Week-day evening addresses

Contents

ADDRESS PAGE

I. ELIJAH STANDING BEFORE THE LORD ... I

II. THE OLD STORE AND THE NEW II

II. The Old Store And The New

Leviticus xxvi. lo.

Ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new.

T^HIS is one of the blessings promised to obedience. ^ No doubt it, like the other elements of that " prosperity " which " is the blessing of the Old Testament," presupposes a supernatural order of things, in which material well-being was connected with moral good far more closely and certainly than we see to be the case. But the spirit and heart of the promise remain, however the form of it may have passed away. It is a picturesque way of saying that the harvest shall be more than enough for the people's wants. All through the winter, and the spring, and the ripening summer, their granaries shall yield supplies. There will be no season of scarcity such as often occurs in countries whose communications are imperfect, just before harvest, when the last year's crop is exhausted, and it is hard to get anything to live on till this year's is ready. But when the new wheat comes in they will have still much of the old, and will have to " bring it forth " to empty their barns, to make room for the fresh supplies which the blessing of God has sent before they were needed. The same idea of superabundant yield from their fields is given under another form in a previous verse of this chapter (ver. 5) : '* Your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time, and ye shall eat your bread to the full : " which reminds one of the striking prophecy of Amos : " Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed." So rapid the growth, and so large the fruitfulness, that the gatherer shall follow close on the heels of the sower, and will not have accomplished his task before it is again time to sow. The prophet clearly has in his mind the old promise of the law, and applies it to higher matters, even to the fields white to harvest, where he that soweth and he that reapeth shall rejoice together. In the same way we may take these words, and gather from them better promises and larger thoughts than they originally carried.

There is in them a promise as to the fulness of the Divine gifts, which has a far wider reach and nobler application than to the harvests and granaries of old Palestine.

We may take the words in that aspect, first, as containing God's pledge that these outward gifts shall come in unbroken conti?iiiity. And have they not so come to us all, for all these long years ? Has there ever been a gap left yawning ? has there ever been a break in the chain of mercies and supplies ? has it not rather been that " one post ran to meet another " ? that before one of the messengers had unladed all his budget, another's arrival has antiquated and put aside his store? True, we are often brought very low ; there may not be much in the barn but sweepings, and a few stray grains scattered over the floor. We may have but the handful of meal in the barrel, and be ready to dress it " that we may eat it, and die." But it never really comes to that. The new ever comes before the old is all eaten up ; or if it be delayed even beyond that time, it comes before the hunger reaches inanition. It may be good that we should have to trust Him, even when the storehouse is empty; it may be good for us to know something of want, but that discipline comes seldom, and is never carried very far. For the most part He anticipates wants by gifts, and His good gifts overlap each other in our outward lives as slates on a roof, or scales on a fish.

We wonder at the smooth working of the machinery for feeding a great city ; and how, day by day, the provisions come at the right time, and are parted out among hundreds of thousands of homes. But we seldom think of the punctual love, the perfect knowledge, the profound wisdom which cares for us all, and is always in time with its gifts. It was that quality of punctuality extended over a whole universe which seemed so wonderful to the Psalmist : " The eyes of all wait upon Thee, and Thou givest them their meat in due season." God's machinery for distribution is perfect, and its very perfection, with the constancy of the resulting blessings, rob Him of His praise, and hinder our gratitude. By assiduity He loses admiration.

" Things grown common lose their dear delight." If in His gifts and benefits He were more sparing and closehanded," said Luther, " we should learn to be thankful." But let us learn it by the continuity of our joys, that we may not need to be taught by their interruption ; and let us still all tremulous anticipation of possible failure or certain loss by the happy confidence which we have a right to cherish, that His mercies will meet our needs, continuous as they are, and be threaded so close together on the poor thread of our lives that no gap will be discernible in the jewelled circle.

