The wall and the gates : and other sermons

Contents

Chapter P»K«

I. The Wall 7

II. The Gates 21

III

The dead man touching the bones of Elisha revived.

II Kings 13:21

Miracles are not numerous in the Scriptures. You may find more of them in the biography of a single saint than in all the sacred story. Ordinarily God fulfills his purpose through the medium of the laws and forces which he has ordained. But he is not bound by them ; he is not entangled in a network which his own hands have woven. Sometimes he makes bare his arm and supersedes the common processes of nature, that men may look beyond nature to nature's Lord. God is in the world, but God is above it, too. Scripture portrays at once the immanent and the transcendent God. In this variety of method the divine wisdom conspicuously appears. Faith in the uniformity of nature is essential to all our knowledge, to all our activity. All our calculations are based upon it. That the course of nature will pursue its unvarying round, that the sun will tread its wonted path through the heavens, that the seasons will come and go with the interchange of seedtime land harvest, that the properties of matter and of spirit abide evermore all unchanged — upon these assumptions our hopes and purposes are builded. Else to-morrow might usher us into a new world, where all our past experience would be confounded. If miracles were so frequent as to shatter or disturb our faith in the constancy of nature, they would tear away the ground on which we stand, rob us of the principles by which life is governed, destroy the motives of industry, and lead us from the realm of law to the realm of chance. But on the other hand if that uniformity were never broken, we might conclude that there is no power in the universe higher than the forces to which we have grown accustomed. If miracles were common we might lose faith in nature ; if they were wanting, we might lose faith in God. There are miracles, but they are few, that we may believe alike in nature and in nature's God.

The Old Testament records about fifty miracles. Few as they are they are not equally distributed, but are gathered in clusters about certain illustrious names and memorable epochs. Four fifths of them were wrought during two notable eras, which together embrace not more than one hundred and twenty years — the era of the Exodus from Egypt and the conquest of Canaan, and the days of Elijah and Elisha. Those were critical times and God interposed with strong hand and outstretched arm for the salvation of his people.

The story of the text furnishes the only instance in Scripture of a miracle wrought through the dead. Ordinarily God works through the living. But God can use the bones of the dead as well as the voice of the living prophet. The purpose of the miracle is evidence when we recall the circumstances of the time. A succession of weak and wicked kings had brought Israel to the verge of ruin. Year by year the Moabites were accustomed to invade and ravage the land. During one of their incursions this incident took place. As a company of Israelites were engaged in burying a man they spied a band of Moabites appoaching, and hurriedly thrust the corpse into the tomb of Elisha. When the man touched the bones of the prophet he revived and stood up on his feet. Obviously the miracle would give new weight and power to the words of Elisha, as if he spake again from the grave. God sets his seal to the message of the prophet. The evils were rife, the perils imminent, against which Elisha had warned the people, and now, though dead, he lifted up his voice and from the sepulcher called them to repentance.

But the miracle taught a lesson yet more important. Elisha is dead, but Elisha's God lives. His power is not broken because a poor human instrument has fallen from his hand. When the king wept over the face of the dying prophet he cried, " My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof ! " For Elisha had been the strength of Israel, the bulwark of the state. Yet not Elisha, but Elisha's God. On the tomb of John Wesley in Westminster Abbey is the inscription, " God buries the workman but carries on the work." When the soul of Mohammed passed away the people would not believe that he was dead. " How can He be dead, our witness, our intercessor, our mediator with God? He is not dead; like Moses and

Jesus he is wrapped in a holy trance, and speedily will he return to his faithful people." Omar threatened to strike off the head of him who should dare to affirm that the prophet was no more. But Abubeker cried, ** Is it Mohammed or the God of Mohammed whom you worship? The God of Mohammed liveth forever, but the apostle was a mortal like ourselves. ^' God will not suffer us to rest in men. After Elijah comes Elisha, after Elisha comes God,

** God fulfills himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world."

The Kingdom of heaven does not move in a circle. It has its routine, it has its surprises too. Through teaching, through miracles, by the hand of the living and by the hand of the dead, the will of God is done.

