i-' ■'' i: •■■h: "-■^' .^r/ i ■/■ / .-!», W Cibrary of Che theological ^tmimvy PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY PRESENTED BY Mrs. Charles Henry G-reenleaf 'B6Z-585 .8 :^- ^^^rL^CU ^' THE LETTERS OF JESUS. LENTEN LECTURES. BY JOSEPH A. SEISS, D.D., LL.D., AUTHOK o. "LhCTURHS ON THK GoSPH.s/' " LhCTUKHS OU.U. i^PiSTLEs, " Voices from Babylon," " Lectures ON THE Apocalypse," etc., etc. " Remember the words of the Lord Jesus." PHILADELPHIA : LUTHERAN BOOKSTORE 1889. Copyright, 1889, BY JOSEPH A. SEISS. PRESS OF S^Erman & Co., f ^ilabtlp^ia. Westcott & Thomson, Stereotypers and EUctrotypers, Philada PREFACE. The Lectures here following were prepared for the author's week-day appointments during Lent. Direct practical impression, and not critical elab- oration, was the controlling aim in their compo- sition. As they were preached in different years, some repetitions of thought occur in them which might have been eliminated to the advantage of their literary finish; but as the same things recur in the "text, and differ in the form in which they reappear in the Lectures, it has been concluded to leave all as originally delivered. Lent is by general consent a season arranged by the Church for the calling of its members to a special sobering of their minds for serious medi- tation upon their situation with regard to spirit- ual things. It is a time to call to mind the pres- ence and inspection of God, His displeasure with sin, and how we are to secure salvation from it. 4 PREFACE. It is a time for earnest seeking unto the Lord to discover and amend what is defective in our hearts and lives, and for the quickening of our endeavors to be in full accord with the divine requirements. Christians need such seasons. The sensibility of conscience is liable to become dulled. Our real- ization of the need of the Saviour, and our hold of faith upon Him as our only hope, require fre- quent deepening and intensifying. We must be- times turn aside from our ordinary ways and indulgences to consider what we are, wdiere we are, and whither we are going. We cannot make progress in the divine life without oft stimulation to the reverence and ardor of our supplications, faith, and resolves. And, though other times and seasons may and should be used for these ends. Lent, with its special services and prayers, is intended to subserve such spiritual purposes, and well answers to them. And when it comes to such an arraignment of ourselves before the bar of God to make sure of our estate before Him, it would seem to be greatly helpful for us seriously to take up and devoutly consider these Letters of Jesus to His professing people on the earth. Here we are brought into PREFACE. 5 iiiiniediate communication with our living Lord Himself, present throughout His churches, ob- serving everything, and giving His infallible estimates and decisions on what He beholds, commending what is pleasing to Him and con- demning what He disapproves and hates. Here we have His own directions and commands ac- cording to the situation in each separate case, wherein also He tells us exactly what shall be the result of dutiful fidelity on the one hand and disregard of His Word on the other. And hardly another section of Holy Scripture is to be found better calculated to impress the heart, awaken spiritual consciousness, animate our hopes, and further us in the way of Christian improvement. Hence the choice of it for these Lenten Lectures. In treating of these sacred Letters the endeavor has been to deal faithfully with the divine Word without regard to anything else, to avoid all rash- ness and doubtful speculation, and to venture nothing on mere guess or conjecture. It would be presumption for the author to claim that he has in every instance succeeded in accurately voicing and applying the Saviour's meaning; O PREFACE. but in so far as he has light he is quite convinced of the truths he has sought to bring into view. Nor would he have preached these Lectures, or now consent to give them to the public, if he were not persuaded that such as sincerely desire to learn the mind of the Spirit may get from them some wholesome impressions to help them in Christian life, and some perhaps not before so distinctly reached. Certainly, things of very solemn moment to all are here brought into contemplation, and things wdiich should not fail to quicken spiritual life, strengthen holy pur- poses, dispose to patience under trials, and inflame with zealous desire to obtain the promises which our Lord holds out to the overcomers in the con- flict for the immortal prize. Accordingly, these Lectures are submitted with the hope and prayer that this attempt to draw out and apply "what the Spirit saith unto the churches" may be of service to souls, and re- dound to the praise of Him who walks amid the golden candlesticks and holds the stars in His right hand. Philaijp:lphia, Advent, 1888. Table of Contents. Htctnxt iPiist. PAGE Christ's Letters to the Cliurches 17 Common Neglect of these Letters 18 Letter to the Church at Ephesus , 19 The Stars in Christ's Right Hand 19 The Golden Candlesticks 20 Christ Amid the Candlesticks . 21 His Presence with His People 21 His Close Observance of All 23 The Church at Ephesus 25 Christ's Account of this Church 26 Its Good Works and Patience 27 Plow it Dealt with False Teachers 28 The Fervency of its Love 29 The Earnestness of its Piety 30 Well-doing Deserves Acknowledgment 31 These People not Perfect ;^^ No Perfect Church on Earth 3^ The Wane of Love 34 Uecture Seconti, The Defect in these Ephesian Christians 37 Not in a State of Apostasy • . . - 38 Declension in First Love . , 4° Commonness of this Defect 4° An Easy Thing to grow Sluggish 4^ The Remedy Prescribed 42 The Better Past to be Remembered 43 Enthusiasm of First Discipleship 45 7 8 TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE Repentance Recjuired 47 Not all Repentance the Same 48 I'irst Works to be Repeated 49 Baptismal Vows to be Returned to 50 Encouragements to Amendment 51 A Serious Threat 52 ILcrture Eljicti* Devout Attention Demanded 54 Neglect of the Divine Word Rebuked 55 Outward and Inward Hearing 57 Christ's Words those of the Spirit 59 The Character and Attitude of True Believers 59 Christians are Soldiers 60 Enemies to be Overcome — Ignorance 60 Carnal Nature 61 Subtleties and Assaults of Satan 63 Promise to the Overcomer 64 Eating and the Tree of Life 65 The Promises Graded 67 Individuality of the Promise 68 The Earthly Church not Saved as a Body 69 ilecture jFourti). Church at Smyrna 71 The Saviour's Sympathy 72 Tenderly Considers our Weakness ' 73 Has Respect to our Tribulations 75 Why He Sends Affliction 76 Takes to Heart what His People Suffer 78 Adversities of the Smyrniotes 79 Polycarp and his Martyrdom 80 Trials not to be Eeared .... 81 The Great Matter is Confidence in Jesus 82 Poverty that is Riches 83 ?ierture dfifti). The Church at Pergamos 85 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 9 PAGB The Sword of the Word 86 Moral Surgery 87 Christ's Knowledge of the Situation 88 Unfavorable Surruumlings 89 Christ's Name • 91 Holding Fast Christ's Name 93 Dutifulness to the Faith 94 The Gospel Nothing to be Ashamed of 95 The Faithful Antipas 97 No Excuse for Unfaithfulness 98 ILerturc ^ixtf). The City of Pergamos 100 " Satan's Throne " loi Tenderness of Christ's Censures 102 The Responsibility of Ministers 103 Balaamism 104 Balaamism in the Church 106 Christians Serving the World 109 Great Ailment of Modern Christians no The Nicolaitans m Not yet Extinct 112 God requires Honest Consistency 113 Ecrtuve £ebentt). Religious Controversy II4 Christ's Judgment on Erring Churches 116 Individuality not lost in Community II7 The Conflict to be Maintained 118 Particular Evils to be Combated 119 Promise to the Victor 120 Manna ^^i The Hidden Manna 122 The Glorified Christ 123 The White Stone 125 The New Name ^26 Encouragements to Fidehty ^^7 Voices from Heaven ^^7 lO TABLE OF CONTENTS. ?iectuce iStgijti). PAGB Thyatira and Lydia 129 Christ's Description of Himself 13° The Son of God 130 • Meaning of this Claim 13^ Eyes of Flame 132 Many not what they Seem 134 Church at Thyatira not Totally Apostate . 137 Some Good Christians there 13^ Their Faith and Patience 1 39 The Hindrances in their Way 140 Church not to be Forsaken because of Evils in it 14I Growth in Grace 142 No Standstill in Christian Life 143 ILcctute Kinti), Best of Churches have Unworthy Members 145 A Plague-spot in the Church at Thyatira 146 Woman in Christianity 147 The Mischief she can Do 148 A Second Jezebel 148 True and False Inspirations 149 " The Depths of Satan " 152 Warnings before Judgment 153 A Limit to God's Forbearance 154 Judgment upon Jezebel and her Children 155 The Burdened Faithful 156 Encouragement to the Tried 157 Deliverance will Come 158 Itecture "^zxiW^. The Letter to Thyatira for the Whole Church 160 Duties of Christians in this World 161 To Hold and Use the Word and Ordinances 162 To Maintain the Conflict with Evil 163 To Keep Christ's Works 164 Incentives to Faithfulness 166 TABLE OF CONTENTS. u PAGB Salvation is thus made Sure 1 57 Brings to Heavenly Office antl Administration 168 Shepherdizing of the Nations jyi Possessing the Morning Star 1^2 Our Labors here not in Vain 174 ?Lcfture iSlebentij. Sardis 176 The Church in Sardis 177 Christ's Presentation of Himself to 178 lias the Seven Spirits of God 178 The Paraclete 179 The Seven Stars 179 Condition of the Church in Sardis 182 A Name to Live while Dead 183 Christ's Demand upon Them 184 Drowsy Eyes must be Opened 184 What is Perishing must be Strengthened 185 Past Expei-iences must be Recalled 186 The Reasons Why 187 Probation and Judgment 188 The Crisis Impending 188 Prominence and Power of this Doctrine 189 We Know not the Time 190 Uectuce Cbjelftfj. God has Saints in the Worst of Times 192 Our Judgments Often at Fault 193 The Saints have Garments Undefiled 194 In the World, but not of It 196 Despised on Earth, but Esteemed in Heaven 198 Shall be Clothed in White Raiment 199 The Book of Life 201 Names therein , 202 Christ's Confession of His Own 203 Names on Earth and Names in Heaven 204 Great Things for our Consideration 205 12 TABLE OF CONTENTS. ?ierture ^jirteentij. PAGE The Church in Philadelphia 207 Those who Say they are Jews, Ijut are not 208 False Professors 210 Profession Necessary, but not Sufficient 210 Evil in the Several Churches 211 The Holy One and the True 214 An Open Door 215 Keeping the Word of Christ's Patience 2i6 Strength in Weakness 2i8 Safety from the Great Tribulation 219 Translation and Crowning of the Waiting Saints 220 Urcture jFourtcenti), Future Blessedness and Glory of the Saints 224 Who are Saints 226 The Eternal Temple 227 Pillars in it 228 God's Name upon Them 230 God's Priests 231 The New Jerusalem 232 Heavenly Citizenship 235 Inscription of Christ's New Name 236 Our Riches in Christ 237 The Great Possibilities in Life Eternal 238 Hectare dFifteentf). The wSeven Churches Prophetic of Seven Periods ...... 241 Our Times the Laodicean Period 243 Christ "The Amen" 244 Tlie InilHlment and Authentication of All Prophecy 245' " The Faithful and True Witness " 247 The Only Revelator of God . 248 " The Beginning of the Creation of God " 249 The Operating Cause in Creation 249 How Christ would have us Regard Him 250 A Great Thing to Know Christ Aright 25 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 13 PAGE Archippus and his Charge 253 A State of Coldness 254 Not Ajiproved of God 255 A State of Warmth 256 Examples of 257 A State of Lukewarmness 258 Ways in which it is Induced 259 A Lukewarm Christian not a Saved Man 263 Self-satistied and Self-secure 264 Christians of our Day 265 lirrturc ^rbenternti). Liability to be Deceived 268 Self-delusion of the Laodiceans 269 How they became Self-deceived 271 Christ's " Counsel " to them 273 To Buy of Him 274 Gold, the True Riches 275 White Raiment 276 Healing Medicaments 276 Buying of Jesus 277 A Blessed Opportunity 280 ?iectuce lEigf)teenti), Jesus the Chastener of His People 282 All History Attests this 283 Worth of the Discipline of Suffering 283 Prosperity no Evidence of the Divine Favor 285 Chastening a Sign of the Saviour's Love 286 The Rod applied to Spur our Zeal 287 False and True Zeal 288 Zeal Required 290 Repentance the Great Need 291 No Lack of Zeal in the Worldly-minded 294 Christianitv Demands it Above All 295 14 TABLE OF CONTENTS. Eectuce Nineteentf)» PAGE An Afifecting Picture of Christ 297 The True Location of the Scene 298 Jesus Unrecognized by His Church 300 Is Loth to Abandon His Church 302 His Standing and Knocking 302 This Knocking here Something Pecuhar 303 Some Loud Enunciation of His Presence 305 Marked Agitations in Nature 306 His Last Appeal has a Degree of Violence in it 307 Symptoms of the Nearing Judgment 308 Hectute ClunUietf). Christ's Promises to them that Open to Him 312 Gradation in the Promises 314 Thrones and Dominion 315 Christ's Enthronement with the Father 316 His Own Throne Distinguished 317 The Regency of the Saints with Christ 318 Destiny of the Saints 320 The Greater the Glory the Greater the Conflict 321 The Foes to be Vanquished 321 No Reason for Despair 323 Our Duty to Bid for the Highest Honors 325 Grieving the Holy Ghost 328 God hath Spoken 329 His Word for All People 330 A Resume of the Contents of these Letters 332- These Things Meant to be of Practical Account 335 Differences in Hearing 336 All is Personal 337 Individual Responsibility 338 Have we Profited by these Letters 339 Conclusion 341 ALMIGHTY and Everlasting God, Who ^ hatcst nothing that Thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all those who are peni- tent; Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may ob- tain of Thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. 15 Thus speaks the Spirit to the churches all, And to each man who hath an ear to hear : Whoso o'ercometh in this fell career With powers of earth and hell, which })roudly call My people to the battle, he shall fall Unvanquished, and to his grave shall bear The martyr's crown ; victorious rise and wear The palm of jubilee. Let no fears appall Christ's fellow-soldiers. Him, your Captain, view Upon the throne of God ; WHio hath on high Mansions prepared, and wine o' th' kingdom new Upon His table set ; where never sigh Is heard, or sorrow enters. There shall you With Him abide, and in His bosom lie. 16 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. ILfrturc #irst. Rev. 2 : 1-4: "Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; The.se thing.s .saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks ; I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil : and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars : and hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast lalx^red, and hast not fainted. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love."' HIS is from the first in a series of sev^en I^etters sent by the blessed Saviour by the hand of the apostle John to the seven churches of Asia Minor. These Letters constitute a unique section of sacred literature. Like the Parables, they consist exclusively of Christ's own words; but, unlike the Parables, they were dic- tated from lieaven after He was risen and glori- fied. They are perhaps the only unabridged records of His addresses that we possess. They are also so impressively introduced, and .so par- ticularly addressed to the churches, as to imply 2 17 1 8 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. that there is something in them of unusnal sol- emnity and importance. They come to us with a seven-times-repeated admonition to hear them, and lav them to heart. As we have ears to hear, we are commanded to hear what the Spirit saith to the churches. It is therefore a little strange that there is not another part of Holy Scripture, of equal promi- nence, to which the Church has paid less atten- tion. The Parables of Christ are continually being brought before us: the discussions of them are endless. But it is rarely that God's people are called to consider these Letters of Jesus^ though bearing His own sign-manual, and so particularly urged upon the attention of every one. Is this right? Should we not be as anxious to know what Jesus has dictated from heaven, and has commanded us to read, hear, and keep before us, as to know what He said in His dis- courses while on the earth ? Is not the subject- matter in these Epistles as important, practical, and full of instruction as any other part of the New Testament? Why, then, has there been such a common neglect of what our lyOrd has pronounced so blessed for us to hear, ponder, and digest? On entering, then, upon a very solemn portion of the Church Year, and meaning by some special services to bring ourselves into closer fellowship TO THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS. 1 9 with our blessed Saviour, may it not be well for us to occupy these appointments by reverently considering what He has thus sent to His churches, and trying to gather up at least some of the precious things which He has thus given for our learning? And in doing so let us earn- estly pray God to open our hearts, chat we may duly understand and profit by His holy truth. In the passage now before us we have the first part of the Letter to the Church of Ephesus, from which we note — I. The description wJiich the Saviour gives of Himself: "These things saith He that holdeth the seven stars in His right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks." This refers back to the vision described in the preceding chapter, where it is clearh* explained that "the seven stars are the angels or ministers of the seven churches, and the seven candlesticks are the seven churches." Ministers are stars. They are so designated because they are God's light-bearers, intended to shine on the earth in the Sun's absence. They have their high station for the sole purpose of dispensing light. They are not all of the same magnitude, "for one star differeth from another star in glor}^" but the ofiice of everv one is to give forth heavenly illumination. The business of a star is to shine, to give out 20 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. lio-ht; and that of a minister is the same. A preacher or bishop who does not preach, or whose sermons enlighten no one, may be a minister of man's manufactnre, but surely not a star made of God. Stars are of no conceivable use to us except as they give light. They may be very big bodies, have very large circuits, fill an immense amount of space, and be as heavy and ponderous as the sun itself, but if they give no light and have no power to illuminate, they might as well not be, so far as respects us. They only fill up room which might be better occupied. And it is well for us all to bear in mind that as stars are made to shine, so all ministers must be light-bearers and light-givers. These stars are i)i Christ^ s right hajtd. He upholds them. They are His agents and instru- ments to carr}^ and in;part the heavenly light of life and salvation to benighted man. He calls, directs, and sends them. They have their high and beneficent office from Him. And they de- pend on Him for their place and for the light they give. The candlesticks are the churches, because it is the office of the churches to hold up that which gives out the light. People may have candle- sticks for mere ornaments, displays of rich ma- terial and handiwork, specimens of beautiful forms and elegant chasing; but that i^ not the TO THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS. 21 true use of caudlesticks. Candlesticks are meant to hold candles, to support lights. The truest and best candlestick is that which best supports a candle. What we want in it is a secure holder — one that will stand steady and remain firm — one that will receive and support a candle, that we may see by its light. We do not judge ic so much by its pattern, its material, or the labor that has been bestowed upon it as by the completeness with which it answers its purpose. When a letter reaches us in the night-time, and we are anxious to know its contents, what care w^e whether the candlestick is gold or brass or clay, only so that it holds the light by which to see to read ? And so it does not so much matter as to the material and organization of a church. The best is that which best sustains the truth and best gives out the saving light. Now, the description which Christ here gives of Himself is, that He walks in the midst of these candlesticks : " These things saith He who walk- eth in the midst of the seven golden candle- sticks. '' When on earth He said, "Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." From this we see that it does not take a great building, a grand cathedral, or a large assembly of people to make a church. It mav be well to have good accom- 22 THE LETTERS OE JESUS. inodations and strong congregations; bnt, no mat- ter how humble the place or small the assembly, two or three united in faith and joining together for the confession and service of Jesus are church enough to attract the Saviour's presence; and there He is "in the midst of them" as much and as really as in the grandest assembly. His disciples may be interested in "the great stones of the temple," but the Master's attention is on something more noble and more enduring. His eyes are on the " living stones " and how they are disposed. While men are admiring the archi- tectural splendors. He is noticing the poor widow with her mite and the soul-sick publican smiting his breast and saying, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" Piles of stones or rocks stationed as if bursted upward into granite blossoms are not the things which most attract our blessed Saviour. Far more is He interested in the gathering of the people in His name, even though it be in some cold barn or lowly hovel. Wherever His people come together for holy worship, there He is. By His word and promises and Spirit and grace He is with them, to hear their prayers and to dispense His mercies. And thus He walks amid all the golden candlesticks the world over, present wher- ever His name is called and His Gospel sounded. And, being present with His churches. He ob- serves and notes all that is going on in them and TO THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS. 23 all that pertains to His people. "/ kiunv thy works^' is what He here says of Himself. Noth- ing escapes Him. Every individual is held in full survey. He sees the private walk, the deeds of worship, the heart of devotion. He beholds the Pharisee in his pride, the publican in his humil- ity; the rich casting into the treasury of their abundance, and the poor offering of their narrow means. He would have the church of Bphesus understand that He knew it thorouo^hlv — all its works, its labor of love, its hatred of evil, its suf- ferings, its patience, its strength, and its weak- ness. He has "eyes like a flame of fire," which penetrate all hearts and all lives, which look into the inmost recesses of the soul, and to which all things are naked and open. He knoweth the proud afar off. He looks through all masks and all disguises. No one can cloak or dissemble so as to impose on Him or deceive Him. There is not a thought in the heart, but, lo! He knoweth it altogether. He knows who we are and what we are, and what we have been doing, and with what sort of mind and temper we are now in His presence. " His eyes behold the works, His eye- lids try the thoughts of the children of men." Nor is there a heart upon which the eye of Jesus is not fully set the same as if it were the only heart in the world. If any one's thoughts are wandering, preoccupied with other than sacred 24 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. things, dwelling on all but what has brought us together, or calculating about this or that, unen- listed in the things that are being said of the blessed Jesus, busy, but not with the spirit of worship and honest desire to come nearer to God, He is observing it and knows it better than that soul itself Whoever else is absent, Christ is here, for He walks in the midst of the candlesticks, and there is never a moment's suspension of that all- penetrating omniscience with which He is con- templating every one of us here or elsewhere. No matter what is uppermost in our thoughts, feelings, or wishes, what we have been or what we now are, Jesus knows it all. If we have come hither to-day with true heart and a right spirit, He beholds it, and His favor and blessing go out to the soul that is seeking Him and is desirous to honor Him. If prayer and sorrow for sin and penitential longing for His mercy and grace be in our hearts, He observes it and encourages and fans it with His promises and Spirit. If the tear has silently gathered in the eye or fallen in regret over follies past; if the heart has quickened its beating over the pain felt for the wrongs and un- charities by which the life has been marred and- stained; if the soul is swollen in the bosom and heaving out sighs to be freed from the condemna- tion we have deserved, — there is nothing quicker in an angel's wing or in the lightning's flash than TO THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS. 25 the speed with which this is telephoned to the ear and nnderstanding- of the divine Saviour. To every one His word is "/ Jznow thy works ;'^^ and neither we nor angels can tell Him any thing about ourselves which He does not see and know. Our sorrows which we may not tell, our trials which no other knoweth, our difficulties, our hardships, the woes and aches that lie buried in our souls, our weaknesses and heart-struggles, our hidden fears and doubts, our honesty in things for which others blame and censure, our real motives and endeavors which others do not understand, — all are known to the loving Saviour, who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmity, and bids us be of good comfort, that His grace shall be sufficient for us. There is no child of His unnoticed or on whom His loving eye does not rest, to look subduingly upon the Peters that deny Him, to speak consolingly to the Marys that weep over their sins, to note the secret devotions of the Nathaniels under the fig tree, to commend the faith of the bowed and crippled ones who struggle amid the jostling crowd that they may but touch the hem of His garment. Note, II. What Jesus sazv in these church-people of Ephesus. We learn from the Acts of the Apostles how thev had been oathered and formed into a Chris- 26 THE LETTERS OE JESUS. tiaii congregation — how Paul, passing through the upper coast of the Mediterranean, came to Ephe- sus, and found there some twelve Christian be- lievers, refugees from the murderous persecutions which the malignant Jews were waging against those of this faith in Palestine. God overrules the v/rath of men to His own praise. Many churches had their first beginning through the fuofitives who were thus driven awav from their own countr)^ on account of their faith in Christ. Those whom Paul found at Ephesus became the nucleus for the great and honored congregation at that place. They were the first materials in the formation of that candlestick for the upholding of the light of the Gospel amid the heathen dark- ness of Diana's worshippers. And with the apos- tle Paul as their minister and champion, whose hands and ministrations they did everything to uphold, great progress for the truth was made. Turned out of the synagogue of the Jews, to which he first went and preached Jesus and the resurrection, they procured the use of a school- house of one Tyrannus, where Paul went daily preaching and arguing with all comers, and con- vincing and persuading many by his arguments, his testimony, and his miracles. And thus the church of Ephesus was established. ; It is claimed by some that Timothy was its first bishop, but there certainly were a number of other TO THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS. 2/ overseers or bishops with him, whom the Holy Ghost had made overseers of that church. It was a highly favored church. Having had i Paul for its tounder, the venerable apostle Johnj spent his last years in close association with it.l It had great privileges, and it had greatly profited by them. It is always well when people gladly hear the truth and live up to it. The church at Ephesus was a devoted and act- ive church. He who walks amid the golden can- dlesticks saw their '' ivorksy True Christian faith and devotion always bring forth good works. Idle and do-nothing Christians are of but little worth to themselves or to the world, and their Christianity is of a very doubtful sort. It is not said what these "works and labors" were, but we can easily infer them from accounts elsewhere. The people were in earnest in their religion, and did everything in their power to make con- verts to it. They upheld and helped Paul in all his efforts to the full extent of their ability. They filled their places with heart and energy, and were zealous for the cause. They worked together for the same end. They exemplified what they pro- fessed and believed. They were Ephcsians in the real sense of that word— full of ardor, warm and fervent in their zeal and activity for the Gospel and the brino-iuq; of men to embrace and share the 28 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. blessedness of it. All this is necessarily implied in what is written, that " the word of God might- ily grew and prevailed." And this the Saviour knew, remarked on, and commended. They also had much ''^ patience y Twice does the Saviour refer to their patience. They w^ere not dispirited, put out, and made to hold back be- cause things did not go just to their mind. They were slandered by the Jews and persecuted by the heathen, but they held on to their faith and didr not falter in their endeavors. Trade unions rosel up to drive them out of the city, but they stood I firm for the Gospel. They had to bear all sor*ts^ of taunts, calumny, and ill-treatment on account of their faith and zeal, but they did not retaliate nor give over on that account. They were/<7- tient — patient in bearing contumely, patient in waiting God's time and will in all things, patient in holding on and working on, oppressive and hard as the situation was. They knew for Whom they were working, and the great interest to the community and the souls of men the establishing a strong Christian church in Ephesus would be, and they were not to be diverted from their fixed and steady purpose, glad to do and suffer in such a cause. And for this Jesus praised and com- mended them. Great efforts were made to corrupt them against the truth. Wicked men got among them, but TO THE Cia'RCII OF EPHESUS. 