The Good News of God - Charles Kingsley 5 стр.

And therefore, perhaps, it is that this chapter is chosen for the first Advent Lesson; to prepare us for Christmas; to frighten us somewhat; at least to set us thinking seriously, and to make us fit to keep Christmas in spirit and in truth.

For whom does this text speak of?

It speaks of religious people, and of a religious nation; and of a fearful mistake which they were making, and a fearful danger into which they had fallen.  Now we are religious people, and England is a religious nation; and therefore we may possibly make the same mistake, and fall into the same danger, as these old Jews.

I do not say that we have done so; but we may; for human nature is just the same now as it was then; and therefore it is as well for us to look roundat least once now and then, and see whether we too are in danger of falling, while we think that we are standing safe.

What does Isaiah, then, tell the religious Jews of his day?

That their worship of God, their church-going, their sabbaths, and their appointed feasts were a weariness and an abomination to him.  That God loathed them, and would not listen to the prayers which were made in them.  That the whole matter was a mockery and a lie in his sight.

These are awful words enoughthat God should hate and loathe what he himself had appointed; that what would be, one would think, one of the most natural and most pleasant sights to a loving Father in heavennamely, his own children worshipping, blessing, and praising himshould be horrible in his sight.  There is something very shocking in that; at least to Church people like us.  If we were Dissenters, who go to chapel chiefly to hear sermons, it would be easy for us to sayOf course, forms and ceremonies and appointed feasts are nothing to begin with; they are mans invention at best, and may therefore be easily enough an abomination to God.  But we know that they are not so; that forms and ceremonies and appointed feasts are good things as long as they have spirit and truth in them; that whether or not they be of mans invention, they spring out of the most simple, wholesome wants of our human nature, which is a good thing and not a bad one, for God made it in his own likeness, and bestowed it on us.  We know, or ought to know, that appointed feast days, like Christmas, are good and comfortable ordinances, which cheer our hearts on our way through this world, and give us something noble and lovely to look forward to month after month; that they are like landmarks along the road of life, reminding us of what God has done, and is doing, for us and all mankind.  And if you do not know, I know, that people who throw away ordinances and festivals end, at least in a generation or two, in throwing away the Gospel truth which that ordinance or festival reminds us of; just as too many who have thrown away Good Friday have thrown away the Good Friday good news, that Christ died for all mankind; and too many who have thrown away Christmas are throwing awayoften without meaning to do sothe Christmas good news, that Christ really took on himself the whole of our human nature, and took the manhood into God.

So it is, my friends, and so it will be.  For these forms and festivals are the old landmarks and beacons of the Gospel; and if a man will not look at the landmarks, then he will lose his way.

Therefore, to Church people like us, it ought to be a shocking thing even to suspect that God may be saying to us, Your appointed feasts my soul hateth; and it ought to set them seriously thinking how such a thing may happen, that they may guard against it.  For if God be not pleased with our coming to his house, what right have we in his house at all?

But recollect this, my dear friends, that we are not to use this text to search and judge others faults, but to search and judge our own.

For if a man, hearing this sermon, looks at his neighbour across the church, and says in his heart, Ay, such a bad one as he iswhat right has he in church?then God answers that man, Who art thou who judgest another?  To his own master he standeth or falleth.  Yes, my friends, recollect what the old tomb-stone outside says(and right good doctrine it is)and fit it to this sermon.

But if a man, hearing this sermon, begins to say to himself, Such a man as I amso full of faults as I amwhat right have I in church?  So selfishso uncharitableso worldlyso uselessso unfair (or whatever other faults the man may feel guilty of)in one word, so unlike what I ought to beso unlike Christso unlike God whom I come to worship.  How little I act up to what I believe! how little I really believe what I have learnt! what right have I in church?  What if God were saying the same of me as he said of those old Jews, Thy church-going, thy coming to communion, thy Christmas-day, my soul hateth; I am weary to bear it.  Who hath required this at thy hands, to tread my courts?  People round me may think me good enough as men go now; but I know myself too well; and I know that instead of saying with the Pharisee to any man here, I thank God that I am not as this man or that, I ought rather to stand afar off like the publican, and not lift up so much as my eyes toward heaven, crying only God, be merciful to me a sinner.

