2 Kings 10

2 Kings 10:15

HAND-SHAKING2 Kings 10:15.THIS text comes to us out of this ancient history, and yet its purport is perfectly understood, since time has not changed that best method of salutation—hand-shaking. There is every reason to believe that the hearty hand-grasp is one of the customs that will survive the centuries, and be more and more emphasized by Christian civilization. Other methods of greeting are going out already, and despite their age are doomed. Falling on the knees, or flat on the face before a visitor, however distinguished, is an act of such servile suggestion that it will not survive the growing doctrine of equality in birth. The holy kiss is condemned as too familiar, while the stiff-necked bow has so little suggestion of greeting in it that the growing doctrine of the brotherhood discountenances it. Jehu’s speech to Jehonadab expresses many of the most modern and noble sentiments of society. “Give me thine hand”, spoken in the ardor of friendly recognition, and accompanied by the warm touch of palms, is the best expression of equality, humanity, brotherhood, and love.

Whatever kid-gloved society accepts, the Church of Christ cannot afford to adopt anything less cordial and hearty than a warm handclasp. If Christians hope to make conquest of this world, they must make more, not less, of the ancient yet goodly custom. “Give me thy hand” ought to be the constant speech of Christ’s followers. It is one of the best ways to show sincere friendliness. That Christians should foe friendly goes without saying. The most friendly man that ever trod our earth was our Lord. Truly as Pastor Stalker says, “His behavior in this beautiful relationship is the very mirror in which all true friendship must see and measure itself.” He not only called His disciples friends, but the humblest heart that ever sought Him out found Him the friend above all others, and was prepared to sing of His reception, “I’ve found a friend, O such a friend! He loved me e’er I knew Him;He drew me with the cords of love, And thus He bound me to Him.”And what Christ excelled in, Christians should cultivate. There are not a few people, professed followers of Christ, whose practices in this matter of making friends belie their pretentions. They carry no kindly, kindling eye, no stock in trade of smiles, no open hand for their fellows. They are indifferent to Solomon’s proverb, “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly”, Christ’s injunction, “This is My commandment that ye love one another”, moves them but little more.I met a man a few days since who has a wide reputation for winning men to the church where he is a member. I asked a brother minister the secret of this man’s success, and he said, “It is his friendly spirit”.

What business have we, who are Christians, to let this wonderful power of winning men to weal or woe, become the special property of sleek sinners, blind piggers, and strumpets? You know how cordially men are greeted by those that seek their ruin.

Shall we, who are saved ourselves, neglect this saving power of the Christian handclasp? No! not if we would win men to our company; not if we would win them to good living and a saving God. “He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him” (1 John 2:10).Sincere sympathy is also best expressed by the hand-shake. The moment a man of successes or sorrows sees his neighbors, and shakes hands with them, he knows how they feel toward him. The fingertips are great telltales in this matter.There is a mistaken, yet prevalent notion, that men never crave sympathy save in sorrow’s hour. On the contrary, there is no time when the heart hungers more for some tenderness than on occasion of good success. The working lad, whose small wage went up a dollar a week at the end of the first month, hurries every step of the way home to see his widow mother’s face flash delight as he makes his advance known.

If the flesh fail the extra dollar avails him nothing as against his disappointment. The valedictory address is no joy to him whose parents take no part in the applause.

The merchant husband must have the lively sympathy of his own house in money-making days, or else his gain is good for nothing. The minister of the Gospel, even, is not satisfied with a success in soul-winning and kingdom building if it bring no kindly word of appreciation. To be met, on occasions of success, by some trusted friend who, with honest face and truthful tongue, says, “That is good. Give me thy hand,” enhances the joys of the hour as nothing else, save God’s approval, can possibly do!But sorrow’s hour, while not the only one, is a special occasion of sympathy. This world, while it has in it much laughter, is also given to much weeping. The people who live near Lakewood cemetery tell me that they sometimes think that tears are never dried from human faces.

Day upon day the heartbroken come in great companies and almost endless processions, to lay away their dead. Where so much sorrow is, much sympathy must be, or else the burden would break humanity’s heart.

When sickness and poverty and death wring the heart, there are few such panaceas for the pain as to have some loving one come and hold the hand in friendly grasp, and let us feel the electric current of tenderness and love course our whole being, reviving every drooping, despairing fiber of the flesh, energy of the intellect, and affection of the heart.When, years ago, the steamer “Boston” went down, there were many theories regarding the probable method of her loss. One captain, a man wise in sea affairs, said to an American clergyman, “I have sailed much in the same latitude where the ‘Boston’ went down, and I do not think the icebergs struck her, but the waves sometimes go in threes, and if three waves strike a ship in quick succession, there is but little hope. I think one wave struck her and knocked in the bows, and another that filled the hatches, and the next sank her.” “So I have noticed”, said that preacher, “that troubles sometimes go in three surges—sickness, poverty and bereavement dashing upon the soul, and then there is awful danger.” That is the time when men need the shake of the hand that shall so fill them with a sense of human sympathy and love as to lift them above the wave, and aid them against giving up to go down in despair. Better than all medical stimulants, better than all changes of climate, better than company of angels, in an hour like that, is a strong human hand that lays hold upon the trembling palm of another, and by its tender pressure proves the saving truth of sweet, sweet human love.My Christian brother! Where is your hand? Out with it to every suffering, sorrowing soul, and let its shake illustrate afresh Swain’s hymn: “How sweet, how heavenly is the sight, When those who love the Lord,In one another’s peace delight, And thus fulfil His Word.“When each can feel his brother’s sigh, And with him bear a part;When sorrow flows from eye to eye, And joy from heart to heart.”The shake of the hand is also one good way of giving warm welcome to men. Christians need to keep that ever in mind for the Church’s sake, and the sake of Christ. The one most marked fault of Christ’s Church today is its failure to give warm welcome to those who come to worship in its courts. We have some Christians who count themselves hosts in the House of God. We have others who, though members, behave always as if they were visitors. Instead of welcoming others, and especially strangers, they stand on their dignity as if they were invited guests, and the pastor and officials must hunt them out and greet them or they go home mad.

