Luke 12:16-21
"And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich
man brought forth plentifully: and he thought within himself, saying,
What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And
he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns and build greater
and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to
my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine
ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this
night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things
be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for
himself, and is not rich toward God."
I count with confidence on your interest in this sermon. You will be
interested, in the first place, because the picture that our Lord has
given us in this wonderful story is the picture of a real man. This
farmer is no wax figure. He is no bloodless nonentity. He is
altogether human stuff. And we are interested in real folks.
Then we are interested in this man, in the second place, because he is
successful. We are naturally interested in the people who make good.
If you go out on the street to-morrow and start to tell your friends
how you failed, the chances are that they will turn their backs upon
you to listen to the man, with triumph in his face and victory in his
voice, who is telling how he succeeded. We are great success
worshippers. And the man who wins the prizes of life interests us very
keenly.
But there is a shock for us in the story. The Master calls our shrewd
hero a fool. "Thou fool." That is a harsh and jarring word. It
insults us. It shakes its fist in our faces. It cuts us like a whip.
It offends us. We do not like the ugly name in the least.
"Thou fool." Our Master frowns upon our using such language at all.
He will not trust us with such a sharp sword. He will not suffer us to
hurl such a thunderbolt. He forbids us, under a terrible penalty, to
call our brother a fool. And yet He calls this keen and successful
farmer a fool. And He doesn't do so lightly and flippantly, but there
seems to ring through it scorn and indignation--positive anger, anger
that is all the more terrible because it is the anger of love.
Why did the Master call this man a fool? He did not get the idea from
the man himself. This well-to-do farmer would never have spoken of
himself in that way. He regarded himself as altogether fit and
mentally well furnished. Nor did the Master get His idea from the
man's neighbors. They looked upon this man with admiration. There may
have been a bit of envy mingled with their admiration, but they
certainly did not regard him as a fool. They no more did so than we
regard the man that is like him as a fool to-day.
Why then did the Master label him with this ugly name? It was not
because he had a prejudice against him. Jesus was no soured
misanthrope. He was no snarling cynic. He did not resent a man just
because he had made a success. He was not an I. W. W. growling over
real or fancied wrongs. No, the reason that Jesus called him a fool is
because no other name would exactly fit him.
It is well, however, that the Master labeled this picture. Had He not
done so you and I might have been tempted to put the wrong label on it.
We might have labeled it "The Wise Man," or some such fine name. But
had we done so it would have been a colossal blunder. Had we done so I
am persuaded that the very fiends would have howled with derisive
laughter. For when we see this man as he really is, when we see him
through the eyes of Him who sees things clearly, then we realize that
there is only one name that will exactly fit him. Then we know that
that one name is the short ugly one by which he is called--"Fool."
But why is he a fool? In what does his foolishness consist? Certainly
it does not consist in the fact that he has made a success. He is not
a fool simply because he is rich. The Bible is a tremendously
reasonable book. It is the very climax of sanity. It is the acme of
good common sense. It never rails against rich men simply because they
are rich. It no more does that than it lauds poor men because they are
poor. It frankly recognizes the danger incident to the possession of
riches. It makes plain the fact that the rich man is a greatly tempted
man. But never is he condemned simply because he is rich.
The truth of the matter is that riches in themselves are counted
neither good nor bad, neither moral nor immoral. The Bible recognizes
money as a real force. What is done with this force depends upon the
one who controls it. Money is condensed energy. It is pent-up power.
It is lassoed lightning. It is a Niagara that I can hold in my hand
and put into my pocket. It is a present day Aladdin's lamp. If I
possess this lamp a million genii stand ready to do my bidding.
Whatever service I demand, that will they do, whether that service look
toward the making of men or the wrecking of men.
In case I live for self they are able to assist me in all my selfish
enterprises. They can provide a winter palace in the city and a summer
palace in the mountains or down by the sea. They can adorn my walls
with the choicest of paintings. They can put the finest of carpets
upon my floors. They can make possible tours abroad and private boxes
at the theatre. They can search the treasure houses of the world and
bring to me their rarest jewels. They can give me a place among the
select four hundred, with whole columns about myself in the society
page of the Metropolitan Daily.
Even this is not all. If I, their master, am so minded, these powerful
genii will defeat for me the ends of justice. They will override the
constitution. They will enable me to put a stain upon the very flag of
my own country. They will make it possible for me at times to
disregard the rights of others. When occasion demands they may even
purchase at my desire the honor of manhood and the virtue of womanhood.
On the other hand, if I am a good man, I may set these genii to the
doing of tasks great and worthwhile. I may command them to give
clothing to the naked and food to the hungry. I can order them to
build better schools for the education of the world. I can compel them
to build better churches for the worship of God. I can send them with
a chance in their hands for the unfortunate and the handicapped. I can
make it impossible for one to say of that bright lad:--
"But knowledge to his eyes her ample scroll,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll.
Chill penury suppressed his noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul."
In fact there is no high task that man is called upon to perform but
that these mighty genii can be of assistance. They can help "to heal
the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and
recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are
bruised." They can even make their master friends who will one day
receive him into everlasting habitations.
"Dug from the mountain side, washed in the glen,
Servant am I of the Master of men.
Earn me, I bless you; steal me, I curse you;
Grip me and hold me, a fiend shall possess you.
Lie for me, die for me, covet me, take me,
Angel or devil, I am what you make me."
Nor was this man a fool because he had accumulated his money
dishonestly. The man who does accumulate money dishonestly is a fool.
So says the prophet Jeremiah and every clear thinking man must agree
with him. There is a way of getting money that makes money a curse
rather than a blessing. There is a way of getting money that makes the
very eagle upon it to turn vulture to tear at your heart.
But this man had not made his money after that fashion. He had never
run a saloon nor a gambling house nor a sweatshop. There is no hint
that he had failed to pay an adequate wage to his laborers. James
calls upon the rich men of his day to weep and howl because they were
guilty in this respect. But no such charge as this is laid against
this man. Nor had he robbed the widow or the fatherless. "An orphan's
curse will drag to hell a spirit from on high," but no such curse was
on this man.
How had he made his money? He had made it in a way that is considered
the most honest and upright that is possible. He had made his money
farming. Listen: "The ground of a certain rich man brought forth
plentifully." The ground. It smacks of cleanliness, honesty,
uprightness.
"The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully." And when
I read that I am back on the old farm again. As I read it there comes
before me a vision of my boyhood's home. I see the old white house
under the hill. I see the sturdy apple trees in front of it and the
forest of beech, oak and chestnut stretching away in the distance back
of it. I can hear the lowing of the cattle and the neighing of the
horses and the crowing of the cock in the barnyard. I can hear the
call of the bob white to his mate, and the song of the catbird in the
thicket at the end of the row. I can feel the caress of the fresh
upturned sod upon my bare feet. I can catch the fragrance of the new
mown hay. I can see myself coming home in the gloaming "as the day
fades into golden and then into gray and then into deep blue of the
night sky with its myriad of stars that blossom at twilight's early
hour like lilies on the tomb of day." And when I come home I come to a
night of restful sleep because I have come from a clean day's work.
No, this man was not a fool because he had gotten his money
dishonestly. He had made it honestly, every dollar of it.
Nor was he a fool because he set about thoughtfully to save what he had
made. The Bible sets no premium upon wastefulness. God lets us know
that to waste anything of value is not only foolish but wicked. What
was the sin of the Prodigal Son? It was this, that he "wasted his
substance with riotous living." He spent his treasure without getting
any adequate return.
That is the tragedy of a great number of us. I do not charge you with
outrageous and disgraceful wickedness. But it is true that you are not
investing your life in the highest possible way. You are squandering
yourself on things of secondary value. And to you God is speaking as
he spoke centuries ago: "Wherefore do you spend your money for that
which is not meat and your labor for that which satisfieth not?" You
have no right to waste yourself and you have just as little right to
waste your money which represents a part of yourself.
No, the foolishness of this man was not in the fact that he sought to
save what he had made. That is right. That is sensible. To do
otherwise is at once wicked and little. Big things do not waste. This
is a big world on which we live but it has never lost one single drop
of water nor one single grain of sand since God flung it into space.
And even Jesus Christ himself, the Lord of the universe, commanded His
disciples after He had fed the multitude, to gather up the fragments
that nothing be lost.
Why then, I repeat, does Christ call this man a fool? His foolishness
lay fundamentally in the fact that he was a practical atheist. He had
absolutely no sense of God. He lived as if the fact of God were an
absolute lie. I do not think for a moment that he claimed to be an
atheist. I have no doubt that he was altogether orthodox. I have no
doubt that he went to the synagogue or to the temple every Sabbath day.
But practically he was an utter atheist. And what is true of him is
equally true of many another man who stands up every Sunday in Church
to recite his creed.
How do we know that he is an atheist? We know it by hearing him think.
