Miscellaneous
Writings Vol. Two
LECTURE VIII.
WHAT
BRINGS THE TIME OF HIS PATIENCE TO AN END
(Rev. 3. 14-22).
WE now come, beloved friends, the solemn close of all; and
it is very striking that it comes immediately after the epistle to
Philadelphia, in which more than a little gleam of light and blessing shone
out. The two things are very closely connected: the blessing of the church in
Philadelphia really leads us, in a sense, to the judgment of the church in
Laodicea.
The great feature in the address to Laodicea is that they
are lukewarm - neither cold nor hot. Surely, we may say, we have had the cold
state in Sardis: death is cold enough. We have had in Philadelphia the Lord
reviving things - something which we may call heat. Now the mixture of these
two things produces this lukewarmness of which He speaks. It is not heat, as in
Philadelphia; it is not cold, as in Sardis; but, so to speak, the effect of the
heat is only sufficient to change the cold into lukewarm - nothing more. There
has been the effect of the truth,- the truth must always have effect,- God's
word never returns to Him void, without doing something, without making its
mark on souls in some way. But then, it may make its mark in two ways. It may
be in blessing, as God designs. Oh, surely, what He wants is blessing; but, on
the other hand, if it is not received so as to become blessing, what then? It
has effect still, but in increased responsibility and corresponding judgment.
And if Christianity fails (for it is the history of professing Christianity
that we have been looking at)- if Christianity fails, if, when God brings forth
the treasures of divine truth, yet there is no due reception, no blessing for
the mass, no real revival at large is produced by it, what then? He has nothing
else to do - judgment must come. He must wind up the whole state of things. You
see, if there was law and that failed, as you know it did fail (that is, of
course, when men failed under it and were convicted by it, as transgressors)-
if the law failed, God had something else to bring in - the precious grace of
Christianity. And this He did, while nevertheless judging the apostate state of
things in Judaism. Still God came in, and gave the more "precious faith" of
Christianity. If Christianity fails now, what has He to do? what has He to
bring in more? If His truth, before tried, and now retried (His twofold
witness), is not sufficient to revive things, what then? Well, the case is just
what you find in the twenty-sixth of Isaiah: "Let favour be showed to the
wicked" (that is, grace) "yet will he not learn righteousness" And what then?
"When thy judgements are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn
righteousness" That is what we have here - judgement has come because grave has
been refused: because it has accomplished nothing as to the world at large, He
must take the rod of iron: because His word and His Spirit have been rejected,
He must come with the rod of iron to beat down opposition.
But notice
what is here very striking: it is not merely that God has been giving His truth
afresh and it has been refused; it has been taken, or there would be no heat in
Laodicea; there would be nothing but coldness of Sardis. There has been effect.
The truth has been taken, but for what has it been taken? Alas! instead of to
judge man, and to bring all his high thoughts down in the presence of God that
he might be lifted up and blessed, it has been taken by man in order to exalt
himself with it. He has thereby become "rich and increased with goods, and has
need for nothing." In his own thought he is so; whereas he is really "wretched,
and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." That is the striking feature we
have here. Christ Himself is not connected with the truth. The truth has been
taken, and people flatter themselves upon having it; they are rich, and
increased with goods. They have got a great deal, but have not got Christ.
Christ is outside, though He stands at the door and knocks, still offering to
come in; if anybody will open the door, He will come in, and sup with him, and
he with Him. On the other hand, if Christ be oulside the door, man can do in
His absence what in His presence he could not do: he can dress himself up with
the truth God has given him for another purpose - glorifying himself instead of
God.
The Lord therefore presents Himself as the One, so to speak, who
had done all He could, and all had failed. He is "the Amen," the faithful and
true witness : He has not failed. He is the "Amen." You find in the second
epistle to the Corinthians, the first chapter, how the apostle speaks of the
word he preached as having that character, of yea and amen: because in Christ
is yea; in Christ is never yea and nay. No uncertainty or doubtfulness was
there in Christ or His word; He was always simply positive "yea "- always
speaking one thing, and absolutely to be depended upon. If we have only one
word, it is a blessed reality given us in God's infinite love, which we may
hang our souls upon for eternity, and which will never fail us. The character
of Christ should stamp itself upon the Christian; Christ as seen in His Word
should be exhibited in His people; but if, as here so sadly in Laodicea, they
have not been faithful, nevertheless He abides faithful: He is the Amen, the
"faithful and true Witness." The Church has been anything but that. He is just
about to remove the candlestick, because they are untrue and unfaithful; but
the Lord has not failed, and He therefore presents Himself as one absolutely
true and trustworthy. And that, we can say, is our joy and comfort in the midst
of the failure of everything in the present day. His people's shortcoming is
not His own. Infidelity may seek to justify itself by the failure of
Christians; and even Christians, alas, are capable, in the general wreck, of
almost charging it upon Himself. But no, He abideth faithful; He cannot deny
Himself. He is the ''faithful and true witness.''
