Ephesians 5

Ephesians 5:1-20

THE THREE OF THE ’S WALK Ephesians 5:1-20IN this study we part company from the man of chapters. It is commonly understood that the chapters in our Bible are purely man-made, and the divisions suggested thereby are often more mechanical than logical. When, in the fifth chapter, one passes the twentieth verse he comes upon a new subject, and passes from the Church to the domestic realm. Following again the line of our theme we find that these twenty verses are characterized by a threefold use of the word “walk”; and consequently we have been led to entitle this study “The Three Features of the Believer’s Walk,” and the phrases that introduce these features are these: “Walk in love” (Ephesians 5:2); “Walk as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8); and “Walk circumspectly” (Ephesians 5:15).In a wonderful way these three phrases compass the believer’s course, and I may aid you in retaining the suggestions of these phrases by discussing them under the three heads—“Walk in Perfect Love, Walk in Present Light, and Walk by a Prudent Look.WALK IN PERFECT LOVE “Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; “And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour” (Ephesians 5:1-2). A short sentence will somewhat fully compass these two verses.Let Christ be your copy! The word translated “followers of God” here is even better phrased “imitators of God.” We are justified, therefore, in our suggestion that Christ be our copy, since Christ is the “express image of the Father”, and only as we come into fellowship with Him can we know God. It was Christ “offering Himself for us”, “a sacrifice to God”, that was a revelation of the Father’s heart.In the light of this act John 3:16, “God so loved the world” became meaningful; and it is in the acceptance of this sacrifice—“a sweetsmelling savour to God”—that we have the assurance of the acceptability of our service when rendered in the Saviour’s spirit.The highest type of service, therefore, possible to the performance of a Christian must be inspired by affection and at the same time involve a sacrifice. Such an act in God’s sight is of great price and can never be forgotten. Judas, in his deadness to spiritual things, did not appreciate this pertinent truth! When Mary of Bethany came with her costly offering for the head of the Master, he complained that it might have been sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor, little realizing that an act of such love would bear fruit in the poor’s behalf far exceeding that sum.

The centuries, however, have demonstrated the unthinkable proportions of a sacrifice permeated by love, and the poor of the world have been gainers by it thousands upon thousands of times, and in a measure past computation. Sometime since I was in an Eastern city at the edge of which is located a struggling Bible School.

Two brothers of an adjoining town began a year or two ago to endow the institution by setting aside a certain cash sum as an interest payment so that the school might have the accrued benefits therefrom, as from all endowment. But who can compute the interest upon Mary’s gift, prompted by the love of God and loyalty to Christ? And who can tell what are to be the final fruits of affectionate endeavors? Truly, as Prof. Findlay has said: “Every act of love rendered to Him deepens the channel of sympathy by which relief and blessing come to sorrowing humanity.”But this walk in perfect love involves a second suggestion, namely—Let cleanness be your custom.“Fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints: “Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. “For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean Person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God” (Ephesians 5:3-5). It is evident that the Apostle, writing by the pen of inspiration, included in this denunciation both physical and moral uncleanness. Most men readily consent to the uncleanness of fornication, and pass just sentence upon the whoremonger; but, in the judgment of the Apostle, “foolish talking” and “jesting” and “covetousness, which is idolatry”, belong in the same category of unclean things, and the people guilty of them, as those guilty of the former iniquities, are declared disinherited from “the kingdom of Christ and of God”.There is, then, a befouling of the body; and there is also a besmirching of the soul. Leprosy— which was the expression of the first, was none the less the symbol or type of the second; and Christianity is known to be the foe of both! In fact, we have long had a saying “cleanliness is next to godliness,” and while there is no biblical phrase corresponding with this remark, there is abundant authority in the Book for believing that Christianity and cleanness are well nigh synonymous. We are told that when Mary Moffatt, wife of the great missionary Robert, began to have conversions among the poor down-trodden women of Africa, the husbands came to Moffatt and said that they could no longer afford to have conversions continue, for their wives required too much soap and calico! In other words, cleanness and clothing came as the instant resultant of Christ’s reception.

Seven dippings in the Jordan river resulted in clean flesh for Naaman; but nothing short of the baptism of the Spirit can result in a clean soul for any man. In the sight of man, “who looketh on the outward appearance”, a clean body well nigh suffices; but in the sight of God, “who looketh on the heart”, a clean soul is even more essential. “Fornication” is physical adultery, but “covetousness” is spiritual adultery; the first is committed in the flesh against one’s fellow, the second is committed in spirit against one’s God.

If you would know why God speaks of this as “filthiness” also, and affirms it as rendering one too unclean to make possible any inheritance in His Kingdom, let a man, goaded on by inordinate greed of gain, by misrepresentation and other lying methods, take money from your pockets, and as you think of him afterward, you will know the exact meaning of this text. His presence affects you as would the presence of a physical leper, and you would feel less befouled if you went into a pest house and shook hands with a man who had the smallpox than you would feel if you had to touch the fingers that yesterday filched your pocket. How else, then, can God think of covetousness than to condemn it, for if the robbery of man is unclean how much more the conduct that robs God, keeping back His tithe and appropriating it to our personal advantage?But the Apostle has not yet finished the discussion of this walk in perfect love! He makes a third suggestion, namely—Let discernment be your keeper. “Let no man deceive you with vain words; for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them” (Ephesians 5:6-7). The longer one lives the more he marvels at the number of people who can be deceived, and the ease with which it is accomplished.