Listen: "He thought within himself." Now then we are going to get to
see this man as he really is. You can't always tell what a man is by
the way he looks. He may look like the flower, but be the serpent
under it. He may smile and smile, as Hamlet tells us, and be a
villain. You can't always tell what he is by what he says. He may
speak high sentiments to which his heart is a stranger. Nor can you
tell him by what he does. He may "do his alms" simply to be seen of
men. But if you can get in behind the scenes and see him think, then
you will know him. Tell me, man, what you think within yourself and I
will tell you what you are. For, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so
is he."
Now, what did this man think? "He thought within himself, saying, What
shall _I_ do for _I_ have no room where to bestow _My_ goods and _My_
fruits? And he said, This will _I_ do. _I_ will pull down _My_ barns
and build greater, and there will _I_ bestow all _My_ goods and _My_
fruits." Now we see him. When he thought, he had not one single
thought of God. God was as completely ignored as if He had no
existence at all. This was the very fountain source of his
foolishness. He reckoned without God, and the man who reckons without
God is a fool.
Look now how this fatal foolishness casts its blight over his entire
character. Reckoning without God, of course, he has no sense of Divine
ownership. Quite naturally, therefore, he thinks because he possesses
a farm, he owns a farm. Possession and ownership mean exactly the same
thing to a man who begins by ignoring God. When you hear this man talk
you find that the only pronouns he has in his vocabulary are "I," "My"
and "Mine." He knows only the grammar of atheism. He is acquainted
only with the vocabulary of the fool. "His" and "Ours" and "Yours" are
not found in the fool's vocabulary.
Faith, on the other hand, makes large use of the word "His." It
recognizes the fact that "the earth is the Lord's and the fullness
thereof." It believes in the big truth: "Ye are not your own. You are
bought with a price." Faith, taking God into consideration, wisely
reckons that you are His and that all that you possess is His. It does
not concede to you the ownership of anything. And for any man anywhere
to-day to claim that because he possesses a farm or a bank or a brain,
that, therefore, he owns it is to talk not the language of a wise man
but the language of a fool.
This farmer's reckoning without God not only led him to confuse
possession and ownership. It also robbed him of his gratitude. Crops
were abundant. The farmer has prospered wonderfully. But leaving God
out of his thinking there is no one for this farmer to thank for his
success but himself. He never thought of taking hold of his sluggish
soul and shaking it into wakefulness with this wise word, "Bless the
Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits." He did not concede
the Lord any part in it.
There are many men just like him to-day. I was pastor in a small town
some years ago. There was in that town only one rich man. He had made
the money that he possessed, and they called him a self-made man. One
day a certain preacher, not myself, went to him to ask him for a
donation for some charity. He began by reminding this man of wealth
how the Lord had blessed him. And what was the reply? It was about
the meanest I ever heard. He said, "I know the Lord has blessed me,
but I was there."
"I was there." And what he meant by that was that in reality the Lord
had had nothing to do with it. "I did it all myself. In fact, if the
Lord hadn't made the world I would. So there is not a thing for which
I ought to be thankful." Now, the man who has no gratitude is a fool.
He is a fool because the right sort of thinking always leads to
thanking. The only kind of thinking that does not do so is the
thinking of the practical atheist, and the practical atheist is a fool.
Then this farmer had no sense of obligation. This, too, is a natural
outcome of his reckoning without God. Here is a man who is looking out
on this same world upon which the farmer is looking, and he says, "I am
a debtor both to the Greek and to the barbarian, both to the wise and
to the unwise." The reason Paul says that is because he believes in
God. God has blessed him and saved him with a wonderful salvation.
Because of that fact he feels himself under infinite obligation to
preach the Gospel that has saved himself. But this man, this fool, has
only himself to thank for his prosperity. Therefore he has a right to
use his wealth as he pleases. The man who has no sense of obligation,
the man who tells you that he has a right to do as he pleases with his
possessions is proclaiming to you not a new rule of ethics. He is
simply telling you in unmistakable language that he is a fool.
This man showed himself a fool, last of all, by the confidence that he
placed in things. Ignoring God he sought to find a substitute for God
in abundant crops. He undertook to treat his soul as he would treat
his sheep and his goats. Here he was, an immortal man. Here he was,
destined to live when this old world has been a wreck for billions of
years. And what provision does he make for himself? The same that he
makes for his horses and his oxen and his asses. Of course, as one has
pointed out, it was not foolish for him to make some provision for the
few years he might live here. He was a fool for refusing to make
provision for the eternity that he must live.
"Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many days. Eat, drink and be
merry." Did ever you hear words that were more stamped with moral
idiocy? You can see from them that his soul has not fared well up to
this time. You can easily tell from these words that his moral nature
has been starved and stunted. We can easily tell that all his gettings
have not satisfied him in the past. And yet he is vainly expecting
satisfaction in the future. Now it is obvious that the man who forgets
God, who turns aside to the worship of things, plays the fool.
So you see why the Master calls this shrewd farmer a fool. He began by
reckoning without God. He virtually said in his heart, "There is no
God." He went wrong in the very center of his nature. This put the
blight of moral imbecility on his whole life. He turned to his
possessions and sought to satisfy his soul with them. He received them
without gratitude and held them without any sense of obligation, for he
thought to possess was to own.
Now the Master, lest we should pull our skirts about us and thank God
that we are not as this man, forces the truth home upon our own hearts.
"So," He says, "is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not
rich toward God." That is, just the same kind of fool and just as big
a fool is that man to-day who reckons without God and lives only for
himself. If you are living your life in selfishness, however
respectable that selfishness may be, you are just the same kind of fool
and just as great a fool as is this rich man of the story.
Now the tragedy of this story, I take it, is that the foolishness of
this farmer was self-chosen. His riches might have been a blessing to
him here and a blessing through all eternity. In spite of the fact
that he was rich in this world's goods he might also have been, in the
truest sense, rich toward God. In fact, he might have been richer
toward God with his wealth than without it. With it he might have
exercised a far larger usefulness than he could have done without it.
But he chose to ignore God and to rob himself and thus brand himself a
fool now and evermore.
Don't forget that you and I may make the same tragic wreck of our
lives. The only way to avoid doing so is to go right where this man
went wrong. There is a sure road to spiritual enrichment. "Though he
were rich, yet for our sakes he became poor that we, through his
poverty, might be rich." This wealth is no fabled bag of gold at the
end of the rainbow. I can so direct you to this treasure that you will
be sure to find it. This is the road: "Yield yourselves unto God."
That is your first duty. That is your highest wisdom. Recognize God
as owner of yourself. Recognize God as the owner of all that you have.
Give all to Him and He will give all to you. "For He that spared not
His own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall He not with him
also freely give us all things." To have that treasure is to be rich
forever more. To be thus rich is to be eternally wise.
These are the works of Revered Clovis G. Chappell ( 1922).
CONFESSIONS OF A FAILURE--THE BUSY MAN
1 Kings 20:40
In 1 Kings 20:40 you will find the text. "As thy servant was busy here
and there, he was gone." This is part of a parable that was spoken by
a certain prophet to King Ahab. This prophet was seeking to rebuke the
king for his leniency in dealing with Benhadad, whom he had overcome in
battle. It is not our purpose, however, to discuss this parable in
relation to its context. We are going to consider it altogether apart
from its surroundings. We will rather study it as it is related to
ourselves. Here then, is the story of this man's failure from his own
lips. "Thy servant went out into the midst of the battle; and, behold,
a man turned aside and brought a man unto me, and said, Keep this man:
if by any means he be missing, then shall thy life be for his life, or
else thou shalt pay a talent of silver. And as thy servant was busy
here and there, he was gone."
I imagine I meet this soldier immediately after he has been put in
charge of his important captive. He walks with the purposeful stride
of one who knows his task and who is setting seriously about doing it.
He seems to appreciate the honor that has been conferred upon him. He
seems also to have a sense of the serious responsibilities involved.
And when he takes his position before the cell of his prisoner he
watches with all diligence.
But when I pass his way again next day I am greatly shocked. My
soldier is no longer on guard. Another had taken his place. And when
I look about for the important prisoner that has been captured at the
price of blood and conflict he is no longer to be seen. Upon inquiry I
find that he has escaped. In his place, bowed down with shame and
dressed in chains, is the man who yesterday was a guardsman.
I cannot pass him by without a question. "How did this come about?" I
ask. "Were you surprised and overcome? Did your fellow soldiers allow
a strong company to break through their lines and to overpower you and
take your prisoner from you? Did a strong hand strike you down from
behind in the dark? How is it that your prisoner had escaped?"
And the man, without being able to look me in the eye, answers, "No, he
did not escape because I was overpowered. He did not escape because I
was surprised. He escaped because I was too busy to watch him." "Too
busy," I answer in amazement, "too busy doing what? What task did you
find more important than saving your country and saving your own home
and saving your own honor?" "Oh, no task in particular," he answers.
"I was just busy here and there." That is his confession. "As thy
servant was busy here and there, he was gone."
And the man is sentenced to death. And we must admit that the sentence
is just. Not that he has committed any aggressive crime. He has not
cut anybody's throat. He has not stabbed anybody in the back. He has
not stolen anything. He is not being punished for what he has done.
