LOUD ON PURPOSE with PASTOR DAVID R. STOKES

VICTORY OVER VULTURES

2011-08-10T09:47:00.000-04:00

Fair Oaks Church
David R. Stokes
Series: What Would Jesus Tweet?
July 31, 2011
Transcript

Victory Over Vultures
Luke 17:31-37; Genesis 15:1-11

When I laid this series out, I communicated with the creative staff and particularly my son-in-law Mike who just sang. He is the leader of the creative arts team and lays out the services. He takes the theme I'll be preaching on and builds a wonderful service around it with the help of all of the other members of the team. I sent him these crisp, concise statements of Jesus that fit in that 140-character window—“WHAT WOULD JESUS TWEET?”

"Have faith in God," was the one for last week. "Render unto Caesar…" was an earlier one, and so forth. I got down to the one today and he wrote me back, "What are we going to do with this? Where are you going with this?" Most of them are pretty apparent. "Have faith in God." You know it's going to be about faith. "Render to Caesar and render to God." It's about patriotism, God, and country, and the balance. But this one was a little bit of a challenge. I sort of let it lay there for a little bit and let the curiosity grow…

The title of the talk this morning is Victory Over Vultures, which may seem to be an unusual title for a talk. Let’s look at the tweet du jour, which is found in Luke, chapter 17. I'm going to read several verses and the context of this is Jesus is talking about a future event that we know as Armageddon, the future event yet to come, the great end-time battle.

Jesus, in describing it, says this, "'On that day no one who is on the roof of his house, with his goods inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. Remember Lot's wife! Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.' 'Where, Lord?'" is the question of verse 37. "…they asked." (The disciples.) "He replied, 'Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.'" I sent that to Mike. "This is what I'm going to preach on on the 31st of July: 'Where there is a dead body, there the vultures…'" He wrote back, "Exactly where are you going with this?"

Now the context is of course Armageddon, which is described in Revelation chapter 19, that great end-time battle that is very real, and very much looming in the future. Armageddon is a term we throw onto everything. I've heard the term used for the whole debate about the debt ceiling and the default potential and all of that. But nothing rises to the standard of what will happen, and this is the second coming of Jesus and all the armies of the world railed against him. It will be a time of great carnage, and it says there at the last part of the 19th chapter of Revelation that the vultures will be gathered for the carnage.

In the opening scene of the movie Patton, at the Battle of Kasserine in World War II, there's a scene where the vultures are there preying on the dead bodies of the soldiers. It's a common theme. Vultures are ugly creatures. There are actually several different families of vultures. There are Old World vultures and New World vultures, but the commonality is they're birds of prey, and they feed on carrion. In other words, the dead, putrefying flesh of animals, or in some sad cases, humans.

The acid in their digestive system is so toxic and so strong, that it actually has the power to neutralize the diseases that would normally come from feeding off of putrefying flesh. So they are birds of prey, and the text that Jesus is saying here is actually a pretty common phrase. You know how we would say, "Where there's smoke there's fire"? It's one of those little phrases.

It was a common phrase in most cultures and languages because it was a clear thing. Where there is a dead body, a carcass, there the vultures will gather. Now where am I going with this? Well I want to talk about it in the context of our own lives and how to have victory over these things, and I need to take you back for a little foundational material.

Genesis chapter 15. Turn your Bible there if you have one. I want to read a passage, 11 verses. This is a story of Abram. This is before he becomes Abraham. He's in this period of life where God has already called him and God is continuing to speak to him, showing him things that must boggle his mind. This is certainly the case in Genesis 15.

For us here today, all these centuries later, this is really an important plot point in all of history, because it's a really important point in the chain of spiritual evidence that comes down to us to our day about how God redeems, and how God takes care of us and saves us, and about the principle of faith and sacrifice.

So Abram has had several experiences with his family, and it says in Genesis 15:1: "After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: 'Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.' But Abram said, 'O Sovereign Lord, what can You give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?'" Now God had already promised Abraham he was going to have this progeny, this tremendous seed, and out of his seed would all the nations of the earth be blessed, evidence of the covenant relationship with the Jewish people and the ultimate Messiah.

But by this time… That's in chapter 12. You get to chapter 15 and nothing has happened. He says, "'O Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?'" He talks about: "This one of my household; will he inherit and be my heir?" Which would have happened. Verse 4: "Then the word of the Lord came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body…'" "You're going to have a child. A physical child coming from your body will be your heir."

Then God takes him outside and says, "'Look up at the heavens and count the stars, if indeed you can count them.'" Now this is pre-industrial, pre-the civilization as we know it, with incandescent lights, and powerful lights, and the illumination of all that is our modern world. If you've ever gone totally out into the country and totally away from any vestige of civilization and lights, and you see the night sky, it's illuminated much more distinctly and sharply with stars and the wonders of the heavens than it would be even in our area, because it's tempered, our ability to see is tempered by all that is around us, the light that comes from this area.

He says, "Look…if you can count them." Then He says, "'So shall your offspring be.'" He's going to have a bunch of kids. Verse 6 is one of the most important verses in all the Bible. Now you may never have heard it described that way, but it truly is, because everything flows from it to where we are this morning, to where I am in my spiritual journey and where you are.

"Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness." Abraham believed God. You go to Romans 4, talking about faith, leading to justification by faith in Romans 5, it goes back to this Abram story. Abram believed God, and God put it on his account, accounted it to him for righteousness. This is the Faith principle right there established.

Verse 7: "He also said to him, 'I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.' But Abram said, 'O Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?'" In other words, "All right, you're telling me I'm going to have a progeny. Now you're telling me we're going to take possession of a land."

So this is what the Lord described, this ritual: "'Bring Me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.' Abram brought all these to Him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half." Now what's happening here? What's indicated, what's implied, is an altar, already something that was very present in society, the meeting place of God, this idea of sacrifice. Hebrews tells us that without the shedding of blood there is no remission. This is why Jesus died as the sacrifice for our sins on the cross, a bloody death.

So he has laid on the altar these animals. Then verse 11 says, "Then birds of prey (vultures in other translations) came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away." Now I want you to connect these two thoughts. The tweet today is, "Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather." And here Abram is worshipping God, the principle of the covenant that God has made.

This is a promise that's being made by God to Abram. This is a promise that Abram is making to God that he believes this. The way he believes this is with this altar and this sacrifice, this ritual which is an act of worship. He is laying this down. He's not only laying these animals down, he's laying his own life down in a sense on this altar, saying, "I'm believing You, God. I'm charting my course with You."

While this happens, because of the presence of these dead animals, the presence of death on the altar, the birds of prey swoop in to try to take and partake of the carnage and he has to chase them away. So you have this dynamic where he's worshipping and he's chasing away the vultures. I want to talk to you about that today. I want to talk to you about how that relates to your spiritual journey.

Dietrich Bonheoffer, the German theologian who died in the last days of World War II, part of the Confessing Church, said in his book Cost of Discipleship, "When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die." I don't know if you've ever noticed how often death is used in a positive sense as this process we must go through. Death speaks of separation. Death speaks of putting something behind. "…reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin…" (Romans, chapter 6) "…but alive to God…"

The altar is of course ultimately the cross. "We have an altar…" it says in Hebrews, chapter 13, and that's the cross of Calvary. But in a very real sense, as we worship God, what our worshipping God is about, what our journey is about, is God all the time saying, "I want this of you. I want you to get that out of your life. I want you to go in this direction. Here is My plan." It's this series of choices that we make, and when we make the choice that goes God's way, in a sense we're laying ourselves on this altar, and part of us is dying to the old life and alive to what God wants us to do.

That imagery is in Scripture. Romans 12: "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices…" Sacrifices. That's altar language. "…holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship." The language, and I've quoted this Scripture often, but in Galatians 2, this is how Paul sees his life: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."

In other words, Paul says, "The reason I'm able to do this stuff is because I realize that I'm crucified with Christ. I'm dead to the old me, and I've laid that on the altar. I've made these choices to go God's way. This altar is a place of death that brings forth life. This intersection of covenant and promise and obedience."

In the book of Colossians (we've talked about this), Paul tells them, "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." Colossians 3:1. "Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth." Verse 3: "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ…" You're dead? Yes you were dead in trespasses, in sins; now you're dead, separated, disconnected from the world.

He follows it by saying this: "Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry." In other words, in a real sense, the spiritual life is rejecting certain things as a lifestyle, embracing the lifestyle God would have, and he calls this "putting to death." Now this is not a legalistic thing. It's not about will power. It's not about beating yourself up. It's not about isolating yourself from all of the vestiges of modernity and civilization. But he says, "Put to death…" He uses that language. "Put to death."

In fact, in the King James it's the word mortify. Mortify. What's the word? Mortician. Mortuary. It's death. So the Christian life is not only about living for God, it's also about death in a very real sense. It's about the death of an old self. Now he goes on to say this in Romans, chapter 8: "Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation, but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live…"

Misdeeds put to death; same language as in Colossians. But here is the key: "By the Spirit." So we don't do this by will power, by legalism, by rules, by beating each other up, by beating ourselves up, we do this by yielding ourselves to the Spirit, and through spiritual power we're able to overcome the things of this flesh and the world. So I place myself on the altar. When God says, "This is the way," and I say, "I want to go that way," and I say yes to God, in a sense I'm putting myself on the altar. I'm alive to Him but I'm dead to the old life.

So when there is death, vultures will gather. "Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will be gathered," Jesus said. What's the dead body? The dead body is the Christian who says, "I'm going to live as a sacrifice to God. I'm going to put to death my old life. Through the Spirit, I'm going to mortify my old life." Because there is that death there, there's the sincere desire of the Christian to live alive to God and dead to the world, and dead to sin, and dead to the Devil, the vultures gather sent by the Evil One, and a lot of our lives are spent chasing them away.

What they want to do is steal, rob, overtake your best intentions of doing what God would have you to do. This is why Paul said this in 1 Corinthians 15: "I die every day—I mean that, brothers—just as surely as I glory over you in Christ Jesus…" Paul said he died every day. I think this is what this means. Every day when he got up he realized he had to make decisions that day along the lines of what God's plan was for his life, and not based on any other values. In a sense he had to remind himself every day that he was dead unto sin, but alive unto God.

If he didn't, he'd be surrendering to the vultures. "Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather." Let me give you some truth about how you can live victorious over certain vultures. Let's talk about vultures that… When you're just open to God, you're letting go, you're laying it all out there, you're vulnerable before God: "Yes, Lord. No to the world. I'm dying to that. I'm saying yes to You." When you do that, and the vultures start to gather, what will happen?

1. The vulture of false teaching. Along the way, one of the things you'll deal with and have to swat away and chase away, is as soon as you have come to a place of clarity, inevitably there'll be something or someone that will try to twist your thinking away from what brought you to that place of obedience to God. Sometimes it's theological; sometimes it's secular.

There's a lot of bad theology out there. There are a lot of people who have twisted views of Scripture, who superimpose all kinds of stuff. I'll never cease to be amazed, and I've seen this happen time and again, where people get saved and God starts doing something in their lives. They lay stuff on the altar and they're an open book. "God, use me."

And people in their lives, who had professed to be Christians but never lifted a finger to tell them about Jesus, who didn't even tell them they went to a church, are the first ones to say, "Oh you're going to the wrong church. Oh you're doing it all wrong. Oh you need to have this, you have to have that. You have to have this, you have to have that." Those are vultures. That's not witness.

Sometimes the vultures will be secular, when you'll think, Well it's good advice no matter where it comes from. Not true. The Bible says, "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly…" When you're going to get life advice… I'm not talking about advice on, you know, something benign like, "Is the fish here good at this restaurant?" I'm talking about advice on matters of life. Do you get your advice from people who share your values?

I mean Dr. Phil may be right sometimes, but a broken clock is right twice a day. Does it really come from biblical values? I'm not necessarily picking on him. How's that working for him? I'm not picking on him. But my point is this, that the false teaching sometimes comes in and instead of really selling out to God, you let sort of the things of the world and the way the world thinks about life, and you start thinking on the terms of reason and rationality rather than faith.

"Dear friends…" it says in 1 John, "…do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood." So you have to try the spirits, or test them.

2. The vulture of trouble or persecution. I mean seriously, a lot of people think that when you make a spiritual breakthrough (and maybe you've had this experience recently), and you're really saying yes to God, that that means everything should free up. Well there'll be a freeing, there'll be a release, and a relief that comes in your heart, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're not going to have trouble.

Because see, when you lay your life open to God and say yes, you may be relived and you may be obedient, and there may be a peace of heart and mind, but the vultures are going to circle and you're going to have trouble because the enemy is going to throw everything he can: trouble, persecution, difficulty. That's why Peter says, "Don't think it's strange when fiery trials try you."

So how in the world do you chase away that kind of trouble? This is the cool thing about trouble. Get this now. If you're trying to serve God and pressure comes and trouble comes, here's what you do: You welcome it. It says, "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse." Some years ago, when I was pastoring in Long Island, somebody started a rumor about me that was the most absurd untrue thing that has ever been said about me I think.

It was just a stupid thing but it really bothered me. It bothered me maybe that anybody believed it. It really brought me low. I was visiting with a Christian friend, not a member of my church, but a good Christian friend. He was a golf buddy. "How you doing, Dave?" "I'm a little down," and I described what was going on. I was sort of reaching for this friend to be sort of sympathetic, you know, "Oh poor Dave."

He says, "Praise the Lord!" I was like, "What?" His last name was Buttafuoco so I should have known something was wrong. "Praise the Lord!" I said, "Dan, what in the world are you talking about?" He says, "You must be doing something right, because Satan is out to stop you." And he was absolutely right. That wasn't where I went right at first, but it impacted my thinking.

Trouble, persecution, difficulty, did you ever think about this? Pastor Stokes, do you always welcome it? No! I'm telling you to do it. I don't always do this! I admit that. But I think it's good preaching and I sure need to do it. We all need it. It's difficult. It's counterintuitive. We want to push back, and God says, "Bring it on." Why? Because that's the best way to chase that vulture away, just bring him in nice and close. Oh he scares me. Yeah but see when you're in Christ, and you're obedient to Him, chasing away a big, bad, ugly, carnivorous vulture is easier than swatting a fly in the name of the Lord.

3. Worldly seduction. You're just trying to serve God. You want your values to be right and the world just has all kinds of pleasure stuff and fun stuff. Again I'm not an isolationist; I'm in the world. I like sports, I like entertainment, I like all kinds… But you know those things if you're not careful, they can run your life. So how do you keep it in balance? Keep your vision on Jesus Christ.

The old song says, "Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace." Karen and I are grandparents. We have seven grandchildren. All of them call me, "Grandpa." I'm Grandpa, which is innovative and creative. I don't know how they came up with that.

For those of us who know the family real well, and a lot of the kids in the church do this, little kids, Karen's name is "Day." All the kids call her, "Day." You say, What's that about? That's because, and it usually works this way, the oldest grandchild (in this case David Vaughan who lives down in Lynchburg; he's 12 years old), sort of gets to pick you know the "Papaw," or the "Pepaw," or the "Mamaw," or "Nana" or whatever it might be, or "Hey you."

All the kids call Floyd White, "Dack." I don't know where "Dack" came from but that's… All of them call you "Dack." My son-in-law calls you "Dack." That's what my grandson calls you, and so I don't know. Mary, do you call him "Dack?" No. Good. That's a good thing. But I'm "Grandpa," and Karen is "Day." Where does that come from?

Well when David was real little, as he was learning to pronounce certain phonetics, Karen would talk to me, "Dave! Dave!" That's my name. She doesn't call me, "Pastor," or "Reverend," you know. "Dave!" And I'd answer it. He started to associate D-A, long A, that phonetic sound, with her, and began to think she was "Day," because that was the phrase coming out her mouth. "Dave, take out the garbage! Dave, you didn't take out the garbage! Dave, there are vultures on the garbage! Dave…" You know, whatever. So "Day," which is cute.

So she went with it. Now her email is daystokes, and she's "Day," and a lot of the little kids around here call her "Day." Now if I'm standing by myself in a room and one of my grandkids walks in, "Grandpa!" and they'll run over and jump up, and you know high-five, and "Down low and too slow" and all kinds of cool stuff.

But if I'm standing here and "Day" is standing there, I'm not like the moon; I'm like one of the moons of Saturn. I am so off the charts they don't even know I'm there. They'll just run right by me, never see, and embrace her. I'll try to talk to them and they're still talking to her. It's evil. She's a cult leader with my grandchildren.

"You want some Kool-Aid?" and so forth. I mean that's her. And she delights in doing that. She almost gets this, "Muhaha! I have another one!" Because when they're really young sometimes they actually like me you know, and they'll crawl up on me, but she's like, "Oh it's just a matter of time and I'll have them," you know. And sure enough, they go over to the dark side, or the "Day" side as the case may be.

In a sense, that's the way we ought to be with the Lord. If the Lord was as fascinating to us, and the kingdom of God was as fascinating to us as it ought to be, and all the things related to the kingdom of God, then everything else would pale in comparison, wouldn't exist, wouldn't even be on our radar. If you're on the altar saying, "God, I want to be used," and the vulture comes, and here's the world promising you all of this it cannot deliver, but it's right here, and the problem is, it's right here but God is far away. You have to begin to think by faith.

Listen to what it says in 1 John: "…everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith." Faith overcomes the world. What does this mean? What is faith? Well we said, "Conviction based on revelation that leads to action," last week, but according to Hebrews 11:1: "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." You see the invisible.

Moses was able to do what he did, endured affliction with the people of God, how? Seeing Him who was invisible. Faith is when you see what nobody else can see. When you see God, and you see the kingdom of God, and the things of God, and the Word of God, so clearly and so closely, then you can't see the lights of this world and its seduction.

4. Fear. That's a vulture. Some people are just afraid. All kinds of fear. Phobias. I want to talk about one in particular this morning and that's the fear of serving God, the fear of obeying God. Some people are afraid they'll never keep their commitment. Some people are afraid they're going to get hurt. I want you to know something: It's fear that keeps people from making the right choices.

Have you ever wondered when you get to the end of the Bible, and you start reading the list of people who don't get to heaven, who are in hell, you know, whore mongers, idolaters, did you ever notice that in the list is the fearful? Why would that be a sin? Because people let their fears keep them from stepping out by faith and taking God at His word. It is fear that keeps people from getting saved, and I'm here to tell you it is fear many times that'll keep you from that next step in your spiritual journey, that next little thing or that next big thing God is calling you to do.

Let me ask you a question: Would you rather walk by sight and know for sure what is 10 steps ahead but be going in the way God doesn't want you to go, or would you rather not know the next 10 steps that are ahead but know that's the direction God wants you to go and He's going to hold your hand into that future? Who inhabits the future, my friends? Who stands outside of time and inhabits eternity according to Isaiah? It is God. Chase away that vulture of fear. "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made in perfect love. We love because He first loved us." What else?

5. Guilt. When you start getting things straightened out with God, the accuser… I messed up. God can't use me. God can't forgive me. You don't know what happened back then. You don't know the mistakes I've made. Listen, I understand what that is, but that's irrelevant now. Don't let the past paralyze your present. Take it before God, confess it, repent of it, forsake it, put it on the altar, be an open book before God, and say, "God, I want You to take my life where it is now."

Moses murdered a guy when he was 40, and it wasn't until he was 80 that he really got things straightened out enough for God to use him. But he finally did, and in the next 40 years he changed history. No matter where you are in your life, don't let guilt… Take that guilt to grace. The vultures will come and say, "You're a wretch. There is no way God can use you. There is no way you can be a help to anyone." No, God is in the business of grace.

Listen to this: "The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will He harbor His anger forever; He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us." You can find true north and true south polar in this world, but not in the east and the west. It's illusive. It continues. That's as far from us as God removes our sins.

6. The vulture of anger. This one really gets a lot of people. Maybe some of the other vultures you swat away, but anger sort of sticks with you, because anger is so self-justifying. Especially if we feel justified being angry about something. But anger is a nonstarter, my friends. It's a terrible toxin. I have a piece out at townhall.com. It was out this weekend, entitled Anders Breivik (the Norway shooter) Is No Christian Fundamentalist. I was upset that he kept being labeled as a Christian fundamentalist.

I actually read the entire 1,568-page manifesto word for word, and there's no Christian fundamentalism in there. There's no Christian anything in there. And the stands he even talks about, spiritual issues, are so far removed from any evangelical or fundamentalist. I came from a fundamentalist background so I can speak to this. I departed from a lot of the stuff. You know, we couldn't go to movies; we couldn't swim with people of the opposite sex. They called it "mixed bathing," which I always thought was a weird thing to call it. We dressed like the Amish.

I've rejected that stuff, but I'm grateful for the doctrinal founding I got. This column talks about that. But I have to tell you also, I've been around conservative Christians all my life, and I will say this: There is far too much anger about a lot of things in conservative Christianity—politics, church, methodology, theology. I mean it's one thing to hold a conviction, but there are a lot of Christians who are just mad at everything and everybody. They're just mad at it all, not realizing that the wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God. The servant of the Lord must not strive.

"Get rid of all anger," Paul says. "…all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you." The book I wrote, which I don't talk much about here, is the story of a pastor who had a lot of gifts, but I believe he was consumed with anger, and because of that anger it acted out and he killed a guy.