May we not apply that same thought of the unbroken continuity of God's gifts to the higher region of our spiritual experience? His supplies of wisdom, love, joy, peace, power to our souls, are always enough, and more than enough for our wants. If ever men complain of languishing vitality in their religious emotions, or of a stinted supply of food for their truest self, it is their own fault, not His. He means that there should be no parentheses of famine in our Christian life. It is not His doing if times of torpor alternate with seasons of quick energy and joyful fulness of life. So far as He is concerned the flow is uninterrupted, and if it come to us in jets and spurts like some intermittent well, it is because our own evil has put some obstacle to choke the channel and dam out His Spirit from our spirits. We cannot too firmly hold, or too profoundly feel, that an unbroken continuity of supplies of His grace — unbroken and bright as a sunbeam reaching in one golden shaft all the way from the sun to the earth — is His purpose concerning us. Here, in this highest region, the thought of our text is most absolutely true ; for He who gives is ever pouring forth His own self for us to take, and there is no limit to our reception but our capacity and our desire ; nor any reason for a moment's break in our possession of love, righteousness, peace, but our withdrawal of our souls from beneath the Niagara of His grace. As long as we keep our poor vessels below that constant downpour they will be full. It is all our own blame if they are empty. Why should Christian people have these dismal times of deadness, these parentheses of paralysis ? as if our growth must be like that of a tree with its alternations of winter sleep and summer waking? In regard to outward blessings we are, as it were, put upon rations, and that He gives us we gather. There He sometimes does, in love and wisdom, put us on very short allowance, and even now and then causes " the fields to yield no meat." But never is it so in the higher region. There he puts the key of the storehouse into our own hands, and we may take as much as we will, and have as much as we take. There the bread of God is given for evermore, and He wills that in uninterrupted abundance the meek shall eat and be satisfied.

The source is full to overflowing, and there are no limits to the supply. The only limit is our capacity, which again is largely determined by our desire. So after all His gifts there is more yet unreceived to possess. After all his Self Revelation there is more yet unspoken to declare. Great as is the goodness which He has wrought before the sons of men for them that trust in Him, there are far greater treasures of goodness laid up in the deep mines of God for them that fear Him. Bars of uncoined treasure and ingots of massy gold lie in His storehouses, to be put into circulation as soon as we need, and can use, them. Hence we have the right to look for an endless increase in our possession of God ; and from the consideration of an Infinite Spirit that imparts Himself, and of finite but indefinitely expansible spirits that receive, the certainty arises of an endless life for us of growing glory ; a heaven of ceaseless advance, where in constant alternation desire shall widen capacity, and capacity increase fruition, and fruition lead in, not satiety, but quickened appetite and deeper longing.

But we may also see in this text the prescription of a i6 THE OLD STORE AND THE NEW.

duty as well as the announcement of a promise. There is direction here as to our manner of receiving God's gifts, as well as large assurance as to His manner of bestowing them. It is His to substitute the new for the old. It is ours gladly to accept the exchange, a task not always easy or pleasant.

No doubt there is a natural love of change deep in us all, but that is held in check by its opposite, and all poetry and human life itself are full of the sadness born of mutation. Our Lord laid bare a deep tendency, when He said, " No man having tasted old wine, straightway desireth new ; because he saith the old is better." We cling to what is familiar, in the very furniture of our houses ; and yet we are ever being forced to accept what is strange and new, and, like some fresh article in a room, it is out of harmony with the well-worn things that you have seen standing in their corners for years. It takes some time for the raw look to wear off, and for us to " get used to it," as we say. So is it, though often for deeper reasons, in far more important things. A man, for instance, has been engaged in some kind of business for years, and at last God shows him, by clear indications, that he must turn to something else. How slow he is to see it, how reluctant to do it ! How he cleaves to the " old store " ! How he shrinks from cleaning out the barn, to bring in the new ! Or a household has been going on for many days unbroken, and at last a time comes when some of its members have to pass out into new circumstances ; a son to push his way in the world, a daughter to brighten another fireside. It is hard for the parents to enter fully into the high hopes of their children, and to accept the new condition, without many vain longings for the old days that can never come back any more.

So, all through our lives, wisdom and faith say, *' Bring forth the old because of the new." Accept cheerfully the law of constant change under which God's love has set us. Do not let the pleasant bonds of habit tie down your hearts so tightly to the familiar possessions that you shrink from the introduction of fresh elements. Be sure that the new comes from the same loving hand which sent the old in its season, and that change is meant to be progress. Do not confine yourselves within any millhorse round of associations and occupations. Front the vicissitudes of life, not merely with brave patience, but with happy confidence, for they all come from Him whose love is older than your oldest blessings, and whose mercies, new every morning, express themselves afresh through every change. Welcome the new, treasure the old, and in both see the purpose of that loving Father, who, Himself unchanged, changeth all things, and

" fulfils Himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world."

