How it gives the lie to many of our false and easy conceptions of sin.
How urgent it presses home the truth that the only salvation that can mean the most is the salvation that grips us from life"s earliest moment to its very last.
Mana.s.seh came to the throne when he was only twelve years of age. He had not been long in his position of influence and power till he turned utterly away from the Lord and began to wallow in every form of sin.
There was no dirty idolatry that he did not practise. There was no false belief to which he did not seem willing to give hospitality.
There was scarcely any form of evil of which he was not guilty.
And his career of G.o.dlessness was all the more inexcusable because of the good opportunities that he had. He was the son of a great and good father. His father was Hezekiah. And Hezekiah was one of the best kings that Judah ever had. He was a man of spiritual power. He was a man who served as saving salt to his kingdom throughout his entire reign. When the a.s.syrians hung like a threatening storm cloud over his weak little nation, it was the compelling might of his prayer that stood as a wall between them and their enemy. So, Mana.s.seh was the son of a great saint.
And mark me, it is no small privilege to be the child of a G.o.dly father or of a saintly mother. If G.o.d granted to you to open your baby eyes to look into other eyes that were "homes of silent prayer," if He sent you to grow up in a home where the family altar and the saintly life made Christ real, then He has given you an opportunity unspeakably great. And as great as is your opportunity, just so great is your responsibility. How hard must be the sentence upon that boy or that girl who breaks away from such saving and sanctifying influences to go into the far country.
Not only was the guilt of Mana.s.seh intensified by the fact that he had a saintly father. It was intensified further by the fact that he was repeatedly warned. Though he turned his back on G.o.d and though he gave himself up to a perfect orgy of wrong doing, G.o.d did not forget him and did not give him up. He sent to him messenger after messenger to bring home his guilt and to invite him back to the pardon and peace of his Father"s presence. But seemingly the more he was warned the deeper he plunged into sin.
And you who are in sin, you are even more guilty than he, because to you G.o.d has sent warning after warning, rebuke after rebuke. G.o.d has given you calls and invitations without number. He has called you through your conscience. He has called you through your wretchedness and restlessness and hunger of heart. He has called you through your longing for usefulness. He has called you through your sorrow and your pain and your losses. He has called you through ten thousand mercies.
Oh, believe me, our need to-night is not so much for more light as it is for courage to live up to the light we have.
Not only was Mana.s.seh guilty because he sinned in spite of the help of a G.o.dly father and in spite of repeated warnings. His guilt was deepened yet more because he knew that he did not sin alone. When he went away from G.o.d he carried a kingdom with him. The reign of Hezekiah had been a righteous reign. With the coming of Mana.s.seh to the throne there was a violent reaction, akin to that that followed upon the restoration of Charles II to the throne of England. You know how that when Charles came to the throne the court life was changed into a brothel. Charles lived in open and notorious adultery, and the rottenness of the throne led to the rottenness of the kingdom. Such was the case here. Mana.s.seh not only fell but he drew a kingdom after him.
It is profoundly true that no man ever sins alone. Your influence will not be so wide as that of Mana.s.seh, yet however obscure your life may be this is true, that it will set in motion influences that will literally outlast the world. I have control over my own action before it is done, but after it is done I seek to control it in vain. If it is a fiendish act it laughs its devilish and derisive laughter in my face and says, "Control me if you can."
Now, there came a time when this great sinner began to pay the penalty for his sin. Retribution slipped in by the guards at the door one day and took the king rudely by the shoulder. It shook him and shook him so roughly that his crown fell from his head and his sceptre dropped from his hand. Then it dragged him from his throne and dressed him in chains and sent him a captive into a foreign country.
Retribution, suffering for sin, does not always come as it came to this king. It does not always come at once but come it does. That is as sure as the fact of G.o.d. There are some shallow souls that fancy that because sin does not pay off every Sat.u.r.day night that it does not pay at all. But to hold such views is to spit in the face of a most open and palpable fact. Mana.s.seh had a fancy that he was a much freer man than his father had been, far more broad-minded, but he waked one day, as every man wakes sooner or later, to discover that sin did not mean freedom, that it only meant slavery.
Now, what effect did this degradation and shame and suffering have on the king? Suffering has very opposite influences on different types of character. Sometimes it hardens us, it makes us only the more bitter and rebellious. But suffering did not have that effect on Mana.s.seh.
It made him think, and it is a tremendously good day when G.o.d can get a man to think. He thought, I dare say, of his saintly father. He thought of his father"s G.o.d. This story is another evidence of how all but impossible it is for a child to break finally away from the saving influence of a truly good father or truly good mother.
This experience not only made him think but it sent him to his knees in an agony of prayer. He came to hate the sin that had been the ruin of him. He asked G.o.d for forgiveness. And G.o.d did forgive him. Truly, "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." No man ever goes so far away from G.o.d, no man ever lives in sin so long but that if he will return to G.o.d, G.o.d will receive him and will give him abundant pardon.
Not only did G.o.d save this man. He brought him again to his throne.