In that strain of Christianity, that ultra-fundamentalist strain, there's a lot of good stuff, a lot of solid teaching about biblical truth. I'm grateful I got drilled into me the Word of God, but also there was a lot of meanness. And if that's not checked and repented of, that will work itself out in some very ungodly ways.

This is why a lot of kids who grow up in orthodox homes don't stay in church, because their parents were angry Christians. The Bible says, "Parents, provoke not your children to anger, but raise them up in the nurture and the admonition…" There has to be a loving environment. That's what I love about our church. We love kids at this church. Kids just rule this church. They can run around and do all kinds of stuff in this church. Why? Because they're the next generation. Thank God for that. And that's the way it ought to be.

7. Discouragement is a vulture. I must hasten. I don't have time to develop a story, but there was a time in David the King's life, before he was king, when he was greatly discouraged, almost at the end of his rope. It says this: "And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him…" This is the old King James. "…because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the Lord his God."

There are times that people will be there to encourage you. It's nice when they are. It's nice when you can be there to encourage someone else. But understand something: Sometimes you have to encourage yourself in the Lord your God, and remind yourself, "Chase that vulture away that's trying to steal your obedience."

8. Success. A lot of people have let success ruin them, material success, and sometimes a spiritual success. In the book of Deuteronomy it says this: "When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land He has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe His commands, His laws, and His decrees that I am giving you this day."

A lot of people when they get successful, they sort of let up and it's no longer as serious to them. These are vultures. The message is: "Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather." The dead body for our message this morning is the Christian who puts himself before God and says, "I want to die to the world. I want to die to sin. I want to die to the Devil. I want to live to You. I want to separate myself from the old. I want to build a new habit pattern, a new directive, and a new direction in my life."

When you put yourself there open before God, there's a death process that's happening, and the vultures will gather because they want to steal it. They want to pick on it and take it away. And like Abram of old, when you're in that place of covenant and faith, a lot of what you have to do is chase the vultures away. Maybe you've been trying to put yourself before God but you've not learned how to chase those vultures away. I hope I've helped you this morning.

The Making of a Sermon ;-)

2011-06-24T08:53:00.001-04:00

One of the questions I get a lot from church members and, in fact, from pastors, as well, is: How do you prepare your messages?

Well, every preacher, no matter what the training in homiletics, must eventually find his own “five smooth stones” when it comes to many things in ministry. This is particularly true in the area of preaching and preparation.

For me, because I preach most of the time in a “series” format, I have an idea about the subject matter—even the text—several weeks ahead of time (seldom earlier than that, though). However, the actual message, with its unique theme and focus, is not on my radar until—at the earliest—the Monday prior to the Sunday it will be delivered.

This blend of long-term planning with the actual sermon prepared in the days immediately before it is preached, is for me a good balance. And it is also a vital way to make sure that our excellent creative team at Fair Oaks Church has time to put together a compelling service.

Once I know the text, theme, and focus, the first thing I do is READ. Then I READ MORE, and YET MORE. In fact, it is not unusual for me to read anywhere from 200-400 pages of material even before I jot a note on paper.

What do I read? Books, articles, commentaries, and yes—even other sermons. I never preach another man’s sermons, but like J. Vernon McGee used to say, “Graze on every pasture, but give your own milk.”

And when I find stuff on the internet, I print it all out and bind it together for the reading (sorry, trees. That’s just me, I like print on paper).

When I preached a series based on the life and ministry of Elijah a while back, I read 11 books about the fascinating prophet.

Francis Bacon said, “Reading maketh a full man.” Spurgeon called this process, “Grist for the mill.”

Indeed.

Then I write out my thoughts—not in narrative form, but in phrase form, looking for the makings of an outline. Francis Bacon also said, "Writing maketh an exact man." Once I have that skeleton, I put meat on the bones – sub points, illustrations, etc.

Sometimes I will fill up an entire yellow legal pad (8 ½ by 11), but usually about 20 pages or so of disjointed notes that would make no sense to anyone but me.

Finally, I distill it all down to usually a single page of main ideas and send that to the creative team (Joel Slater is the current recipient of these) so that the presentation can be made.

I hide those notes in my heart, but I do take a copy to the stage—and, of course, I have a screen showing me what is being projected.

Usually, I have the material to Joel Slater by mid-day Thursday, though occasionally on Friday. And sometimes, I have additions as late as Sunday morning.

But once I send the notes to Joel, I put it all away until early Sunday morning. I get up at 5:30 a.m. and review all the material.

By the way, after reviewing all the scribblings one final time--I throw them all away and only retain the single distilled page.

Now you know. Feel better? I KNOW I do☺. -- DRS

Portrait of a Man of God: D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

2009-10-20T08:12:00.003-04:00

(This article appeared in PREACHING MAGAZINE)

A PREACHER'S PREACHER
By David R. Stokes

A short walk from the majestic dignity of Buckingham Palace, there is a church which has a royal history of its own. Princes of the pulpit have reigned there. Names such as John Henry Jowett and G. Campbell Morgan adorn the history of legendary Westminster Chapel. These men helped to create the spiritual climate of their times. They were giants of the faith, the English spoken word and biblical exposition.

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones was responsible for the most vital period in the life of Westminster Chapel. A man of unparalleled intellect and prodigious sermonic output, he left his mark on both sides of the Atlantic—and around the world.

Born in Wales in 1899, he grew up during the glow—and afterglow—of the great Welsh Revival, though he would come to spiritual maturity and clarity a bit later in life. The residual influences of that nation-wide awakening cannot be fully measured but were, no doubt, significant.

As a young student, Martyn was drawn to the sciences and ultimately to medicine, first as a study, then as a career. Following his schooling, he joined the staff of a teaching hospital and became clinical assistant to Sir Thomas Horder, one of the most famous heart physicians of the day.

Martyn was so young when he took his exams that he had to wait to become a full-fledged physician. Horder’s “Socratic” approach to logic and learning had a significant impact on the future preacher’s mind. Evidences of this color his later work as a preacher and writer.1

While on the road to fame and fortune as a doctor of medicine, God clearly had another plan. There was a battle raging in the soul of this brilliant man. The Great Physician was calling this young heart physician into the work of the healing of souls.

Lloyd-Jones was courting Bethany Phillips, who attended the same church. He shared his inner struggle with her. Soon they were married. Shortly thereafter he became a minister of the gospel.

He was called to lead a small congregation in Southern Wales: Bethlehem Forward Mission Church in Sandsfields, Abervon. This was a working-class congregation in a community beginning to feel the impact of economic depression. The region had become a stronghold for Marxist-Leninism—preying on the fears and prejudices of the labor class. Lloyd-Jones’ early and enduring success in this first pastorate is credited as one key factor in saving the region from Communism. Local Marxist leaders were converted under the power of his preaching and joined the church. This congregation grew from a gathering of about 90 people to more than 850 in slightly less than 12 years.2

Even in his first years of ministry, Martyn was marking himself as someone skilled at making the ancient text relevant to the contemporary need. One church member, a retired preacher in his 80s, who heard him in these formative years remarked, “Though you are a young man, you are preaching the old truths I have been trying to preach all of my life ... but you have put a modern suit on them.”3

The young preacher found himself preaching to a wider audience as opportunities presented themselves around the United Kingdom. Among those who heard him and came away moved and impressed was the great London pastor, G. Campbell Morgan.

Morgan was, by the late 1930s, winding up his second tenure as pastor of Westminster Chapel in London. Though reluctant at first, Lloyd-Jones agreed to an assistant role in London. As the nation basked in the short-lived euphoria of Neville Chamberlain’s Munich gambit in 1938, he moved his family to London. Soon, the world would be at war. This was the social backdrop for the beginning of a spiritual explosion God was preparing for this already historic church. For nearly five years, Lloyd-Jones and Morgan alternated conducting the morning and evening chapel services from month to month.

By 1943, Morgan was moving into retirement, and Lloyd-Jones was assuming a pulpit role that would help guide his nation through the end of the war and into the post-war/Cold-war world. Until his retirement from this post in 1968, he preached to capacity crowds of 2,500 on Sunday mornings and evenings and 1,200 each Friday night. Though there was clear and unmistakable numerical and spiritual success, it was noted by admirer James Packer that “to Lloyd-Jones the kind of revival he had known in his first pastorate had never been fully experienced in London.”4

Lloyd-Jones saw himself as building on Morgan’s foundation while simultaneously charting his own course as an expositor. Morgan had built his ministry around what could best be characterized as devotional preaching. Much of his teaching was based on the four Gospels. Lloyd-Jones, however, found his home and greatest preaching fulfillment in the exposition of the great doctrinal epistles, once remarking that Morgan had “left them for him.”5

The experience of following a legend made Lloyd-Jones particularly sensitive and considerate about how he treated and worked with those who had the unenviable task of following him. Westminster successor R.T. Kendall basked in a wonderful relationship with his great predecessor. They had a standing appointment every Thursday from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. Mrs. Jones would serve lunch; Kendall would read every word

of Lloyd-Jones’ preparation for the upcoming three weekend services. He did this for four years! Kendall later wrote, “Surely no minister in this country had such a privilege.”6

The ministry of Lloyd-Jones was primarily a preaching ministry. The pulpit was central to every aspect of the spiritual program at Westminster. This was the food for growth and foundation for success.

Any pastor with a heart for biblical exposition who has come of age since the midpoint of the 20th century will inevitably find himself drawn to the

pastoral works of Lloyd-Jones. In fact, the books that bear his name have not only grown out of his pulpit work; they are nearly word-for-word transpositions of his spoken sermons or studies.

From his studies on the Sermon on the Mount to his work on revival, to a book on spiritual depression, to his Reflections on the Work of God’s Spirit (Joy Unspeakable), Lloyd-Jones tackled themes that resonated with the heart of his hearers. His thorough preparation, animated delivery and complete dependence on the power of God in the preaching moment bore the fruit of a ministry with a contemporary impact and lasting legacy.

From the standpoint of understanding Martyn Lloyd-Jones as a preacher of the Word, there is no greater key or resource than the fruit of what happened during six vital weeks when he was 70 years of age—The Westminster Seminary Lectures on Preaching. Those lectures remain available on audio-cassette and survive in printed form embodied in the classic book Preaching and Preachers.7

In the preface to this work, Jones said that he had been told by those at Westminster that he could lecture on any subject he might choose. He chose preaching, and preachers have been blessed ever since! He referred to his method in these discourses as “thinking aloud” with those studying for the ministry and called the style “conversational and intimate.” In fact, what is in print in Preaching and Preachers is, but for a few “minor corrections,” what he actually said in the lectures.

Early on in these messages, he discounted what he referred to as “Baldwinism.” This was a reference to a past Prime Minister of Great Britain—a man regarded as a “technocrat” in contrast to the typical orator-politicians of the era. Stanley Baldwin’s tenure as leader of that nation fell between men such as David Lloyd-George and Winston Churchill, both men noted for their eloquence. His leadership style was one of attention to detail and personal relationships, but he was definitely NOT a gifted speaker. He was seen by many as the political prophet of a new era — representing a new breed of political leader.

Martyn made the point that it was a mistake to think that the eloquence and rhetoric and the careful use of language had ceased to be relevant to ministry effectiveness. One can only imagine what the great preacher would think of what preaching has become in some circles in the early days of the 21st century. He would no doubt be less than impressed with any emphasis on methodology that de-emphasized preaching. To him preaching was paramount. He suggested, “The greatest men of action have been great speakers.” He had no patience with the trend “to discount the value and importance of speech and oratory.” One can only imagine how he would find the tendency to cut corners in our Internet age hard to bear. To him, preaching was to be “logic on fire.” Furthermore, he was of the opinion that a “revival of true preaching” is a time-honored method God uses to herald great spiritual movements and revivals. His thinking was “a theology which doesn’t take fire” is inherently suspect.

His favorite preacher was George Whitefield. One Lloyd-Jones biographer, Tony Sargent, has gone so far as to say, “Whitefield caused him to see the distinction between what is preached and the act of preaching.” A great actor of the 18th century, David Garrick, commenting on Whitefield’s power as a speaker, once said that he wished he could even utter the word “Mesopotamia” as he did. In other words, Whitefield was a master of the spoken word, obviously admired by Lloyd-Jones. This admiration translated itself into a distinctive philosophy of preaching as the supreme method of ministry—modern or otherwise.

The most thoroughly discussed aspect of D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ view on preaching is of what he called “unction” in preaching. This was a term he used to describe a desired state in the preaching moment, one that saw intense and thorough preparation meet the clear empowerment of the Spirit of God. He believed that this “unction” produced greater clarity, power and boldness in preaching. It was more than a merely human expression of urgency. It was being lifted up by God’s power as the Word preached was going forth.

He reminded those students (and us by extension) that they were not “simply imparting information.” Rather, they were “dealing with pilgrims on the way to eternity ... dealing with matters not only of life in the world, but with eternal destiny.” To him nothing could be “more urgent.”

This “unction” has a mysterious element to it, as described by him. He saw it as something that could not be conjured or manipulated, but the work of a Sovereign Lord. Yet, it was, to him, something to be desired above all other aspects of the preaching life and experience. He described it this way:

It gives clarity of thought, clarity of speech, ease of utterance, a great sense of authority and confidence as you are preaching, an awareness of a power not your own thrilling through your own being, and an indescribable sense of joy. You are a man “possessed,” you are taken hold of, and taken up. I like to put it like this—and I know of nothing on earth that is comparable to this feeling—that when this happens you have a feeling that you are not actually doing the preaching, you are looking on. You are looking on at yourself in amazement as this is happening. It is not your effort; you are just the instrument, the channel, the vehicle: and Spirit is using you, and you are looking on in great enjoyment to this. That is what the preacher himself is aware of.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was known generally as an expositor; but a closer look reveals that, though he followed the expository tendency to preach through books of the Bible (his studies on Romans and Ephesians stand out), he was, in effect, a “textual-topical” preacher. He often used an “inverted pyramid, moving a small piece of text to what the Scripture as a whole taught on the subject and what its theological ramifications were.”8

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was a man with one eye on eternity and the other on his times. As such, though his preaching consistently followed a sequential path (e.g., preaching through a book of the Bible), he found creative and compelling ways to weave the Word around current events. For example, while he was preaching a Sunday morning series on “The Kingdom of God,” the country found itself in the midst of a crisis. Called “The Profumo Affair,” it involved the resignation of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s Secretary for War, John Profumo, over an affair he had with a young women who was at the same time involved with a Soviet Naval Attaché—raising concerns about espionage. U.S. President Kennedy watched this closely for his own reasons as the MacMillan government was nearly brought down (the Prime Minister resigned a few months later for health reasons).

Tackling such an issue was not hard for Lloyd-Jones. His rich biblical approach enabled him to touch on sensitive issues—even moral and political scandal—in a dignified and responsible way. Never drifting into a morbid fascination with the details of evil, he instead proclaimed the values of God’s Kingdom standing in contrast to the compromises and corruptions of the kingdoms of this world, yet, at the same time remaining a loyal countryman.9

He was a man who could pray in the pulpit for 35 minutes before preaching. He shunned radio work on the BBC because he believed that the medium would not recognize and convey the “unction” that was so precious to him and vital to his ministry. Some who knew him well, and who had observed his mind at work and gifts of leadership and communication, strongly felt that—had he taken another path—he could have been Prime Minister of the nation one day (if Whitefield was his preacher hero, David Lloyd George was his political hero). But, his thinking was certainly akin to that of another great English preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who once said, “If God calls you to preach, don’t ever stoop to be a king!”

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones had to cancel all speaking engagements due to illness in 1979, and he wrestled with health problems for many months. By February of 1981 he was telling his family, “Don’t pray for healing; don’t try to hold me back from the glory.”

On March 1 he went home to be with the Lord. A special day to any Welshman—the first of March is known as “St. David’s Day.”

1. Christopher Catherwood, Five Evangelical Leaders, 1985.
2. Tony Sargent, The Sacred Anointing: The Preaching of D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, p. 53.
3. Ibid., p. 158.
4. Ibid., p. 151.
5. Warren Wiersbe, Living with the Giants, p. 187.
6. R.T. Kendall, The Anointing, introduction.
7. In this next section I quote liberally from Preaching and Preachers by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Zondervan Publishing House, 1971).
8. Iain Murray, The First Forty Years, p. 328.
9. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Kingdom of God, p. 8.

The Blind Eye & The Deaf Ear

2009-07-05T18:53:00.000-04:00

Note from DRS: I read the following about once a year - and usually post it and send it along...it's been a while, but I came across it again today on vacation. It is from one of CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON'S lectures to his ministry students in the 19th century, but it applies well to many circumstances and endeavors...it's called:

THE BLIND EYE & THE DEAF EAR

Having often said in this room that a minister ought to have one blind eye and one deaf ear, I have excited the curiosity of several brethren, who have requested an explanation; for it appears to them, as it does also to me, that the keener eyes and ears we have the better. Well, gentlemen, since the text is somewhat mysterious, you shall have the exegesis of it.

A part of my meaning is expressed in plain language by Solomon, in the book of Ecclesiastes (7:21): "Also take no heed unto all words that are spoken; lest thou hear thy servant curse thee." The margin says, "Give not thy heart to all words that are spoken"--do not take them to heart or let them weigh with you, do not notice them, or act as if you heard them.

You cannot stop people's tongues, and therefore the best thing is to stop your own ears and never mind what is spoken. There is a world of idle chit- chat abroad, and he who takes note of it will have enough to do. He will find that even those who live with him are not always singing his praises, and that when he has displeased his most faithful servants, they have, in the heat of the moment, spoken fierce words which it would be better for him not to have heard. Who has not, under temporary irritation, said that of another which he has afterwards regretted?
It is the part of the generous to treat passionate words as if they had never been uttered. When a man is in an angry mood it is wise to walk away from him, and leave off strife before it be meddled with; and if we are compelled to hear hasty language, we must endeavor to obliterate it from the memory, and say with David, "But I, as a deaf man, heard not. I was as a man that heareth not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs." Tacitus describes a wise man as saying to one that railed at him, "You are lord of your tongue, but I am also master of my ears"--you may say what you please, but I will only hear what I choose.

We cannot shut our ears as we do our eyes, for we have no ear lids, and yet, as we read of him that "stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood," it is, no doubt, possible to seal the portal of the ear so that nothing contraband shall enter. We would say to the general gossip of the village, and of the unadvised words of angry friends--do not hear them, or if you must hear them, do not lay them to heart, for you also have talked idly and angrily in your day, and would even now be in an awkward position if you were called to account for every word that you have spoken, even about your dearest friend. Thus Solomon argued as he closed the passage which we have quoted--"For oftentimes also thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise has cursed others."

BLIND EYE AND DEAF EAR IN BEGINNING A NEW MINISTRY

In enlarging upon my text, let me say first--when you commence your ministry make up your mind to begin with a clean sheet; be deaf and blind to the long-standing differences which may survive in the church. As soon as you enter upon your pastorate you may be waited upon by persons who are anxious to secure your adhesion to their side in a family quarrel or church dispute; be deaf and blind to these people, and assure them that bygones must be bygones with you, and that as you have not inherited your predecessor's cupboard you do not mean to eat his cold meat. If any flagrant injustice had been done, be diligent to set it right, but if it be a mere feud, bid the quarrelsome party cease from it, and tell him once for all that you will have nothing to do with it. The answer of Gallio will almost suit you: "If it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews, reason would that I should bear with you: but if it be a question of words and names, and vain janglings, look ye to it; for I will be no judge of such matters."

When I came to New Park Street Chapel as a young man from the country, and was chosen pastor, I was speedily interviewed by a good man who had left the church, having, as he said, been "treated shamefully." He mentioned the names of half-a-dozen persons, all prominent members of the church, who had behaved in a very unchristian manner to him, he, poor innocent sufferer, having been a model of patience and holiness. I learned his character at once from what he said about others (a mode of judging which has never misled me), and I made up my mind how to act. I told him that the church had been in a sadly unsettled state, and that the only way out of the snarl was for every one to forget the past and begin again. He said that the lapse of years did not alter facts, and I replied that it would alter a man's view of them if in that time he had become a wiser and better man. However, I added, that all the past had gone away with my predecessors, that he must follow them to their new spheres, and settle matters with them, for I would not touch the affair with a pair of tongs. He waxed somewhat warm, but I allowed him to radiate until he was cool again, and we shook hands and parted.

He was a good man, but constructed upon an uncomfortable principle, so that he came across the path of others in a very awkward manner at times, and if I had gone into his narrative and examined his case, there would have been no end to the strife. I am quite certain that, for my own success, and for the prosperity of the church, I took the wisest course by applying my blind eye to all disputes which dated previously to my advent. It is the extreme of unwisdom for a young man fresh from college, or from another charge, to suffer himself to be earwigged by a clique, and to be bribed by kindness and flattery to become a partisan, and so to ruin himself with one-half of his people. Know nothing of parties and cliques, but be the pastor of all the flock, and care for all alike. Blessed are the peacemakers, and one sure way of peacemaking is to let the fire of contention alone. Neither fan it, nor stir it, nor add fuel to it, but let it go out of itself. Begin your ministry with one blind eye and one deaf ear.