I never knew a Christian of that sort that was worth his salt. If we are God’s children, it is ours to act as hosts in our Father’s house.There is one phase of southern social life that I would like to see introduced into northern church life, and that is hospitality.

When you knock at the door of a Kentucky home, as a stranger, the universal response is, “Come in!” and your welcome is not less courteous or cordial than if you were a friend. That is as it ought to be in church life! When a stranger enters that door, he ought to get kindly greeting at its threshold by usher, and when he goes out of it he ought to leave behind newly made acquaintances and friends. There are some strangers who give Christ’s people no chance to show themselves friendly. They slip into God’s house, insist on sitting on a back seat, and shoot out ere the echo of the final amen has died away. The fact that they find Christ’s followers unfriendly is their own fault.

There are other strangers who are so stiff when approached that they chill even Christian ardor. And then, there are others that sit in the same pew with professed Christians, sing from the same book of sacred song, and wait in vain for any further recognition from the inhospitable host of God’s house.

If there is one thing that hurts a pastor more deeply than another, it is to find out, after the day’s work is done, that the hundreds of church members were not sufficiently interested and active to speak to, secure names and addresses of the three dozen strangers that sat along side of them. I speak it to your shame. Out with hands! Compel them to do Christ’s work, and if they are so palsied with timidity or fear as not to give cordial grasp to strangers and guests, better consider throwing them into the garbage box when you get home. “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” (Mark 9:43).This church has made a reputation for its cordiality to strangers. That fact only shows how remiss other churches are in this matter, for we are far from perfect in the performance of that duty. We are too much given to shaking each other’s hands, first, when the first that we should shake, according to customs of courtesy, is the visitor’s hand, the stranger’s hand.

They are our guests, and as God’s children we can’t afford to be indifferent or slothful hosts in His holy house. Let our salutation to our Sunday guests be, “Give me thy hand,” and our Father’s house will soon be full.We can seal covenants also by hand-shake.

There are many enterprises of Christian nature that are nurtured in the church. The support of the local work, the gifts to our home mission causes, the effort to evangelize our city, the interest in missions world-wide. Every church member must assume some attitude to all of these. I thank God for those who, when they hear of a good purpose, put out the fingers, heartily saying, “Give me thy hand!” “I will help on that,” and I pray Him to increase their kind.Our latest report on membership showed that we have 3,200 names on our books. But the people who are really our members are those who join hands with us in good works. A name on the church book stands for nothing. “Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in Heaven”.

Come now, my indolent brother, my indifferent sister, “Give me thy hand,” and let us agree together to work for what Samuel Rutherford used to pray, “an empty hell and a full Heaven”.Finally, let me say, We can help men heavenward by a hand-shake. God knows we need to help one another. “None of us liveth to himself”, and none are self-sufficient.

With our sins and sorrows and sufferings we are much like that company of lepers that a visitor to Moravian hospital on the Cape of Good Hope saw. One leper was reading the Bible, but he had his fingers so eaten off that he couldn’t turn the leaves. Near him, another without arms, yet with good feet, takes on his back one who has lost feet, and had kept his hands, and carries him to the helpless reader that he might turn the leaf and let him travel on in the study of the sacred page and the ascent to Heaven. Yes, we need help; we need to give help.The sinful man needs our hand-shake. Never in time; I think never in eternity, will I forget the youthful companion who took me by the hand when my heart was pierced with the arrow of conviction, and pressed into my hand his own heart’s sympathy and love. It helped me, God only knows how much, toward the light.

There are more people waiting in hope of such help than we commonly suspect.I read years since the story of a little girl who fell in love with a Christian young lady who visited her sick sister. This little girl clung to the visitor at every departure, as if she couldn’t let her go, until one day the young lady, looking into the earnest, childish eyes, saw a deeper meaning than ever before, and questioned, “My darling, do you love Jesus?” The child drew her into her little bed-room, and throwing her arms about her neck, burst into tears saying, “Oh, Miss Alice, I have been praying for six months that you would speak to one about Jesus, and now you have, and you’ll help me to understand Him and love Him.

I was beginning to fear you’d never say anything to me about Him.”The man who has lost hope needs the Christian hand. It is related that a drunken gardener, who was supposed to be hopelessly addicted to drink, was sobered and saved by the kindly hand-shake of Mr. Coleridge. Henry Ward in a sermon tells how he stopped one day and shook hands with a plain carpenter who was working on his Brooklyn church. The man looked pleased, and holding on to the great preacher’s hand, he said, “Now, sir, you do not know how much good your hand-shake does me. I shall go home to-night and tell my wife and children that the great preacher shook hands with me and asked if I was getting along well,” and they will talk about that for a week.You folks that live in fine houses, on elegant streets, don’t know how much good you might do plain men by showing them that you consider them somebody.

No wonder Beecher said, “I owe that man many good sermons, for that sermon on handshaking which he preached to me.” Hands! They were given, I believe, to help men higher and toward Heaven!

How poorly we use them! Brother! Sister! Give me thy hand! Let us begin below the friendly shake, for do we not hope to shake hands all round in Heaven ere long? The loved ones are waiting to greet us there. John, Paul, Peter and Payson—a Heavenly host that no man can number, await our coming, and shall not earth know something of that cordiality and love that will abound Heaven?