You remember that our leading showman Barnum once declared that the American public liked to be humbugged. It is not strange that the children of Satan are easy subjects of deception, for their father is a liar from the beginning; but the very fact that one has received Christ ought to make that devil’s deed more difficult.There are certain kinds of fish in the northern lakes that will take any bait, but they are not the best kind.

You can rig up what you please and pull it through the water and the pickerel will bite; but good fish behave with more intelligence and exercise more discernment. I have sometimes thought that we could almost tell now what the line of division between the good and the bad will be in the last day by the fact that men who know God and His Word are not attracted to every fad that comes into view, nor caught by every suggestion spoken in the name of “science” or uttered in the name of professed “patriotism.”Years ago Prof. Findlay said of certain men in the old country, “If these men have their way and European society renounces the authority of God, how quickly will that tree of God’s planting, the vast growth of Christian virtue and beneficence, wither to its topmost bough; and the next storm will bring it to the ground, with all its stately strength. Unbelief in God lays the ax at the root of human society.” And lately on the fields of Europe, we had the confirmation of Findlay’s fears; and yet, so easily are men deceived that America is not learning her lesson, but with all the rapidity consequent upon her prosperity and powers, she is walking into the same deadly trap in which the devil has already taken one half the nations of the earth. He told them that the “way of peace” was to “prepare for war” and they foolishly believed it. And yet, the uncovering of that deception before our very eyes is not sufficient to correct either our judgment or our conduct.

Truly, as Findlay continued, “Since Jesus Christ our forerunner entered the heavenly places, the anchor of human hopes has been cast within the veil; if that anchor drags there is no other that will hold. The rocks are plain to see on which our richly freighted ship of life will flounder.

Without the religion of Jesus Christ, our civilization is not worth a hundred years’ purchase.”Oh, Paul! you put a better policy before the Christian world when you besought them against such devilish practices, and warned them against “the wrath of God”, destined to come upon “the children of disobedience”.WALK IN PRESENT LIGHT The Apostle’s injunction is ‘Walk as children of light”. He pleads for the essentials to the walk in that light. Let us take note of some of them.Profit by past darkness. There is an intimate relation between the seventh and eighth verse: “Be not ye therefore, partakers with them. For ye were sometimes darkness”. Jesus tells us that when “the eye is evil the body also is full of darkness”, and enjoins us to take heed, therefore, that the light which is in us be not darkness.

The world is full of men and women who imagine that they have light, but it is not the light that illumines any spiritual path, the rays of which reach the bounds of the soul at all. One never realizes this fact until he has found the true Light; then he looks back upon the light in which he formerly walked with veritable shuddering.

Bishop Whipple, Apostle to the North American Indians, said, “An Indian came six hundred miles to visit me at my home. When he reached the door he knelt at my feet and said, I kneel to tell you of my gratitude that you pitied the Red Man!’” He then told in a simple, a straightforward way of how he had been a wild man, living far beyond the Turtle Mountains. He knew his people were perishing. He said, “I never looked into the face of my little child without making my heart sick. My father had told me that there was a Great Spirit, and I have often gone to the woods and tried to ask Him for help, and I only got the sound of my voice”. And then the Indian looked into Bishop Whipple’s face and said, “You do not know what I mean!

You never stood in the dark and reached out your hand and took hold of nothing.”But the Red Man was mistaken; that is what every unregenerate man is compelled to do. What a change, therefore, to come out of such a curtained night into the bright day of God’s light.

It is doubtful if, of all the miracles wrought by Jesus Christ, there was any one that so impressed its subject as the healing of the blind; and we do not marvel that when the blind man near Jericho had his sight given him, that he not only followed Jesus but went glorifying God; nor yet that all the people, when they saw it, gave praise unto God! And yet, that matchless miracle was but a slight type of the more marvelous change yet accomplished when the darkened soul is brought into the light of God! It is an experience never to be forgotten and the memory of it ought to be not alone to our profit, but to God’s praise.The man who experiences it ought to find himself ready and willing to obey the Apostle’s injunction and walk as a child of light; in other words—We should practice present light. Paul tells us how we may do that; by the exercise of “goodness” and “righteousness” and “truth” which are fruits of the illuminating spirit. Each of these words suggests a separate grace, and the three of them combine in making Christian character. The first of these is a fundamental of the Christian life.

It is hard for the world to believe that a man is a Christian man unless he be a “good” man. In the early history of the church Barnabas was an outstanding disciple and of him it is written, “He was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith, and much people was added unto the Lord”.