Again, He is "the
beginning of the creation of God:" that is a most important thing. You see in
all these addresses the Lord brings out that in Himself which bears upon and
meets the state before Him. So here He is not only the faithful and true
witness, but He is the beginning of the creation of God. The old creation,
spoiled by sin, is passing away; its history is completed in God's sight, and
judgment has been pronounced in the cross of Christ. Christ risen from the dead
is not the mending of the old creation, but the bringing in of the new
creation. In Him, risen from the dead, is all that God owns as really His,
first and always in His thought, and for which the ruin of the old only
prepared the way. When the psalmist lifted up his eyes to heaven, and, in view
of God's glorious handiwork there, exclaimed, "VVhat is man, that Thou art
mindful of him?-the son of man, that Thou visitest him?" the answer is, "Thou
hast made him a little lower than the angels." But made whom? He is speaking,
not of the first man, but the second - the One in whom alone his true ideal of
man is realized - the One of whom Adam the first was but the fleeting image,
and even the contrast too.
Now, if that be so, just notice the
remarkable words used here of the state of things in Laodicea; for it is
evident that, while keeping Christ outside, they are taking the truth He gave
and dressing themselves up with it, counting themselves rich and increased with
goods; that is, taking God's truth in order to build up the old creation, not
the new. It is an exceedingly solemn thing to see that the very truth which God
has brought out in order to judge man by is the very truth he uses for the
purpose of self-gratulation. If you take the law, how has man used the law? God
gave it "that every mouth might be stopped," as the apostle says, "and that all
the world might become guilty before God" (Rom. iii.). How has man used it? You
know he has used it to establish his own righteousness by it: instead of taking
it to condemn, he has used it for the very opposite. And so, exactly, with
Christianity: God has brought in the truth of the new creation, the world
before Him lying under death and judgment. And yet man would take the blessed
truth of Christianity and dress up the old creation with it, and patch up the
world, making it better if he can. That is, alas, what he is doing on every
side; and men are vaunting the success of the effort.
You know what
progress people think they are making - how much better the world is; and they
hope the Millennium is not far off. The gospel is going to have its effect
because the churches are filled, and they have a good deal of money to send
abroad, a good many Bibles for the heathen - all mere external things, which
show nothing. You can buy all kinds of Bibles for so much money, but you cannot
buy the Spirit of God for so much money.
No doubt God's Spirit is
really and largely working, but His end and man's end are diverse thus far
that, while He is converting souls to "deliver them out of this present evil
world," man's thought is an improved world, a Christian world: the effect of
which is only to amalgamate Christians and the world, and spoil the scriptural
character of Christianity altogether.
But in these last days God has
given many to recognize at least the truth in His Word as to this. Again He has
revived the truth of the new creation, and revealed to us the practical and
fruitful Consequences which result from a place in Christ, where He is, in the
heavens. Beloved friends, what are we doing with this truth we recognizel Are
we talking of being in Christ, a new creation, old things passed away and all
things become new, and yet clinging with all our might to what has in it all
the moral elements that make up the world -" the lust of the flesh, the lust of
the eyes, and the pride of life?" Rank, station, birth, riches, worldly
position - what are all these to us? Whether we be high or low, or rich or
poor, the question applies alike. Are these things "gain" to us? Do they count
for something in our estimation? Or, the things that were "gain" to us, are
they counted truthfully all "loss for Christ" Are we "renewed in knowledge,
after the image of Him that created us, where there is neither Greek nor Jew,
circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ
is ALL and in all?" Is this theory with us, or is it practical reality? Has the
Lord any need to appeal to us as the One who is "the beginning of the creation
of God?" If so, is not Laodiceanism with us in that proportion?