If a man should think thus, my friends, his thoughts may make him very serious for awhile; nay, very sad.  But they need not make him miserable: need still less make him despair.

They ought to set him on thinkingWhy do I come to church?

Because it is the fashion?

Because I want to hear the preacher?

Noto worship God.

But what is worshipping God?

That must depend entirely my friends, upon who God is.

As I often tell you, most questionsay, if you will receive it, all questionsdepend upon this one root question, who is God?

But certainly this question of worshipping God must depend upon who God is.  For how he ought to be worshipped depends on what will please him.  And what will please him, depends on what his character is.

If God be, as some fancy, hard and arbitrary, then you must worship him in a way in which a hard arbitrary person would like to be addressed; with all crouching, and cringing, and slavish terror.

If God be again, as some fancy, cold, and hard of hearing, then you must worship him accordingly.  You must cry aloud as Baals priests did to catch his notice, and put yourselves to torment (as they did, and as many a Christian has done since) to move his pity; and you must use repetitions as the heathen do, and believe that you will be heard for your much speaking.  The Lord Jesus called all such repetitions vain, and much speaking a fancy: but then, the Lord Jesus spoke to men of a Father in heaven, a very different God from such as I speak ofand, alas! some Christian people believe in.

But, my friends, if you believe in your heavenly Father, the good God whom your Lord Jesus Christ has revealed to you; and if you will consider that he is good, and consider what that word good means, then you will not have far to seek before you find what worship means, and how you can worship him in spirit and in truth.

For if God be good, worshipping him must mean praising and admiring himadoring him, as we call itfor being good.

And nothing more?

Certainly much more.  Also to ask him to make us good.  That, too, must be a part of worshipping a good God.  For the very property of goodness is, that it wishes to make others good.  And if God be good, he must wish to make us good also.

To adore God, then, for his goodness, and to pray to him to make us good, is the sum and substance of all wholesome worship.

To adore God, then, for his goodness, and to pray to him to make us good, is the sum and substance of all wholesome worship.

And for that purpose a man may come to church, and worship God in spirit and in truth, though he be dissatisfied with himself, and ashamed of himself; and knows that he is wrong in many things:provided always that he wishes to be set right, and made good.

For he may come saying, O God, thou art good, and I am bad; and for that very reason I come.  I come to be made good.  I admire thy goodness, and I long to copy it; but I cannot unless thou help me.  Purge me; make me clean.  Cleanse thou me from my secret faults, and give me truth in the inward parts.  Do what thou wilt with me.  Train me as thou wilt.  Punish me if it be necessary.  Only make me good.

Then is the man fit indeed to come to church, sins and all:if he carry his sins into church not to carry them out again safely and carefully, as we are all too apt to do, but to cast them down at the foot of Christs cross, in the hope (and no man ever hoped that hope in vain)that he will be lightened of that burden, and leave some of them at least behind him.  Ay, no man, I say, ever hoped that in vain.  No man ever yet felt the burden of his sins really intolerable and unbearable, but what the burden of his sins was taken off him before all was over, and Christs righteousness given to him instead.

Then a man is fit, not only to come to church, but to come to Holy Communion on Christmas-day, and all days.  For then and there he will find put into words for him the very deepest sorrows and longings of his heart.  There he may say as heartily as he can (and the more heartily the better), I acknowledge and bewail my manifold sins and wickedness.  The remembrance of them is grievous unto me; the burden of them is intolerable: but there he will hear Christ promising in return to pardon and deliver him from all his sins, to confirm and strengthen him in all goodness.  That last is what he ought to want; and if he wants it, he will surely find it.

He may join there with the whole universe of God in crying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts, heaven and earth are full of Thy glory: and still in the same breath he may confess again his unworthiness so much as to gather up the crumbs under Gods table, and cast himself simply and utterly upon the eternal property of Gods eternal essence, which isalways to have mercy.  But he will hear forthwith Christs own answerIf thou art bad, I can and will make thee good.  My blood shall wash away thy sin: my body shall preserve thee, body, soul, and spirit, to the everlasting life of goodness.