He is being punished for what he has failed to do.
And that kind of sin, let me warn you, is just as dangerous and just as
killing as positive and aggressive sin. How foolish are they who think
they are pious simply because they do no wrong. How absurd it is to
get it into your minds that a man is a Christian by virtue of what he
does not do instead of by virtue of what he does. Now, I know that
there are certain sins that are damaging and damning, but in order to
be lost now and ever more it is not necessary to be guilty of any of
them. All that is necessary is that you do what this man did, and that
is fail in your duty.
This is what our Lord taught us again and again. What was wrong with
the fig tree that He cursed it? It was not loaded with poison. It
simply had nothing but leaves. What charge is brought against Dives?
No charge at all. We are simply made to see him neglect the man at his
gate who needed his help. He does not drive the man away. He simply
lets him alone. And over his neglected duty he stumbles out into a
Christless eternity. What was wrong with the five foolish virgins? It
was not that they had water in their lamps. It was simply the fact
that they had no oil. What was the matter with those to whom the judge
said, "Depart from me"? Only this, they had failed in their duty. The
charge is, "Inasmuch as ye did it not."
So this man failed in his duty. That is what wrecked him. Why did he
fail? First, he did not fail through ignorance. He did not fail
because he did not know his duty. He understood perfectly what he was
to do. He understood also the great importance of his doing it. He
knew it was a life and death business with him. I know that he failed.
He failed miserably. He failed to his own ruin. But it was not
because of his ignorance. And that is not the secret of your failure.
We need to know more, all of us, but our greatest need in the moral
realm is not for more knowledge. Our greatest need is the will to live
up to what we already know. The reason you are selfish, the reason you
are unclean, the reason you are godless is not because you do not know
better. You have known better through all these years. It is because
you are unwilling to do better.
There is not a man here that does not know enough to do his duty. It
may be that you do not know the exact niche that the Lord wants you to
fill. It may be that you do not know the exact task to which He is
calling you. But you do know this, you know that there is an absolute
difference between right and wrong, and that you ought to be enlisted
on the side of the right. You know that it is your part to help and
not to hinder, to bless and not to curse, to lift up and not to drag
down.
And while you may not know your particular task, yet it is your
privilege to know even that. I am confident that God has a particular
task for every single soul of us. And I am equally confident that He
will let us know what that task is if we will only make it possible for
Him to do so. He tells us how we may know. "In all thy ways
acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy path."
There are many misfits in the world, and you know a misfit is the
cheapest and most useless thing known. If you want a cheap suit of
clothes go to the misfit establishment. I remember when I was a young
fellow just getting grown I decided to quit wearing the crude
hand-me-down suits such as I could purchase at the village store. I
decided that I must have a genuine tailored suit.
So with this idea in mind I wrote for the catalogue of Montgomery Ward
& Company. I might have used Sears Roebuck, but I liked Montgomery
Ward better. I found the suit I wanted, read his directions, took my
own measure and ordered the suit. In due time it came. And I pledge
you my word that you might have tried that suit on every form of man
and beast that the whole Roman Empire could furnish and it would not
have fit a single one of them. The legs of the pants were large enough
to keep house in. They would have made admirable wheat sacks, but as
trousers they were a failure. To me the suit was worthless because it
was a misfit.
And there are many men just as worthless to-day. But they need not
have been so. If they did not know their task they might have known
it. They did not fail, as this man did not fail, through ignorance.
Second, this man did not fail for lack of ability. If he could have
said that he was overpowered, if he could have told that superior
numbers came upon him and took his prisoner in spite of himself we
could have pardoned him. Or if he could have shown us a scarred breast
and a face that had been hacked by a sword, and said, "I won these
wounds trying to keep my prisoner," we would have respected him. We
would have sympathized with him. But he had no scars to show. He had
made no fight at all. Therefore he could not say, "I failed, 'tis
true, but I could not help it." Neither can you say that. No man here
is failing for lack of ability.
Now, I do not mean by that that you can do anything that you want to
do. When I was a boy people used to come to our school and tell us
such rubbish as that. But it is all false. Suppose I were to take a
notion to be a great painter, not one after the fashion of the ordinary
sixteen year old girl of to-day, but a painter like Turner. Why, I
might work at it a thousand years and never accomplish anything.
Suppose some of you were to take a notion to be great singers. Is
there any use for me to tell you that if you persist you will succeed?
Not a bit of it. You might succeed in ruining the nerves of your
teacher. You might easily make those who hear you practise "want to
gnaw a file and flee into the wilderness." But you would never learn
to sing. There is no hope for some of us till we get to Heaven.
No, we cannot do anything that we might want to do. But we can do
something infinitely better. We can do everything that God wants us to
do. I cannot do your task, and you cannot do mine. I am glad that
that is true. I am glad that we all do not have the same aptitudes. I
am glad that we all cannot do successfully the same things. I am glad
that we do not all have the same tastes. But while that is so, every
man has the ability, through grace, to perform the task to which he is
called.
In the third place, this man did not fail because of idleness. He did
not fail because he was lazy. Of course idleness will wreck anybody.
Laziness is a deadly sin unless it is overcome. I know something about
it because I have had to fight it all my life. But this man was not an
idler. This man was a worker. He failed, but he did not fail because
he refused to put his hand to any task or to bend his back under any
load.
Why then did this man fail? Not from ignorance, not from inability,
not from idleness. He was busy. That is his word about himself. And
nobody denies it. "As thy servant was busy here and there, he was
gone." What, I repeat, was the secret of his failure? Just this, that
though he was busy, he was not busy at his own task. He was simply
busy here and there. He was one of those unfortunate souls that has so
many things to do and so many engagements to keep and so many functions
to attend and so many burdens to carry that he cannot do his own duty.
Do you know of anybody like that? "Did you keep your prisoner?" I ask.
"No, I was too busy." "Busy at what, in Heaven's name! Do you know of
anything more important than obeying the orders of your king? Do you
know of anything more important than helping to save your nation? Do
you know of anything of more importance than saving your own life, your
own honor, your own soul."
You can see his trouble. He allowed the secondary to so absorb him
that he neglected the primary. Those things that he was working at
here and there, those unnamed tasks that he was performing, there is no
hint that they were vicious things. I am sure that they were
altogether harmless. They may have been altogether good and useful.
But the trouble with that good was that it robbed him of the privilege
of doing the best. The trouble with the Prodigal in the Far Country
was not simply the fact that he was in a hog pen. He might have been
in a palace and been quite as bad off. It was the fact that he was
missing the privilege of being in his Father's house.
The sin that I fear most for many of you is not the sin of vicious
wrong-doing. It is the sin of this man, the sin of choosing the second
best. I read recently of an insane man who spent all his time in an
endeavor to sew two pieces of cloth together. But the thread he used
had no knot in the end of it. So nothing was ever accomplished. Now,
there is no harm in such sewing. But the tragedy of it is that if we
spend all our time doing such trivial things we rob ourselves of the
privilege of doing something better. And that is just the trouble of
much of our life to-day. Many of us are engaged in a great, stressful,
straining life of trivialities. Some of these are not especially
harmful. But the calamity of it all is that they so absorb us that we
have no time left for the highest.
Down in Tennessee near where I used to live a house was burned one day.
The mother was out at the well doing the week's washing. The flames
were not discovered till they were well under way. Of course when they
were discovered the woman was seized with terror. She rushed into the
house and brought out a feather bed and a few quilts. But in her
madness she forgot her own baby and the child was burned to death.
Now, I submit to you that there was absolutely no harm in saving a
feather bed. There was no harm in saving a few old quilts. The
tragedy was that in the absorption of saving all these half worthless
things she lost the primary. In her interest in the good she became
utterly blind to the best.
I wonder if that is not your folly. You are busy here and there. You
go to work six days in the week. You are passionately in earnest about
amusing yourself. You do a thousand and one decent and respectable
things. But while you are busy here and there the peace of God slips
out of your life. While you are busy here and there you neglect the
Sunday School and the Church. While you are busy here and there you
lose your interest in the Word of God and you forget "the secret
stairway that leads into the Upper Room." "Busy here and there" you
lose the sense of God out of your life. "Busy here and there" you
allow the altar in your home to fall down. "Busy here and there" you
allow your sons and daughters to stumble over that broken down altar
into lives of Christless indifference.
Oh, men and women, there is but one remedy for us if we would avoid the
rock upon which this condemned guardsman wrecked himself. We must put
first things first. Let us listen once more to the voice of the sanest
man that ever lived. This is His message: "Seek ye first the kingdom
of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto
you." If you fail to do this, however noble may be the task at which
you toil, life for you will end in tragedy. If you do this, however
mean and obscure may be your task, life for you will end in eternal joy
and victory.
These are the works of Revered Clovis G. Chappell ( 1922).
