Sermons on Biblical Characters Part 6

I have spent a life-time seeking things I spurned when I had found them; I have fought and been rewarded in full many a winning cause; But I'd yield them all--fame, fortune and the pleasures that surround them; For a little of the faith that made my mother what she was.

"When the great world came and called me I deserted all to follow, Never knowing, in my dazedness, I had slipped my hand from His-- Never noting, in my blindness, that the bauble fame was hollow, That the gold of wealth was tinsel, as I since have learned it is-- I have spent a life-time seeking things I've spurned when I have found them; I have fought and been rewarded in full many a petty cause, But I'd take them all--fame, fortune and the pleasures that surround them, And exchange them for the faith that made my mother what she was."

Here is one who has dug a well of fame, but he cannot count up twelve happy days. And though he has drunk draughts that might have quenched the thirst of millions, he is dying of thirst because there is no more to drink.

"Oh, could I feel as once I felt, And be what I have been, And weep as I could once have wept O'er many a vanished scene.

"As springs in deserts found seem sweet, All brackish though they be; So midst the withered waste of life Those tears would flow to me."

"Oh, what is fame to a woman," said another. "Like the apples of the Dead Sea, fair to the sight and ashes to the touch." Here is another and he has digged wells of wealth and fame and power and pleasure. He seems afloat upon a very sea in which all the streams of human power and glory and wisdom mingle. He tastes them all only to dash the cup from his lips in loathing and disgust as he cries, "Vanity of vanities!

All is vanity and vexation of spirit."

And so Jesus says to this woman, "This well can never permanently satisfy you. No well of this world can. But if you are only willing, I can give you a well that will satisfy. I can impart that which will meet every single need and every single longing of your soul." What a claim is this! How marvelous, how amazing! And yet this tired young man, sitting here by the well, makes this high claim, and through the centuries He has made it good.

"I can give you," says He, "a well that will satisfy you now. I can touch the hot fever of your life into restfulness now. I can satisfy the intensest hunger of your starved soul even now. And not only can I do this for the present, but I can satisfy for all eternity. I can give you a fountain that will never run dry. I can bless your life with a springtime where the trees will never shed their leaves and the petals of the rose will never shatter upon the gra.s.s."

"If you will allow me, I will give you that which will enrich and satisfy your life to-day and to-morrow and through all the eternal to-morrow." In all world feasts there comes a time when we have to say, "There is no wine." There comes a time when the zest is gone, when the wreaths are withered. There comes a time when joy lies coffined and we have left to us only the dust and ashes of burnt out hopes. But Christ satisfies now and ever more. And this He does in spite of all circ.u.mstances and in the presence of all difficulties.

For His is not an external fountain to which we have to journey again and again and from which we may be cut off by the forces of the enemy.

His is a fountain within. It is that which makes us independent of our foes and even, when need be, of our friends. Dr. Jowett tells how he visited an old, ruined castle in England and found far in the inner precincts of that castle a gurgling and living spring.

What a treasure it was to the man who lived in that castle! His enemies might besiege him and shut him in, but they could never cut off his water supply. No foes however great were able to overcome him by starvation for water because he had a fountain within. There was within the castle a well of water springing up, and he was independent of all outside sources.

Now, when Jesus had told this woman of the wonderful gift that He had the power of imparting it is not at all strange that she answered, "Sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come all the way here to draw." And that is just what Jesus desires above all else to do for her. But there is one something in the way. Before Christ can impart His saving and satisfying gift the woman must be brought face to face with her need. She must be made to face her own sin eye to eye and to hate it and confess it. She must be willing to turn from it to Him who is able to cleanse from all sin by the washing of His blood.

And how tactfully does Christ bring her face to face with her past!

Nothing could be more tenderly delicate than His touch here. "Go call thy husband," He says. "I have no husband," is the ready response.

And then He compliments her.

If you are to be successful as a soul winner, if you are to be successful as a worker anywhere--it is fine to have an eye for that which is praiseworthy. There is something commendable about everybody if we only seek for it and find it. A disreputable dog came to our house the other day. My wife looked at him and said, "What a horrible looking dog!" But our small boy looked at him with a different eye and found something good about him and remarked that he could wag his tail well.

There was not much in this woman to compliment. But Jesus picked out one thing that was commendable. He complimented her on the fact that she had told Him the truth. He said, "You have been honest in this.

You have no husband. You have had five husbands, but the man that thou now hast is not thy husband. In that saidst thou truly." And now the woman stands looking her soiled and stained past eye to eye. She does not like it. She would like to get away from it. She wants to start a theological discussion. She is ready to launch out into an argument over the proper place to worship G.o.d. But Christ holds her face to face with her sin till she loathes it, and utters that deepest cry of her inner nature, the longing for the coming of the Messiah. And then it is that Christ made the first disclosure of Himself that He ever made in this world. He seems to lift the veil from the face of the infinite as He says, "I that speak unto thee am He."

And this woman has found the Living Water. She forgot her old thirst.

