Part 20 (2/2)

Ah, my friends, it is very easy to say all this, but it is not so easy to believe it. Every one, every respectable person at least, is ready enough to talk about G.o.d, and G.o.d's will, and so forth. But when it comes to practice; when it comes to doing G.o.d's will, and not our own; when it comes to obeying His direct and plain commands, and not the fas.h.i.+ons and maxims which men have invented for themselves; when it comes to giving up what we long for, because He has said that if we try after it in our own way, and not in His, we shall never have it at all, then comes the trial; then comes the time to see whether we believe that G.o.d is the King of the earth or not; then comes the time to see whether we have renounced the world, and determined to live as G.o.d's sons in G.o.d's kingdom, or whether our religion is some form of words, or way of thinking and feeling which we hope may save our souls from h.e.l.l, but which has nothing to do with our daily life and conduct, and leaves us just as worldly as any heathen, in all our dealings with our fellow-men, from Monday morning to Sat.u.r.day night. Then comes the time to try our faith in G.o.d.

And then, alas! it comes out, in these evil, and G.o.dless, and hypocritical times in which we live, that many a man who fancies himself religious, and respectable, and blameless, and what not, no more really believes that he is living in G.o.d's kingdom than the heathen do. And if you ask him, you will find out most probably that he fancies that G.o.d's kingdom is not on earth now, but that it will be on earth some day. A cunning delusion of the devil, that, my friends! To make us go his way while we fancy that we are going our own way. To make us say to ourselves: ”Ah! it is very unfortunate that G.o.d is not King of the earth now. Of course He will be after the resurrection, in the new heaven and the new earth, where there will be no sin. But He is not King now; this world is given over to sin and the devil, so fallen and ruined and corrupt that--that--that, in short, we cannot be expected to behave like G.o.d's children in it, but must just follow the ways of the world, and live by ambition, and selfishness, and cunning, and boasting, and competing in this life; a life of love, and justice, and humbleness, and fellow-help, and mercy, and self-sacrifice is impossible in such a world as this; we cannot live like angels, till we get to heaven!” So say nine people out of ten; the devil deceiving them, and their own hearts, alas!

being but too glad to catch at the excuse for sin which the devil gives them, when he tells them that this present earth is not G.o.d's kingdom; and so they go and act accordingly, selfish, grudging, pus.h.i.+ng, boastful, every man's hand against his neighbour and for himself, till they succeed too often in making this earth as fearfully like the devil's kingdom as it is possible for G.o.d's kingdom to be made.

But what, some may ask, has all this to do with the text that he who sets himself up shall be brought low, he who keeps himself low shall be set up? What has it to do with the text? It has everything to do with the text. If people really believed that they were G.o.d's subjects and children in G.o.d's kingdom, they would not need to ask that question long.

