2 Samuel 18
Riley2 Samuel 18:32
IS THE SLAIN SOLDIER SAFE?“Is the young man Absalom safe”? (2 Samuel 18:32).Preached during the War, 1914-1918.THE present war is bound to effect both the thought and the expression of the Prophet of God. The Divine will is never independent of human woe and weal. Sherwood Eddy, who contributed one of the best volumes to the general subject of the world-conflict, declares that Mr. Moody once said that the Civil war was his University. It was there that he learned to understand the human heart and know and win men.In that all-important work one must necessarily meet the questions created by the conflict itself, and their name is legion, but among them, none is more important than that proposed by this theme—“Is the Soul of the Slain Soldier Safe?”I was an interested auditor at the feet of Private Pete when twelve to fifteen hundred people crowded into the Plymouth Church, Minneapolis, and a thousand or more surged about its doors, attempting to get in. I enjoyed much of what he said, but found it quite impossible to receive it all.
I was particularly interested in his discussion of our theme, not because his speech rested in maturity of thought or was characterized by any literary excellence, or had any logical force, but because he voiced himself in line with a certain school of men, some of whom merit attention.In presenting this subject you will permit me to do it under three heads: The Burning Question; the Babel of Voices; and The Bible Teaching.THE BURNING When this question was originally asked, it had to do with a dead youth; he had just been slain. His solicitous father, not knowing that fact, asks this question of the approaching informant—“Is the young man safe”? (2 Samuel 18:32).
It had an individual interest then; yea more, it had a somewhat social and national interest. But since the morning stars sang together this question never had such significance as now; it is the all-absorbing topic of our times.Society itself is compelled to consider it. The social order is little disturbed by the experiences of the lone individual, but when the individual is multiplied hundreds of times, thousands of times, a million times, fifty million times, then Society is involved, then States are stirred. That is the situation now! We are not talking of some one young man now, the question does not obtain with reference to some private, nor yet with reference to some army officer, nor yet with reference to the son of a king; it is a thousandfold more important, yea a millionfold more important than the moral interests of any one man. The young man spoken of in this question is the individual forty million times multiplied; the destiny of Society itself is wrapped up with his destiny, and for Society not to be interested in the soul-interests of that man would disclose the fact that Society itself was without a soul.
Astrologers are not much concerned when a burning meteor shoots across the sky, but if the fixed stars should quit their orbits and go crashing one into another, converting the entire heavens into a scene of conflict, clash, and confusion, then not only astrologers but all who turn their eyes upward would be wildly excited, and madly concerned. Such is now the social order; it is marked by clash; it is characterized by destruction; its very symbol is death itself, and for Society to be indifferent to the future of the individual soul is as impossible as undesirable.
That is why your newspapers discuss this question now; that is why your magazines make much of it; that is why ministers are plied with questions about it. Society is stirred and Society wants to know, “What of the souls of the slain?”The family and friends cannot escape that question. When the daily papers arrive they scan the casualty lists and note the names that are among the severely wounded or dead, and one question blazes in the reader’s mind, “Is the young man safe”? Has he gone from life to life, or from life to death, from battle to bliss, or from the agonies of Time to the tortures of Eternity?” The mother who did not ask that question would lack the element of maternity itself; the father who did not concern himself about it would be an infidel indeed; the lover and friend who never raised it could scarcely be counted faithful, and certainly would not be regarded as affectionate. It is a long time since David’s day, but the very same emotions that swelled in the great King’s heart moves in the hearts of men now. The same anguish of anxiety that throbbed in the recesses of his soul are repeated today in the breasts of ten thousand thousand parents, for while humanity is a fallen thing, the grace of affection—the grace that makes God to be God—has not been destroyed by sin, and we sometimes doubt if it has even been substantially reduced by the same.
The Apostle writes, “Now abideth faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest of these”—because the most lasting—“is love”. “Love never faileth”. Yes, mother; yes, father; yes, friend; yes, lovers, you ask the question and you have a right to ask it—“Is the soul of the slain soldier saved?”The soldier himself, however, is the one most concerned.
