Part 1 (1/2)

Quiet Talks on Power.

by S.D. Gordon.

CHOKED CHANNELS.

An Odd Distinction.

A few years ago I was making a brief tour among the colleges of Missouri. I remember one morning in a certain college village going over from the hotel to take breakfast with some of the boys, and coming back with one of the fellows whom I had just met. As we walked along, chatting away, I asked him quietly, ”Are you a christian, sir?” He turned quickly and looked at me with an odd, surprised expression in his eye and then turning his face away said: ”Well, I'm a member of church, but--I don't believe I'm very much of a christian.” Then I looked at him and he frankly volunteered a little information. Not very much. He did not need to say much. You can see a large field through a c.h.i.n.k in the fence. And I saw enough to let me know that he was right in the criticism he had made upon himself. We talked a bit and parted. But his remark set me to thinking.

A week later, in another town, speaking one morning to the students of a young ladies' seminary, I said afterwards to one of the teachers as we were talking: ”I suppose your young women here are all christians.” That same quizzical look came into her eye as she said: ”I think they are all members of church, but I do not think they are all christians with real power in their lives.” There was that same odd distinction.

A few weeks later, in Kansas City visiting the medical and dental schools, I recall distinctly standing one morning in a disordered room--shavings on the floor, desks disarranged--the inst.i.tution just moving into new quarters, and not yet settled. I was discussing with a member of the faculty, the dean I think, about how many the room would hold, how soon it would be ready, and so on--just a business talk, nothing more--when he turned to me rather abruptly, looking me full in the face, and said with quiet deliberation: ”I'm a member of church; I _think_ I am a deacon in our church”--running his hand through his hair meditatively, as though to refresh his memory--”but I am not very much of a christian, sir.” The smile that started to come to my face at the odd frankness of his remark was completely chased away by the distinct touch of pathos in both face and voice that seemed to speak of a hungry, unsatisfied heart within.

Perhaps it was a month or so later, in one of the mining towns down in the zinc belt of southwestern Missouri, I was to speak to a meeting of men. There were probably five or six hundred gathered in a Methodist Church. They were strangers to me. I was in doubt what best to say to them. One dislikes to fire ammunition at people that are absent. So stepping down to a front pew where several ministers were seated, I asked one of them to run his eye over the house and tell me what sort of a congregation it was, so far as he knew them. He did so, and presently replied: ”I think fully two-thirds of these men are members of our churches”--and then, with that same quizzical, half-laughing look, he added, ”but you know, sir, as well as I do, that not half of them are christians worth counting.” ”Well,” I said to myself, astonished, ”this is a mining camp; this certainly is not anything like the condition of affairs in the country generally.”

But that series of incidents, coming one after the other in such rapid succession, set me thinking intently about that strange distinction between being members of a church on the one hand, and on the other, living lives that count and tell and weigh for Jesus seven days in the week. I knew that ministers had been recognizing such a distinction, but to find it so freely acknowledged by folks in the pew was new, and surely significant.

And so I thought I would just ask the friends here to-day very frankly, ”What kind of Christians are you?” I do not say what kind you are, for I am a stranger, and do not know, and would only think the best things of you. But I ask you frankly, honestly now, as I ask myself anew, what kind are you? Do you know? Because it makes such a difference. The Master's plan--and what a genius of a plan it is--is this, that the world should be won, not by the preachers--though we must have these men of G.o.d for teaching and leaders.h.i.+p--but by everyone who knows the story of Jesus _telling someone_, and telling not only with his lips earnestly and tactfully, but even more, _telling with his life_. That is the Master's plan of campaign for this world. And it makes a great difference to Him and to the world outside whether you and I are _living_ the story of His love and power among men or not.

Do you _know_ what kind of a christian you are? There are at least three others that do. First of all there is Satan. He knows. Many of our church officers are skilled in gathering and compiling statistics, but they cannot hold a tallow-dip to Satan in this matter of exact information. He is the ablest of all statisticians, second only to one other. He keeps careful record of every one of us, and knows just how far we are interfering with his plans. He knows that some of us--good, respectable people, as common reckoning goes--neither help G.o.d nor hinder Satan. Does that sound rather hard? But is it not true? He has no objection to such people being counted in as christians. Indeed, he rather prefers to have it so. Their presence inside the church circle helps him mightily. _He_ knows what kind of a christian you are. Do _you_ know?