If G.o.d is really the King of the earth, there can be no use in anyone setting up himself. If G.o.d is really the King of the earth, those who set up themselves must be certain to be brought down from their high thoughts and high a.s.sumptions sooner or later. For if G.o.d is really the King of the earth, He must be the one to set people up, and not they themselves. Look again at the parable. The man who asks the guests to dine with him has surely a right to place each of them where he likes. The house is his, the dinner is his. He has a right to invite whom he likes; and he has a right to settle where they shall sit. If they choose their own places--if any guest takes upon himself to seat himself at the head of the table, because he thinks it his right, he offends against all rules of right feeling and propriety toward the man who has invited him. All he has a right to expect is, that his host will not put him in the wrong place, that he will settle all places at his table according to people's real rank and deserts, and as our Testaments say, put ”the worthiest man in the highest room.” And if people really believed in G.o.d, which very few do, they would surely expect no less of G.o.d. What gentleman, farmer, or labourer is there, with common sense and good feeling, who would not show most respect to the most respectable persons who came into his house, and send his best and trustiest workmen about his most important errands? True, he might make mistakes, and worse. Being a weak man, he might be tempted to put the rich sinner in a higher place than the poor saint: or he might, from private fancy, be blinded about his workmen's characters, and so send a worse man, because he was his favourite, to do what another man whom he did not fancy as well might do a great deal better. But you cannot suspect G.o.d of that. He is no respecter of persons-- whether a man be rich or poor, no matter to G.o.d: all which He inquires into is--Is he righteous or unrighteous, wise or foolish, able to do his work or unable? And G.o.d can make no mistakes about people's characters. As St. Paul says of the Lord Jesus: ”The Word of G.o.d is sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing through to the dividing of the very joints and marrow, so that all things are naked and open in the sight of Him with whom we have to do.” There is no blinding G.o.d, no hiding from G.o.d, no cheating G.o.d, just as there is no flattering G.o.d. He knows what each and every one of us is fit for. He knows what each and every one of us is worth; and what is more, He knows what we ought to know, that each and every one of us is worth nothing without Him. Therefore there is no use pretending to be better than we are. G.o.d knows just how good we are, and will reward us, even in this life only according as we deserve, in spite of all our boasting. There is no use pretending to be wiser than we are. For all the wisdom we have comes from G.o.d; and if we pretend to have more than we have, and by that greatest act of folly, show that we have no wisdom at all, He will take from us even what we have, and make all our cunning plans come to nothing, and prove us fools, just when we fancy ourselves most clever. There is no use being ambitious and pus.h.i.+ng, and trying to scramble up on our neighbours' shoulders.

For we were not sent into this world to do what we like, but what G.o.d likes; not to work for ourselves, but to work for G.o.d; and G.o.d knows exactly how much good each of us can do, and what is the best place for us to do it in, and how to teach and enable us to do it; and if we choose to be taught, He will teach us; and if we choose to go His way, and do His work, He will help us to it. But if we will not have his way, He will not let us have our own way--not at first, at least.

He will bring our plans to nothing, and let us make fools of ourselves, and bring in sudden accidents of which we never dreamed, just to show us that we are not our own masters, and cannot cut out our own roads through life. And if we take His lesson, and go to Him to teach and strengthen us--well: and if not--then perhaps--which is the most awful misery which can happen to any man in earth--G.o.d may give up teaching us during this life, and let us have our own way, and be filled with the fruit of our own devices; from which worst of punishments may He in His mercy, save you, and me, and all belonging to us, in this life and in the life to come.

But some of you may say: ”We understand the first half of the text very well, and like it very well; we all think it just that those who set themselves up should have a fall, and we are very glad to see them have a fall: but we do not see why he who abases himself should have any right to be exalted.” Ah, my friends, it is much easier, and needs much less knowledge of G.o.d, and much less of the likeness of Christ, to see what is wrong, than to see what is right. Every man knows when a bone is broken, but it is not every one who can set it again. Nevertheless, there is a sort of left-handed reason in that argument. For a man has no more right to make himself out worse than he is, than he has to make himself out better than he is. A man should confess to being just what he is, neither more nor less.

Nevertheless, he who humbles himself shall be exalted.

Of course I do not mean those who, like some I know, make a fawning humble way of talking a cloak for their own self-conceit; who call themselves miserable sinners all the time that they are fancying that they are almost the only people in the world who are sure of being saved, whatever they do; who, as some do, actually pride themselves on their own convictions of sin, and glory in their own shame, and despise those who will not slander themselves as they do.

They are equally hateful to G.o.d and to G.o.d's enemies. If you and I are disgusted at such hypocritical self-conceit, be sure the Lord Jesus is far more pained at it than we are; for as a wise man says: ”The devil's darling sin is the pride that apes humility.”