BLIND EYE AND DEAF EAR IN REGARD TO SALARY

I should recommend the use of the same faculty, or want of faculty, with regard to finance in the matter of your own salary. There are some occasions, especially in raising a new church, when you may have no deacon who is qualified to manage that department, and, therefore, you may feel called upon to undertake it yourselves. In such a case you are not to be censured; you ought even to be commended. Many a time also the work would come to an end altogether if the preacher did not act as his own deacon, and find supplies both temporal and spiritual by his own exertions. To these exceptional cases I have nothing to say but that I admire the struggling worker and deeply sympathize with him, for he is overweighted, and is apt to be a less successful soldier for his Lord because he is entangled with the affairs of this life.

In churches which are well established, and afford a decent maintenance, the minister will do well to supervise all things, but interfere with nothing. If deacons cannot be trusted they ought not to be deacons at all, but if they are worthy of their office they are worthy of our confidence. I know that instances occur in which they are sadly incompetent and yet must be borne with, and in such a state of things the pastor must open the eye which otherwise would have remained blind. Rather than the management of church funds should become a scandal we must resolutely interfere, but if there is no urgent call for us to do so we had better believe in the division of labour, and let deacons do their own work.

We have the right with financial matters if we please, but it will be our wisdom as much as possible to let them alone, if others will manage them for us. When the purse is bare, the wife sickly, and the children numerous, the preacher must speak if the church does not properly provide for him; but to be constantly bringing before the people requests for an increase of income is not wise. When a minister is poorly remunerated, and he feels that he is worth more, and that the church could give him more, he ought kindly, boldly, and firmly to communicate with the deacons first, and if they do not take it up he should then mention it to the brethren in a sensible, business-life way, not as craving a charity, but as putting it to their sense of honour, that "the labourer is worthy of his hire." Let him say outright what he thinks, for there is nothing to be ashamed of, but there would be much more cause for shame if he dishonoured himself and the cause of God by plunging into debt: let him therefore speak to the point of a proper spirit to the proper persons, and there end the matter, and not resort to secret complaining.

Faith in God should tone down our concern about temporalities, and enable us to practice what we preach, namely--"Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink; or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things." Some who have pretended to live by faith have had a very shrewd way of drawing out donations by turns of the indirect corkscrew, but you either ask plainly, like men, or you will leave it to the Christian feeling of your people, and turn to the items and modes of church finance a blind eye and a deaf ear.

BLIND EYE AND DEAF EAR TOWARD GOSSIP

The blind eye and the deaf ear will come in exceedingly well in connection with the gossips of the place. Every church, and, for the matter of that, every village and family, is plagued with certain Mrs. Grundys who drink tea and talk vitriol. They are never quiet, but buzz around to the great annoyance of those who are devout and practical. No one needs to look far for perpetual motion, he has only to watch their tongues. At tea-meetings, Dorcas meetings, and other gatherings, they practice vivisection upon the characters of their neighbours, and of course they are eager to try their knives upon the minister, the minister's wife, the minister's children, the minister's wife's bonnet, the dress of the minister's daughter, and how many new ribbons she has worn for the last six months, and so on ad infinitum.

There are also certain persons who are never so happy as when they are "grieved to the heart" to have to tell the minister that Mr. A. is a snake in the grass, that he is quite mistaken in thinking so well of Messrs. B. and C., and that they have heard quite "promiscuously" that Mr. D. and his wife are badly matched. Then follows a long string about Mrs. E., who says that she and Mrs. F. overheard Mrs. G. say to Mrs.

H. that Mrs. J. should say that Mr. K. and Miss L. were going to move from the chapel and hear Mr. M., and all because of what old N. said to young O. about that Miss P.

Never listen to such people. Do as Nelson did when he put his blind eye to the telescope and declared that he did not see the signal [to retreat], and therefore would go on with the battle.

Let the creatures buzz, and do not even hear them, unless indeed they buzz so much concerning one person that the matter threatens to be serious; then it will be well to bring them to book and talk in sober earnestness to them. Assure them that you are obliged to have facts definitely before you, that your memory is not very tenacious, that you have many things to think of, that you are always afraid of making any mistake in such matters, and that if they would be good enough to write down what they have to say the case would be more fully before you, and you could give more time to its consideration. Mrs. Grundy will not do that; she has a great objection to making clear and definite statements; she prefers talking at random.

I heartily wish that by any process we could put down gossip, but I suppose that it will never be done so long as the human race continues what it is, for James tells us that "every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed by mankind: but the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison." What can't be cured must be endured, and the best way of enduring it is not to listen to it. Over one of our old castles a former owner has inscribed these lines--

THEY SAY. WHAT DO THEY SAY? LET THEM SAY.

Thin-skinned persons should learn this motto by heart. The talk of the village is never worthy of notice, and you should never take any interest in it except to mourn over the malice and heartlessness of which it is too often the indicator.

Mayow in his Plain Preaching very forcibly says, "If you were to see a woman kill a farmer's ducks and geese for the sake of having one of the feathers, you would see a person acting as we do when we speak evil of anyone, for the sake of the pleasure we feel in evil speaking. For the pleasure we feel is not worth a single feather, and the pain we give is often greater than a man feels at the loss of his property."

Insert a remark of this kind now and then in a sermon, when there is no special gossip abroad, and it may be of some benefit to the more sensible:
I quite despair of the rest.

Above all, never join in tale-bearing yourself, and beg your wife to abstain from it also. Some men are too talkative by half, and remind me of the young man who was sent to Socrates to learn oratory. On being introduced to the philosopher he talked so incessantly that Socrates asked for double fees. "Why charge me double?" said the young fellow. "Because," said the orator, "I must teach you two sciences: the one how to hold your tongue and the other how to speak." The first science is the more difficult, but aim at proficiency in it, or you will suffer greatly, and create trouble without end.

BLIND EYE AND DEAF EAR TOWARD CRITICISM

Avoid with your whole soul that spirit of suspicion which sours some men's lives, and to all things from which you might harshly draw an unkind inference turn a blind eye and a deaf ear. Suspicion makes a man a torment to himself and a spy towards others. Once begin to suspect, and causes for distrust will multiply around you, and your very suspiciousness will create the major part of them. Many a friend has been transformed into an enemy by being suspected. Do not, therefore, look about you with the eyes of mistrust, nor listen as an eaves-dropper with the quick ear of fear.

To go about the congregation ferreting our disaffection, like a gamekeeper after rabbits, is a lowly employment, and is generally rewarded most sorrowfully. Lord Bacon wisely advises "the provident stay of enquiry of that which we would be loath to find." When nothing is to be discovered which will help us to love others, we had better cease from the enquiry, for we may drag to light that which may be the commencement of years of contention.

I am not, of course, referring to cases requiring discipline which must be thoroughly investigated and boldly dealt with, but I have upon my mind mere personal matters where the main sufferer is yourself; here it is always best not to know, nor wish to know, what is being said about you, either by friends or foes. Those who praise us are probably as much mistaken as those who abuse us, and the one may be regarded as a set off to the other, if indeed it be worthwhile taking any account at all of man's judgment.

If we have the approbation of our God, certified by a placid conscience, we can afford to be indifferent to the opinions of our fellow men, whether they commend or condemn. If we cannot reach this point we are babes and not men.

Some are childishly anxious to know their friend's opinion of them, and if it contain the smallest element of dissent or censure, they regard him as an enemy forthwith. Surely we are not popes, and do not wish our hearers to regard us as infallible! We have known men become quite enraged at a perfectly fair and reasonable remark, and regard an honest friend as an opponent who delighted to find fault; this misrepresentation on the one side has soon produced heat on the other, and strife ensued. How much better is gentle forbearance! You must be able to bear criticism, or you are not fit to be at the head of a congregation; and you must let the critic go without reckoning him among your deadly foes, or you will prove yourself a mere weakling.

It is wisest always to show double kindness where you have been severely handled by one of who thought it his duty to do so, for he is probably an honest man and worth winning. He who in your early days hardly thinks you fit for the pastorate may yet become your firmest defender if he sees that you grow in grace, and advance in qualification for the work; do not, therefore, regard him as a foe for truthfully expressing his doubts; does not your own heart confess that his fears were not altogether groundless? Turn your deaf ear to what you judge to be his harsh criticism, and endeavour to preach better.

Persons from love of change, from pique, from advance in their tests, and other causes, may become uneasy under our ministry, and it is well for us to know nothing about it. Perceiving the danger, we must not betray our discovery, but bestir ourselves to improve our sermons, hoping that the good people will be better fed and forget their dissatisfaction. If they are truly gracious persons, the incipient evil will pass away, and no real discontent will arise, or if it does you must not provoke it by suspecting it.

Where I have known that there existed a measure of disaffection to myself, I have not recognised it, unless it has been forced upon me, but have, on the contrary, acted towards the opposing person with all the more courtesy and friendliness, and I have never heard any more of the matter. If I had treated the good man as an opponent, he would have done his best to take the part assigned him, and carry it out to his own credit; but I felt that he was a Christian man, and had a right to dislike me if he thought fit, and that if he did so I ought not to think unkindly of him; and therefore I treated him as one who was a friend to my Lord, if not to me, gave him some work to do which implied confidence in him, made him feel at home, and by degrees won him to be an attached friend as well as a fellow-worker.

The best of people are sometimes out at elbows and say unkind things; we should be glad if our friends could quite forget what we said when we were peevish and irritable, and it will be Christlike to act towards others in this matter as we would wish them to do towards us. Never make a brother remember that he once uttered a hard speech in reference to yourself. If you see him in a happier mood, do not mention the former painful occasion:
if he be a man of right spirit he will in future be unwilling to vex a pastor who has treated him so generously, and if he be a mere boor it is a pity to hold any argument with him, and therefore the past had better go by default.

It would be better to be deceived a hundred times than to live a life of suspicion. It is intolerable. The miser who traverses his chamber at midnight and hears a burglar in every falling leaf is not more wretched than the minister who believes that plots are being spread. I remember a brother who believed that he was being poisoned, and was persuaded that even the seat he sat upon and the clothes he wore had by some subtle chemistry become saturated with death; his life was a perpetual scare, and such is the existence of a minister when he mistrusts all around him.

Nor is suspicion merely a source of disquietude, it is a moral evil, and injures the character of the man who harbours it. Suspicion in kings creates tyranny, in husbands jealousy, and in ministers bitterness; such bitterness as in spirit dissolves all the ties of the pastoral relation, eating like a corrosive acid into the very soul of the office and making it a curse rather than a blessing. When once this terrible evil has curdled all the milk of human kindness in a man's bosom, he becomes more fit for the detective police force than for the ministry; like a spider, he begins to cast out his lines, and fashions a web of tremulous threads, all of which lead up to himself and warn him of the least touch of even the tiniest midge [gnat]. There he sits in the centre, a mass of sensation, all nerves and raw wounds, excitable and excited, a self-immolated martyr drawing the blazing faggots about him, and apparently anxious to be burned.

The most faithful friend is unsafe under such conditions. The most careful avoidance of offence will not secure immunity from mistrust, but will probably be construed into cunning and cowardice. Society is almost as much in danger from a suspecting man as from a mad dog, for he snaps on all sides without reason, and scatters right and left the foam of his madness. It is vain to reason with the victim of this folly, for with perverse ingenuity he turns every argument the wrong way, and makes your plea for confidence another reason for mistrust. It is sad that he cannot see the iniquity of his groundless censure of others, especially of those who have been his friends and the firmest upholders of the cause of Christ.

"I would not wrong
Virtue so tried
by the least shade of doubt:
Undue suspicion is more abject baseness
Even than the guilt suspected."

No one ought to be made an offender for a word; but, when suspicion rules, even silence becomes a crime. Brethren, shun this vice by renouncing the love of self. Judge it to be a small matter what men think or say of you, and care only for their treatment of your Lord. If you are naturally sensitive do not indulge the weakness, nor allow others to play upon it.

Would it not be a great degradation of your office if you were to keep an army of spies in your pay to collect information as to all that your people said of you? And yet it amounts to this if you allow certain busybodies to bring you all the gossip of the place. Drive the creatures away. Abhor those mischief-making, tattling handmaidens of strife. Those who will fetch will carry, and no doubt the gossips go from your house and report every observation which falls from your lips, with plenty of garnishing of their own. Remember that, as the receiver is as bad as the thief, so the hearer of scandal is a sharer in the guilt of it. If there were no listening ears there would be no talebearing tongues. While you are a buyer of ill wares the demand will create the supply, and the factories of falsehood will be working full time. No one wishes to become a creator of lies, and yet he who hears slanders with pleasure and believes them with readiness will hatch many a brood into active life.

Solomon says "a whisperer separateth chief friends" (Proverbs 16:28). Insinuations are thrown out, and jealousies aroused, till "mutual coolness ensues, and neither can understand why; each wonders what can possibly be the cause. Thus the firmest, the longest, the warmest, and most confiding attachments, the sources of life's sweetest joys, are broken up perhaps forever."

This is work worthy of the arch-fiend himself, but it could never be done if men lived out of the atmosphere of suspicion. As it is, the world is full of sorrow through this cause, a sorrow as sharp as it is superfluous. This is grievous indeed! Campbell eloquently remarks, "The ruins of old friendships are a more melancholy spectacle to me than those of desolated palaces. They exhibit the heart which was once lighted up with joy all damp and deserted, and haunted by those birds of ill omen that nestle in ruins." O suspicion, what desolations thou hast made in the earth!

Because the persons who would render you mistrustful of your friends are a sorry set, and because suspicion is in itself a wretched and tormenting vice, resolve to turn towards the whole business your blind eye and your deaf ear.

Need I say a word or two about the wisdom of never hearing what was not meant for you. The eavesdropper is a mean person, very little if anything better than the common informer; and he who says he overheard may be considered to have heard over and above what he should have done.

Jeremy Taylor wisely and justly observes, "Never listen at the door or window, for besides that it contains in it a danger and a snare, it is also invading my neighbour's privacy, and a laying that open, which he therefore encloses that it might not be open."

It is a well worn proverb that listeners seldom hear any good of themselves. Listening is a sort of larceny, but the goods stolen are never a pleasure to the thief. Information obtained by clandestine means must, in all but extreme cases, be more injury than benefit to a cause. The magistrate may judge it expedient to obtain evidence by such means, but I cannot imagine a case in which a minister should do so. Ours is a mission of grace and peace; we are not prosecutors who search out condemnatory evidence, but friends whose love would cover a multitude of offences. The peeping eyes of Canaan, the son of Ham, shall never be in our employ; we prefer the pious delicacy of Shem and Japhet, who went backward and covered the shame which the child of evil had published with glee.

BLIND EYE TOWARD OPINIONS ABOUT YOURSELF

To opinions and remarks about yourself turn also as a general rule the blind eye and the deaf ear. Public men must expect public criticism, and as the public cannot be regarded as infallible, public men may expect to be criticized in a way which is neither fair nor pleasant. To all honest and just remarks we are bound to give due measure of heed, but to the bitter verdict of prejudice, the frivolous faultfinding of men of fashion, the stupid utterances of the ignorant, and the fierce denunciations of opponents, we may very safely turn a deaf ear.

We cannot expect those to approve of us whom we condemn by our testimony against their favourite sins; their commendation would show that we had missed our mark. We naturally look to be approved of by our own people, the members of our churches, and the adherents of our congregations, and when they make observations which show that they are not very great admirers, we may be tempted to discouragement if not to anger: herein lies a snare.

When I was about to leave my village charge for London, one of the old men prayed that I might be "delivered from the bleating of the sheep." For the life of me I could not imagine what he meant, but the riddle is plain now, and I have learned to offer the prayer myself. Too much consideration of what is said by our people, whether it be in praise or in depreciation, is not good for us. If we dwell on high with "that great Shepherd of the sheep" we shall care little for all the confused bleatings around us, but if we become "carnal, and walk as men," we shall have little rest if we listen to this, that, and the other which every poor sheep may bleat about us.

Perhaps it is quite true that you were uncommonly dull last Sabbath morning, but there was no need that Mrs. Clack should come and tell you that Deacon Jones thought so. It is more than probable that having been out in the country all the previous week, your preaching was very like milk and water, but there can be no necessity for your going round among the people to discover whether they noticed it or not. Is it not enough that your conscience is uneasy upon the point? Endeavour to improve for the future, but do not want to hear all that every Jack, Tom, and Mary may have to say about it.

On the other hand, you were on the high horse in your last sermon, and finished with quite a flourish of trumpets, and you feel considerable anxiety to know what impression you produced. Repress your curiosity: it will do you no good to enquire. If the people should happen to agree with your verdict, it will only feed your pitiful vanity, and if they think otherwise your fishing for their praise will injure you in their esteem. In any case it is all about yourself, and this is a poor theme to be anxious about; play the man, and do not demean yourself by seeking compliments like little children when dressed in new clothes, who say, "See my pretty frock." Have you not by this time discovered that flattery is as injurious as it is pleasant? It softens the mind and makes you more sensitive to slander. In proportion as praise pleases you, censure will pain you. Besides, it is a crime to be taken off from your great object of glorifying the Lord Jesus by petty considerations as to your little self, and, if there were no other reason, this ought to weigh much with you. Pride is a deadly sin, and will grow without your borrowing the parish water-cart to quicken it.

Forget expressions which feed your vanity, and if you find yourself relishing the unwholesome morsels, confess the sins with deep humiliation. Payson showed that he was strong in the Lord when he wrote to his mother, "You must not, certainly, my dear mother, say one word which even looks like an intimation that you think me advancing in grace. I cannot bear it. All the people here, whether friends or enemies, conspire to ruin me. Satan and my own heart, of course, will lend a hand; and if you join, too, I fear all the cold water which Christ can throw upon my pride will not prevent its breaking out into a destructive flame. As certainly as anybody flatters and caresses me my heavenly Father has to whip me: and an unspeakable mercy it is that he condescends to do it. I can, it is true, easily muster a hundred reasons why I should not be proud, but pride will not mind reason, nor anything else but a good drubbing. Even at this moment I feel it tingling in my fingers' ends, and seeking to guide my pen."

Knowing something myself of those secret whippings which our good Father administers to his servants when he sees them unduly exalted, I heartily add my own solemn warnings against your pampering the flesh by listening to the praises of the kindest friends you have. They are injudicious, and you must beware of them.

A sensible friend who will unsparingly criticize you from week to week will be a far greater blessing to you than a thousand undiscriminating admirers if you have sense enough to bear his treatment, and grace enough to be thankful for it.

When I was preaching at the Surrey Gardens, an unknown censor of great ability used to send me a weekly list of my mispronunciations and other slips of speech. He never signed his name, and that was my only cause of complaint against him, for he left me in a debt which I could not acknowledge. I take this opportunity of confessing my obligations to him, for with genial temper, and an evident desire to benefit me, he marked down most relentlessly everything which he supposed me to have said incorrectly. Concerning some of these corrections, he was in error himself, but for the most part he was right, and his remarks enabled me to perceive and avoid many mistakes. I looked for his weekly memoranda with much interest, and I trust I am all the better for them. If I had repeated a sentence two or three Sundays before, he would say, "See same expression in such a sermon," mentioning number and page. He remarked on one occasion that I too often quoted the line,

"Nothing in my hands I bring,"

and, he added, "we are sufficiently informed of the vacuity of your hands." He demanded my authority for calling a man "covechus"; and so on. Possibly some young men might have been discouraged, if not irritated, by such severe criticisms, but they would have been very foolish, for in resenting such correction they would have been throwing away a valuable aid to progress. No money can purchase outspoken honest judgment, and when we can get it for nothing let us utilize it to the fullest extent. The worst of it is that of those who offer their judgments few are qualified to form them, and we shall be pestered with foolish, impertinent remarks, unless we turn to them all the blind eye and the deaf ear.

BLIND EYE AND DEAF EAR TOWARD FALSE REPORTS

In the case of false reports against yourself, for the most part use the deaf ear. Unfortunately liars are not yet extinct, and, like Richard Baxter and John Bunyan, you may be accused of crimes which your soul abhors. Be not staggered thereby, for this trial has befallen the very best of men, and even your Lord did not escape the envenomed tongue of falsehood. In almost all cases it is the wisest course to let such things die a natural death. A great lie, if unnoticed, is like a big fish out of water, it dashes and plunges and beats itself to death in a short time. To answer it is to supply it with its element, and help it to a longer life.

Falsehoods usually carry their own refutation somewhere about them, and sting themselves to death. Some lies especially have a peculiar smell, which betrays their rottenness to every honest nose. If you are disturbed by them the object of their invention is partly answered, but your silent endurance disappoints malice and gives you a partial victory, which God in his care of you will soon turn into a complete deliverance. Your blameless life will be your best defence, and those who have seen it will not allow you to be condemned so readily as your slanderers expect.

Only abstain from fighting your own battles, and in nine cases out of ten your accusers will gain nothing by their malevolence but chagrin for themselves and contempt for others.