And he who had once been a captive in a strange land wore his crown once more. And for the remaining years of his life he was a devout follower of the Lord. He did his best to undo the evils of the earlier years of his reign. He tore down the altars to false G.o.ds that he had builded. He tried to bring his people back to the new and saving faith that he had found. His conversion was genuine and lasting.
But what was the result? He did not succeed. He found that it was easier to lead folks astray than it was to bring them back after he had led them astray. He was a good man. He knew G.o.d. But this was his h.e.l.l, that he had to stand in utter helplessness and see his nation totter to its ruin because of the sins that he had committed. He was not even able to save his own home. His boy became a G.o.dless idolater, as he himself had been during the best years of his life.
So we are brought face to face with this fact. Repentance will bring us salvation whenever we repent, but there is one thing that repentance cannot do. It cannot save us from the consequences of our sin. Go out into the field of life and sow tares for half a century, if you dare.
Even then G.o.d will forgive you if you will come in repentance to Him, but there is one thing that G.o.d will not do and cannot do. He cannot change the tares that you have sown into wheat. I may be exceedingly sorry for my wrong sowing, I will be, but the seed will grow none the less.
Did it ever occur to you how many faces the Prodigal missed on his way back home? Many a splendid young fellow that caroused with him as he went into the far country did not enjoy the fatted calf with him when he came back to the peace and plenty of his Father"s house. Some of them had gone into eternity and others had gone beyond his influence forever more.
While I was in Huntington a few weeks ago, the pastor for whom I was preaching told me of a young friend of his who carried his little baby in to see a noted eye specialist. The child"s eyes were very bad. The physician examined them and shook his head. "Her eyes will never get better," he said, "but will get worse. She will be blind before she is grown." And the father"s face went white and he said, "Doctor, you know my youth wasn"t what it ought to have been. Can that be the cause?" And the doctor said, "You needn"t to have told me. Certainly it is the cause." And it was a broken-hearted man that left that office that day. And it was a broken-hearted and praying and penitent man that kissed his child to sleep that night. Oh, G.o.d will forgive him, but there is one thing that that forgiveness will not include and that is daylight for his little girl.
"I will cause them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth because of Mana.s.seh." And Mana.s.seh is good and pure and blood-washed, but the influences that he set in motion have gone beyond his reach forever more. What a fearful fact is this! I am talking to young men and women and you have your lives before you. You may give them to sin, and you may be saved at the last moment. That is a possibility, though it is a slight one. But such a salvation may mean the wrecking of many another life. The only safe way is to repent before you waste your life. Repent before you sin.
Do you remember Esau"s pathetic story? He sold his birthright for one mess of lentils. Nor was he at all displeased with his bargain. At least that was true for a little while, but there came a time when he was sorry. There came a time when his foolish bartering broke his heart. And the story says that he found no place for repentance though he sought it diligently and with tears.
That does not mean, of course, that G.o.d refused to forgive Esau. The moment we turn in penitent surrender to our Lord He will save us and give us an abundant pardon, however far we may have gone into sin. G.o.d forgave him when he repented, but there was one thing that his repentance could not do. It could not undo the past. It could not put him again in the light of the morning of life. It could not place in his hands the opportunities of yesterday. The good that he might have done and the service that he might have rendered and the crowns that he might have won had pa.s.sed beyond the reach of his hand forever.
Repentance saved his soul but it did not save his life.
And what a startling chapter is the story of the sin of David. David was a whole-hearted man. He never did anything by halves. When he sinned he sinned with a horrible abandon. Few men have dirtier pages in their life"s history than that of David"s sin against the house of Uriah. But as his sin was whole-hearted so also was his repentance.
We can hear his heart-broken cry for pardon across the centuries: "Have mercy upon me, O G.o.d, according to thy loving kindness. According unto the mult.i.tude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin; for I acknowledge my transgression and my sin is ever before me." It is the heart-broken cry of the penitent who has not one good word to say for himself. And G.o.d heard his prayer and washed him and made him whiter than snow.
But beyond that G.o.d with all His love and tenderness could not go. He could not save David from the consequences of his sin. His b.l.o.o.d.y and l.u.s.tful deed became possessed of a power beyond his control. "Down!"
he cries to it in helpless horror. But it will not down. "Then where are you going?" he asks, all a-tremble with dread. And the fiendish deed answers, "I am going to steal the purity of your daughter Tamar.
I am going to make your son Ammon into a rapist. I am going to make your handsome boy Absalom into a murderer."
When I was a boy there was a family living neighbors to us, all of whom were outside the Church. But when the children were almost all grown and the father was an old man he became a Christian. But instead of being influential in bringing his children to Christ they seemed only to be ashamed of him. He did not seem to have the slightest power to influence a single one of them for good. I would not say that he was not saved, I think he was, but I think his years spent in sin cost him the salvation of his children.
E. J. Bulgin said that he was holding a meeting some years ago in a city in Kentucky. A girl was converted in his meeting. She was in the early bloom of young womanhood. She belonged to a wealthy and prominent family. Her mother was not a Christian. The girl wanted to join the Church and the mother objected. The preacher went to see the mother and prayed with her and plead with her. She said she wanted her daughter to have her coming out dance soon and therefore she should not join the Church. And the preacher left that home with a heavy heart.
