SERMON VI. THE SPIRIT AND THE FLESH

GALATIANS, v. 16.

"I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the l.u.s.ts of the flesh. For the flesh l.u.s.teth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other."

The more we think seriously, my friends, the more we shall see what wonderful and awful things words are, how they mean much more than we fancy,--how we do not make words, but words are given to us by one higher than ourselves. Wise men say that you can tell the character of any nation by its language, by watching the words they use, the names they give to things, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, and by our words, our Lord tells us, we shall be justified and condemned.

It is G.o.d, and Christ, the Word of G.o.d, who gives words to men, who puts it into the hearts of men to call certain things by certain names; and, according to a nation's G.o.dliness, and wisdom, and purity of heart, will be its power of using words discreetly and reverently. That miracle of the gift of tongues, of which we read in the New Testament, would have been still most precious and full of meaning if it had had no other use than this--to teach men from whom words come. When men found themselves all of a sudden inspired to talk in foreign languages which they had never learnt, to utter words of which they themselves did not know the meaning, do you not see how it must have made them feel that all language is G.o.d's making and G.o.d's giving? Do you not see how it must have made them feel what awful, mysterious things words were, like those cloven tongues of fire which fell on the apostles? The tongues of fire signified the difficult foreign languages which they suddenly began to speak as the Spirit gave them utterance. And where did the tongues of fire come from? Not out of themselves, not out of the earth beneath, but down from the heaven above, to signify that it is not from man, from man's flesh or brain, or the earthly part of him, that words are bred, but that they come down from Christ the Word of G.o.d, and are breathed into the minds of men by the Spirit of G.o.d.

Why do I speak of all this? To make you feel what awful, wonderful things words are; how, when you want to understand the meaning of a word, you must set to work with reverence and G.o.dly fear--not in self-conceit and prejudice, taking the word to mean just what suits your own notions of things, but trying humbly to find out what the word really does mean of itself, what G.o.d meant it to mean when He put it into the hearts of wise men to use that word and bring it into our English language. A man ought to read a newspaper or a story-book in that spirit; how much more, when he takes up the Bible! How reverently he ought to examine every word in the New Testament--this very text, for instance. We ought to be sure that St. Paul, just because he was an inspired apostle, used the very best possible words to express what he meant on so important a matter; and what ARE the best words? The clearest and the simplest words are the best words; else how is the Bible to be the poor man's book? How, unless the wayfaring man, though simple, shall not err therein? Therefore we may be sure the words in Scripture are certain to be used in their simplest, most natural, most everyday meaning, such as the simplest man can understand. And, therefore, we may be sure, that these two words, "flesh" and "spirit," in my text, are used in their very simplest, straightforward sense; and that St. Paul meant by them what working-men mean by them in the affairs of daily life. No doubt St. Peter says that there are many things in St. Paul's writings difficult to be understood, which those who are unlearned and unstable wrest to their own destruction; and, most true it is, so they do daily. But what does "wresting" a thing mean? It means twisting it, bending it, turning it out of its original straightforward, natural meaning, into some new crooked meaning of their own. This is the way we are all of us too apt, I am afraid, to come to St. Paul's Epistles. We find him difficult because we won't take him at his word, because we tear a text out of its right place in the chapter--the place where St. Paul put it, and make it stand by itself, instead of letting the rest of the chapter explain its meaning. And then, again, people use the words in the text as unfairly and unreasonably as they use the text itself, they won't let the words have their common-sense English meaning--they must stick a new meaning on them of their own. 'Oh,' they say, 'that text must not be taken literally, that word has a spiritual signification here. Flesh does not mean flesh, it means men's corrupt nature;' little thinking all the while that perhaps they understand those words, spiritual, and corrupt, and nature, just as ill as they do the rest of the text.

How much better, my friends, to let the Bible tell its own story; not to be so exceeding wise above what is written, just to believe that St. Paul knew better how to use words than we are likely to do,--just to believe that when he says flesh he means flesh.

Everybody agrees that when he says spirit he means spirit, why, in the name of common sense, when he says flesh should he not mean flesh? For my own part I believe that when St. Paul talks of man's flesh, he means by it man's body, man's heart and brain, and all his bodily appet.i.tes and powers--what we call a man's const.i.tution; in a word, the ANIMAL part of man, just what a man has in common with the beasts who perish.