She forgot the errand that brought her to the well. She left the empty water pot by the curbstone and bounded away like a happy child into the city. She is under the compelling power of a marvelous discovery. She has a story infinitely too good to keep. And in spite of the fact that her past had been a shameful and sordid past--she would not let it close her lips. She gave her testimony, and as a result we read these words, "Many believed because of the saying of the woman."

Heart, this woman never had your chance and mine. She was placed in a bad setting. She wasted the best years of her life. She never found Jesus till the sweetest and freshest years of her life had been squandered in sin. She only met him in the last lingering days of autumn or maybe in the winter time of life. Though she met Him so late, when she stood in His presence a little later in glory she had her hands full of sheaves.

You have had a great chance. Is there anybody that believes because of what you have said? Has any life been transfigured and transformed by the story that you have told? Will you not give a little more earnestness and a little more thought and a little more prayer and a little more effort to the doing of this work that Jesus Christ did not think was beneath Himself as the King of Heaven and the Savior of the world?

And if you have never found the fountain that satisfies, if you know nothing of the spring that flows within--will you not claim that blessed treasure now? Will you not do so, first of all, because of your own needs? Then will you not do so not only because of your own needs but because of the needs of those about you? You are thirsty men and women, and this is a thirsty world. You need G.o.d and G.o.d needs you. Will you give Him a chance at you?

Remember that this well of water is not to be yours on the basis of merit. It is not to be bought. It is not to be earned. It is not found in the pathway of the scholar or of the rich or of the great or of the gifted. It is G.o.d's gift. If you want wages serve the devil, for "the wages of sin is death." "But the gift of G.o.d is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord."

In oriental cities, where water is often scarce, water carriers go through the streets selling water at so much per drink. And their cry is this: "The gift of G.o.d, who will buy? Who will buy?" And sometimes a man will buy the whole supply, and then allow the water carrier to give it away. And as he goes back down the street, he no longer says, "The gift of G.o.d, who will buy?" but "The gift of G.o.d, who will take?

The gift of G.o.d, who will take?" That is my message to you: "The gift of G.o.d, who will take?" It is yours for the taking. May G.o.d help you to take it now.

VII

A GOOD MAN--BARNABAS

_Acts 11:24_

This is the text: "He was a good man." Doubtless you think me daring to the point of rashness to undertake to interest and edify a modern congregation by talking about a virtue so prosaic as goodness. "He was a good man." We do not thrill when we hear that. It is not a word that quickens our pulse beat. We do not sit up and lean forward. We rather relax and stifle a yawn and look at our watches and wonder how soon it will be over. We are interested in clever men, in men of genius. We are interested in bad men, in courageous men, in poor men and rich men, but good men--our interest lags here, nods, drowses, goes to sleep.

The truth of the matter is that the word "good" is a bit like the poor fellow that went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. It has fallen among thieves that have stripped it of its raiment and have wounded it and departed, leaving it half dead. It is a word that has a hospital odor about it. It savors of plasters and poultices and invalid chairs. Its right hand has no cunning. Its tongue has no fire. Its cheeks are corpse-like in their paleness. It seems to be in the last stages of consumption. If people say we are handsome or cultured we are delighted, but who is complimented by being called good?

What has wrecked this word? What is the secret of its weakness and utter insipidity? Answer: bad company. The Book says, "The companion of fools shall be destroyed." And this word is an example of the truth of that statement. It has been forced to rub elbows with bad company till it has come into utter disrepute.

Its evil companions have been of two cla.s.ses. First, it has been made to a.s.sociate with the gentleman about town whose greatest merit was that he would smoke a cigar with you, if you would furnish the cigar, or take a drink with you, if you would furnish the liquor. He also graced a dress suit, even though it were a rented one with the rent unpaid. And he looked well in pumps. He was a graceful dancer and good at poker. He also was very skilled in never having a job. And his friends all said that "he was a good fellow." And, of course, being forced to keep company with said fellow was enough to ruin the reputation of the word forever more.

But as if that were not enough calamity to befall any innocent and inoffensive word, it was forced into another a.s.sociation that was but little less disreputable. There was an individual--sometimes a man, sometimes a woman--who did not swear, nor lie, nor steal, nor dip snuff; whose conduct was as immaculate as that of a wax figure in a show window; who never made a mistake, nor did he ever make anything else. He was as aggressive as a crawfish and as magnetic as a mummy.

He was "faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null." And one day we felt called upon to clothe this colorless insipidity, this incarnate nonent.i.ty, with some sort of an adjective, and so we threw around its scrawny shoulders this once glorious robe "good." We said, "Yes, he isn't much account, it is true, but he is a good fellow." And the garment fit him as the coat of Goliath would fit a pigmy. But little by little the once great cloak seemed to draw up and to come to fit the figure of the dwarf.

Thus the word "good" lost its reputation, fell, as many words and many folks do fall, through bad company. But let me remind you that, in spite of popular misconception, "good" is not after all a weak word.

It is a strong, brawny, masculine word. It has the shoulders of a Samson. It has the lifting power of a Hercules. And the reason G.o.d employed it here to describe this man Barnabas was not because He had to say something about him and could not find anything else decent to say. It was not a word to cover up the deformity of uselessness or the glaring defect of a moral minus sign. He used the word because there was none other that would fitly describe the fine and heroic man of whom He was speaking. It means here all that "Christian" means.