In higher matters than these, our text may give us counsel as to our duty. " God hath more light yet to break forth from His holy word." We are bound to welcome new truth, so soon as to our apprehensions it has made good its title, and not to refuse it lodgment in our minds because it needs the displacement of their old contents. In the region of our knowledge and of our Christian life, most chiefly, are we under solemn obligations to " bring forth the old store because of the new;" if we would not be unfaithful to God's great educational process that goes on all our lives. It is often difficult to adjust the relations of our last lesson with our previous possessions. There is always a temptation to make too much of a new c i8 THE OLD STORE AND THE NE.W.

truth, and to fancy that it will produce more change in our whole mental furniture than it really will. No man is less likely to come to the knowledge of the truth than he who is always deep in love with some new thought, " the Cynthia of the minute," and ever ready to barter ''old lamps for new ones." But all these things admitted, still it remains true that we are here to learn, that our education is to go on all our days, and that here on earth it can only be carried on by our parting with the old store, which may have become musty by long lying in the granaries, to make room for the new, just gathered in the ripened fields. The great central truths of God in Christ are to be kept for ever ; but we shall come to grasp them in their fulness only by joyfully welcoming every fresh access of clearer light which falls upon them ; and gladly laying aside our inadequate thoughts of God's permanent revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ, to house and garner in heart and spirit the fuller knowledge which it may please Him to impart.

So the law for life is thankful enjoyment of the old store, and openness of mind and freedom of heart which permit its unreluctant surrender when newer harvests ripen. And the highest form of the promise of our text will be when we pass into another world, and its rich abundance is poured out into our laps. Blessed they who can willingly put away the familiar blessings of earth, and stretch out, willingly-emptied, expectant hands to meet the " new store " of Heaven !

III. The Praying Christ

Luke xi.

As He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, one of His disciples said unto Him, Lord, teach us to pray.

TT is noteworthy that we owe our knowledge of the ■■- prayers of Jesus principally to the Evangelist Luke. There is, indeed, one solemn hour of supplication under the quiveiing shadows of the olive-trees in Gethsemane which is recorded by Matthew and Mark as wellj and though the fourth Gospel passes over that agony of prayer, it gives us, in accordance with its ruling purpose, the great chapter that records His priestly intercession. But in addition to these instances the first Gospel furnishes but one, and the second but two references to the subject. All the others are found in Luke. I need not stay to point out how this fact tallies with the many other characteristics of the third Gospel, which mark it as eminently the story of the Son of Man. The record which traces our Lord's descent to Adam rather than to Abraham ; which tells the story of His birth, and gives us all we know of the " child Jesus ; " which records His growth in wisdom and stature, and has preserved a multitude of minute points bearing on His true manhood, as well as on the tenderness of His sympathy and the universality of His work ; most naturally emphasizes that most precious indication of His humanity — His habitual prayerfulness. The Gospel of the King, which is the first Gospel, or of the Servant, which is the second, or of the Son of God, which is the fourth, had less occasion to dwell on this. Royalty, practical Obedience, Divinity, are their respective themes. Manhood is Luke's, and he is ever pointing us to the kneeling Christ.

Consider, then, for a moment how precious the prayers of Jesus are, as hrmging Him very near to us in His true maTiJwod. There are deep and mysterious truths involved which we do not meddle with now. But there are also plain and surface truths which are very helpful and blessed. We thank God for the story of His weariness when He sat on the well, and of His slumber when, worn out with a hard day's work. He slept on the hard wooden pillow in the stern of the fishing-boat, among the nets and the litter. It brings Him near to us when we read that He thirsted, and nearer still when the immortal words fall on our wondering ears, " Jesus wept." But even more precious than these indications of His true participation in physical needs and human emotion, is the great evidence of His prayers, that He too lived a life of dependence, of communion, and of submission \ that in our religious life, as in all our life. He is our pattern and forerunner. As the Epistle to the Hebrews puts it. He shows that He is not ashamed to call us brethren by this, — that He too avows that He lives by faith ; and by His life — and surely pre-eminently by His prayers — declares, '' I will put my trust in Him.'' We cannot think of Christ too often or too absolutely as the

Object of Faith, and as the hearer of our cries ; but we may, and some of us do, think of Him too seldom as the Pattern of Faith, and as the example for our devotion. We should feel Him a great deal nearer us ; and the fact of His manhood would not only be grasped more clearly by orthodox believers, but would be felt in more of its true tenderness, if we gave more prominence in our thoughts to that picture of the praying Christ.