To understand what I mean, consider any animal--a dog, for instance-- how much every animal has in it what men have,--a body, and brain, and heart; it hungers and thirsts as we do, it can feel pleasure and pain, anger and loneliness, and fear and madness; it likes freedom, company, and exercise, praise and petting, play and ease; it uses a great deal of cunning, and thought, and courage, to get itself food and shelter, just as human beings do: in short, it has a fleshly nature, just as we have, and yet, after all, it is but an animal, and so, in one sense, we are all animals, only more delicately made than the other animals; but we are something more, we have a spirit as well as a flesh, an immortal soul. If any one asks, what is a man? the true answer is, an animal with an immortal spirit in it; and this spirit can feel more than pleasure and pain, which are mere carnal, that is, fleshly things; it can feel trust, and hope, and peace, and love, and purity, and n.o.bleness, and independence, and, above all, it can feel right and wrong. There is the infinite difference between an animal and a man, between our flesh and our spirit; an animal has no sense of right and wrong; a dog who has done wrong is often terrified, but not because he feels it wrong and wicked, but because he knows from experience that he will be punished for doing it: just so with a man's fleshly nature;--a carnal, fleshly man, a man whose spirit is dead within him, whose spiritual sense of right and wrong, and honour and purity, is gone, when he has done a wrong thing is often enough afraid; but why? Not for any spiritual reason, not because he feels it a wicked and abominable thing, a sin, but because he is afraid of being punished for it, because he is afraid that his body, his flesh will be punished by the laws of the land, or by public opinion, or because he has some dim belief that this same body and flesh of his will be burnt in h.e.l.l-fire; and fire, he knows by experience, is a painful thing--and so he is AFRAID of it; there is nothing spiritual in all that,--that is all fleshly, carnal; the heathens in all ages have been afraid of h.e.l.l-fire; but a man's spirit, on the other hand, if it be in h.e.l.l, is in a very different h.e.l.l from mere fire,--a spiritual h.e.l.l, such as torments the evil spirits, at this very moment, although they are going to and fro on this very earth. This earth is h.e.l.l to them; they carry about h.e.l.l in them,--they are their own h.e.l.l. Everlasting shame, discontent, doubt, despair, rage, disgust at themselves, feeling that they are out of favour with G.o.d, out of tune with heaven and earth, loving nothing, believing nothing, ever hating, hating each other, hating themselves most of all--THERE is their h.e.l.l! THERE is the h.e.l.l in which the soul of every wicked man is,--ay, is now while he is in THIS life, though he will only awake to the perfect misery of it after death, when his body and fleshly nature have mouldered away in the grave, and can no longer pamper and stupify him and make him forget his own misery. Ay, there has been many a man in this life who had every fleshly enjoyment which this world can give, riches and pleasure, banquets and palaces, every sense and every appet.i.te pampered,--his pride and his vanity flattered; who never knew what want, or trouble, or contradiction, was on the smallest point; a man, I say, who had every carnal enjoyment which this earth can give to a man's selfish flesh, and yet whose spirit was in h.e.l.l all the while, and who knew it; hating and despising himself for a mean selfish villain, while all the world round was bowing down to him and envying him as the luckiest of men. I am trying to make you understand the infinite difference between a man's flesh and his spirit; how a man's flesh can take no pleasure in spiritual things, while man's spirit of itself can take no pleasure in fleshly things.

Now, the spirit and the flesh, body and soul, in every man, are at war with each other,--they have quarrelled; that is the corruption of our nature, the fruit of Adam's fall. And as the Article says, and as every man who has ever tried to live G.o.dly well knows, from experience, "that infection of nature does remain to the last, even in those who are regenerate." So that as St. Paul says, the spirit l.u.s.teth against the flesh, and the flesh against the spirit; and it continually happens that a man cannot do the things which he would; he cannot do what he knows to be right; thus, as St. Paul says again, a man may delight in the law of G.o.d in his inward man, that is, in his spirit, and yet all the while he shall find another law in his members, I.E. in his body, in his flesh, in his brain which thinks, and his heart which feels, and his senses which are fond of pleasure; and this law of the flesh, these appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions which he has, like other animals, fight against the law of his mind, and when he wishes to do good, make him do evil. Now how is this?