To prosecute the slanderer is seldom wise. I remember a beloved servant of Christ who in his youth was very sensitive, and, being falsely accused, proceeded against the person at law. An apology was offered, it withdrew every iota of the charge, and was most ample, but the good man insisted upon its being printed in the newspapers, and the result convinced him of his own unwisdom. Multitudes, who would otherwise have never heard of the libel, asked what it meant, and made comments thereon, generally concluding with the same remark that he must have done something imprudent to provoke such an accusation. He was heard to say that so long as he lived he would never resort to such a method again, for he felt that the public apology had done him more harm that the slander itself.

Standing as we do in a position which makes us choice targets for the devil and his allies, our best course is to defend our innocence by our silence and leave our reputation with God.

Yet there are exceptions to this general rule. When distinct, definite, public charges are made against a man he is bound to answer them, and answer them in the clearest and most open manner. To decline all investigation is in such a case practically to plead guilty, and whatever may be the mode of putting it, the general public ordinarily regard a refusal to reply as a proof of guilt. Under mere worry and annoyance it is by far the best to be altogether passive, but when the matter assumes more serious proportions, and our accuser defies us to a defence, we are bound to meet his charges with honest statements of fact.

In every instance counsel should be sought of the Lord as to how to deal with slanderous tongues, and in the issue innocence will be vindicated and falsehood convicted.

Some ministers have been broken in spirit, driven from their position, and even injured in character by taking notice of village scandal. I know a fine young man, for whom I predicted a career of usefulness, who fell into great trouble because he at first allowed it to be a trouble and then worked hard to make it so. He came to me and complained that he had a great grievance; and so it was a grievance, but from beginning to end it was all about what some half-dozen women had said about his procedure after the death of his wife. It was originally too small a thing to deal with--a Mrs. Q. had said that she should not wonder if the minister married the servant then living in his house; another represented her as saying that he ought to marry her, and then a third, with a malicious ingenuity, found a deeper meaning in the words, and construed them into a charge. Worst of all, the dear sensitive preacher must needs trace the matter out and accuse a score or two of people of spreading libels against him, and even threaten some of them with legal proceedings. If he could have prayed over it in secret, or even have whistled over it, no harm would have come of the tittle-tattle; but this dear brother could not treat the slander wisely, for he had not what I earnestly recommend to you, namely, a blind eye and a deaf ear. ...

Is not this a sufficient explanation of my declaration that I have one blind eye and one deaf ear, and that they are the best eye and ear I have? have one blind eye and one deaf ear, I have excited the curiosity of several brethren, who have requested an explanation; for it appears to them, as it does also to me, that the keener eyes and ears we have the better. Well, gentlemen, since the text is somewhat mysterious, you shall have the exegesis of it.

A part of my meaning is expressed in plain language by Solomon, in the book of Ecclesiastes (7:21): "Also take no heed unto all words that are spoken; lest thou hear thy servant curse thee." The margin says, "Give not thy heart to all words that are spoken"--do not take them to heart or let them weigh with you, do not notice them, or act as if you heard them.

You cannot stop people's tongues, and therefore the best thing is to stop your own ears and never mind what is spoken. There is a world of idle chit- chat abroad, and he who takes note of it will have enough to do. He will find that even those who live with him are not always singing his praises, and that when he has displeased his most faithful servants, they have, in the heat of the moment, spoken fierce words which it would be better for him not to have heard. Who has not, under temporary irritation, said that of another which he has afterwards regretted?
It is the part of the generous to treat passionate words as if they had never been uttered. When a man is in an angry mood it is wise to walk away from him, and leave off strife before it be meddled with; and if we are compelled to hear hasty language, we must endeavor to obliterate it from the memory, and say with David, "But I, as a deaf man, heard not. I was as a man that heareth not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs." Tacitus describes a wise man as saying to one that railed at him, "You are lord of your tongue, but I am also master of my ears"--you may say what you please, but I will only hear what I choose.

We cannot shut our ears as we do our eyes, for we have no ear lids, and yet, as we read of him that "stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood," it is, no doubt, possible to seal the portal of the ear so that nothing contraband shall enter. We would say to the general gossip of the village, and of the unadvised words of angry friends--do not hear them, or if you must hear them, do not lay them to heart, for you also have talked idly and angrily in your day, and would even now be in an awkward position if you were called to account for every word that you have spoken, even about your dearest friend. Thus Solomon argued as he closed the passage which we have quoted--"For oftentimes also thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise has cursed others."

BLIND EYE AND DEAF EAR IN BEGINNING A NEW MINISTRY

In enlarging upon my text, let me say first--when you commence your ministry make up your mind to begin with a clean sheet; be deaf and blind to the long-standing differences which may survive in the church. As soon as you enter upon your pastorate you may be waited upon by persons who are anxious to secure your adhesion to their side in a family quarrel or church dispute; be deaf and blind to these people, and assure them that bygones must be bygones with you, and that as you have not inherited your predecessor's cupboard you do not mean to eat his cold meat. If any flagrant injustice had been done, be diligent to set it right, but if it be a mere feud, bid the quarrelsome party cease from it, and tell him once for all that you will have nothing to do with it. The answer of Gallio will almost suit you: "If it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews, reason would that I should bear with you: but if it be a question of words and names, and vain janglings, look ye to it; for I will be no judge of such matters."

When I came to New Park Street Chapel as a young man from the country, and was chosen pastor, I was speedily interviewed by a good man who had left the church, having, as he said, been "treated shamefully." He mentioned the names of half-a-dozen persons, all prominent members of the church, who had behaved in a very unchristian manner to him, he, poor innocent sufferer, having been a model of patience and holiness. I learned his character at once from what he said about others (a mode of judging which has never misled me), and I made up my mind how to act. I told him that the church had been in a sadly unsettled state, and that the only way out of the snarl was for every one to forget the past and begin again. He said that the lapse of years did not alter facts, and I replied that it would alter a man's view of them if in that time he had become a wiser and better man. However, I added, that all the past had gone away with my predecessors, that he must follow them to their new spheres, and settle matters with them, for I would not touch the affair with a pair of tongs. He waxed somewhat warm, but I allowed him to radiate until he was cool again, and we shook hands and parted.

He was a good man, but constructed upon an uncomfortable principle, so that he came across the path of others in a very awkward manner at times, and if I had gone into his narrative and examined his case, there would have been no end to the strife. I am quite certain that, for my own success, and for the prosperity of the church, I took the wisest course by applying my blind eye to all disputes which dated previously to my advent. It is the extreme of unwisdom for a young man fresh from college, or from another charge, to suffer himself to be earwigged by a clique, and to be bribed by kindness and flattery to become a partisan, and so to ruin himself with one-half of his people. Know nothing of parties and cliques, but be the pastor of all the flock, and care for all alike. Blessed are the peacemakers, and one sure way of peacemaking is to let the fire of contention alone. Neither fan it, nor stir it, nor add fuel to it, but let it go out of itself. Begin your ministry with one blind eye and one deaf ear.

BLIND EYE AND DEAF EAR IN REGARD TO SALARY

I should recommend the use of the same faculty, or want of faculty, with regard to finance in the matter of your own salary. There are some occasions, especially in raising a new church, when you may have no deacon who is qualified to manage that department, and, therefore, you may feel called upon to undertake it yourselves. In such a case you are not to be censured; you ought even to be commended. Many a time also the work would come to an end altogether if the preacher did not act as his own deacon, and find supplies both temporal and spiritual by his own exertions. To these exceptional cases I have nothing to say but that I admire the struggling worker and deeply sympathize with him, for he is overweighted, and is apt to be a less successful soldier for his Lord because he is entangled with the affairs of this life.

In churches which are well established, and afford a decent maintenance, the minister will do well to supervise all things, but interfere with nothing. If deacons cannot be trusted they ought not to be deacons at all, but if they are worthy of their office they are worthy of our confidence. I know that instances occur in which they are sadly incompetent and yet must be borne with, and in such a state of things the pastor must open the eye which otherwise would have remained blind. Rather than the management of church funds should become a scandal we must resolutely interfere, but if there is no urgent call for us to do so we had better believe in the division of labour, and let deacons do their own work.

We have the right with financial matters if we please, but it will be our wisdom as much as possible to let them alone, if others will manage them for us. When the purse is bare, the wife sickly, and the children numerous, the preacher must speak if the church does not properly provide for him; but to be constantly bringing before the people requests for an increase of income is not wise. When a minister is poorly remunerated, and he feels that he is worth more, and that the church could give him more, he ought kindly, boldly, and firmly to communicate with the deacons first, and if they do not take it up he should then mention it to the brethren in a sensible, business-life way, not as craving a charity, but as putting it to their sense of honour, that "the labourer is worthy of his hire." Let him say outright what he thinks, for there is nothing to be ashamed of, but there would be much more cause for shame if he dishonoured himself and the cause of God by plunging into debt: let him therefore speak to the point of a proper spirit to the proper persons, and there end the matter, and not resort to secret complaining.

Faith in God should tone down our concern about temporalities, and enable us to practice what we preach, namely--"Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink; or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things." Some who have pretended to live by faith have had a very shrewd way of drawing out donations by turns of the indirect corkscrew, but you either ask plainly, like men, or you will leave it to the Christian feeling of your people, and turn to the items and modes of church finance a blind eye and a deaf ear.

BLIND EYE AND DEAF EAR TOWARD GOSSIP

The blind eye and the deaf ear will come in exceedingly well in connection with the gossips of the place. Every church, and, for the matter of that, every village and family, is plagued with certain Mrs. Grundys who drink tea and talk vitriol. They are never quiet, but buzz around to the great annoyance of those who are devout and practical. No one needs to look far for perpetual motion, he has only to watch their tongues. At tea-meetings, Dorcas meetings, and other gatherings, they practice vivisection upon the characters of their neighbours, and of course they are eager to try their knives upon the minister, the minister's wife, the minister's children, the minister's wife's bonnet, the dress of the minister's daughter, and how many new ribbons she has worn for the last six months, and so on ad infinitum.

There are also certain persons who are never so happy as when they are "grieved to the heart" to have to tell the minister that Mr. A. is a snake in the grass, that he is quite mistaken in thinking so well of Messrs. B. and C., and that they have heard quite "promiscuously" that Mr. D. and his wife are badly matched. Then follows a long string about Mrs. E., who says that she and Mrs. F. overheard Mrs. G. say to Mrs.

H. that Mrs. J. should say that Mr. K. and Miss L. were going to move from the chapel and hear Mr. M., and all because of what old N. said to young O. about that Miss P.

Never listen to such people. Do as Nelson did when he put his blind eye to the telescope and declared that he did not see the signal [to retreat], and therefore would go on with the battle.

Let the creatures buzz, and do not even hear them, unless indeed they buzz so much concerning one person that the matter threatens to be serious; then it will be well to bring them to book and talk in sober earnestness to them. Assure them that you are obliged to have facts definitely before you, that your memory is not very tenacious, that you have many things to think of, that you are always afraid of making any mistake in such matters, and that if they would be good enough to write down what they have to say the case would be more fully before you, and you could give more time to its consideration. Mrs. Grundy will not do that; she has a great objection to making clear and definite statements; she prefers talking at random.

I heartily wish that by any process we could put down gossip, but I suppose that it will never be done so long as the human race continues what it is, for James tells us that "every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed by mankind: but the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison." What can't be cured must be endured, and the best way of enduring it is not to listen to it. Over one of our old castles a former owner has inscribed these lines--

THEY SAY. WHAT DO THEY SAY? LET THEM SAY.

Thin-skinned persons should learn this motto by heart. The talk of the village is never worthy of notice, and you should never take any interest in it except to mourn over the malice and heartlessness of which it is too often the indicator.

Mayow in his Plain Preaching very forcibly says, "If you were to see a woman kill a farmer's ducks and geese for the sake of having one of the feathers, you would see a person acting as we do when we speak evil of anyone, for the sake of the pleasure we feel in evil speaking. For the pleasure we feel is not worth a single feather, and the pain we give is often greater than a man feels at the loss of his property."

Insert a remark of this kind now and then in a sermon, when there is no special gossip abroad, and it may be of some benefit to the more sensible:
I quite despair of the rest.

Above all, never join in tale-bearing yourself, and beg your wife to abstain from it also. Some men are too talkative by half, and remind me of the young man who was sent to Socrates to learn oratory. On being introduced to the philosopher he talked so incessantly that Socrates asked for double fees. "Why charge me double?" said the young fellow. "Because," said the orator, "I must teach you two sciences: the one how to hold your tongue and the other how to speak." The first science is the more difficult, but aim at proficiency in it, or you will suffer greatly, and create trouble without end.

BLIND EYE AND DEAF EAR TOWARD CRITICISM

Avoid with your whole soul that spirit of suspicion which sours some men's lives, and to all things from which you might harshly draw an unkind inference turn a blind eye and a deaf ear. Suspicion makes a man a torment to himself and a spy towards others. Once begin to suspect, and causes for distrust will multiply around you, and your very suspiciousness will create the major part of them. Many a friend has been transformed into an enemy by being suspected. Do not, therefore, look about you with the eyes of mistrust, nor listen as an eaves-dropper with the quick ear of fear.

To go about the congregation ferreting our disaffection, like a gamekeeper after rabbits, is a lowly employment, and is generally rewarded most sorrowfully. Lord Bacon wisely advises "the provident stay of enquiry of that which we would be loath to find." When nothing is to be discovered which will help us to love others, we had better cease from the enquiry, for we may drag to light that which may be the commencement of years of contention.

I am not, of course, referring to cases requiring discipline which must be thoroughly investigated and boldly dealt with, but I have upon my mind mere personal matters where the main sufferer is yourself; here it is always best not to know, nor wish to know, what is being said about you, either by friends or foes. Those who praise us are probably as much mistaken as those who abuse us, and the one may be regarded as a set off to the other, if indeed it be worthwhile taking any account at all of man's judgment.

If we have the approbation of our God, certified by a placid conscience, we can afford to be indifferent to the opinions of our fellow men, whether they commend or condemn. If we cannot reach this point we are babes and not men.

Some are childishly anxious to know their friend's opinion of them, and if it contain the smallest element of dissent or censure, they regard him as an enemy forthwith. Surely we are not popes, and do not wish our hearers to regard us as infallible! We have known men become quite enraged at a perfectly fair and reasonable remark, and regard an honest friend as an opponent who delighted to find fault; this misrepresentation on the one side has soon produced heat on the other, and strife ensued. How much better is gentle forbearance! You must be able to bear criticism, or you are not fit to be at the head of a congregation; and you must let the critic go without reckoning him among your deadly foes, or you will prove yourself a mere weakling.

It is wisest always to show double kindness where you have been severely handled by one of who thought it his duty to do so, for he is probably an honest man and worth winning. He who in your early days hardly thinks you fit for the pastorate may yet become your firmest defender if he sees that you grow in grace, and advance in qualification for the work; do not, therefore, regard him as a foe for truthfully expressing his doubts; does not your own heart confess that his fears were not altogether groundless? Turn your deaf ear to what you judge to be his harsh criticism, and endeavour to preach better.

Persons from love of change, from pique, from advance in their tests, and other causes, may become uneasy under our ministry, and it is well for us to know nothing about it. Perceiving the danger, we must not betray our discovery, but bestir ourselves to improve our sermons, hoping that the good people will be better fed and forget their dissatisfaction. If they are truly gracious persons, the incipient evil will pass away, and no real discontent will arise, or if it does you must not provoke it by suspecting it.

Where I have known that there existed a measure of disaffection to myself, I have not recognised it, unless it has been forced upon me, but have, on the contrary, acted towards the opposing person with all the more courtesy and friendliness, and I have never heard any more of the matter. If I had treated the good man as an opponent, he would have done his best to take the part assigned him, and carry it out to his own credit; but I felt that he was a Christian man, and had a right to dislike me if he thought fit, and that if he did so I ought not to think unkindly of him; and therefore I treated him as one who was a friend to my Lord, if not to me, gave him some work to do which implied confidence in him, made him feel at home, and by degrees won him to be an attached friend as well as a fellow-worker.

The best of people are sometimes out at elbows and say unkind things; we should be glad if our friends could quite forget what we said when we were peevish and irritable, and it will be Christlike to act towards others in this matter as we would wish them to do towards us. Never make a brother remember that he once uttered a hard speech in reference to yourself. If you see him in a happier mood, do not mention the former painful occasion:
if he be a man of right spirit he will in future be unwilling to vex a pastor who has treated him so generously, and if he be a mere boor it is a pity to hold any argument with him, and therefore the past had better go by default.

It would be better to be deceived a hundred times than to live a life of suspicion. It is intolerable. The miser who traverses his chamber at midnight and hears a burglar in every falling leaf is not more wretched than the minister who believes that plots are being spread. I remember a brother who believed that he was being poisoned, and was persuaded that even the seat he sat upon and the clothes he wore had by some subtle chemistry become saturated with death; his life was a perpetual scare, and such is the existence of a minister when he mistrusts all around him.

Nor is suspicion merely a source of disquietude, it is a moral evil, and injures the character of the man who harbours it. Suspicion in kings creates tyranny, in husbands jealousy, and in ministers bitterness; such bitterness as in spirit dissolves all the ties of the pastoral relation, eating like a corrosive acid into the very soul of the office and making it a curse rather than a blessing. When once this terrible evil has curdled all the milk of human kindness in a man's bosom, he becomes more fit for the detective police force than for the ministry; like a spider, he begins to cast out his lines, and fashions a web of tremulous threads, all of which lead up to himself and warn him of the least touch of even the tiniest midge [gnat]. There he sits in the centre, a mass of sensation, all nerves and raw wounds, excitable and excited, a self-immolated martyr drawing the blazing faggots about him, and apparently anxious to be burned.

The most faithful friend is unsafe under such conditions. The most careful avoidance of offence will not secure immunity from mistrust, but will probably be construed into cunning and cowardice. Society is almost as much in danger from a suspecting man as from a mad dog, for he snaps on all sides without reason, and scatters right and left the foam of his madness. It is vain to reason with the victim of this folly, for with perverse ingenuity he turns every argument the wrong way, and makes your plea for confidence another reason for mistrust. It is sad that he cannot see the iniquity of his groundless censure of others, especially of those who have been his friends and the firmest upholders of the cause of Christ.

"I would not wrong
Virtue so tried
by the least shade of doubt:
Undue suspicion is more abject baseness
Even than the guilt suspected."

No one ought to be made an offender for a word; but, when suspicion rules, even silence becomes a crime. Brethren, shun this vice by renouncing the love of self. Judge it to be a small matter what men think or say of you, and care only for their treatment of your Lord. If you are naturally sensitive do not indulge the weakness, nor allow others to play upon it.

Would it not be a great degradation of your office if you were to keep an army of spies in your pay to collect information as to all that your people said of you? And yet it amounts to this if you allow certain busybodies to bring you all the gossip of the place. Drive the creatures away. Abhor those mischief-making, tattling handmaidens of strife. Those who will fetch will carry, and no doubt the gossips go from your house and report every observation which falls from your lips, with plenty of garnishing of their own. Remember that, as the receiver is as bad as the thief, so the hearer of scandal is a sharer in the guilt of it. If there were no listening ears there would be no talebearing tongues. While you are a buyer of ill wares the demand will create the supply, and the factories of falsehood will be working full time. No one wishes to become a creator of lies, and yet he who hears slanders with pleasure and believes them with readiness will hatch many a brood into active life.

Solomon says "a whisperer separateth chief friends" (Proverbs 16:28). Insinuations are thrown out, and jealousies aroused, till "mutual coolness ensues, and neither can understand why; each wonders what can possibly be the cause. Thus the firmest, the longest, the warmest, and most confiding attachments, the sources of life's sweetest joys, are broken up perhaps forever."

This is work worthy of the arch-fiend himself, but it could never be done if men lived out of the atmosphere of suspicion. As it is, the world is full of sorrow through this cause, a sorrow as sharp as it is superfluous. This is grievous indeed! Campbell eloquently remarks, "The ruins of old friendships are a more melancholy spectacle to me than those of desolated palaces. They exhibit the heart which was once lighted up with joy all damp and deserted, and haunted by those birds of ill omen that nestle in ruins." O suspicion, what desolations thou hast made in the earth!

Because the persons who would render you mistrustful of your friends are a sorry set, and because suspicion is in itself a wretched and tormenting vice, resolve to turn towards the whole business your blind eye and your deaf ear.

Need I say a word or two about the wisdom of never hearing what was not meant for you. The eavesdropper is a mean person, very little if anything better than the common informer; and he who says he overheard may be considered to have heard over and above what he should have done.

Jeremy Taylor wisely and justly observes, "Never listen at the door or window, for besides that it contains in it a danger and a snare, it is also invading my neighbour's privacy, and a laying that open, which he therefore encloses that it might not be open."

It is a well worn proverb that listeners seldom hear any good of themselves. Listening is a sort of larceny, but the goods stolen are never a pleasure to the thief. Information obtained by clandestine means must, in all but extreme cases, be more injury than benefit to a cause. The magistrate may judge it expedient to obtain evidence by such means, but I cannot imagine a case in which a minister should do so. Ours is a mission of grace and peace; we are not prosecutors who search out condemnatory evidence, but friends whose love would cover a multitude of offences. The peeping eyes of Canaan, the son of Ham, shall never be in our employ; we prefer the pious delicacy of Shem and Japhet, who went backward and covered the shame which the child of evil had published with glee.