The text furnishes an illustration in the physical sphere of a spiritual truth. The power of life does not terminate with death. The grave is not a place of darkness and emptiness. A thousand streams of power flow from it to bless or curse the world. There is no tongue so eloquent, no hand so mighty as those upon which death has set its solemn seal, clothing them with a sanctity beyond the power of life to bestow. The most potent forces that operate upon the hearts of men and shape the fortunes of the race emanate from the grave. Consider the law of heredity. Body and soul are a heritage, transmitted from a long line of ancestry. Inclination, disposition, temperament, whence come they? They are no new creation, they are our inheritance. Inquire whence you have derived your physical and mental characteristics, your features, constitution, tendencies, and you may find the secret of them buried in some long-forgotten grave. The souls of the departed live again in us, their children. Men are bound in fetters of appetite and passion that were forged centuries ago. As a storm a thousand miles out at sea drives the swell and surge of the Atlantic upon our coast, so we are borne upon the rush and sweep of forces that were begotten when the world was young. The fingers of the dead are always playing upon our hearts and evoking the music and the discords of our lives. The living must own the sway of those from whom soul and body are derived, in whom we were fashioned generations before we were born.

The law holds good upon the largest scale. The world in which we live is the work of ghostly fingers. What have we that the dead have not given us? What do we know that the dead have not taught us? What are we that the dead have not made us ? Plato and Aristotle fill the chair of philosophy in every college in Christendom. Hannibal and Caesar still ride the storms of war, and muster contending hosts to battle. Every day Socrates is propounding questions and teaching morals in market places and on the street corners. The will of Peter the Great, if we may trust tradition, has dictated the policy of

Russia for two hundred years, and the fortunes of that mighty empire lay in the grasp of skeleton fingers. Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Webster are potent in the councils of the Republic to-day. John Marshall administers justice upon the bench of the Supreme Court. If we are lifted higher and see further than our fathers, it is because we have climbed upon their shoulders. The living execute the mandates of the mighty dead —

" The dead but sceptred sovereigns who still rule Our spirits from their urns."

Moses gives law to the civilized world after thirty centuries have passed. In every worshiping congregation David leads the song of praise, and Peter and Paul and John preach the gospel every Sunday in ten thousand pulpits. Hush the voices of the dead and the sweetest music of earth would be put to silence.

The law prevails in individual experience. " The life of the dead," said Cicero, " is placed in the memory of the living." We canonize the dead. Every household, every heart has its saints. We strew their graves with flowers, we keep their memory green in our hearts.

" That's hallowed ground where mourned and missed The lips repose our love has kissed; But Where's their memory's mansion? Is't

No! In ourselves their souls exist,

A part of ours."

When the sacred writer would incite us to patient endurance and strenuous endeavor in the Christian race, next to the vision of Jesus, who himself on earth trod this way before us, and now in heaven waits to award the prize, he finds no more inspiring thought than the great cloud of witnesses that compass us about, the spirits of the departed, who look down upon us from the heights which they have won. How many are there who have said with Mark Antony, as the earth was heaped upon the lifeless clay, " My heart is in the coffin there." The most sacred memories, the most potent inspirations known to earth are those which center in the grave. Trace to their sources the influences that have molded your character and shaped your life, and they lead you to the resting places of the dead. If I should ask you what are the mightiest forces that play upon your life to-day, whither would you lead me? Not to your place of business, not to the house of God, not even to your home, with its empty seats at the table, its broken circle — you would lead me from the haunts of the living to some quiet spot where the dead are sleeping, the little country churchyard or the crowded cemetery of the great city, and pointing to the name engraved on headstone or monument, would say, " The man, the woman, who made me, who is making me, what I am, lies there." The worship of saints, the veneration of relics, is only a mistaken recognition of the truth that " the actions of the just smell sweet and blossom in the dust."