The flesh is not evil; a man's body can be no more wicked than a dumb beast can be wicked. St. Paul calls man's flesh sinful flesh; not because our flesh can sin of itself, but because our sinful souls make our flesh do sinful things; for, he says, Christ came in the likeness of sinful flesh, and yet in him was no sin. The pure and spotless Saviour could not have taken man's flesh upon him if there was any sinfulness in it. The body knows nothing of right and wrong; it is not subject to the law of G.o.d, neither, indeed, can be, says St. Paul. And why? Because G.o.d's law is spiritual; deals with right and wrong. Wickedness, like righteousness, is a spiritual thing. If a man sins, his body is not in fault; it is his spirit; his weak, perverse will, which will sooner listen to what his flesh tells him is pleasant than to what G.o.d tells him is right; for this, my friends, is the secret of the battle of life. We stand between heaven and earth. Above is G.o.d's Spirit striving with our spirits, speaking to them in the depths of our soul, shewing us what is right, putting into our hearts good desires, making us long to be honest and just, pure and manful, loving and charitable; for who is there who has not at times longed after these things, and felt that it would be a blessed thing for him if he were such a man as Jesus Christ was and is?--Above us, I say, is G.o.d's Spirit speaking to our spirits, below us is this world speaking to our flesh, as it spoke to Eve's, saying to us, "This thing is pleasant to the eyes--this thing is good for food--that thing is to be desired to make you wise, and to flatter your vanity and self-conceit." Below us, I say, is THIS world, tempting us to ease, and pleasure, and vanity; and in the middle, betwixt the two, stands up the third part of man-- his SOUL and WILL, set to choose between the voice of G.o.d's Spirit and the temptations of this world--to choose between what is right and what is pleasant--to choose whether he will obey the desires of the spirit, or obey the desires of the flesh. He must choose. If he lets his flesh conquer his spirit, he falls; if he lets his spirit conquer his flesh, he rises; if he lets his flesh conquer his spirit, he becomes what he was not meant to be--a slave to fleshly l.u.s.t; and THEN he will find his flesh set up for itself, and work for itself. And where man's flesh gets the upper hand, and takes possession of him, it can do nothing but evil--not that it is evil in itself, but that it has no rule, no law to go by; it does not know right from wrong; and therefore it does simply what it likes, as a dumb beast or an idiot might; and therefore the works of the flesh are--adulteries, drunkenness, murders, fornications, envyings, backbitings, strife. When a man's body, which G.o.d intended to be the servant of his spirit, has become the tyrant of his spirit, it is like an idiot on a king's throne, doing all manner of harm and folly without knowing that it IS harm and folly. That is not ITS fault. Whose fault is it, then? OUR fault--the fault of our wills and our souls. Our souls were intended to be the masters of our flesh, to conquer all the weaknesses, defilements of our const.i.tution--our tempers, our cowardice, our laziness, our hastiness, our nervousness, our vanity, our love of pleasure--to listen to our spirits, because our spirits learn from G.o.d's Spirit what is right and n.o.ble. But if we let our flesh master us, and obey its own blind l.u.s.ts, we sin against G.o.d; and we sin against G.o.d doubly; for we not only sin against G.o.d's commandments, but we sin against ourselves, who are the image and glory of G.o.d.

Believe this, my friends; believe that, because you are all fallen human creatures, there must go on in you this sore life-long battle between your spirit and your flesh--your spirit trying to be master and guide, as it ought to be, and your flesh rebelling, and trying to conquer your spirit and make you a mere animal, like a fox in cunning, a peac.o.c.k in vanity, or a hog in greedy sloth. But believe, too, that it is your sin and your shame if your spirit does not conquer your flesh--for G.o.d has promised to help your spirits.