For,
certain it is that, as Philadelphia sets before us that true "brotherly love"
which springs from our apprehension of a relationship which we have towards one
another in Christ and with God, so this fatal closing word "Laodicea" speaks of
that which is the entire opposite of such apprehension. Laodicea means
"people's right," not Christ's glory. It represents a claim which belongs
entirely to the old creation, and not the new - a claim which sets aside the
meaning of the Cross as the judgment and setting aside of the first Adam and
his issue, and, of course, equally ignores the blessed place which we have of
grace, in Christ. But we shall have to look at this again before we close. Let
us go on now with the Lord's address. He says: "I know thy works, that thou art
neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot."
So then He does
not accept lukewarm Laddicea as an improvement upon the coldness of Sardis. And
why? Because the heat is not the heat of revival, but of declension. It is the
final product of what He had given to bring about a totally different one. The
failure is after repeated, exhaustive trial. It is the failure of all the
highest, richest, and most wonderful truth - God's heart poured out without
reserve to man, that we might know Him, enjoy Him, be at home with Him. It is
the turning back of heart in the very presence of an opened heaven, to take up
with the paint and tinsel of the world. Therefore He says: "So then because
thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of My
mouth."
This is the solemn end of professing Christendom. Of course He
will not spew His own beloved people out of His mouth. He must take these first
of all to Himself before He can reject the whole mass as nauseous to Him. And
we have already seen in the address to Philadelphia that the Lord tells them He
is coming quickly, and that He will keep them out of the hour of temptation
coming upon all the world. Not merely out of the temptation,- He might hide
them in the desert so,- but out of the hour. Thus He must take them to Himself
out of the world altogether. And that is what "I come quickly" also intimates.
Here, then, we have the brief solemn pause before the Lord takes His people to
Himself. He must do this before the professing body is spewed out of His mouth.
He cannot so reject even the poorest, weakest, and most wayward of His own. And
it is important to insist upon this, because there is abroad a view according
to which only a class of better than ordinary Christians will be taken up when
the Lord comes, while the rest will be left on earth to go through the
tribulation which follows this, when the earth is enduring the vials of His
wrath. They point to the promise to Philadelphia as in this way the promise to
a special class. And the ten virgins of our Lord's parable they speak of as all
Christians, (as they bring the fact of their being "virgins" forward to prove)
only foolish Christians, unwatchful and unready, with the oil of the Spirit in
their lamps, indeed, but no extra supply in their "vessels." Thus their lamps,
which had been burning, cease to burn at last, and the fresh supply of oil they
get is obtained too late for admission to the marriage. The Lord rejects them
as His bride only: they lose their place in that, and are shut out to be
purified by tribulation, and made ready for the Kingdom afterwards.
But how many precious realities must be denied by those who hold this view! Is
it our faithfulness, then, that gives us a part among those who are dignified
with the title of the Bride of Christ? Is the Lord, when He comes, indeed going
to discriminate in this way between less and more faithfulness?- between
ordinary and extraordinary Christians? What an engine for turning the blessed
and purifying hope into a means of self-occupation and despair! If I am to be
one of these more than ordinary Christians to be acknowledged by Him, where is
the line to be drawn, and on which side of it am I? Is my joyful expectation of
this blessed time to be based upon my belief in my own superiority to the many
of my brethren? What comfortable Pharisaism, or what legal distress, must such
a view involve! If true, why should such a discrimination be made between the
living saints alone? Why should it not equally affect the dead? And then, what
is to purify these As to Scripture, the support it gives to any such view is
only apparent, and results from an interpretation of single passages which is
at issue with its plainest doctrinal teaching. The cowing of the Lord to remove
His saints is not, in Scripture, ever connected even with our responsibilities
and their adjustment, but with the fulfilment of the hope wherewith grace has
inspired us. Our responsibilities and the reward of our works are ever
connected with that which is called the appearing, or manifestation, or
revelation of Christ - His coming with His saints, not for them. At the door of
the Father's house to which He welcomes us when He comes, no sentry stands. We
go into it as purged by the precious blood of Christ, and in Christ. Already
are we not only entitled, but "meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the
saints in light."