29 they cast them out. When tliey could not be moved by opposition and persecution, hypocritical pretensions and deceit were brought into requi- sition. IMen came insinuating ill things against Paul as not an apostle, but an impostor, and others came claiming to be the true apostles and the only true teachers of religion. Deceivers sought to ingratiate themselves with them, that they might pervert their minds and turn them from the truth. But they did not take everything for granted that people said. They were careful to know where things came from and who those were who came with these tales and novelties. They tried them which said they were apostles and were not, and found them liars, and would have nothing to do with them. These bland- faced whisperers, who know so much and are always retailing insinuations of what they have heard to the discredit of good people, found no favor with these Ephesian Christians. And for this also the Saviour eulogized and commended them. These Ephesian Christians were further charac- terized by great fervency of love. This was es- pecially the case in their early history. "Adver- sity makes strange bedfellows, " and companionship in common calamities and hard misfortunes tends to unite souls very closeh' that otherwise would never be brought together. The first members of 30 THE LETTERS OE JESUS. this church were all persecuted exiles, driven away from their homes and country because of their faith, and as fellow-sufferers in the same holy cause they were very close in their intimacy and warm in their mutual sympathy and regard, which became one of the particular features of the orig- inal church of Bphesus. But their love and interest in one another were only the reflection of a still more ardent love to Jesus and His truth. Had it not been so they never would have abandoned home, friends, and possessions in their own land to take the place of fugitives and refugees in a strange and corrupt heathen city. Their religion was not fashion. They were Christians, not from custom or be- cause it was a reputable thing with those whose good opinion they prized. They were Christians from honest conviction, from genuine principle, and were ready to forsake father and mother, houses and lands, and to become strangers and pilgrims on the earth, out of pure love and de- votion to that blessed Saviour who left heaven and died on the cross for them, and had sealed them by His Holy Spirit of promise unto eternal redemption. Nor does anything so enlist, please, and gratify our glorious Lord as to behold such devotion in His followers and children. "I love them that love me" is His saying of old, and His heart ever softens toward those whose hearts are TO THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS. 3 1 warm and zealous toward Him. It is indeed a beautiful thing to love Jesus, and a very uncomely and wacked thing not to be moved with affection- ate gratitude to Him wdio has so loved us and done so much for us. And as these Ephesians loved ardently, Jesus noted it and commended them for it. Well-doing and worth deserve acknowledgment and commendation, and the withholding of these when due is not according to Christ. Even though all good in His people is from His grace, and none of it could be without Him and the helping power of the Holy Ghost, when they thus improve under His merciful dealings He gives them credit for it, and expresses His pleasure and approval. Bad men often flatter and praise as a lure to those whom the}' wish to win to their favor or influence to their own selfish ends. They know the power of praise, and they dishonestly use it. This is despicable. Good people are apt to err on the other side, and are strangely chary and neglectful in the use of this power. Whether it be to gain the respect and affection of others, the moulding of their desires, the guiding of their will, the cure of their faults, or the strengthening of their activities in what is good, almost every other means is preferred to that of commendation. Aro-ument, advice, admonition, warning, and es- pecially rebuke, censure, and complaint, are lib- 32 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. erally used ; but words of approval and esteem are carefully withheld or grudgingly doled forth, as if some hidden danger lurked in them. The example of Christ was different. Even in this world of sin and , sinners He still found some things to commend and praise; and in here speaking from heaven it is the same. Dishonest praise is wickedness. It is base in him who gives it and evil to him to whom it is given. But candid, truthful, and liberal acknow- ledgment and commendation of what is right and good is a blessed inspiration both in the giver and the receiver. It draws them together. It freshens and stimulates effort. It begets mutual confidence and multiplies strength. It opens a community of feelino; and interest which makes correction of faults easy, serves to correct despondency and faintness, and tends to encourage, cheer, and re- inforce. To assure others of your good opinion if they can trust your sincerity and truthfulness animates them to increased effort to justify your favorable regard, and it helps to build up love, good-will, and virtue. It is right, and it is use- ful. It helps to allay the envious and bad in hu- man nature and to bring out and foster the good. It is a happiness in itself, and it gives happiness. What a comfort and inspiration was it to these Ephesians, whatever there was in them to be cor- rected, to be thus commended by the vSaviour for TO TJIE CHURCH OF EPHESUS. 33 SO many things! How nuicli more courageously would they now exert themselves to repair what was defective, that they miglit stand thus approved in all things! iVnd if we could but know what failing energies may be refreshed, what languor chased away, what hope and enthusiasm inspired, and what love and confidence begotten by our words of honest, cordial praise, we would not be so backward in our expressions of them. But, as in all cases in this world, these people were not perfect. With all their virtues, they had their faults and failings, which honest love could not omit to mention and disapprove, that effort might be made to supply what was wanting. With all the Saviour's commendations of them,^ He still found it necessary to say to them, ^''Nev-\ ertheless^ I have somezvhat against thee y There is no such thing on earth as a perfect man, a perfect woman, or a perfect society made up of men and women. Such a thing as a perfect ; church, in which there are no weaknesses, no de- fective members, no faulty administrations, no backslidings, no unworthy people, does not ex- ist. Some churches are much better and nearer right than others, but none are full up to the standard of perfection. In this world the Church is always and everywhere a mixed society, with mingled excellencies and faults. Even where the graces of the Spirit are the most active and the 3 34 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. . most fully developed, and people are most devoted and earnest, and the work of the Lord goes on with the greatest success, when the eye of the holy Jesus comes to survey the situation He al- ways has plenty of occasion to say, ^^ Nevertheless^ I have sojnewhat agamst thee. ' ' And it is the same with individuals as with I churches and congregations. We may think that we are all right, that we are doing nobly, that we have been very watchful, prayerful, true, devoted, and prompt in every known duty ; but when Jesus comes to give His judgment, even while there is much for Him to commend and praise. He still in truth and justice must add, ^^ Nevertheless^ I have so7newhat against theey Nay, if we only look carefully into ourselves, our ways of living and doing, how we are hand- ling ourselves, talents, possessions, hearts, and lives — how we are bearing and disposing our- selves respecting Christian duty and privilege, and what sort of progress we have been making in the divine life and usefulness, — we will be at no loss to find that Jesus, who knows and sees all, would needs have to say even of the best, ^''Nev- ertheless^ I have someivhat agamst thee^ The great fault Christ found with these people was the decay of their first love. They were good and earnest Christians still, but they had too much cooled in their ardor and let down in the fervency TO THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS. 35 of their former zeal and devotion. There was still the outward ongoing of effort and activity, and much to be praised; but love was dying. The machinery still moved under the power of the original impulse, but the great moving spirit within was losing its force. The outside of the tree stood fair and well-proportioned as ever, but mould and decay had commenced within. A pure creed and a right discipline still remained, but the heart was growing cold. The Saviour saw how it was with them, and spoke accordingly. And what, dear friends, does Christ's all-search- ing eye behold in us with reference to this point? Has there been no wane in our love and zeal since first we gave ourselves to Jesus ? Are we as much interested in the things of God and the soul as once ? Are we as prompt and earnest in our pri- vate devotions and attendance on the means of grace as aforetime? Do we have the same low opinion of the vanities, pursuits, honors, and pleasures of this world as when we first set out to serve the Lord ? Are we as strict and particu- lar in holding on to the truth or word of God, and as confident in venturing our trust and hopes upon it, as at some other time we could mention ? Are we as devoted to the Church and as anxious and earnest and prayerful to build it up and to foster the spirit of peace, harmony, and love, as once? Ah me! in how many instances may 36 THE LETTERS OE JESUS. awakened conscience catch the words of the lov- ing Jesus, sadly whispering, "My child, my dear child, thou hast borne and hast patience for my name's sake, and hast labored, and hast not fainted. Nevertheless^ I have somewhat against theeP' lyct us think on these things. iLcdurc g>eco«lJ. Rev. 2:5: " Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works ; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent." E have remarked upon the solemn fact that He who walks amid the golden candlesticks and whose eyes are like flames of fire sees and knows the works, cha- racter, and spiritual condition of all His churches and of every member in each. What is good, what is bad, what is improving and what is ail- ing, what is wanting and what is failing, — all is naked and open to His searching view, and no concealment can hide anything. If there is good, earnestness, and sincerity in any one. He notices that good and commends it. There was much that was favorable in this church of Ephesus, and this is duly credited. But there were unfavorable symptoms also, and of a dangerous sort, and these are likewise pointed out for special attention and amendment, lest they should work ruin to the whole spiritual life of those concerned. The particular defect was that these people had 37 38 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. ^^ left their first lovey It is remarkable that this should happen in a church so eminent for its at- tainments, and standing at the head of all the churches of its time for activity, force, zeal, and devotion to the truth. Here was a congregation in which Paul had labored long and successfully, to which he had addressed an Epistle finding no cause for censure or evils to be corrected, over which Timothy had presided as chief pastor, and in the midst of which the beloved disciple dwelt in his later years, joining in its assemblies to the last, and often exhorting its members to faith and love. And yet it had so declined in spiritual life and devotion that Christ had to make this serious charge against it even while the apostle John still lived. We thus see what a frail and fickle thing human nature is — how little dependence is to be placed upon it even at the best — how ineffectual the highest opportunities are to guarantee stability of religious character and devotion — how liable the most distinguished attainments to decay and disappear. Most of the same people who were in this church from the beginning were in it still, but it was now for the loving Saviour to say, " I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first lovey These people were not in a state of apostasy. There still was much activity, zeal for evangelic TO THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS. 39 truth, earnest adherence to apostolic order, hatred of error and unrighteousness, and regard for pur- ity of life. But all this may exist, and yet a hid- den canker be eating away what no orthodoxy, no faith, no knowledge, no good works, no labor or patience in well-doing could atone for. It was still a decent, orderly, vigorous, exemplary, and efficient church. Its external presentations were all good. But there was inward weakening in that ver}' thing which is most essential — in that living love and fellowship of the soul with its Redeemer which is the life of all true piety. The body stood the same as before, but the mer- cury within had fallen. The machinery was still running, but the motive-power was failing. It was still the best of all the seven churches named, but it was at heart in a state of decline. Affec- tion was cooling, zeal was abating. The inward fire of love was wasting away. A degeneration had set in which needed to be arrested and reme- died. These people still held firmly to the confession of the truth. They had religious knowledge and principle. They were true to what they had been taught, and held on commendably to it against all who encroached upon it either in doctrine or in life. They were still in many respects model Christians of the higher class. But the heart was not so deep in the matter as formerly. They 40 THE LETTERS OE JESUS. could still withstand the terrors of persecution by the confidence and might of prayer, but those prayers had become less frequent, less ardent, and less confiding; their devotions more a matter of course than from inward desire to be in commu- nion with Jesus; their religion more intellectual perhaps, but having less heart. They were still honored examples of the regenerating grace of God, and honored witnesses for the Gospel in the midst of a powerful heathenism; but the world had imperceptibly been insinuating itself between them and the Saviour, and, perhaps without know- ing it themselves, they had lapsed from their first love. Nor was this a peculiar or uncommon case. Too many Christians, alas ! know from melan- choly experience what it is to sink away from the fervors of a first devotion. Many can refer to times when they knew something of the happi- ness of entire consecration and full communion with Heaven — when the heart was withdrawn from everything temporal and fixed in undoubt- ing faith upon Jesus — when they felt in the very newness and wonder of their emotions and re- solves a proud confidence that nothing could ever remove them from an estate so blessed. But they have since found out how that life and joy could evaporate and pass aw^ay — how the care and love for other things insensibly stole in upon the soul, TO Tin-: CHURCH OF EPHESUS. 4 1 SO that the bitter waters again filtered into tlieir old channels, the chains again tightened npon the neck, and a drag formed upon the heart, until all former liberty and confidence was undermined, the old slavery renewed, and first love diminished and gone. Christ Himself has told us of some who hear the word, and anon with joy receive it, yet after a while lapse into their old folly and un- concern. Ah, dear friends, we know of too many such cases. We can point out numbers of them by name among ourselves. From the beginning the Saviour said it would be so. And such a frail and inconstant thing is human nature that I doubt if one of us has been without some experience of just what the Saviour here alleged against these Ephesians. It is an easy thing to grow sluggish and indif- ferent in religious things, even when there has been a good and honest start and while there is no thought of backsliding. The truths once so bright and quickening to the soul are liable to become soiled by handling, and thus to lose their freshness and powder. The natural heart, which still stirs within, is ever pleading for more liberal ideas and for less strictness than conscience at first so clearly dictated. The cares and anxieties of life make such heavy demands on our time and energy that religious duties are crowded into the background and punctuality in attending upon 42 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. them is invaded and excused. Prayer and medi- tation on sacred things are narrowed to very feeble and uncertain limits. Bible reading and study become irregular and much hindered. Self-in- dulgence and carnal ease and pleasure sue for relaxation in the continual pressure which the burdens of business impose. A little yielding here and there seems to be necessarv, and is so much more agreeable. And so, without intend- ing it, and thinking all the while of keeping on good terms with conscience, people get upon the downward plane before they are aware of it, and finally awake, if they ever awake at all, to find themselves drifted far away from what they started to become and from what they once were. They have left their first love. WHAT IS TO BE DONE IN SUCH A CASE? The Saviour prescribed for these people of Kphesus, and what He said to them applies equally to ourselves. Truth is not a thing of one century, which becomes a cipher or a false- hood in the next, or which varies with latitude and longitude. Truth is like its God — the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. What was truth at Ephesus is truth also in Philadelphia. Where the same disease exists, there the one and un- changeable remedy is requisite. And the word here vSpoken to the Christians of Ephesus is a leaf TO THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS. 43 from the tree of life which needs to be applied in every case where love is dying. The prescription given is made up of three items, and each of them of great importance. The first item is, ' ' Remember therefore fro?n whence thoti art fallen. ' ' This calls for retro- spection and the exercise of memory. True piety brings all our faculties into action. It is one of man's powers to be able to look back and to live the events and course of his life over again by means of memory. And this power is the first thing to be set to work to cure a decay of relig- ious life and fervor. People must think back and compare what they once were with what they now are. Memory must recall the past that it may be laid alongside of the present. When the apostle wished to bring the Jewish Christians to a firm and continuous steadfastness in the faith, he bade them "call to remembrance the former days, in which, after they were illu- minated, they endured a great fight of afflictions, and took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, knowing that they had in heaven a better and more enduring substance" (Heb. 10:32). The Saviour did the same wnth reference to these people of the church of Ephesus; and so it must be with us all. Consult your memory, then, as to how it was with vou aforetime. Call to mind how it was 44 THE LETTERS OE JESUS. when you made )^our first start in Christianity — what adoring love and gratitude you felt toward the merciful Saviour who snatched you as a brand from the burning — what fervor, what zeal, what earnestness of devotion, distinguished your feel- ings by day and were as the sunlight around your soul at night — how prompt and ready you were for any duty and any sacrifice by which you could honor and glorify your blessed lyord — how pre- cious to you was the word of your God as you read and marked its glowing texts or listened to it from the sacred desk as often as Sunday came — how the psalms and hymns and spiritual songs of the Church reverberated in your soul, and what melody to the Lord they made in your heart — how easy and free and frequent were your com- munings with God, and what confidence you had in the forgiving love and favor of the heavenly Father — to what a paradise of peace and satisfac- tion grace raised you, on what sunlit summits you then walked in sweet communion with Him whose redeeming love you had learned to know and feel, and with what disdain and loathing you thence looked down upon the empty husks and baubles of worldly gayety and carnal pleasuring as com- pared with the high things then so near and dear to your soul. And as you trace the glowing pic- ture, still bright on the tablets of memory, think of how it is with }'ou now. Do those halcyon TO THE CIILKCH OF EPIIESUS. 45 days still shine upon your path, filling your soul with their supernal brightness ? Do you still find yourself aloft, triumphing upon the Rock of Ages and breathing joyously the pure atmosphere of God's heavens? Or has there been a change, interposing a wide gulf between that blessed past and this present ? Are you conscious of some mysterious difference for the worse ? Have sighs for the joys you have tasted come into the place of those happy songs ? Has cold and chill and cloud and dimness and darkness and doubt and heaviness quenched out that ardent warmth of joy in the Lord and pleasure in His service ? Make the comparison and see if there has been no unfavorable transition. I do not say that the enthusiasm of first disci- pleship will or must always gush and spring as at the beginning. Youthful emotions naturally and necessarily sober down amid the realities of after- life, and so religious enthusiasm and ecstasies as well; but then they must settle into deeper prin- ciple. An old Christian may have less passion than at his entrance on the heavenly way, but the spring of religious character and devotion must still be there, all the . steadier and firmer for the growth of years, ready on occasion joy- fully to make sacrifices for Christ, and as appre- ciative of all that belongs to the nurture and exercises of Christian life as ever. The first 46 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. glow of early feeling may be sobered down, but what is lost in fervor must be regained in fixed- ness, depth, and strength, the energy of principle acting in the room of the enthusiasm of feeling when life was younger. Though there may be less effervescence to incite and impel, there must be settled conviction and tried purpose to move one forward all the same and with all the more steadiness. There may not be as much rampage of religious emotion and joy, but the living prin- ciple must be there to act out duty as the crisis for it comes. The leaping, dancing, and spark- ling rill may lose its dash and hurry, but only to widen and deepen into the calm majesty of the river, the latter still moving steadily on to the same great ocean toward which the other bounded with so much life. Otherwise, there is unwhole- some stagnation, and first love is dying out, if not already dead. It may be unpleasant to recall a joyous past in comparison with a sad and faulty present. It is no comforting discovery to find that we have been retrograding and going down hill instead of up. But we need to know the facts if there is to be an effectual remedy. Jesus tells us to make this ret- rospect as the first step to a reparation of the lapse that has intervened. And why should w^e try to hide from ourselves what we cannot hide from our Saviour, and what must work death to all our TO THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS. 47 hopes if not discovered and vigorously treated? If we have been losing our first love, we need to know it, and trying to conceal it from ourselves will not relieve the misfortune. Therefore the word of the merciful Saviour is, ^^ Remember from zvhence thoit art falleny The facts must be considered. And the next step is equally clear. One word expresses it: they that have left their first love must ^^ repent y They must confess the evil, be sorry for it, and set earnestly to work to retrace their steps, in order to get back into the true life of faith. When Peter stood convicted of having wickedly denied his Lord, he did not try to hide it from his soul or to apologize for it as a thing which he was betrayed into and could not help. No; he knew that he was a sinner; he felt it in his soul. It wounded and distressed him that he should have made himself answerable for so great a piece of cowardice and wickedness toward his meek and suffering Lord. And he ^'^ -went out and zvept bitterly ^ Broken-hearted for his ter- rible fall, he threw himself on the mercy of God, and with a soul aching with abhorrence of his crime, and thoroughly changed from any further fellowship with his sin, he sued for pardon. His broken heart was already a reinstatement, in so far as it carried with it an altered mind and a re- 48 THE LETTERS OE JESUS. newed devotion to his Lord. This was his repent- ance, and it was effectual. And so are we to re- pent of our fall from first love. We must not apologize for it; we must not try to hide it from us; we must not begin to think that we could not help it; but must own up to ourselves and to God, with wounded and sorrowing hearts, that we have Deen so faithless and untrue, humbly imploring restoration to His favor, and made up to leave nothing undone to be cured and healed of our guilty defection, and by His good help henceforth to keep ourselves in His love. Not all repentance is the same. There is a re- pentance which looks at the consequences and punishments of sin, and struggles simply to es- cape from them; and there is a repentance which looks at the guilt and wrong of sin, and sorrows over it for its evilness, and struggles for deliver- ance from it because of its meanness and hateful- ness. We see the one kind in Pharaoh, who cried, ''^Take away the frogs^''^ which his wickedness had brought upon him and his country. We see the other in David, who cried, ^^Take azvay my sin ; wash me from mine iniquity; purge me with hys- sop, and I shall be clean; create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." The one drives to despair, as in the case of Judas; the other leads back, in broken-hearted return, to wronged Goodness, saying, "Father, I TO THE CHURCH OF KPHESUS. 49 have sinned before lieaxen and in tliv sight^ and am no more worthy to be called thy son," as in the case of the Prodigal. There is also a repentance which expresses great sorrow for sin to-day while the penalties of transgression are sore and heavy, but when the pain is over is ready to plunge again into the same misdoings. This was the sort that appeared so often in King Saul, but which failed to make a right man of him or to save him from the doom of a guilty and rejected suicide. The repentance which the Saviour calls for in the text is a repent- ance that confesses and laments sin because it is sin, and sorrows for having given place to what is so wrong, evil, hurtful, and offensive, and is hon- estly desirous and resolved to amend. And not until we come to this are w^e in the right way to heal and repair the evil of having fallen from our first love. And yet there remains one other item in the prescription. Remembering whence we have fallen, and sincerely repenting, it belongs to the proceeding for the backslider to re-begin his whole Christian life. ^''Do the first ivorks^^ is the direction the blessed Saviour gives. This means the setting of ourselves upon the same path and in the same w^ay in which we came to our first love. It does not mean that we must be rebaptized, but that we must come back to our 4 50 THE LETTERS OE JESUS. baptism, to the meaning of it — to the consecra- tion to Christ of which it is the mark and. badge — to the covenant and promises of which it is the divine seal. It does not mean that we must be reconfirmed; but that we must come back again to precisely the same point of renunciation of the devil and all his works, the vanities of the world, and the sinful desires of the flesh — to renewal of faith in God and in His Son our Saviour, sincerely desiring to be received into the fellowship and lib- erty of His true children — to the unreserved sur- render of ourselves, hearts, and lives to the loving obedience of faith, to live and die as the willing subjects and followers of Him in whom our salva- tion stands. Confessing and lamenting our past failures, grieved in soul that we could ever slacken and sink away in our affection and devotion to so true and good a lyord, feeling and sorrowing for our unworthiness and ill-desert, full of earnest longings and prayers for God's merciful forgive- ness, and honestly desiring by His gracious help to be and do and suffer whatever His holy will may be, — so are we to come to Him, as we came at the first, throwing ourselves on His compassion, and in all the depths of our nature, saying, Here, Lord, I give myself to Thee, 'Tis all that I can do. By all the powers a gracious God has given us TO -J I IE LlJLRCH OF EPHESUS. 5 I and will give wc must reform from all neglects, from all dalliance with the ways of the world, from all half-heartedness in religion. This is doing the first works over again, even those which gave ns those better days, the holy mnsic of which still comes np in memory amid all the cold and wretchedness of the estrangement which has since befallen ns. And nothing less than this can bring abont a retnrn of that spiritual summer- time or repair the mischief of having left our first love. Indeed, this is what God calls for from all people, at all times, if they would enjoy His peace. Happily, however, we have many hopeful en- couragements to all this. Backsliders know to what heights of peace and holy joy they once were lifted by the grace in which they then hoped and trusted; and that grace is the same now and able to do for us the same again. Jesus sends His special message, bidding those who have left their first love to remember whence they have fallen, repent, and do the first works; and He would not give such a prescription if it were not a competent remed}' to work a complete cure. Many of the ancient saints, when fallen into such spiritual decay, tried it and found themselves once more peaceful and happy in the love and favor of Heaven. x\nd God's word and promises on the subject are plentiful, clear, and most encouraging. 52 THE LETTERS OE JESUS. Of old time He said to Jeremiah, "Go and pro- claim these words, and say, Return, thou back- sliding Israel, saith the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you ; for I am merciful ' ' (Jer. 3:12). By Isaiah He has given out, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him" (Isa. 55 : 7). By Hosea the word is, " O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God," with promise: " I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely" (Hos. 14: 1-4). Jesus Himself saith, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest " (Matt. 11 : 28). Nor can there be any question that in returning and humble resting in Jesus we shall be saved; for so the voice of the whole Scripture is. And yet we must not overlook the fact that there is also an awful threat in the text in case Christ's lapsed and faulty children do not repent and return as He directs. To such He says He will come quickly and remove their candlestick, turning the light of mercy into the darkness of judgment, and the greatness of their privileges to a millstone to sink them beyond all hope. See how it was with the church of Ephesus. Its improvement was but temporary. It decayed still more with the general decay that came after- TO THE CHURCH OF KPHESUS. 