Is Hell A Myth? # 5
But think now of the.....
VII. Agonizing
Not only of those agonize who agonize in hell, but the agony of soul we should have in prayer and in preaching with concern to save the lost. If this city had a pestilence descending on it - what would be not do to stop its onslaught? If your children were in danger of smallpox - how concerned you would be! If a mad dog were loose in a school - how you would risk your life to save children from the virus of rabies from the dog's fangs! How much more when there are souls in danger of hell - eternal hell!
Who can arrange or describe fitting funeral obsequies of a lost soul? All the tears ever shed by all the graves and tombs of earth cannot. All the moans and sobs and sighs ever uttered cannot. If the inanimate world could break her silence - would that do it? If all seas should utter their deep and dreadful wails - would that do it? If all the mountains should lift up rumbling voices - would that do it? If the sun should drape in darkness - would that do it? If the moon should refuse to give her light - would that do it? If all the stars turned to clay - would all these fitly show the dire catastrophe of a lost soul? No songs on earth, no prayers, no words can fitly show what it means to be lost!
Yet I fear we agonize not as did Abraham over the wickedness of Sodom and Gommorah. Nor as Moses who pleaded for God to blot him out rather than the people. Nor as Jacob over the disappearance of his son Joseph. Nor as Samuel wept all night over Saul. Nor as David who cried all night over Absalom. Nor as Jeremiah who wept like a brokenhearted archangel. Nor as Ezekiel who ate filth to show the horrors of slavery. Nor as Job who asked God questions through lips that festered with disease. Nor as Paul who counted all things but loss.
I fear that we as Christians treat our main business as an incidental. We should be like Whitefield who said, "I am willing to go to prison and to death for you, but I am not willing to go to Heaven without you." When fishermen are sent to the river, they fish. When nurses are sent to the hospital they nurse. When painters are sent to a house, they paint. When soldiers are sent to the battle, they fight. But when our God sends us into the world to win souls, we sing "Throw Out The Lifeline" but do not throw! We sing "I Love to Tell the Story" and do not tell it. Our singing and our practice are so strangely at variance.
We need the passion that girded Francis Asbury as he traveled a distance equal to five circuits around the world every five years, on the average, for forty-five years - and that mainly on horseback. We need the passion that fired Livingstone and kept him aflame amid jungle dangers and twenty-seven attacks of African fever - the passion that was the power working in the heart of David Brainerd who said; "I care not what hardships I endure, if only I can see souls saved." - the passion that drove General Booth who said, "God shall have all there is of William Booth."
And lastly let us examine the....
VIII. The Antithesis
We cannot leave speaking without giving the antithesis to hell. Allow me to say a word about Heaven. Heaven is the place where no hostility can reach us, where no temptations can assail us, where no pain can pierce us, where no night can shadow us. Heaven is the most beautiful place the wisdom of God could conceive and the power of God could prepare!
Dr. Biederwolf tells us of a little girl who was blind from birth and only knew the beauties of the earth from her mother's lips. A noted surgeon worked on her eyes and at last the operations were successful, and as the last bandage dropped away she flew into her mother's arms and then to the window and the open door. As the glories of earth rolled into her vision, she ran to her mother with tears, crying, "Oh Mama, why didn't you tell me it was so wonderful?" "I tried to tell you," she replied, "but I couldn't do it."
And one day when we go sweeping through those gates of pearl and catch our first vision of the enrapturing beauty all around us, I think we may hunt up the Apostle John and say, "Why didn't you tell us it was so beautiful?" And John will say, "I tried to tell you when I wrote the twenty-first and twenty-second chapters of the last book in the Bible after I got my vision, but I couldn't do it."
Heaven - the land of no heartbreak, no graves, no wars or poverty, no hearse rolls its dark way to the tomb. Let us have and hold and preach the Bible conception of hell. Let us have and hold and preach the antithetical conception of that perfect vision of God which we call home - Heaven. Every human must make his choice. We pray that choice is Heaven!
~Robert G. Lee~
(The End)
Saturday, February 23, 2019
Is Hell A Myth? # 4
Is Hell A Myth? # 4
2. "Everlasting fire is a real PLACE." The rich man of Luke 16 is in hell bodily. He wanted his brothers to know where he was after death was a PLACE Jesus taught that the body would be in hell along with the soul" (Matthew 10:28).
3. A place of TORMENT. "The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name" (Revelation 14:10-11).
4. A place of VILE COMPANIONSHIPS. "But the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable, and murders, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death" (Rev. 21:8). The devil will be there with all his demons. Read the list of the wicked persons in Romans 1:29-31).
5. A place from which there is NO EXIT. In public halls we find in bold letters, "EXIT." But "exit" is a word not in the vocabulary of hell. In other places there may be signs to help point the way out. But there are no exit signs in hell. Jesus says "there is a great gulf fixed..." it is impossible to escape from hell to a better place.
6. A place that is ETERNAL. "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." (Matthew 25:46). No one has any trouble believing the "eternal life" part of this verse. But by every known law of exegesis, it must mean the same thing in the other part of the verse. This word means "unto the ages of the ages." It is an unimaginable duration, a length of time that cannot be expressed. Sometimes it is used to describe the duration of the blessings of the saints, other times it describes the suffering of those in hell. Eternal... Without end... There are 10,000 grains of wheat in one bushel. Multiply that by all the grains in the millions of bushels of wheat grown every year. Multiply that by all the leaves on all the trees of the world. Now multiply that number by all the grains of sand on the seashores of the globe. Now take that number and multiply it by the number of stars in the sky. The number you would get after making such a calculation, if you could, would not even begin to count the length of eternity. Hell would not be hell if it were just a ten-year sentence! The Greek word "Gehenna" means a place of everlasting punishment. It is the word "Gehenna" that the New Testament uses to describe the place of punishment appointed for the unsaved after death.
What a terrible place hell must be. A world where the Holy Spirit never strives, where every soul is fully left to its own depravity; and where there is no leisure for repentance, even if there was a desire for it. Richard Fuller called it "An immortality of pain and tears: an infinity of wretchedness and despair; the blackness of darkness across which conscience will forever shoot her clear and ghastly flashes - like lightening streaming over a desert when midnight and tempest are there; weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth; long, long eternity, and things that will make that eternity seem longer, making each moment more miserable than the last..."
But now I would have you to think of the....
VI. Assistance
Now I speak of the assistance the doctrine of hell is in preaching to win the lost. The preaching of this doctrine is ever an asset - never a hindrance - to the success of gospel preaching. The minister of the Gospel is under obligation to preach the whole truth of God's Word. If he does, God will take care of the results. We are to preach "as to dying men," as Richard Baxter wrote. If we are never to preach on hell, what is one saved from?
A. C. Dixon said, "If we had more preaching on hell in the pulpit, we might have less hell in the community." General Booth said, "If I had my way I would not give any of my workers a three-year training in a college, but I would put each of you twenty-four hours in hell - the best training for earnest preaching you could have."
We need to preach this doctrine along with the truth of the Cross. Preach it - not as dainty tasters of intellectual subtleties. Preach it- not as dealers of finespun metaphysical disquisitions. Preach it - not as administrators of laughing gas for the painless extraction of sin. Preach it - not with stammering tongue but as a trumpet that gives no uncertain sound. Preach it - with broken heart and yearning soul. Believing in the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ for the sins of the whole world, we must accept the doctrine of hell - for no lesser fate can they expect who, having heard the offer of the Gospel, deliberately reject it. How great the folly of suppressing the revealed fact of hell!
~Robert G. Lee~
(continued with # 5)
2. "Everlasting fire is a real PLACE." The rich man of Luke 16 is in hell bodily. He wanted his brothers to know where he was after death was a PLACE Jesus taught that the body would be in hell along with the soul" (Matthew 10:28).