On the peaceful shores of America, even though he be in camp, and daily engaged in training for battle, he may not think much about his spiritual interests, and yet we are persuaded that as a rule he is not indifferent. We have met few young men wearing the Khaki who counted this war as having any kinship to a picnic. The very call itself, in its almost infinite magnitude, taking the form it does of conscription, has impressed every youth with the awful seriousness of the hour, and the lad from the office, from the shop, from the farm, goes into camp convinced that a serious task is ahead. His training will deepen that conviction. When once he finds himself upon the high seas, and knows that underneath its blue depths danger and death lurk, the seriousness of mind will not be lessened; and when he approaches the trench itself in which he is to take his place, whether he come to it with trepidation or with confidence, he is sure to come with the consciousness of danger, and all unbidden the question will thrust itself upon him, “If this should be death to my body, then what for my soul?”It ought to be so. Ward Beecher, speaking in a time of peace and upon a perfectly peaceful subject, said, “If I had a son approaching manhood I should want him to settle eternal questions first!
I should want him to clear the terror out of the future and be able to say with Paul, Whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s’! I should hot count him best equipped for life until he had done that; and of course I could not count him equipped for death until such a conviction possessed and obsessed him.”A soldier just returned from the French front, speaking to a great crowd of men recently, told how he enlisted in Canada, an infidel; but how the very training itself sobered his thought, and solemnized his spirit, and how in the trenches, face to face with the last and most dreaded foe, he had instinctively turned to God.One of the chaplains at the front, writing about the religious convictions there, says: “The top levels, as it were, of their consciousness are much filled with grumbling and foul language and physical occupations; but beneath lie deep spiritual springs, whence issue their cheerfulness, stubbornness, patience, generosity, humility, and willingness to suffer and to die.
There is religion about it, only, often, it is not the Christian religion. It is the expression of a craving for security. Literally it is a looking for salvation.” “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God’’, and he is little less than a fool who says there is no future of spiritual existence and solemn responsibility, and the average young man who takes his place in the front rank of this hell of fire is not going into it spiritually indifferent. He is concerned, and if there ever was an hour when his honest question, “What about my soul?” ought to be honestly answered, it is now!What a pity then, that in answer to this burning question of the day there should be what we shall describe asTHE BABEL OF VOICESDid you ever think of it? When this question was first answered David did not get a satisfactory reply. He put it to Ahimaaz, “Is the young man Absalom safe”? and he answered, “I saw a great tumult but I knew not what it was”.
It was an evasive reply. The King said unto him, “Turn aside and stand here”.
When Cushi came, and the King said unto him, “Is the young man safe”? while the King understood Cushi’s answer, it also was couched in somewhat uncertain meaning.I believe Society has a right to a proper answer to this question, and I am perfectly confident that from some quarters it is not receiving an answer that is truly Divine, or divinely warranted.The agnostic has his answer. I need hardly phrase it, you know it. He says, “I do not know whether he is safe”, and then he takes another step saying, “And nobody else knows.” It is an answer as indolent as egotistical. It is an easy way around problems. It is the way the old Scotchman selected. He said, “When I come to a hard question, brethren, I face it, and then pass around”.
The man who says, “I don’t know”, has given us no information whatever; and when he says nobody does know, he has made an assertion of egotism that is little short of blasphemous, since only God can know what all men know, and when any man assumes to speak for them all, he assumes prerogatives forever impossible to him. We may, therefore, dismiss the agnostic’s reply with no concern, and I doubt if we would be guilty of sin if we dismissed it with scorn; it is an unworthy answer!The infidel also makes reply.
Like the Sadducees of old, he says, “There is no angel or spirit; immortality is not at all assured; the probability is that we die as the beast does, that when the last quiver passes from the body there will be no residuum to be called a soul”. Newell Dwight Hillis, the brilliant Brooklyn minister, illustrates the attitude of the infidel after this manner: “Two classes of men approach immortality just as two groups approach the live electric wire. One man puts on rubber gloves, stands on glass and then denies that there is a living, pulsating current in the dead copper wire. Because he is insulated you cannot make the man believe that the invisible current pulsates at one point into telephonic speech, at another point into radiant light glowing in a bulb, and at another point beyond the ocean in the storm of a battle raging in a foreign continent. Nevertheless the life throbs in that wire, ‘though the man whose hands are insulated denies, scoffs and knows that the other man who is transmuting that invisible life into great achievements is in a state of nervous exaltation and self-deceived. And multitudes of men have insulated themselves against the discovery of God and Christ and personal immortality.” Unfortunately these men often feel called upon to become spokesmen, and they would impress the public with the thought that they are prophets; but let it be remembered that from time immemorial there have been false prophets as well as true; and infidelity has always characterized the former and never the latter.The Liberal creates a special philosophy.
