01.06. ARMED RECREANTS.

Chapter 6

ARMED RECREANTS " The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle."

Psalms 78:9 The great tribe of Ephraim was the principal constituent in the kingdom of Israel, and so important that the whole kingdom is frequently in Scripture called by the name of the tribe. Whether that be so here or no is difficult to determine, because the historical reference of our text is uncertain. It evidently points to some old, forgotten battle, of which we know nothing. But the psalm, as a whole, comes from the southern kingdom of Judah, and culminates in the triumphant celebration of God’s rejection of the northern portion of the nation in favour of Judah, in which He set His tabernacle. The dereliction of duty expressed in my text seems to be suggested as one cause of the withdrawal of the Divine favour. What was that dereliction of duty ? It is difficult to settle whether " turned back in the day of battle " means a cowardly flight from the field, being beaten, or a slothful and selfish refusal to go into the field and fight. Either idea would explain the language. But the emphasis which is put upon the thorough equipment of the soldiers, seems rather to favour the idea that what is meant by " turning back in the day of battle " is that these men, thus equipped with weapons for the fight, refused the fight for which they were equipped. And so, I think, we have in the words lessons that we may well lay to heart.

I Note, then, first, the fact.

Now, the assertion here, when applied to us, is just this — that every Christian, by virtue of his Christianity, is sufficiently armed for the great conflict. We all have the gift of that Divine Spirit, who " will teach our hands to war and our fingers to fight." Jesus Christ imparts Himself to every soul that trusts Him ; and " this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." Then, in addition to the universal sufficient equipment which belongs to every Christian soul, there are also included the variety of gifts. In a great army such as Eastern despots used to gather, before military science had reached its present diabolical perfection, there were men armed in all sorts of fashions ; the foremost ranks with spears and swords and bows, perhaps, the hindmost with clubs and sticks ; but all with something in their hands with which they could strike a brave stroke for their king. And so all we Christian people, in the variety of our gifts, have sufficient weapons for the warfare, and sufficient tools for the tasks allotted to us. There are " diversities of administrations, but it is the same Lord ; " and there are differences of gifts, but it is He that ministers to each and to all.

Then this is the fact that we, who, by virtue of our being Christian people, are sufficiently armed for offensive and defensive warfare and for victory, do yet to a terrible extent shirk the fight, let opportunities slip away unused, like so much water through slack hands, neglect to stir up the gift that is in us, and "being armed, and carrying bows," look at the seiried ranks in front of us, and slink away out of the field, leaving who will to bear the brunt.

There are two phases of the warfare to which every Christian soul is summoned : the one is the fight with our own evil, which is not to be subdued merely by peaceful culture, but needs stern antagonism ; and the other is the effort to spread the name of Jesus Christ, which is to be done not merely by the missionary work of proclamation, but also by warring against the evils that infest and hag-ride the world. These two branches of the one conflict are set before all Christian men ; and all of us, more or less, have to take to ourselves the indictments of this text of ours, and to confess that, with our opportunities and equipments, our gifts and capacities and possessions, we have turned away in the day of battle.

Brother, who is there amongst us that has worked and fought up to the edge of his capacity ? There is no more wasteful instrument, they tell us, than a steam engine ; so little motive power comes out for so much heat applied, and such a quantity is lost. So it is with us. All the warmth that radiates from Jesus Christ is poured into the icy deadness of the reservoirs of our hearts, and the effect is only to raise the temperature such a very little, and to get two or three feeble strokes of the piston. We hang our weapons on the wall, as they do in baronial mansions, for ornament, instead of taking them down for use. None of us can plead "not guilty" to the charge of neglected opportunities and unused powers, and talents hid in a napkin, and there are some of us to whom this charge of my text comes with a very special weight of accusation and condemnation. What a dead mass of idle people there are in every Christian congregation and Church ! I do not mean merely those who do not take any part in the organized activities of the community to which they belong — that is for their conscience; but I mean that, professing themselves Christian men and women, and living in some feeble fashion as such, they yet do nothing with the forces entrusted to them, and have hardly any growth in godliness for themselves, and have seldom lifted a finger to do anything for Christ among men.

Ah ! there are more noneffective soldiers in the roll call of Christ’s army than in that of any volunteer corps that was ever heard of; and at the musters there are a dreadful number "absent without leave," whose names might just as well be struck off the muster roll altogether.

Another suggestion may be made here. The men that are best armed are very often the first to run away. It is by no means the fact that the rich man, for instance, is the large giver. It is by no means the fact that the relatively largely endowed man, with the greatest educational advantages or intellectual power, is the vigorous worker in the Church. It is generally the other way. The men that have the bows — which was the mightiest instrument of warfare with Israel in those rude old days — are not the fighting men. These are generally the poor people in the back ranks, who have only sticks and knives, and make the best of their poor weapons, because they are more loyal to the King and Captain. Oh ! you rich men, if there are any of you here ; you clever people ; you well educated folk ; you men and women with leisure; recognize that the endowment that distinguishes you from others is God’s way of saying to you, " Go into My vineyard!" and let us all try that the charge of my text shall be less applicable to us.

II Note, next, the black, deep guilt of this negative crime.

