A Challenge and War Cry
(No. 2929)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 1905.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, IN THE YEAR 1862.
"O Death, where is your sting? O Grave, where is your victory? The
sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks
be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my Beloved brethren, be you steadfast, immovable, always
abounding in the work of the Lord, for so much as you know that your
labor is not in vain in the Lord." 1 Corinthians 15:55-58.
THERE is little fear that the minister of this flock should forget that
man is mortal. Where men are massed in such numbers, we not only
believe in mortality, we see it. We hear the funeral knell like the
striking of the clock–habitually. The mower always has work in this
pasture–every week the great gleaner has some ears of corn to gather
in this harvest field and every time we assemble in this house we have
to remember that some who were with us when we met before have crossed
the flood and entered into their rest. We cannot forget this.
But, my dear Friends, there is a danger lest you should forget it. Not
being able to take a glimpse over so large a company as this, if your
children have been spared to you, if your house has been unvisited by
death for this last 19 or 20 years, you may be apt to think that you
have immunity given to you–that you will never come to the grave–that
death may arrest others, but that you sit alone in some privileged
security and shall see no sorrow, that the arrows may fly and strike on
the right hand and on the left, but that you walk invulnerable among
the dead. It is well, therefore, in order to cool the hot blood of our
youth and to stir the dull blood of our old age, that we should
ofttimes make a journey to the tomb and reflect on death, judgment,
resurrection, and eternity. In these busy times, when men have so much
to do in order to live, it may be of much service to them to think how
certainly they must die. 'Tis greatly wise to talk about our last
hours. The shroud, the grave, the shovel may teach us more of true
wisdom than all the learned heads that ever pondered vain philosophy,
or all the lips that ever uttered earth-born science!
Now, I intend tonight, as God the Holy Spirit shall enable me, to
address my text first to Believers in Christ and then briefly to warn
those who are as yet not included in that happy number. I must leave
your conscience to judge to which class you belong. I fondly hope that
no one will be so perverse as to take encouragement that does not
belong to him, but that every man will be wise enough and honest enough
to his own heart to take just that truth which fits his own case and
lay it home to his conscience and to his heart.
I. First of all, THE MESSAGE TO BELIEVERS. We take this text, not with
the hope of exploring it, but with the thought of skimming the surface
with the swallow, rather than diving into its depths like leviathan.
There are three things on the surface–A brief but unparalleled
challenge given to two dreadful and invincible foes "O Death, where is
your sting? O Grave, where is your victory?" A glorious paean of
splendid triumph–"Thanks be to God who gives us the victory," and a
war cry addressed by a great commander to his soldiers–"Brethren, be
you steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord."
There is here, first, a double challenge. "O Death, where is your
sting?" Death, you skeleton monarch, where is your sting? Fleshless
rider upon the pale horse, we ask you, where is your sting? With a
horrible and ghastly smile, he answers us, "My sting? You have but to
open your eyes and see it and before long I shall make your flesh
quiver with it when I send it in even to your very soul! Where is my
sting? Is it no sting to you to know that you must leave everything you
call dear on the earth, that your estates must be left behind you and
your broad acres must be all renounced? Is it nothing to you that your
houses and your lands, your merriments and your enjoyments, your feasts
and your riots must be forsaken?
That the hearth and everything that is genial in the family, friendship
and the communion of generous hearts and everything that makes glad the
eyes or cheers the ears must be left behind you? For your eyes–when
filmed by my finger–to no more see the landscape, the rugged mountain,
or the plain? For your ears, when I have sealed them in eternal
silence, to no more hear the voice of them that make merry, no more
hear the music or the choral hymn? You shall be deaf forever when I
cast you into the grave! Is it no sting to you to leave the enjoyments
of the House of God? For you no more the communion of the body and
blood of Christ? For you no more the gladsome seasons when the tribes
come up to the House of the Lord with willing footsteps to keep holy
day and magnify Him who has loved them and given Himself for them? Is
it no sting to remember that soon you must gaze, for the last time,
upon the cheek which is now so fair in your sight? That soon you must
take the last fond gaze of her who is the partner of your life? That
you must leave everything, taking nothing with you, returning to the
earth naked as you came from your mother's womb, stripped, bereft of
everything, a penniless beggar, going back to the vile dust from where
you did spring–is there no sting in this?"