Another point that may be suggested is, that the highest^ holiest life, needs specific acts and times of praye7's. A certain fantastical and over-strained spirituality is not rare, which professes to have got beyond the need of such beggarly elements. Some tinge of this colours the habits of many people who are scarcely conscious of its presence, and makes them somewhat careless as to forms and times of public or of private worship. I do not think I am wrong in saying that there is a growing laxity in that matter among people who are really trying to live Christian lives. We may well take the lesson which Christ's prayers teach us, for we all need it, — that no life is so high, so holy, so full of habitual communion with God, that it can afford to do without the hour of prayer, the secret place, the uttered word. If we are to " pray without ceasing," by the constant attitude of communion, and the constant conversion of work into worship, we must certainly have, and we shall undoubtedly desire, special moments when the daily sacrifice of doing good passes into the sacrifice of our lips. The devotion which is to be diffused through our lives must be first concentrated and evolved in our prayers. These are the gatheringgrounds which feed the river. The life that was all one long prayer needed the mountain-top and the nightly converse with God. He who could say, "The Father hath not left me alone, for I do always the thmgs that please Him," felt that He must also have the special communion of spoken prayer. What Christ needed we cannot afford to neglect.

Thus Christ's own prayers do, in a very real sense, ''teach us to pray." But it strikes me that, if we will take the instances in which we find Him praying, and try to classify them in a rough way, we may gain some hints worth laying to heart. Let me attempt this briefly now.

First, then, the praying Christ teaches us to pray as a rest after sej^nce.

The Evangelist Mark gives us in his brief, vivid way, a wonderful picture in his first chapter of Christ's first Sabbath-day of ministry in Capernaum. It was crowded with work. The narrative goes hurrying on through the busy hours, marking the press of rapidly succeeding calls by its constant reiteration — "straightway," "immediately," "forthwith," "anon," ''immediately." He teaches in the synagogue ; without breath or pause He heals a man with an unclean spirit ; then at once passes to Simon's house, and as soon as He enters has to listen to the story of how the wife's mother lay sick of a fever. They might have let Him rest for a moment, but they are too eager, and He is too pitying for delay. As soon as He hears, He helps. As soon as He bids it, the fever departs. As soon as she is healed, the woman is serving them. There can have been but a short snatch of such rest as such a house could afford. Then when the shadows of the western hills began to fall upon the blue waters of the lake, and the sunset ended the restrictions of the Sabbath, He is besieged by a crowd full of sorrow and sickness, and all about the door they lie, waiting for its opening. He could not keep it shut any more than

His heart or His hand, and so all through the short twilight, and deep into the night, He toils amongst the dim prostrate forms. What a day it had been of hard toil, as well as of exhausting sympathy !

And what was His refreshment ? An hour or two of slumber ; and then, " in the morning, rising up a great while before day, He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed" (Mark i. 35).

In the same way we find Him seeking the same repose after another period of much exertion and strain on body and mind. He had withdrawn Himself and His disciples from the bustle which Mark describes so graphically. " There were many coming and going, and they had no leisure, so much as to eat." So, seeking quiet, He take? them across the lake into the solitudes on the other side But the crowds from all the villages near its head catch sight of the boat in crossing, and hurry round ; and there they all are at the landing-place, eager and exacting as ever. He throws aside tiie purpose of rest, and all day long, wearied as He was, " taught them many things." The closing day brings no respite. He thinks of their hunger before His own fatigue, and will not send them away fasting. So He ends that day of labour by the miracle of feeding the five thousand. The crowds gone to their homes. He can at last think of Himself; and what is His rest ? He loses not a moment in " constraining " His disciples to go away to the other side, as if in haste to remove the last hindrance to something that He had been longing to get to. " And when He had sent them away, He departed into a mountain to pray" (Mark vi. 46 ; Matt. xiv. 23).

