Ephesians 6

Ephesians 6:1-9

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!

Ephesians 6:10-20

SOME OF CHURCH Ephesians 6:10-20. THESE are words well adapted to this downtown church. They involve, A Prophet’s Injunction; they suggest, The Christian’s Panoply; and they make, A Mighty Personal Appeal. THE PROPHET’S “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might”. The Church should enjoy Divinely imparted strength. Its conquests can come in no other way. Neither might nor force of arms are sufficient, but rather, the indwelling Spirit of God. The saints of the ages have learned this truth, and some of them have given us in sacred form of language their confidence. It is doubtful if there is any Book in the Old Testament, the spiritual substance of which has nourished the Christian, as has the Book of Psalms. Oh, wonderful men these, speaking there.

Wonderful relationships with the Father are reported by the men of old, and in the reports one discovers their secret of strength. Hear the Psalmist of old, “I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my Rock, and my Fortress, and my Deliverer; my God, my Strength, in whom I will trust; my Buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower”! (Psalms 18:1-2). Then again, David writes, “Be not Thou far from me, O Lord; O my Strength, haste Thee to help me”. You will remember also that there is a psalm in the Book of Habakkuk, of which that Minor Prophet is the author, and in it he says, “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my Strength; and He will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and He will make me to walk upon mine high places” (Habakkuk 3:18-19).

Strength we need!Charles Wesley had this source of strength in mind when he wrote:“Soldiers of Christ, arise, And gird your armor on, Strong in the strength which God supplies Through His eternal Son. “Strong in the Lord of hosts, And in His mighty power, The man who in the Saviour trusts, Is more than conqueror.” The necessity for this strength exists in the devil’s wiles. “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil”. The words are fitly chosen—“the wiles of the devil”. Some of us believe them to be verbally inspired, the description accurate—“the wiles of the devil”. In the exposition of the twentieth chapter of the Book of the Revelation, we once remarked, “The devil grows worse with every passing day,” and when he has reached the acme of evil character, Christ will come to lay hands upon him and bring him to judgment. His growth in evil character takes largely the form of increasing cunning, and through all the centuries he has been thinking out methods of leading sinful men into deeper sin, and even the saints of God into deception. Almost every century reveals some new form of this flagrant endeavor.

The one in which we live is cursed by its materialism—wiles of Satan, looking to the ruin of character and the over-throw of religion. In commerce, materialism alone is to be considered. The amount of money one can make marks his success, without any reference to the morals involved, the oppression incident, the debauchery resulting, or even the slaughter of innocents by the wheels of the Juggernaut of commerce.The same principle is now applied to religion, and men are insisting that it makes no difference how they die; the only thing essential is to live well, by which they do not even mean on a high moral plane, but, rather, with passing pleasure. All of which Philip Mauro, the great Washington attorney-at-law, in his volume “The Number of Man” says, “looks to the advent of that man of sin who will prove to be the sum and consummation of all the centuries of human development and culture; and his coming is to be marked and rendered illustrious by the working of Satan in all mighty work and wonders of falsehood, and in every deceit of unrighteousness in them that perish.”Sometime ago a minister’s subject was entitled, “The Devil’s Dupes.” If one walks the world with observing eyes he is forced to admit they are a multitude. We used to sing a hymn involving the statement, “Foes without and fears within,” but we must admit that in many an instance the foe is within as well as without. Joseph Swain, more than a hundred years ago, saw that truth and gave it expression in verse:“But, of all the foes we meet, None so oft misled our feet, None betray us into sin, Like the foes that dwell within.” It is one of the marks of the last days that Satan shall “deceive even the very elect”. The Apostle does well to guard us against his “wiles”.This foe assumes unexpected forms.“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places”. This sentence involves certain facts which people forget. When the action of a company of men was described as a part of Satan’s work, they resented it as if that identified them with the devil; but let it be understood that Satan knows how to work through a multitude of agencies, even “principalities” and mighty “powers” and “world-rulers,” and hosts of spiritual—occupying heavenly places— are all liable to become his agents. Far be it from us to identify any man, any organization, that now favors the breaking down of the patrol limits of the city, and the giving of larger license to the liquor traffic, with the devil. The men who are advocating this are not demons incarnate; and, yet, profoundly do we believe that at this very point we wrestle not against flesh and blood only, but against the world-rulers whom the devil manipulates, and even some of those who occupy heavenly places. Considered from that standpoint, he takes on mighty proportions, and assumes tremendous strength, sufficient to be feared indeed. And then his methods are so silent, and his motives so sinister it is not easy to uncover them, by which circumstance the spirit of good and all righteous interests are endangered.