3. A place of TORMENT. "The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name" (Revelation 14:10-11).
4. A place of VILE COMPANIONSHIPS. "But the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable, and murders, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death" (Rev. 21:8). The devil will be there with all his demons. Read the list of the wicked persons in Romans 1:29-31).
5. A place from which there is NO EXIT. In public halls we find in bold letters, "EXIT." But "exit" is a word not in the vocabulary of hell. In other places there may be signs to help point the way out. But there are no exit signs in hell. Jesus says "there is a great gulf fixed..." it is impossible to escape from hell to a better place.
6. A place that is ETERNAL. "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." (Matthew 25:46). No one has any trouble believing the "eternal life" part of this verse. But by every known law of exegesis, it must mean the same thing in the other part of the verse. This word means "unto the ages of the ages." It is an unimaginable duration, a length of time that cannot be expressed. Sometimes it is used to describe the duration of the blessings of the saints, other times it describes the suffering of those in hell. Eternal... Without end... There are 10,000 grains of wheat in one bushel. Multiply that by all the grains in the millions of bushels of wheat grown every year. Multiply that by all the leaves on all the trees of the world. Now multiply that number by all the grains of sand on the seashores of the globe. Now take that number and multiply it by the number of stars in the sky. The number you would get after making such a calculation, if you could, would not even begin to count the length of eternity. Hell would not be hell if it were just a ten-year sentence! The Greek word "Gehenna" means a place of everlasting punishment. It is the word "Gehenna" that the New Testament uses to describe the place of punishment appointed for the unsaved after death.
What a terrible place hell must be. A world where the Holy Spirit never strives, where every soul is fully left to its own depravity; and where there is no leisure for repentance, even if there was a desire for it. Richard Fuller called it "An immortality of pain and tears: an infinity of wretchedness and despair; the blackness of darkness across which conscience will forever shoot her clear and ghastly flashes - like lightening streaming over a desert when midnight and tempest are there; weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth; long, long eternity, and things that will make that eternity seem longer, making each moment more miserable than the last..."
But now I would have you to think of the....
VI. Assistance
Now I speak of the assistance the doctrine of hell is in preaching to win the lost. The preaching of this doctrine is ever an asset - never a hindrance - to the success of gospel preaching. The minister of the Gospel is under obligation to preach the whole truth of God's Word. If he does, God will take care of the results. We are to preach "as to dying men," as Richard Baxter wrote. If we are never to preach on hell, what is one saved from?
A. C. Dixon said, "If we had more preaching on hell in the pulpit, we might have less hell in the community." General Booth said, "If I had my way I would not give any of my workers a three-year training in a college, but I would put each of you twenty-four hours in hell - the best training for earnest preaching you could have."
We need to preach this doctrine along with the truth of the Cross. Preach it - not as dainty tasters of intellectual subtleties. Preach it- not as dealers of finespun metaphysical disquisitions. Preach it - not as administrators of laughing gas for the painless extraction of sin. Preach it - not with stammering tongue but as a trumpet that gives no uncertain sound. Preach it - with broken heart and yearning soul. Believing in the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ for the sins of the whole world, we must accept the doctrine of hell - for no lesser fate can they expect who, having heard the offer of the Gospel, deliberately reject it. How great the folly of suppressing the revealed fact of hell!
~Robert G. Lee~
(continued with # 5)
Saturday, February 16, 2019
Is Hell A Myth? # 3
Is Hell A Myth? # 3
Now consider some...
IV. Attestations
1. The Bible. We have looked at some scripture on the subject already. Here are more verses:
"And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matt. 25:30).
"Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matt. 25:41).
"And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matt. 10:28).
See also, Revelation 20:25; Matt. 13:40-42; Rev. 14:10-11.
2. Dr. R. A. Torrey: "I claim to be a scholarly preacher. I have a right to so claim. I have two degrees, specializing in Greek in one of the most highly esteemed universities in America. I have read the Bible in three languages for many years. I have written between thirty and forty books that have been widely read. I have a right to claim to be a scholarly preacher. Yet I believe the old-fashioned Bible doctrine regarding hell."
3. D. L. Moody: "The same Christ that tells us of Heaven with all its glories, tells us of hell with all its horrors; and no one can accuse Christ of drawing this picture to terrify people, or to alarm them, if it were not true.
4. DeWitt Talmage: "Not having intellect enough to fashion an eternity of my own, I must take the word of the Bible. I believe there is a hell. If I had not been afraid of hell I do not think I would have started for Heaven."
5. Charles Spurgeon: "Our joy is that if any one of us are made, in God's hands, the means of converting a man from error of his way, we shall have saved a soul from this eternal death. That dreadful hell the saved one will not know, that wrath he will not feel, that being banished from the presence of God will never happen to him."
6. Paul Stewart: "The preaching that ignores the doctrine of hell lowers the holiness of God and degrades the work of Christ."
7. B. H. Lovelace: "There are foregleams of hell all around us (Rom. 8:22). Read the tragedies that besmear the front pages of our daily newspapers, behold the victim of drink writhing in the tortures of delirium tremens, see the human wrecks strewn all along life's highway, and hear the sobs and sighs of a sin-cursed world. These are but a few sparks from the Lake of Fire, the eternal abode of the lost. Hell is a logical necessity. It is the ultimate and inevitable consequence of the law of moral gravitation, which begins in life and ends in eternity. What was said of Judas Iscariot will be true of all men, "he went to his own place."
8. William Elbert Munsey: "There is a hell. All principles of quality, character, and state exist in correlative dualities. God and evil are correlates. The very argument which makes Heaven the saint's reward beyond the grave must, give a correlating punishment to the lost beyond the grave."
9. Billy Sunday: "You will not be in hell five minutes until you believe that there is one."
10. Sam Jones: "I believe in a bottomless hell, and I believe that the wicked will be turned into hell. The legitimate end of a sinful life is hell. Every sinner carries his own brimstone with him. How many men can meet Truth without a tremor in their muscles?"
The popular theory of this age is: "I die like my dog. I die a sinner, and am nowhere ever after. The coffin holds both body and soul so any kind of eternal punishment is an impossibility." This theory denies the immortality of the soul. God says, The wicked shall be turned into hell...where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Go to your Bibles, men and women! Let us have the truth about the matter, whatever it be! I cite God himself, "The wicked shall be turned into hell..." You may scatter the everlasting mountains or split the sun in two, but you cannot alter God's Word. I cite the tenderhearted Saviour; and three times in one chapter! (Mark 9) He speaks of a worm that never dies, and a fire that never shall be quenched. Take time, you, whoever you are, to read the 9th chapter of Mark. Read it and then tell me, did the Lord Jesus lie when He spoke of unquenchable fire? Did the Son of God picture a lie when He showed us the rich man lifting up his eyes in torments, and begging a drop of water to cool his tongue? Did He purposely put fright in our souls with lying pictures of something which never existed? Scripture says, "It is impossible for God to lie." Well, then, it is impossible that there is no hell, and let that forever settle the question.
Now along with these attestations, I would have you think of some...
V. Adjectives
Here are some adjectives that describe the severe nature of hell.
1. "Everlasting Fire". I am not going to split hairs to prove the fire of hell is literal fire any more than I would split hairs to prove the gold of Heaven is literal gold. I believe when God says "fire", He means "fire." When He says "gold" he means "gold." Those who would deny the fire of hell have only removed part the physical pain, which is the least significant feature of its character. Hell is the madhouse of the universe where remorse and an accusing memory cause unspeakable torture. All words are incapable of describing that awful place. The very thought of hell ought to make one uncomfortable. No music - but the weeping, wailing gnashing of teeth. No rest - but the wicked wanting rest, yet forever tired. No fragrance - "smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever."