Then there is the great outer circle of non-christian people--_they know_. Many of them are poorly informed regarding the christian life; hungry for something they have not, and know not just what it is; with high ideals, though vague, of what a christian life should be. And they look eagerly to us for what they have thought we had, and are so often keenly disappointed that our ideals, our life, is so much like others who profess nothing. And when here and there they meet one whose acts are dominated by a pure, high spirit, whose faces reflect a sweet radiance amid all circ.u.mstances, and whose lives send out a rare fragrance of gladness and kindliness and controlling peace, they are quick to recognize that, to them, intangible something that makes such people different. The world--tired, hungry, keen and critical for mere sham, appreciative of the real thing--the world knows what kind of christians we are. Do _we_ know?

There is a third one watching us to-day with intense interest. The Lord Jesus! Sitting up yonder in glory, with the scar-marks of earth on face and form, looking eagerly down upon us who stand for Him in the world that crucified Him--_He knows_. I imagine Him saying, ”There is that one down there whom I died for, who bears my name; _if_ I had the _control_ of that life what power I would gladly breathe in and out of it, but--he is _so absorbed in other things_.” The Master is thinking about you, studying your life, longing to carry out His plan if He could only get permission, and sorely disappointed in many of us. He knows. Do _you_ know?

The Night Visitor.

After that trip I became much interested in discovering in John's Gospel some striking pictorial ill.u.s.trations of these two kinds of christians, namely, those who have power in their lives for Jesus Christ and those who have not. Let me speak of only a few of these. The first is sketched briefly in the third chapter, with added touches in the seventh and nineteenth chapters. There is a little descriptive phrase used each time--”the man who came to Jesus by night.” That comes to be in John's mind the most graphic and sure way of identifying this man. A good deal of criticism, chiefly among the upper cla.s.ses, had already been aroused by Jesus' acts and words. This man Nicodemus clearly was deeply impressed by the young preacher from up in Galilee. He wants to find out more of him. But he shrank back from exposing himself to criticism by these influential people for his possible friends.h.i.+p with the young radical, as Jesus was regarded. So one day he waits until the friendly shadows will conceal his ident.i.ty, and slipping quietly along the streets, close up to the houses so as to insure his purpose of not being recognized, he goes up yonder side street where Jesus has lodgings. He knocks timidly. ”Does the preacher from up the north way stop here?”

”Yes.” ”Could I see him?” He steps in and spends an evening in earnest conversation. I think we will all readily agree that Nicodemus _believed_ Jesus after that night's interview, however he may have failed to understand all He said. Yes, we can say much more--he _loved_ Him. For after the cruel crucifixion it is this man that brings a box of very precious spices, weighing as much as a hundred pounds, worth, without question, a large sum of money, with which to embalm the dead body of his friend. Ah! he loved Him. No one may question that.

But turn now to the seventh chapter of John. There is being held a special session of the Jewish Senate in Jerusalem for the express purpose of determining how to silence Jesus--to get rid of Him. This man is a member of that body, and is present. Yonder he sits with the others, listening while his friend Jesus is being discussed and His removal--by force if need be--is being plotted. What does he do? What would you expect of a friend of Jesus under such circ.u.mstances? I wonder what you and I would have done? I wonder what we do do? Does he say modestly, but plainly, ”I spent a whole evening with this man, questioning Him, talking with Him, listening to Him. I feel quite sure that He is our promised Messiah; and I have decided to accept Him as such.” Did he say that? That would have been the simple truth. But such a remark plainly would have aroused a storm of criticism, and he dreaded that. Yet he felt that something should be said. So, lawyer-like, he puts the case abstractly. ”Hmm--does our law judge a man without giving him a fair hearing?” That sounds fair, though it does seem rather feeble in face of their determined opposition. But near by sits a burly Pharisee, who turns sharply around and, glaring savagely at Nicodemus, says sneeringly: ”Who are you? Do you come from Galilee, too? Look and see! No prophet comes out of Galilee”--with intensest contempt in the tone with which he p.r.o.nounces the word Galilee. And poor Nicodemus seems to shrink back into half his former size, and has not another word to say, though all the facts, easily ascertainable, were upon his side of the case. He loved Jesus without doubt, but he had _no power_ for Him among men _because of his timidity_. Shall I use a plainer, though uglier, word--his cowardice? That is not a pleasant word to apply to a man. But is it not the true word here? He was so afraid of what _they_ would think and say! Is that the sort of christian _you_ are? Believing Jesus, trusting Him, saved by Him, loving Him, but shrinking back from speaking out for Him, tactfully, plainly, when opportunity presents or can be made. A christian, but without positive power for Him among men because of cowardice!