Do you not recall Peter’s description of the Adversary, the devil, as a “roaring lion, walking about seeking whom he may devour”? But the lion never roars until he has taken his prey.

This is a fact known to naturalists and confirmed by Scripture. The Psalmist’s description of the lion’s silent hunt is after this manner. Of the wicked, he says, “He lurketh in secret as a lion in his covert; he lieth in wait to catch the prey”. Isaiah speaks of the lion as “roaring on his prey” (Isaiah 31:4). Amos pertinently asks, “Will a lion roar in the forest, when he hath no prey? will a young lion cry out of his den, if he have taken nothing”? David never despised the proportions and strength of Goliath. If he had he would have gone down before him, but remembering the contest with the lion he girded himself against the giant, and went equipped with the instruments of battle which brought him low. And, we have not one enemy, but a multitude, so the Apostle teaches!

We need, therefore, to mark well the words of George Heath:“My soul be on thy guard; Ten thousand foes arise: The hosts of sin are pressing hard To draw thee from the skies.” And the same Prophet who has given us these injunctions has reminded us ofTHE ’S PANOPLY “Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. “Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; “And your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace; “Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. “And take the helmet of salvation, and the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God; “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints”. This panoply is provided against the evil day. That day is on! The battle between the Church of God and the forces of unrighteousness was never so fierce as now. As the time of Satan shortens, his struggles for the overthrow of righteousness will increase. It is a marvel to me how some men can find, out of the merest incident, a scientific demonstration to the improvement of the times. Because preachers fifty years ago would not exchange pulpits, and now they have reached the point there they do so with gladness, and without condemnation of any, is put up as an argument in favor of the improvement of the times! The argument falls a bit short!

Better narrow than to have no convictions. The Church of God in such instances comes to loftier conception of her mission; but evil men, even as the Scriptures say, “wax worse and worse”, and every day adds to deeper devilishness of the devil himself. One hundred years ago, the Church of God had to fight enemies without—and they were a multitude; today, like the individual, she has foes without and foes within. The late Pope, speaking of that movement which has discredited the Bible and denied the Deity of Jesus Christ, in a notable document put forth a while ago, called attention to the increase of the enemies of the Cross of Christ—not outside, but within the Church —“who, by arts entirely new and full of deceit, are striving to destroy the vital energy of the Church.” And he said truly that they “assail all that is most sacred in the work of Christ, not sparing even the Person of the Divine Redeemer, whom, with sacrilegious audacity, they degrade to the condition of a simple and ordinary man.”“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. “For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, “Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, “Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. “For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:1-7). If Wesley’s words had occasion when he wrote them, they have more this day“Stand, then, in Christ’s great might, With all His strength endued, And take, to arm you for the fight, The panoply of God. “From strength to strength go on; Wrestle and fight and pray; Tread all the powers of darkness down, And win the well-fought day.” One cannot help rejoicing in the next suggestion of this text.The panoply covers every vulnerable point. Your loins can be girded with the truth; your hearts covered with the breast-plate of righteousness; your feet can be shod with preparation of the Gospel of peace. Your entire front can be covered with the shield of faith; your head with the helmet of salvation; and in your hand you may carry the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God; and in all prayer and supplication, at all seasons, you can win. Achilles, you remember, had a heel exposed, and the arch enemy found it out and lamed him; but the man who makes himself familiar with the Word of God can find in it a shield able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one. Perhaps there has never been a time when the helmet of salvation was in such requisition as now. We once listened to a company of ministers discuss the inroads of higher criticism, in the state of Michigan, and one of the oldest and most conservative of them all said, “Brethren, I will tell you what is the trouble; these men have never been converted; they know not Christ.” Some of us have been a bit lothe to accept that explanation.

We know some of them, and believe the darts of Satan have not so surely struck them in the heart as in the head. It is not so much the breastplate of their righteousness that has been torn to pieces as it is their helmet of salvation.

In “Decisive Battles” the author says, “At the battle of Hastings the Norman allies, with their bows shot quickly upon the English. But they covered themselves with their shields. Then the Normans determined to shoot their arrows upward into the air that they might fall upon their enemies’ heads and strike their faces. They adopted this scheme and the arrows in falling struck their enemies on the head and faces and put out their eyes. Seeing the success of their scheme the arrows fell like rain, and all feared to open their eyes or leave their faces unguarded. Then it was that an arrow struck Harold and put out his eye.” It is a significant illustration.