~Robert G. Lee~
(continued with # 4)
Now consider some...
IV. Attestations
1. The Bible. We have looked at some scripture on the subject already. Here are more verses:
"And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matt. 25:30).
"Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matt. 25:41).
"And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matt. 10:28).
See also, Revelation 20:25; Matt. 13:40-42; Rev. 14:10-11.
2. Dr. R. A. Torrey: "I claim to be a scholarly preacher. I have a right to so claim. I have two degrees, specializing in Greek in one of the most highly esteemed universities in America. I have read the Bible in three languages for many years. I have written between thirty and forty books that have been widely read. I have a right to claim to be a scholarly preacher. Yet I believe the old-fashioned Bible doctrine regarding hell."
3. D. L. Moody: "The same Christ that tells us of Heaven with all its glories, tells us of hell with all its horrors; and no one can accuse Christ of drawing this picture to terrify people, or to alarm them, if it were not true.
4. DeWitt Talmage: "Not having intellect enough to fashion an eternity of my own, I must take the word of the Bible. I believe there is a hell. If I had not been afraid of hell I do not think I would have started for Heaven."
5. Charles Spurgeon: "Our joy is that if any one of us are made, in God's hands, the means of converting a man from error of his way, we shall have saved a soul from this eternal death. That dreadful hell the saved one will not know, that wrath he will not feel, that being banished from the presence of God will never happen to him."
6. Paul Stewart: "The preaching that ignores the doctrine of hell lowers the holiness of God and degrades the work of Christ."
7. B. H. Lovelace: "There are foregleams of hell all around us (Rom. 8:22). Read the tragedies that besmear the front pages of our daily newspapers, behold the victim of drink writhing in the tortures of delirium tremens, see the human wrecks strewn all along life's highway, and hear the sobs and sighs of a sin-cursed world. These are but a few sparks from the Lake of Fire, the eternal abode of the lost. Hell is a logical necessity. It is the ultimate and inevitable consequence of the law of moral gravitation, which begins in life and ends in eternity. What was said of Judas Iscariot will be true of all men, "he went to his own place."
8. William Elbert Munsey: "There is a hell. All principles of quality, character, and state exist in correlative dualities. God and evil are correlates. The very argument which makes Heaven the saint's reward beyond the grave must, give a correlating punishment to the lost beyond the grave."
9. Billy Sunday: "You will not be in hell five minutes until you believe that there is one."
10. Sam Jones: "I believe in a bottomless hell, and I believe that the wicked will be turned into hell. The legitimate end of a sinful life is hell. Every sinner carries his own brimstone with him. How many men can meet Truth without a tremor in their muscles?"
The popular theory of this age is: "I die like my dog. I die a sinner, and am nowhere ever after. The coffin holds both body and soul so any kind of eternal punishment is an impossibility." This theory denies the immortality of the soul. God says, The wicked shall be turned into hell...where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Go to your Bibles, men and women! Let us have the truth about the matter, whatever it be! I cite God himself, "The wicked shall be turned into hell..." You may scatter the everlasting mountains or split the sun in two, but you cannot alter God's Word. I cite the tenderhearted Saviour; and three times in one chapter! (Mark 9) He speaks of a worm that never dies, and a fire that never shall be quenched. Take time, you, whoever you are, to read the 9th chapter of Mark. Read it and then tell me, did the Lord Jesus lie when He spoke of unquenchable fire? Did the Son of God picture a lie when He showed us the rich man lifting up his eyes in torments, and begging a drop of water to cool his tongue? Did He purposely put fright in our souls with lying pictures of something which never existed? Scripture says, "It is impossible for God to lie." Well, then, it is impossible that there is no hell, and let that forever settle the question.
Now along with these attestations, I would have you think of some...
V. Adjectives
Here are some adjectives that describe the severe nature of hell.
1. "Everlasting Fire". I am not going to split hairs to prove the fire of hell is literal fire any more than I would split hairs to prove the gold of Heaven is literal gold. I believe when God says "fire", He means "fire." When He says "gold" he means "gold." Those who would deny the fire of hell have only removed part the physical pain, which is the least significant feature of its character. Hell is the madhouse of the universe where remorse and an accusing memory cause unspeakable torture. All words are incapable of describing that awful place. The very thought of hell ought to make one uncomfortable. No music - but the weeping, wailing gnashing of teeth. No rest - but the wicked wanting rest, yet forever tired. No fragrance - "smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever."
~Robert G. Lee~
(continued with # 4)
Is Hell A Myth? # 2
Is Hell A Myth? # 2
III. Actuality
Though some today in the theological and educational world are "fond of a mist that rises from the ground" and rebel against the concrete, the definite, the actual - still there is a hell! Though many vaporize every great fact and doctrine of the Christian faith and talk as though they believed that only when these great facts and weighty doctrines have been "sublimated into the mythical and poetic" are they worthy of the intellectual - still there is a hell!
We need realities to meet realities - and we find them in the New Testament, which is not "a collection of photographed mirages" and does not "tantalize wit vapors a world perishing of thirst." Watkinson says "To take away hell is to reject the physician and leave the plague, to overthrow the lighthouse and leave the hidden rock, to wipe out the rainbow and leave the storm, to take away the firelight and leave the fire to rage, to take away the vaccine and leave the smallpox. To take away hell is to meet the tragic blackness of sin with a candle gospel, to make a mild twilight out of eternal retribution, to take away the trumpet and open the gate to enemies, to take away roses and leave the thorns, to throw way gold and press bankruptcy upon human life."
In the light of Bible truth, consider the actuality of hell. If there is not a hell, I do not want to preach that there is. But I would rather believe and preach unpleasant truth than to believe and preach error. And as awful as the thought is, I can have no other conclusion than that there is a hell because I believe the Bible is the very word of God. The Bible is the only book that makes death room bright. The Bible is an oasis in a desert of despair. I must believe it! In the original purpose of God, there was no manifest provision for hell. Every being, bearing the image of the Creator, was with Him about the throne of heaven. There was no necessity for a hell. Necessity arose when His hosts rebelled in heaven and were cast out. Then was the "everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels."
"Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41).
"And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power" (2 Thess. 1:7-9).
Hell is a terrible actuality.
Yet some say: "Scholarly preachers have given up belief in an orthodox hell." If so, they did not give up that belief for reasons of Greek or New Testament scholarship. If so, they gave it up for sentimental and speculative reasons. No man can go to the New Testament and not find hell there. But suppose it is true that some preachers have given up a belief in hell. That would not prove anything. Religious scholars have been wrong more than they have been right!
None of the scholars in Noah's day believed a flood would come. But it did. No scholars, except for Abraham and Lot, believed that fire would fall on Sodom and Gomorrah. But it did. No scholars, except Jeremiah and Baruch, believed Jerusalem would be destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. But it was! Four leading schools of thought in Jesus' day scoffed at Jesus' prediction concerning the coming judgment of God on Jerusalem. But secular history tells us that in spite of the dissent of all the scholars, it came true just as Jesus predicted. No university in the world in the days of Luther and Huss believed in the doctrine of justification by faith. But it was so - and Luther was right - and every university of Germany, France, England and Scotland was wrong! So if all the scholars, preachers, scientist, artists, statesmen, politicians, musicians, and teachers on earth gave up belief in the doctrine of an orthodox hell, it would not prove anything!
Some say: "I hate hell." So do I. But nobody can hate hell out of existence. I hate snakes, but my hatred does not exterminate them. I hate rats, but rats still live. If we are Christians, we hate hypocrisy. But hypocrisy continued. Christians hate all manner of sins, but that hatred does not alleviate the sins. The hatred of hell does not alter the fact that THERE IS A HELL!