"Where is my sting? Ask the gray-headed," the monster says, "whether
they already do not feel the pangs of it! Their eyes grow weak, the
strong pillars of the house of man begins to fail, the breath comes
heavily, the hair is blanched–the grasshopper has become a burden and
the teeth cease because they are few! Ask me where is my sting? Even
the young can feel it, for, if they think at all, they know that every
breath they draw is but a step towards the tomb and that their pulses–
'Like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.
"Where is my sting?" asks Death. "Look to the widow in whose heart my
sting is rankling now. The beloved of her soul has departed and she is
left to mourn like a dove without her mate. Ask the fatherless where
the sting of death is as they are driven into the street, received by
the cold hand of public charity, scarcely housed and fed. Where is my
sting? Ask the weeping child as he looks down into the coffin upon the
dead face of the mother that once toiled and labored for him, who once
cherished and loved him, but who has now gone to the place appointed
for all living! Aha! Aha," he says, "where is my sting? You have all
felt it in the departure of your best beloved ones, when you most
wished to have them. The State has felt it. I smote the fellow with the
crowned head and laid him low! I smote again and took away the
statesman when he had returned from a distant empire laden with the
spoils of many years experience! I have with my sting taken away the
rich and the mighty, the beautiful and the lovely, the learned, the
pious, the good, the benevolent! I have taken them away just when the
world needed them the most, till I made good men say, 'The righteous
perish and the godly man ceases from the earth.' Ask me where is my
sting?" he cries, and drives his white horse of terror onward and
dashes from us in disdain!
Yes, Death, but we still defy you, and though you have thus vented your
spleen, we cry to you again, "Have at you, Death! Have at you! You have
no sting, for all your boast! To Believers you are now a stingless
locust! Hold awhile till we hear the other tyrant, your powerful
confederate."
"O Grave, where is your victory?" From its hollow depth the Grave
replies, "Ask me where is my victory? Why, O foolish son of Adam, do
you not ask where is not my victory? From Machpelah to Gethsemane I
have had my splendid triumphs. Onward, from the first age even until
now I have proved to men that I am victor. Where are my triumphs? Open
the soil upon which your fair world rests and see if every vault is not
filled with a putrid mass of rotten mortality! Could you bring up your
fellows from the grave and pile them above the sod, there would be so
many dead that there would not be room for the living! Yes, heap them
up, heap them up till they make a pyramid higher than the Egyptian
Pharaoh ever reared–pile them up and they will outreach the Alps and
salute the morning star with their dread heights of rottenness!
"Where is my victory? Ask every howling tempest as it drives the ship
like a cockleshell before it. Ask every sunken rock and reef and
icebound shore. Where is my victory? Ask the battlefield of yesterday,
all gory with blood shed by a brother's hands, where sons of
Anglo-Saxon mothers lie upon the plains of their own country, slain by
their own brothers' hands! Where is my victory? From Waterloo go back
to Trafalgar–stretch your wings and fly to ancient times, to Salamis
and Marathon, or farther back still–speak of all that Sennacherib did,
and the mighty host that went before him when he smote the loins of
kings and slew hecatombs of their subjects in an hour!
