Chapter 6

WHEN FILIAL LOVE PICKS UP THE OAR, THE ALL-WISE FATHER PUTS HIS HAND ON THE HELM!

XXXII. JESUS AT THE WELL. A WORD TO PREACHERS.

Jesus Christ travelled three years in a very poor circuit. There were no stewards to provide for His wants, and at times, we are told, He had not where to lay His head. But all the three years He was a perfect example to us, whether we are Locals or Itinerants, and, perhaps, never more than when talking to the woman at the well of Samaria. From His conduct there we may learn--

I.--Never be daunted by a small congregation.

It is very nice to have a crowd, but then that is not the lot of us all, and we must not keep our best sermons for large audiences. It may be that the few are able to appreciate our best efforts. Jesus Christ said some of His best things to individuals. John iii. 16 was not said to a crowd, but to one. Indeed, if we were to take out of the gospels what Jesus said to small audiences, we should rob them of their choicest portions. So, if, when we get to the chapel we find that there are more pews than people, let us preach to those who are there. Why grumble at the few who have come, perhaps a long way? Let us feed these with the choicest of the wheat. It may be an historic time for anything you know. There may be someone there whom your sermon may lead to Jesus, and who himself may become a preacher.

II.--Interest your Audience.

How skilfully Jesus went to work to lay hold of this giddy woman! He spoke of what to a native of the East must have been a surprise, and a delightful idea. He goes on to tell of being delivered from that plague of those hot climates, thirst, and excites her wonder by speaking of a well of water springing up in a man!

To our younger brethren, let us say that it is not easy to succeed if we do not make what we say interesting. We do not love sensationalism, but we do love savouryness. Let all your sermons be seasoned with salt. Not a few of us fail because we forget to make what we say savoury. Let us excite the imagination of those who listen to us, and then we may pour into the attentive ear that which will be of solid benefit. How shopkeepers strive to strike the eye of the passengers by skilfully dressing their windows, so as to catch the attention! Shall it be said that they take more pains to sell their goods than we do to get the gospel into the hearts of our hearers!

III.--Make your hearers conscious of the supernatural.

"Sir," said the woman, "I perceive thou art a prophet." And this we can all do. We can every one be on such terms with heaven as to make those who listen to us know that we hold commerce with the skies. We may not be eloquent or learned, but we may be prayerful and impassioned. Preaching is unlike all other kinds of speaking. We have no business in the pulpit except when under the direct influence of the Holy Ghost. We knew a man who, for some years of his ministry, was dull and unpractical, but there came upon him a baptism of power, and then we heard his preaching described as "white heat." Why should not this be in every one of us? It is not possible for us to be alike, nor is it desirable, but we may all make our hearers say, "This man comes from God. His prayers and his preaching convince us that he is owned by the God of Elijah."

IV.--Set your converts to work.

We read "The woman then left her waterpot, and went into the city," and soon there was a crowd round the Saviour. It is not said that Jesus told her to do so, but she had heard words that were like fire in her bones. She had been convinced of sin, and knew that God had spoken to her. Is not this the way to fill our chapels? Say things that wake up the conscience, and alarm the sinner, and he must tell about it. Or shew the cross so plainly that the anxious one finds the Lord, and is able to rejoice, and very soon there will be an unpaid agency at work. Of course it will not obtain to the same extent in every case. We are among those who have to mourn that our preaching is not as effective as it ought to be, but we are taking our own physic, and can testify that since we have acted on the lines we have laid down, God has been pleased to give us greater power over our congregations, and we have seen greater results follow the preaching, poor as it is.

FOR PREACHERS WHO MAKE THE PEOPLE THINK.

THE GRINDSTONE IS THE MOST USEFUL TOOL IN THE CARPENTER'S SHOP.

XXXIII. ANSWERED PRAYER.

"_And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah_."--1 KINGS xvii. 22.

