Part 2

In the eighteenth chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke you will find Christ was going into Jericho, and as He drew near the gates of the city there was a poor blind man who sat by the wayside, begging people to give him a farthing, and crying out: “Have mercy on a poor blind man!”

This blind beggar met a man who said to him: “I have good news to tell you, Bartimeus.”

“What is it?” asked the beggar.

“There is a man of Israel who can give you sight.”

“Oh, no! There is no chance of my ever receiving my sight. I never shall see. In fact, I never saw the mother who gave me birth. I never saw the wife of my bosom. I never saw my own children. I never saw in this world, but I expect to see in the world to come.”

“Let me tell you. I have just come down from Jerusalem, and I saw that village carpenter, Jesus of Nazareth; and I saw a man who was born blind, who had received his sight, and I never saw a man who had better sight. He does not even have to use glasses.”

Then hope rises for the first time in this poor man’s heart, and he says: “Tell me how the man got his sight.”

“Oh,” says the other, “Jesus first spat upon the ground and made clay, and put it on his eyes, and then He told the man to wash his eyes in the pool of Siloam, and he would receive his sight. More than that, Bartimeus: He does not charge you any thing. You have no fee to pay. You just tell him what you want, and you get it--without money and without price. It does not need dukes, lords or influence. You just call upon Him yourself. And if He ever comes this way, do not let Him go back without your going to see Jesus.”

And Bartimeus said: “I will try it. There is no harm in trying it.”

I can imagine Bartimeus being led by a child to his seat, as usual, and that he is crying out: “Please give a blind beggar a farthing.”

He hears the footsteps of the coming multitude, and he inquires: “Who is passing? What does this multitude mean?” They tell him that it is Jesus of Nazareth passing by. The moment he hears that he says: “Why, that is the man that gave sight to the blind!”

The moment it reached his ear that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out at the top of his voice: “Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy upon me!”

Some of those who went before--perhaps Peter was one of them--rebuked him, thinking the Master was going up to Jerusalem to be crowned King, and did not want to be distracted. They never knew the Son of God when He was here. He would hush every harp in Heaven to hear a sinner pray. No music would delight Him so much. But the blind man still lifted up his voice, and cried louder: “Thou Son of David, have mercy on me!”

This prayer reached the ears of the Son of God, as prayer always will, and they led the poor blind man to Him. Well, when Jesus heard the blind beggar, He commanded him to be brought. So they ran to him, and said: “Be of good cheer. The Master calls you. He has a blessing for you.”

When Jesus saw Bartimeus He said: “What can I do for you?”

“Lord, that I may receive sight.”

“You shall have it.”

And the Lord gave it to him. And now the beggar follows with the crowd, glorifying God. I can imagine he sang as sweetly as Mr. Sankey--and no one can sing more sweetly than he--when he shouted: “Hosanna to the Son of David!” No one sang louder than this one who had received his sight. Then he follows on with the crowd, which we see pressing into the gates of the city. I can imagine, when he gets into the city, he says to himself: “I will go down and see Mrs. Bartimeus.” Of course, after all those years of blindness, he had some curiosity to see what his wife looked like.

As he is passing down the street, a man meets him, and turns around and says: “Bartimeus, is that you?”

“Yes; it is I.”

“Well, I thought so, and yet I feared my eyes must deceive me. How did you get your sight?”

“I just met Jesus of Nazareth outside the walls of the city, and I asked Him to have mercy on me; and He gave me sight.”

“Jesus of Nazareth! Is he now in this part of the country?”

“Yes; He is on His way to Jerusalem. He is now going down to the eastern gate.”

“I should like to see Him,” says the man. And he runs straightway down the street. But he can not get a glimpse of Him, being small of stature, on account of the great throng around Him. He runs to a sycamore tree, and says to himself: “If I get up there and hide, without any one seeing me, He can not get by without my having a good look at Him.”

A great many rich men do not like to be seen coming to Jesus.

Well, there he is in the sycamore tree, on a branch hanging right over the highway, and he says to himself: “He can not get by without my having a good look at Him.” All at once the crowd comes in sight. He looks at John. “That is not He.” He looks at Peter. “No, that is not He.” Then he sees One who is fairer than the sons of men. “That is He!” And Zacchæus, just peeping out from among the branches, looks down upon that wonderful--yes, that mighty--God-Man in amazement.

At last the crowd comes to the tree, and it looks as if Christ is going by; but He stops right under the tree. All at once He looks up and sees Zacchæus, and says to him: “Zacchæus, make haste and come down.”

I can imagine Zacchæus says to himself: “I wonder who told Him my name. I was never introduced to Him.” But Christ knew all about him.