"Where is my victory? There is not a spot of ground but feels it. There
is not an age but must testify thereunto. The signs of it are
everywhere! Look at yonder lovely nook where birds are singing and
sweet flowers are springing up from the green sod. You will say, 'Death
has never been here.' But what are those hillocks bound with the brown
bramble? I have been here and here keep I my place! Look yonder where
the white stones stand up like the very teeth of death and see how I
have devoured my thousands! From yonder busy city they bring them out
by scores each day and lay them in the tomb–and yet you ask me where
is my victory? Why, you are, every one of you, captives of my perpetual
triumphing! You are marching on, every one of you, downwards to my
jaws! Go where you may, you are always coming down to my doors. I shall
soon shut my gates upon you, every one of you. Strong and healthy men,
men of brawny arms, men of massive intellect, men whose limbs totter
not, though you bear mighty burdens, I shall one of these days receive
you, helpless as little children–and you shall lie in your white
cerements, in your wooden case–and I shall then prove to you and to
the world where my victory is!"
Even as we tremblingly listen, the Grave shuts its yawning mouth and
all is still save where the voice of faith, looking down upon the dry
bones and believing that they shall yet live, cries, "Despite your
vaunt, you braggart, your boastings are as hollow as yourself! Where is
your victory? We will prove you impotent yet, O desperate Grave! You
have no triumphs! Our Lord, Jehovah's Christ, the Resurrection–He has
broken open your portals and made through your territories a wide
passage for all Believers to the Land of Promise. What though–
'An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave, Legions of angels can't
confine me there!'" Turn now, O Believer, and sing a paean of triumph.
"The sting of death is sin." Through Jesus Christ that is forgiven.
"The strength of sin is the Law." Through Christ Jesus that has ceased
to thunder, for it has been fulfilled and has become our friend.
Therefore, "thanks be unto God who gives us the victory through our
Lord Jesus Christ." Prepare, then, the voice of joyous thanksgiving!
Make ready your triumphal hymn! Death, we now triumph over you. You
have spoken, but now we will speak and answer you to your face! Death
has no sting to a Believer. Once death was the penalty of sin–sin
being forgiven, the penalty ceases and Christians do not die, now, as a
punishment for their sin, but they die that they may be prepared to
live! They are unclothed that they may be clothed upon with that house
which is from Heaven! They leave the tenement of clay that they may
inherit the eternal mansion!
There is no sting left in you, O Death, in yourself. As for all you can
tell us of aches and pains and groans, we know that all these things
work together for our good! As for what you tell us of your gloom and
of your horror, we believe in nothing that you say, for, if Christ is
with us, we will walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death and
fear no evil!
As you have lost your sting in yourself, O Death, so you have also lost
your sting as to all that we lose by you. You tell us that we lose the
sights of earth, but, skeleton king, we gain the sights of Heaven! What
are the landscapes of this dusky world compared with the azure skies,
the lakes of crystal and the plains of everlasting green in the land of
light and glory? What are the cities of this world–the giant cities of
the West, the fairy cities of the East–what are they all compared with
Jerusalem, the golden city, the pearly-gated, the city whose walls are
jasper, whose very paving stones are laid with fair colors? Lose by
losing earth? Surely in gaining Heaven the loss is all forgotten! You
say our ears are closed–it is not so–they are opened to hear the
seraph's hymns and to listen to the music of the cherubim, awful,
sublime and beautiful! You say we leave behind us wealth and wit and
friends. Fool that you are, 'tis wealth we gain– and all is dross we
leave behind! And as for friends, we have as many–yes, and many
more–and they are better, too, than those we leave on earth. We have
beloved ones that have crossed the flood and at their head we have One
who is better to us than a million friends, the Chief among Ten
Thousand, the Altogether Lovely! As for all that you can take away,
take it and welcome, since the joy which shall be revealed in us is an
exceeding and eternal weight of glory! This far surpasses the light
affliction of losing all that earth can give.
Death, we tell you again that your sting is taken away as to the
friends we have lost. The widow, weeping, tells you that she does not
feel your sting, for her husband is in Heaven and she is following him
as speedily as time can carry her. The mother tells you, Death, that
through Divine Grace you have no sting in her thoughts concerning her
infants. She rejoices to know that at her breast there once did hang
immortal spirits that now behold the Savior's face! And we say to you,
Death, concerning all beloved ones who have gone, that we sorrow not
over them and would not–
"Break their placid sleep,
Nor lure them from their home above."