~Robert G. Lee~
(continued with # 3)
III. Actuality
Though some today in the theological and educational world are "fond of a mist that rises from the ground" and rebel against the concrete, the definite, the actual - still there is a hell! Though many vaporize every great fact and doctrine of the Christian faith and talk as though they believed that only when these great facts and weighty doctrines have been "sublimated into the mythical and poetic" are they worthy of the intellectual - still there is a hell!
We need realities to meet realities - and we find them in the New Testament, which is not "a collection of photographed mirages" and does not "tantalize wit vapors a world perishing of thirst." Watkinson says "To take away hell is to reject the physician and leave the plague, to overthrow the lighthouse and leave the hidden rock, to wipe out the rainbow and leave the storm, to take away the firelight and leave the fire to rage, to take away the vaccine and leave the smallpox. To take away hell is to meet the tragic blackness of sin with a candle gospel, to make a mild twilight out of eternal retribution, to take away the trumpet and open the gate to enemies, to take away roses and leave the thorns, to throw way gold and press bankruptcy upon human life."
In the light of Bible truth, consider the actuality of hell. If there is not a hell, I do not want to preach that there is. But I would rather believe and preach unpleasant truth than to believe and preach error. And as awful as the thought is, I can have no other conclusion than that there is a hell because I believe the Bible is the very word of God. The Bible is the only book that makes death room bright. The Bible is an oasis in a desert of despair. I must believe it! In the original purpose of God, there was no manifest provision for hell. Every being, bearing the image of the Creator, was with Him about the throne of heaven. There was no necessity for a hell. Necessity arose when His hosts rebelled in heaven and were cast out. Then was the "everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels."
"Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41).
"And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power" (2 Thess. 1:7-9).
Hell is a terrible actuality.
Yet some say: "Scholarly preachers have given up belief in an orthodox hell." If so, they did not give up that belief for reasons of Greek or New Testament scholarship. If so, they gave it up for sentimental and speculative reasons. No man can go to the New Testament and not find hell there. But suppose it is true that some preachers have given up a belief in hell. That would not prove anything. Religious scholars have been wrong more than they have been right!
None of the scholars in Noah's day believed a flood would come. But it did. No scholars, except for Abraham and Lot, believed that fire would fall on Sodom and Gomorrah. But it did. No scholars, except Jeremiah and Baruch, believed Jerusalem would be destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. But it was! Four leading schools of thought in Jesus' day scoffed at Jesus' prediction concerning the coming judgment of God on Jerusalem. But secular history tells us that in spite of the dissent of all the scholars, it came true just as Jesus predicted. No university in the world in the days of Luther and Huss believed in the doctrine of justification by faith. But it was so - and Luther was right - and every university of Germany, France, England and Scotland was wrong! So if all the scholars, preachers, scientist, artists, statesmen, politicians, musicians, and teachers on earth gave up belief in the doctrine of an orthodox hell, it would not prove anything!
Some say: "I hate hell." So do I. But nobody can hate hell out of existence. I hate snakes, but my hatred does not exterminate them. I hate rats, but rats still live. If we are Christians, we hate hypocrisy. But hypocrisy continued. Christians hate all manner of sins, but that hatred does not alleviate the sins. The hatred of hell does not alter the fact that THERE IS A HELL!
~Robert G. Lee~
(continued with # 3)
Saturday, February 9, 2019
Is Hell A Myth? # 1
Is Hell A Myth? # 1
"And fear not them which kill the body; but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28).
I. The Asking - "Is hell a Myth?"
A myth? Like Aeolus imprisoning in a leather bag tied with a silver string such winds and tempests as might be hurled to the further voyage of Ulysses? Like the cranes of Ibycus? Like the Minotaur, the fierce animal with a bull's body and a man's head, which demanded a tribute of seven young men and seven young women - and the killing of this beast by Theseus with the aid of Ariadne?
A myth? As when Prosrpine cried for help and her voice was heard by all the mothers of earth? As Laocoon, the priest of Neptune, and the serpents of the sea in fierce attack? As Nemesis, the avenging deity of mythology? As the three Furies - Alecto, the relentless - Tisiphone, the avenger - Megaera, the grim - three women-like creatures, with writhing snakes for hair, a whip of live scorpions in the other?
A myth? As Hercules and the poison garment of Nessus? As Hercules strangling two serpents with his hands at birth? As Hercules and his "Twelve Labors?" As Midas and his golden touch? As Sisyphus who made a chair with automatic workings - so that when a creditor called upon him to collect a debt, Sisyphus invited him to sit down, and no sooner had the fellow taken a seat when one hundred ligaments of steel darted out and bound the fellow fast - and Sisyphus kept him there until he canceled the debt?
A myth? As the winged feet of Mercury? As Ulysses who filled the ears of his crew with wax and bound himself with knotted thongs to the mast - as they neared the sorcerer's shore?
Asking, "Is hell a myth?" is but an interrogatory way - on the part of some - of stating the hell is a myth - as much as the wilde mythologies of the Greeks. With playful raillery do many speak of the fact of hell. With a blighting barriken do many speak of the fact of hell. With many hell is a wild nightmare of a disordered brain - the fanciful fake of an erratic mind. A myth? Just as well say a lion has the mouth of a mouse! A myth? Just as well say an eagle has a sparrow's wings! A myth? Just as well say you can cradle a furnace in a thimble! All of which brings us to consider some...
II. Asseverations
Asseverate "to affirm, to aver positively or with solemnity." Many there are who, with ridicule of those who disagree, declare that there is no hell. Atheists tell us that we die like dogs - that our souls perish with our bodies - that when the earth has swallowed us up, we become part and parcel with clay; and that is the end of the whole matter. We, believing not what the atheists say, doubt if the atheists believe themselves.
But note what some say: "Milton's conception of hell was inconsistent with the character of God as revealed in Jesus Christ." "The pulpit teaching about hell is an unauthorized accretion to the true doctrine - and repugnant to reason." "Hell-fire is a riot of imaginative genius." "The Dantesque picture as a place of penal flames, smoke, and physical torture is an absurd picture." "Indeed, it is to be doubted whether men ever believed fully in the existence of such a hell, for if preachers believed in the hell they taught thirty years ago, and had any humanity in them, they would have been unable to sleep in their beds. To talk of a hall so horrible that no man with a heart in him would throw a dog into it, and yet to preach that the Almighty Father casts the bulk of the human family into it to burn for ever and ever, was to insult the very name of the Being whom we are taught to love."
And more: "Hell is a state - and not a place. To live in harmony with what we understand to be God's law is the truest heaven. To live out of harmony with that law is hell." "Heaven and hell might be the same place - and heaven will be hell to the man who loves evil things." "Many of the terms describing hell are allegorical or metaphorical or poetic - and imply the spiritual state which is the antithesis of salvation." "If the Bible teaches everlasting punishment, so much the worse for the Bible, because we cannot believe it. We are no longer the slaves of a book, nor the blind devotees of a creed, we believe in love and evolution."
Now let me ask, if there is no hell, is not the Bible a bundle of blunders, a myth, a book of fairy tales? Are not the prophets, who spoke of God's mercy, liars? If there is no hell, does not Jesus Himself deserve to wear the label of the impostor? Into the valley of Hinnom, outside the city of Jerusalem, the Jews threw the refuse of the city and the dead carcasses of animals - where the worms would eat them and a fire was kept continually burning. Jesus used this great valley of offal to describe the awful reality of hell.
"And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off" it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:43-44).
If there is no hell, is not Calvary, with all its sufferings and sacrifice and finished atoning work, a blunder and all the voices thereof a babel of incoherence? By every contemptuous mouthful of spit that befouled His face, by every hair of His beard which cruel fingers tore from His cheeks, by every bruise of His face, by every mark of the scourge upon His back, by every thorn that punctured His brow, by every nail that held Him to the tree, by every breath He drew which was a pang of death, by every beat of His heart which was a throb of agony - by all the shadows that covered the earth when black midnight came at noon-day, we say that if Calvary be not the way of escape from an eternal hell, then Calvary is a mistake!