Well, He said to Zacchæus: “Make haste and come down.” He may have added: “This is the last time I shall pass this way, Zacchæus.” That is the way He speaks to sinners. “This may be the last time I shall pass this way. This may be your last chance of eternity.” There are some people in this nineteenth century who do not believe in sudden conversions. I should like them to tell me where Zacchæus was converted. He certainly was not converted when he went up into the tree, but he certainly was converted when he came down. He must have been converted somewhere between the branches and the ground.

The Lord converted him right there. People say they do not believe in sudden conversions, and that if a man is converted suddenly he will not hold out--he will not be genuine. I wish we had a few men converted like Zacchæus in London. They would make no small stir. When a man begins to make restitution it is a pretty good sign of conversion. Let men give back money dishonestly obtained in London, and see how quickly people will believe in conversion. Zacchæus gave half his goods to the poor. What would be said if some of the rich men of London did that? Zacchæus gave half his goods all at once, and he said: “If I have taken any thing from any man falsely, I restore him fourfold.” I think that is the other half.

But to get Christ is worth more than all his wealth. I imagine, the next morning, one of the servants of Zacchæus going with a check for £100, and saying: “My master a few years ago took from you wrongfully about £25, and this is restitution money.”

That would give confidence in Zacchæus’s conversion.

BELSHAZZAR.

In the fifth chapter of Daniel we read the history of King Belshazzar. It is very short. Only one chapter tells us all we know about him. One short sight of his career is all we see. He just seems to burst upon the stage and then disappears. We are told that he gave a great feast, and at this feast he had a thousand of his lords, and they were drinking and praising the gods of silver, of gold, of brass, of iron and of wood, out of the vessels which had been brought from the Temple at Jerusalem.

As they were drinking out of these vessels of gold and silver from the house of God--I do not know but it was at the hour of midnight--all at once came forth the fingers of a man’s hand and began to write upon the wall of the banquet hall.

The king turns deathly pale, his knees shake together and he trembles from head to foot. Perhaps if some one had told him the time was coming when he would be put into the balance and weighed he would have laughed at him. But he knows the vital hour has come, and that the hand has written his doom in the words: “Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.”

He calls the wise men of his kingdom, and the man who can interpret this will be made the third ruler of his realm, and shall be clothed in scarlet and have a chain about his neck. One after another tried, but the eyes of no uncircumcised man could make it out. Belshazzar was greatly troubled. At last one was spoken of who had been able to interpret the dream of his father, Nebuchadnezzar. He was told if he would send for Daniel the latter might interpret the writing.

So the prophet was brought in, and he looked upon the handwriting. He told the king how his father had gone against God, and how he (Belshazzar) had gone against the Lord of Heaven, and how his reign was finished. And this was the meaning of the mysterious writing:

“MENE--God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it.

“TEKEL--Thou art weighed in the balance, and art found wanting.

“PERES--Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.”

The trial is over, the verdict is rendered and the sentence brought out. That very night the king was hurled from his throne. That very night the army of Darius came tearing down the streets, and then you might have heard the clash of arms and shouts of war, and might have seen the king’s blood mingling with the wine in that banquet hall.

CALEB.

Caleb and Joshua are great favorites of mine. They have got a ring about them. They were not all the time looking for hindrances and obstacles in their way. They got their eyes above them.

You remember how those men were sent forward to spy out the land of Canaan. They had been sent out forty days to go over that land. They went from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, and thence unto Hebron. And when they reached the “brook of Eshcol they secured a branch with one cluster of grapes, and bare it between two upon a staff; and they brought of the pomegranates and of the figs.”

They were gone forty days, and the twelve men brought back what Congress would call a majority and a minority report. Ten men reported that they had gone unto the land to which they were sent, and that surely it flowed with milk and honey. And so God’s word was true. They found milk and honey. And they brought along grapes.

But ten of them were full of unbelief. They further reported that they saw giants there--the sons of Anak, which come of the giants. The Hittites, Jebusites, Amalekites and Amorites dwelt there. They were all there, and also those great giants, in whose sight they were as grasshoppers. It was a great war city, and they asked themselves if they looked as though they were able to war with such giants. They said: “We are not able.”

They undoubtedly brought back maps and charts, and said: “There is the region. It would be monstrous for us to attempt to take it. There are massive iron gates and a great wall, and we are not able to take it. We are defenseless people--without any weapons. We will not be able to overcome those people.”

I can imagine one man said: “Why, I looked up at those giants, and I seemed as a little grasshopper, and I felt as small as a grasshopper. We can not hope to cope with those giants. It is a good land, but we will not be able to go up and possess it.”

