The Work of God

Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect.” — Heb. xiii. 20.

One of the most noticeable features in religious reldvals is, what I might call the new power of an old gospel. A commonplace preacher, gifted with no power to stir men’s passions, and pouring forth no flood of eloquence to carry assemblies along as stones are rolled before a headlong torrent, appears in the pulpit. His manner is plain; and he preaches nothing but the simplest gospel truths. Yet, as I have seen the tall reeds that fringe the margin of a lake all suddenly bend before a rising wind, so his hearers are affected. Without any apparent cause to account for the phenomena, there is, to use Ezekiel’s figure, a shaking of the dry bones. Rough hands wipe tears from eyes unused to weep; and not delicate women only, but strong men are visibly and powerfully moved; sobs interrupt the speaker; truths often heard before, but no more felt than hailstones rattling on a rock, now fall like a shower of arrows; each time the bowstring sounds and a shaft flies, a sinner falls. Christ, as in the forty-fifth Psalm, appears as a mighty conqueror; the place ao2)

of his feet is glorious; and the scene forcibly recalls its words of prayer and prophecy, “Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, 0 most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty” — “Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies, whereby the people fall under thee.” All are moved, and not a few converted.

How explain this extraordinary event? The key to it, perhaps, will be found in the fact that a small band of God’s hidden ones have been, or are at that hour, on their knees at a throne of grace — wrestling with God, and pouring out their prayers for an outpouring of his Spirit. In such praying, more than in the eloquence of preaching, lies a minister’s power. Study brings a man to the pulpit, but it is prayer that brings God here. Thus Paul, who was above the praise of the people, and held himself independent alike of their applause and censure, saying, It is a small matter for me to be judged of man’s judgment, he that judgeth me is God — did not feel himself to be above their prayers. Though he insisted on the right of preachers to a sufficient maintenance, he was much more anxious that the people should pray for them than that they should pay them. He could, and that the gospel might not be hindered, he did maintain himself without aid from his hearers, saying. These hands have ministered to my necessities; he could dispense with their money, but not with their prayers. So here he affectionately entreats them, saying, “Pray for us.”

And now, recalling the scene by the shores of Tyre, where the mariners, as they heaved their anchor and unfurled their sails, saw him accompanied by the disciples and a crowd of women and children, before embarking, kneel down on the sand, and part with prayers — or a scene where a father, with his family gathered round his bed, and his form propped up on pillows, lifts his emaciated hands, and with labouring breath and looks of love, commends them, “lads “and all, to the angel of the covenant; so the Apostle closes his epistle and his intercourse with the Hebrews. He had sought their prayers. He now gives them his ownsaying,” The God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.’^

I. Look at the aspect in which God is here presented.

1. A God of peace.

Were we hastily and rashly to form our opinion of the character of God from the aspects and condition of this world, we might come to a different conclusion. “God of peace! “Where is peace? Read the worlds past history, or survey its present condition! Has not every age been filled with wars? and what soil, from the sands of Africa to Polar snows, has not been drenched with human blood? Yonder Red Lidian savage, who, armed with tomahawk, and adorned with scalps, fills the forest with his war-whoop, or with muffled steps steals on the sleeping camp to murder the aged and drag the young to slavery, has had his counterpart among civilized and Christian nations. Peace! Notwithstanding all the boasted progress of science and arts, and even of the gospel, the world is now bristling with arms; and hardly has the tocsin ceased in one country when it begins ringing in another. Save this sea-girt and happy isle, has not every land in Europe shaken, in our own day, to the tramp of armies; and sounded to the roar of cannon? And at this moment, mingling with the hoarse roar of th-s Atlantic, we seem to hear the boom of guns borne across the deep, from shores where long-gathering vengeance for negro’s wrongs at length is falling — teach me the lesson,” Verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth.” Failing to find peace among distracted nations, and imagining that she may have fled for an asylum to the fanes of religion, do we seek her in the hoi-se of God? Alas! It is a house divided against itself. The Chmxh of Christ has been rent asunder into I know not how many factious divisions. “Set on fire of hell,” the fire catching the bad passions of human nature, she has burst into fragments like an exploding shell. Disappointed of finding peace there, do we turn our steps to the domestic circle? We seek her in the family, and follow the mourners from a, father’s grave to see them clinging to each other; alas, we are startled by loud, discordant, angry voices — brothers and sisters are. quarrelling over the spoil. One asylum on earth remains to which she may have fled. “No man ever yet hated his own flesh;“’ and, like a lonely bird, pace may be quietly nestling in each man’s bosom. N”o. Till Christ bring to it the peace of God, bidding thQ waves and winds be still, man’s heart is agitated by many violent passions. Burning with hatred, or devoured by jealousy, or shaken with fears, or racked with remorse, or tortured by desires it feels but cannot satisfy, his bosom a nest of scorpions and “a cage of every unclean bird,” the wicked man has no peace. He cannot; for the wicked are like the troubled sea, which cannot rest. “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.”