BLIND EYE TOWARD OPINIONS ABOUT YOURSELF

To opinions and remarks about yourself turn also as a general rule the blind eye and the deaf ear. Public men must expect public criticism, and as the public cannot be regarded as infallible, public men may expect to be criticized in a way which is neither fair nor pleasant. To all honest and just remarks we are bound to give due measure of heed, but to the bitter verdict of prejudice, the frivolous faultfinding of men of fashion, the stupid utterances of the ignorant, and the fierce denunciations of opponents, we may very safely turn a deaf ear.

We cannot expect those to approve of us whom we condemn by our testimony against their favourite sins; their commendation would show that we had missed our mark. We naturally look to be approved of by our own people, the members of our churches, and the adherents of our congregations, and when they make observations which show that they are not very great admirers, we may be tempted to discouragement if not to anger: herein lies a snare.

When I was about to leave my village charge for London, one of the old men prayed that I might be "delivered from the bleating of the sheep." For the life of me I could not imagine what he meant, but the riddle is plain now, and I have learned to offer the prayer myself. Too much consideration of what is said by our people, whether it be in praise or in depreciation, is not good for us. If we dwell on high with "that great Shepherd of the sheep" we shall care little for all the confused bleatings around us, but if we become "carnal, and walk as men," we shall have little rest if we listen to this, that, and the other which every poor sheep may bleat about us.

Perhaps it is quite true that you were uncommonly dull last Sabbath morning, but there was no need that Mrs. Clack should come and tell you that Deacon Jones thought so. It is more than probable that having been out in the country all the previous week, your preaching was very like milk and water, but there can be no necessity for your going round among the people to discover whether they noticed it or not. Is it not enough that your conscience is uneasy upon the point? Endeavour to improve for the future, but do not want to hear all that every Jack, Tom, and Mary may have to say about it.

On the other hand, you were on the high horse in your last sermon, and finished with quite a flourish of trumpets, and you feel considerable anxiety to know what impression you produced. Repress your curiosity: it will do you no good to enquire. If the people should happen to agree with your verdict, it will only feed your pitiful vanity, and if they think otherwise your fishing for their praise will injure you in their esteem. In any case it is all about yourself, and this is a poor theme to be anxious about; play the man, and do not demean yourself by seeking compliments like little children when dressed in new clothes, who say, "See my pretty frock." Have you not by this time discovered that flattery is as injurious as it is pleasant? It softens the mind and makes you more sensitive to slander. In proportion as praise pleases you, censure will pain you. Besides, it is a crime to be taken off from your great object of glorifying the Lord Jesus by petty considerations as to your little self, and, if there were no other reason, this ought to weigh much with you. Pride is a deadly sin, and will grow without your borrowing the parish water-cart to quicken it.

Forget expressions which feed your vanity, and if you find yourself relishing the unwholesome morsels, confess the sins with deep humiliation. Payson showed that he was strong in the Lord when he wrote to his mother, "You must not, certainly, my dear mother, say one word which even looks like an intimation that you think me advancing in grace. I cannot bear it. All the people here, whether friends or enemies, conspire to ruin me. Satan and my own heart, of course, will lend a hand; and if you join, too, I fear all the cold water which Christ can throw upon my pride will not prevent its breaking out into a destructive flame. As certainly as anybody flatters and caresses me my heavenly Father has to whip me: and an unspeakable mercy it is that he condescends to do it. I can, it is true, easily muster a hundred reasons why I should not be proud, but pride will not mind reason, nor anything else but a good drubbing. Even at this moment I feel it tingling in my fingers' ends, and seeking to guide my pen."

Knowing something myself of those secret whippings which our good Father administers to his servants when he sees them unduly exalted, I heartily add my own solemn warnings against your pampering the flesh by listening to the praises of the kindest friends you have. They are injudicious, and you must beware of them.

A sensible friend who will unsparingly criticize you from week to week will be a far greater blessing to you than a thousand undiscriminating admirers if you have sense enough to bear his treatment, and grace enough to be thankful for it.

When I was preaching at the Surrey Gardens, an unknown censor of great ability used to send me a weekly list of my mispronunciations and other slips of speech. He never signed his name, and that was my only cause of complaint against him, for he left me in a debt which I could not acknowledge. I take this opportunity of confessing my obligations to him, for with genial temper, and an evident desire to benefit me, he marked down most relentlessly everything which he supposed me to have said incorrectly. Concerning some of these corrections, he was in error himself, but for the most part he was right, and his remarks enabled me to perceive and avoid many mistakes. I looked for his weekly memoranda with much interest, and I trust I am all the better for them. If I had repeated a sentence two or three Sundays before, he would say, "See same expression in such a sermon," mentioning number and page. He remarked on one occasion that I too often quoted the line,

"Nothing in my hands I bring,"

and, he added, "we are sufficiently informed of the vacuity of your hands." He demanded my authority for calling a man "covechus"; and so on. Possibly some young men might have been discouraged, if not irritated, by such severe criticisms, but they would have been very foolish, for in resenting such correction they would have been throwing away a valuable aid to progress. No money can purchase outspoken honest judgment, and when we can get it for nothing let us utilize it to the fullest extent. The worst of it is that of those who offer their judgments few are qualified to form them, and we shall be pestered with foolish, impertinent remarks, unless we turn to them all the blind eye and the deaf ear.

BLIND EYE AND DEAF EAR TOWARD FALSE REPORTS

In the case of false reports against yourself, for the most part use the deaf ear. Unfortunately liars are not yet extinct, and, like Richard Baxter and John Bunyan, you may be accused of crimes which your soul abhors. Be not staggered thereby, for this trial has befallen the very best of men, and even your Lord did not escape the envenomed tongue of falsehood. In almost all cases it is the wisest course to let such things die a natural death. A great lie, if unnoticed, is like a big fish out of water, it dashes and plunges and beats itself to death in a short time. To answer it is to supply it with its element, and help it to a longer life.

Falsehoods usually carry their own refutation somewhere about them, and sting themselves to death. Some lies especially have a peculiar smell, which betrays their rottenness to every honest nose. If you are disturbed by them the object of their invention is partly answered, but your silent endurance disappoints malice and gives you a partial victory, which God in his care of you will soon turn into a complete deliverance. Your blameless life will be your best defence, and those who have seen it will not allow you to be condemned so readily as your slanderers expect.

Only abstain from fighting your own battles, and in nine cases out of ten your accusers will gain nothing by their malevolence but chagrin for themselves and contempt for others.

To prosecute the slanderer is seldom wise. I remember a beloved servant of Christ who in his youth was very sensitive, and, being falsely accused, proceeded against the person at law. An apology was offered, it withdrew every iota of the charge, and was most ample, but the good man insisted upon its being printed in the newspapers, and the result convinced him of his own unwisdom. Multitudes, who would otherwise have never heard of the libel, asked what it meant, and made comments thereon, generally concluding with the same remark that he must have done something imprudent to provoke such an accusation. He was heard to say that so long as he lived he would never resort to such a method again, for he felt that the public apology had done him more harm that the slander itself.

Standing as we do in a position which makes us choice targets for the devil and his allies, our best course is to defend our innocence by our silence and leave our reputation with God.

Yet there are exceptions to this general rule. When distinct, definite, public charges are made against a man he is bound to answer them, and answer them in the clearest and most open manner. To decline all investigation is in such a case practically to plead guilty, and whatever may be the mode of putting it, the general public ordinarily regard a refusal to reply as a proof of guilt. Under mere worry and annoyance it is by far the best to be altogether passive, but when the matter assumes more serious proportions, and our accuser defies us to a defence, we are bound to meet his charges with honest statements of fact.

In every instance counsel should be sought of the Lord as to how to deal with slanderous tongues, and in the issue innocence will be vindicated and falsehood convicted.

Some ministers have been broken in spirit, driven from their position, and even injured in character by taking notice of village scandal. I know a fine young man, for whom I predicted a career of usefulness, who fell into great trouble because he at first allowed it to be a trouble and then worked hard to make it so. He came to me and complained that he had a great grievance; and so it was a grievance, but from beginning to end it was all about what some half-dozen women had said about his procedure after the death of his wife. It was originally too small a thing to deal with--a Mrs. Q. had said that she should not wonder if the minister married the servant then living in his house; another represented her as saying that he ought to marry her, and then a third, with a malicious ingenuity, found a deeper meaning in the words, and construed them into a charge. Worst of all, the dear sensitive preacher must needs trace the matter out and accuse a score or two of people of spreading libels against him, and even threaten some of them with legal proceedings. If he could have prayed over it in secret, or even have whistled over it, no harm would have come of the tittle-tattle; but this dear brother could not treat the slander wisely, for he had not what I earnestly recommend to you, namely, a blind eye and a deaf ear. ...

Is not this a sufficient explanation of my declaration that I have one blind eye and one deaf ear, and that they are the best eye and ear I have?

My Article in Current Issue of PREACHING MAGAZINE - http://www.preaching.com

2009-03-18T12:59:00.001-04:00

Preaching When Times are Tight
By David R. Stokes

During the waning days of The Great War (1914-1918), David Lloyd George remarked, “when the chariot of humanity gets stuck, nothing will lift it out of the mud better than great preaching that goes to the heart.” As a young boy in Wales, he had grown up in a family that included several preachers; so the ways of the pulpit certainly informed and influenced the only Welshman to ever serve as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He was a man known for his eloquent oratory and inherited from his father the idea of preaching as “thoughts that breathe and words that burn.”

Much has been written over the years about how preaching can aid, inform, inspire, and comfort the multitudes when times are tough. When war clouds loom on the horizon, or when hurricane Katrina-like natural disasters strike a community or nation, the person in the pulpit generally gets the chance to speak to larger, and more attentive, crowds.

Being entrusted with sacred truth, and having a burning desire to speak about matters of great spiritual value, persuading people to focus on such transcendent themes becomes a particular challenge when people are hurting financially. But before we quietly complain that people tend to overlook great moral issues when faced with economic challenges, maybe we had better step back and consider how tight times can become a critical moment for the preacher.

It is simply a fact that Americans will generally see economic issues as more important that just about everything else. In 1992, when then-Governor Bill Clinton was running for the presidency, the campaign war-room in Little Rock, Arkansas had a mantra on the wall: “It’s the economy, stupid.” This was designed to be a reminder that they needed to keep pocketbook issues on the front burner during their run for the White House.

And it worked. It usually does. The leader who promises a rosier economic future, or who is perceived to have a better plan to fix things, always wins over someone who minimizes money matters to talk about other issues.

Consider Prohibition in the 1920s. For decades, a great moral crusade leading to the unprecedented step of amending the constitution to reflect a particular position on a behavioral issue was trumpeted from pulpits across the land. I am not arguing here the merits or demerits of Prohibition as public policy, or the issue of abstinence from alcohol (or not) as a standard. I am simply using it as an example of how a moral/values issue promoted by preachers (and a cast of others) can ultimately unravel because of a tanking economy.

Prohibition was the law of the land while the twenties roared. Prosperity didn’t have to be around the corner because it was in most living rooms. But when the crash came in 1929, and as the nation and the world descended into the abyss of depression and deprivation, it wasn’t long before the noble experiment ceased to arouse much interest.

The failed economy beat Prohibition, because – like it or not – in America money stuff trumps just about everything.

So what is a preacher to do? Well, in a sense, if you can’t beat them, join them. This is not an argument for watering down value-driven preaching, but rather it is simply a reminder that even preachers can’t ignore an elephant in the room – especially if the big beast is plastered with dollar signs.

What happens when all the wells seem to be running dry?

Certainly, when times are tight, and when people are looking for answers, preachers must first avoid a powerful pitfall. We must be careful to avoid the arrogance and excess of demagoguery. We must not play the blame game and look for scapegoats. Our message is not about a particular theory of economics, from Adam Smith, to Karl Marx, to Milton Friedman, rather it is about truth that transcends systems and systemic failure.

Do you know the name of the most popular preacher during the dark days of the Great Depression? He was a man listened to by millions every week. He became for a brief time so powerful that even the president of the United States feared him. He was so popular on the radio that it was said that if you walked down the street on a summer day, you could hear his complete broadcast through every opened window, without missing barely a word.

His name was Charles Edward Coughlin.

Coughlin was a Catholic priest, overseeing a local parish in Royal Oak, Michigan. He was a hard working and fiercely ambitious clergyman, who guided the growth of his church, the Shrine of the Little Flower, during the late 1920s, while experimenting with the then-new medium of radio.

By the 1930s, and as the Great Depression was strangling the life out of the nation itself, he had transformed himself into the voice of the disaffected. During a decade when cultural circumstances were ripe for exploitation by charismatic leaders who offered simplistic answers, Father Coughlin became an incendiary force in the nation. And he did so by becoming a notorious, though highly effective, demagogue – someone who exploited the fears that Franklin Roosevelt himself had been trying to calm since uttering the phrase “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

The priest was a poisonous preacher.

Father Coughlin used his pulpit, both in his church and via the radio, to foster a spirit of anger, hatred, and divisiveness. And he was very effective, but it was clearly a monumental abuse of preaching itself. The messenger became the message. That is a grave sin in light of what Paul said about not preaching “ourselves.”

So powerful did the pugnacious priest become that Roosevelt spent a great deal of time trying to neutralize him as a political force. Fearing that Coughlin was going to join causes with Huey Long, the would-be-American-dictator from Louisiana, he had another Catholic supporter, Joseph P. Kennedy arrange for the priest to meet with the president at his Hyde Park, New York home in September of 1935. And in an interesting twist of fate, their meeting took place in the hours just after Senator Long had been shot in Baton Rouge. FDR and the priest were together when news came through about the Kingfish’s death.

But that didn’t slow the radio priest down. He soon picked up Long’s fallen mantle and formed a coalition of the discontented to challenge FDR in 1936. It all eventually fizzled into a footnote, but his story demonstrates the potential power a preacher can wield during difficult times, if a clergyman is inclined to exploit a crisis to feather his or her own nest.

When times are tight, great care must be taken not to feed the fears of people – rather preachers should be agents of hope.

Though Coughlin’s story is probably the best-known preacher story of the Great Depression, it is by no means the only story, nor is it at all representative of much of what happened across America. Evidence abounds highlighting great spiritual movements in communities. New churches were established – others saw growth that had not been seen in years. Giving trends in churches were actually up in the 1930s over the previous decade.

And preachers rediscovered some vital themes that are very relevant to us today. They have always been part of our homiletic arsenal, but when times are tight, they should be revisited with abounding joy.

Tight times cry out for good news. And as the proverb says, such news from a distant but precious place is like “cold water to a thirsty soul.” I am talking about a renewed emphasis on Heaven and things to come. This doesn’t necessarily mean detailed discussions about the views and theories of eschatology (though this may very well be appropriate in many cases), but rather a clear and bold declamation about the ultimate outcome of the life of faith.

Jesus understood this very well. When circumstances began to distract the attention of his faithful followers, especially as they began to perceive that something bad was on the horizon, he admonished them, “Let not your heart be troubled.”

But our Lord didn’t merely offer a kind and generic “there, there” with a perfunctory pat on their backs, no – he proceeded to tell them about a place – a compelling and very real place – that he was going to prepare for them.

The fact is, when current reality begins to let us down – when times turn tough, even tight – this is a moment for us to shift the focus away from this – to that, from now – to then, from here – to there.

Our ancient spiritual ancestors, the patriarchs, understood this. They didn’t get to experience the abundant earthly blessings that had been promised, so they looked “afar off” and for “a city whose builder and maker is God.”

If emotional maturity is, according to M. Scott Peck, demonstrated largely by a capacity for deferred gratification, then spiritual maturity must involve a measure of expectant hope, or better – deferred glorification.

Whatever the immediate future holds for Americans, it is clear that we have experienced an unprecedented and unsurpassed period where our standard of living has gotten better and better. This, in fact, may now be changing. No one knows for sure. But times of prosperity and plenty tend to have a dulling effect on spiritual senses and values.

In a sense, for much of our nation the idea of a better place and future glory has failed to capture the imagination, even the attention, of so many in recent years because, well, it has been pretty good down here. But as the years of plenty possibly give way to leaner times, preachers should take the cue and dig out the old classics about Heaven and its glory.

As the 1950s gave way to the 1960s and 1970s in this country, a generation – the Baby Boomers – questioned authority and challenged assumptions. They saw their parents who had endured the Great Depression and a global war as obsolete. Many dismissed traditional values and theological concepts like Heaven. It was commonplace to hear talk of a celestial home mocked as the myth of “pie in the sky by and by.” This was a generation who had never really suffered – or seen suffering.

It is a sobering truth that we tend to only learn to appreciate Heaven and its glory when we are faced with suffering, or some present distress. We can then identify with Paul in Romans chapter eight when he spoke about the unworthiness of comparisons between future glory and present difficulty.

So as the nation slides into a possible period of suffering, preachers should be voices crying in the wilderness about a better place. Some may object that to be too Heavenly minded is to be little earthly good, but authentic believers understand what those in generations past grasped – when we set our hopes on things “above,” we can manage things here below so much better.

The writer of the book of Hebrews talks, in the twelfth chapter, about a contrast between things that can be “shaken” (read: this world, human life, created things), and “a kingdom that cannot be shaken.” In a sense, this is exactly the fault-line our nation finds itself on at this critical moment in our history.

Politicians and social leaders will promote and apply their remedies for the nation’s ills – some things will work, others will not. But the preacher must never become distracted by any of it. When the foundations are shaken, we must speak boldly about the security and serenity of Heaven and all that it means.

When times are tight, when abundance gives way to want and prosperity is left behind, preachers of righteousness have something to say. There is a place, a better place, a glorious place; a place prepared by God himself.

Or put another way, I am putting a sign on the wall in my study this year and it says: “It’s about Heaven, stupid!”

Excerpts of My Sanctity of Human LIfe Sunday in today's Washington Post

2009-01-31T08:01:00.000-05:00

(From DRS: This past week someone from the Washington Post contacted me about using an excerpt of one of my recent sermons on in the paper. A youtube clip had somehow gotten their attention. Below is what appeared in the Washington Post on Saturday, January 31, 2009 - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/30/AR2009013003329.html?nav=rss_nation/special

Pro-Life and Civil Rights Camps Should Band Together to Right Wrongs

By This Week's Word
Saturday, January 31, 2009; B07

This week's sermon is by the Rev. David R. Stokes, senior pastor of Fair Oaks Church in Fairfax, marking Sanctity of Human Life Sunday on Jan. 18. President Ronald Reagan established a National Sanctity of Human Life Sunday in 1984, to be held the Sunday in January that falls closest to the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade abortion decision handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The recent passing of theologian Richard John Neuhaus brings to mind a passage from the book of Genesis: "There were giants in the earth in those days."

As Michael Gerson mentioned in his recent tribute to Neuhaus in The Washington Post, there was a time when "the footsteps of theologians shook the land." These days, he laments that the great thinkers who "provided the intellectual and moral ballast for a rough national crossing through the Cold War and civil rights movement are gone and the nation's hungry sheep now look up to the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra for spiritual nourishment.

Neuhaus was, according to Gerson, "first a man of the left, then a man of the right -- yet entirely consistent on the things that matter most." He walked with King for civil rights, and later "found the natural extension of those ideals in the pro-life movement."

In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. gave the address for which he is best known. Long remembered as the "I Have a Dream" speech, he said things like, "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.' "

Slightly less than five years later, the Dreamer was assassinated on April 4, 1968. In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision, hastening our societal slide toward a culture far too comfortable and familiar with violence and death. The legacy of Dr. King and the fallout from that 1973 legal bombshell sail very close to each other again.

Some see this as an awkward convergence. But it really isn't. Back in the '60s, while black preachers were mobilizing masses in the pursuit of civil rights, conservative evangelicals stayed largely on the sidelines. They weren't all that interested in changing anything. In fact, it was not uncommon to hear white fundamentalist-evangelical preachers of the day, with voices animated by indignation, decrying the very idea that preachers should be activists in the streets, mocking them to get back to their pulpits where they belonged.

Many, if not most -- some notably -- would later change their minds. What was the catalyst bringing change to how conservative, white clergymen viewed and lived out their roles? What issue convinced these dogmatic men of the cloth to be willing to scramble out of the pulpit-pocket and into a measure of political involvement after decades of silent separation? Well, the winds of change began to blow in the aftermath of that landmark 1973 decision.

So, here we are again in another January, decades after a killing and a ruling, still marching about Roe v. Wade and honoring Dr. King -- but seldom in the same room. The two constituencies, both fierce about the importance of faith, seldom find -- much less look for -- ways to reach out to the other choir. On Sunday, Jan. 18, some churches highlighted the Sanctity of Human Life issue. Others talked a lot about Dr. King and his dream to honor Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which was celebrated Jan. 20. Usually it was one or the other. Some of us, however, tried to do both, because there ought to be an affinity between the two.

When Martin Luther King talked about a dream he had for his four little children and how he longed for them to grow up in a nation "where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character," beyond the amen and applause of the crowd around the Lincoln Memorial, far too many Americans ignored what he had to say. Or worse, some mobilized to polarize and oppose.

Those opponents were wrong. No matter how much they went to church, read their Bibles or professed the religion of Jesus, they were wrong. It was wrong for good, God-fearing Americans not to see how important it was, from a faith-based point of view, that this nation truly walk the walk it had long talked about.