We devoutly thank the Father of spirits, who has safely housed them
beyond fear of damage and brought them to the desired haven where no
rough wind or tempestuous wave shall ever rock their keel again.
"Blessed," we say, as we repeat the voice from Heaven, "blessed are the
dead which die in the Lord." And that voice from Heaven responds again,
in tones articulate, "Yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from
their labors, and their works do follow them."–
"Thus brighter hopes, that are not dreams,
Their light around the spirit shed
And Heaven itself breaks out in gleams
Of Glory round the dying bed." Death, you have no sting–your pains are
loosed! So what if your face is pale, your shadow dark as you flit
across the chamber? So what if frail nature shrinks and shudders at
your dart? Kind Jesus, help us–we cling to You and all our spirit
bravely cries in calm defiance, lively faith and holy rapture–"O
Death, where is your sting? Thanks be unto God who gives us the
victory!"
As for the grave, dear Brothers and Sisters, let us answer its
foul-mouthed boasts. We tell the grave that it has no victory in
itself. 'Tis true we shall sleep in it, but we sleep as victors! We
hear the shout of triumph and we lie down as warriors taking their
rest, not as vanquished ones. Christ has made the tomb, which was once
a prison, a resting place for the bodies of His saints. He has made the
tomb His royal closet where he bids His beloved lay aside the dusky
garments of their work days till they shall be cleansed and made meet
to be the garments of His everlasting holy days in Heaven! O Grave,
when you do encompass our bodies, you are yourself defeated–you are
our servant–call us not your slaves! We conquer before we come to
nestle in your bosom. O, Grave, we have lost nothing but the like of
that we committed to your keeping when we placed the slumbering forms
of friends we dearly loved to lodge within your arms. Their relics are
there, but they are in Heaven! Their corruption is there, but the
earnest of their resurrection is on high and that which lives in
deathless immortality is above! There they lie, for flesh and blood
have sin–let them lie there, for flesh and blood must be purified. But
they shall live and we tell you, Grave, that when the trumpet sound,
you must give back our friends to us 10 times more dear than they were
when, with hollow sound of, "Dust to dust and ashes to ashes," we laid
them in your cold embrace. You have no victory, 'tis but a temporary
triumph–you must give back your prey!
Grave, you talk of corruption–what is it but as the fuller's bath
wherein the body lies till it is made of purest white? You speak of
cold vaults, darkness and damp–what are all these but fit
accompaniments of the process in which the corruption shall become
incorruption and the mortal, immortality? We smile at all your horrors.
We salute you as the place where we shall take repose awhile rather
than as the dungeon of our souls' imprisonment! O Death, where is your
sting? O Grave, where is your victory?
1 wish I could set these matters tonight in language such as Christmas
Evans would have used in his glowing moments. This is a right glowing
theme that might make a dumb man speak and might summon the ears of the
deaf to listen! Christ has vanquished death by dying! He has disrobed
the grave of its triumphal garments by wearing its cerements Himself!
He consecrated the sepulcher by slumbering in its dark recess! Death is
now no more the destroying angel, the tomb no more a morgue! Behold, as
Samson carried the gates of Gaza to the top of Hebron–doors, posts,
bars and all–so has Christ carried the gates of Death to the top of
Heaven's hill–posts, bars and all–and all the legions of Hell cannot
bring back the trophies which our Samson has torn away! Once bound,
Himself, with cords by His own brethren, He snapped them as though they
were green withs and in heaps upon heaps He has laid His enemies dead
at His feet! Sin, and Death and Hell–all are vanquished by the Man
that once was bound, but who now binds captivity and leads it captive!
Sing unto Him, you spirits that are redeemed before the Throne of God!