Unconverted man is at peace — neither with himself, nor with others, nor with God. Shall we therefore conclude from this view of the world that he who is at once its Maker and Monarch is not a God of peace? Assuredly not. He had nothing to do with this miserable condition of affairs; and is neither to be judged by it, nor blamed for it. In a fatal hour, sin was admitted into our world; and the ship that takes a Jonah aboard parts with peace. She has nothing to look for but thunders and lightnings, and storms and tempests. But let God have his way, only let his will be done in earth as it is done in heaven, and such a change were wrought on this world, as would recall the change that night saw on Galilee, when Jesus woke, and, rising in the boat, looked out on the tumbling sea, to say, “Peace, be still” — and in a moment there was a great calm; and the lake lay around them like a glassy mirror, reflecting in its bosom the stars and peace of heaven. Let only this one commandment, “Love one one another as I have loved you,” be instantly and universally operative, there never were another cannon cast; nor sword forged; nor quarrel bred; nor blow struck f nor man enslaved; nor shore invaded; nor use made of drum and trumpet but to sound the jubilee of universal peace. Sin banished the peace which God has sent his Son to restore; fjid when this world is won over to Christ, and the crowns of earth, like those of heaven, are laid at his feet, then shall God be known as the God, and our world shall become again the abode of peace.

2. God has made peace.

“Fury is not in me, saith the Lord.” He has turned from the fierceness of his anger, and made peace between himself and man by the blood of the cross; but not “peace at any price” — at the expense of his honour, holiness, justice, law, or truth. No. God has not overlooked the guilt of sin; he pardons, but does not palliate it.

Peace, as has often been done between man and man, may be established on a false basis. Take for example those States of America where brother now stands armed against brother. Before they were actually rent asunder, they might have established a peace on the foundations of iniquity. Had they given ear to preachers who perverted the word of God, and, regarding slavery as the white man’s right, and not the black man’s wrong, had they joined hand to hand to sacrifice the interests of humanity to those of commerce, and the eternal laws of God to those of political expediency, they might have had peace instead of war. They might have cemented their union with the blood of slaves. But such a peace as that would have offered a complete contrast to the peace of the gospel. This preserves God’s honor. Not “peace at any price,” it is peace at such a price as satisfied the utmost demands of his law, and fully vindicated his holiness in the sight of the universe. For, see, by the cross where Jesus hung, mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace are embracing each other; and there the great God appears as just, “and also the justifier of all those who believe in Jesus.”

“Be justice done,’* said a noble heathen, “though heaven should fall f but little did he who uttered that great sentiment fancy at what expense justice might be done. Here a greater than heaven falls. God spares not his own Son; and by that immense sacrifice establishes such a peace between himself and our guilty world, that now all sin may be pardoned, and every sinner saved. Believing in Jesus, you are at peace with God — at peace with his justice; at peace with his law; at peace with your own conscience. You have no sins henceforth to answer for. You have nothing to fear in the hour of death. You have nothing to dread at the day of judgment. Christ has paid your debt, and satisfied for your sins; and, fully reconciled to you by the blood of his Son, a just and holy God has no quarrel with you now. Christ’s dying legacy is, “peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you;” and richer with that than banks could make you, “let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” That righteousness should satisfy our conscience, which has satisfied our God. “Justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