In his " Philosophy of the Christian Religion/' Principal Fairbairn tells us of his own experience. " He who writes these things once knew a man who was to him companion, friend, and more than brother. They lived, they thought, they argued together ; together they walked on the hillside and by the seashore; they had listened to the wind as it soughed through the trees and to the multitudinous laughter of the waves as they broke upon the beach ; together they had watched the purple light which floated radiant above the heather and together they had descended into the slums of a great city, where no light was nor any fragrance, and had faced the worst depravity of our kind. Each kept hope alive in the other and stimulated him to high endeavor and better purpose ; but though the same week saw the two friends settled in chosen fields of labor, the one settled only to be called home, the other to remain and work his tale of toil until his longer day be done. But the one who died seemed to leave his spirit behind in the breast of the man who survived ; and he has lived ever since, and lives still, feeling as if the soul within him belonged to the man who died." And he adds, " May we not say this experience is common and interprets the experience of the race? " Surely we can all testify from our own experience that the influence of those we loved was not buried in the grave but abides with us in sanctifying and inspiring power. Therefore is it " Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all *'?

What is true of those who have gone before is true of us. " I shall not all die," said the old Roman. " Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die," said the Master, " it abideth alone ; but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit." Life is a seed that must be sown before it will yield its harvest. The power of life is not exhausted in the few fleeting years that we sojourn in the flesh. We cannot put forth the full measure of our strength until the earth has closed above us. We shall live in other hearts, work on in other lives that we shall move and fashion in generations yet unborn. We are the bridge that shall transmit the past to the future, and to-morrow shall have nothing but what is given by to-day. " To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die." Even as our Master wrought for a few years in the flesh and now and forever carries on his work through those in whom his Spirit dwells, in whom he lives again, so do we, in our small way, on our humble scale, spend a. little time in the labor of the flesh and thereafter wield a larger power and carry on a greater work through those whose lives have been molded and kindled by ours. The torch of knowledge, of liberty, of religion is passed from hand to hand throughout the generations of men, and because we were faithful in our place the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. We do not cease to serve when we cease to live. Of us shall be born

" The crowning race Of those that eye to eye shall look On knowledge; under whose command Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand Is nature like an open book;

No longer half-akin to brute, For all we thought and loved and did, And hoped, and suffered, is but seed Of what in them is flower and fruit."

The story of Elijah illustrates this truth. His magnificent victory on Carmel, where he contended alone against a host and overcame them in the power of God, seemed barren of result. Even he, the man of iron, lost heart and fled. He cried with Isaiah, " I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nought." But was there no fruit of that bold and earnest ministry? What was the greatest work that Elijah wrought? It was not the smiting of the land with drought, it was not the slaughter of the priests of Baal. The noblest work of Elijah was Elisha. God gave him to train his successor, that when the prophet's mantle fell from his shoulders it might rest upon one who was worthy to wear it. God prepared Elisha for the service of the Kingdom through Elijah. Though a man of very diflferent temper, he was made partaker of the spirit of his master, and the new prophet caught the inspiration of the old. The spirit of Elijah lived again in him, never ceased from Israel, and nine hundred years later flamed forth in the fiery zeal of John the Baptist. Thus the Kingdom grows in orderly progression. No generation, no man, is isolated and distinct. Each is a link in the chain, springing out of that which precedes, leading on to that which follows. The greatest work that any man can accomplish is to train a successor, that his work shall not die with him. The tree not only yields its own fruit but gives birth to other trees, and the harvest is propagated far and wide. So

" May I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again, In minds made better by their presence — Whose music is the gladness of the world."

Influence after death is in line with the influence of the life. Elijah's ministry was destructive, Elisha's was beneficent. It was Elisha's body, as we should expect, that with a touch restored the dead to life. There is a law of spiritual inertia. We set in motion forces that work on forever in straight lines. With death ouf influence escapes us and we have no power to increase or lessen it or alter its direction by a hair's breadth. *' Gather up my influence and bury it with me," cried a young man on his deathbed, but he cried in vain. As soon call back the ripples that the stone makes in the quiet lake, as soon still the throbbing of the air when smitten with the sound of thunder, as reclaim the influence of a life. While the thought is in your heart, while the word is in your mouth, while the deed is in your hand, it is yours. You may give it or withhold. But once the thought is expressed, once the word is spoken, once the deed is done, they are yours no longer. The influence that has gone out from us into the great world we can no more recall than the river can recall the waters that it has poured into the sea. Now we are determining the nature of the power that we shall exercise upon the world to the end of time. Now we are shaping the forces that shall soon break away from our control to enter upon their mission of cursing or of blessing. We have read in Eastern tales of men who called up spirits from the vasty deep, and trembled before them when they appeared, terrified at the success of their incantations.

