Chapter 8

It was an awkward position. Amaziah knew that what the prophet said was true, and he believed, moreover, that if God should turn against him, that business with the Edomites was likely to end badly for him. But, on the other hand, to send that goodly array of fighting men away and lose all that gold into the bargain, was both galling to his pride and a ridiculous waste of treasure. He knew well what was the right thing to do, but to do it at such a sacrifice, that was the difficulty. He was in a strait betwixt two, wriggling and hesitating, and at last he cries in his bewilderment, "_What shall we do for the hundred talents which I have given to the army of Israel_?" And the man of God answers, "_Never mind the money, let that go; far better forfeit that than lose God's help. The Lord is able to do for thee much more than the hundred talents are worth_."

And now, out of this old story, we learn some lessons for this and every day.

I.

Our difficulties in the way of serving and obeying God are often self-made.

They are always more or less self-made. This man pleads his own wrong act as a reason why he should not do right now. He himself has raised the obstacle which now stands in the way of obedience. He ought not to have sought the help of an idolatrous king. He ought not to have bargained for these hirelings, he ought not to have paid the money. God had not put the difficulty in his way; his own foolish and wicked action had created it. And people are constantly talking as this man talked, declaring that there are hindrances and immense difficulties which prevent them from doing what is right, prevent them from doing what they know to be the will of God. They talk as if God was somehow responsible for those hindrances, when, in fact, their own wrong-doing has caused them.

For instance, some of you know perfectly well that you ought to be Christians, avowed Christians, that you ought to take the Lord's side in the great battle of life; you know that you ought to be His servants, followers, and soldiers; you know that that is your duty, you cannot help knowing it and admitting it, unless you reject the Bible altogether, and deny the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ. You have known from childhood that Christ has claims upon you, and that to live the Christian life is your solemn obligation. It is more than probable that you told your mother, your teachers, and yourselves long ago, and perhaps many a time over, that you fully intended to give your lives and hearts to Christ's service. But you have not done it yet, and the reason is that there are certain self-made difficulties which hold you back. God has not put them in the way--you have built them up yourselves. I hear young men and women say, in the very tone of this perplexed king. But what shall we do for the hundred talents? If we take up religion, how shall we bear the loss which it involves? How are we to get on without those pleasures, self-indulgences, and dearly-loved habits which Christ's service would cut us off from? How are we to abandon those very pleasant, but not very inspiring and pure, companionships, with and among which we spend most of our leisure time? How are we to resign all our free and easy and thoughtless ways, our loose talk, our vain and sinful imaginations?

These are your difficulties, are they? But who made them for you? Heaven did not send them. I am not sure, even, that the devil was the author of them. You made every one of them yourselves. It was your own weak yielding that formed those habits so dear to you. It was because you preferred your own way to God's that you took to pleasures and self-indulgences which were wrong in His sight. It was your own choice that sought out and formed friendships and companionships of the ungodly sort. If you have any joys, delights, and associations which Christ would compel you to resign, they are only such as you ought never to have entered upon. They are self-made difficulties which ought never to have been made; and now, with curious inconsistency, you are urging them as reasons why you cannot serve God. You are using the sinful things which you have done in the past as an excuse for not doing the right and noble thing now.

There are hundreds of people who, if they could begin again, would join the ranks of the religious--at least they think they would, and perhaps say it. If we could just start with a clean sheet, we would be Christians, we would walk in the noble and faithful way. But then, you see, we cannot undo the years that have been lived in the other way. We have committed ourselves to the irreligious side. We have made all who know us understand that we do not care about religious things. We have talked about them carelessly, perhaps contemptuously, as if we put no value upon them at all. We have made a reputation of that sort, and now it stands in the way. We cannot go back of all our old professions; the inconsistency would be manifest. No one expects it of us. No one would believe if we did it. There you have the self-made difficulties again. Because you did wrong all those years, you must needs go on doing wrong. Because you talked and acted in an unbelieving way, you must not now change into the higher and prayerful way. Because you have robbed God and your own souls so long, there is nothing for you but to continue repeating the offence. Yet these, when you name them, are so absurd, that one could almost laugh at them. The conviction that you have hitherto been on the wrong side is the one thing that ought to force you now to the right side. Why should you perpetuate blunders, follies, and misdoings? Why should the evil past chain you? Let the dead bury its dead--forget the things which are behind. You have paid the hundred talents to the wrong master. Why should you go on paying because you have done it once? Let God's mercy cover and forgive that. And now pay your vows and give your lives to Him henceforth.

II.