53 ward. No great length of time passed until a visitor there might well have asked if the light- nings of divine vengeance had wrought the deso- lations that were upon that ill-fated city. And for these long ages since, the melancholy echoes from the crumbling walls and fallen temples of a lost Christianity have been answering back, "Look on us, and see what Jesus means by the removal of the candlestick from its place." Hecture CijirtJ. Rev. 2:7:" He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches ; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God." HE intensity and the directness to every one of the exhortation in the first part of this text bespeak the presence of truths of great importance. It has been rightly said that "this form always is used of radical and generative truths, great principles, most precious promises, most deep fetches from the secrets of God, being as it were eyes of truth, seeds and kernels of knowledge" — things in which man- kind have the profoundest interest, and without the learning of which we are at great disadvan- tage. By these words, then, appended as they are to each of these seven Letters, we are here instructed by the Saviour Himself that they are of very momentous import and relate to things of the deepest consequence to our welfare. But the same words also propound a matter of urgent duty which we are not at liberty to omit or disregard. The Scriptures everywhere make much of Jiearing — the giving of attention to 54 TO THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS. 55 what God has been pleased to record and make known to ns in His word. When Jehovah speaks it is for those to whom He speaks to give ear and to observe what He says. When He calls to us and makes communications it is for us to reeard and consider what He speaks. He who walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks does not dic- tate Letters to His churches and send them to us from heaven, and yet leave it to our whims or option to give attention to them or not. Giving us these utterances of His mind and judgment, He gives with them His solemn command and requirement: ^^He that hath an ear^ let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches^ First of all, we then have here a solemn rebuke to those who call themselves Christians, and yet seldom if ever look into their Bibles to read and study them, and do not seem to care what the Holy Ghost has spoken. Though the Scriptures are given to be to us our light and guide in mak- ing our way through this dark world, many so- called Christian people do not care for the read- ing of the word or whether they attend upon the preaching of it or not. Some think they have fulfilled their duty if they read a text now and then, and hear a sermon once a week when the weather is inviting or when they do not know what else to do with themselves of a Sunday. Having^ ears to hear, it is the Saviour's command 56 THE LETTERS OE JESUS. to US to "hear what the Spirit saith;" but few is the number w^io care to obey it. And when we come to a close comparison of the divine precepts with the ways in which many treat God's holy word, we cannot but wonder at His forbearance toward the great mass of those who make up our modern Christendom. With all the activities and zeal of these people of Ephe- sus, the Saviour still found occasion to fault them with having left their first love; but when we look at most of the church-people of our day, even in regard to this one item of "hearing what the Spirit saith," it would seem very doubtful if they ever had any real love at all. It becomes every one of us, therefore, to search and try ourselves well as to our treatment and hearing of what God has given for our learning, that through patience and comfort of the Scriptures we may have hope. Nor should we forget the fact that everything touching our salvation depends on the giving of an attentive ear to the divine word and the dili- gent use of our privileges, to hear, mark, learn, and inwardly digest what it contains. Jesus prayed for His followers: " Sanctify them by Thy truth, Thy word is truth;" but how can the word sanctify us if we do not hear it and are not con- cerned to know and understand it ? It is written that "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the lyord shall be saved;" but " How shall they call TO THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS. 57 on Him in whom they have not believed ? and how shall tliey believe in Him of whom they have not Jieard?-^ Hearing and right learning of the word lie at the basis of evervthinor. If there is no proper hearing, there can be no right believ- ing; and where no right faith is there can be no salvation. It is therefore in itself a most vital thing that, having ears, we shonld nse them to hear and learn all the word and commnnications of God, as Jesus Himself here lays it upon every one to do. But this exhortation has also a deeper meaning. Bvery one has capacity to give attention, and so it is laid upon every one to employ that capacity. But not every one who hears with the outward ear does thereby really hear in the full sense of the Saviour's meaning. There is an inward hear- ing — a hearing in which the- things spoken take hold on the soul and inform and move it — a hear- ing which answers to what is heard. There must be spiritual discernment, a taking in of the truth, and a heart-heeding of it, so as to be guided, in- fluenced, and controlled by it in our thinking and doing. There are people spoken of in the Scriptures as " uncircumcised in heart and ears," to whom the word is only as a pleasant sound which takes no hold to shape character or affect the life. The truth is, that a right-hearing ear in sacred things 58 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. is a gift of God and a matter of grace. It is a spiritual organ which only the Holy Ghost can create — a spiritual sense which God must awaken. Hence, also, if any one has not such a spiritual ear, his duty is to seek the grace by which he may have it, and inwardly hear, so as to become a doer of the work. It is a grace which God is ever ready and pleased to give to every one sin- cerely desirous to possess it or who wishes saving- ly to learn His truth. Nay, the power to create it is in the word itself, which is so constituted and inwrought with the energy of the Spirit that it will create its own way to an effectual hearing if people will only entertain it and listen to it with a view to learn and obey it. " The word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword;" and if people will only receive it into ''good and honest hearts," willing and anxious to be profited by it, its quickening power will be realized and fruit abundant will come of it. And, as the Saviour calls upon us to hear to good prac- tical purpose, He at the same time makes it our duty to set ourselves with devout desire and prayerful ness rightly to hear and to be conformed to His word. Some hear but little, yet learn much, while others hear much, yet learn but little; and the whole difference lies in the earn- estness or unconcern with which people hear or try to learn the truth. TO THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS. 59 Nor should we fail to notice in passing that He who dictates these Letters to the churches, and is Himself the speaker throughout, yet calls them " zvhat the Spirit saithy He thus asserts an ab- solute identity between His doing and the vSpirit's doing in the giving of the word. He would have us see and know that what He says the Holy Ghost says, and that what the Spirit says, that He says. The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of the Son, the same as of the Father; and so the Son is one in the same Trinity with both. What the Father doeth, that doeth the Son likewise; and what the Son saith is at the same time what the Spirit saith. What is here spoken is therefore in every sense and respect the absolute word of God, even the Triune God, which is sufficient reason why every one that hath an ear should hear. Notice, then, the character and attitude of those who become true hearers of the divine word. A great promise is here given. The word is that ^ ' to him that overcometh ' ' great rewards are in reserve. To overcome implies conflict. It be- speaks enemies, antagonisms, and opposing hin- drances. We cannot speak of victory where there has been no contest, no enemies to conquer, no difficulties to surmount. And as the promise is "to him that overcometh^''^ the idea is that every right hearer of the word is a combatant — one who has to contend with enemies and oppo- 6o THE LETTERS OE JESUS. sition — one who has the character and attitude of a fighter — one who has to make his way by conflict. It is a marked truth that as people become liv- ing Christians they become soldiers. This lies in the ver\' nature of things, and cannot be other- wise, w^hether we like it or not. No one can reach heaven without fiofhtino: his wav throug^h an enemy's country. This world lieth in the wicked one. Satan is its prince and master. His dominion is indeed a usurpation which must eventually be destroyed, but for the present it holds. The great mass of this world's population is under Satan's sway. He rules in the children of disobedience. And under his kingdom we all are born, having the taint of his depravity upon us from our very coming into the world. In be- coming Christians we take another Lord, come under a new rule, enlist under another standard, and set up rebellion against the dominion of the Bvil One; and so we are at once thrown into conflict with Satan's empire, and must contend and fight to maintain ourselves and come off victorious. One thing we have to contend with is ignorance — spiritual darkness. The reason why many are so easy in their sinfulness, poverty, and danger is that they do not know their real condition. Their moral perceptions are darkened, their spiritual TO THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS. 6 1 vision is obscured and perverted; they have no iinderstandiiitr of the situation. And it is hard to get men's eyes open to the facts. People have to learn of God, of truth, of Christ, of the reality of spiritual things, of the destitution and needs of the soul, and of the way of life. So many false impressions and miserable deceptions and lying persuasions have to be found out, con- quered, and put aside that a true man is in per- petual conflict and effort to come to a knowledge of the truth and to get hold of the only safe and saving wisdom. Another thing to be fought is our carnal nature^ with its man)' lusts warring against the soul. We are ever prone to be influenced most by what meets and gratifies the earthly senses and pleases our sensuous imagination. Many live only for the body and what pertains to the ease and glory of the earthly man. "The lusts of the flesh, and lusts of the eyes, and the pride of life" have wonderful power in all of us to control, enlist, and absorb our affections and activities, to the exclusion of spiritual and eternal things, which lie beyond the reach of our earthly senses. They are very potent to crowd God out of our thoughts. He who would be a right man has thus continu- ally to fight against this tendency or be drawn along in a way to starve and ruin his immortal nature. It takes effort, watching, and ever-re- 62 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. newed endeavor to keep alive to an nnseen world, to endure as seeing Him who is invisible, and to be duly anxious about spiritual bread and good- fortune. Beset as we are in this world with the pressing claims and flattering promises of worldly good and pleasure, it requires a strong and per- petual fight to be successful in keeping ourselves in the love and service of God. When it comes to a question between a fortune and a dishonesty — between a fleshly delight and a religious duty — between honorable standing in the eyes of men and strict obedience to the clear commands of God — between our ease, likes, or fancies, and Gospel requirements — between plenty, happiness, and comfort in this world and self-denial and suf- fering for the rewards of eternity — between an in- viting lie and a humiliating truth — between mon- ey hoarded for the love of it and money to be parted with to answer God's calls — between pro- motion on earth and humble fidelity to the Lord Jesus, — the decision is not so easy, and multitudes take the wrong side and are led captive by the devil's power. Duty and selfishness, faith and unbelief, the new man and the old, are ever wrestling and contending with each other in every one honestly desiring to maintain a Chris- tian life. Paul felt this struggle, and tells us of a law in his members warring against the law of his mind, and exclaims, over the wretchedness TO THE CIJURCn OF EPHESUS. 63 often induced by the feet that when he would do good evil was present with him. And with all these things are the subtle activities of Satan and his evil confederates. These consti- tute an unseen, malignant, and multitudinous host of spiritual agencies and powers in league to de- feat the gracious will of God. From them come all sorts of cunning machinations and assaults which have to be encountered and overcome. In the garb of the best of friends, and often trans- forming themselves into angels of light, they obtrude themselves to deceive and lead astrav, inject upon our minds every variety of insinua- tions and ill promptings, ever trying to persuade us that evil is good and good evil, and imposing upon multitudes of unsuspecting souls. We are told that Satan goeth about, through his various emissaries, as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Paul assures us that our fight and warfare are not only with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers, the rulers in the darkness of this world and wicked spirits in the air. They can do us no mischief if we are firm in resisting them, and use the means of with- standing them, and keep on the alert against being betrayed into their power; but it demands constant vigilance, effort, and many sharp con- flicts to resist and vanquish them and their cun- ning devices. They have many agents in this 64 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. world to solicit, tempt, and influence ns against the truth, to try to laugh us out of faith in the Gospel and the duties of piety, and by false sci- ence and a show of superior wisdom to undermine our confidence. And in one way or another we constantly have to contend with these unclean spirits. These enemies we are obliged to withstand, re- sist, and conquer, or they will conquer us. En- listing under Christ's banner, we enter upon a war, and cannot come out of it but as victors or vanquished. It is often a very trying war, but the helps are ample, and success is sure if we are only vigilant, courageous, and true; and grand rewards await him who " overcometh. " To encourage and strengthen us in this strife the Saviour here says to each and every one, ' ' To hwi that overcometh 7vill I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the viidst of the paradise of Gody Beautiful promise! and as rich in sig- nificance as it is in beauty. What all is meant by "the tree of life" we cannot fully explain. We first read of it in the happy beginning of our world, when man was innocent and Eden was his home and God was his familiar friend. Jehovah planted it. It was "in the midst of the garden" as the central orna- ment and the most blessed product of that abode of blessedness. The eating: of the fruit of it in TO THE CHURCH OF EPHESLS. 65 the primeval Paradise seems to have been meant as a sacrament of fellowship with life — a pledge,,^ snpport, and appropriation of life eternal for sonl and body. There was once mncli sacredness in eating, thongh there is so ninch sin connected with it now; and when redemption once comes to its completion that sacred eating is to be restored. If saints in glory do not need to eat, they can eat; and as the fall came b)' eating disobediently, and for it man has ever since been excluded from the tree having snblimest virtue, so redemption is to bring man once more within reach of that tree to eat of its blest frnits. Paradise restored is the tree of life restored, and man redeemed is to find it one of the happiest features of his innnortality that he shall be given to eat of that tree. Sin cut us off from it, and the victory of faith in the Son of God is to bring us back to it and it to us. There will be neither hunger nor thirst in heaven, nor are we to suppose that there will be any waste in the energies of the glorified calling for recupera- tion b}- means of corporeal digestion; but still, there will be some kind of eating there — eating of the fruits of the tree of life — some deep com-\^ munion with Life, constituting one of the highest^ joys of eternity. Very much is said about lyife in connection with the rewards of the saints. ''Eternal Life" 5 66 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. — "everlasting Life" — "entrance into Life" — "a crown of Life " — "the river of Life " — " the tree of Life," are everywhere most hopefully and joyously spoken of. Even for Christians in this world we read of "the bread of Life" — "the water of Life" — "the Spirit of Life" — "the grace of Life" — "the savor of Life unto Life" — "the power of Life" — "the word of Life." Wisdom, as commended in the book of Proverbs, is said to be "a tree of Life to them that lay hold on her." It is said that "the fruit of righteous- ness is a tree of Life." And, like the golden table of showbread which ever stood in the an- cient tabernacle and temple for the priests, so the Tree of Life stands in all the golden street-way of the New Jerusalem with monthly fruits for the immortal ones in glory, to which all that have washed their robes have free and unlimited access. What all this may mean is more than we can conceive, but privilege and blessedness unspeak- able are indicated. There is a heavenly Paradise. The presence of God is there. It is luminous with the glory of God and the Lamb. Nothing false or unclean or unsavor}- can ever enter it. It is the everlasting home-place of the saints. Its foundations are jewels. Its walks are gold. Its watchmen are angels. It is the metropolis of in- tensest, highest, purest, and holiest Life. Its TO THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS. 67 rivers are rivers of Life. Its trees are trees of Life. Its waters are waters of Life. Its inhabit- ants are those who have eternal Life and have entered into Life, and inherit ever more and more of everlasting Life. And this is the lot and por- tion which the blessed Saviour here engages to give to him that overcometh. The promise to the victor also corresponds to the ill to be vanquished. These Ephesians were wasting and failing in their first love. Their spiritual life was beginning to yield and weaken. There was danger that they would lose the vital energy of religious devotion. They were grow- ing faint and flabby in the life of faith. This weakening and downwardness they were now called on to resist and fight and overcome. And the promise to the victor is in the line of the trouble they were to combat. They were be- coming inwardly weak, therefore there was prom- ise of spiritual nourishment. There was decay of life, and so there was promise of the highest and most plenteous food of life. For a wasting state they were to have Paradise. For their weakening in the springs of life they were to have to eat of the Tree of Life. The special rewards of the victorious always take their intensest form from the sort of work done or the particular kind of trouble and ad- versity conquered and surmounted. The Ephe- 6S THE LETTERS OE JESUS. sians were fainting in the fervency of love and the energy of spirituality, and they were pointed to the Tree of lyife in the midst of the Paradise of God. The Smyrniotes were in great trial of persecution, under which many yielded up their lives as martyrs, and they were pointed to ex- emption from the second death. And so in each instance the kind of weakness and trouble to be overcome reappears in the peculiarity of the prom- ise to the victor, and those who conquer in their contest with the worst have the highest reward. But we must not overlook the individuality of this promise. It is not made to the church as a body, but to each separate member of it: "To him that overcometh." Jesus well knew that the earthly church, as such, would never overcome, and that there never would be a church made up of none but overcomers. But He knew also that in the faultiest churches there are still some true and faithful ones to maintain the fight unto final victory. Hence the promise is to the individual members. It is not the general fight of the Church against the world that is here in view, but the individual fight of each soul with the errors, weaknesses, and faults that are around us, in the Church as well as out of it. Let the Church, as such, be and do as it will; we are not to look so much to it as to ourselves — not to what others may be and do, but TO THE CHURCH OF EFHESUS. 69 to what we are. The Church cannot hear, believe, and love for us, nor repent for us, nor overcome for us; we must each hear, believe, love, and over- come for ourselves. The Church, as it appears on earth as a whole, cannot hope to be admitted to the Tree of Life. It embraces too many faulty members for that. But as individuals we may indulge this hope if we struggle on in faith. We can never hope that this our Church of the Holy Communion, or any other church, shall ultimate- ly appear as a body in Paradise; but we dare hope, blessed be God! that we as individual members may appear there. And to us as individuals the promise is that if we only hold on, work on, pray on, and exert ourselves in the diligent use of the grace given us, and press our warfare to final vic- tory, Jesus will give us place and reward accord- ing to the trials we have withstood, the weak- nesses we have overcome, the victories over self and sin and error we have won. Ah yes, dear friends, though Sodom blazes be- hind us, Jerusalem's gates of pearl stand open in our front. Whatever desolations of once-glorious churches, dissolving of cities, perishing of states, or crumbling of thrones under Jehovah's judg- ments may come to pass, our home is Paradise, our food the fruit of the Tree of Life, if only we fio-ht on to victorv. And in that immortal retreat of peace and purity and love no wintry cloud shall 70 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. come to cast its chilling shadow on ns, no hurri- cane or earthquake uproot the place of our rest, no lightning's blast or tornado scathe or enemy assail; for our life shall be in full fellowship with its Source, never more to be severed from the food that nourishes it to the fulness of its being and blessedness. All hopes, all wishes, all the love We sighed for, pined for, ever, Shall bloom around us there above, And last with us for ever. HcrtuxT Jfourtlj. Rev. 2:8-11: "And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna, write : These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive ; I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty (but thou art rich), and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried ; and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches : He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death." F the seven churclies this in Smyrna was the most afflicted and oppressed. It was poor; it was much reviled by false pre- tenders; it was sorely persecuted. Satan's ma- lignity seemed to have taken on special fierceness against it, casting some of its members into prison and raising fiery storms against its venerable pas- tor, the holy Poly carp. The church of Ephesus was in peril from inward weakening and the de- cay of love, but the church of Smyrna was in peril from its external enemies and the afflictions that were upon it from without. And to this state of sorrow and suffering the Saviour chiefly speaks in this I^etter. 71 72 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. Already in the superscription He describes Himself in the way best fitted to comfort and establish them against the afilictions they were in. It is not His walking in the midst of the golden candlesticks, and His holding of the seven stars in His right hand, that He here puts for- ward, but His being the First and the Last, His having died and yet being alive again, and living for ever. He thus proclaimed Himself to their confidence as older, mightier, and more enduring than the persons and powers which were oppress- ing them — as having gone through similar expe- riences Himself, and hence able to sympathize with their griefs — as having gloriously triumphed and risen to blessed immortality notwithstanding that He suffered and died — as being indeed just such a lyord and Saviour as they needed to keep them amid their tribulations and bring them through to final glory and blessedness. It is something for poor sufferers to know that they have some one in whom to trust who is qualified to master the case; that it is not in an arm of flesh they hope; that He whom they look to as their Saviour is the same who saw the stars kindle and suns bud into being, and who will live on in the same unwaning life and majesty should stars and suns expire and all material creations be changed like a wornout garment. Nay more, that while His hands propel the worlds in their cir- TO Tin-: CHURCH of Smyrna. 73 cuits He wears the nature of a brother-man, and has a heart that beats in sympathy with every pang in ours; that He Himself has gone through heavier sorrows and a far deeper death than any that can ever come upon His believing followers; that He bears with Him upon His heavenly throne the thorn-marks and the nail-prints to keep alive His tenderness and consideration for His sorrow- ing people on earth, still struggling with trib- ulation and death for His name's sake; and that in the power of an endless life He ever lives, the imperishable vanquisher of all the potencies of death and hell. Thus the blessed Lord Jesus presented Himself to these suffering saints at Smyrna, as also to all His people, in their trials. Very tenderly also does He speak: "/ knozv thy worksy These works were neither many nor great. The people were too poor, too oppressed, too feeble and afflicted, to do any great things. But the smallness of their works did not exclude them from the loving Saviour's regard. He no- tices the mite of the widow as well as the costh donations of the rich. He estimates men accord- ing- to the grace in the heart, and not according to the strength in the hand. He does not look so much at the brilliancy of our deeds as at the cheerful willingness of the soul to do what it can. Not the greatness of the outward achievement, 74 THE LETTERS OE JESUS. but the inward principle of devoted love, is what He considers. Great things are expected of those who have ten talents, and it will be all the worse for them if their works do not come up to their ability; but the faithful employment of one talent, if that be all we have, though the results may count little or nothing in men's esteem, is as great and pre- cious to the heart of Jesus as the more showy works of the rich and mighty. The penny of the little child and the prayers of the helpless invalid are as dear to Jesus and rise as high in heaven as the thousands and thousands of the millionnaire or the achievements of the Church's strongest champions. When people have it not in their power to do, and yet with earnest and devoted heart do what thev can, and out of their weakness and penury show that the living power of grace is. in them, even their little works rise like incense to the skies and have their record in the notice and commendation of our Lord equally with the greater things of those who possess su- perior ability. To the poorest and the weakest, as well as to the richest and the strongest, the Saviour says, ^'' I know thy worksy And whether we do much or little, exert ourselves to the full stretch of our ability or lag behind in what we might readily achieve, we need never think that our Lord and Judge is not taking note of it, or rO THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA. 75 that He does not take full measure of it accord- ing to what is in our power and what is not. But Jesus not only took knowledge of the "e£W>('^" of this poor church, but also of its afflicted estate. "/ know tJiy tribulation aiid poverty ^^^ says He; and a whole volume of grace and tenderness was in those words. Christian suffering, like Christian rejoicing, is something of a mystery to the world. The car- nal mind cannot understand it, and takes little or no account of it. The world does not at all enter into a Christian's experience or a Christian's trib- ulation. A true child of God grieves over things which the world cares nothing for, and rejoices in things in which the world sees no happiness. As John wrote, so it is ever: "The world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not." But our Sa- viour knoweth — "/ knoiv thy tribnlationy Not as a spy, not as an inquisitor, not in the cold om- niscience of one who knows everything, but as the head knows the hurt that has befallen some member of the bod}' — as a mother contemplates the suffering of her darling child — as a generous heart enters into the misfortunes of his near and dear friend, — so does Jesus know our tribulation. He knows it not only with the head, but with the heart. He knows it as a thing which He Himself has either sent or permitted. Nothing can happen 76 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. without Him who is '' head over all things to the Church." There is no such thing as chance — no fortuitous concourse of things to affect and shape destiny without amenability to the all-governing power now lodged in the hands of Jesus. No tribulation can come to a Christian — no headache or heartache, no fever or consumption, no loss of fortune or treachery of friends, no bereavement, no persecution, no weakness, no poverty, no days of darkness or temptation, no distress of body or sorrow of soul — but as Jesus wills, appoints, or allows. We may often lose sight of the fact, but it is the fact all the same, that never a woe falls upon us which has not first been in the wise con- sideration and beneficent bosom of our blessed Lord and Saviour. It had to receive its commis- sion from His loving heart before it could touch us. He therefore knows our tribulation, and knows it far better than we ourselves. He also knows the need and use of it. He might prevent it if He would, but that might not be the best. It would not be well for us if we were never afflicted, never disappointed, never crossed or troubled in our passage through this world. Uninterrupted prosperity would be seri- ous misfortune to a Christian. There is " a needs be" that trial and suffering should come to disci- pline and soften us. A hurt child thinks of its parent, and hastens to that parent with its misfor- ro THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA. yy tune, and is all the more loving and devoted when properly rebuked and chastised for its errors and wrong-doings; and we need similar experience, that we may remember whose we are and where to find our true help and comfort. Each heart knows its own sorr.ows best, but, whatever the grief, there is some moral and spiritual need for it. However inexplicable to us, Jesus understands it, and knows what it is to do for us and what the mischief would be without it. It is necessary that there should be sickness, bereavements, losses, reverses, disappointments, and sufferings for us in this world. They go along with Christ's sufferings to fulfil an import- ant office in helping us to our better destiny. Afflictions and trials are some of the links in the chain which is to lift us to true faith and trust in God, and which cannot be dispensed with until we come to the heavenly kingdom, where such discipline is no more needed. Like surgical ope- rations to save the life of the body, so earthly af- flictions are to aid in saving the life of the soul. Our heavenly Physician knows this, and hence does not exempt us from sharp, disabling, and bitter pains and sorrowful experiences here on earth. A true believer is always made better by suffering, and can often reach and accomplish through his adversities what could not have been without them. And, whatever the tribulation, yS THE LETTERS OE JESUS. Jesus knows it and has weighed all the purposes of goodness and grace for which it is sent or per- mitted. It is a hard thing to suffer and to be always ex- posed to the buflfetings and ills of this world; but it is also a precious thing if we did but see it in all its bearings and effects. Darkness is repulsive, but we need it in order to see the beauty of the stars. I doubt not that the redeemed in heaven will as earnestly thank the I^ord for what they suffer here as for their days of peace, health, and sunshine. Heaven will be all the sweeter and more enjoyable for the sorrows of the way through which it has been reached. Myriads will be there at last who never would have reached that blessed world but for the tribulations they experienced on earth. All this is plain to our blessed Saviour's eyes, and hence He does not exempt us from earthly trials. But He also knows our tribulation to sympa- thize with us in it. It is as painful to a loving parent to chastise an erring child as it is for the child; and we may be sure that Jesus has no pleas- ure in the pains and trials which yet are so need- ful for us. Not a pang goes through the heart of a child of God but it also goes through the heart of Christ. Whatsoever is done to the least of these He takes as done unto Himself Christians are members of His body, of His flesh, and of TO THE CllURCIJ OF SMYRNA. 