Lift up your hallelujahs, clap your wings, sweep your harps and say,
"All hail You, vanquisher of Death, destroyer of the grave!" Let the
echo reverberate to the lowest depths of Hell and let the fiends bite
their fire-tormented tongues and gnash their teeth in vain, while that
song is echoed in notes like these, "O Death, where is your sting? O
Grave, where is your victory?"
Now listen! Oh, listen! Heed the war cry of our Great Captain.
"Therefore, my Beloved brethren, be you steadfast, immovable, always
abounding in the work of the Lord." Alas for the embattled hosts of
God's elect, if you, O Death, did seal the dispatch from the gory field
of battle and you, O Grave, did hollow out the niche where the warrior
should receive in holy fear his honorable due! "If in this life, only,
we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable."
'Twere a troublous and a toilsome thing, in truth, to be steadfast if
there were no reward! Christian men and women, to you is this word of
admonition given. Inasmuch as you shall not die but live. Inasmuch as
you are the heirs of immortality and life, Christ bids you this day be
steadfast! Be steadfast in your Doctrine. Hold the Truth of God, and
especially the solemn Truth of Resurrection! Hold it firmly, as with an
iron grip. Be you steadfast in holiness–let nothing move you–stand
for the right. Remember, if the earth reels, your hands are on the
stars and, therefore, you need not lose your hold. Be you steadfast in
your profession–blush not, hide not your candle under a bushel. The
glory that is to be revealed will make you good amends for all the
shame and contumely that the reproach of Christ may bring upon you. Be
you steadfast in everything that is a matter of faith to you–steadfast
in your firm belief of Christ's Redemption of your souls–steadfast in
the full conviction that you are the adopted children of your Heavenly
Father– steadfast in your continual perseverance in Sanctification
that you may be fitted for the embrace of your Lord! Be you steadfast
like mountains that never move, like the hidden pillars of granite on
which, though eyes have never seen, this large globe rests! Like those
under-lying rocks which bear up all the deep soil, be you everlastingly
steadfast!
Temptation will come–"be you immovable." Like cedars rocked in the
storm, but never uprooted–like lighthouses against which the huge
waves dash and over which the mountains of foam will leap, be you
bright in testimony but never stirred in steadfastness. Like some peak
that glitters in the sun and soon is shivered in the lightning, yet
still stand looking up to the next storm and defying the next blow! "Be
you immovable." As the anvil to the stroke of the hammer, so bear you
persecution, affliction, temptation–let none of these things move you,
neither count your life dear unto you. Immortality! Be that your
watchword as you stand in your ranks while the shot is flying and the
foe is advancing. When you are bidden not to advance, but to stand
still–"having done all to stand"–be this your reflection, "your life
is hid with Christ in God." Immortality shall make amends for all your
pain and suffering here! Resurrection shall restore all you seem to
lose in the fray.
Be you "always abounding in the work of the Lord." Be you working here
and there, at home and abroad–in the morning when the first ruddy
streak paints the brow of the young dawn–at noon when the hot sun
pours out its lavish floods of light, at eventide when the birds are
going to their rest and at midnight, if there is a fallen Sister who at
no other hour can be reached. "In the morning sow your seed and in the
evening withhold not your hand." With a heart for any strife, be first
and foremost in every conflict–dash in at every skirmish and be in
your rank at every decisive struggle. Hide not your face from shame and
spitting! Turn not back from labor or from scorn–"in the sweat of your
face you shall eat bread" on earth, but that bread which you eat in
Heaven, so gloriously won by the Grace of God, shall be all the sweeter
for the sweat that was lavished upon it! "Always abounding in the work
of the Lord."
But I hear some of you say, "To what end is all this strain?" "Ah,"
says one young man, "I have been steadfast and immovable and I have
lost my job. Instead of being prospered by it, I have suffered loss."