Some of the so-called religious leaders of the land have gone to battle with heads unguarded and have been blinded with the darts of the adversary and a multitude of their followers have been blinded with them. In truth these blind leaders in their false strokes have been destroying the vision of their own fellow servants and followers.The need of the world at this moment is a company of men and women who wear the whole panoply of God, girded with the truth, and shielded with the breastplate of righteousness, shod with the Gospel of peace, made invulnerable by faith, and knowing full well their salvation.

Such men, and only such, will meet the infidelity of this age or of any age. I often listen to these wonderful “advanced thinkers” as they exploit how it is necessary to have an unusual degree of mental culture in order to meet the keen unbelieving of the age. I am compelled to contrast that with an illustration, and correct it by a Scripture. A writer says of a brilliant woman, “She had watched a certain minister in his work; she had taken note of his spirit, when he knew it not, and had studied his life when he was off guard. His intellectual appeals had never reached her and one day he decided to give up the struggle, feeling that her infidelity was impenetrable. But he decided that once more he would make the effort, and so he went to her and with burning soul, said, ‘Will you not believe in Christ?’ She hesitated for one brief moment and then broke into tears as she answered, ‘Yes, Sir, I do believe in Him because I believe in you’.” Verily Paul put it right, when penning his Epistle to Timothy, he said, “Take heed to thyself and to the doctrine”. The two things that must go hand in hand to win this world is a Christian character, and a correct creed, and the first is as important and potent as the last.Horatius Bonar understood it and hence he wrote:“Be what thou seemest; live thy creed; Hold up to earth the torch Divine; Be what thou prayest to be made; Let the great Master’s steps be thine; Sow love, and taste its fruitage pure; Sow peace, and reap its harvest bright Sow sunbeams on the rock and moor, And find a harvest home of light.” FinallyA APPEAL “And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the Gospel, “For which I am an ambassador in bonds; that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak”. This great Apostle had the heart of a pastor. He yearned to have his people pray for him, first of all that utterance might be given to him in opening his mouth.Herein is the exercise of the prophet’s office. A prophet is a speaker for God. God, who is no respecter of persons, is neither any compromiser of the truth. His prophets were to know it, feel its power, and publish it to the people. Newell Dwight Hillis says, “If we consult history, we will discover that every prophet has three characteristics: He is a seer, and sees clearly; has a great heart and feels deeply; he is a hero and dares valiantly.

But vision-power is the first and last gift. That vision and outlook God has given to every Moses and Elijah, to every John and Paul, and with instant skill they have laid the finger upon the diseased spot in the social life.

But it is not enough that the seer has the vision that sees. Zola can describe, Balzac can picture, James can photograph deeds and traits. But these shed no tears. They feel no heartache. They paint, but do not pity. With solemn pageantry of words Gibbon caused the Roman centuries to pass before each reader. The mind of this great historian worked with the precision of a logic engine— cold, smooth, and faultless. But Carlyle’s eloquence is logic set on fire.

What his mind saw his heart also felt. All the woe, and pathos, and tragedy of the French Revolution swept in billows over him, and broke his heart. Gibbon worked in cold, white light. Carlyle dipped his pen in his heart’s blood. Therefore Carlyle’s history is a seething fire. But Gibbon’s is only the picture of a fire—mere canvas and paint.“Moreover, the prophet who is guided of God adds to the great mind and the sympathetic heart a third quality. Every Paul and John, every Savonarola and Luther, has had a consuming passion for righteousness. Purity has been the crowning quality of all the epoch-making men.

For lack of righteousness Bacon lost his leadership. While his head was in the clouds his feet were in the mire. So great was Goethe’s genius that he sometimes seems like one driving steeds of the sun, but self-indulgence took off his chariot wheels. Therefore the German poet has never been to his century all that Milton was to his age. During his life Goethe always kept two friends busy—the one weaving laurels for his brow, the other cleaning mud from his garments. But Paul, striding the earth like a moral Colossus; braving kings; daring armies; toppling down thrones; setting nations free, has dwelt apart from iniquity.” And the Apostle’s appeal is pertinent to the age in which we live.

The prophetic office ought no longer to be professional, but the desire of Moses ought to be realized, and God’s people should be prophets everyone. The simple fact is that the major part of the prophet’s work is the proclamation of the old Gospel.