Jesus said, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good”. And again, “For a good man, peradventure, some would even dare to die”.Somebody has illustrated the vitality of good deeds by telling of a traveler in the south of Spain, who, coming at night-fall under the heights of Granada, wearied with the long journey, heard the splash and ripple and murmur of running waters by the side of the dusty road; and on investigation, discovered that they were the irrigating streams whose channels had been cut five centuries before by the Moors. The empire of the Moors had fallen, their creed had been suppressed by fire and sword, their splendid palaces were now a mass of ruins, but the streams of water with which they refreshed the thirsty places and turned a desert into a garden, still flowed on. So it is with goodness; it opens a fountain which brings freshness and fertility to our hearts and to all lives touched by its benign influence.But to “goodness” the Apostle adds “righteousness”. This, while an equal essential to the practice of present light, is a more austere and forbidding virtue. “For a righteous man scarce would one die”. He is a man who will have no wrong, who will not endure its practice in his presence, who will not be silent at the sight of it, who holds in contempt the superficial and the sentimental, and demands the justice of the genuine.

Such people are not popular as a rule with their fellows who want to live a life of ease, of luxury, and possibly of lust; but they are approved of God; and the application is wider than the individual, for “righteousness exalteth a nation”.But to these two must be added “truth!” We have come upon a time in which thousands of men, and not a few of them ministers of the Gospel, are disposed to believe that if one is “good” —by which men mean, “correct in habit”, it makes little difference what philosophies or opinions he may entertain or seek to propagate. And yet, the declaration of the Apostle is that “truth” is also a fruit of the Spirit; and it is a scientific axiom that “truth is the most intolerant of all possible things.” No man can be spiritually free who does not know “the truth;” and no man should attempt to be a spiritual instructor who does not believe the truth, and we have a plain declaration concerning God’s Book—“Thy Word is truth”.

The man, therefore, who disputes the authority of that Book does more than injure himself; if you will pardon my coining a phrase—he unChrist’s himself. Joseph Cook, in one of his poems says:“Light obeyed increaseth light, Light resisted bringeth night. Who shall give me will to choose, If the love of light I lose?” Ward Beecher must have been thinking along the very line of Cook’s statement—“Light obeyed increaseth light,” and “Light resisted bringeth night”—when he said to the people of Plymouth Church, “We have here a large organization for diffusing knowledge, and we are brought to a standstill in many respects because we have here people who are not willing to take their light and use it. There is in this congregation a vast amount of educated ability that is rotting in sentimental selfishness, which is only another way of putting before the church-men the difference between profession and possession, between living in the true light and radiating the same forth, shining by a borrowed light into the dark places of the world as the moon shines upon the earth, or on the other hand giving occasion to Christ’s words “If the light that is in thee he darkness; how great is that darkness”.But the Apostle makes another appeal, namely, thatWe prove the light, and reprove darkness. He expresses it in the words, “Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness; but rather, reprove them”. Now, the proof of light is in our behaviour before others, and the reproof of darkness in our attitude toward others. But let it be understood that a man, in order to reprove darkness, does not need to fly like a fury into every face upon which the shadows have fallen. The fact is that silent reproof is often more effective than a spoken one, and Paul beseeches these Ephesian Christians to reprove by works rather than by words; and reminds them that “it is a shame even to speak of those things” which are done by the unregenerate in secret. “But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light; for whatsoever doth make manifest is light”.

In other words, the way to shame a sinner’s conduct is to set it in the presence of sinlessness; the way to reprove sin is to practice holiness. In my youth I knew a young man who was famed for the fact that he never spake unkindly of his neighbors, and I noted, even then, that other people seldom passed calumny in his presence.

A recent writer tells of another who always refused to listen to calumny. If one began to voice it in his presence he would straightway leave the circle. He never said a word, but in silence he took his hat and went. He was not a cynic. Under ordinary and righteous circumstances his face was a sheen, wreathed in smiles; but the moment his companions turned to uncomplimentary phrases regarding others, there was a silence and he was gone. You can easily imagine the result; his ears were not assailed by many calumnies.

It is reported that Archbishop Leighton once said that “if nobody took calumny in and lodged it, it would starve and die of itself.”Returning then, to our text, we restate the Apostle’s appeal, that we profit by our past darkness, that we practice our present light, and that we prove light and reprove darkness. “Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that steepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light”. That is the portion of the quickened soul.Finally,WALK BY A PRUDENT LOOK “See then that ye walk circumspectly”. You know the meaning of the word “circumspectly”—looking ahead, and looking around,—taking in your surroundings, to such an extent that you will not be stumbling over stones in the way or falling into pits, or putting your feet into traps. In the language of the Apostle, “Walk not as fools, but as wise”.Wisdom should characterize the Christian. It is no excuse to say, “I was not born with the illumination of wisdom”, if one has been “born again.” As a son of God, he has claims upon the Father’s promises: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him”. The children of darkness are hardly condemnable when they stumble; the path before their eyes is invisible! It should not be so with the “children of light”.