That was Christ's refreshment after His toil. So He blended contemplation and service, the life of inward communion and the life of practical obedience. How much more do we need to interpose the soothing and invigorating influences of quiet communion between the acts of external work, since our work may harm us, as His never did Him. It may disturb and dissipate our communion with God ; it may weaken the very motive from which it should arise ; it may withdraw our gaze from God and fix it upon ourselves. It may puff us up with the conceit of our own powers ; it may fret us with the annoyances of resistance ; it may depress us with the consciousness of failure ; and in a hundred other ways may waste and wear away our personal religion. The more we work the more we need to pray. In this day of activity there is great danger, not of doing too much, but of praying too little for so much work. These two —work and prayer, action and contemplation— are twinsisters. Each pines without the other. We are ever tempted to cultivate one or the other disproportionately. Let us imitate Him who sought the mountain-top as His refreshment after toil, but never left duties undone or sufferers unrelieved in pain. Let us imitate Him who turned from the joys of contemplation to the joys of service without a murmur, when His disciples broke in on His solitude with, " all men seek thee," but never suffered the outward work to blunt His desire for, nor to encroach on the hour of, still communion with His Father. Lord, teach us to work ; Lord, teach us to pray.

The praying Christ teaches us to pray as z, preparation for important steps.

Whilst more than one Gospel tells us of the calling of the apostolic twelve, the Gospel of the manhood alone narrates (Luke vi. 12) that on the eve of that great epoch in the development of Christ's kingdom, '' He went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God." Then, '' when it was day," He calls to Him His disciples, and chooses the twelve. A similar instance occurs, at a later period, before another great epoch in His course. The great confession made by Peter, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," was drawn forth by our Lord to serve as basis for His bestowment on the apostles of large spiritual powers, and for the teaching, with much increased detail and clearness, of His approaching sufferings. In both aspects it distinctly marks a new stage. Concerning it, too, we read, and again in Luke alone (ix. 18), that it was preceded by solitary prayer.

Thus He teaches us where and how we may get the clear insight into circumstances and men that may guide us aright. Bring your plans, your purposes to God's throne. Test them by praying about them. Do nothing large or new — nothing small or old either, for that matter — till you have asked there, in the silence of the secret place, " Lord, what wouldest Thou have me to do ? " There is nothing bitterer to parents than when children begin to take their own way without consulting them. Do you take counsel of your Father, and have no secrets from Him. It will save you from many a blunder and many a heartache ; it will make your judgment clear, and your step assured, even in new and difficult ways, if you will learn from the praying Christ to pray before you plan, and take counsel of God before you act.

Again, the praying Christ teaches us to pray as the C07idition of receiving the Spij'it and the Brightness of God.

There were two occasions in the life of Christ when visible signs showed His full possession of the Divine Spirit, and the lustre of His glorious nature. There are large and perplexing questions connected with both, on which I have no need no enter. At His baptism the Spirit of God descended visibly and abode on Jesus. At His transfiguration His face shone as the light, and His garments were radiant as sunlit snow. Now, on both these occasions, our Gospel,. and our Gospel alone, tells us that it was whilst Christ was in the act of prayer that the sign was given : " Jesus being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended " (iii. 21, 22). "As He prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment was white and glistening" (ix. 29).

Whatever difficulty may surround the first of these narratives especially, one thing is clear, that in both of them there was a true communication from the Father to the man Jesus. And another thing is, I think, clear, too, that our Evangelist meant to lay stress on the preceding act as the human condition of such communication. So, if we would have the heavens opened over our heads, and the dove of God descending to fold its white wings, and brood over the chaos of our hearts till order and light come there, we must do what the Son of Man did — pray. And if we would have the fashion of our countenances altered, the wrinkles of care wiped out, the traces of tears dried up, the blotches of unclean living healed, and all the stamp of worldliness and evil exchanged for the name of God written on our foreheads, and the reflected glory irradiating our faces, we must do as Christ did - pray. So, and only so, shall God's Spirit fill our hearts, God's brightness flash in our faces, and the vesture of heaven clothe our nakedness.