That is the thing that Paul wanted to make known with boldness, namely, the mystery of the Gospel.I have often said that the greatest revival the world ever saw came not from many sermons, nor even from a single one, but from a single sentence instead—“Yet forty days and Nineveh shall he overthrown”. But the man of God preached what he had been given. Therein is the calling of the ministry. Some one has said that a certain order was issued from the French army office and its wording to the troops was specific. The commanding officer communicated the same, but changed it into his own language. The minister of war had him punished for his conduct, and when asked why he should have called the man to account for so slight an offense, he answered, “Slight?” “The offense was of the gravest; he paraphrased an order which it was his duty to deliver exactly as he had received it.” Sir Robert Anderson, commenting on this, said, “What a lesson for the preacher of the Gospel.

Some truths there are which we can make our own, and. these we can distribute, so to speak, in our own coinage; but when we have to do with the truths of vital character it behoves us to keep to the very words in which they were revealed.” And then he adds, “As I crossed Hyde Park one day to White Hall I heard a pistol shot, and a man rolled from the seat to the ground. I ran to him and he was dying, and yet it was evident that he knew what I was saying.

It was no time for human philosophy, and so I whispered in his ear, ‘Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: He was bruised for our iniquities; * * with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; * * and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all’” In a moment like that, when life was ebbing, only the Word of the Lord was adequate. And yet we deal with the dying constantly. God give us grace to understand that only the Word of the Lord is adequate.Yet once more Paul prayed for the exercise of the courage that despises chains. “That I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the Gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds; that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak”. The true apostleship has never been what the world denominates a “soft snap”; it took courage in Christ’s day and it demands it now. The Pliables in the church speedily turn back.

One slough of despond will break their spirits, and discourage their hearts; but the true Christian plods on past every lion by the way, fighting with every Apollyon that crosses the path, toiling up every hill that intervenes, counting all but naught that victory may be won. Discouragement they know; but to it they never yield.

As the Apostle says, “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed”.From the land of the Scots have come many tales of courage and heroism, and of them there stands out preeminently the one of the beloved Robert Bruce. He willed his heart to his trusted friend Douglas. Bruce’s heart was placed in a silver casket and Douglas bound it over his own and started to fulfil the wishes of his great commander. In the course of battle he was wounded unto death and saw his men wavering, but with a mighty effort he flung the heart of Bruce into the ranks of the enemy, and the sturdy Scots went fighting their way after it until the victory was won. And yet in the pierced heart of the Son of God there ought to be a more potent appeal to the hearts of His followers. No obstacle ought to be too great for the Christian to conquer; no enemy too fierce for him to face without tremor, till the Kingdom shall come and the cause of our God shall triumph in all the earth.I wish, therefore to conclude this message, in the prayer of Christopher Wordsworth,“Arm these thy soldiers, mighty Lord, With shield of faith, and Spirit’s sword: Forth to the battle may they go, And boldly fight against the foe, With banner of the cross unfurled, And by it overcome the world; And so at last receive from Thee The palm and crown of victory.”