When He comes to the world, and His people take
their places with Him as associated with His government, then dignities,
honors, rewards of work, will find their place. It will be "Have thou authority
over ten" -"Be thou also over five cities." We cannot keep these things too
distinct in our minds. Salvation, righteousness, the child's place with the
Father, membership of the body of Christ, our relationship to Christ as His
bride,- nay, also our being "kings and priests unto His God and Father," are
things which are neither gained nor lost by work of ours at all. Christ has
procured them for us, and grace bestows them - grace, and grace alone. When the
Lord Himself, therefore, descends from heaven with a shout, with the voice of
the archangel, and with the trump of God, is there discrimination among those
in Christ - of the dead, who shall be raised - of the living, who shall be
changed? Nay, but "the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive
and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the
Lord in the air; and so shall we be ever with the Lord." Blessed words, how
they pierce through and scatter the chilling fogs of legalism, and make "the
blessed hope," not a means of sorest perplexity and doubt, but "hope" indeed!
Nor are the passages upon which these writers build in contradiction at all.
The promise to the overcomer at Philadelphia is one of a class which, as the
eye runs over them throughout these apocalyptic addresses, show plainly that
they apply more or less to every true believer. Take the promise to him at
Ephesus, and ask, will any believer not " eat of the tree of life, which is in
the midst of the paradise of God ?" Take that to Smyrna, and ask, will any one
"be hurt of the second death?" And so on through the remainder. To the least
believer something surely of the spirit of the overcomer belongs: and while the
promises suit themselves as encouragements to faith, adapted to the special
condition of things pointed out, yet we know that the fruit of the tree of
life, and deliverance from the second death, are not the result of any
performances of ours, or any faithfulness on our part, but of His work, and of
His grace alone.
Again, as to the ten virgins, it is a mistake to
suppose that in that character Christians are represented as espoused to Christ
at all. The virgins who go forth to meet the bridegroom are not the bride, and
to put them in that place disjoints the parable. According to the whole tenor
of the prophecy of these chapters, the Jewish people and the earth are the
objects mainly in view, and the parable of the virgins parenthetically brings
in the connection of Christians with it. The Lord is coming to take a Jewish
bride, according to the common language of the Old Testament prophets. On His
way to do this, His people of the present time are called up to meet Him, and
to return with Him. So much is implied in the expression in the Greek. It is
when He is come, then, to earth that the foolish virgins are rejected; not
rejected as His bride, but are cast out of His Kingdom altogether. The parable
is a parable of the Kingdom; and the Kingdom in the parables embraces the whole
field of profession. "Virgins," "servants," and such-like titles in them,
merely intimate the responsible profession, not necessarily the truth. He was a
servant who had laid up his lord's money in a napkin, and never really served
at all. He was a servant, but a wicked one; and so with these foolish
virgins.
As to oil, they are expressly stated to have taken no oil
with them; and the Lord's words of rejection, "I know you not," are decisive
from One who "knoweth them that are His," and could never disown them.
No,
He cannot spew His own out of His mouth; He must take them out of what He is
going to judge, before the first hot drops of the storm of judgment fall. Even
then it will be made publicly manifest, before He rejects the public professing
body, how really they have, on their part, rejected Him. Christendom ends in
open apostasy. The day of the Lord will not come except there be a fall-ing
away first, and the man of sin be revealed. Popery, evil as it is, and
antichristian too, is not the last evil, nor the worst. It is the harlot woman,
not the man. It has been revealed over three hundred years at least, and the
day of the Lord is not yet come. The Antichrist will deny the Father and the
Son alike.
How solemn to contemplate this last end of what began so
differently! How, above all, solemn to consider that, both at the beginning,
and again at the end, the sin and failure of His own people is that which
initiates and completes the ruin! Who can doubt that Christians everywhere are
taking up this self-complacent utterance - "rich, and increased with goods, and
in need of nothing?" Who cannot see that truth is being taken up as a form of
godliness apart from power, apart from all the practical results that should
flow from it? And who but can see, that has eyes to see at all, that that is
the most terrible and hopeless sign of all, when the salt wherewith the mass
should be salted, is losing its savor and becoming powerless to act for God at
all?
Ah, it is one thing to appreciate the comfort of the gospel, and
the blessings which it procures for man, and it is another to accept honestly
the level to which the gospel reduces all, and the place before God in Christ
which brings poor and rich, and high and low, to a perfect equality, the rich
rejoicing in that he is made low, as the brother of low degree in his
exaltation.
