virtue whatsoever? Why should there be one single department of what is good — good in any sphere, moral, physical, social, scientific — concerning which the world can with any show of fairness profess to school the Church, or say, Stand aside, for we are more at home here than you? Nay: “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever thino-s are venerable, whatsoever things are just; whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things.” The pilot rebuking the prophet! The world rebuking the Church! These things ought not so to be.

A Hebrew rebuked by a heathen: a Hebrew prophet by a heathen mariner! Yes; but there is more in it than that. It is a Hebrew prophet fleeing from, a commission to reprove a heathen city, himself reproved by a heathen! Surely it is punishing his sin in kind. It is graving his libel on the rod that punishes his offence. Yerily it is his sin finding him out.

How exact are God’s retributions!’ How strong, how exact, how minute! In their great leading features — also in their manifold, minute details — the actings of His moral government bear evidence of One who is the all-searching God, to whom the darkness and the light are both alike. You cannot blind Him. You cannot baffle Him. You cannot evade His notice. Also, you cannot engage His attention so as to distract His memory. In ten thousand ways He can, without a moment’s warning, show you forgotten sin, in mirrors which you cannot turn aside. He can adapt His punishments, so that it shall be mere affectation for you to doubt what the sin is He punishes for. He may keep it secret between Himself and you, if the ends of righteousness do not demand its exposure. But between Himself and you there shall be no doubt left. A heathen shall reprove the man who would not carry God’s reproof to the heathen, — so that a man shall say, “Yerily there is a God that judgeth on the earth.”

Young man, do you know that Almighty God has a moral government? Do you know that He keepeth count and reckoning? Do you know that the pages of His reckoning never fade?

Do you know that He sometimes copies out a page upon the memory and conscience of him whom it doth concern, painfully, startlingly, alarmingly; and he whom it doth concern, though he shrink, though he scream, cannot break loose from the hand, graving into his soul as with the point of a diamond, writing on it as in lines of burning fire? Ah! young man, companion of fools! thou knowest not the mysteries of God’s government — the mysterious capacities of conscience. Above all, thou knowest not the relations between thy conscience and the all-searching, allreckoning government of thy God. “Rejoice, 0 young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things the Lord will call thee into judgment” (Eccles. xi. 9).

But what! wilt thou wait till then? Wilt thou not rather take the judgment into thine own hand and judge thyself? “If thou wilt judge thyself, thou shalt not be judged “(1 Cor. xi. 31). But at what judgment-seat shalt thou judge thyself; and to what penalty shalt thou condemn thyself? Every sin of thine deserveth God’s wrath. In every sin of thine thou hast forged another chain binding thee over a prisoner to the day of His wrath. Oh, these countless chains!” 0 wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from them? “I am loaded as with irons. Who shall deliver me? Who shall break them and set me free? Brother, there is but one only means of breaking these irons and giving thee thy freedom again. They shall yield to fire, and fire alone. The furnace of Jehovah’s wrath. His righteous wrath, will melt them, dissipate them, abolish them, if it blaze in its undivided fierceness. It does so blaze. It blazes in all its fierceness on Calvary. Yon cross is the furnace of wrath, and He who suffered there comes and takes thee by the hand.” Brother,” He says,” guilty, weary, wretched, yet brother still, partaker of flesh and blood as I am, wilt thou go with me through yon devouring fire? Every sacrifice shall be salted by fire. Every chain of sin shall be abolished by fire — by fire only. Wilt thou go with me? On me alone shall the heat kindle — on me, and on thy chains, thy sins, which the Lord hath laid on me. One in the furnace with thee, such as I am, the Son of God, thou shalt suffer no evil; the fire shall have no power over thee; not

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an hair of thy head shall perish, nor the smell of fire pass on thy garments. I shall be made sin for thee, that thou mayest be made the righteousness of God in me (2 Cor. v. 21). Only, it must be in one. Brother, it is essential that I pass through the fires with thee, — I in thee, and thou in Me.”

Oh, most amazing proposal! Oh, most gracious offer! Wilt thou not embrace it? Wilt thou not go with Jesus? He is the sacrifice for sin. The flame kindles on Him, exhausts itself on Him; kindles on Him alone — on Him wearing thy chains, that He may abolish them. He alone is the burnt-offering. In Him, “It is finished.” When thou goest with Him, the flame kindles not at all on thee. And now, proving by faith this glorious relief; going by faith with Jesus through all the anguish of His death and cross; purified by His blood; living by His sacrifice; emerging from the fire with Jesus — emerging into new life, as at that empty grave where the angel of light shineth, showing you “the path of life;” standing there now with thy risen Lord, thou art free as He is, unfettered, unhampered, emancipated from all chains of darkness, bonds of condemnation, cords of death. Thou art free as Christ is. Thy chains are gone. Thy sins are punished, avenged, abolished. Thy conscience is purged and clean; thy heart at ease — broken, contrite, weeping, mourning for Him whom thou hadst pierced, for Him on whom the fire kindled instead of thee — yet still joyful, grateful; grieving gladly, glad though grieving; pure, affectionate, holy, childlike, free; — free to love thy wonderful Redeemer, free to serve thy risen Lord; free to say, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” and free to say unto Him, “Here am I; send me” (Acts ix. 6. Isa. vi. 8). Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made thee free. Sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee. Thy sins are forgiven thee; go in peace; go and sin no more.

And as thou goest, holy, sinning no more, — be cheerful, be joyful, be strong. The dark night — the dread wrath — the furnace of fire — are all behind thee. In the fresh morning of thy new life, an elastic, bounding sense of freedom throbs within thee. “The path of life,” with the glory yonder, stretches in shining light before thee. And now, “forgetting the things that are behind,” press on towards those that are before, — forward, upward, heavenward, — straight to the “mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. iii. 13, 14).