Then they began to murmur. It does not take a very great while to get unbelievers to murmuring. But Caleb tried to encourage them. He says to them: “Let us go up at once and possess the land. We are well able to overcome it.”

Even Joshua joined in with Caleb, and they proved two with the faith. To be sure, they were in the minority; but if the Lord is with us we are able to prove a powerful majority over the enemy. They determined to take it, and they wandered across all through Canaan, but the people took up stones, and would have stoned them to death. But “the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation, before all the children of Israel.”

And about three millions of people wandered in the wilderness for forty years, until all the men laid themselves down in the desert grave and were kept out of the Promised Land--all on account of their unbelief. And I believe today that four-fifths of the church is wandering around in the wilderness, far away from the cross of Calvary and the Promised Land. We are able to have victory with God with us.

Ten men were looking at all those obstacles that this new land presented to them, while these two men--Caleb and Joshua--looked up yonder. And they saw God’s face and remembered the waste in Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, the destruction which was brought upon the Philistines, the water from the flint rock, and they believed that God was able--as He most certainly was--to give them that land He had promised.

DANIEL.

I want to talk about the life of the prophet, Daniel. The word means “God with him”--not the public with him, not his fellow men, but God. Therefore, he had to report himself to God and hold himself responsible to Him.

I do not know just what time Daniel went down to Babylon. I know that in the third year of King Jehoakim Nebuchadnezzar took ten thousand of the chief men of Jerusalem, and carried them captive down to Babylon. I am glad these chief men, who brought on the war, were given into the great king’s hands. Unlike too many of the ringleaders in our great war, they got the punishment on their own heads.

Among the captives were four young men. They had been converted, doubtless, under Jeremiah, the “weeping prophet” that God had sent to the children of Israel. Many had mocked at him when he lifted up his voice against their sins. They had laughed at his tears and told him to his face--as many say of us--that he was getting up a false excitement. But these four young men listened, and they had the backbone to come out for God.

And now, after they were come to Babylon, the king said a number of the children should be educated, and ordered the same kind of meat and wine set before them that were used in his palace, and that at the end of a year they should be brought before him. Daniel and his three friends were among these.

Now, no young man ever comes to the city without having great temptation cross his path as he enters it. And just at this turning point in his life, as in Daniel’s, must lie the secret of his success. This was the secret of young Daniel’s success: He took his stand with God right on his entering the gate of Babylon, and cried to God to keep him steadfast. And he needed to cry hard. A law of his and his nation’s God was that no man must eat meat offered to idols, but now comes the king’s first edict, that this young man should eat the same kind of meat he himself did. I do not think that it took young Daniel long to make up his mind. The law of God forbade it, and he would not do it. “He purposed in his heart”--in his heart; mark this--that he would not defile himself. He did not resolve in his head, but love in his heart prompted him. If some Chicago Christians could have advised Daniel, they would have said to him: “Don’t you do it; don’t set aside the meat. That would be a species of Phariseeism.” Oh, yes; they would have insisted to the poor young captive that he should carry out the commandments of his God when he was in his own country, but not there where he was but a poor slave; he could not possibly carry along his own religion down there to Babylon.

Thank God, this young man would not eat the meat, and, ordering it taken away, he got the eunuch to bring him pulse. And behold, when he came before the king, the eunuch’s fears were gone, for the faces of Daniel and the rest of the dear boys were fairer and fatter than any that the king looked down upon. They had not noses--like too many in our streets--as red as if they were just going to blossom. It is God’s truth, and Daniel tested it, that cold water, with a clear conscience, is far better than wine.

And the king one day had a dream, and all the wise men were called before him. But they all said: “We can not interpret it; it is too hard.” The king, being wroth, threatened them. Still getting no answer, he made an edict that all the wise men should be put to death. And the officers came to Daniel, with the rest of the wise men, but Daniel was not afraid.

I can imagine he prayed to God, falling low on his knees and with his face to the earth, and asked Him for guidance; and then he crawled into bed and slept like a child. We would hardly sleep well under such circumstances. And in his sleep God told him the meaning of the dream. There must have been joy among the wise men that one of their number had found it, and that the king would save their lives. And he is brought before the king, and cries out: “O king, while thou didst lie with thy head on thy pillow, thou didst dream, and in thy dream thou sawest a great image.”

I can imagine, at these opening words, how the kings eyes flashed, and how he cried out with joy: “Yes, that is it--the whole thing comes back to me now.”

And then Daniel, in a death-like stillness, unfolded all the interpretation, and told the king that the golden head of the great image represented his own government. I suppose Babylon was the biggest city ever in the world. It was sixty miles around. Some writers put the walls from sixty-five to eighty-five feet high and twenty-five feet wide. Four chariots could drive abreast on top of them. A street fifteen miles long divided the grand city, and hanging gardens in acres made the public parks. It was like Chicago--so flat that they had to resort to artificial mounds; and, again like Chicago, the products of vast regions flowed right into and through it.

