The Good News of God Part 9

If I say to you--and I do say it now, and will say it as long as I am here--Trust G.o.d, because G.o.d is good; obey G.o.d, because G.o.d is good.

I preach to you the good G.o.d of the Collect, even your heavenly Father; who needs not be won over or appeased by anything which you can do, for he loves you already for the sake of his dear Son, whose members you are. He will not hear you the more for your much speaking, for he knows your necessities before you ask, and your ignorance in asking. He will not judge you according to the letter of Moses' law, or any other law whatsoever, but according to the spirit of your longings and struggles after what is right. He will not be extreme to mark what you do amiss, but will help you to mend it, if you desire to mend; setting you straight when you go wrong, and helping you up when you fall, if only your spirit is struggling after what is right.

This all-good heavenly Father I preach to you, and I say to you, Trust HIM.

I preach to you a Spirit who is the Lord and Giver of life; who hates death, and therefore wills not that you should die; who has given you all the life you have, all health and strength of body, all wit and power of mind, all right, pure, loving, n.o.ble feelings of heart and spirit, and who is both able and willing to keep them alive and healthy in you for ever.

This all-good Spirit of life I preach to you; and I say to you, Trust HIM.

I preach to you a Son of G.o.d, who is the likeness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person; in order that by seeing him and how good he is, you may see your heavenly Father, and how good he is likewise; a Son of G.o.d who is your Saviour and your Judge; who judges you that he may save you, and saves you by judging you; who has all power given to him in heaven and earth, and declares that almighty power most chiefly by showing mercy and pity; who, when he was upon earth, made the deaf to hear, the lame to walk, the blind to see; who ate and drank with publicans and sinners, and was the friend of all mankind; a Son of G.o.d who has declared everlasting war against disease, ignorance, sin, death, and all which makes men miserable.

Those are his enemies; and he reigns, and will reign, till he has put all enemies under his feet, and there is nothing left in G.o.d's universe but order and usefulness, health and beauty, knowledge and virtue, in the day when G.o.d shall be all in all.

This all-good Son of G.o.d I preach to you, and I say to you, Trust HIM, and obey him. Obey him, not lest he should become angry and harm you, like the false G.o.ds of the heathen, but because his commandments are life; because he has made them for your good.

Oh! when will people understand that--that G.o.d has not made laws out of any arbitrariness, but for our good?--That his commandments are LIFE? David of old knew as much as that. Why do not we know more, instead of knowing, most of us, much less? It is simple enough, if you will but look at it with simple minds. G.o.d has made us; and if he had not loved us, he would not have made us at all. G.o.d has sent us into the world; and if he had not loved us, he would not have sent us into the world at all. In him we live, and move, and have our being, and are the offspring and children of G.o.d. And therefore G.o.d alone knows what is good for us; what is the good life, the wholesome, the safe, the right, the everlasting life for us. And he sends his Son to tell us--This is the right life; a life like Christ's; a life according to G.o.d's Spirit; and if you do not live that life you will die, not only body but soul also, because you are not living the life which G.o.d meant for you when he made you. Just as if you eat the wrong food, you will kill your bodies; so if you think the wrong thoughts, and feel the wrong feelings, and therefore do the wrong things, you will kill your own souls. G.o.d will not kill you; you will kill yourselves. G.o.d grudges you nothing. G.o.d does not wish to hurt you, wish to punish you. He wishes you to live and be happy; to live for ever, and be happy for ever. But as your body cannot live unless it be healthy, so your soul cannot live unless it be healthy. And it cannot be healthy unless it live the right life.

And it cannot live the right life without the right spirit. And the only right spirit is the Spirit of G.o.d himself the Spirit of your Father in heaven, who will make you, as children should be, like your Father.

But that Spirit is not far from any of you. In him you live, and move, and have your being already. Were he to leave you for a moment you would die, and be turned again to your dust. From him comes all the good of body and soul which you have already. Trust him for more. Ask him for more. Go boldly to the throne of his grace, remembering that it is a throne of GRACE, of kindness, tenderness, patience, bountiful love, and wealth without end. Do not think that he is hard of hearing, or hard of giving. How can he be? For he is the Spirit of the all-generous Father and of the all-generous Son, and has given, and gives now; and delights to give, and delights to be asked. He is the charity of G.o.d; the boundless love by which all things consist; and, like all love, becomes more rich by spending, and glorifies himself by giving himself away; and has sworn by himself--that is, by his own eternal and necessary character, which he cannot alter or unmake--'This is the new covenant which I will make with my people. I will write my laws in their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and I will dwell with them, and be their G.o.d.'