I can scarcely imagine Nicodemus walking down the street in Jerusalem, arm in arm with another Pharisee-member of the Sanhedrin and saying to him quietly, but earnestly: ”Have you had a talk with this young man Jesus?” ”No, indeed, I have not!” ”Well, do you know, I spent an evening with Him down at His stopping place, and had a long, careful talk with Him. I am quite satisfied that He is our long-looked-for leader; I have decided to give Him my personal allegiance; won't you get personally acquainted with Him? He is a wonderful man.” I say I have difficulty in thinking that this man worked for Jesus like that. And yet what more natural and proper, both for him and for us? And what a difference it might have made in many a man's life. _Powerless_ for Jesus because of timidity! Is that the kind _you_ are? Possibly some one thinks that rather hard on this man. Maybe you are thinking of that other member of the Sanhedrin--Joseph of Arimathea--who was also a follower of Jesus, and that quite possibly he may have been influenced by Nicodemus. Let us suppose, for Nicodemus' sake, that this is so, and then mark the brief record of this man Joseph in John's account: ”A disciple _secretly_ for _fear_ of the Jews.” If we may fairly presume that it was Nicodemus' influence that led his friend Joseph to follow Jesus, yet he had led him no nearer than he himself had gone! He _could_ lead him no higher or nearer than that.

John in his gospel makes plain the fact that Jesus suffered much from these secret, timid, cowardly disciples whose fear of men gripped them as in a vise. Five times he makes special mention of these people who believed Jesus, but cravenly feared to line up with Him.[1] He even says that _many_ of the _rulers_--the very cla.s.s that plotted and voted His death--believed Jesus, but that _fear_ of _the others_ shut their lips and drove them into the shadow when they could have helped Him most.

These people seem to have left numerous descendants, many of whom continue with us unto this day.

Tightly Tied Up.

Turn now to the eleventh chapter and you will find another pictorial suggestion of this same sort of _powerless christian_, though in this instance made so by another reason. It is the Bethany Chapter, the Lazarus Chapter. The scene is just out of Bethany village. There is a man lying dead in the cave yonder. Here stands Jesus. There are the disciples, and Martha, and Mary, and the villagers, and a crowd from Jerusalem. The Master is speaking. His voice rings out clear and commanding--”Lazarus, come forth”--speaking to a dead man. And the simple record runs, ”He that _was_ dead”--life comes between those two lines of the record--”came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, and his face was bound about with a napkin.” Will you please take a look at Lazarus as he steps from the tomb? Do you think his eyes are dull, or his cheeks hollow and pale? I think not! When Jesus, the Lord of life, gives life, either physical or spiritual, He gives abundant life. That face may have been a bit spare. There had been no food for at least four days and likely longer. But there is the flash of health in his eye and the ruddy hue of good blood in his cheek.

He has life. But look closer. He is bound hand and foot and face. He can neither walk nor work nor speak.

I have met some christian people who reminded me forcibly of that scene.

They are christians. The Master has spoken life, and they have responded to His word. But they are so tied up with the grave-clothes of the old life that there can be none of the power of free action in life or service. May I ask you very kindly, but very plainly, are you like that?

Is that the reason you have so little power with G.o.d, and for G.o.d?

Perhaps some one would say, ”Just what do you mean?” I mean this: that there may be some personal habit of yours, or perhaps some society custom which you practice, or it may be some business method, or possibly an old friends.h.i.+p which you have carried over into the new life from the old that is seriously hindering your christian life. It may be something that goes into your mouth or comes out of it that prevents those lips speaking for the Master. Perhaps it is some organization you belong to. If there is lack of freedom and power for Christ you may be sure there is _something_ that is blighting your life and dwarfing your usefulness. It may possibly be that practically in your daily life you are exerting no more power for G.o.d than a dead man! A christian, indeed, but _without power because of compromise_ with something questionable or outrightly wrong! Is that so with you? I do not say it is, for I do not know. But _you_ know. The hungry, critical world knows. Subtle, keen Satan knows. The Lord Jesus knows. Do you know if that describes you?

You may know with certainty within twenty-four hours if you wish to and will to. May we be willing to have the Spirit's searchlight turned in upon us to-night.

The Master's Ideal.