by Vance Havner
Should
“ Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling . . (Phil. 2:12). “Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear . . (1 Pet. 1:17). 1 am well aware that what is in mind in these verses is a rever ential fear of God and not a nervous fear of judgment. We are not to be subject to bondage all our days through fear of death. He that feareth is not made perfect in love and perfect love casteth out fear. Many verses could be brought up to reprove us for an improper fear, for trembling when we ought to tri umph. But we have with us many dear souls who, for one reason or an other, are sore beset by fightings within and fears without. They get scant help from most sermons and books that seem, somehow, to move all around their problem but never actually touch it. Some of these fearful souls were born that way. They are temperamentally set in a minor key. Others have become that way through great adversity or illness. Melancholy plays devilish tunes on unstrung nerves. Some are afflicted with that perverse ingenu ity of mind, of which MacLaren writes, that manages to distill a bit ter vinegar of accusation out of grand words in the Bible that were meant to afford them but the wine of gladness and of consolation. Whatever the precise form of their trouble these trembling souls will get scant help from most preachers and teachers and books. Certainly they can expect nothing from the school of happiness boys who fairly trip through the Chris tian life with a tra-la-la. Christians with naturally sunny dispositions who have not had much trouble can do nothing but theorize at best and a cheap gay optimism will not do for Mr. Fearing. Indeed it will
not do for anybody. Try as you will, you cannot build up from the gospels a hail-fellow-well-met Jesus giving hooray pep-talks. The Man of Sorrows Who sighed and wept, and groaned in spirit because He knew the world’s heartbreak does not fit into our cheer-leader brand of American Christianity very well. There is a world of difference be tween what this world calls happi ness and what God calls joy. There are other Christians of ro bust rugged constitution and faith who will have little patience with Mr. Fearing. Strong of will and dogmatic, they seem so sure and positive that they but make him the more wretched and drive him to despair. They may admonish him to “ snap out of it” but they cannot help him for their sturdy natures just cannot understand such fellow-travelers and may terrify him further by accusing him of some secret sin when he has al ready perhaps confessed more than he is guilty of. Other earnest and well-meaning souls would like to help Mr. Fearing and they try but they have never had any such experiences as his and that totally disqualifies them. Our Saviour was tempted in all points like as we are and that is one reason why He can help us. But not every Christian has been along the desolate sloughs of despondency and passed sleepless nights and been tor mented by bugaboos and hobgoblins of the soul. It is impossible to help such weary pilgrims through such lowlands if you have not been their way. Experience grants an insight because “ you know how it is.” This scribe knows . whereof he
writes. He made his way through several dismal years when, like Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress, he could not distinguish the voices he heard and verily thought the whis perings of the Accuser sprang from his own mind. He dared not turn to some for help for their very hilar ity discouraged him. And what a failure many devotional writers and spiritual helpers turned out to be! He was not helped out of his dun geon by experts. When he emerged he had sympathy he had never had before for all similarly afflicted. But, a lth ou gh many helpers failed, he became well-acquainted with some rare and precious souls both of the past and present who did not disappoint him. What a fresh debt to dear old John Bunyan! Modern psychiatrists would have a picnic analyzing the Bedford tink er’s ups and downs but that im mortal pilgrim knew more about the human heart than all the ex perts of today. Who has better described the misgivings of some of us than Christian (who is of course Bunyan anyway) saying in the Valley when he perceived that God was with others similarly beset: “ And why not with me? though, by reason of the impediment which attends this place, I cannot perceive it?” And Mr. Fearing himself! Alex ander Whyte grows exuberant and says, “ Show me another passage in our whole literature to compare with John Bunyan’s portrait of Mr. Fearing.” Now I do not defend Mr. Fearing nor do I hold him up as a model for Christian conduct. Per haps he should have gone through singing instead of sighing and stur-
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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