Often should we fear if, from the undiscovered future, we could call up the spirits that we to-day are loosing from their prison house, the forces that we are setting in motion to work upon the hearts of men. How solemn is the thought, what I 'am here I shall be forever ; what I do here I shall do forever. Are you willing that all the futures^ shall bear the impression of the present? Are you willing to be, to do, forever, what you are doing now? Are you walking where you would have your children tread in your footsteps? Are you leading the life tliat you would have them lead ? Though a man be careless of his own life, let him think of the lives that lare bound up with his. God has united us with strong cords of interest and affection as men are fastened together when they climb the Alps, that if one slip and fall his companions may hold him fastj but sometimes it happens that the rope which was designed for safety proves their destruction, and they drag each other down to death. God has knit our hearts and lives together with innumerable bonds that we may help one another, that each mayprofit by the strength of all. But this very kinship, the very closeness of the ties that unite us, gives power to evil as to good. The opportunity to help is no less an opportunity to harm. The thought may well give us pause, if we are treading the ways of sin. The disposition, the temper, the habits that are mine I shall bequeath to my children, and through them the evil of my life shall bear its bitter fruit long after I am gone.

Let this teach us something of the greatness and ^ dignity of life. There are many who live ignobly because they are persuaded that it matters little how they live. They lack motive, incentive, inspiration. In this vast world, of what (account is one little life? What can it accomplish? It is no more than a single drop in the boundless sea, a leaf in the forest, and when it falls the great world swings on unmoved. It can serve no higher purpose than to sport away its little hour and cease to be. We are all beset at times by thoughts like these. We feel the need of the quickening power of high ideals, something to make us realize that life is not a bare struggle for existence or an aimless round of pleasure. Upon this point the word of God labors continually. Here the Lord Jesus put forth the utmost of his strength. The human soul is the noblest work of God. It is the one creation of the Almighty into which he put himself. The heavens and the earth are the work of his fingers, but the soul of mtan is the breath of his

Spirit. Into the form of clay he breathed something of himself, and man became a living soul. He is godlike, immortal, with dominion over all God's handiwork; not God's creature only but his child, made in the Father's likeness, partaker of the Father's nature. He is clothed with power to shape the issues of the future, even to lay hands upon eternity. Something of the divine energy is given him, the power to work not for to-day alone or to-morrow, but for all time, forever. You may build your life work into the eternal and all glorious Kingdom of God. You can do little, but that little shall be multiplied by eternity. Eternity is the harvest field of time, heaven is the harvest field of earth. Be not content to live one life alone. You may continue to serve God on earth long after you have entered upon the richer service of the heavenly Kingdom. To leave behind us a cherished memory, an example that shall be an inspiration, that shall make for truth and righteousness in all coming time, and then with character developed and powers trained by the discipline of earth to bear a part in that larger, nobler service, which the redeemed above are permitted to render, glorifying God by an enduring ministry on earth and an unending service in heaven — surely this is enough to meet the highest aspirations of the soul. Let not our thought of life be bounded by the narrow horizon of earth and time. It reaches farther — beyond time to eternity, beyond earth to heaven, beyond man to God. There is no limit that can be set to the power of an endless life.

The Kingdom of God on earth is built up by the labors of men and women like ourselves. The world shall be what we have made it under God. And when the mighty web of history has been woven to completion, God shall trace in it the thread of each individual life. Not one who has wrought in the service of the Kingdom shall fail of his reward. And not earth alone but heaven shall be the richer by reason of our lives. In the great chorus of praise that rises unceasingly before the throne of the Lamb voices bear a part that we have taught to sing. Amid the innumerable host that throng the golden streets there are those whom we were permitted by God's grace to lead through the gates of pearl. In the crown of the great Redeemer are jewels that our hands have set there. How many in the Church below, how many in the Church above, will testify. It was the word, the example, the life of parent or teacher or pastor or friend that led me to the Saviour? Every true servant of God makes earth better and heaven brighter by his life. Living or dying, he is the Lord's, and while he lives and after his eyes are closed in death God shall work through him his holy will.