It is not credible that the Son of God should have become man and died on the Cross merely to save men from the short and temporal consequences of sin. The infinity of the sacrifice implies as infinity of punishment as that from which the sacrifice was intended to deliver those who would accept the sacrifice. If a man accepts the atonement of Christ - how can he doubt the dogma of hell? Let us ask, can there be a heaven if there be no hell? The Bible, book above and beyond all books as a river is beyond a rill in reach speaks of heaven. But the same Bible also speaks of hell. The same Bible that speaks of the glories and bliss of heaven speaks of the woes and pains and miseries of hell - as the portion of those who reject Christ. So let us consider thee...
III. Actuality
~Robert G. Lee~
(continued with # 2)
"And fear not them which kill the body; but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28).
I. The Asking - "Is hell a Myth?"
A myth? Like Aeolus imprisoning in a leather bag tied with a silver string such winds and tempests as might be hurled to the further voyage of Ulysses? Like the cranes of Ibycus? Like the Minotaur, the fierce animal with a bull's body and a man's head, which demanded a tribute of seven young men and seven young women - and the killing of this beast by Theseus with the aid of Ariadne?
A myth? As when Prosrpine cried for help and her voice was heard by all the mothers of earth? As Laocoon, the priest of Neptune, and the serpents of the sea in fierce attack? As Nemesis, the avenging deity of mythology? As the three Furies - Alecto, the relentless - Tisiphone, the avenger - Megaera, the grim - three women-like creatures, with writhing snakes for hair, a whip of live scorpions in the other?
A myth? As Hercules and the poison garment of Nessus? As Hercules strangling two serpents with his hands at birth? As Hercules and his "Twelve Labors?" As Midas and his golden touch? As Sisyphus who made a chair with automatic workings - so that when a creditor called upon him to collect a debt, Sisyphus invited him to sit down, and no sooner had the fellow taken a seat when one hundred ligaments of steel darted out and bound the fellow fast - and Sisyphus kept him there until he canceled the debt?
A myth? As the winged feet of Mercury? As Ulysses who filled the ears of his crew with wax and bound himself with knotted thongs to the mast - as they neared the sorcerer's shore?
Asking, "Is hell a myth?" is but an interrogatory way - on the part of some - of stating the hell is a myth - as much as the wilde mythologies of the Greeks. With playful raillery do many speak of the fact of hell. With a blighting barriken do many speak of the fact of hell. With many hell is a wild nightmare of a disordered brain - the fanciful fake of an erratic mind. A myth? Just as well say a lion has the mouth of a mouse! A myth? Just as well say an eagle has a sparrow's wings! A myth? Just as well say you can cradle a furnace in a thimble! All of which brings us to consider some...
II. Asseverations
Asseverate "to affirm, to aver positively or with solemnity." Many there are who, with ridicule of those who disagree, declare that there is no hell. Atheists tell us that we die like dogs - that our souls perish with our bodies - that when the earth has swallowed us up, we become part and parcel with clay; and that is the end of the whole matter. We, believing not what the atheists say, doubt if the atheists believe themselves.
But note what some say: "Milton's conception of hell was inconsistent with the character of God as revealed in Jesus Christ." "The pulpit teaching about hell is an unauthorized accretion to the true doctrine - and repugnant to reason." "Hell-fire is a riot of imaginative genius." "The Dantesque picture as a place of penal flames, smoke, and physical torture is an absurd picture." "Indeed, it is to be doubted whether men ever believed fully in the existence of such a hell, for if preachers believed in the hell they taught thirty years ago, and had any humanity in them, they would have been unable to sleep in their beds. To talk of a hall so horrible that no man with a heart in him would throw a dog into it, and yet to preach that the Almighty Father casts the bulk of the human family into it to burn for ever and ever, was to insult the very name of the Being whom we are taught to love."
And more: "Hell is a state - and not a place. To live in harmony with what we understand to be God's law is the truest heaven. To live out of harmony with that law is hell." "Heaven and hell might be the same place - and heaven will be hell to the man who loves evil things." "Many of the terms describing hell are allegorical or metaphorical or poetic - and imply the spiritual state which is the antithesis of salvation." "If the Bible teaches everlasting punishment, so much the worse for the Bible, because we cannot believe it. We are no longer the slaves of a book, nor the blind devotees of a creed, we believe in love and evolution."
Now let me ask, if there is no hell, is not the Bible a bundle of blunders, a myth, a book of fairy tales? Are not the prophets, who spoke of God's mercy, liars? If there is no hell, does not Jesus Himself deserve to wear the label of the impostor? Into the valley of Hinnom, outside the city of Jerusalem, the Jews threw the refuse of the city and the dead carcasses of animals - where the worms would eat them and a fire was kept continually burning. Jesus used this great valley of offal to describe the awful reality of hell.
"And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off" it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:43-44).
If there is no hell, is not Calvary, with all its sufferings and sacrifice and finished atoning work, a blunder and all the voices thereof a babel of incoherence? By every contemptuous mouthful of spit that befouled His face, by every hair of His beard which cruel fingers tore from His cheeks, by every bruise of His face, by every mark of the scourge upon His back, by every thorn that punctured His brow, by every nail that held Him to the tree, by every breath He drew which was a pang of death, by every beat of His heart which was a throb of agony - by all the shadows that covered the earth when black midnight came at noon-day, we say that if Calvary be not the way of escape from an eternal hell, then Calvary is a mistake!
It is not credible that the Son of God should have become man and died on the Cross merely to save men from the short and temporal consequences of sin. The infinity of the sacrifice implies as infinity of punishment as that from which the sacrifice was intended to deliver those who would accept the sacrifice. If a man accepts the atonement of Christ - how can he doubt the dogma of hell? Let us ask, can there be a heaven if there be no hell? The Bible, book above and beyond all books as a river is beyond a rill in reach speaks of heaven. But the same Bible also speaks of hell. The same Bible that speaks of the glories and bliss of heaven speaks of the woes and pains and miseries of hell - as the portion of those who reject Christ. So let us consider thee...
III. Actuality
~Robert G. Lee~
(continued with # 2)
The Perfect Faith # 4
The Perfect Faith # 4
When Christ came it was distinctly for this purpose, to make men know God, - God Himself, God in, behind, His actions. This was the purpose of the Incarnation. No longer on difficult and hazardous deductions from His treatment of them were men to depend alone for the understanding of God's nature. "The Light of the Knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," says Paul; "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father," says Jesus. Still helped, no doubt, by what they saw God do, but shown by Jesus what God was behind His doing, what the God was who did all that was done to them, - so they who received the truth of Christ were to attain in the fatherliness of their Heavenly Father.
In the few minutes which remain, let us consider how such a faith shape and influence our life. I have already spoken of it all along with reference to the way in which it must affect our thoughts of joy and sorrow. Have not your hearts, my friends, at least sometimes, caught sight of a possible faith in God by which you might believe in Him, believe on Him, trust Him, even although no tokens of His presence or His love came to you in the shape of special pleasures, or even of the ordinary joys of living, even although there came to you from Him what men who simply saw His treatment of you, land knew nothing of your insight into His character, thought as they watched it must be a sure destruction of your faith? To stand with the good things of life all stripped away, to sand beaten and buffeted by storms of disaster and disappointment, to stand with all our brethren saying, "Behold, how God hates him," and yet to know as surely in our own hearts that God loves us, to know it so assuredly, with the intercourse that lies between our heart and His, that we can freely let go the outward tokens of His love, as the most true and trusty friends do not need to take gifts from one another for assurance of their affection, - this surely is the perfection of a faithful life. It is the gathering up of all happiness into one happiness which is so rich that it can live without them all, and yet regally receive them into itself as the ocean receives the rivers.
