October 15

We have heard that God is with you. - Zechariah 8:23.

OBSERVE here the knowledge which others have of the Christian’s state and privilege. They could not have “heard” it, unless it had been reported. Religion has many reporters; some very false ones, and some very true ones. God sometimes constrains even the enemies of his people to bear testimony in their favour; and therefore, says Isaiah, “Their seed shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people; all they that see them shall acknowledge them that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed.” But though others may make known their religion, they must make it known themselves; they must not only be but also appear religious. They must not only “believe with the heart,” that is beyond the ken of their fellow-creatures, but “confess with their mouth unto salvation,” and “hold fast” not only the reality, but “the profession of their faith without wavering.” As the praises of men should never draw us out of a corner, so the frowns of men should never drive us into one.

Daniel did not court publicity, but he made no scruple, when the writing forbidding it was signed, to go into his chamber, the windows being open, and give thanks three times a day as aforetime. It was predicted of the Saviour himself that he should say to the prisoners, Go forth, and to them that were in the darkness of obscurity, Show yourselves. They shall feed, says he, “in the way, and their pastures shall be in all high places,” where they can be seen, feeding, preserved, and blessed.

It is not easy to conceal religion; where it is real it will break out in some way or other. Repentance will get into the eye, and be seen in tears. Meekness will sit in a man’s face, and smile like a morning in May. The man’s hand will slide into his pocket before he has time to think about other things. Then “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” It is not easy to restrain powerful emotion.

When those angry hypocrites, the Pharisees, came to our Saviour, as the common people and children were crying Hosanna, they, with long faces, said, Lord, rebuke thy servants, that they should hold their peace; all this will bring religion into contempt. Oh, said the Saviour, If I were to command them to hold their peace it would be enjoining upon them an impossibility. And moreover I tell you that “if these should hold their peace, the very stones would cry out.” So when Peter and John were ordered by the council to speak no more in His name, Oh, said they about that we are determined; “we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard,” whatever may be the consequence.

How much good is often done by a verbal, but still more by a practical testimony. “Actions speak louder than words.” Our meekness under provocation, our humility under applause, our liberality with growing wealth, our patience in affliction, our readiness to forgive when injured, should tell whose we are, what we are, whence we are born, and whither we are bound. We are to be “the epistles of Christ, read and known of all men.” And our neighbours and friends should never be in perplexity as to whose writing we are, for we are to be “manifestly the epistles of Christ.”

No one should be in doubt concerning us, but we should by our whole Spirit and conduct “declare plainly that we are seeking a country, and a heavenly country, and that we are only strangers and pilgrims on the earth.”