In 1 Kings 20:40 you will find the text. "As thy servant was busy here
and there, he was gone." This is part of a parable that was spoken by
a certain prophet to King Ahab. This prophet was seeking to rebuke the
king for his leniency in dealing with Benhadad, whom he had overcome in
battle. It is not our purpose, however, to discuss this parable in
relation to its context. We are going to consider it altogether apart
from its surroundings. We will rather study it as it is related to
ourselves. Here then, is the story of this man's failure from his own
lips. "Thy servant went out into the midst of the battle; and, behold,
a man turned aside and brought a man unto me, and said, Keep this man:
if by any means he be missing, then shall thy life be for his life, or
else thou shalt pay a talent of silver. And as thy servant was busy
here and there, he was gone."
I imagine I meet this soldier immediately after he has been put in
charge of his important captive. He walks with the purposeful stride
of one who knows his task and who is setting seriously about doing it.
He seems to appreciate the honor that has been conferred upon him. He
seems also to have a sense of the serious responsibilities involved.
And when he takes his position before the cell of his prisoner he
watches with all diligence.
But when I pass his way again next day I am greatly shocked. My
soldier is no longer on guard. Another had taken his place. And when
I look about for the important prisoner that has been captured at the
price of blood and conflict he is no longer to be seen. Upon inquiry I
find that he has escaped. In his place, bowed down with shame and
dressed in chains, is the man who yesterday was a guardsman.
I cannot pass him by without a question. "How did this come about?" I
ask. "Were you surprised and overcome? Did your fellow soldiers allow
a strong company to break through their lines and to overpower you and
take your prisoner from you? Did a strong hand strike you down from
behind in the dark? How is it that your prisoner had escaped?"
And the man, without being able to look me in the eye, answers, "No, he
did not escape because I was overpowered. He did not escape because I
was surprised. He escaped because I was too busy to watch him." "Too
busy," I answer in amazement, "too busy doing what? What task did you
find more important than saving your country and saving your own home
and saving your own honor?" "Oh, no task in particular," he answers.
"I was just busy here and there." That is his confession. "As thy
servant was busy here and there, he was gone."
And the man is sentenced to death. And we must admit that the sentence
is just. Not that he has committed any aggressive crime. He has not
cut anybody's throat. He has not stabbed anybody in the back. He has
not stolen anything. He is not being punished for what he has done.
He is being punished for what he has failed to do.
And that kind of sin, let me warn you, is just as dangerous and just as
killing as positive and aggressive sin. How foolish are they who think
they are pious simply because they do no wrong. How absurd it is to
get it into your minds that a man is a Christian by virtue of what he
does not do instead of by virtue of what he does. Now, I know that
there are certain sins that are damaging and damning, but in order to
be lost now and ever more it is not necessary to be guilty of any of
them. All that is necessary is that you do what this man did, and that
is fail in your duty.
This is what our Lord taught us again and again. What was wrong with
the fig tree that He cursed it? It was not loaded with poison. It
simply had nothing but leaves. What charge is brought against Dives?
No charge at all. We are simply made to see him neglect the man at his
gate who needed his help. He does not drive the man away. He simply
lets him alone. And over his neglected duty he stumbles out into a
Christless eternity. What was wrong with the five foolish virgins? It
was not that they had water in their lamps. It was simply the fact
that they had no oil. What was the matter with those to whom the judge
said, "Depart from me"? Only this, they had failed in their duty. The
charge is, "Inasmuch as ye did it not."
So this man failed in his duty. That is what wrecked him. Why did he
fail? First, he did not fail through ignorance. He did not fail
because he did not know his duty. He understood perfectly what he was
to do. He understood also the great importance of his doing it. He
knew it was a life and death business with him. I know that he failed.
He failed miserably. He failed to his own ruin. But it was not
because of his ignorance. And that is not the secret of your failure.
We need to know more, all of us, but our greatest need in the moral
realm is not for more knowledge. Our greatest need is the will to live
up to what we already know. The reason you are selfish, the reason you
are unclean, the reason you are godless is not because you do not know
better. You have known better through all these years. It is because
you are unwilling to do better.
There is not a man here that does not know enough to do his duty. It
may be that you do not know the exact niche that the Lord wants you to
fill. It may be that you do not know the exact task to which He is
calling you. But you do know this, you know that there is an absolute
difference between right and wrong, and that you ought to be enlisted
on the side of the right. You know that it is your part to help and
not to hinder, to bless and not to curse, to lift up and not to drag
down.
And while you may not know your particular task, yet it is your
privilege to know even that. I am confident that God has a particular
task for every single soul of us. And I am equally confident that He
will let us know what that task is if we will only make it possible for
Him to do so. He tells us how we may know. "In all thy ways
acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy path."
There are many misfits in the world, and you know a misfit is the
cheapest and most useless thing known. If you want a cheap suit of
clothes go to the misfit establishment. I remember when I was a young
fellow just getting grown I decided to quit wearing the crude
hand-me-down suits such as I could purchase at the village store. I
decided that I must have a genuine tailored suit.
So with this idea in mind I wrote for the catalogue of Montgomery Ward
& Company. I might have used Sears Roebuck, but I liked Montgomery
Ward better. I found the suit I wanted, read his directions, took my
own measure and ordered the suit. In due time it came. And I pledge
you my word that you might have tried that suit on every form of man
and beast that the whole Roman Empire could furnish and it would not
have fit a single one of them. The legs of the pants were large enough
to keep house in. They would have made admirable wheat sacks, but as
trousers they were a failure. To me the suit was worthless because it
was a misfit.
And there are many men just as worthless to-day. But they need not
have been so. If they did not know their task they might have known
it. They did not fail, as this man did not fail, through ignorance.
Second, this man did not fail for lack of ability. If he could have
said that he was overpowered, if he could have told that superior
numbers came upon him and took his prisoner in spite of himself we
could have pardoned him. Or if he could have shown us a scarred breast
and a face that had been hacked by a sword, and said, "I won these
wounds trying to keep my prisoner," we would have respected him. We
would have sympathized with him. But he had no scars to show. He had
made no fight at all. Therefore he could not say, "I failed, 'tis
true, but I could not help it." Neither can you say that. No man here
is failing for lack of ability.
Now, I do not mean by that that you can do anything that you want to
do. When I was a boy people used to come to our school and tell us
such rubbish as that. But it is all false. Suppose I were to take a
notion to be a great painter, not one after the fashion of the ordinary
sixteen year old girl of to-day, but a painter like Turner. Why, I
might work at it a thousand years and never accomplish anything.
Suppose some of you were to take a notion to be great singers. Is
there any use for me to tell you that if you persist you will succeed?
Not a bit of it. You might succeed in ruining the nerves of your
teacher. You might easily make those who hear you practise "want to
gnaw a file and flee into the wilderness." But you would never learn
to sing. There is no hope for some of us till we get to Heaven.
No, we cannot do anything that we might want to do. But we can do
something infinitely better. We can do everything that God wants us to
do. I cannot do your task, and you cannot do mine. I am glad that
that is true. I am glad that we all do not have the same aptitudes. I
am glad that we all cannot do successfully the same things. I am glad
that we do not all have the same tastes. But while that is so, every
man has the ability, through grace, to perform the task to which he is
called.
In the third place, this man did not fail because of idleness. He did
not fail because he was lazy. Of course idleness will wreck anybody.
Laziness is a deadly sin unless it is overcome. I know something about
it because I have had to fight it all my life. But this man was not an
idler. This man was a worker. He failed, but he did not fail because
he refused to put his hand to any task or to bend his back under any
load.
Why then did this man fail? Not from ignorance, not from inability,
not from idleness. He was busy. That is his word about himself. And
nobody denies it. "As thy servant was busy here and there, he was
gone." What, I repeat, was the secret of his failure? Just this, that
though he was busy, he was not busy at his own task. He was simply
busy here and there. He was one of those unfortunate souls that has so
many things to do and so many engagements to keep and so many functions
to attend and so many burdens to carry that he cannot do his own duty.
Do you know of anybody like that? "Did you keep your prisoner?" I ask.
"No, I was too busy." "Busy at what, in Heaven's name! Do you know of
anything more important than obeying the orders of your king? Do you
know of anything more important than helping to save your nation? Do
you know of anything of more importance than saving your own life, your
own honor, your own soul."
You can see his trouble. He allowed the secondary to so absorb him
that he neglected the primary. Those things that he was working at
here and there, those unnamed tasks that he was performing, there is no
hint that they were vicious things. I am sure that they were
altogether harmless. They may have been altogether good and useful.
But the trouble with that good was that it robbed him of the privilege
of doing the best. The trouble with the Prodigal in the Far Country
was not simply the fact that he was in a hog pen. He might have been
in a palace and been quite as bad off. It was the fact that he was
missing the privilege of being in his Father's house.