To each one of us is granted a twofold immortality, an immortality of influence on earth, an immortality of life in heaven. While the soul of Elisha rejoiced in presence of his God, his body wrought wonders among men. That is the figure of a universal and eternal truth. We shall live there with God, we shall live here with men. So live as they should live who live forever.

IV

"And it came to pass, . . . when they that bare the ark were come unto the Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brink of the water (for the Jordan overflowetli all its banks all the time of harvest), that the waters which came down from above stood, and rose up in one heap, a great way off, at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan; and those that went down toward the sea of the Arabah, even the Salt Sea, were wholly cut off: and the people passed over right against Jericho."

After forty years of wandering in the wilderness, the children of Israel have come to the border of the Land of Promise. But before them rolls a river deep and wide. Under ordinary conditions the Jordan is not a formidable stream ; but in the springtime when it is swollen by the melting snows of Mount Hermon, it overflows its banks, and becomes a raging torrent, rushing in mad haste to the Dead Sea. The fords are impassable ; there are no boats, no bridges. The strongest swimmer might well fear to venture into that angry flood. How then shall this great host be transported to the other side, this army of men with women and children and flocks and herds? It was a task beyond the power of man to perform. God took it in hand. He has not delivered them from the bondage of Egypt, and preserved them amid the perils of the desert, to forsake them now. He bids Joshua marshal the people in long procession, the priests with the ark of God going before them. And the promise is given, '' When the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of Jehovah, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the v^aters of the Jordan, that the v^^aters of the Jordan shall be cut off, even the waters that come down from above ; and they shall stand in one heap/* The ranks are formed in obedience to the divine command, the word is given, and the mighty host begins to wend its way toward the rushing river. As they draw near doubts and fears arise in their hearts. The Jordan rolls its turbid flood between them and the land of Canaan. The fury of the waters shows no sign of abatement. But the priests lead on. They have almost reached the brink of the river, and still there is no divine interposition. Still the waters rush madly to the sea. Then their feet touch the water, and in a moment the miracle is wrought, the torrent is stayed. God calls, Halt. He speaks not to the people, but to the waters, and the waters hear and obey. In a moment a path is opened through the flood, and the people pass over right against Jericho. We need not stop to inquire whether this arrest of the waters was due to natural causes. Are not the laws and forces of nature in the hand of God? Are they not the expression of his purpose and the servants of his will? Whatever may have been the immediate cause, it was by the hand of God that the waters above were dammed up, while the waters below roll swiftly on, leaving a broad pathway by which the great host journey in safety to the Promised Land.

Let us fix our thoughts upon a single feature of the story, the time of the miracle. When the feet of the priests touch the waters the flood is divided, not before. Here is another instance of that divine economy to which many of the miracles bear witness. When Jesus fed the five thousand, he bade his disciples gather up the fragments that nothing should be lost. Here God does not interfere until the decisive moment. He will not interrupt the course of nature an instant sooner or an instant longer than the necessity of the case requires. The waters are divided at the last possible moment, and as soon as the people have crossed over the stream it returns to its accustomed channel. There is a divine parsimony even in the working of miracles. God interposes not to supersede but to supplement the activity of men. They must do what they can. He will do for them no more than is necessary. The miracle is bounded by their ability. He will do for us by direct interposition only what we cannot do ourselves.

The journey of Israel from Egypt to Canaan is often made the figure of the Christian life, the journey from the bondage of sin to the heavenly home. After recounting various features of the march of Israel through the wilderness, Paul says, " Now these things happened unto them by way of example ; and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come.'* I Cor. 10:11. Every incident is significant. Every miracle has its lesson. This the Church has always recognized, and many of our most beautiful hymns draw their imagery and their inspiration from the record of these days : " Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah " ; " Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me " ; and our conceptions of death and the life beyond are shaped and colored by the Jordan River and the land of Canaan. Our thought of life and death and the world to come is largely determined by the story of these forty years, beginning with the Exodus and closing with the happy entrance into the land promised to their fathers.