Part 3 (2/2)
Nature's instincts are more cogent than reason. It was hardly to be wondered at, then, that these two great cla.s.ses were largely represented in the crowds that gathered on the banks of the Jordan.
II. LET US BRIEFLY ENUMERATE THE MAIN BURDEN OF THE BAPTIST'S PREACHING.--(1) ”_The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand_.” To a Jew that phrase meant the re-establishment of the Theocracy, and a return to those great days in the history of his people when G.o.d Himself was Lawgiver and King. Had not Daniel predicted that in the days of the last of the great empires, prefigured in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, the G.o.d of heaven would set up a kingdom which should never be destroyed--which should break in pieces all other kingdoms and stand for ever? Had he not foreseen a time when One like unto a son of man should come to the Ancient of Days to receive a dominion which should not pa.s.s away, and a kingdom which should not be destroyed? Had he not foretold that the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven should be given to the saints of the Most High? Surely, then, all these antic.i.p.ations were on the eve of fulfilment. The long-expected Messiah was at hand; and here was the forerunner described by Isaiah, the prophet, saying:--
”The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make ye ready the way of the Lord, Make his paths straight.”
But some misgiving must have pa.s.sed over the minds of his hearers when they heard the young prophet's description of the conditions and accompaniments of that long-looked-for reign. Instead of dilating on the material glory of the Messianic period, far surpa.s.sing the magnificent splendour of Solomon, he insisted on the fulfilment of certain necessary preliminary requirements, which lifted the whole conception of the antic.i.p.ated reign to a new level, in which the inward and spiritual took precedence of the outward and material. It was the old lesson, which in every age requires repet.i.tion, that unless a man is born again, and from above, he cannot see the kingdom of G.o.d.
Be sure of this, that no outward circ.u.mstances, however propitious and favourable, can bring about true blessedness. We might be put into the midst of heaven itself, and be poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked, unless the heart were in loving union with the Lamb, who is in the midst of the throne. He is the light of that city, his countenance doth lighten it--from his throne the river of its pleasure flows, his service is its delightful business; and to be out of fellows.h.i.+p with Him would make us out of harmony with its joy. Life must be centred in Christ if it is to be concentric with all the circles of heaven's bliss. We can never be at rest or happy whilst we expect to find our fresh springs in outward circ.u.mstances. It is only when we are right with G.o.d that we are blest and at rest. Righteousness is blessedness.
Where the King is enthroned within the heart, the soul is in the kingdom, which is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost; nay, perhaps more accurately, that kingdom is in the soul. And when all hearts are yielded to the King; when all gates lift up their heads, and all everlasting doors are unfolded for his entrance--then the curse which has so long brooded over the world shall be done away. The whole creation groaneth and travaileth for the manifestation of the sons of G.o.d: but when they are revealed in all their beauty, then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness shall abide in the fruitful field, and the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and confidence for ever; and the mirage shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water (Isa. x.x.xii. 15, 16; x.x.xv. 7, R.V.).
(2) Alongside the proclamation of the kingdom was the uncompromising insistence on ”_the wrath to come_.” John saw that the Advent of the King would bring inevitable suffering to those who were living in self-indulgence and sin.
There would be careful discrimination. He who was coming would carefully discern between the righteous and the wicked; between those who served G.o.d and those who served Him not: and the preacher enforced his words by an image familiar to orientals. When the wheat is reaped, it is bound in sheaves and carted to the thres.h.i.+ng-floor, which is generally a circular spot of hard ground from fifty to one hundred feet in diameter. On this the wheat is threshed from the chaff by manual labour, but the two lie intermingled till the evening, when the grain is caught up in broad shovels or fans, and thrown against the evening breeze, as it pa.s.ses swiftly over the fevered land; thus the light chaff is borne away, while the wheat falls heavily to the earth.
Likewise, cried the Baptist, there shall be a very careful process of discrimination, before the unquenchable fires are lighted; so that none but chaff shall be consigned to the flames--a prediction which was faithfully fulfilled. At first Christ drew all men to Himself; but, as his ministry proceeded, He revealed their quality. A few were permanently attracted to Him; the majority were as definitely repelled.
There was no middle cla.s.s. Men were either for or against Him. The sheep on this side; the goats on that. The five wise virgins, and the five foolish. Those who entered the strait gate, and those who flocked down the broad way that leadeth to destruction. So it has been in every age. Jesus Christ is the touchstone of trial. Our att.i.tude towards Him reveals the true quality of the soul.
There would also be a period of probation. ”The axe laid to the root of the trees” is familiar enough to those who know anything of forestry. The woodman barks some tree which seems to him to be occupying s.p.a.ce capable of being put to better use. There is no undue haste. It is only after severe and searching scrutiny that the word goes forth: ”Cut it down; why c.u.mbereth it the ground?” But when once that word is spoken, there is no appeal. The Jewish people had become sadly unfruitful; but a definite period was to intervene--three years of Christ's ministry and thirty years beside--before the threatened judgment befell. All this while the axe lay ready for its final stroke; but only when all hope of reformation was abandoned was it driven home, and the nation crashed to its doom.