Three years later he was holding a meeting in a neighboring town. A long distance call came asking him if he would not come and conduct the funeral of Nellie, the girl who had not been allowed to join the Church. He went. The undertaker said that it was a request of the mother that the preacher ride with her and her other daughter to the cemetery. The journey was made in silence. The remains were being lowered when the mother ordered the undertaker to open the coffin again. All the crowd was requested to stand back. They moved some fifty feet away. Then leaning on the preacher"s arm the mother showed him her daughter. And lying upon her breast was a little armful of shame.
That was all. The grave was filled and on the way back home the penitent and heart-broken mother found Christ. She said to her daughter, "Mary, I have found Jesus. I have found the salvation that I rejected three years ago." And Mary answered, "No, Mother, you have found salvation, it is true. But it is not the salvation that was offered to you three years ago. Your salvation then would have included the salvation of Nellie. Now it means only the salvation of yourself."
Heart, you may be saved at another time. Many a father is saved after he has wrecked his boys. This mother was saved after she had destroyed her daughter. Mana.s.seh was saved after he had ruined his kingdom. But I submit to you that it is not the largest salvation. It is a salvation that may yet leave you with a burning h.e.l.l in your own heart, the h.e.l.l of the memory of evil you can never undo, and wrongs you can never right, and of lost men and women, led away from G.o.d by your influence that you can never lead back again.
Therefore, because of these startling and palpable facts, I come to you with this oft-repeated word of our Lord upon my lips: "Now is the accepted time. To-day is the day of salvation." Seek not to make religion into a fire escape. Give G.o.d your life now and in so doing you will both save yourself and those who are influenced by you.
"Therefore, choose you this day whom you will serve."
XVI
A SHREWD FOOL--THE RICH FARMER
_Luke 12:16-21_
"And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: and he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns and build greater and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But G.o.d said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward G.o.d."
I count with confidence on your interest in this sermon. You will be interested, in the first place, because the picture that our Lord has given us in this wonderful story is the picture of a real man. This farmer is no wax figure. He is no bloodless nonent.i.ty. He is altogether human stuff. And we are interested in real folks.
Then we are interested in this man, in the second place, because he is successful. We are naturally interested in the people who make good.
If you go out on the street to-morrow and start to tell your friends how you failed, the chances are that they will turn their backs upon you to listen to the man, with triumph in his face and victory in his voice, who is telling how he succeeded. We are great success worshippers. And the man who wins the prizes of life interests us very keenly.
But there is a shock for us in the story. The Master calls our shrewd hero a fool. "Thou fool." That is a harsh and jarring word. It insults us. It shakes its fist in our faces. It cuts us like a whip.
It offends us. We do not like the ugly name in the least.
"Thou fool." Our Master frowns upon our using such language at all.
He will not trust us with such a sharp sword. He will not suffer us to hurl such a thunderbolt. He forbids us, under a terrible penalty, to call our brother a fool. And yet He calls this keen and successful farmer a fool. And He doesn"t do so lightly and flippantly, but there seems to ring through it scorn and indignation--positive anger, anger that is all the more terrible because it is the anger of love.
Why did the Master call this man a fool? He did not get the idea from the man himself. This well-to-do farmer would never have spoken of himself in that way. He regarded himself as altogether fit and mentally well furnished. Nor did the Master get His idea from the man"s neighbors. They looked upon this man with admiration. There may have been a bit of envy mingled with their admiration, but they certainly did not regard him as a fool. They no more did so than we regard the man that is like him as a fool to-day.
Why then did the Master label him with this ugly name? It was not because he had a prejudice against him. Jesus was no soured misanthrope. He was no snarling cynic. He did not resent a man just because he had made a success. He was not an I. W. W. growling over real or fancied wrongs. No, the reason that Jesus called him a fool is because no other name would exactly fit him.
It is well, however, that the Master labeled this picture. Had He not done so you and I might have been tempted to put the wrong label on it.
We might have labeled it "The Wise Man," or some such fine name. But had we done so it would have been a colossal blunder. Had we done so I am persuaded that the very fiends would have howled with derisive laughter. For when we see this man as he really is, when we see him through the eyes of Him who sees things clearly, then we realize that there is only one name that will exactly fit him. Then we know that that one name is the short ugly one by which he is called--"Fool."
But why is he a fool? In what does his foolishness consist? Certainly it does not consist in the fact that he has made a success. He is not a fool simply because he is rich. The Bible is a tremendously reasonable book. It is the very climax of sanity. It is the acme of good common sense. It never rails against rich men simply because they are rich. It no more does that than it lauds poor men because they are poor. It frankly recognizes the danger incident to the possession of riches. It makes plain the fact that the rich man is a greatly tempted man. But never is he condemned simply because he is rich.
The truth of the matter is that riches in themselves are counted neither good nor bad, neither moral nor immoral. The Bible recognizes money as a real force. What is done with this force depends upon the one who controls it. Money is condensed energy. It is pent-up power.