79 His bones; and when they are hurt He feels it even upon His throne, " for we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirniity." He has been through the fires and knows the pains they give, and He is not un- moved as He sees His people writhing in the scorching flames. He sits by the crucible like a refiner of silver, intensely watching the precious metal while he directs and fans the fires, looking to see His own image reflected in the shining mass that He may then quickly deliver it from the burning. Not one pang or moment more in fire than is needed to this end will He allow; and during all the process His loving eyes and anx- ious heart are with the sufferer in the trying pains. What necessity requires Him to appoint He softens by His .sympathizing tenderness. However lowly and poor and neglected and for- gotten the suffering child of God may be, there is an electric cord between it and Him. Nothing can happen to us here that is not at the same time before His presence in heaven. He knows our tribulation and our poverty — knows it to feel for us and to sustain and comfort us in it and to direct it to our greater glory in the end. These people of Smyrna were great sufferers. A powerful class of men, claiming to be the rep- resentatives of the only true religion, did all they could to bring them into contempt and disgrace. 8o THE LETl'ERS OE JESUS. The heathen were very adverse to them. They were enduring much, and were to encounter still severer woes. By the malignity of their enemies some of them were to be cast into prison, others to die as martyrs, and fearful trial was to be upon them all. Polycarp, the friend and disciple of St. John, was then their venerable pastor. For many long years he had labored and suffered with them. But he was to be taken from them and burned alive because he would not deny Christ and abjure allegiance to the Saviour whom he served and preached. An account of the martyrdom of this noble man has come down to us. Dragged before the Roman proconsul, he was promised liberty if only he would abjure Christ, but his answer was, " Highty-and- six years have I served Him, and He hath never wronged me; and how can I blaspheme my King, who hath saved me?" At this touching confes- sion Jews and heathen alike clamored to have him burnt alive, and hurried to gather the fuel for the purpose. When they were about to fasten him to the stake he bade them spare their nails — that God would keep him steadfast in the fires without the need of such fastenings; and counted it a blessedness to be thought worthy of a place among: the martvrs of Jesus. And even amid the fires which consumed his mortal body he was heard singing and praising God and blessing the 70 llIE CHURCH OF SMYRNA. 8 1 name of His Son Jesus Christ. He was "the angel" of the church to whom the word w^as, "Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Be faithful unto death and I will g-ive thee a crown of life." And this is the way the holy man fulfilled the divine directions. We know not, dear friends, what awaits us in the future. We only know that in this world we shall have tribulation. Our calling in Christ Je- sus necessarily leads through suffering and trial. It may be lighter to some and heavier to others; " but what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not ?' ' It is well that our eyes are holden from what the chastisement is to be, lest we should be unfitted for present dut}-; but we may well believe that the brightest home and the happiest heart will find coming days of trial, shadow, and dark- ness. And yet there is no reason to anticipate the day of ill and sorrow with dread and trembling. All things are under the dominion of the loving Je- sus, and His word is, ' ''Fear no7ie of those ihiiigs which thoti shalt suffer^ Christ also suffered, leaving us an example that we should follow His steps. Though persecuted unto death, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, He soon lived again, and is alive and crowned for ever in heav- enly majesty and glory. And as it was no loss to Him that He suffered, so neither will it be to 6 82 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. those who like Him commit themselves unto God as unto a faithful Creator. We may be disposed to pity the man who pines in sickness, or whose home bereavement has hung with desolation and mourning, or who is called to wrestle with the pangs and straits of poverty, or whom reverses of fortune have bereft of the accumulations of years of toil. But it is a mis- placed pity, "for if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are 3'e bastards, and not sons." There is more of divine goodness and mercy in it than if it were not. When the burden is the heaviest, then redeeming grace is nearest. There is nothing like the darkness to lift up people's eyes toward heaven. The afflictions of time, to those who love God, are all investments to yield the sublimer revenues in eternity. They are the opportunities God gives for the better ex- emplification and strengthening of our faith, and which open the way to immortal crowns. And shall we pity those to whom God thus comes with chance for grander promotions in heaven ? Shall we deprecate what is sent to bring us to eternal glories? Nay," Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life." The great matter for us is to be faithful; that is, to be full of faith and confidence in the lyord TO THE .CHURCH OF SMYRNA. '^^ Jesus, and to be true to that faith even if it should cost us our lives. At the worst, the sufferings of time are limited and will soon be over. They en- dure but for a moment. They are light as com- pared with those which Jesus endured for us. And if courageously endured without faltering in our faith, they connect with everlasting gains. The cross is the way to the crown. Though our life here be a living death, if we but hold on vic- toriously in our sacred confidence the present dying will all the more certainly exempt from that worse death to come to the unfaithful and unbelieving. Christians have all their purgatory in this world, and beyond is "a crown of life" for every courageous and faithful soul. Yea, saith the Saviour, "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." There is yet one important remark thrown in parenthetically by the Saviour in describing the state of these afflicted Smyrniotes. Though their works were few and weak, their tribulation great, their poverty extreme, yet He says, ' ' but thou art richy It seems like a contradiction, but there is a wealth which is poverty, and a poverty which is riches. The poorest to the world's eye may yet be the richest toward God, and the richest in the things of this world may be the poorest in the eyes of Christ. These people were rich in their 84 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. poverty, and their very poverty was riches, just as the sorrows they experienced in this world helped to make clear their title to the priceless treasures of eternity. A believing poor man is ten thou- sand times richer than a Croesus or a Rothschild without living faith and trust in Jesus. If we would be rich indeed, we must first of all have our hearts set on the true riches and live for the heavenl}' crown. Oh, give me the flowers that droop not nor die ! A treasure up yonder ! a home in the sky, Where beautiful things in their beauty still stay, And where riches ne'er fly from the blessed away ! iLecture dfiftt* Rev. 2 : 12, 13: "And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write : These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges; I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Sa- tan's seat is : and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where vSatan dwelleth." HE Letter to the poor and sorely-tried church of Smyrna was one of ahnost unmingled eulogy and encouragement, even though it had false professors to contend with. Its afflictions seem to have been good for it, and to have helped to keep it alive and true to its Saviour and to its profession. It was different with the church at Pergamos. That was prosper- ous in some things, but defective in others. The Letter to it has in it various censures, admoni- tions, and rebukes. It had a distinguished and honorable record in some respects, but some things were creeping in which needed to be corrected in order to the maintenance of proper Christian fidelity and devotion. The Saviour presents Himself to this church as "He which hath the sharp sword with two 85 86 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. edges." In the preceding chapter this sword is spoken of as proceeding out of the Saviour's mouth. It is therefore something of a zvord- sword. The office of a sword is to pierce, cut, sever, and kill, and a similar office belongs to the divine word. Though intended to save, it is also intended to kill. Paul says "the word of God is ^ quick and powerful" — a living and potent in- * strument — "sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow." It is not so much an instrument of physical death as an instrument of moral cleavage, which cuts into souls, penetrates consciences, divides between true and false, whether in doctrine, sentiment, or life, and acts as a killing thing to what is at variance with truth and righteousness. It makes havoc of the hopes and good opinions which sinners have of themselves, pierces, wounds, and lacer- ates their self-security, cuts right and left against everything contrary to God, hews down the tow- ering conceit of the proud and self-sufficient, and utterly slays the false hopes by which many fond- ly deceive themselves. Paul at one time took great credit to himself as a holy and saintly man, and thought he was a very hero of Jehovah's cause while trying to crush out the growing Church of Christ. But when this sword of the Spirit penetrated his soul he says he ^'' died^ It TO rijR CHURCH of pergamos. 87 killed him — killed liiiii in that valuation of him- self in which he previously lived and gloried. And there is always in the word an active judg- ment-power which slays the wicked, and under which the finally impenitent must go down into death eternal. In this church of Perg^amos there was a sfood deal which needed moral surgery. There was some moral cutting and killing to be done to bring all right — a severance between things which did not belong together, and the destruction of evils which had taken shape and were working unfavorably. Hence the Saviour addressed them as He wdio has the double-edged sword, intimating something of what He was about to say and do in the character He takes. The exhibition of the knife bespoke moral cleavage and dissection, in which there was to be no sparing of the wrong, and death to everything foreign and offensive to the truth. Nor is there any comfort, hope, or standino^ for anv Church or for anv man against the word and truth of God. There goeth forth out of the mouth of Christ a sword of double edge, tempered, like the old Damascus blade, to trim a feather and cut an iron bar, and fitted to pierce and cleave and smite and kill everything that rises against truth and righteousness. One reason why so many hate and avoid the truth of God is that it hurts them, awaking the lashes of conscience 8S THE LETTERS OF JESUS. and utterly destroying their hopes. And this sort of hurt was now to come to this church. But only favorable things are noted first. The same announcement made with regard to the other churches is made to this: "/ knozv thy worksy These are sweet words to those who are honestly toiling in the Lord^s cause, though anything but assuring to the unfaithful and the wicked. It surely is a comfort and encouragement to the good to know that every thought and act of devotion to the Saviour is like a ray of light rising to the approving view of Heaven, to be treasured among the glories of Jehovah's throne; that every deed of love and duty, however unknown to men, has a voice that is heard in heaven; and that though it should be no more than the gift of a cup of cold water to a thirsty disciple or a prayer of earnest intercession breathed in solitude, it is registered in the mind of Jesus for appropriate honor and. reward. But with our works Christ also notes our places and surroundings. The church of Pergamos was unfavorably located. It had hard struggles for its life because of its unfavorable neighborhood. But Jesus took account of this. The word is, "I know thy works, and where iJiou dwellest^ even where Satan'' s scat is.^^ Whatever is to be un- derstood by this throne of Satan, the language assigns to Pergamos the bad pre-eminence of TO THE CIJURCII OF PR RG AM OS. 89 being a head-centre of antagonism to Christ and the Gospel. It was a very nn wholesome atmo- sphere in which to grow plants of grace, an ill vicinage for the development of a pure church of Christ. That little congregation was therefore like a bark launched upon a stormy sea — like a lone rose blooming amid desert sands — like a flow- eret amid Alpine snows — like a blossom opening out upon the bosom of an avalanche, — where ex- istence was very precarious. But Jesus had not failed to note the fact, and to consider all the dif- ficulties and perils of the situation. Christians, especially young Christians, often find themselves in very unfavorable associations and surroundings. Sometimes they are thrown into godless families, where prayer is ridiculed, the Bible made a jest of, religion scorned, and anxiety about salvation rated as a craziness. Or their place may be in houses of business whose heads are mere worldlings or skeptics, and the employes are mostly profane and godless. Or they may be thrown into engagements, pursuits, and duties which for the time exclude them from the place of worship, from the Lord's Day rest, and from the company of fellow-believers. Or they may be forced along by a certain rush and tide of things contrary to their wishes and against their better convictions. All such are in adverse and trying situations, making it hard to maintain 90 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. a correct and devoted life. But Jesus considers it, and knows where the}- dwell, and sympathizes tenderly with His tried and disabled children who fain would honor and serve Him better but for the hindrances they cannot control. He knows it to consider it, and to sympathize with the hard ne- cessity, though not to excuse unfaithfulness. Be- cause these people dwelt where Satan's throne was, they were judged with leniency; but where- in they were unfaithful or untrue they were still rebuked and condemned. Barks on stormy seas, and roses amid desert sands, and flowerets amid Alpine snows, and blos- soms opening on the bosom of the avalanche, may still live, and God means that they should live, and they blamably fail of their destiny if they do not. Good soldiers must do picket duty in isola- tion from the massed body of the army as well as stand shoulder to shoulder with their comrades in line of battle. We may not expect dahlias to flourish by the side of glaciers, but we may yet look there for plants and flowers, perhaps a little different in their order and less luxuriant and towering in their growth, but still holding up their little bells of sacred purity to God and re- flecting from their ice-bound homes the rainbow tints and modest graces of the skies. x\nd so it was in the case of this church of Pergamos. Though planted in close neighborhood with Sa- TO THE CHURCH OF PERGAMOS. 9 1 tan's throne, it still grew some blessed flowers of grace and genuine devotion. Notice the items mentioned to its credit: "^Thou holdest fast My namcy The Proverbs declare that "The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it and is set on high." And so Christians are said to be washed, justified, sanctified ''/// the name of the Lord Je- sus." The name of Christ is that which presents Christ, which makes Him known to us, which brings Him within the range of our apprehension and faith. Holding fast His name is holding fast to ///;;/ as we have learned to know Him and to trust in Him. There are many expressions and words by which Christ is presented to us and by which we learn who and what He is; but they are all His name. Confessing and holding to what we thus learn and know of Him as our Lord and Saviour is confess- ing and holding to His name. The angel said, " Call His name Jesus," which sets Him forth as our Saviour — the one in whom standeth our sal- vation. He was also "called the Christ^^^ which presents Him as God's anointed One^ the long- promised Prophet and King spoken of by all the ancient seers as He who was to come to be the deliverer of His people. Jeremiah said of Him, "This is His name whereby He shall be called, The Lord our Righteousness ;' ' and Isaiah prophe- 9 2 THE L E T7 E A'S OF JES US. sied of Him, they "shall call His name Imman- icel^^^ which, being interpreted, is God with its. All of these are alike Christ's name, and tell what He is, and express what we are to take and hold Him to be. If He is our Righteousness, then He is the pro- pitiation for our sins, taking them upon Himself to atone for and cancel them, while He puts His holy obedience and justifying merit upon us in their place. The whole doctrine of substitution, of redemption through His blood, of acceptance with God through the virtue of His sacrifice for us, is thus included. And to hold fast to this name of Christ is to believe in Him, to cling to Him as our substitute and propitiation, to plead and rest on His righteousness as the ground of our forgiveness and justification. And as an indispensable prerequisite to His being our Righteousness His further name is God ivith us. No mere creature-righteousness could ever avail for us. Only He who is above law could merit by obedience to the law, and only in the nature which had sinned could the required obedience and sacrifice be rendered. He therefore had to be both God and man in one. Nor can we have a right and sure idea of God except as mani- fested in Jesus Christ. As we are sinful beings, we cannot know what to hope from God except as He has revealed Himself and His will in Jesus. TO THE CIILRCn OF F ERG AMOS. 93 If He is just, how can He relax His justice to pardon sin? x\nd if He is merciful to forgive sin and to require nothing for it, how can He main- tain His moral government? How far, then, His justice will relax in the punishment of sin, or His mercy triumph in pardoning sin, no one can tell; and there is nothing certain on which to base our hopes. It is only as we see sovereign justice, a Father's love, and a Creator's power combined and harmonized in Jesus that we come to see and know how salvation can come. God cannot for- give sin without ample satisfaction for it; and yet He can forgive the greatest sinner because Christ has died and stands suret)- for him. Here alone we find a clear and certain basis for confidence and hope. Christ being the I^ord our Righteous- ness, we see and know, to our joy, that God can be just and yet justify the ungodly. In nature God is above us, so that we cannot reach or know Him; in the law, He is against us and a consum- ing fire to the guilty, so that we dare not approach Him; but in Christ He is our reconciled Father, waiting and anxious to welcome us to His bosom. And to Him we can now come with all the lib- erty and confidence of dear children. This Name, then, this apprehension of the blessed lyord Jesus, these people held fast. There were some who would not at all believe or receive it, but these Christians held it fast. To their credit 94 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. and honor it is said of them, ''Thou holdest fast My name, and hast not denied My faith.'' Not all the terrors of martyrdom could induce them to let go their confidence and hope thus built upon the Saviour's name. They held firm, "even in those days wherein Antipas was His faithful martyr, who was slain among them, where Satan dwelt." And this is ever the chief thing in Christianity, that we hold fast to Christ's name as the anointed Saviour, the Lord our Righteousness, God mani- fest in the flesh. Without this all knowledge, all works, all virtues are nothing toward our salva- tion, and can give us no sure hope of pardon for our sins — no ground on which to count on heaven. ^^Dost thou believe on the Son of Godf^ is ever the vital question with us; and without that faith there is nothing left but a fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation. But, holding fast such a faith, and building only on this name of Jesus, we can afford to suffer for it in this world, and endure to be ridiculed, persecuted, and even killed; for He who is our Hope will not for- sake us or go back from His name. It is further particularly emphasized to the credit of these people of the church of Pergamos that they had not denied the Christian faith; in other words, that they were not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. There was much in it by which they might have been tempted to be ashamed of rO THE CHURCH OF PERGAMOS. 95 it. Its Author was crucified as a malefactor and a slave. All the ^^reat and mighty of the earth despised it, and nobody of account paid any re- gard to it. Its professors were all poor, unlearned, and untitled people, held to be the dregs and off- scourings of the earth. Some of its chief doc- trines were considered absurd. Its principles were at war with the whole spirit of society as then constituted. It seemed to most to be nothine but a pestilential fanaticism which ought to be crushed out with the arm of power. It was a more unsa- vory thing to the elite of that day than Mormon- ism is now to the more respectable classes of our time. But still, they were not ashamed of it nor put out of countenance in holding to it and boldly professing it. And for this Christ commends them. xA.nd with all that was humiliating in the Gos- pel, there was much more in which to glor}'. With the humiliation there was the constant presence of the divine. If Christ was born in poverty, in a stable, without earthly friends or favors, the angels of heaven filled the sky with joyous proclamations and highest songs over His nativity, and the stars pointed out that a glorious King had made His advent into our world. Nev- er was there a march through human life so ra- diant from first to last with divine sublimity as His. Great Nature's powers were more at His 96 THE LETTERS OE JESUS. command than Rome's legions at the command of Caesar. The seas which rolled not back when Canute spoke answered to His orders and laid down their boisterous waves in tranquil quiet at His feet. Demons which no human power could dislodge quitted their hold and ran howling from His presence at His rebuke. Lepers, blind, deaf, maimed, halt, paralytics, and sufferers from all manner of disease took health and wholeness and renewed life from the virtue that went out from Him at His touch or His word. He needed only to speak to the dead and the}- lived again. Though yielding Himself at the last to be shame- fully crucified, all nature shook in sympathy with His death: the earth quaked, the rocks rent, the graves opened, the dead were startled back to life, and witnessing men smote their breasts and hasted from the scene in terror as if the day of judgment had come. And after He was dead and buried and sealed in the sepulchre, and a Roman guard set to watch His tomb, angels hovered inquiringly about the spot and friends and foes kept watchful eye upon it, and the universe waited in sabbatic pause while He lay in His grave; the time came when He started up again in resurrection power, bore away the gates of Hades, and He that was crucified came forth the everlasting Victor, the Prince of lyife, the very Lord of glory! And as to the Gospel itself, prophets foretold it; TO THE CHURCH OF PERGAMOS. 97 the noblest poets of all time sung of its coming; the reigns of sublimest kings and the roll of spe- cial dispensations prefigured it; the holiest cere- monies from the foundation of the world typified it and pointed to it; the purest hearts and worth- iest lives that ever graced the earth derived their inspiration from it; it was in the mind and fore- ordination of God ere the world was, and in view through all His providential dealings since Adam went weeping from Paradise. Though weak and despised, it was the only rising cause then on the earth, the most profoundly seated in the wants of man, and inevitably destined to grow and triumph till the Baptist's cry on Jordan's banks should be heard from the lips of nations: " Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world." And what apostles claimed these people had occa- sion by experience to know, that it is "the wis- dom of God and the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." There was therefore no reason to be ashamed of it, or to quail from holding firmly to it, in view of anything this world could bring to in- duce these people to disown it. Hence they held fast Christ's name, and did not deny the faith even when some of them had to die for it. Antipas accepted death rather than give up or deny his lyord. Men might look upon him as a 98 THE LETTERS OE JESUS. fool, a fanatic, a victim of delusion, a mad enthu- siast, to throw away his life for his faith. The question might be, Why not use more moderation in his attachment to his creed? Why not yield a little and save himself from a martyr's death? But the name of Jesus was more precious to him than his life, and he preferred to be slain to a let- ting go of that name. And do you suppose, dear friends, that he now regrets his choice ? Can you think that he has been the loser for his faithfulness unto death ? And why, then, should any of us let our profession droop and drag for the poor satisfaction of a little conformity to this corrupt and erring world ? It will not do to speak of being unfavorably situated. That can never excuse us. Antipas was a true disciple even where Satan had his throne. It will not do to say your business is so vexatious — your time so preoccupied — your friends so exacting of your attention — your duties so weari- some — your energies so tired out — your leisure so much needed for rest — your struggle for a liveli- hood so exhausting and severe — your acquaint- ances likely to think it strange for you to give at- tention to church and religion. God will not ex- cuse because our circumstances are peculiar or unfavorable. Our trials may call forth Christ's sympathy, but they cannot justify unfaithfulness. It is a great thing to have heard of Jesus and TO THE CHURCH OF P ERG AMOS. 99 to have learned His name, but it will be all the worse for us if we do not hold it fast. Whatever the trial, the word is, "If any man draw back. My soul shall have no pleasure in him." We have a Saviour and a great one, but we must hold fast His name and not deny His faith. iLecture Stolj, Rev. 2 : 14-16 : " But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate. Repent ; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.'' ERGAMOS was a city that rose to metro- politan dignity more than three centuries before Christ. It was founded in treach- ery by the treasurer of one of Alexander's gene- rals, among whom his empire was divided after his death. This traitor carried thither great wealth and founded the dynasty of the rich Attalian kings, whose royal seat was Pergamos for nearly two hundred years. It was one of the wealthiest cities of its time, and famous for its magnificent librar)^, which was second only to that of the Ptolemies in Alexandria. Pergamos was situated in the midst of a very fertile valley, whose great productiveness natural- ly tended to develop a very sumptuous style of society. Its great wealth, luxury, and boasted learning, all arrayed on the side of a sensual 100 TO THE CHURCH OF P ERG AMOS. lOI and corrupting heathenism, perhaps more than anything else gave it the bad pre-eminence of being Satan's throne and seat. The historical descriptions of the place and people represent it as "epicurean in its philosophy and a nest of all sorts of gilded sensualities and conventionalized vices." It was the most intolerant toward the Christian teachings and testimony of any heathen city of its time; for while Christians were every- where hated and despised, the first actual martyr- doms among the Gentiles seem to have occurred in Pergamos, where Antipas lost his life for his devotion to his faith. We know somethinof of the style of life which characterized Pompeii; and Pergamos was even more corrupt. In a place and condition of society in which Satan was pre-eminently enthroned it was hard for Christianity to get a firm footing, and those who embraced it were in great danger of becom- ing more or less infected and swayed by the gene- ral order of thino^s with which thev were in dailv contact. Man is man, and he is very apt to take on much of the character of the society in which he lives, even against what he has been taught and has accepted as the right thing. Especially is this the case in a community of great wealth, polish, refinement, and celebrated for its cultiva- tion and learning. We know something of what weak and ambitious people will do and sacrifice 102 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. to get place and acknowledgment in what they call society — how prone many are to sycophancy and truckling to what they regard as the upper classes — how they will ape the ways and thinking of those who have a name for intelligence, taste, and high social importance. And it is not sur- prising that in a dominant pagan city like Perga- mos, with its many rich and ancient families, rec- ognized as a great university centre, and famed for the learning and culture of its population, many members of the Church should be seduced into damaging compromises with its sentiments, life, and fashions. So at least it turned out, as set forth in this Letter to the angel of the church at that place. Having mentioned what was to the credit and praise of this church, the Saviour proceeds to note what was of a different character: ^^Biit I have a few things against thec^ The statement is gently expressed, for Jesus is full of tenderness to His people even when erring and at fault, but the language is stronger than that used toward the church at Ephesus. We are not to suppose our sins light because our Lord is tender. It is rather because the ailment is so serious that He approaches it so gently, as the object is to try to win the offenders back to proper life and spiritual faithfulness. He is not willing that any of His flock should perish, and the sicker the sheep He To The church of pergaaios. 