Perhaps this may be the case with one of my readers. You have been planted on a favourable site, and have drunk in the dews and rain and suns.h.i.+ne of G.o.d's providence; but what fruit have you yielded in return? How have you repaid the heavenly Husbandman? May He not be considering whether any result will accrue from prolonging your opportunities for bearing fruit? He has looked for grapes, and lo, you have brought forth only wild grapes; He may well consider the advisability of removing you from the stewards.h.i.+p, which you have used for your own emolument, and not for his glory.
For all such there must be ”wrath to come.” After there has been searching scrutiny and investigation, and every reasonable chance has been given for amendment, and still the soul is impenitent and disobedient, there must be ”a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries.”
The fire of John's preaching had its primary fulfilment, probably, in the awful disasters which befell the Jewish people, culminating in the siege and fall of Jerusalem. We know how marvellously the little handful of believers which had been gathered out by the preaching of Christ and his disciples were accounted worthy to escape all those things that came to pa.s.s, and to stand before the Son of Man. But the unbelieving ma.s.s of the Jewish people were discovered to be worthless chaff and unfruitful trees, and a.s.signed to those terrible fires which have left a scar on Palestine to this day.
But there was a deeper meaning. The wrath of G.o.d avenges itself, not on nations but on individual sinners. ”He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of G.o.d abideth on him.” The penalty of sin is inevitable. The wages of sin is death. The land which beareth thorns and thistles, after having drunk of the rain which cometh often upon it, is rejected and nigh unto a curse, its end is to be burned; under the first covenant, every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; the man that set at nought Moses' law died without compa.s.sion, on the word of two or three witnesses--of how much sorer punishment shall he be judged worthy who hath trodden under foot the Son of G.o.d, and hath counted the blood of the covenant a common thing, and hath done despite to the Spirit of grace!
Even if we grant, as of course we must, that many of the expressions referring to the ultimate fate of the unG.o.dly are symbolical, yet it must be granted also, that they have counterparts in the realm of soul and spirit, which are as terrible to endure, as the nature of the soul is more highly organized than that of the body. Fire to the body is easy to bear in comparison with certain forms of suffering to which the heart and soul are sometimes exposed even in this life. Have we not sometimes said, ”If physical suffering were concerned, we could bear it; but oh, this pain which is gnawing at the heart--this awful inward agony, which burns like fire!” And if we are capable of suffering so acutely from remorse and shame, from ingrat.i.tude and misrepresentation, in this life where there are so many distractions and temporary alleviations, what may not be the possibility of pain in that other life, where there is no screen, no covering, no alleviation, no cup of water to slake the thirst! Believe me, when Jesus said, ”These shall go away into eternal punishment,” He contemplated a retribution so terrible, that it were good for the sufferers if they had never been born.
All the great preachers have seen and faithfully borne witness to the fearful results of sin, as they take effect in this life and the next.
These threw Brainerd into a dripping sweat, whilst praying on a cool day for his Indians in the woods; these drew John Welsh from his bed, at all hours of the night, to plead for his people; these inspired Baxter to write his _Call to the Unconverted_; these drew Henry Martyn from his fellows.h.i.+p at Cambridge to the burning plains of India; these forced tears from Whitefield as he preached to the crowding thousands; these burn in the memorable sermon by Jonathan Edwards on ”Sinners in the hands of an angry G.o.d.” The notable revival which broke out at Kirk o' Shotts was due, under G.o.d, to Livingston congratulating the people that drops of rain alone were falling, and not the fire of Divine wrath. The sermons of Ralph Erskine, of McCheyne and W. C.
Burns, of Brownlow Northland Reginald Radcliffe, in the last generation, were characterized by the same appeals. Though, on the other hand, because G.o.d is not confined to any one method, the preaching of the late D. L. Moody was specially steeped in the love of G.o.d. It is for want of a vision of the inevitable fate of the G.o.dless and disobedient, that much of our present-day preaching is so powerless and ephemeral. You cannot get crops out of the land merely by summer showers and suns.h.i.+ne; there must be the subsoil ploughing, the pulverizing frost, the wild March wind. And only when we modern preachers have seen sin as G.o.d sees it, and begin to apply the divine standard to the human conscience; only when our eagerness and yearning well over into our eyes and broken tones, only when we know the terror of the Lord, and begin to persuade men as though we would pluck them out of the fire, by our strenuous expostulation and entreaties--shall we see the effects that followed the preaching of the Baptist when soldiers, publicans, Pharisees, and scribes, crowded around him, saying, ”What shall we do?”
All John's preaching, therefore, led up to the demand for repentance.
The word which was oftenest on his lips was ”Repent ye!” It was not enough to plead direct descent from Abraham, or outward conformity with the Levitical and Temple rites. G.o.d could raise up children to Abraham from the stones of the river bank. There must be the renunciation of sin, the definite turning to G.o.d, the bringing forth of fruit meet for an amended life. In no other way could the people be prepared for the coming of the Lord.
VI.
Baptism unto Repentance
(MARK I. 4.)
”The last and greatest herald of heaven's King, Girt with rough skins, hies to the desert wild; Among that savage brood the woods doth bring, Which he more harmless found than man, and mild.
”His food was locusts and what there doth spring, With honey that from virgin hives distill'd, Parch'd body, hollow eyes, some uncouth thing Made him appear, long since from earth exiled.”
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