Ask Him, and His Spirit will teach them--fill them with pure, n.o.ble hopes, with calm, clear thoughts, and with deep, unselfish love to G.o.d and man. He will strengthen your wills, that they may be able to refuse the evil and choose the good. Ask Him, and He will join them to His own Spirit--to the Spirit of Christ, your Master; for he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit with Him. Ask him, and He will give you the mind of Christ--teach you to see and feel all matters as Christ sees and feels them. Ask Him, and He will give you wisdom to listen to His Spirit when it teaches your spirit, and then you will be able to walk after the spirit, and not obey the l.u.s.ts of the flesh; and you will be able to crucify the flesh with its pa.s.sions and l.u.s.ts, that is, to make it, what it ought to be, a dead thing--a dead tool for your spirit to work with manfully and G.o.dly, and not a live tyrant to lead you into brutishness and folly; and then you will find that the fruit of the spirit, of your spirit led by G.o.d's Spirit, is really, as St. Paul says, "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, honesty"--"whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honourable and of good report;" and instead of being the miserable slaves of your own pa.s.sions, and of the opinions of your neighbours, you will find that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, true freedom, not only from your neighbours'

sins, but, what is far better, freedom from your own.

These are large words, my friends, and promise mighty things. But I dare speak them to you, for G.o.d has spoken to you. These promises G.o.d made you at your baptism; these promises I, on the warrant of your baptism, dare make to you again. At your baptism, G.o.d gave you the right to call Him your loving Father, to call His Son your Saviour, His Spirit your Sanctifier. And He is not a man, that He should lie; nor the son of man, that He should repent! Try Him, and see whether He will not fulfil His word. Claim His promise, and though you have fallen lower than the brutes, He will make men and women of you. He will be faithful and just to forgive you your sins, and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

SERMON VII. RETRIBUTION

NUMBERS, x.x.xii. 23.

"Be sure your sin will find you out."

The full meaning of this text is, that every sin which a man commits is certain, sooner or later, to come home to him with fearful interest.

Moses gave this warning to two tribes of the Israelites,--to the Reubenites and Gadites, who had promised to go over Jordan, and help their countrymen in war against the heathen, on condition of being allowed to return and settle on the east bank of Jordan, where they then were; but if they broke their promise, and returned before the end of the war, they were to be certain that their sin would find them out; that G.o.d would avenge their falsehood on them in some way in their lifetime: in their lifetime, I say, for there is no mention made in this chapter, or in any part of the story, of heaven or h.e.l.l, or any world to come. And the text has been always taken as a fair warning to all generations of men, that their sin also, even in their lifetimes, will be visited upon them.

Now, it is strange, at first sight, that these texts, which warn men that their sins will be punished in this life, are just the most unpleasant texts in the whole Bible; that men shrink from them more, and shut their eyes to them more than they do to those texts which threaten them with h.e.l.l-fire and everlasting death. Strange!--that men should be more afraid of being punished in this life for a few years than in the life to come for ever and ever;--and yet not strange if we consider; for to worldly and sinful souls, that life after death and the flames of h.e.l.l seem quite distant and dim-- things of which they know little and believe less, while this world they DO know, they are quite certain that its good things are pleasant and its bad things unpleasant, and they are thoroughly afraid of losing THEM. Their hearts are where their treasure is, in this world; and a punishment which deprives them of this world's good things. .h.i.ts them home: but their treasure is NOT in heaven, and, therefore, about losing heaven they are by no means so much concerned. And thus they can face the dreadful news that "the wicked shall be turned into h.e.l.l, and all the people that forget G.o.d;" while, as for the news that the wicked shall be recompensed on the earth, that their sins will surely find them out in this life, they cannot face that--they shut their ears to it,--they try to persuade themselves that sin will PAY them HERE, at all events; and as for hereafter, they shall get off somehow,--they neither know nor care much how.

Yet G.o.d's truth remains, and G.o.d's truth must be heard; and those who love this world so well must be told, whether they like or not, that every sin which they commit, every mean, every selfish, every foul deed, loses them so much enjoyment in this very present world of which they are so mighty fond. That is G.o.d's truth; and I will prove it true from common sense, from Holy Scripture, and FROM THE WITNESS of men's own hearts.