We are all quite ready to admit, and forward to plead, that inability absolves from duty. Do we ever remember, or do we remember as quickly when tasks present themselves, the converse, that ability prescribes duty? You cannot take the benefit of the excuse on the one hand unless you are ready to accept the obligation on the other. Power settles duty. "Can" and "ought" cover precisely the same ground to an inch, both in regard of manner and of measure. Ability settles the duty, and obligation is only another way of saying capacity. So, then, brethren, we come to this, that the negative refusal, so to speak, to go into the fight is positive treason. For what lies in it? What does a man who simply does not visit the imprisoned Christ, or bring consolation to His comfortless servants, or simply hides his talent in a napkin, and does not use it, — what does he do in his not doing? He betrays his Master, is disloyal to his King, is hurtful to himself and cruel to his fellows. And what I wish to urge upon you is this, that the negative fault that is charged in my text is a positive crime, of as deep and dark a dye as any Christian man can commit ; and more dangerous, because more subtle, and less apparently perilous than many an act which looks a great deal worse. Negligence is enough to damn a man. In order to go down to the nethermost depths, you do not need to do anything ; you have simply not to do something, and down you will go by gravitation. Although there may be nothing else to condemn a man at Christ’s tribunal, do not forget that the worst condemnation that ever He spoke was directed in parable to a man who had no positive faults at all, or at least none that are named. and none that come into condemnation. He could apparently say and with perfect truth, as the Pharisee in the parable said, "I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican." He was a member of the Church ; he filled his place ; nobody could say a word against him. Jesus Christ had nothing to say against him. All that was wrong with him was — what? That he took his talent wrapped it up in a cloth, and hid it away somewhere. I wonder if there are any professing Christians here, blameless before the eyes of the world, blameless even before the tribunal of their own callous consciences, who live decent respectable, orderly, law abiding lives, up to the standard of Christian morality in a great many respects ; only — only, " having bows, they turn back in the day of battle."

III Now let me say a word about the reasons for this cruel, cowardly, and criminal dereliction of duty.

One of them is a want of honest study of ourselves in reference to our duty. Did you ever spend a quiet half hour in thinking over what is really in your power, in order to ascertain what you are bound to do ? Or do you take your forms of Christian service for others, and of Christian culture for yourselves, at haphazard, or by mere slavish imitation of other people? I believe that there are few parts of Christian culture more neglected by the average Christian people of this generation than the old fashioned habit of self examination ; not in order to find out reasons for confidence — God forbid ! — nor in order to find out reasons for diffidence either, but in order to find out paths of work, and to try and ascertain, by an examination of their own capacities, what are their duties. I believe that if you would do that habitually, prayerfully, in the sight of God, your whole lives would be revolutionized, and your "profiting would appear unto all men."

There are a great many of us who are never so modest as when we are asked to work for Christ. It is then that we find out, and are ready to say, " Oh, I cannot do this, that, or the other thing." The discovery generally coincides with the appeal of apparent duty. So it is rather suspicious, is it not?

There is another very widely operative cause, namely, absorbing attention to and interest in selfish and transitory needs. Suppose these men of Ephraim had said, " Bows ? Oh yes ! we’ve got bows. We use them principally to shoot wild goats for our food. That is the employment of them that we find most profitable." That is what many of us do with our capacities. The men are armed, and they are so busy, as sportsmen say, " shooting for the pot," that they have no time for the fight. A Christian who gives as much of his life’s blood and his heart’s energy as most of us do to the mere provision of external good has very little leisure to spare, and less freshness of spirit to consecrate to Jesus Christ. And although I know that the honest pursuit of daily bread is a first duty for heads of families, and is part of the " seeking of the kingdom of God and His righteousness," yet no man who has to preach the gospel in a great commercial centre can help seeing that to a far more than is needful extent, in multitudes of cases, the cares of this world fill men’s souls, and leave no leisure for higher things. The bows were not given you only to shoot rabbits with for your own meals and your children’s. They were given you to fight the good fight of faith with them. The foundation of all is, that if we loved Jesus Christ better, and were brought more closely into the fellowship of His love, and more under the dominion of the quickening, protective, and hallowing influences that flow from Him, we should not be able to help casting ourselves into the conflict which He has commanded, and in which He leads. Oh ! brethren, if our faith were deeper, our love warmer, our devotion more ardent, our consecration more complete, our lives would be more befitting the lives of the soldiers of Jesus Christ.

If these things be the causes of the criminal dereliction of duty, the cures lie in the opposites of them. Especially we should seek to get and to keep nearer to Him for whom, if we fight at all, we shall fight; and by whom, if we conquer, we shall be victorious.

You remember the old story of the Scottish knight, with the king’s heart in a golden casket, who, beset by crowds of dusky, turbaned believers, slung the precious casket into the serried ranks of the enemy, and with the shout, " Lead on, brave heart ; I follow thee ! " cast himself into the thickest of the fight, and lost his life that he might save it. And so, if we have Christ before us, we shall count no path too perilous that leads us to Him, but rather, hearing Him say, " If any man serve Me, let him follow Me," we shall walk in His footsteps, and fight the good fight, sustained by His example. And then, at the end, perhaps even we, all unworthy as we are, stained and imperfect as our poor service has been, may have the rapture of hearing from His lips the generous sentence which He once spoke in reference to an utterly useless gift, " She hath done what she could."