And it is wrong for some people of faith today not to see the pro-life cause as very much a civil and human-rights issue.

We should have a dream that welcomes all to the table. And we should have a dream that welcomes all to life itself.

The calendar gives us a near-miss each year as these issues come close to collision. But social justice and embracing life itself as profoundly precious should not be either/or issues. They are very much both/and. And until we find a way to bring them together, it is not likely that anyone can really bring us together.

At this transitional moment in our country's history, there are great and grave issues before us. Some wrongs have been righted. One great wrong -- one that has been a hurtful wound for generations, since even before our nation's founding -- is being righted by an inauguration. Other wrongs are yet to be righted. We should celebrate the victory of wrong over right when it happens. And we should mourn when wrongs left untouched cry out for justice and mercy.

The ultimate way for us to see wrongs righted is for us to look back 2,000 years ago, to a great and grievous wrong inflicted on Christ himself. And it is through that wrong, the great finished work on the cross, that we can know what it is to be made right and whole. When our brokenness is taken to His brokenness, healing happens. And that healing transforms us into agents of light -- to work for righteousness in a world of woe.

Of Race, Roe, and Reverends

2009-01-18T07:00:00.000-05:00

(I wrote this piece a year ago about this time - I think it is still relevant - DRS)

http://townhall.com/columnists/DavidRStokes/2008/01/19/race,_roe,__reverends

A Classic Spurgeon Lecture I Need to Read Occasionally...

2008-09-19T14:49:00.000-04:00

The Minister's fainting fits

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

As it is recorded that David, in the heat of battle, waxed faint, so may it be written of all the servants of the Lord. Fits of depression come over the most of us. Usually cheerful as we may be, we must at intervals be cast down. The strong are not always vigorous, the wise not always ready, the brave not always courageous, and the joyous not always happy. There maybe here and there men of iron, to whom wear and tear work no perceptible detriment, but surely the rust frets even these; and as for ordinary men, the Lord knows, and makes them to know, that they are but dust. Knowing by most painful experience what deep depression of spirit means, being visited therewith at seasons by no means few or far between, I thought it might be consolatory to some of my brethren if I gave my thoughts thereon, that younger men might not fancy that some strange thing had happened to them when they became for a season possessed by melancholy; and that sadder men might know that one upon whom the sun has shone right joyously did not always walk in the light.

It is not necessary by quotations from the biographies of eminent ministers to prove that seasons of fearful prostration have fallen to the lot of most, if not all of them. The life of Luther might suffice to give a thousand instances, and he was by no means of the weaker sort. His great spirit was often in the seventh heaven of exultation, and as frequently on the borders of despair. His very death-bed was not free from tempests, and he sobbed himself into his last sleep like a great wearied child. Instead of multiplying Gases, let us dwell upon the reasons why these things are permitted why it is that the children of light sometimes walk in the thick darkness; why the heralds of the daybreak find themselves at times in tenfold night.

Is it not first that they are men? Being men, they are compassed with infirmity, and heirs of sorrow. Well said the wise man in the Apocrypha, (Ecclus xl. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5-8) "Great travail is created for all men, and a heavy yoke on the sons of Adam, from the day that they go out of their mother's womb unto that day that they return to the mother of all things—namely, their thoughts and fear of their hearts, and their imagination of things that they wail for, and the day of death. From him that sitteth in the glorious throne, to him that sitteth beneath in the earth and ashes; from him that is clothed in blue silk, and weareth a crown, to him that is clothed in simple linen—wrath, envy, trouble, and unquietness, and fear of death and rigour, and such things come to both man and beast, but sevenfold to the ungodly." Grace guards us from much of this, but because we have not more of grace we still suffer even from ills preventible. Even under the economy of redemption it is most clear that we are to endure infirmities, otherwise there were no need of the promised Spirit to help us in them. It is of need be that we are sometimes in heaviness. Good men are promised tribulation in this world, and ministers may expect a larger share than others, that they may learn sympathy with the Lord's suffering people, and so may be fitting shepherds of an ailing flock. Disembodied spirits might have been sent to proclaim the word, but they could not have entered into the feelings of those who, being in this body, do groan, being burdened; angels might have been ordained evangelists, but their celestial attributes would have disqualified them from having compassion on the ignorant; men of marble might have been fashioned, but their impassive natures would have been a sarcasm upon our feebleness, and a mockery of our wants. Men, and men subject to human passions, the all-wise God has chosen to be his vessels of grace; hence these tears, hence these perplexities and castings down.

Moreover, most of us are in some way or other unsound physically. Here and there we meet with an old man who could not remember that ever he was laid aside for a day; but the great mass of us labour under some form or other of infirmity, either in body or mind. Certain bodily maladies, especially those connected with the digestive organs, the liver, and the spleen, are time fruitful fountains of despondency; and, let a man strive as he may against their influence, there will be hours and circumstances in which they will for awhile overcome him. As to mental maladies, is any man altogether sane? Are we not all a little off the balance? Some minds appear to have a gloomy tinge essential to their very individuality; of them it may be said, "Melancholy marked them for her own;" fine minds withal, and ruled by noblest principles, but yet most prone to forget the silver lining, and to remember only the cloud. Such men may sing with the old poet (Thomas Washbourne.)

"Our hearts are broke, our harps unstringed be,
Our only music's sighs and groans,
Our songs are to the tune of lachrymœ,
We're fretted all to skin and bones."

These infirmities may be no detriment to a man's career of special usefulness; they may even have been imposed upon him by divine wisdom as necessary qualifications for his peculiar course of service. Some plants owe their medicinal qualities to the marsh in which they grow; others to the shades in which alone they flourish. There are precious fruits put forth by the moon as well as by the sun. Boats need ballast as well as sail; a drag on the carriage-wheel is no hindrance when the road runs downhill. Pain has, probably, in some cases developed genius; hunting out the soul which otherwise might have slept like a lion in its den. Had it not been for the broken wing, some might have lost themselves in the clouds, some even of those choice doves who now bear the olive-branch in their mouths and show the way to the ark. But where in body and mind there are predisposing causes to lowness of spirit, it is no marvel if in dark moments the heart succumbs to them; the wonder in many cases is—and if inner lives could be written, men would see it so—how some ministers keep at their work at all, and still wear a smile upon their countenances. Grace has its triumphs still, and patience has its martyrs; martyrs none the less to be honoured because the flames kindle about their spirits rather than their bodies, and their burning is unseen of human eyes. The ministries of Jeremiahs are as acceptable as those of Isaiahs, and even the sullen Jonah is a true prophet of the Lord, as Nineveh felt full well. Despise not the lame, for it is written that they take the prey; but honour those who, being faint, are yet pursuing. The tender-eyed Leah was more fruitful than the beautiful Rachel, and the griefs of Hannah were more divine than the boastings of Peninnah. "Blessed are they that mourn," said the Man of Sorrows, and let none account them otherwise when their tears are salted with grace. We have the treasure of the gospel in earthen vessels, and if there be a flaw in the vessel here and there, let none wonder.

Our work, when earnestly undertaken, lays us open to attacks in the direction of depression. Who can bear the weight of souls without sometimes sinking to the dust? Passionate longings after men's conversion, if not fully satisfied (and when are they?), consume the soul with anxiety and disappointment. To see the hopeful turn aside, the godly grow cold, professors abusing their privileges, and sinners waxing more bold in sin—are not these sights enough to crush us to the earth? The kingdom comes not as we would, the reverend name is not hallowed as we desire, and for this we must weep. How can we be otherwise than sorrowful, while men believe not our report, and the divine arm is not revealed? All mental work tends to weary and to depress, for much study is a weariness of the flesh; but ours is more than mental work—it is heart work, the labour of our inmost soul. How often, on Lord's-day evenings, do we feel as if life were completely washed out of us! After pouring out our souls over our congregations, we feel like empty earthen pitchers which a child might break. Probably, if we were more like Paul, and watched for souls at a nobler rate, we should know more of what it is to be eaten up by the zeal of the Lord's house. It is our duty and our privilege to exhaust our lives for Jesus. We are not to be living specimens of men in fine preservation, but living sacrifices, whose lot is to be consumed; we are to spend and to be spent, not to lay ourselves up in lavender, and nurse our flesh. Such soul-travail as that of a faithful minister will bring on occasional seasons of exhaustion, when heart and flesh will fail. Moses' hands grew heavy in intercession, and Paul cried out, "Who is sufficient for these things?" Even John the Baptist is thought to have had his fainting fits, and the apostles were once amazed, and were sore afraid.

Our position in the church will also conduce to this. A minister fully equipped for his work, will usually be a spirit by himself, above, beyond, and apart from others. The most loving of his people cannot enter into his peculiar thoughts, cares, and temptations. In the ranks, men walk shoulder to shoulder, with many comrades, but as the officer rises in rank, men of his standing are fewer in number. There are many soldiers, few captains, fewer colonels, but only one commander-in-chief. So, in our churches, the man whom the Lord raises as a leader becomes, in the same degree in which he is a superior man, a solitary man. The mountain-tops stand solemnly apart, and talk only with God as he visits their terrible solitudes. Men of God who rise above their fellows into nearer communion with heavenly things, in their weaker moments feel the lack of human sympathy. Like their Lord in Gethsemane, they look in vain for comfort to the disciples sleeping around them; they are shocked at the apathy of their little band of brethren, and return to their secret agony with all the heavier burden pressing upon them, because they have found their dearest companions slumbering. No one knows, but he who has endured it, the solitude of a soul which has outstripped its fellows in zeal for the Lord of hosts: it dares not reveal itself, lest men count it mad; it cannot conceal itself, for a fire burns within its bones: only before the Lord does it find rest. Our Lord's sending out his disciples by two and two manifested that he knew what was in men; but for such a man as Paul, it seems to me that no helpmeet was found; Barnabas, or Silas, or Luke, were hills too low to hold high converse with such a Himalayan summit as the apostle of the Gentiles. This loneliness, which if I mistake not is felt by many of my brethren, is a fertile source of depression; and our ministers, fraternal meetings, and the cultivation of holy intercourse with kindred minds will, with God's blessing, help us greatly to escape the snare.

There can be little doubt that sedentary habits have a tendency to create despondency in some constitutions. Burton, in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," has a chapter upon this cause of sadness; and, quoting from one of the myriad authors whom he lays under contribution, he says—"Students are negligent of their bodies. Other men look to their tools; a painter will wash his pencils; a smith will look to his hammer, anvil, forge; a husbandman will mend his plough-irons, and grind his hatchet if it be dull; a falconer or huntsman will have an especial care of his hawks, hounds, horses, dogs, &c.; a musician will string and unstring his lute; only scholars neglect that instrument (their brain and spirits I mean) which they daily use. Well saith Lucan, "See thou twist not the rope so hard that it break." To sit long in one posture, poring over a book, or driving a quill, is in itself a taxing of nature; but add to this a badly-ventilated chamber, a body which has long been without muscular exercise, and a heart burdened with many cares, and we have all the elements for preparing a seething cauldron of despair, especially in the dim months of fog—

"When a blanket wraps the day,
When the rotten woodland drips,
And the leaf is stamped in clay."

Let a man be naturally as blithe as a bird, he will hardly be able to bear up year after year against such a suicidal process; he will make his study a prison and his books the warders of a gaol, while nature lies outside his window calling him to health and beckoning him to joy. He who forgets the humming of the bees among the heather, the cooing of the wood-pigeons in the forest, the song of birds in the woods, the rippling of rills among the rushes, and the sighing of the wind among the pines, needs not wonder if his heart forgets to sing and his soul grows heavy. A day's breathing of fresh air upon the hills, or a few hours, ramble in the beech woods? umbrageous calm, would sweep the cobwebs out of the brain of scores of our toiling ministers who are now but half alive. A mouthful of sea air, or a stiff walk in the wind's face, would not give grace to the soul, but it would yield oxygen to the body, which is next best.

"Heaviest the heart is in a heavy air,
Ev'ry wind that rises blows away despair."

The ferns and the rabbits, the streams and the trouts, the fir trees and the squirrels, the primroses and the violets, the farm-yard, the new-mown hay, and the fragrant hops—these are the best medicine for hypochondriacs, the surest tonics for the declining, the best refreshments for the weary. For lack of opportunity, or inclination, these great remedies are neglected, and the student becomes a self-immolated victim.

The times most favourable to fits of depression, so far as I have experienced, may be summed up in a brief catalogue. First among them I must mention the hour of great success. When at last a long-cherished desire is fulfilled, when God has been glorified greatly by our means, and a great triumph achieved, then we are apt to faint. It might be imagined that amid special favours our soul would soar to heights of ecstacy, and rejoice with joy unspeakable, but it is generally the reverse. The Lord seldom exposes his warriors to the perils of exultation over victory; he knows that few of them can endure such a test, and therefore dashes their cup with bitterness. See Elias after the fire has fallen from heaven, after Baal's priests have been slaughtered and the rain has deluged the barren land For him no notes of self-complacent music, no strutting like a conqueror in robes of triumph; he flees from Jezebel, and feeling the revulsion of his intense excitement, he prays that he may die, lie who must never see death, yearns after the rest of the grave, even as Caesar, the world's monarch, in his moments of pain cried like a sick girl. Poor human nature cannot bear such strains as heavenly triumphs bring to it; there must come a reaction. Excess of joy or excitement must be paid for by subsequent depressions. While the trial lasts, the strength is equal to the emergency; but when it is over, natural weakness claims the right to show itself. Secretly sustained, Jacob can wrestle all night, but he must limp in the morning when the contest is over, lest he boast himself beyond measure. Paul may be caught up to the third heaven, and hear unspeakable things, but a thorn in time flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet him, must be the inevitable sequel. Men cannot bear unalloyed happiness; even good men are not yet fit to have "their brows with laurel and with myrtle bound," without enduring secret humiliation to keep them in their proper place. Whirled from off our feet by a revival, carried aloft by popularity, exalted by success in soul-winning, we should be as the chaff which the wind driveth away, were it not that the gracious discipline of mercy breaks the ships of our vainglory with a strong east wind, and casts us shipwrecked, naked and forlorn, upon the Rock of Ages.

Before any great achievement, some measure of the same depression is very usual. Surveying the difficulties before us, our hearts sink within us. The sons of Anak stalk before us, and we are as grasshoppers in our own sight in their presence. The cities of Canaan are walled up to heaven, and who are we that we should hope to capture them? We are ready to cast down our weapons and take to our heels. Nineveh is a great city, and we would flee unto Tarshish sooner than encounter its noisy crowds. Already we look for a ship which may bear us quietly away from the terrible scene, and only a dread of tempest restrains our recreant footsteps. Such was my experience when I first became a pastor in London. My success appalled me; and the thought of the career which it seemed to open up, so far from elating me, cast me into the lowest depth, out of which I uttered my miserere and found no room for a gloria in excelsis. Who was I that I should continue to lead so great a multitude? I would betake me to my village obscurity, or emigrate to America, and find a solitary nest in the backwoods, where I might be sufficient for the things which would be demanded of me. It was just then that the curtain was rising upon my life-work, and I dreaded what it might reveal. I hope I was not faithless, but I was timorous and filled with a sense of my own unfitness. I dreaded the work which a gracious providence had prepared for me. I felt myself a mere child, and trembled as I heard the voice which said, "Arise, and thresh the mountains, and make them as chaff." This depression comes over me whenever the Lord is preparing a larger blessing for my ministry; the cloud is black before it breaks, and overshadows before it yields its deluge of mercy. Depression has now become to me as a prophet in rough clothing, a John the Baptist, heralding the nearer coming of my Lord's richer benison. So have far better men found it. The scouring of the vessel has fitted it for the Master's use. Immersion in suffering has preceded the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Fasting gives an appetite for the banquet. The Lord is revealed in the backside of the desert, while his servant keepeth the sheep and waits in solitary awe. The wilderness is the way to Canaan. The low valley leads to the towering mountain. Defeat prepares for victory. The raven is sent forth before the dove. The darkest hour of the night precedes the day-dawn. The mariners go down to the depths, but the next wave makes them mount to the heaven: their soul is melted because of trouble before he bringeth them to their desired haven.

In the midst of a long stretch of unbroken labour, the same affliction may be looked for. The bow cannot be always bent without fear of breaking. Repose is as needful to the mind as sleep to the body. Our Sabbaths are our days of toil, and if we do not rest upon some other day we shall break down. Even the earth must lie fallow and have her Sabbaths, and so must we. Hence the wisdom and compassion of our Lord, when he said to his disciples, "Let us go into the desert and rest awhile." What! when the people are fainting? When the multitudes are like sheep upon the mountains without a shepherd? Does Jesus talk of rest? When Scribes and Pharisees, like grievous wolves, are rending the flock, does he take his followers on an excursion into a quiet resting place? Does some red-hot zealot denounce such atrocious forgetfulness of present and pressing demands? Let him rave in his folly. The Master knows better than to exhaust his servants and quench the light of Israel. Rest time is not waste time. It is economy to gather fresh strength. Look at the mower in the summer a day, with so much to cut down ere the sun sets. He pauses in his labour, is he a sluggard? He looks for his stone, and begins to draw it up and down his scythe, with "rink-a-tink—rink-a-tink—rink-a-tink." Is that idle music? is he wasting precious moments? How much he might have mown while he has been ringing out those notes on his scythe! But he is sharpening his tool, and he will do far more when once again he gives his strength to those long sweeps which lay the grass prostrate in rows before him. Even thus a little pause prepares the mind for greater service in the good cause. Fishermen must mend their nets, and we must every now and then repair our mental waste and set our machinery in order for future service. To tug the oar from day to day, hike a galley-slave who knows no holidays, suits not mortal men. Mill-streams go on and on for ever, but we must have our pauses and our intervals. Who can help being out of breath when the race is continued without intermission? Even beasts of burden must be turned out to grass occasionally; the very sea pauses at ebb and flood; earth keeps the Sabbath of the wintry months; and man, even when exalted to be God's ambassador, must rest or faint; must trim his lamp or let it burn low; must recruit his vigour or grow prematurely old. It is wisdom to take occasional furlough. In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less. On, on, on for ever, without recreation, may suit spirits emancipated from this "heavy clay," but while we are in this tabernacle, we must every now and then cry halt, and serve the Lord by holy inaction and consecrated leisure. Let no tender conscience doubt the lawfulness of going out of harness for awhile, but learn from the experience of others the necessity and duty of taking timely rest.

One crushing stroke has sometimes laid the minister very low. The brother most relied upon becomes a traitor. Judas lifts up his heel against the man who trusted him, and the preacher?s heart for the moment fails him. We are all too apt to look to an arm of flesh, and from that propensity many of our sorrows arise. Equally overwhelming is the blow when an honoured and beloved member yields to temptation, and disgraces the holy name with which lie was named. Anything is better than this. This makes the preacher long for a lodge in some vast wilderness, where he may hide his head for ever, and hear no more the blasphemous jeers of the ungodly. Ten years of toil do not take so much life out of us as we lose in a few hours by Ahithophel the traitor, or Demas the apostate. Strife, also, and division, and slander, and foolish censures, have often laid holy men prostrate, and made them go "as with a sword in their bones." Hard words wound some delicate minds very keenly. Many of the best of ministers, from the very spirituality of their character, are exceedingly sensitive—too sensitive for such a world as this. "A kick that scarce would move a horse would kill a sound divine." By experience the soul is hardened to the rough blows which are inevitable in our warfare; but at first these things utterly stagger us, and send us to our homes wrapped in a horror of great darkness. The trials of a true minister are not few, and such as are caused by ungrateful professors are harder to bear than the coarsest attacks of avowed enemies. Let no man who looks for ease of mind and seeks the quietude of life enter the ministry; if he does so he will flee from it in disgust.

To the lot of few does it fall to pass through such a horror of great darkness as that which fell upon me after the deplorable accident at the Surrey Music Hall. I was pressed beyond measure and out of bounds with an enormous weight of misery. The tumult, the panic, the deaths, were day and night before me, anti made life a burden. Then I sang in my sorrow—

"The tumult of my thoughts
Doth but increase my woe,
My spirit languisheth, my heart
Is desolate and low."

From that dream of horror I was awakened in a moment by the gracious application to my soul of the text, "Him hath God the Father exalted." The fact that Jesus is still great, let his servants suffer as they may, piloted me back to calm reason and peace. Should so terrible a calamity overtake any of my brethren, let them both patiently hope and quietly wait for the salvation of God.

When troubles multiply, and discouragements follow each other in long succession, like Job's messengers, then, too, amid the perturbation of soul occasioned by evil tidings, despondency despoils the heart of all its peace. Constant dropping wears away stones, and the bravest minds feel the fret of repeated afflictions. If a scanty cupboard is rendered a severer trial by the sickness of a wife or the loss of a child, and if ungenerous remarks of hearers are followed by the opposition of deacons and the coolness of members, then, like Jacob, we are apt to cry, "All these things are against me." When David returned to Ziklag and found the city burned, goods stolen, wives carried off, and his troops ready to stone him, we read, "he encouraged himself in his God;" and well was it for him that he could do so, for he would then have fainted if he had not believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Accumulated distresses increase each other's weight; they play into each other's hands, and, like bands of robbers, ruthlessly destroy our comfort. Wave upon wave is severe work for the strongest swimmer. The place where two seas meet strains the most seaworthy keel. If there were a regulated pause between the buffetings of adversity, the spirit would stand prepared; but when they come suddenly and heavily, like the battering of great hailstones, the pilgrim may well be amazed. The last ounce breaks the camel's back, and when that last ounce is laid upon us, what wonder if we for awhile are ready to give up the ghost!