Well, there is another and a better land–your wrongs shall be righted
there. Think of the rest which remains for the people of God! "Ah,"
says a mother, "but I trained up my little child and she just began to
gladden my heart with her first prayer–and then she died." Refrain
your eyes from weeping, for your work shall be rewarded, says the
Lord–she lives a better life than she could have lived with you. I,
too, may ask, "To what end?" I may say that I see many brought to
Christ and what becomes of them?–they die. In the college, out of our
small numbers, two men we trained for the ministry have fallen asleep
in Christ–one while yet a student and the other when he had but
departed from us a few months. Well, but what of all this? They live!
We trained them for the skies and made them choristers for eternity!
Our work is not lost. We must be steadfast, always abounding in God's
work while here. It seems to me that this is the end for which the
Sunday school teacher, the mother, the father, the minister should
always be working. What does the farmer look for? Is he content when he
sees his corn turning yellow to say, "How straight it stands! What a
good harvest there is!"? No, no, he never counts what he has in his
harvest till they shout the "Harvest Home." So we should think our work
is never rewarded to the full till souls, saved through our means, get
to Heaven and until we get there to meet them there! I see some dear
Brothers and Sisters here who I have no doubt look for many souls to
meet them at the gates of Paradise–and I can cast my eye over a
Sister, here and there in this Church who, highly honored of God, will
have young spirits to meet them at Heaven's gate and salute them
joyfully as mothers in Israel! Happy, happy we who, when we wing our
way to Heaven, shall hear a band behind us–and when we turn our heads,
wondering who they are, shall hear each say, "You did bring me to
Christ! You did teach me His blessed name! You did rescue me from sin
and vice! You have led me along the golden shining path to Heaven and
here I am, to share your bliss forever." Brethren, there is another and
a better land"–therefore be you steadfast, immovable, always abounding
in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as you know that your labor is not
in vain in the Lord."
II. We will pause a minute and then use our text for a very short time,
indeed, for the other part of the congregation, uttering A WARNING TO
UNBELIEVERS.
Where are they? Where shall I point my finger? Where shall I present my
gaze? They are mingled everywhere–in almost every pew! In these aisles
and in the pews we have men and woman who do not love Christ, who have
not passed from death unto life. Strangers, yes, and those that hear us
every Sabbath, too, to our pain and grief are here– hundreds,
hundreds, hundreds that are still enemies to God and in the gall of
bitterness!
Hear me, then, hear me! To you death has a sting. It will sting you in
death. It will plague you on your pillow. It will make you toss your
aching head. It will make your heart palpitate with a huge unutterable
dread. You shall feel the sting and your friends shall see that you
feel it by those dread expressions of awful gloom which shall come over
you on the bed of death! And there will be a sting after death, a sting
the moment you are dead. Summoned before your God, you shall hear your
sentence and there will be a sting in judgment! When the body shall
rise from the grave, then there will be a sting forever and forever, in
the second death–forever and forever! Is there any man here who can
measure eternity? Who can tell its everlasting years? Yet all the while
there shall be a sting in death and such a sting, and such a terror,
and such a misery, and such a torment as only they can know who have
begun to feel it–and even they know it not, for still it is forever
and forever, when twice ten thousand thousand years have gone–forever
and still forever!
There is a sting in Death to you and over you the Grave will get the
victory, for the Grave shall devour you! When you wake up from it,
again, it shall not be to newness of life–it shall not be in the image
of the Second Adam, but in the image of the first–and perhaps in the
image of the first Adam in all the decay and loathsomeness into which
death brought him! I know not in what form the wicked dead shall rise.
It may be they shall, even in their bodies, be the objects of
everlasting contempt, devoured by the worm that never dies, so that
their very flesh will give evidence of it. O my Hearers, if these
things are true, it is time that we woke up! It is time that saints
woke up to try and bring you to Christ! It is high time that you also
awoke up out of slumber! "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands
of the living God," "for our God is a consuming fire." Are you ready to
meet God? Are you ready for the Judgment? Can you confront the Judge?