And yet, the times are evil; the arch-enemy of the Christian is mighty and the lesser foes are a multitude, and nothing short of carefulness will keep the Christian’s feet from slipping, his profession from being turned to hypocrisy and his standing to a fall. And yet, in view of the promises of God to grant wisdom to those who seek it, what excuse have we for failure? Have we come to doubt the words of Solomon,“Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth. “Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee. “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. “Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her. “She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee” (Proverbs 4:5-9)? In fact, when one watches the course of this age, he realizes how much it needs to hear Solomon again, who after having walked in both ways, came back to tell his people that “in the light of the king’s countenance is life; and his favour is as a cloud of the latter rain” and to remark “How much better is it to get wisdom than gold! and to get understanding rather to be chosen than silver” (Proverbs 16:15-16). “Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is”.Wantonness should insult the spiritual. “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit”. This Scripture certainly had a wider interpretation, however, than intemperance and drunkenness. The great principle of spirituality as opposed to carnality is involved in the sentence. We are fully persuaded that the carnality of this present time does not run even chiefly to excess in drunkenness. The more one looks upon society and realizes the difficulty of distinguishing by their conduct the men who name the Name of Christ from those who have no fellowship with the Church whatever, the more he will be sympathetic with a recent writer who calls much of this conduct “the new unrighteousness” and who says, “The essence in the new sin is betrayal rather than aggression,” and declares, “The little finger of chicanery has come to be thicker than the loins of violence.” To illustrate: If you want to pick the pockets of a fellow do it by a railway rebate instead of with fingers, and you escape all the opprobrium that follows upon the latter course. If you want to murder a man for money, do not employ the old time bludgeon but sell an adulterated food, and you can do the deed just as effectively and profit by it to the extent of millions, and move in the “elect” circles.

If you want to burglarize a house, do not employ a jimmy or as brutal a looking thing as a pistol, but meet the head of it in his office and put up a twenty minute lie about the advantages of your insurance company and take away his money, as I had a man do with me recently. If you want to get rich faster still, do not scuttle your ship, but scuttle your town and take the profits from special legislation.

Truly, does this writer say, “The stealings and slayings that lurk in the complexities of our social relations are not deeds of the dive, the dark alley, the lonely road and the midnight hour. They require no nocturnal prowling with muffled step and bated breath; no weapon nor offer of violence. Unlike the old-time villain, the latter-day malefactor does not wear a slouch hat and a comforter, breathe forth curses and an odor of gin; go about his nefarious work with clenched teeth and an evil scowl.” And man, if you would steal from your fellow his light, get him to give up his personal God and worship a principle, surrender the Saviour in exchange for a term—Truth, and the personality of the Holy Spirit in barter for the promise of mental peace; smile while you lie and the thing is easy. That is the “newer unrighteousness.” And Satan never did his best until he cast away his mask of darkness and assumed an angel’s veil of light. No wonder the Apostle urges us to walk “circumspectly” and expects us to behave not as “fools but as wise”, “redeeming the time” since the “days are evil”.But He expects even better; He expects us to speak to one another in “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord”.In other words He expects salvation to express itself in a song. Why should He not expect it?

It has always been so! The saved saints have something to sing about, and you cannot take that something away.

You may put them into prison; you may manacle their hands, chain their feet; but in that midnight prison those in the adjoining cells will hear Paul and Silas voicing themselves in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. It is the rapture of an indwelling spirit; it is the voice of expectancy keyed to the note of praise. Henry Crocker tells about his friend Scott Dixon, the negro who was known as “Scotty” and who used to keep a lunch-room in a railroad station in Rhode Island. Scotty was very popular and was known everywhere as a sincere Christian and a true gentleman. When he was a young man Scotty paid his master a definite sum annually and was permitted to have whatever he could make beyond that. He found employment in a large iron works and became skilled in the handling of the forge and the delicate work of judging when the steel was rightly tempered, or when the metal had reached just the right heat to be worked.

At his bidding the heavy forges were swung from the fire to the anvil and beaten into the desired shape under the blows of four sledge hammers, swung by as many brawny men. The establishment was a large one and the number of workers so many that the noise was great.

One morning Scotty came to his work with a heavy heart. Sin rested upon him and darkened everything. The smoke and din of the great factory only added to his depression. Everything was loud and his burden beyond his strength. Then for a few minutes he left his forge and stealing away to a back shed, he knelt and lifted his soul to God in the prayer of the penitent sinner. The response was instant. Great peace came into his soul, and a joy that was as great as his pain had been. He went back to the factory, and in speaking of it in later life he said, “Never can I forget the music that greeted me!

The whole air was filled as with the sound of bells. The ring of those anvils was the sweetest music I had ever heard. They all seemed to be singing a chorus, an anthem of praise to God.” It is little wonder then that the converts to Christ have always expressed themselves “in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” and Paul’s plea will, with the spiritual, find an easy response. Like the Psalmist of old, when we have sung to the best of our endeavor we will appreciate that our praise is all too small, and will call upon the hosts of earth and of heaven, and say, “Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord”!