Ephesians 6:24

THE Ephesians 6:24THIS is the last word in what is probably Paul’s most noble Epistle. No man can read this Letter to the Ephesians without being blessed. Henry Ward Beecher says of it, “The conception of a Christian life, its duties, its fruitions, its trials and victories, is not more grandly set forth anywhere. “The last note of this symphony is our text, as if loving the Lord Jesus Christ was at once the consummation toward which all duties led; the source of inspiration from which all duties spring; so that to comprehend all the details which he had been passing through—a resumption or resume of the whole of what he had said before.”It was my thought this glad morning to present this Scripture as a Christmas salutation, “Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity”. This Sabbath belongs to a season when every salutation ought to be accompanied with a smile, and every expression between neighbors should be one of good will. The first Christmas heard the angels sing, and the shepherds of Bethlehem, listening, caught the expression, “Peace on earth, good will toward men,” or, as I prefer to render it, “towards men of good will”, and every Christmas ought to emphasize the idea. It is a season when we ought to do more than sit at good dinners; more than hold family reunions; more than make merry with our friends. If there is ever a time when our heart’s sympathies ought to go out in benediction to “all them that love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity,” it is at this Christmas time. True, in that first Christmas, the wise men from the East, when they were come into the house and saw the young child, with Mary His mother, bowed down and worshiped Him; and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto Him gifts; gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Mankind has caught the spirit, and express trains and freight cars, and mail coaches have been crowded all week with material expressions of friendship and love. But let us not forget that the first offering these wise men made was that of worship; and it was also their best offering, and the most difficult to make. The sacrifice of silver and gold is far easier than self-devotement, and, in consequence, less acceptable to God. The Apostle Paul commended those Christians who first gave themselves to God, and afterwards to the needy, by the will of God. And in this Epistle the Apostle is saluting just such, and is pronouncing upon them his benediction, “Grace be with all them that love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity”. This Christian salutation has in it three suggestions.First:THE OF DIVINE GRACE They are characterized by love! “Grace be with all them that love”. Love is the capital grace; it is also the most Christian characteristic. Our Revised Version brings that out beautifully in the language of this same Apostle to the Corinthians,“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. “And, though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. “And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). John confirms Paul in this inspired opinion. In his First Epistle he writes, “Love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of .God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love” (1 John 4:7-8).Christ Himself emphasizes love as an evidence of one’s loyalty to Him, saying,“Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets. “But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies; do good to them which hate you. Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you” (Luke 6:26-28). I was reading sometime since a brief life of Cranmer, and I found in his conduct much to criticise. He was more politic than courageous; more generous than just. But Dr. Herrick says, “Cranmer’s charity, unlike his courage, knew no circumscribing lines which it could not overstep. The very man who plotted against his life, who charged him with heresy, with malfeasance, with treason, were as freely forgiven as if they had charged him with some petty offense against propriety. So that it passed into a proverb, ‘Do my lord of Canterbury an injury and it will make him your friend.’ He was certainly Christly upon some occasions when to have been vindictive would have been easier.” “Christly” is the word.

The man whose love never fails is the man who has furnished one of the best evidences that he is a subject of Divine grace.The Lord must be the chief object of this love. “Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ”. There are those who find in their hearts some love for their brethren, and they reason that such is an evidence of their Christianity, since it is written, “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren”.

But, after all, the brethren are not to have supreme place in our affections, and we cannot love them as we ought until we have learned to give that place to the Lord, —their Lord and ours. Since, as John wrote again, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God” (1 John 5:2).It would be an interesting study, if one had much time on his hands, to see how often love to God is both enjoined and approved in the Word. It is the first commandment. Moses was simply reminding Israel of the principle involved in that commandment when he said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deuteronomy 6:5). Joshua urged the people to be diligent in obedience to the command to “love the Lord your God” (Joshua 22:5). David called upon Israel at large, “O love the Lord, all ye His saints” (Psalms 31:23).

While Jesus Christ Himself said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Matthew 22:37).We do believe that that commandment is all the easier since God manifested Himself in the Person of Jesus Christ, for, as John Watson says, “It is a person, not a dogma, which invites my faith; a person, not a code, which asks for obedience. Jesus stands in the way of every selfishness; He leads in the path of every sacrifice; He is crucified in every act of sin; He is glorified in every act of holiness.

St. Stephen, as he suffered for the Gospel, saw the heavens open and Jesus standing to receive him. St. Peter, fleeing in a second panic from Rome, meets Jesus returning to be crucified in his place. Conscience and heart are settled on Jesus, and one feels within his soul the tides of His virtue. It is not the doctrines nor the ethics of Christianity that are its irresistible attraction. Its doctrines have been a stumbling-block, and its ethics excel only in degree. The life-blood of Christianity is Christ.

As Louis said, ‘L’etat c’est moi,’ so may Jesus say, I am my Religion.’ What Napoleon was to his soldiers on the battlefield, Jesus has been to millions separated from Him by the chasm of centuries. No emotion in human experience has been so masterful, none so fruitful, as the passion for Jesus. It has inspired the Church, it has half saved the world.”Of course, such affection must be sincere. “Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity”. The Master never missed an opportunity to emphasize this need of sincerity. When one of the Scribes enquired “Which is the great commandment in the law”, Jesus answered, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind”. What else is that than sincerity?

Time and trials are always telling on the sincerity of men, and the lack of it. A few years since there came a cry from East London that reached the ears of England’s society folk, and stirred their hearts.