There are two other gifts which every true man values vastly more than happiness. They are light and work. It would be sad indeed if our principle did not apply to them; but it does! To stand in the darkness and yet know that God is light; to want to know the truth about a thousand mysteries, the answer to a thousand problems, and not to find the truth, the answers, anywhere, and yet to know beyond a peradventure that God is not hiding from us anything which it is possible and useful for us to know, to stand in the darkness and yet know that God is light, - that is a great and noble faith, a faith to which no man can come who does not know God.
And so too about work. To want to do some labor in the world, to think that useless life is only premature death, to find ourselves apparently shut out from usefulness, and yet to believe that God wants us to grow into His likeness by whom all the work of the great working universe proceeds, - that is indeed a puzzle to one's faith. It may be that God used to give you plentiful chance of work for Him. Your days went singing by, each winged with some enthusiastic duty for Master whom you loved. Then it was easy to believe that He was training you; His contact with your life was manifest. By and by came a change. He took all that away. What then? Have you been still, in idleness, in what seems uselessness, to keep the assurance of His care for you? Did your old work really really bring you to know God? If it did, if in it all, while you delighted in doing it, the principle blessing of it all was that it permitted you to look into God's soul and see how self-complete and perfect and supreme He was; how, after all His workings, it was not in His works but in His nature, not in His doing but in His being, that God's true glory lay. Then when He takes your work away and bids you no longer to do good and obedient things but only to be good and obedient, surely that is not the death of faith. That may be faith's transfiguration. You can be idle for Him, if so He wills, with the same joy with which you labored for Him. The sick-bed or the prison is as welcome as the harvest field or the battlefield, when once your soul has come to value as the end of life the privilege of seeking and of finding Him.
So our of all our thought this afternoon there comes one prayer which sums up everything; Lord, by all Thy dealings with us, whether of joy or pain, of light or darkness, let us be brought to Thee. Let us value no treatment of Thy grace simply because it makes us happy or because it makes us sad, because it gives us or denies us what we want; but may all that Thou sendest us bring us to Thee, that knowing Thy perfectness we may be sure in every disappointment that Thou art still loving us, and in every darkness that Thou art still enlightening us, and in every enforced idleness that Thou art still using us; yea, in every death that Thou art giving us life, as in His death Thou didst give life to Thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
~Phillips Brooks~
(The End)
When Christ came it was distinctly for this purpose, to make men know God, - God Himself, God in, behind, His actions. This was the purpose of the Incarnation. No longer on difficult and hazardous deductions from His treatment of them were men to depend alone for the understanding of God's nature. "The Light of the Knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," says Paul; "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father," says Jesus. Still helped, no doubt, by what they saw God do, but shown by Jesus what God was behind His doing, what the God was who did all that was done to them, - so they who received the truth of Christ were to attain in the fatherliness of their Heavenly Father.
In the few minutes which remain, let us consider how such a faith shape and influence our life. I have already spoken of it all along with reference to the way in which it must affect our thoughts of joy and sorrow. Have not your hearts, my friends, at least sometimes, caught sight of a possible faith in God by which you might believe in Him, believe on Him, trust Him, even although no tokens of His presence or His love came to you in the shape of special pleasures, or even of the ordinary joys of living, even although there came to you from Him what men who simply saw His treatment of you, land knew nothing of your insight into His character, thought as they watched it must be a sure destruction of your faith? To stand with the good things of life all stripped away, to sand beaten and buffeted by storms of disaster and disappointment, to stand with all our brethren saying, "Behold, how God hates him," and yet to know as surely in our own hearts that God loves us, to know it so assuredly, with the intercourse that lies between our heart and His, that we can freely let go the outward tokens of His love, as the most true and trusty friends do not need to take gifts from one another for assurance of their affection, - this surely is the perfection of a faithful life. It is the gathering up of all happiness into one happiness which is so rich that it can live without them all, and yet regally receive them into itself as the ocean receives the rivers.
There are two other gifts which every true man values vastly more than happiness. They are light and work. It would be sad indeed if our principle did not apply to them; but it does! To stand in the darkness and yet know that God is light; to want to know the truth about a thousand mysteries, the answer to a thousand problems, and not to find the truth, the answers, anywhere, and yet to know beyond a peradventure that God is not hiding from us anything which it is possible and useful for us to know, to stand in the darkness and yet know that God is light, - that is a great and noble faith, a faith to which no man can come who does not know God.
And so too about work. To want to do some labor in the world, to think that useless life is only premature death, to find ourselves apparently shut out from usefulness, and yet to believe that God wants us to grow into His likeness by whom all the work of the great working universe proceeds, - that is indeed a puzzle to one's faith. It may be that God used to give you plentiful chance of work for Him. Your days went singing by, each winged with some enthusiastic duty for Master whom you loved. Then it was easy to believe that He was training you; His contact with your life was manifest. By and by came a change. He took all that away. What then? Have you been still, in idleness, in what seems uselessness, to keep the assurance of His care for you? Did your old work really really bring you to know God? If it did, if in it all, while you delighted in doing it, the principle blessing of it all was that it permitted you to look into God's soul and see how self-complete and perfect and supreme He was; how, after all His workings, it was not in His works but in His nature, not in His doing but in His being, that God's true glory lay. Then when He takes your work away and bids you no longer to do good and obedient things but only to be good and obedient, surely that is not the death of faith. That may be faith's transfiguration. You can be idle for Him, if so He wills, with the same joy with which you labored for Him. The sick-bed or the prison is as welcome as the harvest field or the battlefield, when once your soul has come to value as the end of life the privilege of seeking and of finding Him.
So our of all our thought this afternoon there comes one prayer which sums up everything; Lord, by all Thy dealings with us, whether of joy or pain, of light or darkness, let us be brought to Thee. Let us value no treatment of Thy grace simply because it makes us happy or because it makes us sad, because it gives us or denies us what we want; but may all that Thou sendest us bring us to Thee, that knowing Thy perfectness we may be sure in every disappointment that Thou art still loving us, and in every darkness that Thou art still enlightening us, and in every enforced idleness that Thou art still using us; yea, in every death that Thou art giving us life, as in His death Thou didst give life to Thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
~Phillips Brooks~
(The End)
Saturday, February 2, 2019
The Perfect Faith # 3
The Perfect Faith # 3
But suppose the other case. Suppose that the man, behind and through the treatment that God has given him, has seen the character of God. God has been just to him. He has not rested merely in the instances of God's justice, but has risen to the conception that God is just. God has been loving to him. He does not merely recount God's loving acts, but he sees God, and says, "Yes, God is love." He goes up along the conduct to the character. He goes up along the sunlight to the sun. His nature, made to know God's nature, does know Him with immediate apprehension. The acts of God toward him are, as it were, the ushers which open the door and lead us into His presence. When we are once there the ushers may retire. We may forget the special acts of love or justice which first showed us what He was, and live in the direct perception of His character. If that is possible, then evidently we are ready to see each new act which God does toward us with all the illumination of His realized character upon it. Let us be certain that He did it, and we know that it must be just and kind because He is love and justice. Let me know that the water flows directly from the fountain, and it must be pure because the fountain, I know, is purity itself. The taste of corruption which seems to be in the water must really be in me who taste it. God being good cannot do evil. I, standing where all my experience has brought me, clear in His presence, know that He is good. Therefore, however cruel His deeds may seem, they cannot shake my certainty that He is wise. Therefore, in the tumult and distress of what seems to be the ruin of my life, I can still stand calm and say, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him."