The sin that I fear most for many of you is not the sin of vicious
wrong-doing. It is the sin of this man, the sin of choosing the second
best. I read recently of an insane man who spent all his time in an
endeavor to sew two pieces of cloth together. But the thread he used
had no knot in the end of it. So nothing was ever accomplished. Now,
there is no harm in such sewing. But the tragedy of it is that if we
spend all our time doing such trivial things we rob ourselves of the
privilege of doing something better. And that is just the trouble of
much of our life to-day. Many of us are engaged in a great, stressful,
straining life of trivialities. Some of these are not especially
harmful. But the calamity of it all is that they so absorb us that we
have no time left for the highest.
Down in Tennessee near where I used to live a house was burned one day.
The mother was out at the well doing the week's washing. The flames
were not discovered till they were well under way. Of course when they
were discovered the woman was seized with terror. She rushed into the
house and brought out a feather bed and a few quilts. But in her
madness she forgot her own baby and the child was burned to death.
Now, I submit to you that there was absolutely no harm in saving a
feather bed. There was no harm in saving a few old quilts. The
tragedy was that in the absorption of saving all these half worthless
things she lost the primary. In her interest in the good she became
utterly blind to the best.
I wonder if that is not your folly. You are busy here and there. You
go to work six days in the week. You are passionately in earnest about
amusing yourself. You do a thousand and one decent and respectable
things. But while you are busy here and there the peace of God slips
out of your life. While you are busy here and there you neglect the
Sunday School and the Church. While you are busy here and there you
lose your interest in the Word of God and you forget "the secret
stairway that leads into the Upper Room." "Busy here and there" you
lose the sense of God out of your life. "Busy here and there" you
allow the altar in your home to fall down. "Busy here and there" you
allow your sons and daughters to stumble over that broken down altar
into lives of Christless indifference.
Oh, men and women, there is but one remedy for us if we would avoid the
rock upon which this condemned guardsman wrecked himself. We must put
first things first. Let us listen once more to the voice of the sanest
man that ever lived. This is His message: "Seek ye first the kingdom
of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto
you." If you fail to do this, however noble may be the task at which
you toil, life for you will end in tragedy. If you do this, however
mean and obscure may be your task, life for you will end in eternal joy
and victory.
These are the works of Revered Clovis G. Chappell ( 1922).
THE MISSING MAN- THOMAS
John 20:24
"Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when
Jesus came." Did you notice the name of this man who was missing? Who
was it when the little company met after the crucifixion that was not
there? There was a man expected who failed to come. Who was this man?
When the little company gathered in the upper room behind shut doors
there was one chair that was vacant. Who should have occupied that
chair?
Well, in the first place, it was not Judas. He was missing. He was
not there, it is true, but he was not expected. Judas had already
betrayed his Lord. Judas had already been whipped and scourged by his
remorse of conscience clean out of the world. Judas had gone to his
own place in the great Unseen Country. Judas was not there, but he was
not expected to be there.
Who was the missing man? It was not Pilate. We no more expected
Pilate than we expected Judas. Pilate had had his chance at Jesus.
Pilate had had an opportunity of knowing, of befriending Him, of
serving Him. But Pilate had allowed his own interests to get the
better of his conscience. Pilate had chosen the friendship of Caesar
and had spurned the friendship of the King Eternal. So we did not
expect Pilate to be present in this little company of the friends of
Jesus who met on the resurrection side of the cross. Who was the
missing man? It was not Caiaphas. He, too, had stood in the presence
of Jesus, but his envy had made him blind. And he shouted "Blasphemy!"
so loud that he drowned the voice of his conscience and the gentle
whisperings of the Spirit of God. No, it was not Caiaphas, nor any of
the indifferent or hostile crowd that we miss in this meeting.
Then, who was this missing man? And we read the text again and we find
his name was Thomas. That is a very familiar name. Oh, yes; we
remember Thomas quite well. It was Thomas who was missing. Now,
Thomas was expected, for he was a member of the little band of
disciples. He was one of the Twelve. He belonged to the Inner Circle.
His fellow Christians had a right therefore to expect him. Yet Thomas
was not with them.
It is a sad day ever for any congregation when its own membership begin
to absent themselves from its services. It is a sad day for any
congregation when those who compose it can be counted on to be there at
the social function, there at the place of business, but cannot be
counted on when the interests of the Kingdom are at stake and when the
Son of God goes forth to war. Believe me, no community ever loses
respect for a congregation till that congregation loses respect for
itself.
And did you notice when it was that Thomas was absent? "Thomas was not
with them when Jesus came." What an unfortunate time to be away! What
a great calamity to have missed that service of all others! There was
the little despondent, despairing company of ten meeting behind closed
doors. They were sorrow-burdened and fear-filled. But Jesus came, and
Thomas, the saddest and bitterest man of them all, was not there.
Of course he would have gone if he had had any idea what a wonderful
service it was going to be. If he had even dreamed that Jesus would be
there, of course he would not have missed it; but he expected the
meeting to be a very dull affair. He felt confident that whoever else
was there that there would be no Christ. He expected that Peter and
James and John and the rest would meet there and talk of a glorious
past that had gone forever. He would have said, "Yes, I know what they
will say. They will tell how Jesus called them at the beginning. They
will tell how they forsook all to follow Him. They will tell of the
great dreams that they dreamed, of the high hopes that they cherished.
They will tell of all the glad, radiant days that have 'dropped into
the sunset.' But they will have nothing to say to relieve the
bitterness of to-day or to fling a bow of hope upon the black skies of
to-morrow. So I will not go to the meeting to-day."
But the meeting was not dull. The meeting was not sad. The meeting
was not a lament for a glory that was passed, for a glad day that had
slipped behind them forever more. It was a service that thrilled with
present joys. It was a meeting that made the future to glow with
glorious possibilities. It was wonderful, because Jesus came. He came
then, and He comes still. Wherever hungry hearts come together who
yearn for Him and make Him welcome, there comes the blessed Christ to
stand in the midst. And therefore I would not absent myself from the
meeting together of the people of God. I would not because I want to
be there when Jesus comes, when the King comes in to see the guests.
"Thomas was not with them when Jesus came." I wonder why it was that
Thomas was missing. I wonder how it came about that he, the neediest
man among the apostles, was not there to receive the inspiration and
the uplift that came from this service. Why was he not there?
It was not, I am sure, because he was indifferent. There are many
to-day who have separated themselves from the services of the church,
from the fellowship of the saints, because of a deadening indifference.
They have become absorbed in a thousand other matters till they have
become doubly uninterested in the things of the church and in the
affairs of the Kingdom.
Thomas was not missing because he had found satisfaction elsewhere.
Thomas was not satisfied. Thomas was not happy. I doubt if there was
a sadder man in all Jerusalem than Thomas. I doubt if there was a more
wretched man in the wide world at that time than was Thomas. Thomas
had not turned aside from Jesus to satisfy his soul on husks. He had
not left Christ because his needs had been met and his thirst satisfied
at some other fountain.
Why was Thomas missing? He was missing because he had lost hope. He
believed that Christ was dead. He believed that the cause for which he
had stood was lost and lost forever more. He believed that right was
forever defeated; that wrong was forever enthroned. Over his head was
a blackened sky. For him there was not one single ray of light nor one
single gleam of hope.
If I had met Thomas on the streets of Jerusalem on that day and said,
"Thomas, I saw your friends going together to the Upper Room. Aren't
you going? Jesus might come while they are there," Thomas would have
answered, "No, I'm not going. Jesus will not be there. He is dead.
Don't you know if I thought I would see Him I would go? Don't you know
that I loved Him and love Him still better than life, but Jesus is
dead. Dead! Dead!
"I was in the garden when Judas kissed Him. I saw them lead Him away.
I saw the soldiers scourge Him. I saw Him crowned with the crown of
thorns. I was out on Calvary when the black night came on at midday
and I heard that wild, bitter cry. Oh! I will hear it forever more:
'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' I saw His head bowed and
I saw the brute of a soldier thrust the spear into His side. Don't
talk to me about seeing Jesus again. Jesus is dead."
The very bitterness of the sorrow of Thomas had driven him to despair.
He found it hard to believe always. Here he found it impossible. Now,
there are some folks who are sweetened by sorrow and made better.
There are others that are made bitter and morose and despairful. I
heard a man cry one day, an awful cry "Oh, I could curse God," he said,
"if I knew there was a God, for letting little Mary die!" For Thomas
everything had collapsed. There was not a star in his sky. There was
not a horizon in his life in which he might hope for a dawn. So that
he, the neediest man of them all, was not there when Jesus came.
And now, will you see what he missed. Truly, the man was right who did
not wonder what people suffered, but wondered at what they missed. And
just see what this man Thomas missed by not being in the little meeting
among the ten. First, he missed the privilege of seeing Jesus. He
missed the privilege of seeing Him who had throttled Death and hell and
the grave and had brought life and immortality to light through the
Gospel. He missed seeing Him, one vision of whose face would have
changed his sobbing into singing and his night into marvelous day.
He missed seeing Jesus, and failing to see Him, he missed the glorious
certainty of the after life. It is Christ, my friends, that makes
Heaven and the eternal life sure for us. It is He who enables men to
go down into the great silence without a doubt and without a fear. It
is He who makes us absolutely confident that there is a Home of the
Soul, that--
"There is a land of pure delight
Where saints immortal reign."