This evil will also come upon us, we know not why, and then it is all the more difficult to drive it away. Causeless depression is not to he reasoned with, nor can David's harp charm it away by sweet discoursings. As well fight with the mist as with this shapeless, undefinable, yet all-beclouding hopelessness. One affords himself no pity when in this case, because it seems so unreasonable, and even sinful to be troubled without manifest cause; and yet troubled the man is, even in the very depths of his spirit. If those who laugh at such melancholy did but feel the grief of it for one hour, their laughter would he sobered into compassion. Resolution might, perhaps, shake it off, but where are we to find the resolution when the whole man is unstrung? The physician and the divine may unite their skill in such cases, and both find their hands full, and more than full. The iron bolt which so mysteriously fastens the door of hope and holds our spirits in gloomy prison, needs a heavenly hand to push it back; and when that hand is seen we cry with the apostle, "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." 2 Cor. i. 3, 4. It is the God of all consolation who can—

"With sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse our poor bosoms of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart."

Simon sinks till Jesus takes him by the hand. The devil within rends and tears the poor child till time word of authority commands him to come out of him. When we are ridden with horrible fears, and weighed down with an intolerable incubus, we need but the Sun of Righteousness to rise, and the evils generated of our darkness are driven away; but nothing short of this will chase away time nightmare of the soul. Timothy Rogers, the author of a treatise on Melancholy, and Simon Browne, the writer of some remarkably sweet hymns, proved in their own cases how unavailing is the help of man if the Lord withdraw the light from the soul.

If it be enquired why the Valley of the Shadow of Death must so often be traversed by the servants of King Jesus, the answer is not far to find. All this is promotive of the Lord's mode of working, which is summed up in these words—"Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." Instruments shall be used, but their intrinsic weakness shall be clearly manifested; there shall be no division of the glory, no diminishing the honour due to the Great Worker. The man shall be emptied of self, and then filled with the Holy Ghost. In his own apprehension he shall be like a sere leaf driven of the tempest, and then shall be strengthened into a brazen wall against the enemies of truth. To hide pride from the worker is the great difficulty. Uninterrupted success and unfading joy in it would be more than our weak heads could bear. Our wine must needs be mixed with water, lest it turn our brains. My witness is, that those who are honoured of their Lord in public, have usually to endure a secret chastening, or to carry a peculiar cross, lest by any means they exalt themselves, and fall into the snare of the devil. How constantly the Lord calls Ezekiel "Son of man"! Amid his soarings into the superlative splendours, just when with eye undimmed he is strengthened to gaze into the excellent glory, the word "Son of man" falls on his ears, sobering the heart which else might have been intoxicated with the honour conferred upon it. Such humbling but salutary messages our depressions whisper in our ears; they tell us in a manner not to be mistaken that we are but men, frail, feeble, apt to faint.

By all the castings down of his servants God is glorified, for they are led to magnify him when again he sets them on their feet, and even while prostrate in the dust their faith yields him praise. They speak all time more sweetly of his faithfulness, and are the more firmly established in his love. Such mature men as sonic elderly preachers are, could scarcely have been produced if they had not been emptied from vessel to vessel, and made to see their own emptiness and the vanity of all things round about them. Glory be to God for the furnace, the hammer, and the file. Heaven shall be all the fuller of bliss because we have been filled with anguish here below, and earth shall be better tilled because of our training in the school of adversity.

The lesson of wisdom is, be not dismayed by soul-trouble. Count it no strange thing, but a part of ordinary ministerial experience. Should the power of depression be more than ordinary, think not that all is over with your usefulness. Cast not away your confidence, for it hath great recompense of reward. Even if the enemy's foot be on your neck, expect to rise amid overthrow him. Cast the burden of the present, along with the sin of the past and the fear of the future, upon the Lord, who forsaketh not his saints. Live by the day—ay, by the hour. Put no trust in frames and feelings. Care more for a grain of faith than a ton of excitement. Trust in God alone, and lean not on the reeds of human help. Be not surprised when friends fail you: it is a failing world. Never count upon immutability in man: inconstancy you may reckon upon without fear of disappointment. The disciples of Jesus forsook him; be not amazed if your adherents wander away to other teachers: as they were not your all when with you, all is not gone from you with their departure. Serve God with all your might while the candle is burning, and then when it goes out for a season, you will have the less to regret. Be content to be nothing, for that is what you are. When your own emptiness is painfully forced upon your consciousness, chide yourself that you ever dreamed of being full, except in the Lord. Set small store by present rewards; be grateful for earnests by the way, but look for the recompensing joy hereafter. Continue, with double earnestness to serve your Lord when no visible result is before you. Any simpleton can follow the narrow path in the light: faith?s rare wisdom enables us to march on in the dark with infallible accuracy, since she places her hand in that of her Great Guide. Between this and heaven there may be rougher weather yet, but it is all provided for by our covenant Head. In nothing let us be turned aside from the path which the divine call has urged us to pursue. Come fair or come foul, the pulpit is our watch-tower, and the ministry our warfare; be it ours, when we cannot see the face of our God, to trust under THE SHADOW OF HIS WINGS.

Author

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834 - 1892) was a noted English Baptist minister who preached to throngs of people in the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, which seated six thousand people. His success and popularity were due in a large measure to his natural gift of oratory and his thoroughly Biblical expository sermons.

Preaching is Still Important

2008-07-11T16:59:00.000-04:00

The purpose of preaching
by Rick Warren

Until you understand that God’s purpose for us is to make us more like Jesus, you’re not ready to preach. The goal of our preaching should be to help
people become more
like Jesus.

Rick Warren
Preaching is the greatest tool a pastor has in his church. Nothing else comes close. Pastoral care is important. Small groups are crucial. Nothing compares to preaching though.
If your church were a ship, preaching would be the rudder – it’s what moves the church. No matter how big a ship is, it needs a rudder. No matter how big your church gets, it needs a rudder as well.

Since so much hangs on the balance of your preaching, you better know why you are doing it. Everything hangs on you understanding that. To do that, you need to keep in mind God’s purpose for man and God’s purpose for his Word.

First, take a look at God’s purpose for man. Paul tells us what that is in Romans 8:28-29 (NLT): “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn, with many brothers and sisters.”

God wants us to be like Jesus. That’s his purpose for every person on the planet. And it isn’t Plan B. It’s been his purpose from the creation of the earth. In Genesis 1:26 (NIV), God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’”

Until you understand that God’s purpose for us is to make us more like Jesus, you’re not ready to preach. The goal of our preaching should be to help people become more like Jesus.

But what does it mean to be more like Jesus? God wants us to be more like him in three ways:

How we think (convictions)
How we feel (character)
How we act (conduct)
How does God create Christlikeness? Through his Word. The Bible tells us in James 1:23-25 (NIV): “Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it – he will be blessed in what he does.”

Notice this Scripture says we are to look intently at the Word, not forget it, and then do it. That’s a big problem for most of our churches. We look intently at the Word of God, then we forget it and don’t do it. When you get all three, that’s when God’s blessing comes.

Unfortunately, most pastors use a method that encourages people to look at God’s Word, then forget it and not do it. People are being informed but not transformed. It’s the number one problem in our churches. George Gallup has said it this way: “Never before in the history of the United States has the Gospel of Jesus Christ made such inroads while at the same time making so little difference in how people actually live.”

The purpose of God’s Word

But the problem isn’t the people, it’s the preaching. To fix the problem, we’ve got to better understand the purpose of preaching. To better understand the purpose of preaching, we need to better understand the purpose of God’s Word.

Whenever you bring up the purpose of God’s Word, people will inevitably turn to 2 Timothy 3:16-17, which of course spells it out. “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (NKJV).

Unfortunately, people usually stop way too soon when interpreting this verse. When asked about the purpose of God’s Word, they simply say for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. That’s not all the verses say. Notice the end. Paul tells us that Scripture has been given for all of those reasons “so that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” The purpose of Scripture is to change our character (“be complete”) and our conduct (“thoroughly equipped for every good work”). Since that’s the purpose of God’s Word, that’s what our goal should be when we preach the Word as well.

How do you help people change their character and conduct through preaching? One word – application. That’s where life change happens. Most classically trained pastors have been taught to center their messages around the interpretation of the Word. Their method makes interpretation an end in itself and just leaves application to the Holy Spirit.

Unfortunately, the result of application-less preaching is that our churches are half full and financially strapped. Our country’s morals are going down the drain. And Christians act no different than non-Christians. They get divorced at the same rate as their non-Christian friends, and Christian singles are sleeping with one another.

Pastors, that’s a preaching problem. God is clear in the book of Isaiah when he says that his Word will not come back void. And it won’t. But we look around at what’s happening in our churches and it seems as if his Word is coming back void. People say that we need to make the Bible relevant. Baloney. The Bible is relevant. The best way to be relevant is to be eternal – and that’s the Bible. What’s irrelevant is how we’re sharing it.

You have the most important task on the planet when you share God’s Word with people each week. Make that time count. Nothing will influence your church more. Your goal is none other than changed lives. Make a commitment to preach in a way that’s consistent with God’s purpose for man and his purpose for his Word. That’s how you change lives.

In Depth -- On Tithing by Arthur W. Pink

2008-06-12T06:12:00.000-04:00

FROM PASTOR STOKES:
This is a great article – a Biblical analysis on TITHING from a giant of the faith of “yesteryear” – I hope you will read it and study this issue with a prayerful and open heart. - DRS

Arthur W. Pink was born in Nottingham England in 1886, and born again of the Spirit of God in 1908 at the age of 22. He studied at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, USA, for only six weeks before beginning his pastoral work in Colorado. From there he pastored churches in California, Kentucky, and South Carolina before moving to Sydney Australia for a brief period, preaching and teaching. In 1934, at 48 years old, he returned to his native England. He took permanent residence in Lewis, Scotland, in 1940, remaining there 12 years until his death at age 66 in 1952.

TITHING – by Arthur W. Pink

There are few subjects on which the Lord’s own people are more astray than on the subject of giving. They profess to take the Bible as their own rule of faith and practice, and yet in the matter of Christian finance, the vast majority have utterly ignored its plain teachings and have tried every substitute the carnal mind could devise; therefore it is no wonder that the majority of Christian enterprises in the world today are handicapped and crippled through the lack of funds. Is our giving to be regulated by sentiment and impulse, or by principle and conscience? That is only another way of asking, Does God leave us to the spirit of gratitude and generosity, or has He definitely specified His own mind and particularized what portion of His gifts to us are due to Him in return? Surely God has not left this important matter without fully making known His will! The Bible is given to be a lamp unto our feet and therefore He cannot have left us in darkness regarding any obligation or privilege in our dealings with Him or His with us.

TITHING IN THE OLD TESTAMENT At a very early date in the history of our race God made it known that a definite proportion of the saint’s income should be devoted to Him who is the Giver of all. There was a period of twenty-five centuries from Adam until the time that God gave the law to Israel at Sinai, but it is a great mistake to suppose that the saints of God in those early centuries were left without a definite revelation, without a knowledge of God’s will regarding their obligations to Him, and of the great blessings which resulted from a faithful performance of their duties. As we study carefully the book of Genesis we find clear traces of a primitive revelation, an indication of God’s mind to His people long before the system of legislation that was given at Sinai (see Genesis 18:19); and that primal revelation seems to have centered about three things: 1. The offering of sacrifices to God. 2. The observance of the Sabbath. 3 . The giving of tithes.

While it is perfectly true that today we are unable to take the Bible and place our finger upon any positive enactment or commandment from God that His people, in those early days, should either offer sacrifices to Him or keep the Sabbath or give the tithe (there is no definite “Thus saith the Lord” recorded concerning any one of these three things), nevertheless, from what is recorded we are compelled to assume that there must have been such a commandment given: compare Genesis 26:5.

THE OFFERING OF SACRIFICES TO GOD Take first of all the presenting of sacrifices to God. Is it thinkable that man would ever have presented blood to Deity if he had never first received a command to so do? Do you imagine it would ever have occurred to the human mind itself to have brought a bleeding animal to the great Creator?
And yet we find in the very earliest times that Abel, Noah, Abraham, presented bleeding offerings unto Jehovah—clearly presupposing that God had already made it known that such was His will for His creatures: that the Most High required just such an offering: see Hebrews 11:4 and compare Romans 10:17.

THE SABBATH Take again the Sabbath. There is little in the early pages of Scripture to directly show us that God Himself appointed one day in seven, and that He made it a law that all of His creatures should so observe it; and yet there are clear indications that such must have been the case, or otherwise we cannot explain what follows. When God gave the ten commandments to Israel at Sinai, in the fourth commandment He did not tell Israel to keep the Sabbath; He commanded them to remember the Sabbath day, which clearly implies two things: that at an earlier date the mind of God concerning the Sabbath had been revealed, but, that their forefathers had forgotten: see Ezekiel 20:5-8, and compare Exodus 16:27,28.

THE TITHE The same is true in connection with the tithe. At this day we are unable to go back to the earliest pages of Scripture and put our finger upon a “Thus saith the Lord,” a definite commandment where Jehovah specified His will and demanded that His people should render a tenth of all their increase unto Him; and yet as we take up the book of Genesis we cannot account for what is there, unless we presuppose a previous revelation of God’s mind and a manifestation of His will upon the point.
In Genesis 14:20 it is written, “And he gave him tithes of all.”

Abraham gave tithes unto Melchizedek. We are not informed why he did so. We are not told in previous chapters that God had commanded him to do so, but the fact that he did so clearly denotes that he was acting in accordance with God’s will and that he was carrying out His revealed mind.

THE TITHE IN GENESIS 28:19-22 We will begin at verse 19 to get the context: “And he called the name of that place Bethel.” You remember the circumstances. This was the night when Jacob was fleeing from Esau, a fugitive from home, starting out to Laban’s; and that night while he was asleep he had the vision. “And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in the way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God: and this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that Thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto Thee.” Here again we have the tithe. Jacob vowed that in return for the Lord’s temporal blessings upon him, he would render a tenth in return unto the Lord. We are not told why he selected that percentage; we are not told why he should give a tenth; but the fact that he did determine so to do, intimates there had previously been a revelation of God’s mind to His creatures, and particularly to His people, that one-tenth of their income should be devoted to the Giver of all.
THE TITHE IN THE MOSAIC LAW When we come to the Mosaic law, we find that the tithe was definitely and clearly incorporated into it. “And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord’s: it is holy unto the Lord. And if a man will at all redeem ought of his tithes, he shall add thereto a fifth part thereof. And concerning the tithe of the herd, or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord” ( Leviticus 27:30-32). Notice the twice-repeated expression concerning the tithe, that it was “holy unto the Lord.” That is to say, God reserves to Himself, as His exclusive right, as His own, one-tenth of that which He has given to us. It is “holy” unto the Lord.

This anticipates a point which may have been exercising some minds. When we say that one-tenth of our gross income belongs to the Lord doubtless some are inclined to say that all of our income belongs to Him; that everything we have has been given us by God; that nothing is our own in the full sense of the word, it is all His. This is perfectly true in one sense, but not so in another. In one sense it is true that all of our time belongs to God, that it is not ours, and we shall yet have to give an account of every idle moment; but in another real sense it is also true that God has set apart one-seventh of our time as being holy unto Him. That is to say, it has been set apart for a sacred use; it is not ours to do with as we please. The Sabbath is not a day for doing our own pleasure, it is a day that has been appointed and singled out by God as being peculiarly His—holy unto Him—one-seventh of our time spent in His service. And here in Leviticus 27: 30-32 we are told that the tithe is holy unto the Lord. That is to say, one-tenth is not our own personal property at all: it does not belong to us in the slightest; we have no say-so about it whatsoever it is set apart unto a holy use: it is the Lord’s and His alone.

SUPPORT OF THE PRIESTLY FAMILY IN THE OLD TESTAMENT “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Thus speak unto the Levites, and say unto them, When ye take of the children of Israel the tithes which I have given you from them for your inheritance, then ye shall offer up an heave offering of it for the Lord, even a tenth part of the tithe” ( Numbers 18:25,26).

From this we learn that the support of the priestly family in the Old Testament was not left to the whims of the people, or as to how they “felt led” to give. God did not leave it for them to determine. The support of the priestly family was definitely specified. The priestly family was to derive their support out of one-tenth of all that the other tribes received from their annual increase, and the priests themselves were required to take one-tenth of all out of their portion and present it to the Lord. There were no exceptions to the rule.

Those who have read through the historical books of Scripture know full well how miserably Israel failed to obey this law after they had settled down in the land, how that almost every fundamental precept and statute of the legislation that Jehovah gave to Moses was disregarded by them. But what is very significant is this, that in each great revival of godliness that Jehovah sent unto Israel, tithing is one of the things that is mentioned as being renewed and restored among them.

First of all let us turn to 2 Chronicles 30. This chapter records a great revival that took place in the days of Hezekiah. There had been a time of fearful declension in the reigns of the preceding kings, but in the days of Hezekiah God graciously gave a blessed revival, and in verse 1 we read: “And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, to keep the Passover unto the Lord God of Israel.” Things had gotten into such an awful state that they had not even kept the Passover for several centuries! But when God works a revival one of its most prominent features is to cause His people to return to the written Word. Let us note this carefully. A heaven-sent revival consists not so much in happy feelings and spasmodic enthusiasm and fleshly displays, nor great crowds of people in attendance—those are not the marks of a heaven-sent revival—but when God renews His work of grace in His churches, one of the first things that He does is to cause His people to return to the written Word from which they have departed in their ways and in their practices. This was what happened in the days of Hezekiah. We read that he wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasseh that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem to keep the Passover unto the Lord God of Israel. Think of them needing “letters”!! Now read on to chapter 31, verses 4, 5 and 6, and you will find the tithes mentioned. “Moreover he commanded the people that dwelt in Jerusalem to give the portion of the priests and Levites, that they might be encouraged in the law of the Lord. And as soon as the commandment came abroad, the children of Israel brought in abundance the first fruits of corn, wine, and oil, and honey, and of all the increase of the field; and the tithe of all things brought they in abundantly. And concerning the children of Israel and Judah, they also brought in the tithe of oxen and sheep, and the tithe of holy things which were consecrated unto the Lord their God, and laid them by heaps” (vv. 4-6). Following which, God markedly blest them.

The same thing is true again in the tenth chapter of Nehemiah. It will be remembered that Nehemiah brings us to a later period in the history of Israel. Nehemiah records the return of a small remnant of the people after the nation had been carried away into captivity, after the seventy years in Babylon was over. Then God raised up Cyrus to make a decree permitting those who desired to go back to their own land. In this chapter we find that in the revival of his day, the tithe is also mentioned: “And we cast the lots among the priests, the Levites, and the people, for the wood offering, to bring it into the house of our God, after the houses of our fathers, at times appointed year by year, to burn upon the altar of the Lord our God, as it is written in the law: And to bring the firstfruits of our ground, and the firstfruits of all fruit of all trees, year by year, unto the house of the Lord:
Also the firstborn of our sons, and of our cattle, as it is written in the law, and the firstlings of our herds and of our flocks, to bring to the house of our God, unto the priests that minister in the house of our God: And that we should bring the firstfruits of our dough, and our offerings, and the fruit of all manner of trees, of wine and of oil, unto the priests, to the chambers of the house of our God; and the tithes of our ground unto the Levites, that the same Levites might have the tithes in all the cities of our tillage” ( Nehemiah 10:34-37).

Now turn to the last book of the Old Testament. Malachi brings us to a point still later, and shows us how the remnant that had returned in the days of Nehemiah had also degenerated and deteriorated and had departed from the word of the law of the Lord; and, among other things. note the charges that God brings against Israel in Malachi 3:7,8. “Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from Mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto Me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return? Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed Me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed Thee? In tithes and offerings.” How solemn to notice that in the last chapter but one of the Old Testament, we are there taught that those who withheld the “tithe” from Jehovah are charged with having robbed God! Solemn indeed!

THE TITHE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT Only God has the right to say how much of our income shall be set aside and set apart unto Him. And He has so said clearly, repeatedly, in the Old Testament Scriptures, and there is nothing in the New Testament that introduces any change or that sets aside the teaching of the Old Testament on this important subject.

Christ Himself has placed His approval and set His imprimatur upon the tithe. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone” ( Matthew 23:23).

In that verse Christ is rebuking the scribes and Pharisees because of their hypocrisy. They had been very strict and punctilious in tithing the herbs, but on the other hand they had neglected the weightier matters such as judgment, or justice, and mercy. But while Christ acknowledged that the observance of justice and mercy is more important than tithing—it is a “weightier matter”—while, He says, these they ought to have done, nevertheless He says, these other ye ought not to have left undone. He does not set aside the tithe. He places justice and mercy as being more weighty, but He places His authority upon the practice of tithing by saying, “These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.” It is well for us if we by the grace of God have not omitted justice and mercy and faith: it is well if by the grace of God those things have found a place in our midst: but the tithing ought not to have been left undone, and Christ Himself says so.