103 would recover the gentler is His dealing to save it. And especially where there is so much to ap- prove and commend He uses every gentleness to heal what is wrong. But we dare not presume on that gentleness. The first thing of which the Saviour speaks to the angel of this church is: ^^Thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam^ who taught Ba- lak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication. ' ' The minister is not charged with being of this party, and yet he is blamed that such people were tolerated in the church of which he had the oversight. He had not witnessed and striven against these errorists and corrupters as he should. He suffered them to remain in the church, notwithstanding their odious and unchristian sen- timents. People of a bad life and a corrupted faith have no business in the Church, and those who have the oversight are to see to it that they reform from their ill ways or are thrown out from all church-fellowship and recognition. It may be a very unpleasant thing to do, but not to do it is to give countenance to sin and to connive at iniq- uity. Being grieved at it is not enough; there must be action — admonition first, and then, if there be no amendment, expulsion and excom- munication. But the angel of this church, though pure and orthodox himself, was too leni- I04 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. ent ill his censures and dealings with certain members of his flock, and the Saviour makes it a matter of rebuke to him that he had there them that held to the doctrine of Balaam. We are not to suppose that there were any who professed to be the followers of Balaam. Old er- rors revived generally try to get currency under new names. The people referred to called them- selves Christians, and claimed to be very enlight- ened, liberal, and proper Christians. But they were really Balaamites. The principles which they entertained, taught, and put in practice as their idea of Christianity had in them the nature and essence of that sort of thing of which Balaam was the originator and exemplification. (See the accounts given in the twenty-second, twenty- third, twenty-fourth, and twenty-fifth chapters of the book of Numbers.) Balaam was a prophet of God, and really spoke the word and truth of God. That point is not to be questioned. But he turned out to be a very bad man and came to a very sorry end. Prophecy is a gift and not a grace. There have been many instances in which God made revelations through instruments not at all partakers of His saving grace. Jesus tells of some who shall come up before Him in the judgment and say, " Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, and in Thy name done manv wonderful works?" to whom He rO THE CHURCH OF PER G A A/OS. 105 will answer, ' ^ Depart from Me, ye that work in- iquity; for I never knew yon." Balaam certainly did utter divine oracles, and claimed to hold him- self bound faithfully to give what God said. He also had great fome as a sacred prophet. Hence King Balak sought his aid to put the curse of God upon the children of Israel and to prophesy evil upon them. It was a base desire, and Balaam was only too eager to serve him in his wickedness. Balaam first tried legitimate ways, without avail, to obtain a divine expression adverse to Israel; but what he could not get by means of divine oracles he planned to accomplish by treach- er)', deceit, and the guiles of unprincipled women. If God's people could be seduced into apostasy and uncleanness, then God would be against them and Balak' s wishes would be gratified; and this was now the devilish policy which he advised. What moved Balaam in all this business was his eager desire to possess the honors and rewards which Balak held out to him. He "loved the wao^es of unrio^hteousness. " With God's word in his mouth the devil's covetousness was in his heart. Balak approached him with presents, and offered him riches and honor. He proposed to take the prophet into his royal favor, enrich him with gold, and exalt him to the next highest place in the kingdom. And with these proposals the heart of Balaam was dazzled. He could not turn I06 THE LETTERS OE JESUS. his back on such a splendid chance for wealth, standing, and worldly glory. He did not mean to let go his profession as a prophet. No; if Ba- lak should give him his house full of gold he must keep strictly to the word God should put in his mouth. But if he could secure the proffered emolument without violating his conscience or compromising his principles, why not do it ? And thus inflamed by his cupidity for Balak's treasures and favors, he made the effort and went on trying one thing and another until we find him at last advising the king to use the blandishments of women and lewdness to seduce the men of Is- rael and to beguile them to participation in the feasts and orgies of pagan worship. This was Balaamism, and just what was repro- duced in some of the members of this church at Pergamos. Though holding to Christianity, and in no way intending to renounce their profession and standing as members of the church, the}' would yet not be so bigoted as to wrong them- selves out of much good fortune by refusing to concede anything to paganism. Why not be friends of these high people, yield a little here and there, and profit in temporal estate with- out letting go their Christianity? They would not be cynics. They could see no harm in ac- cepting invitations to the entertainments of their heathen neighbors, in partaking of food and ban- TO THE CHURCH OF PER GAM OS. 10/ quets on which the name of some heathen god was called, in visiting the pagan temples and shows on great occasions, in indnlging themselves a little according to the customs of the commu- nity. This would please the heathen and secure their favor. What was a heathen god, at any rate ? It was a nothing, a fiction — a thing which could neither help nor harm. Did they not know this full well ? What fear that they should be- come infatuated worshippers of such nonentities ? Could they not eat of idol meats and drink of idol drinks and sit at idol feasts and enter idol temples and be reverent at idol ceremonies, and enjoy some of the pleasures of idol frolics, with- out ever once lending their hearts to what they knew to be nothing but a fraud and a lie? What need was there for such rigid and bigoted scrupu- lositv when there was not the least dangler of their ever turning heathen ? And so they began to amalgamate with the rank and unchaste pa- ganism which held dominion around them, and claimed it as their Christian libert}" so to do. Satan had tried them with violence and perse- cution, but, failing by that method, he plied them with social seductions, flattering them with world- ly friendships, good standing with their heathen neighbors, credit for liberality, easy wealth, and gratifying pleasures. And with these lures they were drawn and enticed until it came to be a mat- I08 THE LETTERS OE JESUS. ter of doctrine and principle with them to make common cause with idolatry, holding it to be of no account one way or another, and maintaining that a Christian could still be a Christian even in heathen temples and while participating in heathen feasts. This was their Balaam ism — their spiritual harlotry — which did so much mischief in the early Gentile churches. The same is elsewhere spoken of Peter speaks of some walking after the flesh in the lust of un- cleanness, despising the dominion that would re- strain them, presumptuous, self-willed, not afraid to speak evil of dignities and of things they did not understand, counting it pleasure to parade their scandals as those who riot in the daytime, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while claiming to take part in the feasts and sacraments of the Church, having eyes full of adultery, beguiling unstable souls, and having their hearts full of covetous practices after the manner of Balaam. He calls them wells without water, clouds carried by the wind, bombastic talkers, through lusts of the flesh and wanton- ness alluring good people into their abominations, promising them liberty while themselves the bond-slaves of corruption. Jude speaks of these same people as giving themselves over to the un- cleanness of the heathen, filthy dreamers, railing at all spiritual authority, running greedily after TO THE CHURCH OF PER G AMOS. 1 09 the error of Balaam for reward, spots and scandals in the Christian feasts, trees twice dead, raging waves of the sea foaming out their own shame, wandering stars to whom is reserved the black- ness of darkness for ever. Nor is there another class of people against whom the Scriptures fulmine such terrible wrath and condemnation as those professed Christians who for worldly gain, pleasure, and carnal indul- gence held it to be their right and privilege to join with the heathen and to do as they pleased on all these social questions. It was the particu- lar fault and abomination of the times, which perverted, ruined, and destroyed more souls than all the persecutions of the pagan government. Nay, it is one of the particular ailments of the Church in all time, and especially again in our time, that many of its members, for their own ease, pleasure, and gain, claim it to be their right and liberty to join in the ways, habits, amuse- ments, and society of the corrupt and idolatrous world while yet claiming to be very correct and orthodox Christians, if not Christians of a supe- rior sort, quite freed from the bigoted and illiberal spirit of those wdio count such things an abomi- nation. This joining of the worship of God with the worship of Mammon, this amalgamation of the children of God with the children of the devil, this bringing together of the table of the no THE LETTERS OF JESUS. lyord and the tables of demons, this holding to Jehovah and yet pleading for liberty to bow down in the temple of Rimmon, this gilding over of the service of greed, vanity, ambition, selfishness, carnal appetite, and sensual pleasure by a heart- less and skin-deep profession, — what is it but this selfsame detested Balaamism which leads to de- struction, plague, and eternal death ? It was the bane and curse of the church of Per- gamos that with all its faithfulness to the name and faith of Christ it had such people in it, and that they were allowed to remain in it without discipline and excommunication. And it is the bane and curse of the Church of our day to a still greater extent. I doubt if man has ever seen so many silver bridges between the Church and the world as modern Christianity has arranged and sanctioned to the weakening of itself and the ruin of souls. And few indeed are the professed Christians of our times who are not more or less tainted and swayed by the abominable "doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling- block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit fornication." x\nd yet another detestable thing did the Sa- viour point out in this church at Pergamos: ^^So hast thoii also them that hohi the doctrine of the Nicolaitans^ which thing I hate^ In the church of Ephesus there is reference to TO THE CHURCH OF PERGAMOS. Ill ' ' the deeds of the Nicolaitans, ' ' which the ineinbers of that church hated and would not at all coun- tenance. But what were only deeds and practices in Ephesus had grown to doctrines and principles in Pergamos, and what the angel of the church at Ephesus could not tolerate, the angel of the church at Pergamos allowed to have place and to put itself forth in teaching and dogma. Our information concerning these Nicolaitans is not very complete, but the early Christian writers speak of them as a sect of the Gnostics, who held that the body is a corrupt thing des- tined to perish, and that it did not matter about what was done with it in the short time that it has to live. Hence they gave themselves free license in all sorts of corporeal impurities. Adul- tery, fornication, and every sort of fleshly indul- gence they made no sin of, claiming that the death of the body would set the soul free from all condemnation. Not only plurality of wives, but community of wives, was part of their sys- tem. Eating things offered to idols and joining in pagan feasts and orgies were nothing wrong in their eyes. Nor did they hesitate to introduce heathen rites into Christian worship. In some of their characteristics they quite accorded with the Balaamites, but in others they were still more besotted and impure. And to eive some sort of dio:nitv to their abomi- 112 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. nations these people claimed to have derived their practices and doctrines from the good deacon Nico- las, and so called themselves Nicolaitans, to the great scandal of a very worthy name. Their doings and principles were such that Christ de- clares He hated them. Well also would it be for modern Christendom if it were less infected with this same spirit. But when we observe how lightly many regard the sa- credness of marriage, the readiness with which its ties are dissolved, and the unconcealed libertinism and uncleannesses which even professed Christian people wink at and pass as trifling foibles, we are forced to the conclusion that the Nicolaitans have not yet died out. Though men may connive at such things, the great Lord and Judge does not. If the pastors of the Church tolerate them without protest, and do not bring their authority to bear against the abet- tors of such unclean amalgamations, Jesus holds them responsible, and demands repentance and earnest purging out of the corrupting leaven on pain of His wrath. Such Balaamites and Nicolai- tans must change their minds and return to a more consistent and thorough Christianity, or the sharp sword of double edge is drawn against them and they can only perish under it. Dear friends, it is not possible to serve two masters. If we would hold fast the name and TO I'lIK CHURCH OF PKA'CAMOS. II3 faitli of Christ, we must let go the world and the following of its evil ways and uncleannesses, and abhor the very garment spotted b)- the flesh, "What fellowship hath righteousness with un- ri«:hteousness? and what communion hath lieht with darkness? What concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel ? and what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?" " Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." One thing or the other we must be; and if not consistent, true, and faithful Christians, we are of the world and must perish with it. ' ' Wherefore, ' ' the word is, ' ' come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing." 8 aecture S^^^i^tl). Rev. 2:17: " He that hath an ear, let hmi hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches : To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a 'white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it." HAT Christ hates Christians must hate, or they incur the displeasure of their Lord. The angel of the church of Bphesus hated the deeds of the Nicolaitans, and was commended for it; the angel of the church of Pergamos was indifferent and tolerant toward these errorists, and he is censured for it, and required to repent of his faulty leniency or meet divine judgment on ac- count of it. It is sometimes thought that ministers are not to be fisihtinor men, and that controversy is a s^reat evil in the Church; but Christ here presents Him- self as a fighter against evil and against the abet- tors of evil, and requires of His servants to do the same or accept blame and condemnation. Con- troversy, instead of being the bane of the Church, has many a time been its only salvation. What would have become of it in the time of Athana- lU rO THE CHURCH OF PEKGAMOS. I 15 sius, or the time of Luther, had it not been for the tremendous controversy in tliose instances? To let things drift along as they will for the sake of avoiding sharp conflicts and disturbing col- lisions is to let the devil do as he pleases and to give over the precious things of God to disaster and ruin. The angel of the church at Pergamos acted on this principle, suppressed his indignation at the errorists who were ruining his church, and failed to withstand them that held the doctrine of Balaam and the doctrine of the Nicolaitans; and the Saviour faults him for it, and demands of him immediate repentance, on pain of coming against him with the sword of judgment. To refuse bat- tle with errorists is to accept battle with God, and we can be at no loss to know what the issue must be. And the repentance required of the pastor at Pergamos implied that he was to make war upon these Balaamites and Nicolaitans, witness and tes- tify with unflinching energy against their ruinous aberrations, recover them to truth and faithfulness if he could, otherwise to exclude them totally from the communion of the Church. Nor was there any other salvation in the case, either for that preacher or that congregation. Balaam's aberrations brought him death by the sword of God's indignation. He perished with the king whose wickedness he was so ready to serve for a price, and with those who had become Il6 THE LETTERS OE JESUS. corrupted with his devices. The record says: "Balaam also, the son of Beor, they slew with the sword" (Num. 13:22). And so the threat here was that unless thorough amendment took place without delay, Christ would come quickly, and in like manner fight against these new Ba- laamites and Nicolaitans with the sword of His mouth. And the execution of this threat would have touched not only those corrupt ones on whose account it was made. Such a judgment on the church would have affected the whole body. The sins and failings of unfaithful members implicate the whole Church. Judgments come by reason of the wicked only, but when they come the good have to suffer with the bad. As things are in this world, the gold and the dross are cast alike into the fire, though only the dross is to be consumed. When there is blessing on account of the good, the wicked share it; and when there is judgment for the wicked, the good and pious are made to feel it with the rest. Nor is it right that we should escape the tribulation if we have not hon- estly done what we could to remove the causes which have procured it. Communities are dealt with as communities, and churches as churches; and what happens to the body as such all the members together must share. But while God thus judges churches and peo- TO THE CHURCH OF PERGAMOS. WJ pies in this world, this is not the final award to the individual members in it. The Church or State may fall and perish, but it does not follow that individuals belonging to it can have no bet- ter destiny. A Church may apostatize and come under the curse of God, and yet there may be in the midst of it some suffering individuals in no way responsible for the trouble, who stemmed the tide of evil as best they could, and held fast to the right in spite of it, faithful found among the faithless, to whom a better portion is reserved. The individuality is still not sunk and lost in the community. There is another and further administration which dispenses to each one sepa- rately according to his works. And along with each of these addresses to the churches there is exhortation to individual members, and promise to each separate soul that overcometh, no matter what befalls the church as such. There have been saints under the worst apostasies and in the most evil times — jewels amid ashes, flowers amid deserts of barrenness. In the darkest days of the Roman Inquisition a martyr to his uncorrupted faith wrote on the wall of his dungeon: " Blessed Jesus, they may separate me from Thy Church, but they cannot separate me from Thee!" and many not written in the martyrologies of man are yet inscribed and canonized in the calendar of God because of their faith and faithfulness Il8 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. in the midst of the avalanches of apostasy and reigning sin. The Gospel addresses itself to individuals: "7/ond our controL We are moral beings, and cannot escape moral responsibility. We are here passing through a period of probation with a view to verv exalted promotions and honors. There is a time coming when this probationary scene must end and the results of 'our faithfulness or failure be reached. And, as Christ has come and opened up to us a blessed immortalit}', and called us by the Gospel to keep ourselves in preparation and readiness for the revelation of His glorious king- dom, so He has promised to come again to receive all His faithful ones to Himself When that com- ing is to be He has nowhere told us and no man knoweth. We only know that it is to be, that it will be a time of transcendent blessedness to those whom it finds ready and waiting for it, and that for the careless, indifferent, and unready it will be very calamitous, cutting them off from the honors of the kingdom, consigning them to the trials and sufferings of the great tribulation which shall befall the wicked world, and making their salvation "so as by fire," if, indeed, they are ever saved at all. And this mysterious, eventful, and impending coming again of the lyord Jesus is what He here puts before these drowsy and dying Sardians to tone them up to life and duty. What if the great day should be suddenly pre- TO THE CHURCH OF SARDJS. 1 89 cipitated upon tlicm in the condition in which the\- then were? What if the view of the judg- ment-throne should break upon tlieni with no better preparation for it than having a name to live and \et being so deep in spiritual death ? What could the}- expect in that case but to be "left," being accounted unworthy to escape those tinners then comino- on the earth or to stand be- fore the Son of man? Of what high and glow- intr honors would thev thus have failed for ever! But just these deplorable calamities does the Sa- viour put before these dull, slumbering, and dying saints as the grand moving reason why they should at once wake up, shake off their deadness, and put themselves in earnest dut)' and honest w^ait- ing and watching for their I^ord. " If therefore thou vShalt not become awake and watchful, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know at what hour I shall come upon thee." That is to say, all sleepy and un watchful people shall be taken by surprise; the decisive hour will come upon them unawares, and the result shall be the loss of those dignities and honors to which all hearers of the Gospel are now called. Nor is there anything in the Scriptures more constantly used by the Holy Ghost or better fitted to stir up sleepy Christians to their duty, or to tone up decaying piety, than this doctrine of the coming again of Christ and the need to be look- 190 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. ing and watching for it every day, that we may be found of Him in peace, and not suffer the sore excision which must then befall the unready. Again and again the solemn command is to keep awake and watch, since we know^ neither the day nor the hour when the Son of man cometh. Whether for the warning of the wicked, the en- couragement of the saints, or the stirring up of the hearts of ministers and people to scrupulous fidelity to duty, the word continually is. The Loi^d is at hand — Behold He cometh — The time is come that judgment must begin — Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments. And one reason why the Christianity of our day is so flab- by, so lacking in life and earnestness, so ready to make common cause with the world and its van- ities, is that the great doctrine of the near and impending coming again of Christ has so much dropped out of the thinking, preaching, belief, and understanding of the Church. Did people but remember and realize the momentous truth that any day or night the trump of judgment may be sounded and all present opportunities be suddenly cut short, a very different state of / things would exist and life would instantly take the place of death. Oh, that the Church might awake to the momentous things that must shortly come to pass! And what guarantee have we, dear friends, that TO TJIE CHURCH OF SARD IS. I9I ail)' inoinent may not tie our last ? Who can tell how long he has to live or how quickly the trum- pet of judgment may sound, the dead be raised, and all God's ready saints be changed and caught away in the twinkling of an eye? Luther gave it as his belief that it would be about Easter-time that the Lord would come; and what if it should be the Easter of this present year? I dare not say that this is the time, neither dare I say that it is not; for no man knoweth or can know. But it is just as likely to be in such a year as this has so far been as in any other. And our Saviour would have us lay to heart and consider how it would be with us if He should now come. Let us, then, not trifle with the momentous pos- sibility, but heed the admonition from our Lord to get ourselves awake to duty, to strengthen the things that remain, to repair what is wanting, and to set ourselves right, lest He should come upon us in the stealth and unexpectedness of the thief, and all should be disaster before we know it. Hectare EtDclftlj, Rev. 3 : 4-6 : " Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments ; and they shall walk with me in white : for they are worthy. He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment ; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels. He that hath an ear, let him hear what ihe vSpirit saith unto the churches.'' T is very seldom that a church becomes so corrupt as to have no genuine Christians in it. As there is no visible church in Christendom in which all the members can be counted as saints, so there is scarcely a confessed church which has no good and faithful children of God in it. There was an Enoch and a Noah in the midst of the dreadful apostasy which brought on the Flood, a Job among the emirs of Arabia, an Abraham among the idolatrous population of Ur, a Lot even in Sodom. And so in the midst of the deadness of the church in Sardis there were some happy exceptions, some scattered lights amid the darkness — like Savona- rola, Wickliflfe, Huss, and Luther amid the abound- ing gloom of the ages preceding the great Refor- mation. 192 TO THE CHURCH OF SARD IS. 1 93 We must not conclude too unfavorably where things look ill. The stars are not all gone be- cause the sky is overcast. Amid the dreary snows and ice-rivers of the Alps and the Apennines there still may be found here and there a solitary flower. We search in vain for a wilderness so sterile as not to have in it souie spring, some oasis, some tree or shrub or blossom. When /Vhab had destroyed the prophets of the Lord, and Elijah thought that he alone survived, faithful among the faithless, God's eye still noticed seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal. And in the days of Malachi, when almost the entire nation had become apos- tate, there still was a remnant that feared the Lord, who spake often one to another, and whom God had entered in His book of remembrance as His in the day that He should make up His jewels. It is wrong to assume that there is nothing in Christianity, or that religion is a sham, because there are so many faithless people in the Church; so much empty profession; so many betrayals of confidence; so much deceit, uncharity, and bap- tized guilt; so much cloaked and gilded ungodli- ness; so much boastfulness of life where there is so much death. Sad as the facts may be, God has not left Himself without witnesses. There are some names ^'even in Sardis which have not defiled their o^arments " — some s^ood men and true 13 194 '^'J^i^ LETTERS OF JESUS. in whom the cause of Christ is justified, its saving virtue proven, and its glory demonstrated — men in whom its life still is preserved and perpetuated, who stand as monuments to the faith, the lights of their country, and the salt of the earth. If it were not so all would go to utter desolation. Hence Sodom's judgment lingers while lyot is within its gates. Till Christians have escaped the doomed city of Jerusalem stands invulnerable. Great Babylon itself is secure until God's people have come out of her. x\nd the fact that things still go on in the Church and in the world as well as they do proves that true faith and genuine god- liness have not utterly disappeared, and that there are still some genuine saints with garments unde- filed. I. Note the Saviouf s description of these people. He says of them that they "have not defiled their garments." A man's clothing is that which is next to him — that in which he puts himself forth — that in which he lives, moves, and acts. And so there is another sort of clothing which does not come from the weaver's loom and is not fitted by the tailor's hand. It is what we have around us in the world, the facts and circum- stances of our life-contact with the earth and the things of the earth, our relations and associations. Every one thus has his vestment. No one in this respect is naked or divinely intended to be. TO THE CHURCH OF SARDJS. 195 Christianity is not a divestiture of one's self of domestic and social surroundings. It is not the stripping off of the proper garments in which alone a man can properly live. Seclusion, soli- tude, asceticism, monkery, and cloister-life, sev- ered from all connection with the ordinary world, is a species of denudation and nakedness outside of the divine order. All natural surroundings and honest pursuits, with all the cares, anxieties, toils, and even sorrows, which they bring, are for our greater comfort, usefulness, and glory. He who cuts himself off from them cuts himself off from God's natural sacraments. They are our proper clothing, to warm, protect, beautify, and bless us. They tend to ennoble, not degrade. They have a spiritual aim, and a spiritual value also, if they be rightly managed. Our business as Christians is not to cast them off, but to wear them, live and act in them, only so as to keep them without being draggled and defiled. The atmosphere of this world may be unfavor- able to purity. There is a constant tendency to taint. Silver will tarnish unless pains be taken to keep it clean and bright; and so our surround- ings are liable to corrosion and soil if we be not on our guard. Even the best vestments are liable to take on filth, contagion, impurity, and disease. There can be no putting forth of life on earth but it is exposed to uncleanness. In society, in busi- 196 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. ness, in the home, and even in the church, there is constant liability to slovenliness and defilement. James charges against certain Christian professors that their garments were moth-eaten, and the Sa- viour Himself speaks of the necessity of watch- ing and keeping our garments. It therefore belongs to true Christianity not to try to get away from ordinary life, but to live and act in such a way as to keep our garments clean. Washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb, they can also be kept white and clean even in the midst of all the dust and filth of this unclean world. If the Church, as such, is dead and corrupt, there is no reason why we as individuals should be. If others wallow in imcleanness and glory in their shame, there is no occasion for us to follow their ways. Joseph could pass through trial to princely honor, and maintain himself from first to last, without becoming unfaithful to God and right- eousness. Daniel could maintain his purity un- impeachable through dynasty after dynasty in Babylon's unholy court. x\nd as the blessed Master was in the world without being of it, using it as not abusing it, so may we also, in our degree, make our passage through it in contact with its sins without contracting its impurities. Absolute purity, except in the merit and right- eousness of Christ, we cannot have on earth. Weaknesses, errors, and infirmities cleave to us TO THE CHURCH OF SARDIS. 