Ephesians 5:21-33

THE APPEAL TO THE FAMILY Ephesians 5:21 to Ephesians 6:9IN taking up this additional lesson from the Ephesian Epistle, one finds no occasion to change from the threefold basis upon which the entire study has proceeded. We here have the threefold appeal to the family. Since this Epistle is distinctly a Church Epistle, the family herein described is necessarily a Christian family. Quite truly, as Dr. Alexander Maclaren said, “In the family, Christianity has most signally displayed its power of dignifying, honoring and sanctifying earthly relations. Indeed that domestic life, as seen in thousands of Christian homes, is truly a Christian creation.” The unity, integrity and sanctity of the household was never fully seen or clearly admitted save by those who, being students of God’s Word, caught the Divine conception. Of all the peoples of the earth the Jewish and Christian, alone, have conceived and accomplished the ideal family.In that relationship as here discussed by the Apostle, he discovers Wives and Husbands, Children and Parents, Slaves and Masters! That is the threefold relationship of a single house. He makes his appeal to each of these in turn.First of all toWIVES AND Let me here remark that whether one believes in verbal inspiration or not; whether he thinks that the Epistle is Paul’s creation or the dictation of the Holy Ghost, he must be impressed with a double order that the Apostle here introduces. And, we are inclined to think that if one study this order carefully he will be compelled to admit that it is also a Divine order. Purposely wives, children and servants are placed in one class; husbands, parents and masters in another. From the first the Apostle demands submission. On the part of the second he counsels a careful and generous administration. In each instance he speaks to the weaker first and to the stronger later; and there is an implication that wives and children and servants are first in need of counsel, while husbands and parents and masters are in no wise infallible in conduct.If we are to listen to the Scriptures at least three things are definitely determined.The wife’s submission is here clearly commanded!“Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the Head of the Church, and He is the saviour of the body” (Ephesians 5:22-23). Doubtless some will smile that so old-fashioned a notion should even be brought forward at this time in the twentieth century, and others will declare that this Bible teaching is a touch of the barbarism of the day in which the Apostle lived and wrote. But I beg you to withhold both judgments until you have given consideration to what is involved in this plain teaching of Scripture. Some of us believe that the marvel of Revelation is its accord with reason, and the proof of inspiration is in scientific accuracy; and, strange as it may sound to say it, I am fully persuaded that here reason and revelation speak together and the counsel of an Apostle is approved by the course of history. It is doubtful whether there has ever been a single instance of the reversal of this teaching of revelation that has resulted well. In fifty years of observation we cannot recall one case where the women ruled the home and the man was the vassal of her will and word, and both were content, and the family a model. In fact, we could go further and say that we have never known a woman, no matter how weak her husband was, who took the headship of the house and maintained it as her right, who was herself half satisfied, or at all spiritual.

I am inclined to think that the great Alexander Maclaren had it right when he declared, “No woman ever had a satisfactory wedded life who does not look up to and reverence her husband. * * For its full satisfaction a woman’s heart needs to serve where it loves.” We know women who are neglected, maltreated and tyrannized over by indifferent, vindictive and brutal men, who are more positively content with life itself and keep a more feminine and affectionate spirit than do their sisters who live in affluence, command every situation, give orders to competent husbands, as they would give them to slaves, and in modern parlance “run the ranch.” Twenty-five years ago, I became a woman suffragist and as opportunities have risen, I have advocated the vote as a woman’s right. Today I seriously doubt whether I have had either reason or revelation to back up my opinions upon that subject.

A study of this text, and related Scripture, has shaken my convictions, and I have been compelled to ask myself the question if the woman who modestly and with the spirit of reverence for her husband, and in a sweet enslavement for her children, influences the house as she can do only when she occupies such a place and exercises such a spirit, is not already the determining factor in social and political life? She, who holds the heart of her husband and controls the conduct of her sons, governs the state. She does it directly, positively, and gloriously. If she fails to do these two things, she thereby proves her unfitness to rule in the state.It is said that there are exceptions to all rules, but the Apostle is careful not to pronounce an exception here. It is a real question whether history has created one. I have in mind at this moment two people who have lived as husband and wife half a century.

The woman is physically and mentally the stronger member of that union, but in fifty years she has never once made the husband feel that fact. She counsels with him as carefully as though he were a Gladstone in intellect, and reverences him as truly as though he were a prince, and the sweetness of the relationship is at once an inspiration and an ensample.

Such women find little difficulty in sanctifying even unbelieving husbands, and after all, that is the greatest work that any wife can accomplish. When eternity breaks, presiding over public assemblies in stunning gowns, making eloquent speeches, playing the part even of a Washington picket in the interests of suffrage, will look mighty small, if the whole of it has resulted in the husband’s spiritual demoralization, and in spiritual death to the neglected souls of the children. God has spoken. “The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the Head of the Church”, and whenever the Church forgets the worship of Christ and assumes to be itself ruler in all spiritual things, ecclesiastical anarchy is the result; and, the disaster to spiritual things is no greater than a reversal of this Divine relation is disastrous to the domestic realm. “Therefore, as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives submit themselves unto their own husbands in every thing”.But Paul did not stop here; he would be a poor preacher if he did. No household would be complete, and no family would be ideal without the proper headship; hence the necessity of counsel to husbands!Affection is the first law of a husband’s life.“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; “That He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, “That He might present it to Himself a glorious Church not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. “For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church: “For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh” (Ephesians 5:25-31). We would think it almost strange that Paul does not counsel a wife to love her husband. Here is another proof of the inspiration of our text. Women seldom need to be counselled to love:“Love is of man’s life, a thing apart, ’Tis woman’s whole existence!” Her temptation, as a rule, is not so much to fail at the point of affection; the fact that she is a woman fairly secures her there! Her whole nature reinforces her affectionate conduct! Her temptation is to quit her realm and lord it over all.On the other hand, the husband is made to rule. In his very creation God gave to him the governing spirit, and there is danger that our natural talents should expand to the point where the less natural, but equally desirable ones, shall be crowded out. Affection is not so natural to man as it is to woman; but if he is to live in the marriage relation it is even more needful. His very masculinity may tempt him to too many mandates, and his conscious physical power may tempt him to be a conscienceless potentate, if not a tyrant!