"He was a good man." That was what G.o.d said about him. That was how he looked when seen through "the microscope of Calvary." He had matriculated in G.o.d's school, and after faithful and patient study, his Master gave him a degree. And what was that degree? Barnabas, the genius? No. Barnabas, the gifted? No. It was a higher degree than either of these. It was the highest degree that Heaven itself can confer. He gave him the degree of "good." Barnabas, the good. "For he was a good man."

Now, why did G.o.d call him good? Or, in other words, what are the characteristics that go to make up a good man? When is a man good in the sight of "Him who sees things clearly and sees them whole?" In what branches must a man show himself proficient in order to receive this degree? I ask these questions with the hope that some of us who are here to-day may want to matriculate in G.o.d's school to receive the high degree that was conferred upon Barnabas.

The first branch in which Barnabas showed himself proficient in his preparation for this degree was the branch of Christian Stewardship.

And I make bold to say that no man will ever receive the degree that Barnabas received who is not proficient in the grace of stewardship.

Here is the story. Barnabas is in Jerusalem at the time of Pentecost.

The Church is in the early spring-time of its power. Many Jews, both home-born and foreign-born, have been brought into the fold. They have thereby broken with their kindred, and many of them are without any means of support. Then Barnabas comes forward. He is a wealthy land owner. He sells his land and puts every dollar of it upon the altar of his Lord, for the saving of the church in its hour of crisis.

What does this mean? It means that when Barnabas became a Christian, that when he gave himself to Christ, he gave his money also. Now, stewardship for you may not mean that you, as Barnabas, sell what you have and give it all away. G.o.d does not call upon all men to do that, but what He does do is to call upon every man to put both himself and his money at His disposal. He calls upon every man to recognize G.o.d, and not himself, as the owner. That is the first step in Christian Stewardship: that G.o.d owns all; He owns me; He owns my home; He owns my children; He owns my property. I have called your attention before to the fact that the modern idea of ownership is pagan. The Christian idea is this: that G.o.d is the absolute owner of all things.

I am sure that we are as ready as was Barnabas to acknowledge this fact. We nod our heads and agree, but a truth like this demands something more than simply a nod of the head. If G.o.d owns everything, then I am to acknowledge that ownership. How was G.o.d's ownership acknowledged throughout all the Old Testament days? By the devoting of a tenth to His service. That was required of the rich and of the poor.

No man was exempt. Christ never at any time set that law aside. I do not see how any man dare do less than that to-day. The Jews, without one thousandth part of our light, were cursed because of their failure to do this very thing. Since when has it come to pa.s.s that the greater the light the less the responsibility?

There is nothing more needed to-day than a Christian att.i.tude toward money. There has been a reaction from the altruism that prevailed during the war, and the world is more money mad than ever before. And men are making money as scarcely ever before, and the man who is making money is the man who stands in the position of a peculiar danger. For the men who can rapidly acc.u.mulate money and at the same time be loyal to Jesus Christ are few indeed.

While I was in Dallas the other day I talked to a friend who was a man of wealth. He said without enthusiasm, "I have made more money this year than I ever made before." And then I questioned him regarding his work in the Church. At one time he had been the teacher of a very large cla.s.s of boys. He told me that he had given up his Sunday School work, that he had given up all his religious work. Then I said, "If you had a thermometer for registering happiness, I suppose your thermometer would register lower to-day than at any other time since you came into the Church." And with sadness he acknowledged that such was the case.

Yes, Barnabas was sound in the doctrine of stewardship. And I am fully persuaded that the man who is genuinely Christian in his att.i.tude toward money will be Christian in every other relationship of life.

And I am likewise fully persuaded that the man who fails here, who falls short of the standard of goodness here, will fall short everywhere. A man may be a liberal man and fail to be a good man, but no man can be a good man and at the same time be a gripping, grasping, covetous man. It is an utter impossibility. Barnabas got a degree in goodness, and the first course he mastered was a course in Christian Stewardship.

Second, Barnabas was proficient in that difficult branch that we call faith. He had acquired faith till he was full of it. Faith in G.o.d?

Yes, he had faith in G.o.d. That lies back of all that he did and all that he became. But the faith that shows itself most in his life, as we see it, is his faith in men. How he did believe in folks!

Confidence in men is an essential to true goodness. I do not believe that any cynic was ever a really good man. I know we sometimes pride ourselves on being hard to fool. We congratulate ourselves at times on being able to see more through a key-hole than other folks can see through a wide-open door. We boast of our ability to read character and to see behind the scenes and to detect sham where other folks dreamed there was sincerity. And I am not arguing for blindness or stupidity, but what I do say is this: that the really good men are the men who believe in their fellows.

You have met the man who says that every fellow has his price. But whenever you hear a man say that you may know that there is at least one man who does have his price, and that is the man who is making the statement. You can compromise till you come to persuade yourself that compromise is the law of life. You can play with honesty till you come to believe in the dishonesty of the whole world. And the man without confidence in his brother is a man who personally knows that he himself would not do to trust.