And Pastor Stalker said, “The sons and daughters of fashion left their frivolities to go slumming”. But they did not find it easy work; it had its mighty obstacles; it had its disgusting features; it had its distressing experiences, and very shortly these professionalists tired and turned back from this difficult, yet Divine work, to the social fads that were consonant with their superficialities. But all them that “loved the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity” who had wrought afore time, worked on, indefatigably, for sincerity is not easily dissuaded from its purpose or turned back from its attempts.When Savonarola was borne from the throne of Florence to a dungeon, tortured by every invention of his time, nerves and muscles lacerated, bones disjointed, and eventually was dragged forth to be hanged and burned, he showed no disposition to falter, but cheerfully met both gibbet and flame, saying, “My Lord was pleased to die for my sins, why should I not be glad to give up my poor life for love to Him?” Aye, there you saw an example of Divine grace, for he was among the company of those “that love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity”.This leads to my second thought.THE SECRET OF Love alone will accept God’s salvation. “He that dwelleth in love; dwelleth in God and God in him” (1 John 4:16). Intellectual assent to God’s existence is in no sense an acceptance of His salvation. There are many theists in the world who are not Christians. Mr. Ingersoll never denied the existence of a God, but he repudiated the idea of ever becoming dependent upon Divine grace. And that is not unnatural for the heart that has in it no love for the Lord; in fact it is according to all the workings of nature.

Here is a virtuous woman, and some man, with gentle behavior but insidious intent, offers her a gift of gold, or possessions in houses and lands and she rejects the proffer with scorn, because she does not propose to be his chattel; but when he has made known his love to her, and has won her affection in turn, then she willingly surrenders her independence, and not only gives him her hand in marriage, but delights to take from his hand whatever he is pleased to bestow, feeling that love has so linked them together that these possessions are now hers as surely as his. And when the soul comes to love God, the riches of His grace are readily accepted.

Even His great salvation is not only taken, but received, in the spirit of joy! The lover says with Isaiah, “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; He also is become my salvation”.Love alone links us in sympathy with God. When Jesus was asked how He would manifest Himself to His own, He answered, “If a man love Me, he will keep My words; and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him” (John 14:23). Love is the only basis of sympathy; the solitary ground of harmony. Unless man love God, he cannot be brought into perfect sympathy with Him; he will find himself constantly out of harmony. There is a book once popular with the reading public entitled, “In Tune with the Infinite.” It was a shallow treatise on “Christian Science”, but the very title expresses what we mean.Savonarola, the great preacher of Florence, was a son of Thunder when denouncing the sins of his day; yet, he knew well the necessity of being in harmony with God, and his language indicates how surely love had linked him in sympathy with the Lord Jesus Christ.

He says, “The love of Jesus Christ is to be seen in that warm affection for Him which leads the faithful to wish that his soul may become almost a part of that of Christ, and that the living principle in the Lord may be reproduced in himself, not in the way of an external image, but as in inward and Divine inspiration. This love is omnipotent, uniting the finite creature with the Infinite Creator.

Man, in fact, rises continually from humanity to something Divine when he is animated by this love, which is the sweetest of all affections; penetrates the soul, acquires a mastery over the body, and causes the faithful to walk on earth, rapt as it were in the spirit.”It was this very sentiment to which Paul addressed himself when he wrote to the Corinthians “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17); and to the Galatians “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20); and to the Colossians, “Your life is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).Frances Ridley Havergal writes,“Joined to Christ in mystic union, We Thy members, Thou our Head, Sealed by deep and true communion, Risen with Thee, who once were dead. Saviour, we would humbly claim All the power of this Thy Name.” Upon this same sincere love rests our sanctification. The power to resist temptation rests there. “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him” (James 1:12). The graces which come as God’s gifts; in which we are builded up toward the stature of perfect men in Christ, are vouchsafed only to them that love the Lord. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, writes, “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God” (Romans 8:28).Aye, our very struggles to meet what we conceive to be God’s will for us; the struggles by which we are measuring up more and more to perfect manhood in Christ Jesus; the struggles that are appointed of God for our success; the struggles through which we receive strength, and by means of which the Spirit continues his process of sanctification, are inspired solely by sincere love and stand, therefore, as the secret of this blessing of sanctity. I was telling my evening audience once a bit of history in illustration of this idea. It seems that when Dr.

Paxson was a school boy, he was slow in getting his lessons. The teacher gave up in despair and wrote his mother that the boy could not learn the multiplication table and might as well be kept at home.

This letter broke the mother’s heart. When this fun-loving, curly-headed, blue-eyed fellow found his mother in tears, he immediately inquired what the trouble was; and she told him how distressed she was that her boy could not learn. To which Paxson answered, “Oh, don’t cry mamma; you break my heart! I did not suppose you cared. I didn’t think you wanted me to learn the multiplication; I will know it to-morrow.” And, to the amazement of everybody, he made good his word the next day, and afterwards proved to be a mathematical prodigy. A. J. F.