Having seen Him once dead and alive forever more, we have no slightest
doubt of the truth of His promise that, because He lives we shall live
also.
By staying away that day Thomas missed the thrill of a great joy. Had
he been there he might have seen the Lord. This is not a possibility
in every service, possibly, but it ought to be. It is a possibility in
every successful service. I heard of a preacher once who thought that
what his congregation wanted was beautiful epigrams. He thought that
they were more hungry for bejeweled verbiage than for the Bread of
Life. He thought they were thirsting more for a stream of eloquence
than for the Water of Life. But he was mistaken. And once he came
into the pulpit to find a card lying before him on which was written
this word: "Sir, we would know Jesus."
At first it angered him a bit and then it made him think. And then it
sent him to his knees. And then it sent him into the pulpit with a new
message. And one day he came again into his pulpit to find a second
card before him. Picking it up, he read these words: "Then were the
disciples glad when they saw the Lord." Of course they were. Their
gladness was the gladness of the ten that met in the Upper Room. Their
gladness was the gladness that might have been experienced by Thomas.
It was intended for him, for he was the saddest and most wretched man
in Jerusalem. But Thomas was not there.
Thomas missed also the gift of peace. Jesus said to those present,
"Peace be unto you." And how Thomas needed that gift! Thomas was in a
fever of restlessness and wretchedness. He was whipped by a veritable
tempest of doubt and utter unbelief. And all the while he might have
had the peace that passeth understanding. He might have had the vision
of Him who stood then, and still stands, the central figure of the
ages, saying, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and
I will give you rest." Those present that day were blessed with the
gift of peace. They had "fervor without fever." They had motion
without friction. But Thomas missed it because "he was not with them
when Jesus came."
The disciples who were there were re-commissioned that day. Jesus said
to them, "As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you." With His
death everything seemed at an end. The great program that He had given
them seemed to have lapsed forever. A man said a few years ago, "Life
doesn't seem worth living since I found that Christianity is not true."
It was so with these men. They were men without a goal. But Jesus
came and recommissioned them, laid upon them again the high task of
conquering the world. And Thomas missed that great blessing because he
was not there.
Last of all, Jesus breathed upon them and said, "Receive ye the Holy
Ghost." These men were not only recommissioned. They received the
Holy Ghost. "He breathed on them." How close they came to Him that
day! How their hearts were warmed! How their hopes were revived! "He
breathed on them and said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." And poor Thomas
missed also this benediction because he was not with them when Jesus
came.
It may be that you were once active in the church. It may be that you
were once a live and enthusiastic Christian. But little by little you
have slipped back. You have moved to strange places. Your life has
been thrown in great cities. And you have missed the fellowships of
yesterday out of your life. It may be that to-day you are no longer
found regularly among the worshipers in God's House. You are missing
something. Don't deceive yourself. As the saints of God meet together
Jesus still manifests Himself. And seeing Him, there comes to us a new
joy and peace, a new sense of the purpose and worthfulness of life.
Seeing Him there comes to us a new power for battle and for conquest.
But if we have missed Him, whatever else we have won, we have missed
about all that is worth while. Oh, there is one thing of which I am
absolutely sure, and that is that if I have Jesus, if His presence is a
gladsome reality to my heart, nothing else matters much. But if I miss
Him everything goes wrong and everything is disappointing. Darius is
in the palace and Daniel in the den of lions, but there is restlessness
and wretchedness in the palace and peace and joy in the lions' den. It
is the presence of God that makes the difference.
Thomas, because he missed receiving, also missed the privilege of
giving. When the other disciples came from that meeting, how radiant
were their faces! What a spring they had in their step! What joy
bringers they were! What a marvelously thrilling story they had to
tell! Freely had they received and freely did they give.
But Thomas. He had received nothing, therefore he had nothing to give.
He was a disappointment to his Master. For a whole week he went
doubting Him, mistrusting Him, when it was his privilege to have walked
into His fellowship and been as sure of His reality and of His nearness
as he was of his own existence.
In the second place, he missed the privilege of helping his fellow
disciples. What an encouragement he might have been to them! How it
would have strengthened the faith of those Christians who had not yet
seen the vision of their risen Lord to have seen the light even upon
the gloomy face of Thomas! But Thomas missed the privilege of giving.
I cannot rob myself without robbing you. I cannot starve myself
spiritually without helping to starve you. I cannot sin alone. If I
do that which lowers my spiritual vitality, by that very act I help to
lower yours also. "Thomas was not with them when Jesus came," and he
missed a double blessing, the privilege of receiving and the privilege
of giving.
But Thomas, in spite of his failure, succeeded in the end. Tradition
tells us that he died a martyr for his love and devotion to his Lord.
How was he saved? How was he brought to the joy and usefulness that
are born of certainty? Thomas, you know, was a doubter. A very
thoroughgoing doubter he was. How then, in spite of his doubts, did he
find his way into the fulness of the Light?
First, Thomas was not proud of his doubts. He did not look upon them
as blessings or as treasures. There is a type of doubter to-day who
does. I have heard men speak of "my doubts" as if they were very
priceless things. But no man is of necessity the richer for his
doubts. I know that doubt may become a doorway to a larger faith.
Still, I repeat, no man is of necessity the richer for them. For
instance, no man is the richer because of his social doubts. The man
who does not believe in his fellow man is poor indeed. The man who has
doubts about the inmates of his home suffers something of the pangs of
hell. And the man who doubts God can hardly consider himself the
possessor of a prize to be coveted. Thomas doubted, but he was not
proud of his doubts.
Thomas was not only not proud of his doubts, but was thoroughly
wretched on account of them. And being thoroughly wretched because of
them, he was willing to be set right. He wanted to believe. It seems
to me that any man would. Thomas was eager to be made sure that the
Christ he loved was really alive. He yearned for certainty.
Thomas was not only willing, but Thomas was reasonable. When he sought
to be sure of Jesus he put himself in the best possible position to
learn the truth. When he wanted to be made sure of Christ he did not
seek knowledge at the hands of the enemies of Christ. He did not ask
information of those who were confessed strangers to Christ. So often
we do. We get in the grip of doubt and straightway we turn from the
fellowship of those who know the Lord to the fellowship of those who
confessedly do not know Him. We read those books that strengthen our
doubts rather than those that strengthen our faith. But Thomas was
wiser.
"Thomas, we have seen the Lord." That is what Peter and James and John
and the rest said to Thomas after this wonderful service that Thomas
missed. And what was the answer of this doubter? Did his face light
up as he said, "I am glad to hear it"? Not a bit of it. He said,
"Except I see in His hand the print of the nails and put my finger into
the print of the nails and thrust my hand into His side I will not
believe." And what Thomas meant by this answer was simply this: "There
is nothing that you can say or do that will make me believe at all. I
simply cannot believe and cannot be made to believe that Jesus has
risen."
Now I do not think that his fellow disciples argued with him. Really
it would have done no good. They simply left him to his own thoughts.
And I fancy that those thoughts ran something after this fashion: "What
they say is not true. They are mistaken. Of course they are. They
must be. And yet they certainly believe in the truth of what they say.
God grant that they are right. There is nothing that I would not give
to know."
Then what did this honest and earnest doubter do? Listen! "And after
eight days again the disciples were within and Thomas with them." Yes,
Thomas is a doubter. But he is an honest and hungry-hearted doubter.
He is willing to give himself every opportunity to know the truth. He
says, "I will turn my face toward the east. Then if there is a dawn I
will see it." And what happened? The dawning came. The sun rose,
"even the Son of righteousness with healing in His wings." "Then came
Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be
unto you. Then saith He to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger and behold
my hands, and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side; and be
not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto Him,
My Lord and my God."
Thomas became absolutely certain. It is my firm conviction that that
same certainty is your privilege and mine. I believe that Jesus spoke
the simple truth when He said, "If any man is willing to do His will,
he shall know." However little you may believe at this present moment,
if you will be loyal to what you do believe, if you will follow the
light that you have, it will bring you into the brightness of the day.
You remember how Horace Bushnell, while a student at Yale, felt that he
was in the way of a great revival that was sweeping through the
University. He did not want to stand in the way of this revival and
yet he was an unbeliever. He did not feel that he could come out on
the side of Jesus Christ for he did not believe in Christ. "What then
do you believe?" a voice within him seemed to ask. "I believe there is
an absolute difference between right and wrong," was the answer. "Have
you ever put yourself on the side of the right to follow it regardless
of consequences?" was the next question. "I have not," was the answer,
"but I will." So Horace Bushnell kneeled there in his room and
dedicated himself to the service of the right. And what was the
result? After he had been a preacher of the Gospel in Hartford,
Connecticut, for forty-seven years he said, "Better than I know any man
in Hartford I know Jesus Christ."
When I was a lad I was overtaken by darkness while some eight or ten
miles from home. The night was intensely black, so much so that I lost
my way absolutely. I found myself after some hours in a dense forest.
