Bible Commentaries

Chapter97

Prayer

Almighty God, the morning is thine. It is full of light and hope; it is the seal of thy presence; it is the smile of thy love. Thou delightest in light: God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. Thou hast called us, in Christ Jesus, to be children of the light and of the day; and to walk in paths that are lighted up with heaven's glory; and to let our light shine before men, and draw them to the Father of lights. May we answer this Divine appeal with all the haste of love, with all the ardour of earnestness. Then shall our life be an open vision, and we shall see the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. We bless thee for all cheering words, for all tender encouragements, for every Gospel that can break the door and give liberty to the captive soul. These ministries we have in thy Son. He is our Saviour, our All in All; Beginning and Ending; Inexplicable, immeasurable, Infinite. We rest in Christ: we are calm in his tranquillity; we are mighty in his power; he is our one Defence; he is our blessed Lord. We thank thee that he has opened heaven. We now see it; even now we overhear its music; yea, more, by high faith, by unquestioning and undivided love, we are already in the city of God. Thou hast caused us to triumph in all places in the power of the Cross of Christ; Acts 27:1-20

1. And when it was determined that we should sail into Italy, they delivered Paul and certain other prisoners unto one named Julius, a centurion of Augustus" band.

2. And entering into a ship of Adramyttium, we launched, meaning to sail by the coasts of Asia; one Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonica, being with us.

3. And the next day we touched at Sidon. And Julius courteously entreated Paul, and gave him liberty to go unto his friends to refresh himself.

4. And when we had launched from thence, we sailed under Cyprus, because the winds were contrary.

5. And when we had sailed over the sea of Cilicia and Pamphylia, we came to Myra, a city of Lycia.

6. And there the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing into Italy; and he put us therein.

7. And when we had sailed slowly many days, and scarce were come over against Cnidus, the wind not suffering us, we sailed under Crete, over against Salmone;

8. And, hardly passing it, came unto a place which is called The fair havens; nigh whereunto was the city of Lasea.

9. Now when much time was spent, and when sailing was now dangerous, because the fast was now already past, Paul admonished them.

10. And said unto them, Sirs, I perceive that this voyage will be with hurt and much damage, not only of the lading and ship, but also of our lives.

11. Nevertheless the centurion believed the master and the owner of the ship, more than those things which were spoken by Paul.

12. And because the haven was not commodious to winter in, the more part advised to depart thence also, if by any means they might attain to Phenice, and there to winter; which is an haven of Crete, and lieth toward the south-west and north-west.

13. And when the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, loosing thence, they sailed close by Crete.

14. But not long after there arose against it a tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon.

15. And when the ship was caught, and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive.

16. And running under a certain island which is called Clauda, we had much work to come by the boat:

17. Which when they had taken up, they used helps, undergirding the ship; and, fearing lest they should fall into the quicksands, strake sail, and so were driven.

18. And we being exceedingly tossed with a tempest, the next day they lightened the ship;

19. And the third day we cast out with our own hands the tackling of the ship.

20 And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.

The Discipline of Delay

The ship is a prison. The list of prisoners is not a long one: "Paul and certain other prisoners." When was Paul ever hidden in the crowd—tailed off in the dim distance? He is still the chief figure; put him where you will, he comes naturally to the head and naturally assumes the sovereignty, what ever the occasion may be. A marvellous thing is this destiny. It is a pressure which cannot be explained in words; it is the inexplicable force by which our life is compacted together. It cannot be ruled; it cannot be modified; it cannot be transferred; it cannot be sold for mountains of silver. A man can only get rid of destiny as he gets rid of God. "Paul and certain other prisoners." Here is sovereignty strangely and subtly shaded by humiliation. The very fact that the others were not named throws a kind of shadow upon Paul himself. He was one of the herd; he was head of the mob; he was the accent of the anonymous—the mere emphasis that gave it boldness and articulateness. A singular thing is this admixture of the great and the small, the light and the cloud, the sovereignty and the abjectness of position. We belong to one another, and are advanced by one another, and are kept back by one another; and a most singular and educative process of restraint and modification is continually proceeding amongst us.

"Julius courteously entreated Paul." How is it that Paul always stood well with men of the world? They took to him. There was a kind of natural kinship between them; there is amongst gentlemen. How do we pick out one man from another and say, as if ringing him on the world's counter, "That is good gold," or "That is counterfeit silver"? A wonderful thing this magic of recognition, this masonry of friendship, this brotherhood old as creation. Why run down what are called "men of the world"? They are so often the kings of men. I would never speak against men of the world who have "courteously entreated" me, to whom on some occasions I have owed my life, my progress, my enjoyment Do not attempt to shake them off as an inferior race. They are only less bigoted than I Acts 27:20-24

20. And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.

21. But after long abstinence Paul stood forth in the midst of them, and said, Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss.

22. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship.

23. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I Acts 27:20-44

20. And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.

21. But after long abstinence Paul stood forth in the midst of them, and said, Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss.

22. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship.

23. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I Acts 27:23). That is just when we need the angel most; and the angel is never kept back when we really need him. An angel at night seems to be a double blessing because of the surrounding darkness. Words of sympathy are always good, but they are the very balm of heaven when the heart is sore, and, so to say, opening its lips with great thirst that it may drink of the water of life. Did the angels ever come in the daytime? We cannot answer that question without consideration, but memory supplies innumerable instances in which the angels have come in the night season. Some of our earliest recollections are of angels wrestling with us, when we could see no light in the nightly sky,—nameless angels; angels that could have crushed us, but only bruised us; angels that could have torn us to pieces, but only put out one joint to show their omnipotence. The night has a story all its own. Any vulgar pen can write the story of the day; but the night, with its distances, its mysteries, its half-voices, its almost things, must be a troubled dream in the affrighted imagination. Yet some nights we want to live over again. There was joy in the agony, there was friendship in the ghostliness, there was a music in the going, that we want to hear just once more, if haply we might take hold of something with both hands, until the noise was over. I would not live without this supplementary life, this ensphering and comforting life, these hints of worlds that make the sun a mere speck. I am tired of the little bigness of the sun; I am thankful to hear of flames that blind him, and of sizes that reduce him to insignificance. God thus appeals to the fancy which he stuns, and turns imagination itself into a religious faculty, and makes wonder go for prayer. Yet it takes a courageous man to say, in a materialistic age, that an angel has spoken to him. He will be called mad. But to call a man mad Acts 27:23-31

23. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I Acts 27:24). That is the philosophy of society. The whole ship was saved for Paul's sake. Your house is saved because of some one life that is in it. Any ship that carries you and me might be broken up by the storm—thrown away as an evil thing—because we are so bad and unworthy. But for the child's sake—the praying soul's sake—the old mother's sake—the pastor's sake—the timbers are kept together, and we shall yet touch land. How little is this vicarious principle understood! We speak much about vicarious suffering; that is only half a truth. We speak of others suffering for us; how little we speak of being saved because of the goodness of others! This is the way in which prayer is often answered, that unworthy lives are enriched with new chances of repentance and return and adoption. God would wither the barren tree away, or cut it down, but for the husbandman's prayer. It is part of the mystery of his grace that he should say to the gardener, "If you wish it, you may keep it another year." Omnipotence allows itself to be moulded by prayer; Almightiness is willing to be softened by human tears. This is not to be explained in words. If it were less than Almightiness, it would consume itself by its own fury; but being Almightiness, we find in its repose the bloom of its power. It is hard sometimes to hear the bad man's mockery of things, and to hear the wicked man boast that he can get along very well without religion, or Bible, or church. The poor fool is so insane as to be beyond the reach of immediate reason. He sees only points, not lines; he does not understand the philosophy, or grasp the totality, of the case; he does not know that he owes the extension of his privileges to the very religion which he despises. Who, on that ship, thought that he was indebted for his life to the prisoner Paul? Not a soul on board was aware that he owed his existence, his salvation from danger, to the prisoner who was in chains. We do not know our creditors; we cannot tell where our obligation begins or ends. This is a mystery in which there is infinite joy. It sets my life in new relations, and enriches it with new hopes. For what I know, a thousand ministries may be operating upon it that I cannot name or measure. Why should I attempt to estimate all things by my sight or by any sense I have? It is more joyous to throw myself into the astronomic sweep and roll of things and be rocked in an infinite strength. That is faith. Every flower that grows in my garden is an answered prayer; every beam of morning light that plays on the paper on which I set down my thought is the result of a ministry long since passed away from the earth. If you like, you can receive flowers and lights and dawns, mornings and middays as accidents without root or meaning, or far away explanation; but if you so receive them, they will be as guests that call upon you when you are not at home. Better take your life as an answer to prayer—a thing spared because some one prayed for it—than receive it as an accident, or treat it as a mechanical course. If this were an isolated incident, we might seem to be making too much of it; but it is a golden thread that runs through the whole Biblical story, and that continues its gracious extension through our own consciousness and experience. In Genesis we read that God blessed the house of Potiphar "for Joseph's sake." Trace that same thought through every page of Biblical history, and you will find that it is God's method of working—namely: to bless one man for the sake of another. That historical fact reaches the fulness of its significance in the gift and priesthood of the Son of God; and so our prayers are taken up from the region of weary helpless words into prevalent eloquence by the expression, "for the sake of thy dear Son." He is the Joseph for whose sake the whole world is kept together, even in its present patched and dangerous condition; he is the Paul for whose sake the storm-smitten ship is kept upon the water and not under it; it is for his sake that time is lengthened and that opportunities are multiplied. This is the Christian faith; this is the Christian life.