The second passage to be noted is 1 Corinthians 9:13,14: “Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar? Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel.”

The emphatic words there are, “Even so” in the beginning of the fourteenth verse. The word “tithe” is not found in these two verses but it is most clearly implied. In verse 13 the Holy Spirit reminds the New Testament saints that under the Mosaic economy God had made provision for the maintenance of those who ministered in the temple. Now then, He says, in this New Testament dispensation “Even so” (v. 14)—the same means and the same method are to be used in the support and maintaining of the preachers of the Gospel as were used in supporting the temple and its services of old. “Even so.” It was the tithe that supported God’s servants in the Old Testament dispensation: “even so” God has ordained, and appointed that His servants in the New Testament dispensation shall be so provided for.

Referring next to 1 Corinthians 16:1 and 2: here again we find the word “tithe” does not actually occur, and yet once more it is plainly implied: the principle of it is there surely enough. “Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him.” Now what does “laying by” imply? Certainly it signifies a definite predetermined act, rather than a spontaneous impulse, or just acting on the spur of the moment. Let us look at this again. “Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store.” (v. 2). Why are we told that? Why is it put that way’? Why use such an expression as “lay by in store”? Clearly that language points us back to Malachi 3:10. “Bring ye all the tithes into the _______” Where? The “storehouse”! That is where the tithes were to be brought. “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse.” Now what does God say here in Corinthians? “Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store.” There is a clear reference here to the terms of Malachi 3, but that is not all. Look at it again. “Let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him.” That signifies a definite proportion of the income. Not “let every one of you lay by him in store, as he feels led”; it does not say that, nor does it say “let every one of you lay by him in store as he feels moved by the Spirit”; no indeed, it says nothing of the kind. It says, “Let every one... lay by him as God hath prospered him”: in a proportionate way, according to a percentage basis. Now consider! If my income today is double what it was a year ago and I am not giving any more to the Lord’s cause than I gave then, then I am not giving “as the Lord hath prospered”: I am not giving proportionately. But now the question arises, What proportion? What is the proportion that is according to the will of God? “As He hath prospered him.” Can one man bring one proportion and another man bring another proportion, and yet both of them obey this precept? Must not all bring the same proportion in order to meet the requirements of this passage? Turn for a moment to 2 Corinthians 8:14: “But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality.”

Please note that this verse occurs in the middle of a chapter devoted to the subject of giving, and what is to be observed is, that at the beginning of verse 14 and at the end of it we have repeated the word “equality,” which means that God’s people are all to give the same proportion of their means and the only proportion that God has specified anywhere in His Word is that of the tenth, or “tithe.”

There is one other passage to be looked at, namely Hebrews 7:5 and 6: “And verily they that are of the sons of Levi, who receive the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is, of their brethren, though they come out of the loins of Abraham: But he, whose descent is not counted from them, received tithes of Abraham, and blessed him that had the promises.” (Notice the order: “received tithes of Abraham, and blessed him that had the promises”). And without all contradiction the less is blessed of the better.” In the seventh chapter of Hebrews the Holy Spirit through the apostle Paul is showing the superiority of Christ’s priesthood over the order of the priesthood of the Levites, and one of the proofs of which He establishes the transcendency of the Melehizedek order of the priesthood of Christ was that Abraham, the father of the chosen people, acknowledged the greatness of Melehizedek by rendering tithes to him.
The reference in Hebrews 7 is to what is recorded in Genesis 14, where we have two typical characters brought before us—Melchizedek, a type of Christ in three ways: first, in his person, combining the kingly and the priestly offices; second, a type of Christ in his names, combining righteousness and peace, for “Melchizedek” itself means “peace”; and third, a type of Christ in that he pronounced blessing on Abraham and brought forth bread and wine, the memorials of his death.

But not only was Melchizedek there a type of Christ, but Abraham was also a typical character, a representative character, seen there as the father of the faithful; and we find he acknowledged the priesthood of Melchizedek by giving him a tenth of the spoils which the Lord had enabled him to secure in vanquishing those kings, and as that is referred to in Hebrews, where the priesthood of Christ and our blessings from our relations to it and our obligation to it are set forth, the fact that Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek as mentioned there, indicates that as Abraham is the father of the faithful, so he left an example for us, his children, to follow—in rendering tithes unto Him of whom Melchizedek was the type.

And the beautiful thing in connection with the Scripture is that the last time the tithe is mentioned in the Bible (here in Hebrews 7) it links the tithe directly with Christ Himself. All intermediaries are removed. In the Old Testament the tithes were brought to the priests, then carried into the storehouse, but in the final reference in Scripture, the tithe is linked directly with Christ, showing us that our obligations in the matter are concerned directly with the great Head of the Church.
In the above we have only introduced the Scriptures that present God’s mind on this matter. In the following section we will deal with the subject in an expository and in an argumentative way.

One evil ever leads to another. God’s appointed method for the financing of the work which He has been pleased to place in our hands, is that of tithing—the strict setting aside one-tenth of all we receive, to be devoted to His cause. Where the Lord’s people faithfully do this, there is never any shortage or going into debt. Where tithing is ignored there is almost always a deficit, and then the ungodly are asked to help or worldly methods are employed to raise money. If we sow the wind, we must not be surprised if we reap the whirlwind.

PART “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in Mine house, and prove Me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it” ( Malachi 3:10).

Down deep in the heart of every Christian there is undoubtedly the conviction that he ought to tithe. There is an uneasy feeling that this is a duty which has been neglected, or, if you prefer it, a privilege that has not been appropriated. Both are correct. Possibly there are some who soothe themselves by saying, Well, other Christians do not tithe. And maybe there are others who say, But if tithing be obligatory in this present dispensation why are the preachers silent upon the subject? My friends, they are silent on a good many subjects today: that does not prove anything.

In the previous section of this article the attempt was made to show three things: first, that tithing existed among the people of God long before the law was given at Sinai and that in the brief record we have of that early history we learn that Abraham, the father of the faithful, gave tithes unto Melchizedek, the priest of the Most High God, and that Jacob, when he had that revelation from the Lord on his way out to Padan-aram, promised to give a tenth unto God. Second, we saw that when the law was given the tithe was definitely and clearly incorporated in it, but, like almost everything else in that law, Israel neglected it, until, in the days of Malachi, we find Jehovah expressly telling His people that they had robbed Him. In the third place, we found that in the New Testament itself we have both hints and plain teaching that God requires His people to tithe even now, for tithing is not a part of the ceremonial law, it is a part of the moral law. It is not something that has a dispensational limitation, but is something that is binding on God’s people in all ages.

Now let us go a step farther. Tithing is even more obligatory on the saints of the New Testament than it was upon God’s people in Old Testament days—not equally binding, but more binding, and that for two reasons: first, on the principle of “unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required” ( Luke 12:48).
The obligations of God’s saints today are much greater than the obligations of the saints in Old Testament times, because our privileges and our blessings are greater. As grace is more potent than law, as love is more constraining than fear, as the Holy Spirit is more powerful than the flesh, so our obligations to tithe are greater, for we have a deeper incentive to do that which is pleasing to God. Listen! The Christian should tithe for the very same reason he keeps all the other commandments of God, and for the same reason he keeps the laws of his country—not because he must do so, but because he desires to do so. As a law abiding citizen in the kingdom of God, he desires to maintain the government of God and to do that which is pleasing in His sight.

Again, in proportion as the priesthood of Christ is superior to the priesthood of Aaron, so are our obligations to render tithes to Him. The Aaronic priesthood was recognized and owned by Israel through their payment of the tithe to them. In the seventh chapter of Hebrews the Holy Spirit has argued the superiority of the priesthood of Christ, which is after the order of Melchizedek, on the fact, or on the basis of the fact rather, that Melchizedek himself received tithes from Abraham. That is the very argument the Holy Spirit uses there to establish the superiority of the Mechizedek order of Christ’s priesthood. He appeals to the fact as recorded in Genesis 14, that Melchizedek, who was the type of Christ, received tithes from Abraham, and argues from that that inasmuch as Levi was in the loins of Abraham, therefore the Melchizedek priesthood of Christ is greater than that of Aaron because Abraham himself paid tithes to Melchizedek, who is a type of Christ. Therefore, in proportion to the greater blessings and privileges that we enjoy, we are under deeper obligations to God; and in proportion as Christ’s priesthood is superior to that of the Levites, so is our obligation the greater to render tithes unto the Lord today, than that under which His people lived in Old Testament times.
WHY GOD HAS APPOINTED TITHING In the next place we wish to suggest a few reasons why God has appointed tithing. In the first place, as a constant recognition of the Creator’s rights.

As our Maker He desires that we should honor Him with one-tenth of our income. In other words, the tenth is the recognition of His temporal mercies and the owning that He is the Giver of them. It is the acknowledgment that temporal blessings come from Him and are held in trust for Him.

TITHING AN ANTIDOTE AGAINST COVETOUSNESS Again. We believe that God has appointed tithing as the solution of all financial covetousness, for by nature we are full of covetousness. That is why in the ten commandments God incorporates “Thou shalt not covet.”

That is why Christ said to His disciples, “Beware of covetousness.” And tithing has been appointed by God to deliver us from the spirit of greed, to counteract our innate selfishness; therefore, it has been designed for our blessing for, like all of His commandments, none of them is grievous, but appointed for our own good.
TITHING THE SOLUTION OF EVERY FINANCIAL PROBLEM Again. I believe that God has appointed tithing as the solution of every financial problem that can arise in connection with His work. While the children of Israel practiced tithing there was no difficulty in maintaining the system of worship that God had appointed. And if God’s people today practiced tithing, there would be an end of all financial straits that are crippling so many Christian enterprises. No church could possibly be embarrassed financially where its members tithed. And I believe that that is the solution of rural church work in thinly populated districts. Wherever you have ten male Christians you have sufficient to support a permanent worker in their midst, for no worker should desire any greater remuneration than the average income of those supporting him. Therefore, if you have ten male Christians giving one-tenth of their income, no matter what it may be, you have sufficient to maintain and sustain a regular worker in their midst. That is God’s solution to the missionary problem.
Wherever you have ten average male Chinese you have a situation where they ought to be independent and no longer leaning upon the help of God’s people at home. It is a scandal and a shame to see churches in India and in China today that have been in existence fifty years still looking to God’s people in Australia and England and America for their financial support.

And why is it? Because the teachings of the Word of God have been neglected. It is because they have never been taught the foundation of Christian finance. No wonder the missionary world is calling out today that they are crippled for lack of funds! They need to be taught scriptural finance. That is why God appointed tithing. It is the solution of all financial problems in connection with His work. Where tithing is practiced there will never be any going into debt.

TITHING AS A TEST OF OUR FAITH Now then in the fourth place, God has appointed tithing as a test of our faith, and for the nourishing and developing of our faith—especially of the young Christians. Here is a young man who has just started housekeeping.

He professes to trust God with the enormous matter of his eternal future.
He professes to have confidently left his immortal interests in the hands of God. Well now, dare he trust God with one-tenth of his income for a year?
My friends, tithing develops in young Christians the spirit of trusting the Lord in their temporal affairs.

TWO OBJECTIONS ANTICIPATED Before coming to the next point let us just anticipate two objections. When the subject of tithing is brought before the Lord’s people, there are usually a few who are ready to say, Well, I think it is a man’s duty to provide for his own household, for his own family. Yes, so do I. Scripture says so.
There is nothing wrong in that. I go further. I believe it is perfectly proper for a young Christian man to desire and to seek after an increasing income with which to properly support his growing family, but if he is not a tither he has no guarantee from God that his present income will even be maintained, let alone enlarged. But the tither has that guarantee from God, as we shall yet see, unless our eyes are shut.

And then perhaps there are some who say, I cannot afford to tithe, for I have made some investments which have turned out very badly. Yes, and you are likely to meet with some worse ones if you continue to rob God!

My friends, you need Divine guidance in the matter of investing, and God won’t give that guidance while you are walking contrary to His revealed will in the matter of church finance. I am fully persuaded that in the vast majority of cases, if not all (this may sound harsh: God’s Word is piercing and condemning and rebuking and humbling) that where you have children of God in middle life or in old age, who are in financial straits, it is because they robbed God in their earlier years. Be not deceived: God is not mocked! If they did not handle to His glory and use according to His Word the money He did give them, then they must not be surprised if He withholds from them now: see Jeremiah 5:25! There is a cause for every effect. There is an explanation to all things right here in the Word of God, too. “PROVING GOD” Now let us come at closer grips with the text itself. There are three things I wish you to notice carefully. “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in Mine house, and prove Me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts” ( Malachi 3:10).

My friends, that is a startling expression. It is a remarkable expression.
God says, “Prove Me.” Those words mean this: Place the Almighty on trial (and it would be sin, it would be positively wicked, for any creature to do so unless he was definitely commanded so to do). “Prove Me now herewith”—with the tithe. In other words, our text tells us to put God to the proof, to test Him out and see what He will do. We are bidden to give Him one-tenth of our income and then to see whether He will let us be the loser or not. “Prove Me now herewith.” I tell you, my friends, my soul is overwhelmed by the amazing condescension of the Most High to place Himself in such a position. God allows Himself to be placed on trial by us, and tithing is a process of proof. Tithing is a means whereby we can demonstrate in the material realm the existence of God and the fact of His governor-ship over all temporal affairs. If you have any shadow of doubt in your mind and heart as to whether or not God exists, or as to whether or not He controls all temporal affairs, you can have that doubt removed by an absolute demonstration of the actuality of God’s existence and of His control over temporal affairs. How? By regularly, faithfully, systematically giving Him one-tenth of your gross income, and then seeing whether He will let you be the loser or not: proving whether He does honor those who honor Him: proving whether He will allow Himself to be any man’s debtor.
He says, “Prove Me, prove Me, put Me to the test.” You trembling, fearful saints, never mind if your income is only $1 a day, and you have to scheme and scratch and strain to make both ends meet. Take one-tenth away and devote it to the Lord, and then see if He will remain your debtor. “Prove Me now herewith,” He says. Try Me out and see whether I am worthy of your confidence; put Me to the test and see whether I will disappoint your faith. As we said above, God has appointed tithing as a test of faith, for the development of faith; and if the young Christian would only start by proving God in the material realm, testing Him out in His own appointed way, what a confirmation it would be! How it would enable him to trust God in temporal things—which is one of the hardest things that the average Christian finds to do. “THE WINDOWS OF HEAVEN” OPENED Now coming again to the text. Notice the expression, “Prove Me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven.” What does He mean by that? “And see if I will not open the windows of heaven.” What does He mean? Now Scripture always interprets Scripture. If you will go back to the seventh chapter of Genesis, verses 11 and 12, you will find that identical expression used there, and it explains the force of it here in Malachi 3. Read Genesis 7:11: “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was Upon the earth forty days and forty nights.”

Now the same expression that is used in Genesis 7 in connection with the Deluge is used here in Malachi 3 in connection with the return, the response, the blessings that God has promised to those that honor Him with their substance, by devoting a tithe to His service. In other words, that expression “open the windows of heaven” signifies an abundant outpouring. Now listen! That does not mean an abundant spiritual blessing.

It does not mean that at all, for spiritual blessings cannot be purchased.
You ask, Can temporal? In one sense, yes. Certainly they can in the sense that God has promised that we shall reap what we have sown; in the sense that He has promised to honor those who honor Him; in the sense that He promised a bountiful return to a bountiful giver. Certainly! Just in the same way that He has promised length of days to those who honor their parents when they are children. That is a blessing that is purchased! Now then, listen! When God has promised to open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing, it is not a spiritual one, it is a temporal one. He promises an increase in your income. Of course He does. Do you suppose Almighty God would be your debtor? Do you suppose the Most High would allow you to be the loser because you are faithful to His Word and obedient to His will and give Him a tenth of your income? Why, of course not. And we say again, the great reason why so many of God’s people are poor is because they have been unfaithful with the money that God gave them.

They robbed GOD! No wonder they have suffered adversities and misfortunes. No wonder! Some of us need to re-read our Bibles on the subject of the principles and conditions of temporal prosperity. Some need to learn that the God of the New Testament is the God of the Old Testament and that He changes not. God changes not. God does not vary the principles of His government. The God who gave bountiful crops to a people in the Old Testament times who honored Him and kept His Word, is the same God who is on the throne today, and the same God gives bountiful crops and prosperity in business to them who honor Him. But those who meet with financial adversities and financial misfortunes—there is a reason for it; of course there is. The world calls it “bad luck”: they know no better, but we ought to! “ENOUGH AND MORE THAN ENOUGH” It is very obvious the translators did not know what to do with this text, if you will notice the words they have put in italics. Look at it as it reads (the last part of Malachi 3:10): “I will open the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, that (now leave out the words in italics) not enough.”
The words in italics are not in the original. They have been supplied by the translators and they had to supply more words in the last clause than were actually there, which shows they did not know what to do with it. The Hebrew as nearly as I can get it in the original means, “there shall be enough and more than enough.” That does not vary very much from the rendering of the translators. In other words it means, “The liberal soul shall be made fat.” Turn for a moment to 2 Chronicles 31 and notice now the tenth verse: “And Azariah the chief priest of the house of Zadok answered him, and said, Since the people began to bring the offerings into the house of the Lord, we have had enough to eat, and have left plenty: for the Lord hath blessed His people; and that which is left is this great store.”

Now if you read the preceding verses you will find it was when the tithe was restored in that revival in the days of Hezekiah; and here we are told that since the people brought their offerings (their tithes) into the Lord’s house there was not only enough, but there was more than enough; there was a great store left over! It is ever thus when we faithfully honor God with our substance! John Bunyan wrote: “There was a man, Some called him mad; The more he gave, The more he had.” PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS In closing I want to give you a few practical suggestions. They are very important and they are very simple. In the matter of tithing, Christian friends, be just as strict, and careful and systematic as you are in business matters, in fact, even more so, for it is not the world’s money and it is not your own, but it is the Lord’s money which is involved. Now do not trust to memory. There are some Christians who say, Well, I have never bothered to keep any records, but I am quite sure that if I had done so, I should find that I had given at least a tenth to the Lord. Some of you might be surprised to find—if you did keep a record and looked it up—how much short of the tenth you had given!

In the first place I would suggest this. Form the habit of taking out onetenth from all the money that you receive either as wages or gifts. Subtract one-tenth and put it into a separate bag, or box, or purse. That is what it means when it says in 1 Corinthians 16, “laying by in store.” And that box or purse is the Lord’s, not yours. It is holy unto Him. Form the habit of taking out a tenth from all you receive, putting it into a separate compartment belonging to the Lord.

In the second place, get a small book, a cheap notebook, and on one page put down all your receipts (it will not take some of you very long—one entry, I suppose, at the end of the week) and on the other page put down the disbursement of God’s “tithe.”

And then in the third place make it a matter of definite prayer to God to guide you in the disbursement as to where He would have you use the money that belongs to Him. It is not yours; it is His; for remember you have not even begun to give at all until you have first paid your tithe.

Giving comes in afterwards. The tithe is the Lord’s. That is His. That is not yours to give at all; that belongs to the Creator. You have not begun to give until you have done your tithing.

A TESTIMONY Now in the last place I just want to quote an extract clipped from a religious magazine published in England. In that magazine there has been going on for some time a correspondence, a number of letters, and the subject has been the unemployment in England among the Lord’s people.

Here is the testimony of one who has written to that paper: “Twenty-five years ago, being influenced by reading the life of George Muller, I was led to give a tenth of my income to the Lord. I think I was earning 6/- ($1.50) a week at the time. The first few years I found it sometimes a sacrifice. One shilling out of ten seemed a lot. But it became such a habit with me to divide at once and put away the Lord’s tenth that for years it has been no sacrifice. Now what is the result? This: I have proved the truth that Him that honoreth Me I will honor. All through the war, and since, I have experienced no poverty. Though a shop assistant and now over forty (it is a woman that is writing) I have been away ill only one week in twenty-five years. What makes it even more wonderful is that after twenty I became slightly deaf and this has increased (and they do not want deaf assistants to wait on people in a shop, do they?) and yet, praise the Lord, I am still holding my situation. When I read of so many other sad cases of unemployment I praise the Lord for His mercy to me.”

One testimony like that is worth twenty arguments. And, my friends, I want to bear my own witness that after twenty years’ experience and observation I have proven the truth of our text that God does open the windows of heaven and that He does give more than enough in response to simple obedience to Him. “Prove Me now herewith.” That is God’s challenge to you. God dares you to test Him out in the financial realm. You profess to have faith in Him, to trust your soul into His keeping; now He challenges you to see whether you have faith enough to just trust Him with one-tenth of your income for a year, for mind you, in the case of the children of Israel it was a matter of waiting very nearly twelve months for any returns. They were farmers. You test the Lord out for twelve months. You wait a reasonable length of time, and then see whether He lets you be the loser or not. “Prove Me now herewith.” That is God’s challenge to your faith. O brethren and sisters, do so and see if He will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out such a blessing that there shall be “enough and more than enough.”