2 Kings 7

2 Kings 7:9

THE SIN IN SILENCE—MISSION 2 Kings 7:9.AESOP has a fable touching a Goatherd who sought to bring a stray goat back to the flock. He whistled and sounded his horn, and when the goat paid no attention to the summons, the Goatherd cast at him a stone and broke his horn. Then, in his sense of wrong-doing, he besought the goat not to tell his master. The goat replied, “Why, you silly fellow, the horn will speak though I be silent.” AEsop moralizes, “Do not attempt to hide things which cannot be hid.”It must have occurred to you that good news is about as hard to suppress as bad news; that scandal travels little or no faster than the glad tidings of salvation. The men of our text seem to have understood that fact when, standing in the midst of plenty, with starvation all about them, they practiced silence a moment, and then remembering the sin of such silence and the impossibility of continuing it, said one to another, “We do not well: this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace: if we tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon us”.It is my purpose this morning to apply this text to the present condition of churches, or better, Christians, as related to missionary work in heathen lands. But I propose to stand strictly by the suggestions of the text itself.My first remark from the text is this:THE SAVED ARE TEMPTED TO These lepers had been the most lost of all Israel.

They were not only lost because the Syrians had besieged the city and effected for the people starvation and despair, but in their leprosy they were socially lost, and religiously lost also. But when they made this discovery of stampede among the Syrians, they were saved from starvation, and “they went into one tent, and did eat and drink, and carried thence silver, and gold, and raiment, and went and hid it; and came again, and entered into another tent, and carried thence also, and went and hid it” (2 Kings 7:8).Their previous condition of leprosy and starvation had prepared them to be selfish.

They had suffered so, and sorrowed so, that their thoughts had necessarily been on themselves for a long time, and they had come to think or care for no others. I am more and more convinced that Satan is the author of disease, and suffering in general, as I see that suffering gives birth and breeding to a consuming selfishness. The most spoiled members of society are our sick and suffering people, as a rule. They think so much about themselves; they deplore their condition so much; they pity themselves so constantly that all concern for others is crowded out, and selfishness feeds upon their dismal reflections. They get into the condition of the humored child and are always crying, “Me first! Me first!” There is a wonderful analogy in this matter between physical sickness and soul-sickness; physical suffering and psychical suffering.

The soul that has felt itself leprous and lost; the soul that has regarded its estate as Isaiah’s description, “From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores”, is driven into selfishness by the very sense of its pitiable estate. We sometimes wonder why the unsaved are so seldom self-sacrificing.

The reason is not far to seek. They spend all their thought on self and have none left for others.Their sudden and ample salvation but further stimulated selfishness. Their first thought was that of spoils, that of self-enrichment. The first thought of the newly saved soul is more often self-enrichment, the grace of God, and the hope of Heaven, than it is of service to one’s fellows. It is like coming into sudden wealth. How often that experience has shut up the fountain of benevolence. I have known more than one person who was generous while poor, but upon coming into abundant estates grew close-fisted and avaricious, and shut himself up against all giving. Dr.

Dixon of Brooklyn says, “On the diary of a good woman in New York, who received $5,000 from a friend, were written the words, ‘Quick, quick, before my heart grows hard.’ She had been in the habit of giving a certain portion of all her earnings to the Lord, and when she found that she had $5,000 on hand, the temptation was strong not to tithe, but to use it on self. She felt the polluting process begin, and hastened to counteract it by hurrying her offering to the altar.” The Christian successful in worldly matters is tempted here. God forbid that our salvation and our enrichment should result in our selfishness!I remark, in the second place, that this text shows howTHE SAVED CAN SHOW EXCUSE FOR We can readily see what these lepers would think in justification of their self-enrichment. They would say, “Well, we have been lepers, and society cast us off and out, and so we have no obligations to share our good fortune with it. While we suffered they were not concerned. Now that the tables are turned, why should we be so solicitous about these starving folks?” That excuse is often on professed Christian lips.

It is not uncommon to meet some man who was born in poverty and bred in hardship, one who found in society—even Christian society—little enough countenance, sympathy or help; when, by pluck and persistence he rises in the social scale, he says of appeals for benevolent work, “Why should I give? Nobody ever gave me anything!

I had to earn all I have. When I suffered, society danced, or slept. Why now should I contribute to a world that was hard toward me when I wanted help?” I will tell you why: Because you are favored of God! These lepers didn’t earn this gold, this silver, this raiment. These lepers didn’t create these sudden riches. God led them there. God has given us what we have. Men may have been hard toward us, but God was good.

The world may have been stingy toward us, but God was generous, and appeals for good work are God’s appeals, not men’s.The appeal of Africa to-day, of China, of India, of Japan, are not the call of boards of foreign missions, not the requests of missionaries, not the Macedonian cry of the heathen, but first of all God’s cry, God’s request. No matter how hard the world has treated us, when we remember that Christ has saved us, we stand ready to sacrifice for His dear Name’s sake.Some time ago a poor woman was found dead in an east London attic. Her poverty and her paralysis had excited little sympathy from her more favored fellows, and she perished alone. But when the coroner lifted the body, a little package fell from the hand, on which was written, “For the Lord’s work”, and in it were a few shillings earned by knitting while she lay on the bed of suffering. It was her savings for missions. It didn’t matter to her that society was hard.