This great kingdom, Daniel told the king, was his own; but he said a destroying kingdom should come, and afterward a third and fourth kingdom, when, at the last, the God of Heaven should set up His kingdom.

Daniel lived to see the first kingdom overthrown, when the Medes and Persians came in, and centuries after came Alexander, and then the Romans.

I believe in the literal fulfillment, so far, of Daniel’s God given words and in the sure fulfillment of the final prophecy of the “stone cut out of the mountains without hands,” that by-and-by shall grind the kingdoms of this world into dust, and bring in the Kingdom of Peace. Then will be the Millennium, and Christ will sway His scepter over all the earth.

Well, the king was very much pleased. He gave to Daniel a place near the throne, and he became one of the chief men of the world. His three friends were also put in high office. God had blessed them signally, and He blessed them still more--and that was, perhaps, a harder thing--in keeping them true to Him in their prosperity. Their faith and fortunes waxed strong together.

Time went on, and now we reach a crisis indeed. “Nebuchadnezzar, the king,” we read, “made an image of gold, one hundred and ten feet high and nine feet wide.” It was not gilded, but was solid gold. When Babylon was pillaged the second time a single god was found in the temple that was worth more than two million pounds sterling. The king’s monstrous image was set up in the Plains of Dura, near to the city. I suppose he wanted to please his kingly vanity by inaugurating a universal religion.

When the time came for the dedication I do not suppose Daniel was there. He was probably in Egypt, or some other province, on affairs of the empire. Counselors, satraps, high secretaries and the princes of the people were ordered to hasten to the dedication, and when they should hear the sound of the cornet, flute and psaltery announce that the great idol was consecrated they were to bow down and worship it.

Perhaps they called the ceremony the unveiling of the monument, as we should say. But one command was made certain. At a given signal all the people were to fall to the earth in worship. But in the law of God there is something against that. “Thou shalt have none other gods but Me.” God’s law went right against the king’s.

Would all of us have Daniel’s three friends to do the right thing at any hazard? Would none of us, without backbone, have advised them to just bow down a little, so that no one would notice it, or to merely bow down but not worship it?

The hour came, and Daniel’s friends refused to bow down. They refused utterly to bend the knee to a god of gold. How many cry out in this city: “Give me gold--give me money--and I will do any thing!” Such may think that men in Nebuchadnezzar’s time should not bow down to a golden idol, but they themselves are daily doing just that very thing. Money is their golden image, or position, or golden ambition.

Well, the informers came to the king, and told him that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had stood with unbended knee, and straightway they were hurried before him. The old king, speechless with rage, was gesturing his commands. I can imagine that one last chance was given them, after the king finally regained his voice, and that one of them, probably Meshach, spoke up in a firm but respectful voice that they must obey God rather than man.

At once the raging king cried out: “What is your God that He can deliver you out of our hands?” And in the same breath he screamed a command to bind them hand and foot and cast them into the fiery furnace, and make it seven times hotter than ever. The command was instantly executed, and the flames leaped out from the door and consumed the officers who cast them in.

But Jesus was with His servants as the flames raged about them, and soon word was brought to the king that four men walked about in the flames. Yes, they walked there with Jesus--they did not run--as in a green pasture and beside still waters. And directly the king rushed up and cried: “Ye sons of the living God, come forth.” And behold, even the hair of their heads was not singed. Then the king made a royal edict, that all in his realm should reverence the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

Then the king had a dream, and he was greatly perturbed thereby. This time the particulars of the dream had not gone from him. They stood out vivid and clear in his mind, as he sent out to fetch the wise men, and called to them to give him the interpretation. But they can not give it.

When he had his first dream he had summoned these same soothsayers, but they had stood silent. And now they stand silent again as the second dream is told them. They can not interpret it. Then once again he sends for the prophet, Daniel, whom he had named after one of his gods, Belteshazzar. And the young prophet comes before the king, and as soon as the king sees Daniel he feels sure that he will now get the meaning.

Calling out from his throne, he tells how he had dreamed a dream, wherein he saw a tree in the midst of the earth, with branches that reached to Heaven, and the sight thereof to the ends of the earth. The beasts of the field had shelter under it, and the fowls of the air dwelt in the boughs thereof. The tree was very fair and had much fruit, and all flesh was fed on it. And then, lowering his voice, he tells how, as he gazed, he saw a watcher and a holy one come down from Heaven, who cried aloud: “Hew down the tree.”

“And now,” cries the king, “can you tell me the interpretation?”