Yes, and He will hear your voice if you are as much in earnest as he was! Why should not God hear the voice of William, or Robert, Sarah or Edith? He is no respecter of persons. Is it not written over the door of mercy, "Knock, and it shall be opened?" Aye, and the knocker is so low a child's hand may reach it. St. James tells us that Elijah was "a man of like passions." He was a human being like you and me, but he had faith in God. Why should we not believe in God as much as the prophet did? Is He not God yet? Have any of these sceptics removed Him from His throne? If He is still there, let us come with boldness as Elijah did.

This was not the first time God had heard the voice of His servant, and answered his prayer, and there is no reason why we should not have repeated and continuous replies in answer to our requests. Had Elijah the same wealth of promise we have? JESUS CHRIST has spoken since those times, and has said things which ought to fill us with hopefulness whenever we pray. What wonderful words of cheer He said in those last few days of His life, such as "Ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." Look up the references to that verse, and you will feel you must kneel down and ask for something.

But is there not suggested by that word "Ask," the secret of so much failure? Do we ask? How often, in what is called prayer, there is little or no supplication? We are to make our requests known. Listen to Elijah: "Lord, let this child's soul come into him again." Why should we not pray in the same direct style? Our prayers would not weary others by their length, if, before we knelt down, we thought

WHAT IS NEEDED, AND NEEDED NOW.

What a scene when the child began to breathe again! and when the anxious mother was summoned to receive her boy from the dead. "Now," said she, "I know thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth." When the church fights its battles on its knees, it prevails. Only let us, who say we believe in God, put our faith into petition, and obtain answers, then Infidelity will hide its head. Mr. Finney tells that when he first began to attend a place of worship, it was as an honest inquirer after truth. The members of the church noticed his coming to the prayer meetings with regularity, and presently it occurred to them that the young man might be anxious about his soul. Accordingly they asked him if he would like them to pray for him. He somewhat roughly declined, for, said he, "You don't get any answers to your prayers for yourselves. You have been for months praying to be revived, and you are not any better." Perhaps he was right, though rude. We may have in our midst those who would believe the Bible if they saw that we had only to ask to receive.

Let every father bear this in mind when he leads the devotions of his family. Nothing is so likely to save our children from infidelity as their knowing that we receive when we ask, and that our knock brings an open door. If only the family altar were the meeting place between God and man, Atheists might sneer and chatter, but they would never be able to cause our children to listen, for would not they say, "I know my father is a man of God, and the word of the Lord in his mouth is true."

Reader, is the family altar at your house a bridge from earth to heaven, or is it a sham, and a helper to those who say, Prayer is an exploded superstition?

PREACH REPENTANCE.

Is there any truth in the allegation that we do not preach Repentance as much as we ought to do? There is a soft sort of preaching abroad which we Methodists should abhor, namely, a gospel which has no dread of hell in it. We do not say that we should spend much time in proving the eternity of punishment, but certainly the thought of the fate of the impenitent should be in solution in the preacher's mind, and then, like the bitter herbs eaten with the Paschal Lamb, penitence will make the gospel relishing. We have little doubt that

THE DOCTRINE OF THE CROSS IS AND MUST BE, TASTELESS TO THOSE WHO DO NOT SORROW FOR SIN.

Those who preach repentance are in good company. He who fails here does not tread in the steps of Jesus, who said, "Repent ye, and believe the gospel." Is human nature any better now than it was then, that we should cease to say to the people what Christ said? Depend upon it, He knew what to preach. None of the New Testament preachers said as much about hell as He did, and yet, forsooth! we are told that such preaching is coarse, and behind the age. When the age is astray, the farther we are behind it the better for us. It is sickening to hear men talk as though they were more refined than was the Son of God! Such preaching is like raking the garden with the teeth upwards. You may as well have no rake at all, if you do not use the teeth.

XXXIV. HOW DAVID PREVAILED.

"_So David prevailed over the Philistine_!"--1 SAMUEL xvii. 50.