I have known men, and I now know some, who at the office, in the place of business, are smiling and sweet the whole day long, suave and civil to every patron approaching them, but when they once turn in at home they are critical, caustic and even contemptible. Such men cannot lift their wives in spiritual things, as Christ exalted the Church, and will not, in the last day, present them as trophies of their grace, as He will present His Bride, the Church, whom He hath redeemed by His own Blood.The longer I live the more I am persuaded that the average husband is making a mistake at the very point where he has supposed himself to be most successful. He can delve sixteen hours a day, and coin a mint of money and construct a beautiful house, and have it swept about by a great and attractive lawn, and multiply his automobiles and increase the number of his servants, and every bit of it will be accepted by the woman who is his mate as her natural right, and then when he has no time left in which to be tender and gentle and gracious and complimentary as in the old days of his poverty and wooing, she is almost certain to conclude that his affection has gone. If I had the counsel of young men, entering upon married life, I should advise that if they want domestic happiness, stay on the basis of comparative poverty; but multiply tender expressions, continue in gracious conduct, and, above all things, forget not the potency of manners and flowers. Paul may have been a bachelor, and some may say “he knew nothing on the subject of domesticity;” but God was not ignorant, and when by the Holy Ghost, He moved Paul to say these things he was stating the absolute essentials of wedded success!In these mutual relations there exists a symbol of mystery.“This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church. “Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband” (Ephesians 5:32-33). The word “mystery” is here properly employed; and yet there are some points of parallelism between the relation of husband and wife and Christ and His Church, that are not difficult to trace. According to the first Book in the Old Testament the side of man was opened to make the wife possible; according to the first Book in the New Testament the side of Christ was opened to make the Church possible. According to the Old Testament the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam that that painful process might be accomplished; according to the New Testament the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon Christ that the Church might be brought to her birth. According to the Old Testament the woman was a very part of Adam; according to the New Testament the Church is a very part of Christ. According to the Old Testament Adam and Eve became one flesh; according to the New Testament Christ and the Church are also one; He is the Head and she is the body. According to the Old Testament Adam deliberately chose to share the destiny of Eve, brought about by sin.

According to the New Testament, Christ deliberately determined to suffer the sentence that had been justly passed upon “His-own!” According to the Old Testament the promises of redemption made to Adam were shared in by Eve. According to the New Testament, the redemption wrought by Christ is enjoyed to the full by the Church.Prof. Findlay had a biblical basis for saying, “The bond that links husband and wife, lying at the basis of collective human existence, has in turn its ground in the relation of Christ to humanity.” He sees a similitude that runs through this entire Scripture and finds in the bath of the bride a type of the washing of the Church by “the water of the Word”, as well as a symbol of the baptismal rite which typifies a cleansing of the filth of the soul, and suggests a clean commencement in the experience of grace; and, as Christ and His redeemed Church work together for the salvation of the world, so husband and wife are to work together for the salvation of the house. Louis Albert Banks said what we have often noted, “Out in the western mountains, every train up the grade is drawn by two locomotives. It requires the combined power of two engines to reach the summit. So the building of a true home is a matter of such tremendous importance, and the difficulties in the way are so many and so complicated, that it requires the combined forces of husband and wife to accomplish it.”But the Apostle passes toCHILDREN AND PARENTS There is little occasion for the introduction of a chapter here! It would be far more fitting to have put that break between verses twenty-one and twenty-two of chapter five; or better yet, not to have created it at all. “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth”.The child is to be both obedient and filial. He is to take commands and execute them. But his spirit, while about it, is to be expressed by the phrase “Honour thy father and thy mother”. There may be one exception in the matter of obedience, and that is when the parent’s command clashes with the plain will of God. “Ye ought to obey God rather than men”!

There are no exceptions to the demand that father and mother are to be “honored.” I have heard people say, “I cannot honor my father, he is a drunken lout.” “I cannot honor my mother, she is an ignorant wench!” And yet, I have known people who were big enough and sweet enough to honor unworthy parents! And, on the other hand, I have known children who, just because they happened to know more of geometry than father does, or speak a better English than mother is capable of uttering, straightway imagine that they no longer have any occasion of honoring the parents that brought them into being, loved them with an unutterable affection, sacrificed to make their successes possible, denied self for the children’s sake, and stood ready at any moment to die even in the babe’s behalf.The times upon which we have come have so many suggestions of the end of this age that one can hardly call into question the world’s approach to an awful catastrophe; and yet with the “wars, and rumors of wars”, “famine”, “pestilence”, defection from the faith, profession of religion without the power of it, no one of these is more marked than the spirit of insubordination which characterizes the twentieth century.