We are held back from the right thing by the fear of the loss which it will involve.

We say with poor, frightened Amaziah, But what about the hundred talents? They will be clean gone if I obey the voice of God. The hundred talents take many forms, but the principle is always the same. We shall lose a little in the way of business, if we make up our minds to be scrupulously honest, and to speak the simple truth. We shall forfeit a little of our present popularity, if we take the course which conscience dictates. We shall have to forego and neglect certain things, and suffer loss, if we undertake Christian work. We shall have to give up many an easy hour, many a light and frivolous hour, many an open and secret sin, sweeter to us than honey, if we confess the Lord Christ, and take up the burden of discipleship. The hundred talents block the way, and rather than let them go, we let God go, and sacrifice all the sanctities, and all the precious and immortal things.

And this answer comes to all of us--the answer which the prophet gave to the hesitating king as he stood balancing the hundred talents against the duty of the hour: "_The Lord is able to give thee much more than this_." Better to win thy great battle and lose the talents, than keep the money and lose thyself and everything in the impending struggle. God is not so poor that He cannot pay His servants as ample wages as they ever get from other masters. It is not the same kind of pay, but it is always, in the long-run, larger and better. No man ever does the right thing at God's command, without receiving eventually sufficient wages for it--joy even in this life. Whatever immediate losses he may incur, there will be more than compensating gains. The man who lives an upright, conscientious, pure and kindly life, wronging no one, showing justice and mercy to all, is always the happier man; richer in all his thoughts and emotions, richer in friendships and affections, richer in peace of mind, in abiding satisfactions, richer in hopes. He has within him a well-spring of joy which never ceases to flow. Righteousness is not a losing business: it has the best part in this life, and in that which is to come.

Whatever you resign at Christ's call: whatever His service costs you in the way of sacrifice: however much you must give up in the shape of pleasure, ease, and agreeable habits--there will be more given to you in return. When Christ asked the disciples to leave all things and follow Him, He said nothing about the rewards--not just then. He told them to take up their cross and come after Him; that was all. He spoke often to them about the pains they would have to endure, the scorn they would meet with, the tribulation they would have to pass through. When he called the last of the apostles, Paul, He even said, and it was the only promise He gave, "_I will show him how great things he must suffer for My name's sake_" (Acts ix. 16). No talk of rewards and gains at first. He knew the men. He knew their eagerness to do what was right and to obey the voice of God. Men who have the right spirit, men with some fire of enthusiasm, do not need crowns held before them to draw them into the true and noble way. They are almost glad to think that crosses and self-sacrifices await them in that way. Christ spoke no words at the beginning about gains and rewards. Come, because I want you, and God asks you, and it is your duty: but afterwards, when they had obeyed His call, He talked to them often about the gains. They had begun to understand them then. There is no man who hath left anything for My sake, who shall not receive a hundredfold in this present time, and in the world to come, life everlasting.

And we all learn in a measure what that means, when we have faithfully served Christ for a little time. You talk about the sacrifices and losses of the Christian life. Yes, but no man is fit to be called a Christian who has not found in Christ ten or twenty times as much joy as he has lost. If there were no hereafter, no future crowns at all, it would be a terrible disappointment, but even, apart from that, the present life of every one who believes in Christ and does Christ's work, and loves as Christ loved, is richer, fuller, wider, and happier in almost every way than the life which knows Him not. What about the hundred talents? you say, and I answer with the prophet, "_The Lord is able to give thee much more than this_."

JABEZ

BY REV. J. G. GREENHOUGH, M.A.

"And Jabez was more honourable than his brethren."--1 CHRON. iv, 9.

This is a curious fragment of biography, half-hidden in a dreary mass of wholly uninteresting names. We cannot conjecture how it got there. It seems to have no connection either with what comes before or what follows. It is like a sweet little poem in the midst of a dry, genealogical chart; or like a real, living face with the flush of warm colour in it, speaking amid endless rows of mummies or waxwork effigies.

It is indeed the short, incomplete story of a life with neither beginning nor end. We are not told who his father was, or who his mother was, or what tribe or family he belonged to. Not a word about origin, descent, pedigree. And there seems to be a purpose in this. For the sacred writer at this point is doing nothing else but tracing pedigrees. These four chapters are to us the most useless in the Bible: names, nothing but long-forgotten names. Names of everybody's father, grandfather, great-grandfather, back to a remote antiquity. I question whether there are many Bible readers who have ever laboured through the list. Yet these family trees, as we may call them, were very precious to the Jews. They thought as much of long descent as my lord Noodle does now. It swelled them immeasurably in self-importance if they could trace their lineage back in unbroken line to one of the twelve patriarchs, or to one of those who came out of Egypt. And the historian ministers to this prejudice or vanity by diligently recording the whole dry catalogue, and then, as if weary of the business, or, perhaps, with just a touch of scorn, he introduces this one name as something worth talking about.