Yes, he did, but he would not have done so if he had remained as quiet as the other Israelites. David was one of those who could not be easy so long as the enemies of his country were in the ascendant. To see a Philistine strutting about, defying the armies of the living God, was more than he could bear. Is not this the spirit which should animate Christians to-day? It is not one GOLIATH merely, there are many. DRUNKENNESS, PROFANITY, SUPERSTITION, INFIDELITY, and a host of others are not only defying us, but destroying us. Is it not true that the armies of the alien are robbing our families and churches, plundering us of the results of years of toil? Think, in one department alone, how we are spoiled. We refer to the Sabbath school. What a small percentage of those who pass through our schools become stable members of the church! What crowds of our children become the slaves of sin! How long do we mean to bear it? When shall we, like David, say, "THY SERVANT WILL GO AND FIGHT WITH THIS PHILISTINE?"

We read that "David hasted, and ran towards the army to meet the Philistine." He was aggressive. There is a great deal to be said in favour of what is called "working on the old lines," but

DAVID DESPISED THE OLD LINES.

His countrymen had remained too long there; he would dare and do, therefore ran into the lines of the Philistines. Is it not too true that we stay in our entrenchments too long? Why should we not carry the war into the enemy's country? WESLEY and his fellow-labourers would not have had the success they had, if they had not, like David, run towards the enemy. It was time, for the sake of his country's prestige, that he ran with his face towards the foe. Shall we not imitate him, and dare something for God? Saul's army had too often showed their backs to the enemy. When a man runs towards his foe, he looks bigger every stride, while if he runs away, he looks less, and becomes more contemptible the more active he is!

David prevailed over the Philistine with very simple weapons, but

THEY WERE HIS OWN.

If he had gone in Saul's armour, he might have perished. He was no match for the giant if it came to a sword fight. The long reach of the giant's arm would have ended the conflict very soon. On the contrary, the sling gave David an immense advantage. He could strike a blow, and be out of Goliath's reach. Have we not known some men more mighty, and more often victorious when they were plain and unlettered, than they were after years of culture? How is it? Perhaps because they, knowing their ignorance, were more earnest in prayer. We know that some of us feel, when we have preached;--That was a good sermon, the arguments were irresistible, the illustrations were beautiful, and so the people ought to have yielded, but they did not! Did they?

If the pictures of this event we often see are to describe the future of Christianity, we shall have to be as daring as though God did not fight the battle, and as trustful as though we had never driven the alien army back. When COURAGE is united to HUMILITY, the Philistine may get measured for his coffin (leaving out the head), and the damsels of Israel have their timbrels tuned, for there will be a procession goodly to look upon!

BURNING THE BOOKS AT EPHESUS.

This was one of the results of faithful preaching. Paul had declared the whole counsel of God, both in powerful addresses and in visiting from door to door. Miracles were wrought, but what seems to have impressed the writer of this account most of all, was not the healing of the sick, or the casting out of devils, but men parting with that which was worth so much money.

"THEY BROUGHT THEIR BOOKS TOGETHER, AND BURNED THEM BEFORE ALL MEN; AND THEY COUNTED THE PRICE OF THEM, AND FOUND IT FIFTY THOUSAND PIECES OF SILVER.

So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed!"

Has our religion been costly to us? Have we given up anything? These converts gave up their money-making sins publicly; and their public and costly repentance was made a great blessing. We wish every Christian who is engaged in any business that has made money for him at the expense of another's morals, would see it his duty to make a bonfire of it! We have no doubt there are numbers of Christians whose consciences now and then give them a goutlike twinge. We do not doubt their religion because they do not obey their consciences; but we do say the word of God cannot grow mightily, it is stunted, and in consequence they are religious dwarfs, when they might have been giants in righteousness and holy influence.

XXXV. THE WAY TO PREACH TO THOSE WHO SLEEP IN SIN.

"_Nathan said to David_, _Thou art the Man_!"

But this was not the first thing he said. He approached the subject very carefully. David would not have allowed anyone to bring that subject home to him without resenting it. It is more than likely that very few were in the secret. Crafty Joab was not the man to let that story get out. It gave him power over the king all the time it was his secret, so that he could put pressure on David whenever he liked. We read, "The Lord sent Nathan unto David." If we would know how to deal with our congregations, we must have the Lord's commission.