Do we not want, all of us, to be reminded of what passed
between the emulous disciples and their Lord on the solemn journey up to
Jerusalem, when the cross was before the Master's face, but even its gaunt
shadow could not still the contentious rivalry among His followers for the
places on His right hand and His left, in His Kingdom? "You are making it a
kingdom of the Gentiles!" is what He virtually says to them. "You are thinking
of earthly place such as in these - of what would satisfy ambition and
self-seeking greed! Do you think these are the places that are Mine to give?
No; with Me the highest is the lowest; the greatness is in lowliest service;
the blessedness is in giving, not receiving; the highest there - He (unchanged
in spirit still) who as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to
minister, and to give His life a ransom for many."
And then, as to our
personal relationship to Christ, it is need that brings us to Him first, and
makes us to know Him; and in His presence the sense of need, need met by Him,
is ever maintained. It does not discourage us, for His grace is sufficiency;
but it is only in weakness that His strength is made perfect still. "Rich, and
increased with goods, and in need of nothing," is what no soul in the presence
of Christ can say. Rich He is; and for us those riches are available; but the
richer He is in our eyes, the poorer we are in our own. We can only keep the
Laodicean condition by keeping the Lord outside our door.
And is there
not a creed everywhere, largely professed among those who claim to be in some
sort the very leaders of the Christianity of the day, which comes very near
indeed to Laodicean profession? How could the claim to be rich and increased in
goods, and in need of nothing, be more really made than by those who claim for
themselves "perfection?" Perfection! What do they mean by it? That they walk in
very deed and truth just "as Christ walked?" That is the Christian standard; we
cannot, with Scripture before us, make it lower than that. But will anybody say
that even for a single day, aye, for a single hour, he has walked just as
Christ walked?
I know there is Scripture for the word. The devil, in
deceiving Christians, will always take Scripture, if he can, to accomplish his
purpose. But the Scripture term does not mean what in the dialect of the
so-called "higher life" it is made to mean. Take one of the strongest texts
used, "Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect:" the
context shows decisively what is meant. We speak of a thing as perfect that has
all its parts, without at all regarding the finish of the parts. So the Lord
tells us that as children we must resemble our Father, and for this exhibit the
different features of our Father's character. We must not only love those who
love us, but, as He makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth
rain on the just and on the unjust, we must exhibit this feature of His
character also: not righteousness alone, but also love. " Perfection" is also
used for the mature christian condition, as a glance at the margin of Heb. V.
14 will show. The term there "of full age" is in the margin rendered "perfect,"
just as in i Cor. xiv. 20, "be men" is in the margin "perfect," or "of a ripe
age." It is used thus with two applications. In Hebrews Christianity itself is
perfection, or maturity, in contrast with Judaism, which was a state of
childhood. But again, among Christians there are those perfect, or mature, in
contrast with being "babes;" and the apostle Paul, in the third of Philippians,
(in which he disclaims the having already attained, or being already "perfect
"- a consummation which in that sense he would not reach until with Christ in
glory,) classes himself immediately after among those who had in another sense
attained: "Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded."
There are many texts, which I cannot now go through, but this should be
sufficient to prevent the catching at a word, as people are prone to do. Plenty
about perfection there is in Scripture, no doubt; but, as I said before, if
people set up any standard of practical perfection short of walking as Christ
walked, they are really lowering it. If, on the other hand, they can measure
themselves with Christ and feel no rebuke, they must be more than credibly
self-complacent.
Mischief is wrought two ways by the idea. In the
first place, it tends to palliate sin, excuse or cover it by misleading names.
Lust is called temptation, and sometimes even daring dishonour done to Christ
Himself by the insinuation that He too was thus in like manner "tempted." So
people quote "He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin," as
if it meant that He had such inward desires, only restrained them, so that
there was no actual outbreak. This - the actual blasphemy of Irving and of
Thomas - in milder and less positive forms infests masses in the present day.
The text they quote, in the common version, favours these views too much. There
is no word "yet" in the original, as any one may see by the italics. "He was
tempted in all points like as we are, apart from sin," is the true rendering.
You must not imply sin in any way in the Holy One of God! Sin it is that
produces lust, and lust, again, brings forth the positive outward sin. He had
neither, and herein was our total opposite, as Scripture testifies "in many
things we all offend."