II. He brought Christ from the dead.

1. In one sense the glory of his resurrection belongs to Christ himself.

Should we hear of a man sinking the first day under the attack of a fever that commonly takes ten or twenty days to run its course — well in the morning and a corpse at night, we should not be more astonished than Pilate was when told that Christ was dead. Like the earth that shook in terror at the crime, like the graves that opened to show the sheeted dead, like the sun that hid his face, refusing to look on the scene, this sudden death was contrary to the course of nature. Dead! dead in a few hours where men take days to die! dead, with the two thieves still alive, and writhing on the neighbouring crosses! Notwithstanding his drooping head, and glazed eye, and still, motionless form, it seemed impossible! Besides, when men are dying, they speak low, not loud. You must bend, as we have often done, over the pillow to catch the whisper of bloodless lips; but that cry, “It is finished,” which sounded loud and clear from the cross, was less like the low, faint voice of a dying victim, than the battle shout of a victor who has won the fight, and stands with the foe beneath his feet. Strange that Jesus should die so soon! What if it were an attempt to escape the hands of justice? To defeat that and make all sure, a soldier, raising a long spear, buries the shining steel in his blessed side — to see it, on being withdrawn from the seat of life, followed by a gush of blood and water, the emblems of our redemption.

Strange as it seemed, it is still possible to explaii’ our Lord’s death by natural causes. The very perfection of his nature made him, more than other men are, liable to injury; just as the finer the mechanism, the more easily deranged the machine. Then think how the four and twenty hours were filled up that preceded his death — the parting with his disciples; the pain of Judas’ treachery; the mysterious agony of the garden; the exhaustion of the bloody sweat; the long night filled with mockery, and insult, and suffering; the trial; the scourging; the rude usage of a brutal soldiery; his sorrow for weeping women and a faintins; mother. Suflferins these, I can fancy our Lord’s strength exhausted, and himself more than half dead ere he reached Mount Calvary; as ready to die, as a vast stone that has had the subsoil washed away by summer rains and winter snows is to leave its base at the slightest touch, and roll down to the bottom of the hill.

Yet our Lord’s death, so strange in its suddenness, may be otherwise accounted for. It was in a peculiar ssense his own act. In no case do we lay down our lives. Who dies a natural death has his life taken from him; who commits suicide throws his away. But in dying, our Lord was like a man who says, 1 have done my work, completed my task, and I will now go to rest — I have paid the debt, and I will now leave the prison — I have fought the battle and won it, and I will now go home. The only thing else I have now to give, Jesus might say, is my life; and there it is. Of my own will, by my own, free, spontaneous act, I lay it down. All your wretched tools and cruel tor-THE ^ORK OF GOD. Ill

turee, your crown of thorns and bloody cross, (iannot deprive me of life. No. If I could create bread as fast as it was eaten, could not I create blood as fast as it flows away? It is not you that take away my life; nor is it God. It is not taken away — but given; for I have power to lay it down, as I have power to take it up again. Hence our Lord’s claim on our love and gratitude. He gave himself for us dying “the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.”

But he who said, “I have power to lay do^Ti my life,” also said, “I have power to take it up again” — as he had before intimated, when the Jews having asked a sign of him, he said, referring to his body, *’ Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Some men have a strange power of awaking from sleep whenever they please. They resolve to sleep three, or three times three hours; and, as if a trumpet was blown at their ear, they wake at the time. True to a minute, they have hardly opened their eyes when the clock strikes the hour. More strange still, many have not only slept, but some have even swooned and come out of the trance at the very time they fixed on. Curious, and to a great extent inexplicable, as these cases are, we know that there is a spirit within the body, lodged in the brain, and lord of the house, to assert the supremacy of the mind over matter, and stir up the sleeping senses at the appointed hour.