MEN MAY BE ON THE CIRCUIT PLAN, AND GOD LEAVE THEM WITHOUT APPOINTMENTS!

Let us never set off to preach without a message from God to the people, then we shall make folks say, what a plain Yorkshire Methodist said of Stoner, "Yon David's varry thick with the Almighty."

If the Lord send us, He will teach us how to talk, and most likely He will take us off the pulpit track. Some of us have given up the old "three-decker" style of preaching, feeling that it is as useless as last year's almanack. Our hearers often knew what was coming, they heard the heads of the discourse, and began to see the end before we got there, wrapping themselves in a habit of indifference which shielded them from the convictions we had hoped to produce. What "CALIFORNIAN TAYLOR" calls "Surprise Power," ought to be in every discourse. David had no idea what the prophet meant to do before he had ended his story, and we should wait upon God until He has given us, not only the subject of our sermons, but the skill we need to TAKE THE SINNER EITHER BY STORM OR HOLY SUBTILTY.

The charming story with which Nathan began his address is instructive to those who wish to succeed as preachers. How interested the King became as he heard of the rich man's greed and the poor man's loss, until he was so stirred that he threatened the death of the tyrant! May not we preachers learn something here, that is, to interest our hearers, in order that we may profit them? Do we sufficiently care for this matter? Would it not be well, in the preparation of our addresses and sermons, to make sure that we are so interesting that our hearers cannot fail but listen? We should not be content with soundness of faith, or truthfulness of doctrine, but be so interesting as to command the attention of our audience. It is a question whether any man, who cannot make the people listen, should not be content to take his place in a pew. It is better to be able to heat or light the chapel well, than to wear out the patience of a congregation by prosy preaching, and it will be more to our eternal advantage to have been AN INDUSTRIOUS CHAPEL-KEEPER THAN A DULL PREACHER!

Nathan brought David to a stand. The royal hearer fell before the faithful preacher. He confessed his sin and deeply repented. Well might the prophet rejoice over his illustrious convert. It was indeed success to hear the king acknowledge his fault. We do not read that he praised the sermon, but he condemned himself. It is a small reward to hear it said that we have preached a beautiful sermon, but it is delightful to learn that a sinner has been convinced of his guilt and danger. Let all of us who preach, determine that we will not call that service a success which either allowed our hearers to be drowsy, or won their applause, without causing a saint to be cheered on his pilgrimage, or an enemy of God to lay down his weapons and sue for peace.

OLD FASHIONED DOCTRINE. JEREMIAH, viii. 21 to ix. 16.

I.--He who is loyal to God is the truest patriot.--ch. viii., v. 21, ch. ix., v. 10.

Jeremiah's distress disfigured him, and he felt that tears were not sufficient to mark his sorrow for his country. Sinners against God should never profess to be politicians; they are unworthy to be classed on either side.

II.--Idolatry is the mother of all other sins.

Count up the different crimes these Jewish idol-worshippers were guilty of--as lying, slander, adultery, &c. He who breaks the first commandment has pulled down the fence, and can easily break the others. What an argument for Missions!

III.--If God acts consistently, He must punish sin.--ch. ix., v. 9, 10, 15, 16.

Hell is as necessary as Heaven to a perfect God. Queen Victoria could not be safe in her palace but for prisons, where felons are bound!

He who fears to preach future punishment is either an ignorant man or a coward.

XXXVI. SELFISHNESS AND PRAYER. A CONTRAST.

"_So Ahab went up to eat and to drink_. _And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel_, _and he cast himself down upon the earth_, _and put his face between his knees_."--1 KINGS xviii. 42.

WHAT A CONTRAST!