But, again, the character of holiness is sadly
spoiled by this perfectionism. It becomes self-occupation, self-assertion. How
much of Christ really do you find in the experiences so largely dealt in by
those who advocate this doctrine? Is it, with the apostle, "not I, but Christ
liveth in me," or is it, alas, a glorified, transfigured, very self-conscious I
that lives and reigns throughout them? They do not see that as the natural
life, in a state of health, does not engross or claim the attention,- as the
heart's pulsation or the lungs' work is not furthered but disturbed by thinking
of it,- so this aim at a self-conscious holiness produces but a poor, sickly
Christianity at best. Is it far off from that which says, I am rich, and have
need of nothing?
"I counsel thee," says the Lord to Laodicea,-" I
counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and
white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness
do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see."
Three things they are exhorted to "buy." So wealthy are they, the Lord
will not talk of giving to them. And, indeed, it would be a happy thing for
them to exchange their riches for them - false glitter for true gold. This is
the first thing, gold -a frequent symbol in Scripture, as you know; pure gold,
as here, "gold tried in the fire," for what is divine. In the ark of. the
testimony, and in the furniture of the holy places generally, gold covered all.
The apostle, I believe, gives us the exact meaning when he speaks of the golden
cherubim as "the cherubim of glory, shadowing the mercy-seat." This "glory" is
the display of what God is. God glorifies Himself when He shines out in the
blessed reality of what He is, and Christ is the true ark in which the two
materials are found together - gold and shittim-wood. The radiance of divine
glory is the gold; the shittim-wood, the precious verity of manhood.
Can we not see why, to Laodicea, the "gold tried in the fire" is the first
requisite? Their riches were but paper money, manufactured out of the rags of
self-righteousness, and of merely conventional, not intrinsic value. Christ is
what they lacked: divine glory, in the only face in which it shines undimmed.
This is the power of Christianity, its essence and its power alike; and this is
what the false, pretentious Christianity of Laodicea lacked so terribly -
occupation with Christ, discernment of what and where all that is true and
valuable is to be found. To know where this is, is to have it. Faith, it is
that finds this treasure. To be without it is to be poor indeed.
Next,
"white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed," is, no doubt, practical
righteousness of life and walk. There is a connection between this and the
former, which, when we have their meaning, becomes evident enough. Unless you
have the divine glory shining in the face of Jesus for your soul, you will find
no ability to live or walk aright. The " white" is the reflection of the full,
undivided ray of light; and God is light. How is our life to be the reflection
of this except as "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, shine
in our hearts, to give out the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in
the face of Jesus Christ"? Leviticus must precede Numbers ever. We must go in
to see God in the sanctuary before we can possibly come out and walk with Him
in the world.
Finally, "anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou
mayest see." Thus there was utter blindness - the condition of the Pharisees
over again, for they surely did not realize it, but said, "We see;" and thus
their sin remained. Had they been consciously blind, Christ was there to heal.
But they, alas, needed not the Physician.
Still He says: "As many as I
love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand
at the door, and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will
come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me." To the last, He holds
out a gracious invitation. His heart lingers while there is yet possibility of
response on their part. But the day of grace is just about to end. If the words
we have been considering find the parallel I have been drawing, if it be not
untruly drawn, then we are surely near that end! Who can tell how near?
Before I close, however, I must return to that significant word which
describes so vividly the moral, spirituals aye, and political character of the
latter days -" the church of the Laodiceans "- the men who claim "people's
rights." Ominous name! terrible claim when uttered in the ears of a God strong
and holy if yet so patient, and provoked every day. It is a claim which denies
the fall and its sentence, confirmed by countless individual sins - the claim
of a world which has refused and crucified the Son of God come into it in
loving mercy!
Let us look at it politically, for its political aspect
is not without the deepest significance. Are not everywhere the nations quaking
af the prospect of an uprise of the masses with this very watchword? When
democracy meant only the curbing of the despotic power of rulers; when it meant
still respect for wealth and rank, and law and order, they could rejoice over
it, and cite it as the evidence of morally improved times. Arbitrary power only
was to be restrained; there was to be equal justice, and quietness and
assurance as the effect of righteousness. No doubt the abuse of power had been
great enough to provoke reprisals, and to make the downfall of absolutism an
apparent real advancement. But man was and is the same; and the mistake has
been ever to suppose that alterations of this kind could really heal or touch a
moral state which was the essence of the trouble. The leprosy, skinned over
here, would break out elsewhere, for it was deeper than the surface - in the
blood - in the vitals of humanity itself.