This, then, is our doctrine of man's relation to the conduct and the character of God. Through God's conduct man knows God's character, and then through God's character God's conduct is interpreted. Such a doctrine neither sets man in the miserable and false position of forever judging God by his own poor standards, nor, on the other hand, does it call on man to bow in blindness and accept as good the will of a God of whom he knows nothing because that God has borne no witness of Himself. There are the two dangers of all man's search after God, - one, that man will keep his idea of God forever on test and trial, and never cordially accept Him and enlarge his own life by trusting faith in the life greater than his; the other, that man will make a God of his own imagining, and never verify his thought of Him by any reference to the facts of human life. Against both of these dangers the doctrine of man's trust in God which I have tried to state attempts to guard. Man knows God's character by God's conduct, and then interprets God's conduct by God's character. And if to each individual's observation of God's ways you add the observation of the race in all its generations, which the man who is in true sympathy with humanity may use in large degree as if it were his own, it does appear as if you had a doctrine out of which must come at once intelligence and reverence, - the culture of the watchful eye and of the trustful heart together; the possibility both of David's reasoning, "I will praise Him because He has dealt lovingly with me," and of Job's faith, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him."
It is interesting to see (as we have already seen to some extent) how this method of faith prevails in all the relations of the human mind to the objects of its trust. There is a possible confidence of soul in soul, won by the experience of the trusted soul's trustiness, which has again and again enabled one human being to say of another, "Though He slay me, I will trust Him still." Think of the old story in the Book of Genesis. See Abraham and Isaac - the father and the son - traveling together from the land of the Philistines to the mountain of Moriah, which God had showed to him. Behold the preparations for the sacrifice; hear the boy's artless and pathetic question, "Father, behold the fire and the wood! where is the lamb?" Then see how gradually the boy comes first to suspect and then to know of remonstrance. Isaac has learned long back to trust his father as one who knew the will of God; and so when Abraham looks him in the face and says to him, "God wills this, my son." the child's confidence bears the strain and does not falter. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him," we can almost hear the boy say as we see him submit to be bound and to be laid upon the wood.
Turn for another instance to a later day in the same Jewish history. Remember how the "daughter of the warrior Gileadite" gave up her youth and hope and life in free acceptance of her father's will. Jephthah, her father, had vowed that he would offer to the Lord whatever first came out to meet him when he returned victorious. We need not sympathize with the reckless folly of the vow in order to feel the beauty of the self-consecration with which his child accepted for herself its dreadful consequences. The poet has unfolded the simple pathos of the Bible story and made us feel the honor for him who by all his loving care had deserved the trust with which the maiden sings from the land that lies beyond the pain of dying:
"My God, my land, my father, these did move
Me from my bliss of life that Nature gave,
Lowered softly with a threefold cord of love
Down to a silent grave.
It comforts me in this one thought to dwell,
That I subdued me to my father's will,
Because the kiss he gave me e'er I fell
Sweetens the spirit still."
There is a faith that not merely welcomes the fatal blow but remains even after the blow has done its work. "Though He slay me, yet do I trust Him."
~Phillips Brooks~
(continued with # 4)
But suppose the other case. Suppose that the man, behind and through the treatment that God has given him, has seen the character of God. God has been just to him. He has not rested merely in the instances of God's justice, but has risen to the conception that God is just. God has been loving to him. He does not merely recount God's loving acts, but he sees God, and says, "Yes, God is love." He goes up along the conduct to the character. He goes up along the sunlight to the sun. His nature, made to know God's nature, does know Him with immediate apprehension. The acts of God toward him are, as it were, the ushers which open the door and lead us into His presence. When we are once there the ushers may retire. We may forget the special acts of love or justice which first showed us what He was, and live in the direct perception of His character. If that is possible, then evidently we are ready to see each new act which God does toward us with all the illumination of His realized character upon it. Let us be certain that He did it, and we know that it must be just and kind because He is love and justice. Let me know that the water flows directly from the fountain, and it must be pure because the fountain, I know, is purity itself. The taste of corruption which seems to be in the water must really be in me who taste it. God being good cannot do evil. I, standing where all my experience has brought me, clear in His presence, know that He is good. Therefore, however cruel His deeds may seem, they cannot shake my certainty that He is wise. Therefore, in the tumult and distress of what seems to be the ruin of my life, I can still stand calm and say, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him."
This, then, is our doctrine of man's relation to the conduct and the character of God. Through God's conduct man knows God's character, and then through God's character God's conduct is interpreted. Such a doctrine neither sets man in the miserable and false position of forever judging God by his own poor standards, nor, on the other hand, does it call on man to bow in blindness and accept as good the will of a God of whom he knows nothing because that God has borne no witness of Himself. There are the two dangers of all man's search after God, - one, that man will keep his idea of God forever on test and trial, and never cordially accept Him and enlarge his own life by trusting faith in the life greater than his; the other, that man will make a God of his own imagining, and never verify his thought of Him by any reference to the facts of human life. Against both of these dangers the doctrine of man's trust in God which I have tried to state attempts to guard. Man knows God's character by God's conduct, and then interprets God's conduct by God's character. And if to each individual's observation of God's ways you add the observation of the race in all its generations, which the man who is in true sympathy with humanity may use in large degree as if it were his own, it does appear as if you had a doctrine out of which must come at once intelligence and reverence, - the culture of the watchful eye and of the trustful heart together; the possibility both of David's reasoning, "I will praise Him because He has dealt lovingly with me," and of Job's faith, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him."
It is interesting to see (as we have already seen to some extent) how this method of faith prevails in all the relations of the human mind to the objects of its trust. There is a possible confidence of soul in soul, won by the experience of the trusted soul's trustiness, which has again and again enabled one human being to say of another, "Though He slay me, I will trust Him still." Think of the old story in the Book of Genesis. See Abraham and Isaac - the father and the son - traveling together from the land of the Philistines to the mountain of Moriah, which God had showed to him. Behold the preparations for the sacrifice; hear the boy's artless and pathetic question, "Father, behold the fire and the wood! where is the lamb?" Then see how gradually the boy comes first to suspect and then to know of remonstrance. Isaac has learned long back to trust his father as one who knew the will of God; and so when Abraham looks him in the face and says to him, "God wills this, my son." the child's confidence bears the strain and does not falter. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him," we can almost hear the boy say as we see him submit to be bound and to be laid upon the wood.
Turn for another instance to a later day in the same Jewish history. Remember how the "daughter of the warrior Gileadite" gave up her youth and hope and life in free acceptance of her father's will. Jephthah, her father, had vowed that he would offer to the Lord whatever first came out to meet him when he returned victorious. We need not sympathize with the reckless folly of the vow in order to feel the beauty of the self-consecration with which his child accepted for herself its dreadful consequences. The poet has unfolded the simple pathos of the Bible story and made us feel the honor for him who by all his loving care had deserved the trust with which the maiden sings from the land that lies beyond the pain of dying:
"My God, my land, my father, these did move
Me from my bliss of life that Nature gave,
Lowered softly with a threefold cord of love
Down to a silent grave.
It comforts me in this one thought to dwell,
That I subdued me to my father's will,
Because the kiss he gave me e'er I fell
Sweetens the spirit still."
There is a faith that not merely welcomes the fatal blow but remains even after the blow has done its work. "Though He slay me, yet do I trust Him."
~Phillips Brooks~
(continued with # 4)
The Perfect Faith # 2
The Perfect Faith # 2
This is the first relation between character and conduct. Conduct utters and declares character; but we very soon find that this is not their only relation. It is through conduct that I know first what character is. I cannot enter into the knowledge of character in any other way; but when I have once entered into a knowledge of character through my perception of conduct, then something else occurs which it is very interesting and often very beautiful to watch. By and by I come to know character, to which conduct has first introduced me, by itself; and in its turn it becomes the interpreter of other conduct, so that I, who first knew what a man was by what he did, come afterwards to understand the things he does by the knowledge of what he is to which I have attained.