But fancy a man, ere he dies, settling the day and date of his resurrection; and, greatest of miracles, as yon tomb has witnessed, raising himself! Here is that wonder of wonders i Bowing his head on the cross, Christ gives up the ghost. The body the women swathe is stiff; cold the feet that Mary kisses; fixed, and glassy, and filmy, the eyes his mother looks on, and bloody and mangled the form she receives in her arms as they lower it slowly and tenderly from the cross; and for three days nothing distinguished this from other corpses, but that it assumes no sign of corruption. As perfumes give their odours to the vessel that holds them, it seems as if his pure soul had imparted somewhat of its virtues to his body; for though dead it suffers no decay; no smell of the charnel house fills that tomb; his pale countenance, as if carved out of marble, is beautiful as ever. The grave sits by and looks on its captive, but does not dare to touch him; and there he lies like a king asleep in a prison, the grimmest warder standing in reverence of one on whom the door is locked, to be thrown open at his bidding. At length the door is opened; but none enter to wake the sleeper. The angel rolls away the stone and sits on it; with eager eye watching the great event. All yet is wrapped in gloom. Within and without is the deepest silence — no sound breaking the stillness but the distant footfall of the guards, that, panic struck, fly the celestial apparition. Suddenly the body stirs; of his own accord the dead rises; and, dropping the garments of death, Jesus steps forth on the dewy ground. He has broken the prison, bound the jailer, and spoiled him of his keys; and Faith hears voices as of angels singing a^Tay up among the stars, “0 Death, where is thy sting? and 0 Grave, where is thy victory?”

2. Here our Lord’s resurrection is attributed to God.

Here unquestionably; but not here only. For God is elsewhere represented as protecting the dead body of his Son. Standing between it and the greedy grave, he guards it as a mother would her child’s from howling wolves! — as Rizpah did her seven sons, hanging on one gibbet, from the birds of the air, and the beasts of the field. In words which were addressed to God, and could only be applied to Christ, the Psalmist says, “Thou wilt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” But the Bible, which attributes the preservation of Christ’s body to God, also attributes its resurrection to him. Paul says, “He hath raised up Jesus again;” and to the day of his resurrection, as in some respects throwing his birthday into the shade, the same apostle applies these words, “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee,” — as if he came from Joseph’s tomb, more evidently and more gloriously God’s begotten Son, than from the virgin’s womb. From that womb he came, a feeble infant, to save the world; but from this tomb he comes, a mighty conqueror, having saved it. There, with the angel spectators of the fight, he enters the field a combatant; but here, with angels attending his triumph, borne high on his shield, wearing the crown of resurrection, declared to be the Son of God with power, he ascends to his Father — the gates of heaven thrown open to the cry, “Lift up your heads, ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; that the King of glory may come in.”

His resurrection is thus the work of God; the crown of his labours; the token of his acceptance; the fruit of his death. The God of peace raises him from the dead, not simply by his almighty power, but “through the blood of the everlasting covenant;” his own blood — as if the blood that washes away our sins, sprinkled on his dead face, restored him to life; sprinkled on the chains of death, dissolved them; sprinkled on the doors of the grave, threw them open! Most precious and potent blood! May it be sprinkled in red showers from God’s hand on us! If that blood, in a sense, gave life to a dead Christ, shall it not impart life to us? Yes. Through its power, dead with him to sin, crucified with him to the flesh, and buried with him in the baptism of- the Holy Spirit, we rise to newness of life; and at the last trumpets call, set free from death as well as sin — bondmen no more — we shall rise from watery graves and dusty tombs to show corruption changed into incorruption, and mortal into immortality. Then shall death be swallowed up in victory. In conclusion —

1. Look at this aspect of Christ as the Great Shep herd of the sheep.

How many are the elements of his greatness! He is a divine Shepherd. He is a royal Shepherd — with a crook in his hand, he wears a crown on his head; and unlike other shepherds, who in the East dwell in tents, and here in the lowly cottages of lonely glens, his home is a palace, and his servants are the angels of heaven. Think on the number of teachers, preachers, pastors, ministers, who throughout all the countries and climes of earth, are feeding his flocks; and how many are the shepherds he has under him. Indeed, those who bear the greatest names in his church are, though leaders, but part of the flock; he himself being the only Shepherd, Bishop, and Overseer of souls. He said, I have sheep that are not of this fold; and think of the numbers of his flock scattered in all regions of the world! When the last day gathers them together, and angels’ hands have separated them from the goats, the earth has no plain spacious enough to hold that flock — the ransomed multitude which no man can number. Well, therefore, may he be called the Great Shepherd, and for this reason, also, that the whole earth, from pole to pole and sea to sea, is his pasture-ground! — “The world is his, and the fullness thereof.”

