77
February 1927
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
is, read him a homily on the spirituality of the law. God does not take you at your face value behind a hymn-book on Sundays. Give God credit for a little more pene tration and sagacity. Has not God had a long experience of you and me behind hymn-books? It'is not that God is hard or harsh. There is no one so easy to please in wor ship, or in daily life, as Jesus Christ. But His truth must be received and absolutely obeyed by us: Trust in Him all the while, and not in your own strength. Jesus did not read, a homily on the spirituality of the law to this young man; it would have been wasted on this man. It would have been no use telling him at this stage of the spiritual ity of the law; it would have gone off like the proverbial water off the proverbial duck’s proverbial back. But Christ gave him a concrete test. “You are a doer, are you? Here is something—go and do that! That will be quite easy to a man of your kindly turn. You have given away a great deal; now give it all away. You will not lose by i t ; you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. Come, follow in behind these fishermen.” ' I am sure Jesus spoke to him very winsomely; not a harsh syllable. Everything to help him in making his decision. “You will not lose by it.” But so awful is the grip of the world over master or man, mistress or maid, in our social scale, that you know what happened. He was crushed into powder. He could not do it. Why did our Lord ask him to do it? Was the rich young ruler hardly dealt with? Christ could not help Himself. He had to test him down to the ground, and find him out; and I know He loved him. If bv our own efforts we can obey the law and win eternal life, Jesus is not needed. You remember the first Tay Bridge in Scotland. When it was being built, every month Board of Trade inspectors issued certificates showing that the bridge was sound in construction and first-class in materials; but you would have thought that when it was. opened they would have sent a goods train so heavily laden that the bridge would have been found out and condemned, and not opened fof passenger traffic. When it was opened, honors were dis tributed, and the chief engineer was knighted. Then, one night, after the bridge had been duly certified, it was opened for passenger traffic. God’s judgment broke loose; and the winds of God have no regard for the feelings of Board of Trade inspectors. The bridge was not sound in construction and first-class in workmanship. And in one night the winds of God sent the bridge and a- trainload fif passengers down into the awful gulf, and never a soul to tell the tale. You know the history of the first Tay Bridge. This rich young ruler reminds us of the first Tay Bridge. There is no road to heaven this way. The bridge was tested and tried by the very test that Jesus was under going every day. There is no road to beaven that way. But there is another way. Jesus Christ is the Bridge that spans the awful gulf. My friend, are you on it? Do not wait for the preacher to bring it home to you. Press that upon your own soul. That Bridge is Christ. Christ is the only Bridge that spans the gulf of sin and doom. But the eyes of the rich young ruler were dry, and he went away. That is the terrible thing. The trouble was that the. terms humbled his pride too much. Remember this tremendous picture. Hold on to Him. Cling to Him. Do not go away. “For these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal.”
that can occupy philosophers and the school of philosophy. Eternal life. “Master, what is it?” he virtually says. “Master, I have not got it. I only know it by the absence of it.” It is what is known as the aching void. When Christ casts His spell upon us, our philosophy will be deep, and it will be practical. It will not lose itself in the moon and in mere words. “Master, the coffin, and the shroud, and the grave and the worm shall never see or touch eternal life.” Here is a man assuming that he might have eternal life— the life that begins here and now. We know the full doc trine, as he did not. He was on no vain quest. He was on the greatest quest, so practical, and deep, and far-reach ing. The life that begins here in a sweet sense of pardon and peace and reconciliation with God, and which goes on and on, and leaps the grave, and goes stretching on through all the uplands of glory into eternity. Eternal life. “What is it? Master, what am I to do to get it?” He still further implies, “Master, I have not used reli gion as a cloak. ' I have not, under the cloak of rebgion, been rapacious and wicked,” as too many of the Pharisees of his day were. He had a good reputation. “Mv mother will tell you that. I was always a good lad. I have won the respect of my fellow-citizens,” Yes, he was profoundly religious, and honestly religiou^f—yet not a glimpse or a glimmer of what it is all about.' “Master, I have been moral and upright, and I have been a church-goer; but I have not touched the kernel. , Master, is there any ker nel?” I should not. wonder if there were someone here who is saying, “Is-there any kernel in that nut you call religion? In religion I am only a shell-sucker—that is all! If there is a kernel, I have never tasted it, I have no experience of it.” Oh, be honest, men and women! Eter nal issues hang upon your being honest in an hour like this, and it is the last we may have. I do say that to enl’ghten—a far harder thing than to frighten—to en lighten the deep darkness of some religious professors who are not possessors. Marcus Dods described this young ruler as one of those Pharisees whose character could be revealed by a number of words joined together by hyphens—“Tell-me-if-there-is-anything-more-to-do-and-I- will-do-it,” in the hope that the sum total of it all might mean eternal life. “Because Thy loving-kindness is bet ter than life.” That sort of thing is still common. Tell me to go to church at five in the morning, and I will go. Fetch me back to some high and holy thing at seven. Bring me back at eleven to something equally high and holy. Keep me on the trot all day, and I will trot all day in the hope that surely that will count with God, and in the end will escape this bitter entail of sin, and its misery, and its doom, and may gain the favour of God, and life everlast ing. I heard of a woman on her death-bed. She said, “I have been a good wife to my husband; I have been a good mother to my children; I have been kind to my neighbors. No one can say a word against m e; and it comforts me now to think of it.” There in that solemn hour, comfort ing herself with the thought of her own good deeds, and not one word about the cleansing blood, and of that right eousness better than her own, in which to meet God at the judgment seat. From the desolating power of mere lung and tongue, and from a religion of good works, good Lord deliver u s ! T he C oncrete T est “Master, what am I to do?” Our Lord did not do what we might have thought He would have done—that
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