Behrends says, “Here love fulfilled the law. What the school master could not secure by authority, the mother affected through affection.”I believe, today, that if you went to the saintly souls of earth; to those few men and women who seem to have gotten sin under their feet; to those who have learned the secret of the holy life, whose joy in the Lord is undisturbed; who seem to dwell in the heavens, and say to them, “Whence their fervor? why their brave battle for the right? why their holy living?” They would respond in a chorus, “Because He desires it; because it makes glad the heart of our Christ, the Son of God.” This is why I see in this text the secret of Spiritual blessing; and that is why it is not only a salutation but a certainty that grace is with all them that love the Lord Jesus Christ, sincerely.Again, you will find in this textTHE BASIS OF CHARITY It emphasizes character rather than communion. Paul does not say, Grace be to all that belong to the sect of the Pharisees. Paul does not even say, Grace be to all the descendants of Jacob. Such a phrase would have exalted communion above character; would have set denomination above Divine attainment; and Paul was never guilty of thinking such a thing. It is a pity that modern Christians are. It is unfortunate, as Joseph Parker suggests, that while we cannot “help thinking kindly of those who agree with us on subjects when men differ from us we naturally denounce them as incapable, short-sighted, and pitiable creatures.

But when the same people agree with us, we see in them the dawning of genius and the budding of sound statesmanship. That is a little peculiarity of men; it comes out very strongly in some newspapers.

When I differ from them I am cordially disliked and represented by many invidious epithets; when I agree with them I instantly become ‘an eminent Congregational minister’.”I have often thought that Jesus Christ spake the parable of the Good Samaritan to show us the basis of Christian charity; to teach that there might be a Jew in spirit outside of the Jewish nation; that there might be a Christian outside of your communion, and outside of mine. Charles Kingsley brings this out in “Hypatia”, when he makes the Jew say to the Prefect, “I have watched you for many a day, and not in vain. When I saw you, an experienced officer, encumber your flight with wounded men, I was only surprised. But since I have seen you and your daughter, and, strangest of all, your gay young Alcibiades of a son, starving yourselves to feed those poor ruffians—performing for them, day and night, the offices of menial slaves —comforting them, as no man ever comforted me— blaming no one but yourselves, caring for every one but yourselves, sacrificing nothing but yourselves; and all this without hope of fame or reward, or dream of appeasing the wrath of any god or goddess, but simply because you thought it right. * * When I saw that, sir, and more which I have seen; and when, reading in this book here, I found most unexpectedly those very grand moral rules which you were practicing, seeming to spring unconsciously, as natural results, from the great thoughts, true or false, which has preceded them; then, sir, I began to suspect that the creed which could produce such deeds as I have watched within the last few days, might have on its side not merely a slight preponderance of probabilities, but what we Jews used once to call, when we believed in it—or in anything—the mighty power of God!” In other words, the Jew had learned that there were people who knew the truest grace of God outside his religious communion. It is a good lesson.I do not believe in the Episcopate of the Methodist Church, but when I find a Methodist Christian who loves the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, I say, “Grace be on him”; I do not believe with my Presbyterian friends that there are two or three forms of baptism, but when I meet a good Presbyterian Christian I say, “Grace be on him”; I do not believe with many Congregational people that it makes little difference what you think of the question of inspiration, or the Deity of Christ, but when I meet a Congregationalist who “loves the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity”, I say; “Grace be on him”; I do not believe with the Campbellite people—or Disciples— that in the act of baptism one’s sins are washed away, but when I find a member of this communion who loves the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, I say, “Grace be on him”, because Christianity is more than communion.Sincerity is to be regarded before Apostolic succession. The Roman Catholic Church, the Greek Church, the High Episcopal Church, are all directly in the line of Apostolic succession—so they say!

But what is Apostolic succession worth to the man who does not love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity? Suppose they prove their plea—but they cannot—what profit in it?