He is the one man who, determined to be abreast of the times, has no hesitancy in speaking novelties. In order to prove that he is up-to-date in everything, theology and philosophy included, he names himself a “Modern”.
This Liberal is the father of a new theology concerning the souls of slain soldiers. New! did I say? “There is no new thing under the sun”. All so-called new theories are simply the revamping of exploded opinions. The Mohammedans have long urged their soldiers to slaughter by saying, “The gates of Paradise are under the shadow of swords. He who dies fighting for the faith will assuredly gain admission there.” The German Fathers of Modernism—the most cultured barbarians known to the centuries of human history—have according to Prof. Bangs, by the way of the pulpit, taught their people that God and the Fatherland are synonymous terms, that eternal life is life continued in the memories of later generations; and that the sting of death is withdrawn when one dies for Germany, and that the only hell to be feared is the foe against whom they have to fight.He is a poor prophet indeed, and a poorer evangel, who would pick up such reeking philosophies and seek by them to stimulate false hopes in the hearts of brave and chivalrous, but non-christian men.
The amazing thing about it all is not to be found in the fact that Horatio Bottomley is foolish enough to affirm, “The soldier who dies heroically wipes out by his glorious death all past sins, and in a moment of matchless glory has made his peace with God”, and unphilosophical enough to call “the cross of valor” “the cross of atonement”, and unscriptural enough to make suffering upon the battle field “a new passport for the realms of mystery which lie beyond the final milestone, on the road of human destiny”, for Mr. Bottomley never had any grip on the Word of God, has never joined with John in pointing his inquiring fellows to “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world”.The amazing thing is that some of our evangelical men, with national and international reputations as soul-winners, should come so nearly adopting Bottomley’s speech as to be equally guilty with him of playing the part of false prophet, teaching another gospel, than that which Prophet and Apostle preached, the Gospel by which the martyrs of two millenniums since triumphed; namely, by “the Blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death”.
It is nowhere written in Scripture that “the shedding of human blood saves the human soul.” When it is said, “without shedding of blood is no remission”, the blood of the Son of God is described and none other. “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved”.What then isTHE BIBLE Under this head let me make three remarks, and in every instance appeal to the Scriptures themselves.The Bible proffers no salvation as a class favor. As between men of rank and lack of rank, men of war and men of peace, the text stands—in God’s sight “there is no difference”. The truth is, “God looketh not on the outward appearance but on the heart”, and in consequence cannot be a “respecter of persons”. Sherwood Eddy is one of the keenest men connected with World-War Y. M. C.
A. work today; it is doubtful if any other man has shown a more intelligent sympathy with the soldier, or a more ardent admiration for him. After paying lofty tribute to the courage of the boys at the front, to the beautiful brotherliness that characterizes their common conduct, to the generosity daily displayed, and the tender-heartedness in their willingness to help a comrade, to share their last rations, their insistence upon the battle-field when wounded that others shall have first attention, their straightforwardness and genuine honesty, their persistent cheerfulness in the midst of monotony, drudgery, suffering, danger, and death, he adds, “But from these virtues we must turn to the vices and weaknesses of the soldier,” and among them he counts “impurity” as the most prevalent, “obscene and profane language sweeping like an epidemic through the camps”, “drunkenness” a daily danger, “gambling” as a hindrance and a hurt; and for any man to deny that these things are sin, or to affirm that sin is no longer a transgression of the law, or to argue that since men are now at war, God looks with favor upon sin, or else agrees to forget it, and that His old requirement, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish”, is annulled and made void, is to excite more than a theological controversy.