Jesus had saved her soul and she meant to sacrifice for His sake whom she loved. Ah no!

The Christian has no right to return evil for evil. The man who has found Christ has no right to be silent touching his discovery, because his neighbors have neglected him. They are dying for the want of what he knows, and humanity, not to say Christianity, would condemn such an action. “We do not well: this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace: if we tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon us”.All such excuses are unsatisfactory. The man who can be indifferent to the souls of men who starve for the bread of life has a moral leprosy that strikes deeper into his soul than the physical disease had eaten into their bodies. He who can be satisfied with such excuse has no Christian sense of brotherhood in humanity. The cry of the dark-hearted dying, the wail of the starving souls, starts pity and love and response in the Christian heart.

The entreaty of the lost brought Christ from Heaven, and it moves Christian men to give themselves or their gold to continents beyond the seas, whose inhabitants sit in spiritual darkness and despair. When that noble spirit, Williams, saw the South Sea Islanders dying for the Word of God, he said, “Let me go back to my land and bring you Christian teachers”, and the chieftain said, “Go with all speed; get all the missionaries you can, and come back as soon as you can, but many of us will be dead before you return.” How an appeal like that accentuates the text of this hour! “We do not well: this is a day of glad tidings, and we hold our peace”. “Can we, whose souls are lighted By wisdom from on high,Can we to men benighted The Lamp of life deny?Salvation! Oh, Salvation! The joyful sound proclaim,Till earth’s remotest nation, Has learned Messiah’s Name.”WE BEST PROVE OUR WHEN, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE, WE SHARE ITIt illustrates the Christ Spirit to share our salvation. Nothing that God’s Son owned was too good to give to needy men, His life not excepted. It was said of Him, “He saved others; Himself he cannot save”. Oh, that we, His followers, so often illustrate an opposite thought by seeking so much self-salvation that others we cannot save.

We want comforts and luxuries in our food and clothing, in our family relations, in our household appointments, in our social functions, in our church pleasures and enjoyments, in everything that caters to self-pampering; and instead of ministering unto others, we expect to be ministered unto ourselves. It may be a sacrifice to give in hard times, but unto what are we called?

To ease? To self-seeking? To indifference to duty? I trow not! You remember that Garabaldi, when he needed an army to save his land, sent out this proclamation, “Men of Italy, I offer you cold, hunger, rags and death. Whosoever loves his country, let him follow me,” and they came in squads, in battalions, in phalanxes, by scores, by hundreds, by thousands. They showed their loyalty to their land no more than they attested the spirit of the leader who inspired them. The man or woman who shirks every duty, who withholds gifts that God’s work needs, that enjoys His salvation in an inactive silence, may well question the genuineness of their hope.

Christ said, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me”.The man who does not share his salvation does not illustrate his own Christian sense. A beautiful young girl, brought from New Zealand, was educated in England. During her stay at school she sought and found Christ. Upon her graduation she was ready to return to her people, but her school sought to dissuade her. They said, “Why do you go back to New Zealand, now that you are accustomed to England? You love this land and it agrees with your health, and satisfies your social tastes.

Why risk shipwreck, or brave cannibals?” She answered, “Do you think I could keep the good news of salvation to myself? Do you suppose my conscience would ever let me rest in this blessed hope, while knowing that dear father and mother were without God in the world?

No! I would return if I had to swim the sea.” We do not well if in this day of glad tidings we hold our peace! But we cannot all go to heathen lands. No! God doesn’t call upon all to go, but His great commission is our marching orders, and we must go or provide substitutes. Because I don’t feel called to go does not excuse me from the duty of sacrificing to send. On the other hand, it makes my duty seem the more sacred. If God doesn’t ask the greater sacrifice of me, shall I refuse to make the less?

Not if I am Christ’s!Our Baptist Young People’s Union once carried a contribution from the pen of that consecrated girl, Louise Shepherd, who stimulated missions at Round Lake in ‘92, by stripping her person of all jewels and laying them on the altar of missions. In that article she related the story of how the Emperor Frederick the Great, when the Prussian treasury was low and war was waging, appealed to the loyal women of his realm, offering them iron jewels for their gold. He said, “If your love of your nation prompts response, I will inscribe on every iron jewel these words, ‘I gave gold for iron for the sake of the fatherland’.” Out of that appeal, with their prompt response, came the famous “Order of the Iron Cross”. Then Miss Shepherd said, “Now, beloved sisters, and brethren too, are we less loyal to our King and His appeal as it rings from every page of His blessed Book? Souls are dying, one hundred thousand a day, and are we to be in retreat from the foremost rank of this battle which is not for temporal power, but for that Sovereign whose kingdom shall never end, and whose sway and power is eternal?” In an hour like this, when the fields that we have taken for Christ in Africa, China, Japan, India and the Isles are threatened with recapture by Satan because our offerings to mission work have dwindled to about half what they were, the courage of our Christian people and churches is put to a test that will tell on our earnestness or indifference. As I think of the hour, with its opportunity of victory, I cannot believe we shall be at a retreat.