Is the Pope any better because he is the Pope? Is the priest any better because he is a priest? If it could be proven that the Pope was the direct successor from Peter, would that be any basis of fraternity with him, except one find out that he loves the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity?Down in the Southland our Baptist people had a long and bitter discussion touching a kindred question to Apostolic succession, and that is, the unbroken procession of Baptists, Dr. Whitsitt contending that there was a period in history when no immersionists could be found; and other brethren insisting that such a statement was a sufficient reason for his resignation from the Southern Seminary Presidency. I want to know what earthly difference it makes whether we can trace a line of Baptists from John to the present? The more important question is, “Who is obedient now?” It is just so with this whole question of Apostolic succession.

Now the true Apostles have not all been in the Catholic Church; they have not all been in the Greek Church; they have not all been in the Episcopal Church. In fact, these bodies have not had their share, since the true successors of the Apostle Peter have been those men who have loved the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.

To my way of thinking Apostolic succession runs through Yesterday’s Fundamentalist heretics. In 1296 John Tauler was born, and he proved himself an Apostle of God. Before he had passed from the stage of action, Wycliffe was at work, pleading practically the same precious truths, though a citizen of another country. He was Tauler’s successor. And before Wycliffe was gone John Huss was stirring all Bohemia and Bavaria. And Huss is only dead a few years when Savonarola, moved by the same spirit of sincere love to Christ, is his successor, only he is in Italy.

At Savonarola’s death the scepter of spiritual power passed to Latimer, then to Melancthon, Luther, Knox, Calvin, Coligny, Brewster, John Wesley and on to Finney, Moody and Spurgeon. Aye, this is the line of true Apostolic succession, since all these loved the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.

And if one is going to trace these things by birth in the spiritual realm, he would find sincerity illustrated again in the Apostolic succession, for Savonarola begot John Colet, and Colet begot Erasmus, and Erasmus begot Billney, and Billney begot Latimer, and Latimer begot Wishart, and Wishart begot John Knox; and so on. Had Paul been present in the world he would have laid his hands in benediction upon the heads of all these, not because they were members of the Roman Church, for most of them never were; or the Greek Church, for none ever belonged to it; or the Episcopal, for few of them ever heard of it, but because they loved the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. When you find sincere people, you find those who invite our salutation; who draw out of us the spirit of charity; who evoke from us the expressions of love.Finally, this text makes the Cross, versus creed, the focal point of Christian fraternity. Paul does not say Grace be with all them that belong to my creed, but Grace be with all them that meet at the Cross of Christ, drawn there by love to Him whose sacrificial death is exalting forever that symbol of infamy. Did you ever stop to think of the group around that Cross? There charity, or love one for another, was not in consequence of the same birth.

There was Joseph of Arimathea, who belonged to an honored house, and Peter, who belonged to an humble one. It was not in consequence of intelligence.

There was Nicodemus, a brilliant member of the Sanhedrin, and Andrew, a plain and unlettered man. It was not in consequence of kindred political station; there was Aemilius, a believing Roman Centurion, and Matthew, the despised custom collector. It was not even the question of denomination, for the believing Roman Gentile and the believing Jewish John, were equally attracted to that Cross. In the presence of this matchless Person, the lesser matters of creed were forgotten, and, as the Jew and the Gentile believed on Him, they were brought together, and thought themselves to be brethren.I think of the World’s Christian Fundamentals Association as an illustration of the same truth. In it faithful Presbyterians and Methodists, Congregationalists and Baptists, have stood side by side, harmoniously singing,“Onward, Christian soldiers, Marching as to war, With the Cross of Jesus, Going on before.” That Cross is the focal point of our fraternity. It is not to be understood that we have surrendered our respective opinions, and think now only the same thoughts. We have not. In this union movement Denominationalism is not reckoned dead; for it a common creed has been formulated on the greater fundamentals only; worshiping the same Divine Christ they meet at the Cross and utter the great Apostle’s salutation, “Grace be with all them that love the LORD JESUS CHRIST in sincerity”. It is the one point at Which the fraternal spirit flows most easily; it is the one point at which sectarianism least divides; it is the one point at which the believing in churches of the different denominations become one; for, as R. F.

Horton says, “Where love is not, the Church ceases; and, on the other hand, where the new commandment is accepted and obeyed, where we love one another as Christ has loved us, there is His Church. Men are always anxious to define the Church beforehand by some easily produced marks, such as order or sacraments. Jesus insists on defining it solely by love. “By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35). But Christian love is in excelsis only, as between them who believe in and love the Lord.Aye, being His disciples we become brethren. Forgetting color, despising questions of property or poverty, setting aside those of position, high or low, concerning ourselves not with questions of noble or lowly birth, be this our salutation for this Christmas season, “Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity”.