2.03.24. No respect of persons
XXIV. NO RESPECT OF PERSONS, “ Honour all men.”— 1 Peter 2:17.
VALUE all men.
There is no respect of persons with God, and there should be none with men. When you fail to value aright any man or class of men, you are fighting against God, and will certainly be hurt.
He that falls upon this stone shall be broken. Action and reaction are equal and opposite. Suppose you and your neighbour are walking abreast on a pavement of pure ice; and suppose you put forth your strength to push your neighbour off the way on one side. You may, perhaps, succeed; but the same effort at the same time has pushed yourself as far from the path on the other side. The operation of this principle may be seen in all ranks and in all places. Wherever and whenever a man fails to give a neighbour his due, he thereby to the same extent injures himself. The machine of Providence brings vengeance on the transgressor, as its awful wheels move round.
Take an example from the treatment of negro slaves in our own colonies and in the States of America till lately; in other places of the world still, White men cannot push black men aside from the right position without pushing themselves as far from the right character. The loss which they suflfer is greater than the loss which they inflict. As it is more blessed to give than to receive, so it is more cursed to deprive another of his rights than to be deprived of your own. I would rather have my condition deteriorated by another’s violence, than my character deteriorated by my own sin.
Man’s foundation is not like the everlasting hills. It is not in his power to push another and yet not move himself. The oppressor and the oppressed are by the same operation equally, although in opposite directions, depraved. As far as the slave is pressed down beneath the level into brutish indifference, so far is the master thrust up above the level into supercilious pride. As deeply as the vice of meanness is scored into the black by the lash, so deeply is the vice of arrogance scored into the white by lashing.
Those are injured by sufiering oppression, and these by inflicting it. Nothing is gained by a false estimate of the value of any man. The circles of Providence, like the celestial bodies, correct aberrations, and right themselves as they go round. The same sleepless eye, and the same avenging arm, are over masters and servants in the economical relations of our own land.
Value the yoimg. How precious these germs are!
These spring-buds are lovely to look upon, but their worth is greater than their beauty. An immortal life is opening there; heed it well. Proprietors rear strong fences round young trees, while they leave aged forests to take their chance. Permit not the immortal to be twisted at the very starting of its growth, for the want of such protection as it is in your power to afford. By failing practically to value little ones at their real worth, we both suffer and inflict an incalculable injury. They will be the men and women of the generation when we become children again.
If they grow crooked for want of our care to-day, we shall lack support when we are too feeble to bear our own weight.
Don’t spoil these tender, precious things. Tell them no lie. Speak no vile or profane word in theit hearing. Let no drop fall on that polished surface, which may eat like rust into the heart, and become the death of a soul.
Value the poor and ignorant. In that state Christ valued you, believer. He did not pass you because you were worthless. He came to make you rich in grace, and to rejoice over you then.
Value the rich. We speak here not of the Christian brotherhood, but of humankind. Many of those whom the world call rich are selling themselves for vile stuff. They give themselves for money and show. The rich man’s soul is more precious than all his riches. If he cannot estimate the things at their proper worth, you can, and should.
He is as precious as the poor, and will be as worthy, if he is redeemed, when he walks with his Redeemer in white.
Value the vicious. Although they wallow in a deep mire to-day, they have fallen from a high estate, and may yet regain it. If one who had been a king’s son should, in the frequent revolutions of these days, be cast a naked and penniless wanderer on our shores, we would not think of him as of a common beggar. If he should come in want to your door, you would look with a kind of awe on him who is the heir of a sovereign house, and may yet sit upon a throne. Under his piteous condition you would recognize what he has been, and may yet be. When an abandoned woman passes you on the street, do not despise her. Perhaps beneath that bold look shame begins to swell, and would burst into repentance if it could get an outlet. She is human; Christ is human; and therefore she may yet be partaker of the divine nature. A jewel most precious lies under these loathsome incrustations. That is a precious soul. If she were snatched from the burning, she might be on earth yet a sister beloved, and in heaven a daughter of the Lord Almighty. Despise her not as you pass. Let your heart glue itself to hers; and if you must pass, unable to di-aw her from the pit, let it be such a passing as will leave your own heart torn and bleeding for the outcast whom you cannot save. Let not the frequency of such a contact rub your heart hard and smooth, so that other victims passing to perdition shall slip easily over, getting no grip, and leaving no pain within you. Never learn to pass the lost without a sigh, for she is human, immortal. If she is lost, the loss is eternal, if she were won, the gain would be unspeakable, to your Lord and you.
It is time that the brotherhood in Christ were aroused to estimate aright the value of a drunkard, and the peculiar danger of his state. They who spurn him away in disgust, and they who make merry with his weakness, are alike out of their reckoning. We should not lightly laugh at him on the one hand; we should not hopelessly give him up on the other. The saddest feature of the drunkard’s sad case is the tendency that may be observed, even among earnest Christians, to give him up as beyond the reach of human help. I see that some, even of those who are girding themselves for saving work upon the world, without saying that the inveterate inebriate is absolutely irreclaimable, are deliberately passing by the class, in order that they may quarry in other veins where experience holds out greater hope of success. The peculiar hopelessness of the advanced stage in this form of sin gives peculiar force to the maxim, “ Prevention is better than cure.” That poor staggering drunkard is worth more than worlds, if he were won. If you could win him, he would be a crown of joy to you in the great day. “ Of some have compassion, making a difference: and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire’’ (Jude 1:22-23).
They who hope in Christ should not count any case hopeless.
Value yourself. Do not hold yourself cheap, ye who may have Christ for your brother, and heaven for your home. This body the Lord has cleansed, that he may make it his own dwelling-place; and why should these loathsome lusts be permitted to possess and defile it?
These lips are needed to support a part in the new song of the redeemed out of all nations; and why should they be lent out as instruments of sin? I shall not lightly accord my company to every comer, for the King is courting it: “ Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world.” In estimating the value of yourself, for all the practical purposes of life, adopt the standard of the King Eternal; and the value which he attached to the subject may be seen in the price which he paid — ’’ Who loved me, and gave himself for me.”