Men and women alike are revolting against government; socialism is in the ascendency, and anarchism is too often its animating spirit; and, I suppose that when the truth is known, we will discover that all of this has had its birth in “disobedience to parents” which is now common, the world over, and which is one of the greatest curses of the hour. It may be possible that parents are to blame in having relaxed parental authority, in having swung from the old extreme of tyrannical government to the misplaced tenderness of the present time. But the fact of insubordination is no longer debatable; too much liberty has resulted in license. Love without law may express “Science and Health,” but it is not in line with the Scriptures; may represent Mrs. Eddy’s babblings but not God’s Book, or God’s behaviour. The child lacking in filial reverence, the child reveling in rebellion, is not only a menace to the peace of the house of which he is a member, but a prophecy of menace to society and to the State, and, eventually, the destroyer of his own soul.

There was a time when the great and good Dr. Johnson walked into the market place at Litchfield bareheaded, and let the cold rain beat upon him, and when the passers by inquired why he thus behaved, he answered, “To punish myself for my disobedience to my dear dead father.” But somehow conscience does not work as clearly now and as effectively as it did in our fore-father’s time; not every child who disobeys mother and rebels against father feels remorse for the same and suffers the stings of conscience in consequence.

Yet this command to obey and to honor is declared by the Apostle to be right, and as long as the relationship of parent to child exists the law of the Lord cannot change; and the dutiful child will find God forever ready to keep His promise, and the obedient child has never yet missed the Divine blessing, nor will he while God sits upon the circle of the heavens, and rules in human affairs.Parents are to be both considerate and Christian. “And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). An irritable father makes inconsiderate children; and a non-Christian mother dooms the spiritual hopes of the house. When Paul wrote his Letter to the Colossians he talked on this same subject, and he said, “Fathers, provoke not your children to anger”—bursts of temper. It is a needful injunction! Sometimes the parent will produce a burst of temper, and the wrong member of the house is punished for its expression. The child has his rights, and they should be regarded, and among them is, that neither father nor mother demand model conduct from children while failing or refusing to set them a fit example.

Authority cannot be eternally retained upon the basis of relationship; but it can be forever kept by a righteous course of conduct. Our friend and former co-laborer, Louis M.

Waterman, has just published a little volume of poems called “Cheery Chimes” in which appears one entitled “God and Dad,” and it reads after this manner:“God likes my Pa a lot, I know, He’s such a dandy chap! If a feller makes a bit of noise He doesn’t care a rap. And after supper, many a time, My Pa he plays with me, At marbles or at mumblypeg, As long as we can see. “Then, just before it gits quite dark, He helps me do my chores; And how we laugh, till folks come out To listen to our roars! God likes my Pa a heap, I know— He’s such a jolly lot; Every time I say: ‘Let’s have some fun!’ He’s Johnny on the Spot! “When Sunday comes and Pa he says: ‘Come, Tom, let’s go to church,’ You bet I go, for do you s’pose I’d leave him in the lurch? Not on your life! And when the men That preach to us allow That God on High is like my Pa, That hits me hard, I vow! “Why, thinkin’ God is like my Pa Makes lumps come in my throat At things I’ve done, till I calls myself A mean and measly shoat! And swear I’ll be more like my Pa So God’ll love me, too, And I pray to Him, down in my heart: ‘Say, God, just help me through!’ “And He sure does! He’s most like Pa— He always comes to time, And never gives a penny when I need a silver dime! God likes my Pa a lot, I know, And I like God, you bet! When I thinks of ‘em—say, don’t you tell— Sometimes my eyes gits wet!” West said, “The consciousness of my mother’s love made me a painter.” In the last analysis the child is like to be a reflection of father and mother. It was this very thought that broke the heart of the late Gen’l Clinton B. Fisk, and brought him to Christ. Mrs. Fisk tells the story, “We were blessed in our home with two children, a son and daughter. It was our joy to each take a child and prepare him or her for bed, always, of course, hearing these dear little people say their prayers.

One evening the General had our little daughter. She knelt at his knee, and asked God to bless father and mother and brother and then, looking up into her father’s face, said ‘Papa, why don’t ’oo pray?’ These words, spoken by the child, so dear to him, broke his heart and brought him to Christ, for he said, ‘If I am to lead her I must go before her’, and from that night he was a redeemed man.”The adult’s future is determined by the child’s fidelity. “Honour thy father and thy mother; which is the first commandment with promise; That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth”.