And yet, both men were perfectly consistent. It is in each case what you would expect, and yet how differently it might have been. What a different story it would have been if only Ahab had listened to the teaching of God! How often we see men having chances of turning round and beginning a new life; failing to do this, they seem to become the worse for the lesson of Providence and the advice of those who warn them! Has it ever been so with you? Can you remember a time when God stopped you, and made you think, thus giving you a chance of reformation? Wretched Ahab! he had just seen which is Master. How contemptible Baal seemed now! The heavenly fire, which leaped in answer to Elijah's prayer, disdained to notice the victims on the altar of the idol, while the blood of the false priests dyed the waters of the brook Kishon, a sacrifice to their own wickedness and deception. One would have thought Ahab's good sense would have prevailed, and that he would have said, "Elijah, I will go with thee, and on Carmel's top will unite with thee in prayer." Alas for the history that might have been!

But some of you will say, "Did not Elijah say to Ahab, 'Get thee up, eat and drink?'" Yes, he did. A few hours before, he had said, "If Baal, follow him." Does not God allow us to be tempted continually? Did He not, in His wisdom and goodness, place the tree which bare forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden? Does He not say, by natural appetites and propensities, enjoy yourself? There was nothing wrong in eating, but if Ahab had but

DENIED HIMSELF AND GONE WITH ELIJAH TO PRAY,

the rest of his life would have been different, he might have been converted then. How often it happens that we hear a powerful sermon, perhaps on the first Sunday night of a Mission, but we have something to attend to on Monday, something that might be left without injury, or it may be a party or a concert, and so we do not go to the meeting next night. If we had done so, our whole life might have been changed!

Eat and drink! One wonders it did not choke him, for were not his subjects starving? The famine was sore in the land; men and women pined, children died of hunger, cattle and sheep perished in the fields, but all this, what had it to do with the king? He was hungry, and would eat and would be jolly, never mind about the poor people! Remember, my hearers, you cannot turn your back on God and be the same man you have been. Each time you say "No," to God's grace, you become less fit for His kingdom. If men could but see their souls--

IF SOME OF YOU COULD HAVE A MIRROR THAT WOULD SHEW YOUR SOUL,

You would look as though you had seen a ghost! We have portraits of ourselves years ago, and we look at them and wonder at the change. Could you have a portrait of what you were, spiritually, ten years since, it would spoil your enjoyment. Beware, then, of eating and drinking when others are at prayer. It is better to be good than to be happy. Do right, though it may mean tears, for the smiles of selfishness are sores in the future.

Look at the other man now. He climbs the hill. There is nothing to be won from heaven by laziness. Climb to thy crown! Never mind the steepness and ruggedness of the way. God's kings toil and sweat before their coronation. How Elijah would laugh in his heart as he thought of the boon he was about to bring down on his country!

PAST VICTORIES ENCOURAGED HIM.

He had prayed that it might not rain, and for many months the heavens had been cloudless. Day by day the sun had scorched and burned on, as though there was to be no more verdure, the trees are but the skeletons of their former selves, and the ground is cracked, and gapes for drink. Ah! it is soon to alter! The God who has answered by fire is about to speak in the shower, and all nature is to put on a new suit of green at the bidding of prayer.

Why should not the church of God climb the hill to bring down on the earth a shower of blessing? God had said to Elijah, "I send rain upon the earth," and therefore the man of God said, "I will call upon the name of the Lord." Have we no promise? What do these words mean--

"WHATSOEVER YE ASK IN MY NAME, THAT WILL I DO?"

Find the reference to these words, and then look on them as a legacy. We may receive whenever we apply. Why, then, do we hang down our heads? Let us climb Carmel, shouting as we go, "Hallelujah! The Lord reigneth!" Baal has not succeeded to the throne! Christ is there! But see, the man of God casts himself down on the ground.

PAST SUCCESS HAS HUMBLED HIM.

It is well when it is so. We always tremble when we see a church elated over its success. A year or two ago, we Methodists saw a great ingathering of souls, and because we had harvest we have let our plough rust. Is there any wonder that we fear a decrease? It is sure to follow elation, and then we shall be told, "There is always a reaction after so much excitement." That is a text from the devil's bible. On the same hill top where Elijah won the fight, he falls down, to pray, with his face between his knees, and so is most humbled when most triumphant.