I made up my mind to dismount from my horse and sleep on the ground, as
I saw no chance of finding my way home.
But I had no sooner dismounted than the lightning began to flash and
the thunder to roar and I was warned of an approaching storm. A little
later the storm burst upon me. And I mounted and rode on through the
dark, not knowing whither I went. At last, far past midnight, I saw a
speck of light in the distance. That light did not look at all like a
sunrise. It was as small as a needle point. And yet I followed it
because it was all I could see on the black bosom of the darkness. A
little later I found that that light was shining from a window in my
own home. A little later still I found my anxious mother behind that
light waiting for the home-coming of her boy.
Now, I did not have much light to begin with. It was pathetically
meager. But as I followed it it led me home. Thomas had but little.
Bushnell had but little. But they were willing to be true to the light
that they had. And being true to it, they found the fullness of the
light. For it was true then as it is true to-day, "if any man is
willing to do His will, he shall know."
These are the works of Revered Clovis G. Chappell ( 1922).
"Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when
Jesus came." Did you notice the name of this man who was missing? Who
was it when the little company met after the crucifixion that was not
there? There was a man expected who failed to come. Who was this man?
When the little company gathered in the upper room behind shut doors
there was one chair that was vacant. Who should have occupied that
chair?
Well, in the first place, it was not Judas. He was missing. He was
not there, it is true, but he was not expected. Judas had already
betrayed his Lord. Judas had already been whipped and scourged by his
remorse of conscience clean out of the world. Judas had gone to his
own place in the great Unseen Country. Judas was not there, but he was
not expected to be there.
Who was the missing man? It was not Pilate. We no more expected
Pilate than we expected Judas. Pilate had had his chance at Jesus.
Pilate had had an opportunity of knowing, of befriending Him, of
serving Him. But Pilate had allowed his own interests to get the
better of his conscience. Pilate had chosen the friendship of Caesar
and had spurned the friendship of the King Eternal. So we did not
expect Pilate to be present in this little company of the friends of
Jesus who met on the resurrection side of the cross. Who was the
missing man? It was not Caiaphas. He, too, had stood in the presence
of Jesus, but his envy had made him blind. And he shouted "Blasphemy!"
so loud that he drowned the voice of his conscience and the gentle
whisperings of the Spirit of God. No, it was not Caiaphas, nor any of
the indifferent or hostile crowd that we miss in this meeting.
Then, who was this missing man? And we read the text again and we find
his name was Thomas. That is a very familiar name. Oh, yes; we
remember Thomas quite well. It was Thomas who was missing. Now,
Thomas was expected, for he was a member of the little band of
disciples. He was one of the Twelve. He belonged to the Inner Circle.
His fellow Christians had a right therefore to expect him. Yet Thomas
was not with them.
It is a sad day ever for any congregation when its own membership begin
to absent themselves from its services. It is a sad day for any
congregation when those who compose it can be counted on to be there at
the social function, there at the place of business, but cannot be
counted on when the interests of the Kingdom are at stake and when the
Son of God goes forth to war. Believe me, no community ever loses
respect for a congregation till that congregation loses respect for
itself.
And did you notice when it was that Thomas was absent? "Thomas was not
with them when Jesus came." What an unfortunate time to be away! What
a great calamity to have missed that service of all others! There was
the little despondent, despairing company of ten meeting behind closed
doors. They were sorrow-burdened and fear-filled. But Jesus came, and
Thomas, the saddest and bitterest man of them all, was not there.
Of course he would have gone if he had had any idea what a wonderful
service it was going to be. If he had even dreamed that Jesus would be
there, of course he would not have missed it; but he expected the
meeting to be a very dull affair. He felt confident that whoever else
was there that there would be no Christ. He expected that Peter and
James and John and the rest would meet there and talk of a glorious
past that had gone forever. He would have said, "Yes, I know what they
will say. They will tell how Jesus called them at the beginning. They
will tell how they forsook all to follow Him. They will tell of the
great dreams that they dreamed, of the high hopes that they cherished.
They will tell of all the glad, radiant days that have 'dropped into
the sunset.' But they will have nothing to say to relieve the
bitterness of to-day or to fling a bow of hope upon the black skies of
to-morrow. So I will not go to the meeting to-day."
But the meeting was not dull. The meeting was not sad. The meeting
was not a lament for a glory that was passed, for a glad day that had
slipped behind them forever more. It was a service that thrilled with
present joys. It was a meeting that made the future to glow with
glorious possibilities. It was wonderful, because Jesus came. He came
then, and He comes still. Wherever hungry hearts come together who
yearn for Him and make Him welcome, there comes the blessed Christ to
stand in the midst. And therefore I would not absent myself from the
meeting together of the people of God. I would not because I want to
be there when Jesus comes, when the King comes in to see the guests.
"Thomas was not with them when Jesus came." I wonder why it was that
Thomas was missing. I wonder how it came about that he, the neediest
man among the apostles, was not there to receive the inspiration and
the uplift that came from this service. Why was he not there?
It was not, I am sure, because he was indifferent. There are many
to-day who have separated themselves from the services of the church,
from the fellowship of the saints, because of a deadening indifference.
They have become absorbed in a thousand other matters till they have
become doubly uninterested in the things of the church and in the
affairs of the Kingdom.
Thomas was not missing because he had found satisfaction elsewhere.
Thomas was not satisfied. Thomas was not happy. I doubt if there was
a sadder man in all Jerusalem than Thomas. I doubt if there was a more
wretched man in the wide world at that time than was Thomas. Thomas
had not turned aside from Jesus to satisfy his soul on husks. He had
not left Christ because his needs had been met and his thirst satisfied
at some other fountain.
Why was Thomas missing? He was missing because he had lost hope. He
believed that Christ was dead. He believed that the cause for which he
had stood was lost and lost forever more. He believed that right was
forever defeated; that wrong was forever enthroned. Over his head was
a blackened sky. For him there was not one single ray of light nor one
single gleam of hope.
If I had met Thomas on the streets of Jerusalem on that day and said,
"Thomas, I saw your friends going together to the Upper Room. Aren't
you going? Jesus might come while they are there," Thomas would have
answered, "No, I'm not going. Jesus will not be there. He is dead.
Don't you know if I thought I would see Him I would go? Don't you know
that I loved Him and love Him still better than life, but Jesus is
dead. Dead! Dead!
"I was in the garden when Judas kissed Him. I saw them lead Him away.
I saw the soldiers scourge Him. I saw Him crowned with the crown of
thorns. I was out on Calvary when the black night came on at midday
and I heard that wild, bitter cry. Oh! I will hear it forever more:
'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' I saw His head bowed and
I saw the brute of a soldier thrust the spear into His side. Don't
talk to me about seeing Jesus again. Jesus is dead."
The very bitterness of the sorrow of Thomas had driven him to despair.
He found it hard to believe always. Here he found it impossible. Now,
there are some folks who are sweetened by sorrow and made better.
There are others that are made bitter and morose and despairful. I
heard a man cry one day, an awful cry "Oh, I could curse God," he said,
"if I knew there was a God, for letting little Mary die!" For Thomas
everything had collapsed. There was not a star in his sky. There was
not a horizon in his life in which he might hope for a dawn. So that
he, the neediest man of them all, was not there when Jesus came.
And now, will you see what he missed. Truly, the man was right who did
not wonder what people suffered, but wondered at what they missed. And
just see what this man Thomas missed by not being in the little meeting
among the ten. First, he missed the privilege of seeing Jesus. He
missed the privilege of seeing Him who had throttled Death and hell and
the grave and had brought life and immortality to light through the
Gospel. He missed seeing Him, one vision of whose face would have
changed his sobbing into singing and his night into marvelous day.
He missed seeing Jesus, and failing to see Him, he missed the glorious
certainty of the after life. It is Christ, my friends, that makes
Heaven and the eternal life sure for us. It is He who enables men to
go down into the great silence without a doubt and without a fear. It
is He who makes us absolutely confident that there is a Home of the
Soul, that--
"There is a land of pure delight
Where saints immortal reign."
Having seen Him once dead and alive forever more, we have no slightest
doubt of the truth of His promise that, because He lives we shall live
also.
By staying away that day Thomas missed the thrill of a great joy. Had
he been there he might have seen the Lord. This is not a possibility
in every service, possibly, but it ought to be. It is a possibility in
every successful service. I heard of a preacher once who thought that
what his congregation wanted was beautiful epigrams. He thought that
they were more hungry for bejeweled verbiage than for the Bread of
Life. He thought they were thirsting more for a stream of eloquence
than for the Water of Life. But he was mistaken. And once he came
into the pulpit to find a card lying before him on which was written
this word: "Sir, we would know Jesus."
At first it angered him a bit and then it made him think. And then it
sent him to his knees. And then it sent him into the pulpit with a new
message. And one day he came again into his pulpit to find a second
card before him. Picking it up, he read these words: "Then were the
disciples glad when they saw the Lord." Of course they were. Their
gladness was the gladness of the ten that met in the Upper Room. Their
gladness was the gladness that might have been experienced by Thomas.