It should bring upon the men teaching it the contempt of the soldiers themselves; in their secret souls they know better; they know perfectly well that sin is just as black when committed by a soldier as when committed by a civilian, that the wages of it is just as hard to bear in the boy on the battle-field, as by the brother left at home, that the end of it will be death for him as surely as for the young man who stood at his side in physical examination and was refused the privilege of going to the front in France! In other words, he knows that the Bible has no hint that warriors, even when they fight in the best and most blessed of causes, become independent of God’s righteous laws, or secure thereby a passport into that heaven from which we are taught that the “fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars” (mark it ministers) will be excluded (Revelation 21:8).The Bible nowhere approves self-salvation. When Horatio Bottomley calls on soldiers, saying, “So come sinners all—not on your knees at the stool of repentance, but straight to the battle-field—erect, manly, resolute—to join in the great fight which will give you your permit to enter what can be expressed in no better words than the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’,” he blatantly takes issue with the greatest Apostle that ever walked the earth, namely Paul, who distinctly taught, and repeatedly emphasized the truths, “By the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified”, and we are not saved “of works, lest any man should boast”.Andrew Jackson was a great warrior, but Andrew Jackson was also a fair student of the Scriptures. The story is told that a pioneer preacher was booked to preach in a certain church, and President Jackson, having stopped over night in the vicinity, attended the service. A Deacon saw him, and recognizing him, quickly conferred with the preacher; he informed him of the presence of President Jackson and requested him to be very guarded in his remarks lest he should say something that might offend the President. Preliminary to his discourse the minister remarked, “I understand that Andrew Jackson is with us today, and I am asked to be guarded in my remarks lest the President should be displeased, but I want to preface my discourse by saying that Andrew Jackson will go to hell as quickly as any other man if he does not repent.” At the conclusion of the sermon President Jackson went forward and said, “Sir, if I had a regiment of men like you, I could whip the world.” I believe that the present-day lad who lines up for his country is courageous enough to want to see courage in others, and I do not believe he would want me to play the coward and tell him that his soul was safe, in order that I might have a stand-in with him.
I think he would hold me in contempt if I taught him anything but the truth; and the truth is that “no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me”, and the truth is that Christ is “the Way” to Heaven, and the only Way; and the truth is that “God now commandeth all men every where to repent”; and are promised, “Whosoever shall call on the Name of the Lord shall be saved”.This leads me to my final declaration:Christ, and Christ alone, is the soldier’s hope of salvation. The average soldier believes that.
Woe to the man who dissuades him from that truth. Sherwood Eddy reports that about one out of ten among the soldiers is a devoted, consistent and even aggressive, follower of Christ; and he knows that about one man out of ten is a devoted, consistent and ardent follower of the devil in all his ways. That would leave eight out of ten average, middle men. The first of these ten knows the Lord, and is able to help others to Him; the second of these ten, as a rule, does not want to know the Lord, and will not have Christ to rule over him. The other eight are among the salvable. But even that worst man might also be saved, if he could see himself as God sees him, and seek the salvation that God offers him.
Gipsy Smith tells us that he met one soldier who said to him, “Smith, I don’t know how to pray.” “Well”, Smith said, “tell God the truth about yourself,” and instantly the fellow dropped on his knees and cried, “Oh, God, you know I am a rotter”. Smith says, “That man found the Lord.” That is what we would expect.
You remember the parable of the two that went up to the Temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a Publican. “The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank Thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this Publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess”. And God turned His back and closed His ears, but when He heard the other cry breaking from the Publican’s lips, “God be merciful to me a sinner”, He faced about and received and justified him!Soldiers and civilians alike; you see your way! Listen again to Christ while He voices it for you— “I am the Way”. When the great Dr. Jowett was about to leave New York, he bore a testimony in the presence of his ministerial brethren, paying his tribute to Christ as the only Hope of the world, and presenting the grace and the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.
A little book entitled, “The Comrade in White,” shows Jesus in No Man’s Land, tenderly lifting the wounded and bearing them back to places of safety, holding to their lips refreshment, and looking His love into their dying eyes. And it presents the same Jesus as becoming Messenger to break the news involved in the day’s casualty list, but breaking it with such gentleness as to take away bereavement.
The same “Comrade in White” is visiting the maimed, talking with them until they forget their bitterness, and praising God for the privilege of suffering with Him. Suddenly appearing in the little circle of boys that had been compelled to remain behind, but who had promised their leader—gone to the front—to conduct weekly a prayer meeting for him, He thereby fulfilled His pledge that “Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them”.That is the kind of a Christ I am preaching today, a Christ who so loved us as to give Himself for us, dying that we might live; a Christ who so loves us as never to forget us in the dark days or be absent from us when the bullet strikes, or absent from the home ones when bereavement is their portion, or the whole ones when prayer is their engagement. Recently, in a great Convention in Atlantic City, I heard one of the sweetest things to which it has been my lot to listen since the war began. The fellows had gathered in the Y. M. C.
A. hut in one of America’s camps. The entertainment of the evening was a moving picture.
At the close of it, however, the Y. M. C. A. Secretary suggested the singing of a hymn—“All Hail the Power of Jesus Name.” That finished, there instantly flashed on the screen Hoffman’s Christ. Immediately a young officer rose from his seat and stood at attention ! Every eye of the great crowd of fellows was fixed upon him. Then, saluting the picture, he said, “Boys, He is my Captain—the Captain of my salvation!”