Take common sense. Does not common sense tell us that if G.o.d made this world, and governs it by righteous and G.o.d-like laws, this must be a world in which evil-doing cannot thrive? G.o.d made the world better than that, surely! He would be a bad law-giver who made such laws, that it was as well to break them as to keep them. You would call them bad laws, surely! No, G.o.d made the world, and not the devil; and the world works by G.o.d's laws, and not the devil's; and it inclines towards good, and not towards evil; and he who sins, even in the least, breaks G.o.d's laws, acts contrary to the rule and const.i.tution of the world, and will surely find that G.o.d's laws will go on in spite of him, and grind him to powder, if he by sinning gets in the way of them. G.o.d has no need to go out of His way to punish our evil deeds. Let them alone, and they will punish themselves. Is it not so in every thing? If a tradesman trades badly, or a farmer farms badly, there is no need of lawyers to punish him; he will punish himself. Every mistake he makes will take money out of his pocket; every time he offends against the established rules of trade or agriculture, which are G.o.d's laws, he injures himself; and so, be sure, it is in the world at large,--in the world in which men and the souls of men live, and move, and have their being.

Next, to speak of Scripture. I might quote texts innumerable to prove that what I say Scripture says also. Consider but this one thing,--that there is a whole book in the Bible written to prove this one thing,--that our good and bad deeds are repaid us with interest in this life--the Proverbs of Solomon I mean--in which there is little or no mention of heaven or h.e.l.l, or any world to come. It is all one n.o.ble, and awful, and yet cheering sermon on that one text, "The righteous shall be recompensed in the earth, much more the wicked and the sinner,"--put in a thousand different lights; brought home to us a thousand different roads, comes the same everlasting doom,--"Vain man, who thinkest that thou canst live in G.o.d's world and yet despise His will, know that, in every smiling, comfortable sin, thou art hatching an adder to sting thee in the days of old age, to poison thy cup of sinful joy, even when it is at thy lips; to haunt thy restless thoughts, and dog thee day and night; to rise up before thee, in the silent, sleepless hours of night, like an angry ghost! An awful foretaste of the doom that is to come; and yet a merciful foretaste, if thou wilt be but taught by the disappointment, the unsatisfied craving, the gnawing shame of a guilty conscience, to see the heinousness of sin, and would turn before it be too late."

What, my friends,--what will you make of such texts as this, "That he who soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption?" Do you not see that comes true far too often? Can it help ALWAYS coming true, seeing that G.o.d's apostle spoke it? What will you make of this, too, "That the wicked is snared by the working of his own hands;"--"That EVIL"--the evil which we do of its own self--"shall slay the wicked?" What says the whole n.o.ble 37th Psalm of David, but that same awful truth of G.o.d, that sin is its own punishment?

Why should I go on quoting texts? Look for yourselves, you who fancy that it is only on the other side of the grave that G.o.d will trouble Himself about you and your meanness, your profligacy, your falsehood. Look for yourselves in the book of G.o.d, and see if there be any writer there,--lawgiver, prophet, psalmist, apostle, up to Christ the Lord Himself,--who does not warn men again and again, that here, on earth, their sins will find them out. Our Saviour, indeed, when on earth, said less about this subject than any of the prophets before Him, or the apostles after Him, and for the best of reasons. The Jews had got rooted in their minds a superst.i.tious notion, that all disease, all sorrow, was the punishment in each case of some particular sin; and thus, instead of looking with pity and loving awe upon the sick and the afflicted, they were accustomed, too often, to turn from them as sinners, smitten of G.o.d, bearing in their distress the token of His anger. The blessed One,-- He who came to heal the sick and save the lost,--reproved that error more than once. When the disciples fancied a certain poor man's blindness to be a judgment from G.o.d, "Neither did he sin,"

said the Lord, "nor his parents, but that the glory of G.o.d might be made manifest in him." And yet, on the other hand, when He healed a certain man of an old infirmity at the pool of Bethesda, what were His words to him? "Go thy way, sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee;"--a clear and weighty warning that all his long misery of eight-and-thirty years had been the punishment of some sin of his, and that the sin repeated would bring on him a still severer judgment.

What, again, does the apostle mean, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, when he tells us how G.o.d scourges every son whom he receives, and talks of His chastis.e.m.e.nts, whereof all are partakers. Why do we need chastising if we have nothing which needs mending? And though the innocent MAY sometimes be afflicted to make them strong as well as innocent, and the holy chastened to make them humble as well as holy, yet if the good cannot escape their share of affliction, how will the bad get off? "If the righteous scarcely be saved, where will the unG.o.dly and the sinner appear?" But what use in arguing when you know that my words are true? You KNOW that your sins will find you out. Look boldly and honestly into your own hearts. Look through the history of your past lives, and confess to G.o.d, at least, that the far greater number of your sorrows have been your own fault; that there is hardly a day's misery which you ever endured in your life of which you might not say, 'If I had listened to the voice of G.o.d in my conscience--if I had earnestly considered what my DUTY was--if I had prayed to G.o.d to determine my judgment right, I should have been spared this sorrow now?' Am I not right?