Here was a god-made nobleman, whose heraldry need not be written on earth, because it is more surely written in heaven. All the rest were their fathers' sons, and that was about all. This man did not need a pedigree: he won a name and reputation for himself without the help of a distinguished ancestry. By prayerfulness, and energy, and courage, he fought his way from obscurity to honour. And when that happens, when a man has fought the fight with adverse circumstances and overcome them, when he has made his mark in the world by sheer force of work and character, no one cares to grope through musty fusty parchments in search of his progenitors. What does it matter! God has given him a certificate of noble birth; that was surely what the historian meant: "_Jabez was more honourable than his brethren_."

Now there are two or three touches in this little story worth noticing. God sends us some of our best joys in the guise of sorrows.

I.

He came into the world without a welcome.

I venture to say, and I thank God for it, that there is hardly one of my readers of whom that can be said. No matter into what home you were born, there was a welcome awaiting you on the part of one at least. It may be that no one else was particularly glad, that every one else looked upon you as one too many; but your mother at least met you with a sweet kiss which plainly said, thank God for this gift. Here, however, there was not even that; this child was received with misgivings and fears, and awoke no joy in the mother's breast. She called his name Jabez, which means sorrowful, because she had borne him in sorrow.

Of course, we do not know what lies behind that, but it was something of a heart-burning or heart-breaking kind; either the father was dead, or the home was in a state of terrible poverty and distress, or the child was a child of shame; you can only guess, and all your queries will probably be wide of the mark. But the mother looked mournfully upon him, and wished he had not come, and could not believe that a life which commenced so untowardly would ever be anything better than a burden to her, and a misfortune and misery to himself. She expressed her fears and forebodings in the name which she gave him--Jabez, the child of sorrow.

And while she was gloomily predicting his future with the black colours of her despondency, God was writing the child's story in golden lines which would have set her heart leaping for joy could she have read them. This despised one was to win for himself a noble name, and build up the house in honour, and become his mother's pride, and make her young again in hope and gladness.

What fools we are when we set ourselves to forecast the future of our children! They rarely develop on the lines we draw for them; the most promising of them sometimes flatter us in the bud and blossom, and mock us in the fruit. Where we hope most there comes most heartache, our favourites are made our burdens, our pride is humbled by a harvest of sorrow. And where we have bestowed most tenderness we get most ingratitude--the child of many gifts, the joy of the household, the flower of the flock, turns out the nightmare of our lives, the one unhappy failure which costs us endless tears.

And perhaps it is partly our own fault, because we have pampered, flattered, and indulged them too much. Ah! and just as often the reverse is true--the child whom in our hearts we called Jabez; the slow, dull child so hard to teach, so unresponsive, or perhaps so wilful and obstinate that we never thought or spoke of him save with secret fears and misgivings--the child who was always to be a burden and a cross to us, develops by-and-by in beautiful and unexpected ways, grows into moral strength and religious grace, becomes honourable in the sight of all men, and saves our old age from going down with sorrow to the grave. The golden harvest of our lives grows not where we look for it, but often in the neglected places where God bids it grow. Where our pride built its palace of content we find emptiness and shame, and that which we almost cursed God for sending us becomes our crown of rejoicing. She called his name Jabez, my sorrow, and lo! he became her very consolation, most honourable of all.

II.

Faith wins the battle of life against many odds.

Yes! this is indeed a romance of faith--faith overcoming the world. This child or youth starts out with all things against him. He is likely to grow up into an Ishmaelite if he grows up at all. He starts with an ill-starred name--a name that spells misfortune. He starts without his mother's blessing and without a glimmer of hope to cheer him; no father to give him a helping hand by the way--without endowment, fortune, family, or friends. What chance can there be in the race for one so heavily handicapped? Failure is written on his brow by the hand that nursed him. Failure is written on all his circumstances. It will be a desperate struggle all through. There will be none of the prizes of life for him. If he gets a bare living wage, it is as much as he may expect.