Oh, my friends, take these words to yourselves; and trust in that good Father in heaven, whose love sent you into this world, and gave you the priceless blessing of life; whose love sent his Son to show you the pattern of life, and to redeem you freely from all your sins; whose love sends his Spirit to give you the power of leading the everlasting life, and will raise you up again, body and soul, to that same everlasting life after death. Trust him, for he is your Father.

Whatever else he is, he is that. He has bid you call him that, and he will hear you. If you forget that he is your Father, you forget him, and worship a false G.o.d of your own invention. And whenever you doubt; whenever the devil, or ignorant preachers, or superst.i.tious books, make you afraid, and tempt you to fancy that G.o.d hates you, and watches to catch you tripping, take refuge in that blessed name, and say, 'Satan, I defy thee; for the Almighty G.o.d of heaven is my Father.'

SERMON XIV. HEROES AND HEROINES (Whitsunday.)

PSALM x.x.xii. 8.

I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.

This is G.o.d's promise; which he fulfilled at sundry times and in different manners to all the men of the old world who trusted in him.

He informed them; that is, he put them into right form, right shape, right character, and made them the men which they were meant to be.

He taught them in the way in which they ought to go. He guided them where they could not guide themselves.

But G.o.d fulfilled this promise utterly and completely on the first Whitsuntide, when the Holy Spirit came down on the apostles.

That was an extraordinary and special gift; because the apostles had to do an extraordinary and special work. They had to preach the Gospel to all nations, and therefore they wanted tongues with which to speak to all nations; at least to those of their countrymen who came from foreign parts, and spoke foreign tongues, that they might carry home the good news of Christ into all lands. And they wanted tongues of fire, too, to set their own hearts on fire with divine zeal and earnestness, and to set on fire the hearts of those who heard them.

But that was an extraordinary gift. There was never anything like it before; nor has been, as far as we know, since; because it has not been needed.

It is enough for us to know, that the apostles had what they needed.

G.o.d called and sent them to do a great work: and therefore, being just and merciful, he gave them the power which was wanted for that great work.

But if that is a special case; if there has been nothing like it since, what has Whitsuntide to do with us? We need no tongues of fire, and we shall have none on this Whitsunday or any Whitsunday.

Has Whitsunday then no blessing for us? Do we get nothing by it?

G.o.d forbid, my friends.

We get what the apostles got, and neither more nor less; though not in the same shape as they did.

G.o.d called them to do a work: G.o.d calls us, each of us, to do some work.

G.o.d gave them the Holy Spirit to make them able to do their work.

G.o.d gives US the Holy Spirit, to make us able to do OUR work, whatsoever that may be.

As their day, so their strength was: as our day is, so our strength shall be.

For instance. -

How often one sees a person--a woman, say--easy and comfortable, enjoying life, and taking little trouble about anything, because she has no need. And when one looks at such a woman, one is apt to say hastily in one's heart, 'Ah, she does not know what sorrow is--and well for her she does not; for she would make but a poor fight if trouble came on her; she would make but a poor nurse if she had to sit months by a sick bed. She would become down-hearted, and peevish, and useless. There is no strength in her to stand in the evil day.'

And perhaps that woman would say so of herself. She might be painfully afraid of the thought of affliction; she might shrink from the notion of having to nurse any one; from having to give up her own pleasure and ease for the sake of others; and she would say of herself, as you say of her, 'What would become of me if sorrow came?

_I_ have no strength to stand in the evil day.'

Yes, my friends, and you say true, and she says true. And yet not true either. She has no strength to stand: but she will stand nevertheless, for G.o.d is able to make her stand. As her day, so her strength shall be. A day of suffering, anxiety, weariness, all but despair may come to her. But in that day she shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire; and then you shall be astonished, and she shall be astonished, at what she can do, and what she can endure; because G.o.d's Spirit will give her a right judgment in all things, and enable her, even in the midst of her sorrow, to rejoice in his holy comfort. And people will call her--those at least who know her- -a 'heroine.' And they speak truly and well, and give her the right and true name. Why, I will tell you presently.

Or how often it happens to a man to be thrown into circ.u.mstances which he never expected. An officer, perhaps, in war time in a foreign land--in India now. He has a work to do: a heavy, dangerous, difficult, almost hopeless work. He does not like it. He is afraid of it. He wishes himself anywhere but where he is. He has little or no hope of succeeding; and if he fails, he fears that he will be blamed, misunderstood, slandered. But he feels he must go through with it. He cannot turn back; he cannot escape. As the saying is, the bull is brought to the stake, and he must bide the baiting.

At first, perhaps, he tries to buoy himself up. He begins his work in a little pride and self-conceit, and notion of his own courage and cunning. He tries to fancy himself strong enough for anything. He feeds himself up with the thought of what people will say of him; the hope of gaining honour and praise: and that is not altogether a wrong feeling--G.o.d forbid!