197 all our lives through. We cauuot travel without dust. The rust will settle ou the purest metal. But we ueed not keep the dust on us nor suffer the rust to eat the metal up. These people in Sardis managed to have clean garments, though in contact with very great corruption and decay. They maintained themselves in living faith and purity where everything was full of defilement and deadness. With their robes washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb they wore them without soil. They had turned from dumb idols to serve the living God and to wait for His Son from heaven; and in this service and waiting they continued. If the name or profession of others was a lie, it was not a lie in their case. They may have had a hard struggle for it, but they continued faithful. If others were lured by the siren songs of worldly compliance, they were not. If others were content with a name to live while spiritually dead, this could not be said of them. Alive to the truth and to their Christian calling, they continued steadfast in the same. They had "not defiled their garments." II. N'ote tJic Stxvioiir' s commendation to these faithful ones. Though hidden away in a congregation so dead. He had not overlooked them. Jesus sees and notes the humblest and most hidden of His saints, and no matter how bad, diseased, or decayed m^y be 198 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. the church to which they belong, He knows them and takes due account of them, and has them credited in His memory and affection. These were perhaps the least popular and the least influential of all the members of the church in Sardis. If they spoke out, it is plain that but little regard was paid to them. Perhaps they were credited with being religious over-much — with being too scrupulous, too fanatical, too strict, and more disagreeable than pious. Perhaps they were put aside, blamed with insubordination, cen- sured as disturbers and trouble-makers, because they protested against the worldliness and dead- ness which had taken possession of that church. But Christ here speaks for them, vindicates them, declares them "worthy," and gives it as their lot to walk with Him in white. The most neglected and despised on earth are often the most esteemed in heaven. It matters not for the standinor of men in the eves of this world or in the eyes of a dead and dying Chris- tendom, provided they have the life of saints as well as the name — the power of godliness as well as its form. They are not unknown to Jesus. His favor is on them in all their trials. They have status in heaven which the highest in this world's esteem might well covet. And they have an Ad- vocate and a blessed record on high. "It is very beautiful to observe the gracious TO THE CHURCH OF SARDIS. 1 99 manner in which the Lord recognizes and sets His seal of allowance to the good which he any- where finds. Abraham said ' that be far from Thee to slay the righteons with the wicked;' and it is far from Him even to seem to include the righteous and the wicked in a common blame. He who delivered Noah from the destruction of the old world, who drew just Lot out of Sodom, who could single out from the whole wicked fam- ily of Jeroboam and take from the evil to come Abijah for some good thing that w^as found in him, beholds the few faithful in Sardis and will not suffer them to endure their lot as if they were unnoticed by Him, or allow them to be included in the condemnation of the church to which they belonged." If we are true to our Christian profession, Jesus pronounces us blessed, and assures us of great re- ward in heaven, whatever men mav think of us. Having kept the garments of grace unsoiled, we shall also wear the garments of glory. And, though excluded from the friendship and society of the proud and consequential on the earth, we nevertheless shall have the sublimer companion- ship of walking wnth Jesus in white — in the spot- less and trailing robes of dignity and honor. in. Notice the specific promises to this chtiixh. "He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment." 20O THE LETTERS OF JESUS. White is the emblem of perfection, purity, and exaltation. Anciently, when a priest was to be ordained the council examined his genealogy and his person, and if found imperfect he was clothed and veiled in black and sent away; but if all was right he was clothed in white and passed to the dignity of a priest of the Most High. So all Christians are called to be priests of God and of Christ, to serve in the eternal sanctuary. But our attainment to that honor depends on the success of our conflict with sin. If final victors we shall be arrayed in the clean linen, pure and white, as the lyord's royal priests. The Jewish scribes were ambitious to walk in long robes. They considered it a thing of grace, dignity, and honor. The Roman patricians wore white robes as badges of their high rank which none but themselves might wear. These marked them for the special respect of men and denoted their superior exaltation. Perhaps there were some such in the church of Sardis to whom the people looked up with particular reverence. But better far than all such marks of dignity is the promise to every Christian victor. All such are to be the magnates and patricians of heaven, for Jesus says, ' ' the sanie shall be clothed in white rairncnty The robes of Aaron and the royalty of David, the sacredness of the priests and the rank of kings, shall be united upon them. The TO THE CHURCH OF SARD IS. 201 successful Christian is to "shine as the sun in the kingdom of the Father" — not simply in what is put on from without, but also with the correspond- ing- inner glorification of the whole being, like that which marked the Saviour on the mount of His transfiguration. But this is not all. The Saviour further adds: ^^And I ivill not blot out his name out of the book of life. ' ' When any one submits to become a Christian, and receives baptism into the Christian common- wealth, his name is "written in heaven" as well as in the church-book on earth. There is a celes- tial roll-book of all those who name the name of Jesus. But it depends on the persevering fidelity of the individual whether his name is to continue on that roll or to be blotted out. There be many names once entered in that book which will not appear there at the final opening of it. There be many whose names were entered there when as infants they were given and dedicated to the Lord who in after years refused to acknowledge and stand to that baptismal consecration, and whose names have long since been erased. There be many whose names were entered there as they gave themselves to be Christ's servants and vowed sacred allegiance to Him until death, but who have so fallen awav from their enorao;ements and duties that onlv blots remain where their names 202 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. once stood. There be many whose names once glowed with splendid promise in that book of life, but which the tears of the recordino- ano^el have expunged because of the apostasies and failures of those from whom so much better things were hoped. And it is a sadness unspeakable to think how many blots and erasures there are upon the books of heaven by reason of the failures of peo- ple who once were on the way of life, but dropped out before finishing their race. But there are names there which never shall be blotted out. They are registered as the true and faithful followers of the Lord, and such they will continue to the end. Though they should be stricken from all the rolls of honor and distinc- tion in this world, they will never be blotted from the Lamb's book of life. Stars may fail, rivers cease to flow, flowers fade, monuments of brass and marble perish, and names which once shook the world die out for ever, but the names of God's persevering saints shall stand in the register of the nobility of heaven, ever brighter and more illus- trious as the everlasting ages run. No works and merits of ours can write us in that book, but the all-suflicient grace of Jesus can. And if w^e have sincerely embraced Him as our Lord and Saviour, and ever cleave to Him as our hope and strength, and continue steadfast in this faith, even our un- worthy names shall remain upon the book of life TO THE CHURCH OF SARDIS. 203 as our title to the inheritance of the saints in light. So far from blotting the name of the Christian victor from the book of life, Jesus further prom- ises, "/ ivill confess his name before my Father and before His holy angel s.^^ He requires of us that we confess Him before men. It pertains to true discipleship publicly to espouse Christ's name and cause in the midst of this gainsaying world, and not to be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord. It is the least that we should ever think of doing for Him who has done so much for us. It is the soldier's greatest shame not to stand courageously to his colors. But Christ in turn engages to confess us, to espouse our cause, and to acknowledge and stand for us before God and all the dignitaries of heaven. It is something to have one's name introduced to the favorable consideration of kings and high potencies, and the higher the dignity and influ- ence of the person presenting us and vouching for us the sublimer is the honor. There is therefore a largeness and blessedness in this promise far be- yond what we might on first hearing suppose. It means that the very Son of God, to whom all au- thority and power in heaven and on earth is given, proposes to present us to the eternal Father as His acknowledged friends, for whom He vouches and for whom He stands, as candidates for enthrone- 204 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. ment amid the princedoms and sublime fellow- ships of the heavenly regencies. And great will be the difference between the names which Jesus will confess in heaven and those which figure so largely in the hearing and an- nals of men in this world. How many whom popes have canonized and crowds have worshipped will then fail to be mentioned! How many names that have floated down the ages and sounded in end- less echoes along the corridors of time as those of the noble, the mighty, the beautiful, and the brave will never once be pronounced or heard in heaven! And how many never known beyond the humblest circles, and never once heard of on earth, shall suddenly come forward to honorable notice as the heirs of eternal dominions to share with Jesus in the kingdom prepared by the Father before the world was! Yes, many names of which all the books and all the newspapers and all the utter- ances of men now are full shall never once be named there, while others which, like violets by the roadside or like roses in the wilderness, have quite escaped all observation, or which perchance were known only to be contemned and cast out as evil, shall be brought forth as the worthiest and noblest that ever have been worn in this world, and live in sublimer fame for all the everlasting ages than those of the Solomons, the Alexanders, the Caesars, and the Napoleons in earthly history. TO y/IE CHURCH OF SA/^J)/S. 20$ There are names now npon no books on earth but the church-records of some humble congrega- tions which shall then turn out among the high- est in the records of the redeemed. There are names of which their owners are half ashamed, and which they never hear pronounced without a degree of confusion as if too uncouth and un- worthy to be spoken; but if those who have them will be true and faithful to their Lord and Sa- viour, and hold out steadfast in their lowly spheres, Jesus will confess them in the Court of heaven, and clothe them with an honor in which they will shine illustrious for ever. Dear friends, these are very wonderful things, but as true and sure as they are wonderful. Our blessed Lord Himself hath spoken them from heaven, and well do they deserve our careful and believing notation. Not without the most ample reason does He add here also the admonitory words: "//<^ that hath an car^ let him hear zvhat the Spirit saith unto the cJiurehes.^^ It is Jesus who speaks, and it is for us to pay the most rev- erent attention to what comes so direct from the lips of the King. Matters of the weightiest and highest concernment of every man, and especially every Christian, are here brought to our contem- plation, and we do but disable and dwarf ourselves by not devoutly taking them to heart. If we are 2o6 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. dull and dead in our profession, here is the divine direction what to do about it. If we find the bat- tle hard, the trials heavy, the adversities severe, and the whole tendency of things against us, here is the word to strengthen and encourage us. The strife faithfully maintained will have a glorious issue. The harder the fight, the higher is the heaven to be won. The heavier the cross, the brighter the crown. For the spirit of heaviness come the garments of praise. For our confession of Christ in lowliness will be His confession of us before the Father and His holy angels. We have only to hear and heed and press courageously on, and we need not fear for the result. And when the time comes that the books are opened and the records of the book of life are read out, our names shall be found written in it to our everlasting joy and honor. ' ' Behold, ' ' saith the Saviour, ' ' I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Notwithstanding, in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject to you; but rather rejoice because your 7ia7nes are written in heavcn^^ (Ivuke lo : 19, 20). Hcdure ffiijirtceutlj. Rev. 3:7-11: "And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write : These things sailh He that is holy, He that is true, He that hath the key of David, He that openeth, and no man shutteth ; and shut- teth, and no man openeth : I know thy works : behold, I have set be- fore thee an open door, and no man can shut it : for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept My word, and hast not denied My name. Be- hold, I will make them of the synagogue of vSatan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie ; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. Because thou hast kept the word of My patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. Behold, I come quickly : hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown." lOME have the idea that there was nothing faulty in connection with the church in Philadelphia, and that its professed mem- bers, though weak and poor, were all worthy and commendable Christians. This doubtless was true with respect to the persons included in the Sa- viour's commendation, but I am persuaded it is a mistake when accepted as covering the whole case. If the entire professed church in Philadelphia was in such a good condition spiritually, it was an exception to all other known churches; and so is also named at the wrong place in this list, for 207 208 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. the order of succession is that of growing dete- rioration. The few weak ones here so tenderly commended by the Saviour are plainly but a fee- ble and depressed fraction of the general body of Philadelphians professing to be Christians. There is also a distinct reference to another and more influential class, from whom these few poor saints were suffering much, and whom the Saviour de- scribes as "those which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie." Who were these? If they were literal born Jews, adhering to their own syn- agogue, distinct and apart from the professed Church of Christ, it is hard to conceive why the Saviour would say that the}' were not Jews and that their profession was a lie. The implication also is that if these false ones had been true Jews, as they professed and claimed to be, Christ could and would have approved and commended them the same as the others; whereas this was not pos- sible unless they had been at the same time con- fessing believers in Him. If the question lay simply between being pseudo-Jews and Jews of the true natural blood of Abraham, Jesus could no more acknowledge them in the one case than in the other apart from Christian faith and pro- fession; so that we are obliged to consider them professing Christians. It must be borne in mind that a large number of the Christians of those days, in most places, TO THE CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA. 209 were of Jewish blood. Even Paul, the great apostle of the Gentiles, iiearl\- always begau with the Jews, and his first converts were almost inva- riably from among the Jews. A distinction thus came to be made between believing or baptized Jews and those who stood out in opposition to the Christian faith. Those who believed and were baptized were considered the right Jews — the Jews of the true and saving circumcision of the heart — the Jews who were the only Jews in real- ity, because they entered into the real faith and spirit of the covenant with believing Abraham; while all others were regarded as spurious Jews, because, while holding to the shell of the ancient faith, they were in fact apostates from the cove- nant of promise. Hence to profess Christianity was to profess to be the true and only proper Jews according to the genuine spirit and import of the promise to Abraham's seed. This was the doc- trine then held. Accordingly, also, Paul wrote to the Romans that "He is not a Jew which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew \i. e. a right Jew] which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God." So also he wrote to the Galatians: ''If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the 14 2IO THE LETTERS OF JESUS. promise." And had these people been ever so true Jews without being Christians, it is not pos- sible that Christ could have acknowledged and commended them as belonging to His Church. Those, therefore, whom the Saviour here cha- racterizes as professing to be Jews, but whose pro- fession was a lie, could be none other than persons who professed Christianity, but whose profession was false — so false that He condemns them as a very "synagogue of Satan." The whole de- scription shows that they were the chief body of professed Christians in Philadelphia — people who had things largely in their own control, but were only self-deceivers, hypocrites, and liars, so far departed from all genuine Christianity and so destitute of faith and charity as to be in reality the children of the Bvil One — an apostate crew, not at all entitled to place in the congregation of believers. To confess Christ, to accept baptism into His name, and to take upon us the confession of Christianity are necessary. We cannot be rated as true Christians without these. But mere pro- fession is not enough. We must inwardly be and live what we profess. We must be hearty, true, and consistent in our profession. We must be Christians in reality, and not only in name and claim, in order to have place in Christ's acknow- ledgment and regard. And it is a sad fact that TO THE ClIi'RCIl OF PIULADELPHLA. 211 there be many who make loud and confident claim of being Christians, putting down all others as far beneath them, while their hearts are not at all right; and Christ refuses to acknowledge them as any real part of His Church. Though professedly Christians beyond all Christians, in the view of Heaven they are nothing but a synagogue of Sa- tan, having neither part nor lot with Christ's true people. It is strange that it should be so; that men should so impose upon themselves; that any could be so lost to all right sensibility and honesty as to vaunt themselves as Christians while really the children of the devil. But so it was in this church of Philadelphia, and so it has been over and over again in all the Christian ages; na}^, there is every reason for us all to search our- selves well to make sure that such is not our own case. So, then, this church in Philadelphia, taken as a whole according to profession, was by far the worst in the list thus far. In Ephesus there was a cooling of first love, which is the beginning and source of all that is bad in Christian declension. When the fervor of divine love is gone, the way is open for every other bad development and ill growth. But it was there only a cooling of love. There were some bad practices and some false apostles, but they were vigorously resisted and discipline was maintained. 212 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. In Smyrna there were falsifiers who had grown into blasphemers and lying perverters of the truth, who showed that they were of the Satanic school. But they were few and had obtained no standing or control in the church. In Pergamos bad deeds had grown into corrupt doctrines. Errors of life had come to a place in the creed, and falsities be- gan to appear in the place of power and control. The church and the world began to be friends and to intermarry, and the proper distinctness of the church began to be obscured. In Thyatira matters had become still worse. Devil-oracles, sanctioning, teaching, and justifying evil deeds, here found lodgment and place as divine proph- ecies, and many Christians were betrayed and de- ceived into the basest uncleannesses under the guise of knowing "the depths of Satan" and triumphing over him by doing his works. In Sardis living faith had come to an almost uni- versal deadness, so that there were but ' ' a few names" left which had not defiled their gar- ments. The Christian profession had been main- tained, and there was much formal devotion, but the true spirit of faith had largely departed. The church for the most part had become a mere car- cass, beautiful and impressive in external form, with plenty of showy power, winning for it an imposing name, but without life and spiritually dead. TO THE CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA. 21 3 And here in Philadelphia an utterly false Chris- tianity had so far usurped the place of the true that the most influential part of the church could no more be tolerated as at all belonorinor to the o o Church of Christ, but was turned into a very synagogue of Satan, overriding, oppressing, and proudly casting out of all sympathy those who alone could be regarded as proper Christians. It is a melancholy thing to have a name to live and yet be dead or dying, but it is a still worse thing to be alive, active, and potential in what is so contrary to Christ under name and pretence of being the Lord's people. Yet to such deceptions may men persuade themselves, vaunting as pre- eminent children of God while utterly disowned of Christ as noue of His. And to this condition had the main body of these Philadelphians re- duced themselves. But there still were some whom the Saviour could and did acknowledge. They were poor, inconsiderable, and at a great disadvantage, but they were believing and true. The pastor seems to have been a weak man and not much esteemed by some of his people, but he was strong enough in faith and principle not to be carried away or silenced by the prevailing majority. He knew the truth, and held it and preached it, though it met with no favorable response or sympathy from the most of his flock. The humbler and poorer 214 THE LETTERS OE JESUS. ones believed and held with him, bnt the rest ac- cepted only so nuich as they liked, held to more liberal ideas, and frowned upon those who were so simple as to take what was taught them as true gospel. But it was true gospel, nevertheless; and the very titles under which the Saviour presents Himself to this church of Philadelphia presup- pose some such state of things as I have de- scribed. I. Notice thksk Titi.es. ''These things saith He that is Jioly^^ — more lit- erally, ^^ the Holy One^^ — He who is absolute holi- ness in Himself. This identifies Christ as God, for it would be blasphemy in any mere man or angel so to speak of himself But the assump- tion of this title here looks to some unsanctity in the people of Philadelphia with which the Holy One is inherently and eternally at war. "//- being smitten with leprosy. Jonah was brought to his better senses and to the discharge of his prophetic duties by the trouble he encountered in the sea amid the storm of di- vine displeasure. David was recovered from his wandering from God by the afflictions that were sent upon him. Zacharias was cured of his un- belief bv beino^ struck with dumbness. Paul was kept from being exalted above measure by a hu- miliating and vexatious thorn in the flesh. And so afflictions of one sort or another are dealt out to the people of God for tlieir spiritual profit, that the same may work out for them a far more ex- ceeding and eternal weight of glory. Up to the time the text was dictated the church at Laodicea appears to have been comparatively free from trouble. The members in general were outwardly prosperous and without the disturb- ances with which some of these churches had to contend. They counted themselves rich and hap- py and in need of nothing, and hence presumed that the special favor of Heaven was upon them. Their exemption from adversities made them think themselves particularly dear to the Saviour and spiritually blessed. But what they took as an argument that all was exceptionally well with them Jesus here retorts upon them as arguing the 286 THE LETTERS OE JESUS. very opposite. Out of their own mouths He con- victs them. Without rebuke and chastening they were wanting in one of the most essential proofs of His love. Excepted from these severe disci- plinary dealings, they must needs be excepted from being sons. There was thus a very sharp and deep-reaching rebuke to their fond conceit when Jesus said to them, ^^As many as I love I rebuke and chasten.^'' And yet if there were any poor, afflicted, or sorrowing ones among them, this announcement had much comfort in it for them. It said to such that as continued prosperity and sunshine in this world are no proof of the divine favor, but rather the contrary, so the presence of adversity and darkness do not prove the divine love withdrawn, but evidence its active presence. When good Christian people are overtaken with misfortune and trouble, and fail of relief notwith- standing all their prayers and entreaties, they are apt to take it as a mark of God's anger and begin to wonder what great sin they have committed to deserve such punishment. But they mistake; it is not punishment at all. Instead of being re- tributive wrath, it is the manifestation of tender love. Trouble does not come because Jesus has ceased to love us, but because He does love us and is concerned to do the very best for us. The rule works both ways. As there is no love where there TO THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA. 28/ is no rebuke and chastening, so where the cross is there love is, graciously dealing with us for our greater good and blessedness. But because these Laodiceans were happily free from adversity and trial, there was no reason in that for counting on the continuance of their boasted good-fortune. The very announcement to them of this principle in the Saviour's deal- ings was forewarning that they would either lose their salvation or would have to suffer like other saints. As prosperity had spoiled them, there had to come some sharp severity to correct them; and here was now the distinct pre-intimation that heavy judgment was at hand for them, to cure and save them if they properly received it, but destined to work great grief and their utter per- dition if not allowed to set them right and in- duce in them a better temper. Nay, this judg- ment had now already set in. The very words that the Saviour was speaking were a part of it. In these they were now hearing from the throne in heaven the most distressing sentence upon them. By a tribunal from which there is no appeal their whole religious life and character is adjudged fatally defective, and so offensive that they would presently be ejected with disgust from all part or place with the Saviour if not promptly reformed and changed. From the very lips of Him in whom alone there was any hope for them 288 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. they now were compelled to hear that all their supposed riches cloaked a wretched poverty, and that nothing could help them but instantaneous revolution in their thinking and their ways. Here was judgment begun. Here were intense rebuke and chastening come, after all. Here were scourging and humiliation, severer even than the fires of the stake at Smyrna amid which Polycarp obtained the martyr's crown. What could cut deeper or burn into the soul a more torturing distress than such words from Christ Himself? And yet it was not in anger, but in love, that these words were spoken. The intention was to recover, heal, and save, not to drive to despair. There was no hope for these people except in this way of dealing with them; and these very sever- ities of reproof and menace were given in love, that those concerned might profit by them and set themselves to repair what was wanting. What, then, was it that the Saviour wished to bring about in these people ? There is never au}^ activity of God in word or providence but it is meant to compass moral and practical results. In this case it was the rod of the word heavily ap- plied, that the subjects of the affliction might be moved and incited to ^^ be zealous^ and repent. ' ' Zeal means fire, warmth, boiling fervency — an earnest vehemence of all the affections in relation to God and His service. It is like wings to a bird, TO THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA. 289 like wheels to a chariot, like sails to a ship, like the fire on which the engine dep nds for its steam and power; for it is the warmth and energy of soul by which a man throws himself into what he un- dertakes. Under the Law no sacrifice could be offered without fire; and no more can any service be rightly performed under the Gospel without zeal. There must be fervency and warmth, or all our devotions fail in power to rise acceptably to Heaven. There may, indeed, be zeal without genuine ser- vice of God, against which to be on our guard. There is a Jiypocritical zcal^ like that of Jehu, who marched with fury and whose watchword was "The Lord of hosts," but who was more bent upon his own ambitious ends than on any service to be rendered to the Almighty. So also with the Pharisees, who paid tithe of mint, anise, and cummin, made broad their phylacteries, en- larcred the borders of their tjarments, coveted the uppermost rooms at feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues, compassed sea and land to make proselytes, and for a pretence made long prayers, but did not hesitate to devour widows' houses, to set aside the w^eighty matters of judgment, mercy, and faith, to stone and kill the prophets, and to crucify the very Son of God. There is also an ignorant zeal^ like that of Saul of Tarsus before his conversion, or like that of 19 290 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. the Jews, who had a zeal for God, but not accord- ing to knowledge. Such a zeal is like spirited mettle in a blind horse, hastening his speed only to break his neck. There is likewise a turbulent and bitter zeal^ driving one headlong beyond all bounds of