Things That Matter Most

What is the biggest thing on which the human mind can be exercised? In what can we most easily lose ourselves in the overwhelming sense of the immeasurable? There are the vast lone spaces of the stellar fields, peopled with countless worlds, crossed by mysterious highways, with stars as the pilgrims, ever moving on their unknown journeyings. We can lose ourselves there. There is “the dark backward and abysm of time,” opening door after door in ever-receding epochs, back through twilight and dawn into the primeval darkness, where the inquisitive mind falters and faints. And we can lose ourselves there. There is the appalling wilderness of human need, beginning from my own life, with its taint of blood, its defect of faculty, its dreary gap in circumstance and condition, and repeated in every other life in every street, in every city and village and country throughout the inhabited world. And we can lose ourselves there. And then there is the deadly, ubiquitous presence of human sin, in all its chameleon forms — well-dressed, ill-dressed, blazing in passion, mincing in vanity, and freezing in moral indifference and unbelief. All these are stupendous themes, and the mind that ventures upon them is like the dove that ventured upon the waste of waters, and, soon growing weary of wing, returned to the place of its rest. But there is something more majestic than the heavens, more wonderful than the far, mysterious vistas of time, more pervasive than human need, and more abounding than human sin. The biggest thing with which the mind can cope is the infinite love of God; and all our sanctified powers, and all the ministries of holy fellowship, and all the explorations of eternity will never reach a limit in its unsearchable wealth. The biggest thing you and I will ever know is the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. There will always be “a region beyond,” and for the already wondering eyes there will always be a new surprise: “The height, and depth, and length, and breadth, and to know the love of God, which passeth knowledge.”

I. Let us reverently gaze into the height of the love of God. In love the scale of height is measured by the degree of purity. The height in the scale of diamonds is determined by an analogous standard. A diamond is of the “first water” when it is without flaw or tint of any kind. And love is lofty in proportion to its brilliance. Love can be deteriorated and degraded by the tint of jealousy. It can be debased by the tint of envy. It can be vulgarized by a strain of carnal passion. These earthly elements may be mixed with the heavenly substance, and its spiritual value is reduced. So that the first test to apply to any love is the test of purity, which is the test of height, the test as to how far it is sublimated, and separated from selfish and fleshly ingredients which dim and spoil its lustre.

Now it is here that the Scriptures begin in their revelation of the love of God. They begin with its brilliance, its holiness. “In Him is no darkness at all!” How would that be as a description of a diamond? “No darkness at all!” Nothing sinful in His love! But more than that. Nothing shady in it, nothing questionable: nothing compromising or morally indifferent! No darkness at all; no blackness of faithlessness; no twilight of forget fulness; “no night there!”

And thus it is that, when the Book guides us in the contemplation of the eternal love, it first of all leads us into the contemplation of the eternal light. Always and everywhere n THINGS THAT MATTER MOST

this is where we begin. If I listen to a psalmist, he leads me into the holy place: “Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at His holy hill; for the Lord our God is holy.” If I listen to a prophet, I am led into the same sacred precincts: “The high and lofty One whose name is holy.” If I listen to the mystic seraphim of the Old Testament, I hear them cry one to another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts.” If I listen to the songs of the Apocalypse, I find them burdened with the same theme: “They rest not day and night saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.” If I reverently listen to the Master in His secret communion with the Unseen, I hear Him say, “Holy Father.” And if I listen to the prayer which He Himself teaches me to pray, I am led immediately to the holy glory of the Lord: “Our Father... hallowed be Thy name.” Always and everywhere this is the beginning of our contemplation. We are led away into the light, into the unshadowed brilliance, into the holiness of God. If, therefore, God’s love be symbolized by a mountain, its heights will be clothed in the dazzling whiteness of the everlasting snow. Love’s heights are found in love’s holiness. “God is light,” “God is truth,” “God is love.”

From this primary teaching I wish to adduce two inferences. And the first is this. The force of love always depends upon its height. We find the analogy in water. The force of falling water is determined by its height. In an English home, if your shower-bath is lazy and loitering, chilling you rather than bracing you, your remedy is to raise your cistern, and in the increased height you will get the requisite tingle. The tonic is born in loftiness. It is even so with love. There is a type of love which has no vigour because it has no height. It is a weak, sickly sentiment which just crawls about you. It is low, and therefore it has no enlivening force. It is mixed with earthly elements, and therefore it has no heavenly quickening. It enervates, it does not invigorate. The more holy love is, the higher it is, and the more fraught it is with vitality. How, then, must it be with the love of God? Born in holiness, it has power enough to waken the dead. Have you seen an Alpine river, born amid the snows, and rolling gloriously through the vale? That is the figure we need: “And I saw a river of water of life, clear as crystal,” proceeding from “the great white throne,” out of the unshadowed depths of eternal holiness. “There is a river the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God,” and the holy power of that river is determined by the holy heights in which it is born.

And the second inference is this, that the ultimate ministry and goal of love is also determined by the height of its holiness. Once again seek your analogy in water. Water rises no higher than its source. Water can lift no higher than its source. It is even so with love. Our love can never raise a loved one higher than the love itself. There are aspects of that law which are altogether staggering. Take the love of a parent for his child. Our own tainted love will not lift our child into purity. Our own jealous love will not lift our child into an unembittered disposition. Our own envious love will not lift our child into moral serenity. Our love will not lift above its own level. That is the solemn responsibility of a lover, that if the love be low it will scarcely lift the beloved one above the plains. If we want to lift higher we must heighten our love. How, then, is it with the love of God? His love, so glorious in holiness, Can raise to its own level, and lift us into u heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” “They shall sit with Me on My throne.” “Go d so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life”

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