History is replete with illustrations of this promise perfectly fulfilled. The world has seldom produced great men except out of good children. Almost without exception its out-standing souls have had the promise of greatness in the delightful conduct of the youth. Spurgeon’s mother expected great things of Charles, and John Quincy Adams’ mother great things of John, and Abraham Lincoln’s stepmother great things of the homely lad. Literature is packed with testimonials from great men to the effect that the very parental expectations became the spur to righteous endeavor.Robert Eyton, the English author, in a volume entitled “The Ten Commandments”, in writing in chapter five, which involves the honoring of father and mother, reminds us that here we are face to face with that which changes not, “with no temporary safe-guard for preserving reverence, or giving a distinctive character to a portion of time, but we are face to face with an abiding relationship which will remain while the world lasts, a relationship full of power, full of sweetness on both sides. We are here brought into touch with Joseph, the son of Jacob, and David the son of Jesse, and Jesus the Son of Mary, and Augustine the son of Monica, and with countless others; the filial relationship is eternal.” To fail in it is to cloud the future; to succeed in it is to have a right to claim the eternal promise of God.But Paul passes again, and this time toSLAVES AND MASTERS Some one might rise up to remind us that here the words of the Apostle are out of date, since slavery is abolished; but such would be a very superficial remark. Servants and masters are as much in evidence now as ever. It is doubtful if there will ever be a change until the Millennium comes and makes all men masters, permitting each to sit under his own vine and fig tree. In fact, if reports be true, the Hun has introduced wholesale and brutal slavery into civilization again. And, in this instance, proceeding by brutal force, he has enslaved his superior. But even in our own so-called Christian America, we have servants and masters, and the text teaches three things:Servants should ever be obedient to masters.

As the wife is to be obedient to the husband and as the children are to be obedient to parents, so servants are to be obedient to masters, “according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as unto Christ” (Ephesians 6:5-6). Let us not savagely dissent from this teaching and therefore fail to give it serious consideration.

I have been in the employ of men, and have found it to my personal profit, as well as to their pleasure, to be “obedient in everything” and to render my service, not with reference to “the master’s eyes,” but with “singleness of heart” and with splendid enthusiasm. Had I done less I might have been a servant to this day. The law of the Lord then, is more in the servant’s interest than it is in that of the master. The trouble with a good many people is that they regard too many duties as beneath them. The dignity of labor is not one half so much in the thing done as in the way it is done. A.

J. Gordon, in 1877, in a Moody inquiry meeting, asked a splendid looking man if he were a Christian, and he answered “Yes.” “Then go over to that woman and lead her to Christ.” He turned pale and said, “I couldn’t; I shouldn’t know what to say!” Then Dr.

Gordon himself went, but the woman’s baby was restless and she could not give Dr. Gordon attention. The man, watching, saw the situation, and shortly that big strong fellow went over, gave the baby some sweets, took her in his arms and carried her to the other side of the church and held her for an hour while Dr. Gordon led the woman to Christ. Tending baby, if it be done in such a spirit, is as loyal an engagement for Christ as leading an army against the Germans was for country.Masters should be graciously considerate of their servants. “And ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in Heaven” (Ephesians 6:9). It has been said a thousand times, and always truthfully, that a good master makes a good servant, and the rule is that a gracious master receives gracious service.

An irritable and oppressive master excites rebellion. Some women can never keep a cook, and they are the ones that lodge the most complaints against the servant classes; but if the truth were known the trouble is not one half so much with the incompetence of the employee as it is with the inconsiderate and complaining spirit of the mistress.

With a master, gracious, and a servant, obedient, no sense of injustice is felt on either side. The old colored fellow and family that belonged to my father when the war broke out, could not be driven from the home after the emancipation.Finally, Before God, men are brothers, not slaves and masters. I read a recent tract on “Will Christ come again?” which discredited the authority of sacred Scripture, insisted that to believe the New Testament was to believe that the world was flat, and slavery was desirable, etc. True, Paul does not here say a word against slavery; and yet he enunciates in this very verse a truth destined to destroy it from the face of the earth, namely, that in God’s sight there is no such thing as slavery, since there is “no respect of persons with Him”. New Testament teaching has taken the chains from the ankles of practically every enslaved people in the world. No writer in the New Testament struck it more sledgehammer blows than Paul, possibly Christ excepted.

The writer of that tract was as sadly mistaken and unscriptural about the New Testament and slavery as he was upon the second coming. Truly did the great Alexander Maclaren say of the Gospel which Paul preached, “It has in it opinions which would pull slavery up by the roots.” It was Paul who taught that in Christ Jesus “there is neither bond nor free”.

He was wise enough to know what many of our moderns miss— the way to reform society is to regenerate the individual, the way to produce a civilization that would abolish slavery, bring an end to the saloon, and finally make war upon war itself, is to preach a Gospel of grace and peace. So, as Alexander Maclaren claims, “If Christianity did not set itself to fell this up as tree of slavery, it girdled it, stripped the bark off of it, and left it to die” and that is the way to treat every sin. When this doctrine is accepted, dominating corporations and union labor organizations will find less occasion for controversy and conflict. When this doctrine is accepted tyrannical potentates will no longer be in danger from oppressed peasants; and “autocracy” and “democracy” will be but phrases of past history. The only hope for a Millennium in this poor world rests absolutely with the triumph of the Master’s Gospel and with the triumphant presence of the Master Himself!