pro- priety, place, moderation, and charity, like that of the unfledged apostles James and John, who thought to vindicate the honor of Christ by call- ing down fire from heaven to consume a whole village of Samaritans, or like that which, under color of religion or the maintenance of human rights, takes upon itself to massacre princes, over- turn kingdoms, trample upon established law, break through all the bonds of society, and com- mit to the guillotine all who may stand in its way — a zeal kindled in hell rather than derived from heaven. And yet there can be no genuine service of God without zeal. The ground-rule of the whole law of God and of all the precepts and requirements of His word is that if we are to serve God at all it must be with all the heart, with all the soul, with all the mind, and with all the strength. He is the Supreme, and if He is not the supreme in all our affections and activities we stand exposed to that consuming jealousy which will not allow of our having any other God besides Him. Zeal in religion is not excitement, rant, and TO THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA. 29 1 fury. It is not fanaticism, bigotry, and intoler- ance. It is not a proud conceit of superiority which thanks God that it is not as other men, and draws its cloak of sanctity about it lest it should take on contamination by coming too near to them. It is not the heat of blustering passion, which must have the conflagration in which to live, and leaves onlv a burnt district when it re- tires. But it is the giving of the whole heart to Jesus and His service, so as not to draw back for any lure of this world or to stop at any sacrifice the Lord may require of us. And just here was the particular deficiency of these Laodiceans. No charge of heresy in doc- trine is made against them. No disorder in their services is alleged. Outwardly they were a pros- perous and respectable community of Christians. But they were neither cold nor hot. They were lukewarm. They had no seal^ no fervency, no ardent w^armth, no whole-souled earnestness in their Christianity. They were in an insipid and nauseating condition, which they needed to get out of, or nothing was to be hoped but to be spued out of the Saviour's mouth. To get them out of this miserable lukewarm- ness it was now laid upon them to repent. Their mind had to be changed. Their whole estimate of things had to be revolutionized. Their good opinion of themselves had to be dropped. They 292 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. were to go at the whole matter afresh, turn a new leaf, and begin again as poor sinners, destitute, blind, naked, and in peril of losing their salva- tion altogether. There was hope if they would now set out in good earnest, seek for a new bap- tism of the Spirit, and become alive and zealous in their profession and duties as Christians. But this was now an absolute requirement. If their wealth could not be consecrated to better uses than to inflate their self-consequence and self- complacency, it would prove their worst curse and be a chain about their necks to sink them to the deeper perdition. If they did not give them- selves to more earnestness and heart-fidelity in their religion, their boasted outward prosperity would be to them their everlasting ruin. And nothing but a new start in a warm, devoted, and zealous spirituality, and a deepening of their piety in all directions, would now save them from an utter rejection by their I^ord and Judge. And if ever there was occasion for such de- mands, it is. in the Christendom of our times. Never was the Church general and the great mass of its professed members so Laodicean in condi- tion as in our days. Never was there so much joining of the worship of God with the worship of Mammon — such close affiliation of the Church with the world — so much boastful religiousness and churchism with so little genuine Christian- TO THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA. 293 ity — SO much self-confident profession with so much emptiness even in common honesty. Peo- ple heap to themselves teachers to suit their tastes — teachers to slur over or deny unwelcome truths, flatter the vain imaginings of their hearers, and teach an easv-s^oinor wav to heaven — and then think how wonderfully well off they are for this world and the next. Having come down to the world's ideas and gained the world's praise and patronage, they are full of the Laodicean self- sufficiency, and as full of I^aodicean ofFensiveness to Christ. Here and there we find some humble and de- voted ones whom Jesus loves — some whom He bears upon His heart as His true saints. But they are mostly persons of whom the least account is taken — poor souls to whom nobody cares to listen or who are only despised as wishing to put a cowl upon the free spirit of this superlative age. The time prophesied of by Paul has come, when in the Church itself " men are lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having the form of godliness, but deny- ing the power thereof ' ' And it is useless for any of us to think that we are not more or less under the influence of this same Laodicean spirit; for that itself would be proof against us. What we all need is to repent and be zealous, that our re- 294 I^HJi LETTERS OF JESUS. ligion may not be of that poor sort which Christ certainly will disown and reject. It belongs to man to have live feelings. We cannot live without animation and passion. We must be interested and ardent in something. And if it is not in earnest spiritual Christianity and the service of God, it will be in the pursuits, follies, and caprices of this world, in the service of self and sin. The question is not whether we are to have warmth and zest in us, but whether the warmth and zest are to be for God and His Christ. Feel we must, and zealous we will be; but the question is whether our enthusiasm is to be nourished from the wells of salvation, or fed by the excitements and fascinations of the world, the flesh, and the devil. The human family is not made up of lukewarm people. The whole world teems with activity and zealous effort. You look in vain for those who are not busy and earnest in something which lies near their hearts. Politics, science, literature, art, fashion, gain, promotion, riches, pleasure, sen- suality, — all have their myriads of earnest devo- tees. Turn where we will, we find anxious faces, throbbing hearts, busy hands, agitated minds, and earnest souls. No one is lukewarm. Each has his subject to occupy and animate his thoughts and fire his zeal. The very weariness of the world proves the intensity of feeling which moves rO THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA. 295 and tasks its heart. And if people are thus inter- ested and earnest in the perishing things of this world, there can be no greater inconsistency, no worse unreason, no more offensive hypocrisy, than for them to claim to be Christians and yet have no zeal, no enthusiasm, no vigorous earnestness in what pertains to Christianity. Everything else is in earnest. The world is in earnest. Christ is in earnest. The devil is in earnest, and all the devil's children are in earnest in one way or another. And for a professed Chris- tian to hope to secure an eternal heaven without earnest and uncompromising endeavor to fill out the demands of his high calling is an anomaly in the universe, and a thing which the heavenly Judge can by no means tolerate. Hence His message to the Laodiceans, and to all in like condition: ^^Be zealous^ therefore^ and repenty Dear friends, let us not deceive ourselves. If it is worth our while to be Christians at all, it is worth all the zeal, interest, and devotion we can give to it. If we have been lukewarm and indif- ferent, dividing our hearts between God and the things of the world,. tr>'ing to keep up a name for discipleship while our feelings are left to run after the pleasures, gains, and honors of this life, the time has come for us to make a more serious matter of our religion. We must make an effect- 296 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. ual end of all spiritual insipidity, or it will make an effectual end of our hopes. And unless we re- pent out of our lukewarmness, and make a more earnest showing that we really wish to have place among the Lord's redeemed, we may as well be assured, first as last, that we shall never get it; for only Shame and sorrow wait On feeble feet, faint heart, and wavering eyes. Hecture l^tineteentlj. Rev. 3 : 20: " Behold, I stand at the door, and knock : If any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me." 'HBN the lyord lifts His finger and says, ^^ Behold P"^ we may be sure of something marked and marvellous to be considered. And so it is in this instance. God help us, there- fore, to give heed! Many have taken the text as the tenderest ex- hibit of the Saviour's condescending love con- tained in the Scriptures, but all the depths and implications of the passage are mostly unper- ceived. The picture is indeed very affecting and tender, but it does not refer so much to the Sa- viour's present attitude toward the unconverted as to His attitude toward the Church itself in the period of His second coming. Its particular ref- erence is to that solemn time and that sad condi- tion of things to which the Saviour alluded when He spoke the parable of the Unjust Judge and said, "Nevertheless, when the Son of man com- eth, shall He find faith on the earth?" (Luke i8 : 8). It contemplates Him as now in some sense 297 298 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. absent, but as then arrived and in large measure ' barred out of His own Church. The true application of the passage connects directly with a like presentation made in the Song of Solomon (chap. 5), some of the very language of which it repeats, and with the sub- stance of which it coincides. In that marvellous Song the bride is always the Church and the Bridegroom the Lord Jesus. In that chapter the bride is represented in a sleepy and dreamy state in the midst of the night, neither dead asleep like the rest of the world, nor yet entirely awake, but in a state between the two, answering to the neither-hot-nor-cold condition of the Laodicean church. In this condition her Lord comes for her, and finds Himself locked out. He stands by the door and knocks and calls for admission, just as in the text. But so languid and slow is she to open to her Lord, and pleads so many dilatory ex- cuses, that by the time she gets full awake, and would gladly receive Him, she finds to her sorrow that He has gone. Thus she is left to seek Him amid distresses, sufferings, and losses, just as the unready multitude will be "/^" when the Lord cometh to take His watching and waiting people — "left" to experience the great tribulation, and amid its griefs to wash their robes that they may not be among the utterly lost. In the same way the text identifies with what TO THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA. 299 the Saviour says in Luke (12 : 35-38), where He exhorts His people: "Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; tJiat when he com- eth aftd knocketh^ they may ope^i unto him iniine- diately. Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when He cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that He shall gird Himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. And if He shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those Servian ts." Here is precisely the same coming, the same knocking, and the same supping with those who open to Him, that we have in the text. The presentation likewise coincides with what is recorded in Mark (chap. 13), where it is writ- ten, "The Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch. Watch ye, therefore; for ye know not when the master of the house cometh: at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning. Lest com- ing suddenly, He find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say unto all, Watch." The only \ difference is that the parable represents the com- y ing to be in some indefinite time in the future, v 300 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. while ill the text Christ is already come and standing before the door. Having been person- ally long absent, He at length retnrns to it in its last or Laodicean period, and knocks for admis- sion. He comes to His own honse, but His pres- ence is not recognized nor His knocks responded to. The servants having lost all zeal, anxiety, and watchfulness for His return, and become in- different and unbelieving in general, He finds them eating and drinking, revelling and fighting, according to the common course of the world, and saying one to another. No danger that the Lord will come in our day, if ever. And so the whole house is in disorder, the porter off his guard, and no one dreaming that it is Jesus giving His last merciful warning ere the great judgment breaks forth. Accordingly, the showing here is that in the ^period of the Lord's second coming there will be a season in which He will be present with the signals that His long-promised return has come, but during which He will specially knock and plead and lift up His voice, that haply some may recognize His call, and welcome Him to their em- brace and His rightful habitation. Though come with judgment-power to crush out everything that stands opposed to Him, He is loth to break in upon His wayward servants and consume them in His hot displeasure; therefore He stands and TO THE CHURCH OF LAO DICE A. 3OI knocks, giving to His unready people one last warning and opportunity, and sending shrill and startling summons throughout Christendom that if any will share with Him the glorious marriage- . supper they may open to Him, as otherwise they must meet the doom of those left to suffer with hypocrites and unbelievers in the great tribula- tion, from which all who are zealous in watching and prayer and accounted worthy to escape and to stand before the Son of man have been taken. It was a sad and melancholy thing when, at the first advent, Jesus came unto His own and His own received Him not. But sadder still will it be when He comes again, having the complete fulfilment of all His promises in His hands, and the eteat bodv of His own Church does not know or acknowledge Him. It is bad enough when those who have never known Him, never counted themselves His friends, never tasted of His good word or the powers of the world to come, bar Him out from their affections and refuse to admit Him to their hearts; but for those baptized in His name, who have sworn allegiance to His authority, who profess to be marching under His flag, who have been entrusted with the guardianship of the treas- ures of His grace, word, and sacraments of love, not to know and acknowledge Him, to bar Him out of His own house, and to compel Him to stand outside knocking and begging that they 302 THE LETTERS OE JESUS. may open to Him, is the superlative of human apostasy, ingratitude, and unfeeling depravity. Hence the exclamation, "Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me!" And yet, as He prayed for His murderers at the time of His crucifixion, so He is loth to abandon and overwhelm Hisingrateand degenerate Church, and at the last still holds His judgment back while He stands without and knocks, if haply some may open to Him, that He may come in to them and sup with them, and they with Him, and not fall under His consuming wrath. There is indeed a sense in which the statement of the text is true during all the ages of the Church on earth. There is no time in which Jesus does not in a manner stand at the doors of those who hear His Gospel, knocking and calling for admis- sion with His saving grace. In the course of na- ture He is in no one's heart, but outside. Yet He stands proposing Himself to each as the needed Saviour. By His word. Spirit, and providence He pleads and calls and knocks for admission. It is a great and precious truth, never to be lost sight of, that the very Lord of glory stands before every heart, applying for place and supremacy in it that He may be its Lord and Saviour. Thus He ap- proaches every living soul among us, saying to it in many forms and intonations, "My son, give TO THE CJIURCH OF LAO DICE A. 303 Me thine heart." Often as He has been denied, He still continues to stand and call and wait and plead and knock. In every fresh message that sounds from the sacred desk, in every new stir of conscience, in every turn that awakens thought upon God, judgment, and eternity. His voice sounds, repeating again and again His gracious call, ''^My son^ give Me thine hearth And when the voice of the word is disregarded He speaks and knocks with the voice of the rod. The schemes of life are hedged up and defeated, fond possessions are swept away, health is de- stroyed, life is brought into peril, death strikes into the home, trouble shakes the soul, and one stroke after another in loud detonation is made, to get the poor drowsy sleepers awake, to open unto Him and let Him in as their proper Lord and Sa- viour. x\nd many a time and long has Jesus thus been standing and knocking at the hearts of mul- titudes who have persisted till now in disregarding His calls and proposals, and have become so ha- bituated to their disregard of Him that some of these days they will hav^e heard the last call of mercy, and neither hope nor help shall ever reach them more. But the standing and knocking described in the text is something specific and peculiar. What Christ here says connects above all with the refer- ences in the other Letters, where He speaks of 304 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. His coming to remove the candlestick from those of His people who repent not of the evils into which they have fallen — His coming to fight against them with the sword of His mouth — His coming to relieve His suffering saints from all their burdens and to reward them that keep His works to the end — His coming as a thief to steal away His faithful watchers to Himself — His com- ing to keep those who keep the word of His pa- tience out of that hour of dreadful trial which is then to come upon all the w^orld — His second coming, when He cometh to reckon with His servants, having His reward with Him, to give to every man according as his work shall be, — that coming of which the Scriptures everywhere say so much, and of which the Church of our day really believes and understands so little. The preaching of the Gospel and the ordinary operations of grace and providence in the conver- sion of sinners is never called knocking unless it be in this lone passage. Nor is knocking at a door to notify of one's presence suggestive of the ordinarv callino^ of souls into the kingdom of heaven. Knocking gives the idea of a degree of violence which may be friendly indeed, but does not fall in with the common motions of grace. Preaching the Gospel is the proclamation of mercy in the name and stead of one absent, while knock- ing is the announcement of one present and newly TO THE CHURCH OF LA OD ICE A. 305 arrived, and in a way ver\- different from the be- seecliinor of men to be reconciled to (jod. If it includes the ordinary operations of grace through the word, it unquestionably includes much more, and must be so understood. We find no such knocking spoken of in reference to either of the other churches. It has place only in the case of this church, with which the whole career of the Church in this world terminates by Christ's return to judge the quick and the dead. Nor is there any reference to Christ's second coming in all this Letter if not in this place. It must, therefore, in its more direct and particular meaning, belong to that period when the judgment is on the final verge of breaking forth upon the world — that period when Christ, if not already present unre- vealed, is on the very point of ushering in the momentous scenes of the great consummation. Preciselv what this knockingf is or is to be it is not given me to affirm, but it is unquestionably some loud enunciation of the personal presence of the Saviour returned to this world or of such an immediate nearness of Him in the great scenes of the judgment as to be the same as if here al- ready. His coming as a thief would seem to im- ply that He will be present and at work unknown to the world, while many will only be convinced of the fact by the missing of what He has taken. And along with this coming as a thief in the 20 306 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. night this knocking occurs. It would therefore seem to be some special indication of His pres- ence, answering to a newly-arrived visitor's knock at the door to make known to the inmates that he has come — a knocking which those who are prop- erly awake and waiting for Him will understand, and so respond as to be in position to welcome and receive Him to their everlasting blessedness. The Scriptures everywhere tell us of many signs and portents to be given as that notable day draws near. Jesus Himself tells us, "There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken " (Ivuke 21 : 25, 26); and His word to His people is, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draw- eth nigh " (Luke 21 : 28). And the sending forth through all the regions of nature such agitations and alarms, with many other such disturbing manifestations prophesied of that time, would seem to answer best to this knocking of the Sa- viour as He stands before the door to give His last warning call to His drowsy Church. And along with such signs and manifestations in the ordinary ongoing of things there will nat- TO THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA. 307 urally and necessarily be the warning voice of many earnest servants of God, teliing what these signs mean, and proclaiming aloud into the ears of a slumbering world that the hour of God's judgment is come, leaving no more time to be lost if they would have place in the ark of His salvation. Three distinct commissions are given in the parable which sets forth the calling of guests to the Marriage of the King's vSon. The first went forth to the Jews, so long notified beforehand, but who behaved so badly in the case that the King sent forth His armies and destroyed those mur- derers and burnt up their city. Then went forth a second commission to invite everybody from all the streets and lanes of the whole world. It is under this commission that the ministers of sal- vation have been acting from that time to this present. But the parable tells of a third and final commission. When the servants returned word that all was done as commanded, and yet there was room, the Lord said, "Go out into the high- ways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled." This last commission tells of a degree of force and violence in the ful- filment of it which differs from those preceding it, and shows the rising up of a class of preachers with unwonted point and constraining urgency in their messages, reinforced by the alarming condi- 308 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. tioii of things all over, giving to the last appeals of mercy a degree of shrillness and compulsive- ness never heard before. And this, it seems to me, is that particular note in the dispensations of God toward the drowsy Church and apostate world to which Jesus above all here refers. Standing as Judge before the door in the last extremity of time. He knocks by the signs and proclamations of His presence, that "if any man^^ hear His voice he may yet have part in the blessed mar- riage-supper of the lyamb. And what, dear friends, if that time has already come and this knocking has already commenced ? Far off it cannot be. The symptoms of its near- ness are growing marvellously distinct, just as foretold, as all who will open their eyes may see. What a cry has of late years gone out over Chris- tendom, and is now sounding from many pulpits, books, tracts, and platforms, in all lands and lan- guages, saying, ^^ Behold^ the Bridegroom cometh., go ye out to meet Him^\f Take the records of the last decade, or even the last five years, and when was there ever such uneasiness in the body of the earth, such disturbances in the seas, such singularities in the seasons, such marked violence in the motions of the elements, such unusual pres- entations in the conditions and relations of the heavenly orbs, such perplexing and ominous phe- TO THE CHURCH OF LA OD ICE A. 3O9 nomena in the appearances of the sky ? When was there ever such perturbed and ugly fermenta- tion in the whole body of human society, such troubles, fears, distresses, embarrassments, and perplexities of nations, such discontent and rank- ling- animosities between classes ? When were there ever such numerous dark and bloody con- claves and combinations to set law at defiance, such disreo^ard and overturning^ of the old land- marks and stabilities of the social fabric, such devilish passions plotting in secret and breaking out in all sorts of wicked disorder and destruction to life and property ? When were there ever so many scandalous corruptions in public and private virtue, and such an unprecedented spread of un- belief, decay of faith, and popular infidelity, de- pleting our sanctuaries, infesting our schools and colleges, lurking in the hearts of half the pro- fessed Church, and cropping out even in the very pulpits? When was there ever such a multipli- cation and heaping up of fearful calamities and disasters of all sorts? Who cannot see for him- self how outbreaking selfishness is everywhere pressing for supremacy, how lawlessness in law- makers and in subjects is growing, how moral obligation is being trampled under foot by great and small, and how evervthingr shakes and swavs under the presence of a spirit which bodes only- disaster and anarchv? And what does all this 3IO THE LETTERS OE JESUS. indicate but that the world to-day is verging upon the border-line of that dread time when God will let His judgment-thunders loose? Who can deny that the nations at this hour are treading over vol- canoes that may any moment break forth and in- volve the world in ruins? And wdiat, indeed, is to be made of all this, of which the newspapers are ever full — what can it mean — if it be not the great Judge standing before the door and knock- ing loud, that people may hear and answer in humble submission to His offers of mercy, lest they find themselves suddenly cut off for ever? And if it should be that we are even a little beforehand in interpreting this to be the Saviour's final knocking in mercy to arouse us to a right reception of Him, we shall not lose by believing that it is, and ordering ourselves accordingly. It is very certain that these are the last days of grace for some of us, and it is quite possible that these may be the last days of grace and warning that the Church shall ever have; so that if we would at all cherish the hope of having place with Jesus at the great supper to which He has bidden us, the argument is as urgent and constraining as it can be made to stir us up to earnest repentance of all past negligence and sin and to arouse in us a zeal in all that is good and sacred, that by di- vine mercy we may not have our portion with the unprepared and unsanctified. TO THE CHURCH OF LAO DICE A. 3II To this, then, dear friends, let us set ourselves with honest heart and firm trust, that when the Lord conieth we may be able to look up to Him and say, " Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and re- joice in His salvation." Behold, the Bridegroom cometh in the middle of the night, And blest is he whose loins are girt, whose lamp is burning bright ; But woe to that dull servant whom the Master shall surprise With lamp untrimmed, unburning, and witli slumber in his eyes ! Hectare CtoentietJ), Rev. 3 : 21 : "To him that oveicometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with. My Father in His throne." IHERE was a great promise contained in the verse last under consideration, which deserves more notice than then could be given it. Standing at the door and knocking, the promise of the Saviour is: ^''If any man hear My voice and open the door^ I will come in to him^ and sup zvith him^ and he with Me^ Opening to Him is our work. He first comes to us. But then it is for us to answer to His signals and calls, to un- lock the bolted doors, and to meet and greet Him as our blessed Lord and Redeemer. To enable us to do this His Spirit is always present to assist our natural weakness. And to any and every one who will thus open to Him He promises, first of all, to com.e in. In the previous verses He presented Himself as a merchant from a far country, with refined gold and white raiment and healing medicines to be- stow upon those willing to buy of Him or to come to terms with Him. Here the proposal is to be- 312 TO THE CHURCH OF LA OD ICE A. 313 come the familiar ^//^^^ of those who open* to Him the doors of their hearts and homes. It may be very distnrbing to have so great a Being come into onr unworthy dwellings. The thought of it may put us ill at ease. But Jesus is so good, so merciful, so benignly full of grace, that the moment He is admitted and begins to show His unspeakable tenderness and condescen- sion the perturbation subsides and all dread dis- appears. Making Himself at home with us in our homes, sitting down with us at our tables, blessing our bread, entering into familiar commu- nion with us as friend with friend, mercifully in- quiring into our hardships and trials, gently speak- ing away the shame and burden of our unworthi- ness and sins, pouring upon us the rich treasures of His wisdom and grace, drawing us with the cords of a man into sweet converse about the blessed things to come, and warmly taking us into fellowship wnth His saving greatness, we are made to feel that we have reached the happiest day of our lives, and heaven itself seems to settle down upon our souls. And thus He offers to come in and step with iis. But the further promise is to have us sup ivith Him. Entertaining Him, He proposes to enter- tain us. He means to give a supper to His saints — a supper proportioned to His greatness and goodness — at which He engages to give us place. 