Those who know most of G.o.d and their own souls will agree most with me; those who know little about G.o.d and their own souls will agree but hardly with me, for they provoke G.o.d's chastis.e.m.e.nts, and writhe under them for the time, and then go and do the same wrong again, as the wild beast will turn and bite the stone thrown at him without having the sense to see why it was thrown.

Think, again, of your past lives, and answer in G.o.d's sight, how many wrong things have you ever done which have SUCCEEDED, that is, how many sins which you would not be right glad were undone if you could but put back the wheels of Time? They may have succeeded OUTWARDLY; meanness will succeed so--lies--oppression--theft-- adultery--drunkenness--G.o.dlessness--they are all pleasant enough while they last, I suppose; and a man may reap what he calls substantial benefits from them in money, and suchlike, and keep that safe enough; but has his sin succeeded? Has it not FOUND HIM OUT?-- found him out never to lose him again? Is he the happier for it?

Does he feel freer for it? Does he respect himself the more for it?--No! And even though he may prosper now, yet does there not run though all his selfish pleasure a certain fearful looking forward to a fiery judgment to which he would gladly shut his eyes, but cannot?

Cunning, fair-spoken oppressor of the poor, has not thy sin found thee out? Then be sure it will. In the shame of thine own heart it will find thee out;--in the curses of the poor it will find thee out;--in a friendless, restless, hopeless death-bed, thy covetousness and thy cruelty will glare before thee in their true colours, and thy sin will find thee out!

Profligate woman, who art now casting away thy honest name, thy self-respect, thy womanhood, thy baptism-vows, that thou mayest enjoy the foul pleasures of sin for a season, has not thy sin found thee out? Then be sure it will hereafter, when thou hast become disgusted at thyself and thine own infamy,--and youth, and health, and friends, are gone, and a shameful and despised old age creeps over thee, and death stalks nearer and nearer, and G.o.d vanishes further and further off, then thy sin will find thee out!

Foolish, improvident young man, who art wasting the n.o.ble strength of youth, and manly spirits which G.o.d has given thee on sin and folly, throwing away thine honest earnings in cards and drunkenness, instead of laying them by against a time of need--has not thy sin found thee out? Then be sure it will some day, when thou hast to bring home thy bride to a cheerless, unfurnished house, and there to live from hand to mouth,--without money to provide for her sickness,--without money to give her the means of keeping things neat and comfortable when she is well,--without a farthing laid by against distress, and illness, and old age:--THEN your sin will find you out: then, perhaps, my text,--my words--may come across you as you sigh in vain in your comfortless home, in your impoverished old age, for the money which you wasted in your youth! My friends, my friends, for your own sakes consider, and mend ere that day come, as else it surely will!

And, lastly, you who, without running into any especial sins, as those which the world calls sins, still live careless about religion, without loyalty to Christ the Lord, without any honest attempt, or even wish, to serve the G.o.d above you, or to rejoice in remembering that you are His children, working for Him and under Him,--be sure your sin will find you out. When affliction, or sickness, or disappointment come, as come they will, if G.o.d has not cast you off;--when the dark day dawns, and your fool's paradise of worldly prosperity is cut away from under your feet, then you will find out your folly--you will find that you have insulted the only Friend who can bring you out of affliction--cast off the only comfort which can strengthen you to bear affliction--forgotten the only knowledge which will enable you to be the wiser for affliction.

Then, I say, the sin of your G.o.dlessness will find you out; if you do not intend to fall, soured and sickened merely by G.o.d's chastis.e.m.e.nts, either into stupid despair or peevish discontent, you will have to go back, to go back to G.o.d and cry, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before Thee, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son."

Go back at once before it be too late. Find out your sins and mend them--before they find you out, and break your hearts.

SERMON VIII. SELF-DESTRUCTION

1 KINGS, xxii. 23.

"The Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets."