Does this seem obscure? But it is what each of you is doing every day. Your life touches another man's life in some of the many varied contacts of the world, - you live beside him, you do business in the same street and watch how he behaves, you see that he does honest deeds, that he resists temptations to dishonesty; by and by when your convictions about his conduct have become very clear; after you have watched him for a long time, you go behind his conduct to his character. You say not merely, "He does honest things;" you say, "The man is honest." You not merely know his acts, his nature. To know a nature is an exercise of your faculties different different from what it would be to know facts. It involves deeper powers in you, and is a completer action of your life. It is thus that, going on through his honest conduct to his character, you have come to know your friend's honest self. And now suppose he does some act which puzzles you. The world shakes its head at him and calls his act dishonest. You yourself do not see the clew by which to understand it. But suppose you are so sure he is honest that not even the strange and puzzling circumstances of this act can shake you. You say, "I know that he is honest and so this cannot be a cheat." Such a degree of confidence is possible; in many cases it is perfectly legitimate. Each of you has that degree of confidence in some one of your fellow men. When such a confidence in character exists, do you not see what a circuit you have made? You began with the observation of conduct which you could understand; through that, you entered into knowledge of personal character; from knowledge of character you came back to conduct, and accepted actions which you could not understand. You have made this loop, and at the turn of the loop stands character. It is through character that you have passed from the observation of conduct which is perfectly intelligible into the acceptance of conduct which you cannot understand, but of which you know only who and what the man was that did it.
All this is quite familiar. And we can see how necessary some such progress of relation to our fellowmen must be. We can see how limited our life would be if we could never pass through study of their actions into confidence in the characters of the men with whom we have to do. Every man would always be on trial. We should always be testing even our dearest friends. Indeed, there could be no such thing as dear friendship; for friendship implies communion with and confidence in character. We should look at the last act of our companion with whom we had kept company for scores of years with the same suspicious and watchful scrutiny with which we examine the first things which a new acquaintance does. Anyone can see how sterile this would make our whole association with our fellow-men. The best that is in any man is locked away until you trust him. When the first scrutiny is over; when you have satisfied yourself that the man whom you are dealing with thinks wisely and means generously; when, having first made his actions a key to his character, you have come to make his character a key to his actions, - then you begin to get the real benefit of whatever richness and helpfulness of nature there may be in him.
And now we want to carry all this over to our thought of God, and see how it supplies the key to that great utterance of faith which is in our text, - "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." It is from God's treatment of any man that that man learns God. What God does to him, that is what first of all he knows of God. "His creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life," the tendency, the evident tendency of God's conduct toward him to make him good and happy, - that is the first revelation which he meets. That revelation we can imagine as stopping short with itself, and becoming the whole religion of a man. The man might say, "Yes, I see, the sun is bright. I feel the air is soft and gentle. I recognize that the whole world is tempting me to honest and industry and purity. God is feeding me,body and soul, and I take His food and thank Him for it. "That might be all. The man might get no farther than just that bare acceptance of treatments of God, each one of which, separately taken up and criticized, challenged his approval and made him see that it was good. And evidently, if that were all, if the man had really not gone beyond that, there would be no ground on which the man should, nay none on which he could, accept any treatment of God which appeared him harsh or unwise. If the air roughened or the sun grew dim, or if the world tempted him to evil instead of enticing him to good, he, holding God always on trial, judging God anew by each new treatment he received, must of necessity be thrown off from God by each new disappointment. He could not help it. The moment God's conduct went against his judgment, he must disown God.
~Phillips Brooks~
(continued with # 3)
This is the first relation between character and conduct. Conduct utters and declares character; but we very soon find that this is not their only relation. It is through conduct that I know first what character is. I cannot enter into the knowledge of character in any other way; but when I have once entered into a knowledge of character through my perception of conduct, then something else occurs which it is very interesting and often very beautiful to watch. By and by I come to know character, to which conduct has first introduced me, by itself; and in its turn it becomes the interpreter of other conduct, so that I, who first knew what a man was by what he did, come afterwards to understand the things he does by the knowledge of what he is to which I have attained.
Does this seem obscure? But it is what each of you is doing every day. Your life touches another man's life in some of the many varied contacts of the world, - you live beside him, you do business in the same street and watch how he behaves, you see that he does honest deeds, that he resists temptations to dishonesty; by and by when your convictions about his conduct have become very clear; after you have watched him for a long time, you go behind his conduct to his character. You say not merely, "He does honest things;" you say, "The man is honest." You not merely know his acts, his nature. To know a nature is an exercise of your faculties different different from what it would be to know facts. It involves deeper powers in you, and is a completer action of your life. It is thus that, going on through his honest conduct to his character, you have come to know your friend's honest self. And now suppose he does some act which puzzles you. The world shakes its head at him and calls his act dishonest. You yourself do not see the clew by which to understand it. But suppose you are so sure he is honest that not even the strange and puzzling circumstances of this act can shake you. You say, "I know that he is honest and so this cannot be a cheat." Such a degree of confidence is possible; in many cases it is perfectly legitimate. Each of you has that degree of confidence in some one of your fellow men. When such a confidence in character exists, do you not see what a circuit you have made? You began with the observation of conduct which you could understand; through that, you entered into knowledge of personal character; from knowledge of character you came back to conduct, and accepted actions which you could not understand. You have made this loop, and at the turn of the loop stands character. It is through character that you have passed from the observation of conduct which is perfectly intelligible into the acceptance of conduct which you cannot understand, but of which you know only who and what the man was that did it.
All this is quite familiar. And we can see how necessary some such progress of relation to our fellowmen must be. We can see how limited our life would be if we could never pass through study of their actions into confidence in the characters of the men with whom we have to do. Every man would always be on trial. We should always be testing even our dearest friends. Indeed, there could be no such thing as dear friendship; for friendship implies communion with and confidence in character. We should look at the last act of our companion with whom we had kept company for scores of years with the same suspicious and watchful scrutiny with which we examine the first things which a new acquaintance does. Anyone can see how sterile this would make our whole association with our fellow-men. The best that is in any man is locked away until you trust him. When the first scrutiny is over; when you have satisfied yourself that the man whom you are dealing with thinks wisely and means generously; when, having first made his actions a key to his character, you have come to make his character a key to his actions, - then you begin to get the real benefit of whatever richness and helpfulness of nature there may be in him.
And now we want to carry all this over to our thought of God, and see how it supplies the key to that great utterance of faith which is in our text, - "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." It is from God's treatment of any man that that man learns God. What God does to him, that is what first of all he knows of God. "His creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life," the tendency, the evident tendency of God's conduct toward him to make him good and happy, - that is the first revelation which he meets. That revelation we can imagine as stopping short with itself, and becoming the whole religion of a man. The man might say, "Yes, I see, the sun is bright. I feel the air is soft and gentle. I recognize that the whole world is tempting me to honest and industry and purity. God is feeding me,body and soul, and I take His food and thank Him for it. "That might be all. The man might get no farther than just that bare acceptance of treatments of God, each one of which, separately taken up and criticized, challenged his approval and made him see that it was good. And evidently, if that were all, if the man had really not gone beyond that, there would be no ground on which the man should, nay none on which he could, accept any treatment of God which appeared him harsh or unwise. If the air roughened or the sun grew dim, or if the world tempted him to evil instead of enticing him to good, he, holding God always on trial, judging God anew by each new treatment he received, must of necessity be thrown off from God by each new disappointment. He could not help it. The moment God's conduct went against his judgment, he must disown God.
~Phillips Brooks~
(continued with # 3)
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