Who among you can dwell with everlasting burning, or abide with the
devouring flames? Do you shudder? Do you say, "Great God save us from
our sin"?
The path is easy. The path is open–God wills not the death of a
sinner, but rather that he should turn unto Him and live! Believe in
the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved! Trust Jesus now and you
are saved at once! Death has lost its sting in that moment and the
Grave its victory! We said this morning in our simple discourse,
"Repent and believe the Gospel." This is the sum of the Gospel–to
repent and to know Christ. Oh, that the Spirit of God may lead everyone
in this assembly to do so at this very hour and then you can walk over
your graves without fear, and descend into them without dread, for you
shall come up out of them with triumph! You shall ascend to Heaven with
glory and so shall you be forever with the Lord! The Lord add His own
blessing for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 2 THESSALONIANS 3.
Verse 1. Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the LORD may
have free course and be glorified, even as it is with you. A most
important request. What can the ministers of the Gospel do if their
people cease to pray for them? Even if their own prayers are heard, as
they will be, and a measure of blessing be given, yet it will be but a
scant measure compared with what it would be if all the saints united
in their intercessions! Whenever we see the Word of God very mighty in
one place it ought to encourage us to pray that it may be the same in
another place, for it is the same Word and the hearts of all men are
alike. The same spirit can give the same blessing in every place. Hence
Paul says, "Pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course
and be glorified even as it is with you." Now, if any of you in your
church are enjoying rich prosperity, pray for others, that they may
have the same. And if you are without it, take courage from any church
which you see prospering and ask the Lord to do the same things for
you. Very likely if we prayed more for
ministers, they would be more blessed to us. There is many a man who
cannot "hear" his minister and the reason may be that God never hears
him pray for his minister.
2. And that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men: for
all men have not faith I really do not know which is the worst to put
up with–an unreasonable man or a wicked man. A wicked man may do you
all sorts of mischief, but you soon know him. But an unreasonable
man–you do not know where to find him and he can attack you from all
sorts of places. Alas, there are some very unreasonable
Christians–very good in some points, but very stupid– and a stupid
man may set a village on a blaze quite as easily as a wicked man. The
stupid man's stupidity may be as dangerous as another man's design.
Pray also "that we may be delivered from wicked and unreasonable men,
for all men have not faith," and all men have not sense, I may also
add.
3. But the LORD is faithful. There is the mercy. Whether men are fools
or knaves, the Lord is faithful.
3. Who shall establish you, and keep you from evil We are taught to
pray for this Grace. We are here told that we shall have it. Since God
is faithful He will keep us from evil.
4. And we have confidence in the LORD touching you, that you both do
and will do the things which we command you. Our obedience to Apostolic
ordinances should be of the present and of the future. It should be
fixed in our souls. What the Lord has commanded in His Church by His
Apostles should be carefully regarded by us.
5. And the LORD direct your heart into the love of God, andinto
thepatient waiting for Christ The two things go together. When we love
God, we long for the Glory and the appearing of His Son. The most
loving spirits in the world have had, most, an eye to that glorious
coming. Note Enoch who walked with God and prophesied, saying, "Behold,
the Lord comes." Note Daniel, "a man greatly beloved," and a Seer who
looked into the future and saw the Ancient of Days. Mark also John who
leaned his head on Jesus' bosom–we may say of him that he spoke more
of the Second Coming than all the rest of the Apostles. When the heart
gets right away from earth and is set upon God, then it is that we
begin to long for the manifestation of the Lord from Heaven!
6. Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that you withdraw yourselves from every brother that walks disorderly,
and not after the tradition which he received of us. Paul had been to
Thessalonica and had given oral teaching. And now he commits to the
Book what he had spoken, but he bids them take care not to associate
with those who willfully broke the ordinances of the Church which he
had taught them. There are some brethren with whom it is ill for us to
associate, lest they do us harm–and it is ill for them that we
associate with them, lest we seem to assist them in their evil deeds.