The chapter from which my text is taken, which is the first lesson for this evening's service, is a very awful chapter, for it gives us an insight into the meaning of that most awful and terrible word-- temptation. And yet it is a most comforting chapter, for it shews us how G.o.d is long-suffering and merciful, even to the most hardened sinner; how to the last He puts before him good and evil, to choose between them, and warns him to the last of his path, and the ruin to which it leads.

We read of Ahab in the first lesson this morning as a thoroughly wicked man,--mean and weak, cruel and unG.o.dly, governed by his wife Jezebel, a heathen woman, in marrying whom he had broken G.o.d's law,-- a woman so famous for cruelty and fierceness, vanity and wickedness, that her name is a by-word even here in England now--"as bad as Jezebel," we say to this day. We heard of Ahab in this morning's lesson letting Jezebel murder the righteous Naboth, by perjury and slander, to get possession of his vineyard; and then, instead of shrinking with abhorrence from his wife's iniquity, going down and taking possession of the land which he had gained by her sin. We read of G.o.d's curse on him, and yet of G.o.d's long-suffering and pardon to him on his repentance. Yet, neither G.o.d's curse nor G.o.d's mercy seem to have moved him. But he had been always the same. "He did evil," the Bible tells us, "in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him." He deserted the true G.o.d for his wife's idols and false G.o.ds; and in spite of Elijah's miracle at Carmel--of which you heard last Sunday--by which he proved by fire which was the true G.o.d, and in spite of the wonderful victory which G.o.d had given him, by means of one of G.o.d's prophets, over the Syrians, he still remained an idolater. He would not be taught, nor understand; neither G.o.d's threats nor mercies could move him; he went on sinning against light and knowledge; and now his cup was full--his days were numbered, and G.o.d's vengeance was ready at the door.

He consulted all his false prophets as to whether or not he should go to attack the Syrians at Ramoth-Gilead. They knew what to say-- they knew that their business was to prophesy what would pay them-- what would be pleasant to him. They did not care whether what they said was true or not--they lied for the sake of gain, for the Lord had put a lying spirit into their mouths. They were rogues and villains from the first. They had turned prophets, not to speak G.o.d's truth, but to make money, to flatter King Ahab, to get themselves a reputation. We do not hear that they were all heathens. Many of them may have believed in the true G.o.d. But they were cheats and liars, and so they had given place to the devil, the father of lies: and now he had taken possession of them in spite of themselves, and they lied to Ahab, and told him that he would prosper in the battle at Ramoth-Gilead. It was a dangerous thing for them to say; for if he had been defeated, and returned disappointed, his rage would have most probably fallen on them for deceiving them. And as in those Eastern countries kings do whatever they like without laws or parliaments, Ahab would have most likely put them all to a miserable death on the spot. But however dangerous it might be for them to lie, they could not help lying. A spirit of lies had seized them, and they who began by lying, because it paid them, now could not help doing so whether it paid them or not.

But the good king of Judah, Jehoshaphat, had no faith in these flattering villains. He asked whether there was not another prophet of the Lord to inquire of? Ahab told him that there was one, Micaiah the son of Imlah, but that he hated him, because he only prophesied evil of him. What a thorough picture of a hardened sinner--a man who has become a slave to his own l.u.s.ts, till he cares nothing for a thing being true, provided only it is pleasant! Thus the wilful sinner, like Ahab, becomes both fool and coward, afraid to look at things as they are; and when G.o.d's judgments stare him in the face, the wretched man shuts his eyes tight, and swears that the evil is not there, just because he does not choose to see it.

But the evil was there, ready for Ahab, and it found him. When he forced Micaiah to speak, Micaiah told him the whole truth. He told him a vision, or dream, which he had seen. "Hear thou therefore the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him. And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-Gilead? And there came forth a spirit, and said, I will go forth, and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the Lord said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so. Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee."

What warning could be more awful, and yet more plain? Ahab was told that he was listening to a lie. He had free choice to follow that lie or not, and he did follow it. After having put Micaiah into prison for speaking the truth to him, he went up to Ramoth-Gilead; and yet he felt he was not safe. He had his doubts and his fears.

He would not go openly into the battle, but disguised himself, hoping that by this means he should keep himself safe from evil.