But the further the man gets into his work, the more difficult it grows, and the more hopeless he grows. He finds himself weak, when he expected to be strong; puzzled when he thought himself cunning.

He is not sure whether he is doing right. He is afraid of responsibility. It is a heavy burden on him, too heavy to bear. His own honour and good name may depend upon a single word which he speaks. The comfort, the fortune, the lives of human beings may depend on his making up his mind at an hour's notice to do exactly the right thing at the right time. People round him may be mistaking him, slandering him, plotting against him, rebelling against him, even while he is trying to do them all the good he can. Little comfort does he get then from the thought of what people at home may say of him. He is set in the snare, and he cannot find his way out.

He is at his own wits' end; and from whence shall he get fresh wits?

Who will give him a right judgment in all things? Who will give him a holy comfort in which he can rejoice?--a comfort which will make him cheerful, because he knows it is a right comfort, and that he is doing right? His heart is sinking within him, getting chill and cold with despair. Who will put fresh fire and spirit into it?

G.o.d will. When he has learnt how weak he is in himself, how stupid he is in himself;--ay, bitter as it is to a brave man to have to confess it, how cowardly he is in himself--then, when he has learnt the golden lesson, G.o.d will baptize him with the Holy Ghost and with fire.

A time will come to that man, when, finding no help in himself, no help in man, he will go for help to G.o.d.

Old words which he learnt at his mother's knee come back to him--old words that he almost forgot, perhaps, in the strength and gaiety of his youth and prosperity. And he prays. He prays clumsily enough, perhaps. He is not accustomed to praying; and he hardly knows what to ask for, or how to ask for it. Be it so. In that he is not so very much worse off than others. What did St. Paul say, even of himself? 'We know not how to ask for anything as we ought: but the Spirit maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered'--too deep for words. Yes, in every honest heart there are longings too deep for words. A man knows he wants something: but knows not what he wants. He cannot find the right words to say to G.o.d. Let him take comfort. What he does not know, the Holy Spirit of Whitsuntide--the Spirit of Jesus Christ--does know. Christ knows what we want, and offers our clumsy prayers up to our heavenly Father, not in the shape in which we put them, but as they ought to be, as we should like them to be; and our Father hears them.

Yes. Our Father hears the man who cries to him, however clumsily, for light and strength to do his duty. So it is; so it has been always; so it will be to the end. And then as the man's day, so his strength will be. He may be utterly puzzled, utterly down-hearted, utterly hopeless: but the day comes to him in which he is baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire. He begins to have a right judgment; to see clearly what he ought to do, and how to do it. He grows more shrewd, more prompt, more steady than he ever has been before. And there comes a fire into his heart, such as there never was before; a spirit and a determination which nothing can daunt or break, which makes him bold, cheerful, earnest, in the face of the anxiety and danger which would have, at any other time, broken his heart. The man is lifted up above himself, and carried on through his work, he hardly knows how, till he succeeds n.o.bly, or if he fails, fails n.o.bly; and be the end as it may, he gets the work done which G.o.d has given him to do.

And then when he looks back, he is astonished at himself. He wonders how he could dare so much; wonders how he could endure so much; wonders how the right thought came into his head at the right moment.

He hardly knows himself again. It seems to him, when he thinks over it all, like a grand and awful dream. And the world is astonished at him likewise. They cry, 'Who would have thought there was so much in this man? who would have expected such things of him?' And they call him a hero--and so he is.

Yes, the world is right, more right than it thinks in both sayings.

Who would have expected there was so much in the man? For there was not so much in him, till G.o.d put it there.

And again they are right, too; more right than they think in calling that man a hero, or that woman a heroine.

For what is the old meaning, the true meaning of a hero or a heroine?

It meant--and ought to mean--one who is a son or a daughter of G.o.d, and whom G.o.d informs and strengthens, and sends out to do n.o.ble work, teaching them the way wherein they should go. That was the right meaning of a hero and of a heroine even among the old heathens. Let it mean the same among us Christians, when we talk of a hero; and let us give G.o.d the glory, and say--There is a man who has entered, even if it be but for one day's danger and trial, into the blessings of Whitsuntide and the power of G.o.d's Spirit; a man whom G.o.d has informed and taught in the way wherein he should go. May that same G.o.d give him grace to abide herein all the days of his life!

Yes, my friends, may G.o.d give us all grace to under stand Whitsuntide, and feed on the blessings of Whitsuntide; not merely once in a way, in some great sorrow, great danger, great struggle, great striving point of our lives; but every day and all day long, and to rejoice in the power of his Spirit, till it becomes to us-- would that it could to-day become to us;--like the air we breathe; till having got our life's work done, if not done perfectly, yet still done, we may go hence to receive the due reward of our deeds.