It was intended for him, for he was the saddest and most wretched man
in Jerusalem. But Thomas was not there.
Thomas missed also the gift of peace. Jesus said to those present,
"Peace be unto you." And how Thomas needed that gift! Thomas was in a
fever of restlessness and wretchedness. He was whipped by a veritable
tempest of doubt and utter unbelief. And all the while he might have
had the peace that passeth understanding. He might have had the vision
of Him who stood then, and still stands, the central figure of the
ages, saying, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and
I will give you rest." Those present that day were blessed with the
gift of peace. They had "fervor without fever." They had motion
without friction. But Thomas missed it because "he was not with them
when Jesus came."
The disciples who were there were re-commissioned that day. Jesus said
to them, "As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you." With His
death everything seemed at an end. The great program that He had given
them seemed to have lapsed forever. A man said a few years ago, "Life
doesn't seem worth living since I found that Christianity is not true."
It was so with these men. They were men without a goal. But Jesus
came and recommissioned them, laid upon them again the high task of
conquering the world. And Thomas missed that great blessing because he
was not there.
Last of all, Jesus breathed upon them and said, "Receive ye the Holy
Ghost." These men were not only recommissioned. They received the
Holy Ghost. "He breathed on them." How close they came to Him that
day! How their hearts were warmed! How their hopes were revived! "He
breathed on them and said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." And poor Thomas
missed also this benediction because he was not with them when Jesus
came.
It may be that you were once active in the church. It may be that you
were once a live and enthusiastic Christian. But little by little you
have slipped back. You have moved to strange places. Your life has
been thrown in great cities. And you have missed the fellowships of
yesterday out of your life. It may be that to-day you are no longer
found regularly among the worshipers in God's House. You are missing
something. Don't deceive yourself. As the saints of God meet together
Jesus still manifests Himself. And seeing Him, there comes to us a new
joy and peace, a new sense of the purpose and worthfulness of life.
Seeing Him there comes to us a new power for battle and for conquest.
But if we have missed Him, whatever else we have won, we have missed
about all that is worth while. Oh, there is one thing of which I am
absolutely sure, and that is that if I have Jesus, if His presence is a
gladsome reality to my heart, nothing else matters much. But if I miss
Him everything goes wrong and everything is disappointing. Darius is
in the palace and Daniel in the den of lions, but there is restlessness
and wretchedness in the palace and peace and joy in the lions' den. It
is the presence of God that makes the difference.
Thomas, because he missed receiving, also missed the privilege of
giving. When the other disciples came from that meeting, how radiant
were their faces! What a spring they had in their step! What joy
bringers they were! What a marvelously thrilling story they had to
tell! Freely had they received and freely did they give.
But Thomas. He had received nothing, therefore he had nothing to give.
He was a disappointment to his Master. For a whole week he went
doubting Him, mistrusting Him, when it was his privilege to have walked
into His fellowship and been as sure of His reality and of His nearness
as he was of his own existence.
In the second place, he missed the privilege of helping his fellow
disciples. What an encouragement he might have been to them! How it
would have strengthened the faith of those Christians who had not yet
seen the vision of their risen Lord to have seen the light even upon
the gloomy face of Thomas! But Thomas missed the privilege of giving.
I cannot rob myself without robbing you. I cannot starve myself
spiritually without helping to starve you. I cannot sin alone. If I
do that which lowers my spiritual vitality, by that very act I help to
lower yours also. "Thomas was not with them when Jesus came," and he
missed a double blessing, the privilege of receiving and the privilege
of giving.
But Thomas, in spite of his failure, succeeded in the end. Tradition
tells us that he died a martyr for his love and devotion to his Lord.
How was he saved? How was he brought to the joy and usefulness that
are born of certainty? Thomas, you know, was a doubter. A very
thoroughgoing doubter he was. How then, in spite of his doubts, did he
find his way into the fulness of the Light?
First, Thomas was not proud of his doubts. He did not look upon them
as blessings or as treasures. There is a type of doubter to-day who
does. I have heard men speak of "my doubts" as if they were very
priceless things. But no man is of necessity the richer for his
doubts. I know that doubt may become a doorway to a larger faith.
Still, I repeat, no man is of necessity the richer for them. For
instance, no man is the richer because of his social doubts. The man
who does not believe in his fellow man is poor indeed. The man who has
doubts about the inmates of his home suffers something of the pangs of
hell. And the man who doubts God can hardly consider himself the
possessor of a prize to be coveted. Thomas doubted, but he was not
proud of his doubts.
Thomas was not only not proud of his doubts, but was thoroughly
wretched on account of them. And being thoroughly wretched because of
them, he was willing to be set right. He wanted to believe. It seems
to me that any man would. Thomas was eager to be made sure that the
Christ he loved was really alive. He yearned for certainty.
Thomas was not only willing, but Thomas was reasonable. When he sought
to be sure of Jesus he put himself in the best possible position to
learn the truth. When he wanted to be made sure of Christ he did not
seek knowledge at the hands of the enemies of Christ. He did not ask
information of those who were confessed strangers to Christ. So often
we do. We get in the grip of doubt and straightway we turn from the
fellowship of those who know the Lord to the fellowship of those who
confessedly do not know Him. We read those books that strengthen our
doubts rather than those that strengthen our faith. But Thomas was
wiser.
"Thomas, we have seen the Lord." That is what Peter and James and John
and the rest said to Thomas after this wonderful service that Thomas
missed. And what was the answer of this doubter? Did his face light
up as he said, "I am glad to hear it"? Not a bit of it. He said,
"Except I see in His hand the print of the nails and put my finger into
the print of the nails and thrust my hand into His side I will not
believe." And what Thomas meant by this answer was simply this: "There
is nothing that you can say or do that will make me believe at all. I
simply cannot believe and cannot be made to believe that Jesus has
risen."
Now I do not think that his fellow disciples argued with him. Really
it would have done no good. They simply left him to his own thoughts.
And I fancy that those thoughts ran something after this fashion: "What
they say is not true. They are mistaken. Of course they are. They
must be. And yet they certainly believe in the truth of what they say.
God grant that they are right. There is nothing that I would not give
to know."
Then what did this honest and earnest doubter do? Listen! "And after
eight days again the disciples were within and Thomas with them." Yes,
Thomas is a doubter. But he is an honest and hungry-hearted doubter.
He is willing to give himself every opportunity to know the truth. He
says, "I will turn my face toward the east. Then if there is a dawn I
will see it." And what happened? The dawning came. The sun rose,
"even the Son of righteousness with healing in His wings." "Then came
Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be
unto you. Then saith He to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger and behold
my hands, and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side; and be
not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto Him,
My Lord and my God."
Thomas became absolutely certain. It is my firm conviction that that
same certainty is your privilege and mine. I believe that Jesus spoke
the simple truth when He said, "If any man is willing to do His will,
he shall know." However little you may believe at this present moment,
if you will be loyal to what you do believe, if you will follow the
light that you have, it will bring you into the brightness of the day.
You remember how Horace Bushnell, while a student at Yale, felt that he
was in the way of a great revival that was sweeping through the
University. He did not want to stand in the way of this revival and
yet he was an unbeliever. He did not feel that he could come out on
the side of Jesus Christ for he did not believe in Christ. "What then
do you believe?" a voice within him seemed to ask. "I believe there is
an absolute difference between right and wrong," was the answer. "Have
you ever put yourself on the side of the right to follow it regardless
of consequences?" was the next question. "I have not," was the answer,
"but I will." So Horace Bushnell kneeled there in his room and
dedicated himself to the service of the right. And what was the
result? After he had been a preacher of the Gospel in Hartford,
Connecticut, for forty-seven years he said, "Better than I know any man
in Hartford I know Jesus Christ."
When I was a lad I was overtaken by darkness while some eight or ten
miles from home. The night was intensely black, so much so that I lost
my way absolutely. I found myself after some hours in a dense forest.
I made up my mind to dismount from my horse and sleep on the ground, as
I saw no chance of finding my way home.
But I had no sooner dismounted than the lightning began to flash and
the thunder to roar and I was warned of an approaching storm. A little
later the storm burst upon me. And I mounted and rode on through the
dark, not knowing whither I went. At last, far past midnight, I saw a
speck of light in the distance. That light did not look at all like a
sunrise. It was as small as a needle point. And yet I followed it
because it was all I could see on the black bosom of the darkness. A
little later I found that that light was shining from a window in my
own home. A little later still I found my anxious mother behind that
light waiting for the home-coming of her boy.
Now, I did not have much light to begin with. It was pathetically
meager. But as I followed it it led me home. Thomas had but little.
Bushnell had but little. But they were willing to be true to the light
that they had. And being true to it, they found the fullness of the
light. For it was true then as it is true to-day, "if any man is
willing to do His will, he shall know."
These are the works of Revered Clovis G. Chappell ( 1922).
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