Fool! G.o.d's vengeance could not be stopped by his paltry cunning.

In spite of all his disguises, a chance shot struck him down between the joints of his armour. His chariot-driver carried him out of the battle, and "he was stayed up in his chariot against the Syrians, and died at even: and the blood ran out of his wound into the midst of the chariot. And one washed the chariot in the pool of Samaria; and the dogs licked up his blood there," according to the word of the Lord, which He spoke by the mouth of His prophet Elijah, saying, "In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, whom thou slewest, shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine."

And do not fancy, my friends, that because this is a miraculous story of ancient times, it has nothing to do with us. All these things were written for our example. This chapter tells us not merely how Ahab was tempted, but it tells us how WE are tempted, every one of us, here in England, in these very days. As it was with Ahab, so it is with us. Every wilful sin that we commit we give room to the devil. Every wrong step that we take knowingly, we give a handle to some evil spirit to lead us seven steps further wrong. And yet in every temptation G.o.d gives us a fair chance. He is no cruel tyrant who will deliver us over to the devil, to be led helpless and blindfold to our ruin. He did not give Ahab over to him so. He sent a lying spirit to deceive Ahab's prophets, that Ahab might go up and fall at Ramoth-Gilead; but at the very same time, see, he sends a holy and a true man, a man whom Ahab could trust, and did trust at the bottom of his heart, to tell him that the lie was a lie, to warn him of his ruin, so that he might have no excuse for listening to those false prophets--no excuse for following his own pride, his own ambition, to his destruction. So you see, "Let no man say, when he is tempted, I am tempted of G.o.d, for G.o.d tempteth no man, but every one is tempted when he is led away by his own l.u.s.t and enticed." Ahab was led away by his own l.u.s.t; his cowardly love of hearing what was pleasant and flattering to him, rather than what was true--rather than what he knew he deserved; that was what enticed him to listen to Zedekiah and the false prophets, rather than to Micaiah the son of Imlah. THAT is what entices us to sin--the l.u.s.t of believing what is pleasant to us, what suits our own self-will--what is pleasant to our bodies-- pleasant to our purses--pleasant to our pride and self-conceit.

Then, when the lying spirit comes and whispers to us, by bad thoughts, by bad books, by bad men, that we shall prosper in our wickedness, does G.o.d leave us alone to listen to those evil voices without warning? No! He sends His prophets to us, as He sent Micaiah to Ahab, to tell us that the wages of sin is death--to tell us that those who sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind--to set before us at every turn good or evil, that we may choose between them, and live or die according to our choice. For do not fancy that there are no prophets in our days, unless the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is promised to all who believe, be a dream and a lie.

There are prophets nowadays,--yea, I say unto you, and more than prophets. Is not the Bible a prophet? Is not every page in it a prophecy to us, foretelling G.o.d's mercies and G.o.d's punishments towards men. Is not every holy and wise book, every holy and wise preacher and writer, a prophet, expounding to us G.o.d's laws, foretelling to us G.o.d's opinions of our deeds, both good and evil?

Ay, is not every man a prophet to himself? That "still small voice"

in a man's heart, which warns him of what is evil--that feeling which makes him cheerful and free when he has done right, sad and ashamed when he has done wrong--is not that a prophecy in a man's own heart? Truly it is. It is the voice of G.o.d within us--it is the Spirit of G.o.d striving with our spirits, whether we will hear, or whether we will forbear--setting before us what is righteous, and n.o.ble, and pure, and what is manly and G.o.d-like--to see whether we will obey that voice, or whether we will obey our own selfish l.u.s.ts, which tempt us to please ourselves--to pamper ourselves, our greediness, covetousness, ambition, or self-conceit. And again, I say, we have our prophets. Every preacher of righteousness is a prophet. Every good tract is a prophet. That Prayer-book, those Psalms, those Creeds, those Collects, which you take into your mouths every Sunday, what are they but written prophecies, crying unto us with the words of holy men of old, greater than Micaiah, or David, or Elijah, "Hear thou the word of the Lord?" The spirits of those who wrote that Prayer-book--the spirits of just men made perfect, filled with the Spirit of the Lord--they call to us to learn the wisdom which they knew, to avoid the temptations which they conquered, that we may share in the glory in which they shared round the throne of Christ for evermore.