And so God will bless that mans communion to him; and bless to him his keeping of Christmas-day; because out of a true penitent heart and lively faith he will be offering to the good God the sacrifice of his own bad self, that God may take it, and make it good; and so will be worshipping the everlasting and infinite Goodness, in spirit and in truth.

SERMON VII

GODS INHERITANCE

Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.  Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

This is the second good news of Christmas-day.

The first is, that the Son of God became man.

The second is, why he became man.  That men might become the sons of God through him.

Therefore St. Paul says, You are the sons of God.  Notyou may be, if you are very good: but you are, in order that you may become very good.  Your being good does not tell you that you are the sons of God: your baptism tells you so.  Your baptism gives you a right to say, I am the child of God.  How shall I behave then?  What ought a child of God to be like?  Now St. Paul, you see, knew well that we could not make ourselves Gods children by any feelings, fancies, or experiences of our own.  But he knew just as well that we cannot make ourselves behave as Gods children should, by any thoughts and trying of our own.

God alone made us His children; God alone can make us behave like his children.

And therefore St. Paul says, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts: by which we cry to God, Our Father.

But some will say, Have we that Spirit?

St. Paul says that you have: and surely he speaks truth.

Let us search, then, and see where that Spirit is in us.  It is a great and awful honour for sinful men: but I do believe that if we seek, we shall find that He is not far from any one of us, for in Him we live and move, and have our being; and all in us which is not ignorance, falsehood, folly, and filth, comes from Him.

Now the Bible says that this Spirit is the Spirit of Gods Son, the Spirit of Christ:and what sort of Spirit is that?

We may see by remembering what sort of a Spirit Christ had when on earth; for He certainly has the same Spirit nowthe Spirit which proceedeth everlastingly from the Father and from the Son.

And what was that Like?  What was Christ Like?  What was his Spirit Like?  It was a Spirit of Love, mercy, pity, generosity, usefulness, unselfishness.  A spirit of truth, honour, fearless love of what was right: a spirit of duty and willing obedience, which made Him rejoice in doing His Fathers will.  In all things the spirit of a perfect Son, in all things a lovely, noble, holy spirit.

And now, my dear friends, is there nothing in you like that?  You may forget it at times, you may disobey it very often: but is there not something in all your hearts more or less, which makes you love and admire what is right?

When you hear of a noble action, is there nothing in you which makes you approve and admire it?  Is there nothing in your hearts which makes you pity those who are in sorrow and long to help them?  Nothing which stirs your heart up when you hear of a mans nobly doing his duty, and dying rather than desert his post, or do a wrong or mean thing?  Surely there issurely there is.

Then, O my dear friends, when those feelings come into your hearts, rejoice with trembling, as men to whom God has given a great and precious gift.  For they are none other than the Spirit of the Son of God, striving with your hearts that He may form Christ in you, and raise up your hearts to cry with full faith to God, My Father which art in heaven!

Ah but, you will say, we like what is right, but we do not always do it.  We like to see pity and mercy: but we are very often proud and selfish and tyrannical.  We like to see justice and honour: but we are too apt to be mean and unjust ourselves.  We like to see other people doing their duty: but we very often do not do ours.

Well, my dear friends, perhaps that is true.  If it be, confess your sins like honest men, and they shall be forgiven you.  If you can so complain of yourselves, I am sure I can of myself, ten times more.

But do you not see that this very thing is a sign to you that the good and noble thoughts in you are not your own but Gods?  If they came out of your own spirits, then you would have no difficulty in obeying them.  But they came out of Gods Spirit; and our sinful and self-willed spirits are striving against his, and trying to turn away from Gods light.  What can we do then?  We can cherish those noble thoughts, those pure and higher feelings, when they arise.  We can welcome them as heavenly medicine from our heavenly Father.  We can resolve not to turn away from them, even though they make us ashamed.  Not to grieve the Spirit of the Son of God, even though he grieves us (as he ought to do and will do more and more), by showing us our own weakness and meanness, and how unlike we are to Christ, the only begotten Son.