But let a man really be convinced of sin; let a man really believe in the Lord Jesus Christ's atonement; let a man really believe in the Holy Spirit; and that man will have little need to ask why he should humble himself more than he deserves, and little wish to boast of himself, and push himself forward, and get praise, or riches, or power in the world. For that man would say to himself: ”I, sinner as I am; I, who know that I do so many wrong things daily; things so wrong that it required the blood of the Son of G.o.d to wash out the guilt of them--who am I to set myself up? I cannot be faithful in a little--why should I try to be ruler over much? I cannot use properly the blessings and the power which G.o.d does give me--must I not take for granted that, if I had more riches, more power, I should use them still worse? I know well enough of a thousand sins, and weaknesses and ignorances in myself which my neighbours never see. I believe, therefore, my neighbours have much too good an opinion of me, and not too bad a one; and therefore I am not going to boast or puff myself to them. I can only thank G.o.d they do not see the inside of this foolish heart of mine as well as He does! In short, I am not going to set myself up, and try to get a higher place among men than I have already, because I am certain that I have already a ten times better one than I deserve.”

Or again, if a man really believed in the Holy Ghost, which is much the same as really believing in the kingdom of G.o.d; if he really believed that G.o.d was the King and Master of his heart and soul; if he really believed that everything good, and right, and wise in him came from G.o.d's Holy Spirit, and that everything wrong and foolish in him came from himself and the devil; then he would surely say to himself: ”Who am I to try to set myself up above my neighbours, and get power over them; what have I that I did not receive? Whatever money, or station, or cleverness, or power of mind I have, G.o.d has given me, and without Him I should be nothing. Therefore, He only gave me these talents to use for Him, and if I use them for my own ends, I shall be misusing them, and trying to rob G.o.d of His own. I am His child, His subject, His steward; He has put me just in that place in His earth which is most fit for me, and my business is, not to try to desert my post, and to wander out of the place here He has put me, but to see that I do the duty which lies nearest me, so that I shall be able to give an account to Him. It is only if I am faithful in a few things, that I can expect G.o.d to make me ruler over many things.” Ah, my friends, if we could but see ourselves, not as we fancy we are, nor as others fancy we are, but just as we really are, then, instead of pus.h.i.+ng, and boasting, and standing stiffly by our rights, and fancying that G.o.d and man are unjust to us, we should be crying out all day long with the prodigal son: ”Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.” We should say with St. Paul--who, after all, remember, was the wisest, and most learned, and n.o.blest-hearted of all the Apostles--that we are at best the chief of sinners. We should feel like the dear and blessed Magdalene of old, the pattern for ever of all true penitents, that it was quite honour enough to be allowed to wash Christ's feet with our tears, while every one round us sneered at us and looked down upon us--as, after all, we deserve.

And so, believe me, we should be exalted. It would pay us, if payment is what we want. For so we should be in a more right, more true, more healthy, more wise, more powerful state of mind; more like Jesus Christ, and therefore more likely to be sent to do Christ's work, and share Christ's reward. For this is the great law of the kingdom of G.o.d in which we live, that man is nothing, and G.o.d is everything; and that we are strong and wise, and something, only when we find out that we are weak and foolish, and nothing, and go to our Father in heaven for strength, and wisdom, and spiritual eternal life. And then we find out how true it is that he who humbles himself, as he deserves, will be raised up; how he who loses his life will save it; how blessed are the poor in spirit, those who feel that they have nothing but what G.o.d chooses to give them; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven! How blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness; who feel that they are not doing right, and yet cannot rest till they do right; for they shall be filled! How blessed are the meek, who do not set up themselves, or try to fight their own battles, and compete with their neighbours in the great scramble and struggle of this world; for they--just the last persons whom the world would expect to do it--shall inherit the earth!

Choose, my friends, choose! The world says: ”Push upwards, praise yourself, help yourself, put your best side outwards.” The great G.o.d who made heaven and earth says: ”Know that you are weak, and foolish, and sinful in yourself. Know that whatever wisdom you have, I the Lord lent you; and I the Lord expect the interest of my loan.

Know that you are my child in my Kingdom. Stay where I have put you, and when I want you for something better, I will call you; and if you try to rise without my calling you, I will only drive you back again.

So the only way to be ruler over much, is first to be faithful in a little. My friends, which of the two do you think is likely to know best, man or G.o.d?

Footnotes:

{217} In 1848-49.

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