Who could say where the
movement for men's rights should stop? Who could say to the restless surge of
the sea, Come no further! here shall thy waves be stayed? There were, and there
are still, infinite and gigantic evils, - the power and abuse of wealth, for
instance,- tyrannies which no form of government devised had touched or could
take into account. What does every man's right to his own imply? What is his
own? Is his right to use it to include a right to the enormous abuse of it
which self-interest with power at its back will always make? Whose rights are
to be respected when they come in conflict?
And from a lower level
than before come murmurs, hoarse and threatening: socialism, communism,
nihilism, anarchism - dread names, not merely for the monarch, but also for the
man of property and the law-abiding citizen. "People's rights" threaten to be
in terrible conflict with one another, and in their name how many wrongs to be
inflicted! This is the Laodicea of politics, which is destined to be the rock
on which governmental reform will surely split, and end in anarchy and chaos.
"And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and
upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves
roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things
which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken." But
the removal of the things that can be shaken will only make way for a Kingdom -
not such as they anticipate, but absolute, which admits of no dispute, and
righteous altogether. How comforting to turn from the thoughts that have
engaged us, and think of the contrast to all rule the world has ever seen! "He
shall judge Thy people with righteousness, and Thy poor with judgment. The
mountains shall bring peace to the people; and the little hills by
righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the people; He shall save the
children of the needy, and break in pieces the oppressor. . . . In His days
shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace as long as the moon
endureth. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river to
the ends of the earth. All kings shall fall down before Him; all nations shall
serve Him."
Politically, the Laodician condition closes also the
present state of things.
In another phase of it we shall find Laodicea
characterizing the ecclesiastical state. The political aspect, when Church and
state have come so near together, naturally affects the ecclesiastical aspect
too. Democracy manifests itself unmistakably in this sphere also. The people
are rising up against the long rule of their spiritual leaders, and are
claiming their rights at the hands of these. But they are not content with what
is their just due here: they must be lords of their former masters. They pay
their ministers; and who is the real master - he who pays, or he who is paid?
Having control of the purse-strings, they see no reason why they should not
choose their pastor as they choose their lawyer or their doctor. But this means
that preachers must preach to please them: their doctrines, their style, must
approve themselves to the criticism of their hearers.
And thus, alas,
Scripture is being more and more fulfilled which, prophesying of the last days,
says: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but
after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching
ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned
unto fables." You know that I am advocating no spiritual aristocracy in saying
this. People would accuse me, perhaps, of the opposite extreme. But in truth
both are alike unscriptural. Neither aristocracy nor democracy is God's
principle, but a true theocracy. Christ is alone master - not clergy, not
people. Ministers are but "servants," as the very name imports; but not
"servants of men "- against which the apostle, as you will remember, so
vehemently contends. "If I yet pleased men," says he, "I should not be the
servant of Christ." Thus are these two things in essential opposition. Christ
needs to be in His true place, which Laodiceanism, here as elsewhere, excludes
Him from. Bring Christ in, and the ministers are His servants. Bring Christ in,
and the people are His people. His service, on the part of all alike, is true
and perfect freedom alike to all.
You will understand me when I say
that I rejoice to see the pernicious distinction between clergy and laity being
in some measure done away. I rejoice in the free evangelizing which is going on
in almost all denominations: I rejoice to see Christ's people taking their true
place, as a distinctive priesthood in relation to Him, and vested rights of
clerisy being done away. Only let God's word settle all: let Christ have His
sovereign rights: Laodiceanism will be then impossible.
But, finally,
let us never forget there is a spiritual Laodicea. And this, too, in a double
way. It may be purely spiritual: and here perfectionism, which we have glanced
at, is plainly one form. Another, upon a lower plane, is to be found in that
spirit which contents itself with outward church prosperity; and, neglecting
divine measurement, seeing the Church and the world nearer together, assumes
that the world is coming up to the Christian level, when it is Christians who
are coming down to the level of the world. Christ must be outside the door for
any to think so. The soul supping with Christ, and Christ with it, surely knows
better what are His tastes, and how little the ostentatious ecciesiasticism or
the showy charities so abundant can suit Him. Let me not speak disparagingly. I
do not assign all (God forbid!) to one common rubbish heap. There are numbers
of devoted, sincere labourers whose labours are with God, and whose fruit will
be found with Him. And He, too, who seeth not as man seeth, neither seduced by
fair appearances nor harsh in premature judgment,- He who teaches us that in
taking forth the precious from among the vile we shall be as His mouth,- He,
much more, will find that which is valuable to Him, doubtless, in that which to
us may seem the merest refuse. Still, the general result is but little
affected. The heart that can look complacently upon the general condition of
things religiously can scarcely be with Christ aright. It is not a question of
prophetic knowledge merely, or what views we entertain about the Lord’s
coming, (though our views and our disposition of heart cannot be altogether
disconnected,) but it is a question of obedience to His Word, and of truth of
heart to Him. But spiritual Laodiceanism has yet another phase, and - shall I
own it to you ?- to me it is the most hopeless and distressing. It is where
grace is owned and the Christian standpoint is assumed, the Christian language
used, the ecclesiastical position, so to speak, all right, but where this is
all found essentially inoperative upon the soul! Because here the failure of
the Word is most decided; and if the Word fails, what is there to renew us
by?