That is what he has before him, apparently! Well, for one thing, he puts on courage, and starts on his way singing _Nil desperandum_. And then, knowing well that he has few or no human friends, he falls back on the Father of the fatherless and the Helper of those who have no other help. He relies on faith instead of fortune. He will make prayer his main weapon, and the light of the Lord his guide, and duty his pole star. He will pursue a straight course, avoiding evil, trying to feel the hand of God upon him, and the watchful eyes of God over him. And he will make a brave fight of it day by day, doing his best, and leave a higher power to determine what shall follow. That is what we read between the lines of this story. Nay, that is all expressed. "_He called on the God of Israel_." He committed his life to the ordering of the Almighty. And the Almighty promoted him. He became more honourable than his brethren.

They are poor creatures who complain that the battle is lost before it is even begun, who groan that the chances of life are all against them before they have made one brave venture and endeavour; and they are vain and self-deceiving men who fancy that the victory will be easy because somebody has given them a good start, and they have the backing of family, social position, wealth, and mental gifts. If some of you think because your fathers stand high, because your education has been well looked after, because there are unlimited money and plenty of friends to push you on--if you think that because of these things you can dispense with the fear of God, and the daily obligations of duty, and make pleasure and self-indulgence your main ends, and do without honest, persevering, self-denying toil, you will be miserably disappointed. God has some hard things to say to you before you get far on in years. It does not matter how promising one's beginnings, if there is no steady, conscientious brave self-discipline, and endeavour.

Life is always a failure and a disgraceful thing with a downward course, if there is no serious purpose in it and no great thoughts. And if you are ever tempted to say, as many do, that there is no hope for a life which commences heavily weighted; that all the chances go to those who are clever, and richly endowed; that if a youth begins with no money to back him and no friends to push him into promotion, he must remain chained down to that low condition to the end--then I point you to this little bit of biography. I could take you round a certain town and point you to a hundred men who have repeated that bit of biography in their own lives, and I tell you that even now the chances are plentiful: waiting at the feet of those who tread life's way, a brave heart within and God overhead, and that no one need despair, however unpromising his start, who makes God his guide, and prayer his inspiration, and duty his chosen companion, and shuns evil, and pursues that which is good. Faith and loyalty to conscience and a courageous temper are still the weapons which conquer in the fight. Jabez, the child of sorrow and misfortune, became more honourable than all his brethren.

III.

And now I commend this prayer to all of you--the prayer which this youth offered when he went out carrying his unhonoured name and empty hand into the rough places of the world. It is a beautiful prayer. It is on the whole a wise prayer. There are better and more Christian prayers in the gospels and epistles; but in the Old Testament there are few prayers more worthy of imitation than this.

He asked that "_God might bless him indeed_," that is, above every human blessing and favour, that he might, by his life and conduct, deserve it He asked what we may all safely and humbly ask of God, provided that we give a large and not a low meaning. He asked that "_God would enlarge his coast_." If that meant broad estates, you had better drop it out of your prayer. But if it means to have your life enlarged, your sympathies and interests widened out, your influence and your power of service increased, it is such a prayer as Christ might have taught you. Never forget to offer it. He asked that "_the hand of God might be with him_"; that every day he might feel the leadings and take no step which was not a step approved by God. And he asked that the watchful and restraining power of the Almighty would "_keep him from evil_."

You will do well to offer that prayer at the beginning. You will do well to offer it every day to the end. It is a prayer that will keep; you will find it fresh each morning. And every day will be a better day which is thus commenced, and every life will grow honourable in the sight of men, and beautiful in the sight of God, which develops in the spirit of it.

SIMEON

BY REV. H. ELVET LEWIS

The Temple shows to better advantage at the beginning of the Gospel history than at its close. As we follow our Lord through the events of the last week, we meet no winsome faces within its precincts. Annas is there, and Caiaphas; Pharisees too, blinded with envy; but there is no Zacharias seen there, no Simeon, no doctors of the law even, such as gathered around the Boy of twelve. If any successors of these still frequented the sanctuary, they are lost in the deep shadow cast by a nation's crime. Perhaps we may consider those whom we meet on the threshold of our Lord's life as the last of an old regime of prophetic souls, the last watchers passing out of sight as the twilight of a coming doom thickened and settled on the Holy City.

But there he stands, the gracious, winsome old man, whom death is not permitted to touch till the Star of Bethlehem has risen. "_It was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ_!" He is like a dweller of the spiritual world, who only returns to visit earthly ways. For him the veil, though not as yet rent, has worn thin, and he is more familiar with the voices from beyond it than with the voices of earth. The priest, the Levite, the Rabbi, pass him like shadows: the Holy Ghost is his living companion and teacher. Browning's Rabbi ben Ezra might well have borrowed his song from the lips of this aged saint:

"Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand Who saith, 'A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!'"