314 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. Receiving Him to sup with us at our earthly tables, He proposes to have us sup with Him at His heavenly banquet. And so great and glori- ous is the honor of place at that high festival that John was commanded to write, ^^ Blessed are they which ai^e called unto the marriage-supper of the Lamby But in the verse now before us we have a still more exalted promise. We may call it the prom- ise of promises; for it is the superlative of all the offers of grace. The Saviour here passes from gold and raiment and healing unction and social fellowship and festive communion to enthrone- ment and everlasting regency. When Christ was on earth He spoke of seats on His right hand and His left to be given to those for whom they are prepared. He also spoke of twelve thrones, on which His twelve apostles are to sit ' ' when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of His glory." And so the apostles, by His inspiration, continued to preach and teach that "if we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him." In these and other places something of the royal prerogatives of His saints is implied. But nowhere in all the Scriptures do we find the immortal dignity of His faithful ones set forth in such distinct and impressive terms as in the text. More even than was promised to the apostles them- selves is here promised to every true believer. TO THE CHURCH OF LA OD ICE A. 315 We are startled at the magnificence of the pro- posal: "Zb /u'lfi tJiat overconietJi icill I grant to sit with Ale ill My tJirone^ even as I also over- came^ and am set dozen ivith My FatJicr in His throne. ' ' Two thrones are here brought into contempla- tion: the Father's throne, in which Jesus now is seated with the Father, and a second throne, which He calls His 07vn^ as distinguished from the throne of the Father. When God brought His only-begotten into the world, and raised Him from among the dead. He not only commanded all the angels to worship Him, but said to Him, "Sit Thou on My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool." Accordingly, we now "see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor," " far above all principality, and power, and might, and do- minion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come." And this is that throne of the Father on which Christ now sits as "Head over all things," "henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool." It is not the throne of David, which remains to be established on Mount Zion, nor yet the throne of the Son of man, which all the kingdoms of the earth shall obey; but the ab- solute God-throne^ invisible, yet omnipotent, not 3l6 • THE LETTERS OF JESUS. in the world, yet ruling over it, essentially spirit- ual because God is a vSpirit, and for ever unchange- able and irresistible because eternal. It is the throne which only Godhead can occupy, and on which Christ sits coregent with the Father as the true and only Son of God. And this throne He will for ever share by reason of His Godhead. But as the Christy He will not always remain upon the throne of the Father. We are told that there is a time coming when He will deliver it up and take another throne, of a more special and subor- dinate character, but more particularly His as the Son of man. When on trial before Pontius Pilate, He pro- fessed to be a King, and declared that for this purpose He was born. Daniel says, "I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought Him near before Him; and there was given Him do- minion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all peo- ple, nations, and languages should serve Him: His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." Hence, speaking of His second coming, Jesus says, ^^Then shall He (the Son of man) sit upon the throne of His glory, and before Him shall be gathered all nations." And so John in his vision of the coming forth of "the TO THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA. 317 Word of God ' ■ to destroy the Beast and false prophet, speaks of Him as crowned with many crowns and wearing on His vestnre and on His thigh the invincible Name, King of kings and Lord of lords. And this is the Christ-fhroiic as distingnished from the eternal God-fhronc. The one is the centre and snmniit of the absohite God-power; the other is the centre and snmmit of the snbordinate Alan-power, made sure and firm for ever in the God-man, the successful Redeemer. Christ's throne, as distinguished from the Fa- ther's throne, is the throne of the Son of man — "that part of infinite power, that function and charge, which God originally intended man to occupy, and which Christ the Man-Redeemer of man shall occupy in the fulness of the times." It is not the throne of David merelv, for that re- spects only the people of Israel; but it is the throne of man taken at its highest, as the Man Christ Jesus is the summation of all humanity. It is that throne which would have come to Adam had he never sinned, and which now cometh to Christ as the victorious second Adam, the Recov- erer and Restorer of all things, and on which He is to reign for ever over the world He has re- deemed. It is that throne of abiding dominion which comes into place when all the sovereignty of this world becomes the sovereignty of our Lord 3l8 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. and of His Christ, and the Son of man takes the reins of empire over all the earth, in place of all the dragon-powers which now have the rule ovei it. And with reference to that throne the prom- ise to every overcomer is that he shall share it with Christ, as Christ Himself also overcame and is set down with the Father on the Father's throne. One of the marvels in this case is that this promise, for the first time so clearly given, is ad- dressed to these faulty Laodiceans, whom Jesus had just now threatened to reject with loathing. But the more there is to be conquered, the greater the glory of the victory. The highest place is within reach of the lowest. The faintest spark of grace in the mo§t unfavorable atmosphere may yet be fanned into the mightiest flame. Nor is there any one of us, or any sinner now walking on our streets, who may not rise by the vigor of penitence and faith in Christ to a place even with the King of glory on His everlasting throne. Nor is it an empty honor or a .meaningless cere- monial to be granted place with the Son of man on His throne. Not for parade-badges do the children of the resurrection get their dignities. Advanced to the throne of regency, they are not sham kings, any more than Christ's accession to dominion with the Father is a mere matter of form and ceremony. Titles and names are not TO THE CHURCH OF LA OD ICE A. 319 hollow designations in heaven. The session of the Son of God on the right hand of eternal Majesty is the putting of all power in His hands and the putting of all things in subjection to Him, leaving nothing but the eternal Father Himself that is not put under Him. And like as Jesus is set down with the Father on the Father's throne, so every overcomer is to be set down with Jesus on His throne. Whatever the offices of the throne shall be, in the same shall all overcomers share. Enthroned with Christ, they are to " reign with Him," and participate in all the doings of His kingdom and government. "Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? . . . Know ye not that we shall judge angels?" (i Cor. 6: 2, 3). Did not John in vision behold the saints seated upon thrones, with powers of rulership put into their hands, and living and reigning with Christ in holy and immortal dominion ? Does not the Psalmist celebrate it as the final honor of all the saints, ' ' to execute vengeance upon the heathen and punishments upon the people; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron ; to execute upon them the judgments written"? (Ps. 149:6-9). Hath not the Saviour Himself said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than the.se shall he do"? (John 14:12). 320 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. As kinoes with Christ the saints are to fill the place and do the work of kings. They are to ^^ reig7i with Him^^ as truly as ever Solomon or David reigned, and as truly as the Son of man Himself shall reign. The end of our salvation is not to sit on clouds and sing psalms, or to luxuriate in the idle bliss of an eternal languor and ecstasy. The life of Christ upon His Father's throne is an intense and busy life, administering the kingdom of the universe; and the life of the saints consociate with Him on His throne is to be in its degree of the same sort. They are called, redeemed, and glorified for sub- lime regency with their Lord; and in whatever pertains to the administration of His kingdom as the Son of man they are to participate, being joined with Him then as the angels are joined with Him now in the administrations of the God- throne; yea, and in still closer union, for by His saving grace they are related to Him on the hu- man side as He is related to the Father on the divine side. But such exalted dignity and honor do not come without earnest effort and hard conflict. Only the overcorners are to sit with Christ on His throne. There are battles to be fought and risks to be run and enemies to be vanquished and difficulties to be conquered before we are eligible or prepared for such transcendent promotion. ro THE CULKCH OF LAO DICE A. 32 I One of the most common images under which the Scriptures set forth Christian life is that of a fight — a heavy conflict with powerful hindrances and enemies. It is constantly reiterated in these Letters. Every true Christian is a soldier and has a warfare on hand to fight through to victory. This is the picture everywhere. The particular trouble with these Laodiceans was their lukewarmness, their worldliness, their boastful self-complacency, their lack of deep and earnest spirituality. With this, therefore, their particular fight was to be. Their easy-going in the matters of faith and devotion was to be van- quished and a better order of things maintained. And on this field they were required to overcome before they could inherit this glorious promise. But their case was not peculiar. In all ages and places this same trouble is to be met. It is the particular trouble with the Church of our day. The half-Christian and half-worldly condition of modern relio^ionists is destroving^ the souls of manv who think themselves well on the way to heaven. This, then, is the enemy which we must fight and conquer if we would reign. But various and many are the Christian's foes. Deep within us and everywhere around us they rise up to keep us from the prize. In our own hearts great hosts of them are lodged. Here are thousands of promptings to unbelief and self-in- 21 322 THE LETTERS OE JESUS. diligence, multitudes of lusts after evil things, and many uprisings of bad temper, pride, ugly pas- sions, and evil dispositions. Along with these inward enemies are many out- ward ones to reinforce them. Our lives lie through a world adverse to God and holiness — a world full of gayeties and follies, cares and vexations, false maxims and unholy ways, flattering promises and treacherous caresses, and a thousand things to hin- der a life of faith and godliness. And back of all is the great combination of evil spiritual powers, the devil and his angels, ruling in the children of disobedience and ever activ^e in using their hold upon the world and human nature to prevent the rise and progress of faith and righteousness. Our wrestling is not with flesh and blood only, but with principalities and pow- ers, those that rule in the darkness of this world and infest the whole realm of the air we breathe. These spiritual enemies are insidious, and have many ways of access to our hearts and feelings, to catch away or stifle the good and to incite to evil. Though under limitations and constraints, we need to be on special guard against their wiles and cunning assaults, and nothing but vigorous resistance can protect us from their snares and wicked machinations. It is hence impossible for any one to be carried to heaven on a flowery bed of ease. Every inch TO THE CHURCH OF LA OD ICE A. 323 of the way is disputed by adverse influences and subtle foes. And if we are to get through in ul- timate triumph we must fight and keep up the conflict unto vicLory. Considering the number and power of these enemies, and the poverty of our strength, we might well despair. But Christ has conquered for us, and has made it possible now for every one of us to conquer also through His strength and grace. Evil is not omnipotent. It is under ban, and the promise of the Almighty is that if we are true to ourselves and to Him, He will not suffer us to be tempted beyond what we are able to bear. He hath appointed for us the weapons of success, and put them at our command for every emergency, whether for defence or attack. With God's truth we may amply gird our loins. The righteousness of Jesus serves as an effectual breastplate. There is Gospel provision to protect our feet. Faith is a shield wherewith to quench the fiery darts of the wicked one. An already- wrought salvation is an ample helmet. The word of God is the sword of the Spirit by which to hew our w^ay through all opposing ranks. Prayer ever keeps open communication with the heavenly throne for all needful supplies. And from Him who sits upon it the assurance is: "My grace shall be sufficient for thee." There is now, therefore, no doubt of our success if only we set 324 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. ourselves to conquer and use the means provided for our victory. But there must be honest effort and determined perseverance to bring us through. We know how Jesus overcame. We know the devotion with which He o-ave Himself from the beginning to be about His Father's business. We know how meekly He came to receive baptism from John in His earnestness to fulfil all right- eousness. We know with what steadfastness He endured and foiled the temptations of the devil against all the solicitations of carnal appetite, worldly ambition, and challenges to prove Him- self the Son of God. We know with what earn- estness and fidelity He pursued His sacred mis- sion, and in all His trials committed Himself unto God as unto a faithful Creator. We know with what zeal He kept up His constant prayers and communings with Heaven amid the exhausting toils of earth. We know with what holy meek- ness He submitted to abuse, torture, shame, and death that He might fulfil the purpose of the Father in sending Him into the world. And we also know the result — how that He thus overcame and is set down with the Father upon the throne of eternal Majesty, "leaving us an example that we should follow His steps," and thus overcome as He overcame, and sit with Him on His throne as He overcame and is set down with His Father on the Father's throne. TO THE CHURCH OF L.IODICEA. 325 Dear friends, it may cost us heavily in these last evil times to maintain ourselves in true and faithful Christian life; but the glory to be gained is worthy of it. Hot and trying as the battle with self and sin may be, the victory is sure and the reward is a place with Jesus on His everlasting throne. Therefore, let us not be weary of the strife nor ever give up the fight. Heaven is with us in our efforts. Victory must come if we flinch not, and immortal regency is the goal of our hon- est fidelity. Some, indeed, have thought it an ill covetous- ness of honor for us poor mortals to aim and strive for such high place in the world to come. They speak of it as savoring of carnal desire to think of attaining crowns and reigning as kings. And some appear to regard it as a token of their su- perior modesty that they never indulge in such lofty ambition and have no wishes for princely dominion. But such people do greatly mistake what true spirituality is. We are exhorted to " covet earnestly the best gifts." Jesus Himself again and again speaks of crowns, and holds them forth to our view as the prize of our high calling, and charges each Christian to be diligent and hold fast that no one take his crown. And here the direct promise is, that whosoever shall press the good fight of faith through to victory He will grant to sit with Him in His throne, as He over- 326 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. came and is set down upon the Father's throne. And shall we take it for piety to charge Him with extravagance and falsehood in the promises He gives to His people? Shall we put the lie upon what issues from our Saviour's lips, and call it devout modesty ? I cannot but regard it as a sorry humility which claims to be more spiritual than Jesus and to know better than He what is fitting to be set before us as the goal of our Christian devotion. Is it not a pitiable meekness which would say to the glorious Son of God that we have no wish for His offered thrones, and that to sit and reign with Him is something we do not desire ? Is it not a poor appreciation of what He has secured for us, and bordering on unfaith itself, to decline aspiration to what is held forth to us as the prize for which we are to aim ? Alas, alas, for the miserable las- situde of spirit, the gross indifference, the hazard- ous questioning of the divine promises, and the dangerous doubting of the Saviour Himself, for us to put away from us all thought and effort to share these exalted honors! And if we do not care to have them, we mav be sure we shall never get them, and the danger is that we may never reach heaven at all. To despise dominion or to speak evil of dignities certainly is not one of the things belonging to proper saintship. Let us beware, then, how we undervalue the TO THE CHURCH OF LAOD/CEA. 327 proposals and promises of onr Saviour. Let us rather rejoice and be glad that He hath made it possible for us to become immortal princes, to reign with Him on His throne, and to share the dominion of the world to come. And as we value eternal kinghood let us bestir ourselves all the more earnestly to " fight the good fight of faith," knowing that there is laid up for us a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give us at that day, and not to us only, but to all them that love His appearing. Thou Crucified ! the cross 1 carry, The longer may it dearer be ; And, lest I faint while here I tarry, Implant Thou such a heart in me That faith, hope, love may flourish there. Till for mv cross thf. crown I wear ! Rev. 3: 22: "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." HESE words bring us to the conclusion of these sacred Letters of our Lord. For the seventh time in the course of these ad- dresses they are here repeated. But they do not appear in the same place in each instance. In the first three Letters they precede the final prom- ise, and in the last four they follow that promise. The change seems to be connected with the growth of evil in the Church. In the first and purer churches these words are spoken more from with- in, and in the case of those in which the evil pre- ponderated they are spoken more from the out- side. There is such a thing as grieving the Holy Spirit, and thus diminishing His gracious influ- ences. We read of a place in which Christ did not many mighty works because of the unbelief of the people. So, as the Church lapses from truth, purity, and love, and takes up with what is contrary to Christ, He is in some sense forced 328 TO THE CHURCH OF LA OD ICE A. 329 away from it, and His communications come to it more from without and from a distance than from the intimacies of a close fellowship and nearness. The apostle tells us that drawing nigh to God, He draws nig^h to us; and the converse of this must also be true. And as the last four of these churches show more evil in them thau good, the Saviour ceases to speak this word as from within the Church, and speaks it from the outside — not, in- deed, as having abandoned His Church, but as having been in measure pushed out of that thor- ouo^h oneness with it which existed in better times. But whether this is the true reason for this studied change of the position of this call or not, the words themselves have great significance, which we should not fail to lay to heart. I. We are here assured that the Lord hath spoken and given to men a revelation of His mind and will. At sundry times and in divers manners God spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets; and in these last days He hath spoken by His Son, whose words have been con- firmed unto us by them that heard Him. And in these seven Letters we have a special word from heaven. He who dictated them is the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, He who hath the seven spirits of God and holdeth the keys of death 330 THE LETTERS OE JESUS. and hell, the Son of God, the x\men, the Begin- ning of the creation of God. What He ntters He also authenticates as "what the Spirit saith." John also records the same as "words of proph- ecy," received when "in the spirit," and given him from the invisible heavenly world to be made known to the chnrches. There is then a word of God on earth to teach ns the trne mind and will of Heaven. H. We are here assured that these divine utter- ances are intended for all people. The call of the text is as universal as language can make it. Bvery one that hath an ear is called upon and admonished to " hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." The meaning is not merely that every one in Bphesus was to give attention to what was written to the angel of the church in Ephesus, that every one in Smyrna should hear what was written to the angel of the church in Smyrna, and so on of the several communities in these several cities. Nor is the meaning simply that all in these several cities were to be careful to consider all these several Letters. There were then, and have been since, and are now, very many other people having ears to hear. You and I and all men the world over have ears to hear, and are as well capacitated by nature and grace to take in these messages as the people who then TO THE CHURCH OF LA OD ICE A. 33 I lived. And wherever there is an ear to hear, to that ear is addressed "what the Spirit saith unto the churches." These Letters of Jesus are thus diviuel)- put for- ward for our instruction and profit equally with any who lived before our time. Each of these several churches was of course expected to ^ive special heed to what was specially addressed to it; and so also each Letter had its special application, prophetic and otherwise, to its particular period in the successive ages of the Church's earthly ca- reer; but all was for all in every age, and for us now as well as for any other people. I cannot therefore but think that, the Church in these later times has done injustice to herself and behaved unseemly toward lier Lord in not assign- ing these Letters of Jesus a higher and more dis- tinguished place in the Lessons set to be read in her w^orshipping assemblies. There is no richer portion of Scripture; there is no portion made up more exclusively of the words of Christ; nor is there another portion so solemnh', so urgently, or with such special sanctions pressed upon the at- tention of all wdio would be Christians. And yet in proportion to the imperativeness of the Sa- viour's call to hear what He has thus given has been the dereliction of the Church of the last thousand years to neglect it. This should not so be. And as men would honor Jesus, and be 332 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. true to His word as our Lord aud Judge, I call upon them to repent and reform from this ill way of dealing with these momentous messages from His throne. They are His messages to His pro- fessing Cliurch of all time. And I cannot see how people are to fulfil their duty as Christ's disciples, and yet ignore and neglect these His last and most special communications as if they were of no par- ticular interest to us. Dear friends, let us not share in that neglect. HI. We are here assured that the contents of these Letters are of transcendent import. Our Saviour repeatedly used exactly similar expres- sions when He was on earth, and always in con- nection witli things of vital character. It was a vital thing for the Jews to understand the charac- ter, mission, and testimony of John the Baptist. It is a thing of vital moment to understand the operations of grace and our duty with regard to the same. Momentous are the facts touching the nature and condition of the kingdom of heaven in this world, the ending up of things at the ter- mination of the present dispensation, and the ul- timate fate of the tares and the wheat. It is of very great account for us to know what is spirit- ual defilement and spiritual purity, and what is true and consistent righteousness before God. And for the people who live in the last perilous TO THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA. 333 days of the great Antichrist nothing- is more im- portant than to be able to identify the Beast and to know the speedy and inev^itable perdition of all who worship him and receive npon them his mark. But it is with reference to these \ery things, and these only, that these particular words are used. In each of those instances they are given but once, while here the)- are uttered seven times, and each time includim^ the whole bodv of these Letters. Unquestionably, then, in the mind and estimate of the Lord we have here what is of superlative doctrinal and practical importance. If the same truths may be fragmentarily gathered from other parts of Holy Scripture, we have them here in concrete and formal summation and prac- tical application, such as we find not elsewhere. If we would know the true nature, offices, and glory of our divine Lord and Redeemer, we here have Him presented and described by Himself in sententious fulness and originality beyond any other part of the sacred word. If we would know the nature, organization, re- lations, dangers, duties, and career of the Church, how its responsibilities are distributed, and what in any department or period of its history is ap- proved or disapproved by Christ, and how in any case it must fare in His judgment, we have it here most succinctly given in His own words. If we would know wherein true Christian life 334 T^^^ LETTERS OF JESUS. or saintship consists, with what sort of dangers and conflicts it is beset in this w^orld, in what temper and attitnde w^e are to keep ourselves with regard to our various relations and sur- roundings that we may come off conquerors at the last, there is no place where the same is more vividly set forth. If we would know exactly what Jesus thinks of the many grave matters which have developed among Christian professors in the several ages of the Church, and which still agitate, divide, and distract it, we here have His mind upon them direct from His throne. Every honest and faith- ful student can here see how He puts His finger upon each particular, and speaks His words of praise or of condemnation. We may find else- where what, if rightly applied, would conduct us to the same conclusions; but w^e have here not onh- principles whose applications we must infer and reason out in our w^eak and uncertain w^ay, but the facts and conditions themselves are brought under the all-penetrating eye of the Saviour and authoritatively pronounced upon by Him. In- deed, we here have the mind of Christ with ref- erence to all important developments, tendencies, systems, and conditions in the Church from the beeinnino- till now, in a form much less mistak- able and more direct than anywhere else. And if we would know what is to be the future TO THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA. 335 of the saints after this present order of things comes to an end, and get a deep insight into the life and honors which the second coming of Christ is to bring to His redeemed ones, the several prom- ises in these Letters present a body of particnlars in this regard unexcelled by any other part of Scripture. A completer description of those good things which Jesus has in reserve for His true and faithful people is not found in all God's word. All commonplace ideas of heaven are here put to utter shame as not reaching so much as the first syllables of the sublime charter of the rights and honors forepledged to us by our IvOrd. These are things of priceless value, and fully warrant all the urgency with which they are pressed upon universal attention. IV. We are here assured that it is the will of our Ivord that we should earnestly study and prac- tically apply what is given us in these Letters, and dispose our thinking, hopes, and activities accordingly. Nothing less than this is included in the hearing to which the text refers. To hear only with the outward ear, to have a mere intel- lectual acquaintance with what has thus been dic- tated from heaven, does not fulfil the audience the Saviour calls for. Having given us ears. He has given His word that we may use our ears to take it in, and thus to ponder it and profit by it. The 336 THE LETTERS OE JESUS. admonition corresponds to what was said at the opening of the book, where it is written, "Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things zvhich are zvritten therein^ It is the same that the Saviour elsewhere relates of the good-ground hearers, "who in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with pa- tience. " There is a hearing which so lacks in apprecia- tion or is accompanied with such indifference that the devil has no trouble in preventing it from making any practical impression on the heart. There is also a hearing which for a while enter- tains and believes, but is content with such a su- perficial regard, and takes in only to such shallow depths that all good from it soon wilts and per- ishes. There is also a hearing with every prom- ise of thrifty growth and ample harvest, which, however, allows itself to be so invaded "with cares, riches, and pleasiires of this life" that they choke and smother proper fruitfulness. But all such hearing falls far short of the hearing de- manded in the text. This is a hearing which gives earnest and studious attention, which takes the matter to heart in all the depths of the soul, and which allows nothing to interfere with a de- vout, practical, and persevering conformity to what is heard and learned. TO THE CHURCH OF LAODICEA. 337 These pictures of Jesus, His glory, power, offices, all-searchiug kuowledge, aud iufallible judgments, are spoken directly to the heart, that they may affect and move us to right faith and fear. These sharp rebukes and sentences upon wrong are for us to take home to our souls, that we may get us out of everything thus condemned and stand in awe of the solemn threatenings of our Lord. These gracious encouragements and grand promises are meant to take hold of our imaginations, quicken our heavenly desires, and inflame our anticipations, that the vain things of this world mav dwindle from our reg^ard and our whole affection be set on the things above. Nor have we rightly heard " what the Spirit saitli unto the churches" till we come to this temper and state of mind and heart; for the Gospel is not to be to us a thing of word only, but of power. V. And yet one other iuiportant matter is sig- nified in the text; and that is the intensely per- sonal character of what is here demanded. The Saviour is addressing ministers and congregations, but after all it is the separate individuals that are to give ear and do this hearing. We are apt to lose ourselves in the mass. The community, the country, the church, the general body, is prone to preoccupy the attention, while we lose sight of the individuals of which every 22 338 THE LETTERS OF JESUS. society is made up. But it is the nature of Chris- tianity to single out and give importance to the individual man and woman. It deals not with people in masses, but with each soul separately, and by working upon and from the individual it seeks to affect and condition society. As the builder takes stone by stone to build his walls, so Christ takes people one by one to make up His Church; and there is neither sanctification nor Church except as individual souls are moved and sanctified and personally brought into right rela- tions to God. Hearing is a personal thing. It cannot exist apart from the individual who hears. Others can- not hear for us if we do not hear for ourselves. The Church, the community, the society cannot hear for us if there is no hearing on the part of the individuals who compose them. One man cannot believe for another man, anv more than we can eat or sleep for one another. Bai:h must do his own repenting, believing, and serving of God, just as he must die for himself and stand in the judgment for himself. And hence the hear- ing of which the text speaks is devolved upon each individual soul the same as if no others existed. It is very significant that while the church, the congregation as a whole, is rebuked, reprimanded, encouraged, exhorted, or advised, the promise is TO THE CHURCH OF LA OD ICE A. 339 always to the individual ixnd in the singular: "To hi}}i that overcometh;" "// ^p^^l^l^l^ ''f£^*i