Beloved brethren, let me return then to - this, and insist a
little upon it: can we insist too much where this awful brand of Laodicea rests
upon the one with whom God’s truth is only professed, to be more than ever
denied,- Christ’s name assumed to be more than ever dishonoured!
The place in new creation, is it ours? do we profess it ours, that wondrous
place, where, for every one who is in Christ Jesus, "old things are passed away
and all things become new "? If our standing is in Him, is our "walk according
to this rule" of the new creation in Christ Jesus? Are we, as to all fleshly
standing, title, claim, dead with Christ, buried, never to come up again? Who
would think of the old Laodicean contention upon ground like this? Who would
dream of "people’s rights" being here once more the watchword among the
followers of a carpenter’s Son whom the world crucified, and whose chief
spiritual leaders are the fishermen of Galilee?
Brethren, be cold or
hot! be one thing or another plainly. When all are one in Christ, shall there
be room for the hateful strife of democrat and aristocrat, as if the world was
not crucified to us, as if we did not glory in that cross of Christ by which we
are crucified to the world? "Members one of another," "all one in Christ
Jesus"- is this not social equality of the very highest order? Brethren alike
in the family of God, is this indeed, or is it not, nearer, dearer, more
powerful than the ties of flesh? Not aristocracy, not democracy, but theocracy
let that be our watchword!
Is a worldly position something? do our
brethren feel that in our intercourse with them we do indeed (in language which
Scripture is not responsible for, though our common version is) "condescend to
men of low estate?”
Do they feel that it is "condescension," not
a recognition of true equality? On the other hand, is a worldly position which
we have not, something? and are we using our Christian place to lift ourselves
higher in the world, or to assert in the face of another the "equal rights"
which are ours?
To both sides, no study could be more wholesome than
that of the brief epistle in which we find the apostle Paul sending back to his
former condition a runaway slave, now Christian, to his former master,
Christian also. "Receive him as myself," he says to the latter; "no longer as a
servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved." Such was the relationship of
Onesimus to his former master; and such words, in those old days of deeper
reality, meant what they said.
Then, also, as to Onesimus, was he to
claim the place which grace had put him in, and insist on "equal rights" with
his master? Was he to use his Christianity to escape from his slavery, and that
because his master was a Christian? No; on either side, no! Grace was that
under the supremacy of which both master and slave were now alike - the slave
to the master a "brother beloved," but himself subject to a grace which, if it
had given him the new relationship, taught him to value it too highly to
prostitute it to the claim of worldly advantage.
To claim grace is not
grace. It is not grace in me to pull down another from an assumed level, nor
yet to claim one's own from others. It is the prerogative of grace to stoop to
serve; and yet it is grace's prerogative to lift the lowest up upon a level so
high that the highest of earth's princes shall esteem it only immeasurable
exal-tation to be allowed to share it with him, Oh, to be ever Christian is to
sup with Him who, if He admits us to His company, must have the door kept open
for all that are His !-His, and to be associated with Him in the fast-coming
glory, before which all earthly glory even now pales and dies! Philadelphia and
Laodicea! significant contrasts! with which are we? Surely, surely the closing
days of Christendom are Laodicean. Sorrowfully I feel it, and affirm it. And
what then? Why, then He is near; He will come. Let us brace ourselves to our
duty; let us hold fast the faith; let us be only more fully subject to Him
whose rule is service, whose yoke is easy, whose presence and whose fellowship
begin heaven for us upon earth. Oh, to know it better! As we look around, as we
look within, our exhortation changes into prayer.
Christian Holiness. 1
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