Especially is this so in the case of brethren of the class that he is
about to describe– mischief makers, troublers, people that can always
tell you the gossip of a congregation, that can tear a neighbor's
character to pieces, that are able to perceive spots on the sun–people
who delight in parading the fault of God's own children and are never
so happy as when they are making others unhappy by what they have to
say! These are the kind of people to whom you should give a wide berth.
7-9. For yourselves know how you ought to follow us: for we behaved not
ourselves disorderly among you, neither did we eat any man's bread for
nothing; but worked with labor and travail night and day, that we might
not be chargeable to any of you: not because we have not power, but to
make ourselves an example unto you to follow us. The Apostle had a
right to be supported by those among whom he labored. He always insists
upon that right, but for their good, knowing the tendency of that age,
he forfeited that right–and he is indignant that there should be
others who did nothing whatever as to Christian ministry, but who
availed themselves of the charity of the Church at Thessalonica so as
to be able to live upon it without work.
10. For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any
would not work, neither should he eat A very capital rule, indeed.
There are some so very spiritually minded that to soil their hands is
also to soil their conscience. They are afraid of hard work. They think
it is unspiritual, whereas there is nothing in the world, next to the
Grace of God, that is more likely to keep men out of mischief than
having plenty to do!
11. For we hear that there are some which walk amongyou disorderly,
working not at all, but are busybodies. Not doing their own business
and, therefore, putting their noses into everybody else's business. If
they had minded their own affairs, they would have left other people
alone. There are such people alive now. We must not be surprised if we
meet them seeing that they were alive in the Apostle's days–if they
troubled him it must be small marvel if they trouble us.
12. Now them that are such we commanddandd exhort by our LordJesus
Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread. The
best bread and the sweetest is our own. We are to work for it. We are
to work with quietness. I suppose to some that is very hard work, but
they must labor after it, for quietness is a Christian Grace–it is,
indeed, a high Christian attainment.
13-15. Butyou, brethren, be not wearyin doinggood. Andifany man obeynot
our word by this epistle, note that man and have no company with him,
that he may be ashamed. Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him
as a brother. This kind of Christian discipline ought to still be
carried out in reference not only to this one case of busybodies, but
to all other cases. When a church grows large, there can be no
efficient discipline from one man, or from all his officers with him.
There must be the discipline of the whole church towards itself–each
Christian, according to his measure of Grace, seeking the good of the
whole–for while every man must bear his own burden, yet is it said,
"Bear you one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."
"Look not every man upon his own things, but also upon the things of
others." The careful desire to promote the Christian welfare of all our
fellow members is a very different thing from being busybodies. We must
have equal desire not in any way to interfere where we should not.
16. Now the LORD of Peace, Himself, give you peace always by all means.
What a sweet benediction! And how he heaps the words together, as if
peace was one of the greatest blessings a church could have. Indeed,
dear Brothers and Sisters, it is the essential to all other blessings.
I am quite certain that we never would have enjoyed the long years of
perpetual prosperity here which we have had if it had not pleased the
Lord to keep us always in peace. So may we be for many and many a year
to come! May no root of bitterness ever spring up to trouble us, but
may this text be fulfilled– "Now the Lord of Peace give you peace
always by all means."
16, 17. The LORD be with you all. The salutation of Paul with my own
hand, which is the token in every epistle: so I write. I suppose he
always wrote a part of each Epistle. Probably through the failure of
his eyesight, he was unable to write the whole of it with his own
hands, but employed some one of his brethren to be his secretary. But,
in order that everyone might know the Epistle to be genuine, there was
always a little of Paul's writing, sometimes in big text, as when he
said to one church, "You see how large a letter I have written unto you
with my own hand."
18. The Grace of our LORD Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen So with
great courtesy and a comprehensive prayer he finishes his letter.