Nor here, as sometimes happens among men, is greatness separated from that goodness which is the best property of the two. We would rather be good than great. But both properties, infinite in measure, meet in Christ. Paul calls him the Great, but he calls himself the Good Shepherd. He says, “I am the Good Shepherd.” How worthy of the title! How tender he is to weak and feeble Christians! He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them in his bosom; and gently leads those that are with young. His sheep are not reared for the butcher’s knife. They are not given over to hirelings; but he, placing himself at their head, leads them forth to green pastures and by still waters. Making such full provision for his people that they can sing, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” he sets such high value on his flock, that if even one should stray and be “ready to perish,” no seeks the wanderer till it is found. Home, if I may say so, has no delights for Jesus till he find the lost one; and returns with it on his shoulders, to call on angels and saints to rejoice with him that the lost is found. The Good Shepherd, in these aspects of his character, Jesus is especially and emphatically so in this, that he laid down his life for the sheep. He made his soul an offering for sin, suffering and dying for us; and therefore the voice of God in that mysterious call, “Awake, 0 sword, against my shepherd, against the man that is my fellow; and smite the shepherd.” See there the sinless, well-beloved, eternal Son standing before his Father — heaven looking on in wondering silence. The sword of justice is unsheathed. Once before, when it emptied many a throne in heaven, the angels had seen it flash, and their fallen compeers, shrieking from its wounds, rush headlong down to hell, like the herd into the depths of Galilee. But now, the Father sheathes that glittering sword in the bosom of his Son. He falls; he groans; he dies — the just for the unjust. “He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed.” And gathering now in wonder, and sorrow, and awe, around the dead body of the shepherd, can we think of the dignity of the sufferer, and the greatness of the ransom, of the pangs that rent his body, and of the sorrows that rung his heart without exclaiming, — How great was thy mercy toward me; how great should be my gratitude and love to thee! “Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.”

2. Let us glance at Paul’s prayer.

“The God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will; working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever, Amen.” Make you perfect! Could I express for you a better wish, or could you aim at a better object? It is a high, but, thank God, not a hopeless aim. “What though, when you would rise, you feel the world and the flesh binding you down as by chains of iron and affliction? No chains are too strong for him, who, bringing Jesus from the dead, burst the fetters of the tomb? If God, in the person of his beloved Son, has set a man on the throne of the great universe — exalting him high above angels and archangels, seraphim and cherubim, principalities and powers, is he not able to raise us to humbler thrones? Is not that which he has done for our Surety a most sure and glorious pledge of what he shall do for his people? Where the head is, all the members, the humblest of them, one day shall be. Even as the oil of frankincense and myrrh and cassia, which was poured on the high priest’s head, descended in fragrant streams to the very skirts of his garments — the parts that swept the dust, so shall the grace that was poured on Christ without measure, descend to sanctify and gladden the meanest of his people. Imbued with his Spirit, and sanctified by his grace, all who belong to him shall be at length and at last made meet for heaven; and brought to it as certainly as at the great exodus everything that pertained to Israel was brought out of Egypt! “Not a hoof was left behind.”

I know that we are not perfect yet; far from it I In our imitation of Christ, how unlike is the fairest copy to the great original! Still there is no ground for despair. Perfect freedom from the power of sin, perfect obedience to the precepts and spirit of the law, perfect harmony to the mind and perfect conformity to the image of God, are within the bond, sealed with blood; and also in the prayer, “I will that those whom thou hast given me be with me where I am.” Let not your souls, therefore, be cast down by past failures. Rise to renew your attempts, saying with David, “Why art thou cast down, 0 my soul, and why is my spirit disquieted within me? hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance, and my God.” Yes. Hope in God I Who loses hope, loses the battle. Let perfection always be your aim — nothing below it. Seeking strength from on high, rise from your knees to try it again, and again, and again; and you will find that every true, earnest, prayerful effort raises you higher, and still higher, on the Rock of Ages. Let every day see some work done; some battle fought; some victory won. Rise every morning to make a new start for heaven; and let every sun that sets leave you a day’s journey nearer it. Work on; press on; fight on. Do the best you can! live the best you can; get all the good you can; do all the good

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you can; do it at all times you can; do it to all men you can; do it in all the ways you can. And God working in you by his Spirit, both to will and to do of his good pleasure, you shall rise step by step, onward and upward, to perfection; till, mounting as on eagle’s wings, you arrive at the gates of glory, and in you a perfect heaven receives a perfect saint.