Let us hear Paul in this great darkness. There may be light in his words: some men speak light. Maybe, Paul's words will light up the black heavens, and make the unquiet sea peaceful. What did Paul say? "I exhort you to be of good cheer.... For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve." There is personal character, religious qualification, a right set and attitude of the soul in relation to things unseen and forces Divine. The expression is not "whose I am" only—that would but indicate the fatal and the inevitable. All things are God's. The young lions roar and seek their bread and their meat from God. Paul adds, "and whom I serve." Thus his own consent was secured. He was one with God—one in sympathy, one in purpose. He had no will but God's. He never did anything for himself: he toiled in the field of Another for the glory of its great Proprietor. That was a bold word to say. It drove the darkness off like a frightened thing. It was the very word we wanted—the great solar word, that plunged into the infinite gloom and scattered it. How nobly it sounds under certain circumstances! If we speak it pithlessly, it takes rank with any words short and empty; but if we pronounce the word God with the energy of conviction, with the graciousness of gratitude, with the pathos of helplessness, it soon disbands the hosts of darkness and sets a great light in the centre of things. Men can never pronounce aright the word God until they feel aright the doctrine of God.

The angel said, "Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Csar: and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer." That is the effect of a glad soul. One life set in the right key makes a whole house merry. Do not wait for the unanimous consent of all parties in order to make the house ring again with song and vibrate with sacred and rapturous dance. One cheerful soul, one glad spirit, one mind that sees things aright and grasps them in their unity, will find the music; and when a tune is once begun, how comparatively easy it is to take it up! We are waiting for the leader in the Church; we are waiting for the soul that dare advance within the family circle; and when the master-spirit gives the key-note, a thousand voices will take up and continue the expression of its exultation.

Only the religious man can be truly glad. Believe me, there is no joy out of rectitude with God; there is laughter, there is noise, there is uproar, there is tumult, there is an ecstasy that will not bear tomorrow's reflection; but as for gladness, health of soul, real, true, rational abiding, as much awake at midnight as at midday and at midday as at midnight, this gladness is the child of righteousness. There may be the deepest joy in what is apparently the deepest melancholy. A man is not necessarily unhappy because he is silent; he is the more likely to be happy when his tongue is quiet and his tears express his rapture. The religious man has his enjoyments in the very midst of his distresses. I know hardly any sentence of the Apostle Paul's which has filled me with so much true ecstasy and rapture as a sentence he wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians. In the seventh chapter of that letter he says, "I am filled with comfort; I am exceeding joyful," or literally, "I rejoice exceedingly in all our tribulation." What a marvellous force was that which could turn distress into joy, which could transform tribulation into delight! What a miracle to take in all the black messengers of evil, set them down in the house, and see them gradually whiten into radiant angels of God! No other religion than the religion of Christ can produce such miracles—not the miracles of an ancient time, but the marvellous surprises of our own life.

In the midst of all this darkness, Paul professed a creed. We talk about "the Apostles" Creed," and the words are not ill-chosen. What is this but the Apostles" creed? Paul said, "Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God." A short creed, but a pregnant one. He risks everything upon it. There is not room in it for qualification, reserve, or for all subtle suppressions which destroy the energy and the pith and the mystery of faith. This is a dewdrop holding within its comparative smallness of form all the mystery and all the meaning of the sea. When did Paul say this? Paul said it in extremity, when there appeared to be no God. Paul said it in an empty house, nothing left but the bare walls, and the walls reeling, trembling, quaking under an infinite shock of uncontrollable strength. That is the time to profess your creed. We cannot speak our true creeds at the library window, up to which there rolls the velvet lawn upon which blossom the vernal trees, within which repose all the masters of knowledge and the wizards of genius. Under such circumstances, what creed can a man have? Under such circumstances, a man does not hold himself: he is a doll on the lap of luxury. It is when he is torn limb from limb, mocked, spat upon, cursed, held over hell's fire, that he knows what he really believes. Here it is that Christianity has lost power: it has become a fine threadlet of argument, a subtle conundrum, a department of transcendental metaphysics, a thing which only cunning minds can comprehend and trained tongues can adequately express. It is no longer a heroic faith, a great utterance of conviction, a heart so full that it cannot speak, a mind so mad that it cannot settle itself down to the prison of logical and pedantic forms. We will begin to discuss what was never meant for discussion. If the wolf were nearer, we should have a good deal less argument and a great deal more prayer. What would be thought of your children if they made it their business to write essays upon their father every week, and if they were to justify their essay-writing by the protestation that it was needful to have "intelligent conceptions of fatherhood"? Would not the grey-haired old father smile to see his little child commencing an essay on "the psychology of my father"; on "the marvellous methods adopted by my father in the government of his family"; on "the various faculties of my father, and the mystery of their exercise"? His old, wrinkled face would smooth itself out to a great smile when he saw the poor little toiler dipping his pen to round off into rhetorical completeness a sentence that would precisely describe "the method of father's government." He would rather have one big hug than all the essays the infant scribe could write, one great all-round hug than the finest metaphysical analysis which the infantile psychologist could perpetrate. But this is how we do with our great Father; and when we do it, we call it "obtaining an intelligent"—that's a word that will ruin some men—"conception of God." The "intelligent conception" is faith, love, the great morning kiss on heaven's face, the great nightly hug round heaven's neck. Argument—what is argument? A confession of dissonance and want of unanimity, a battle of words. When shall we learn that no one man can contain all the truth—that no one mind is roomy enough to hold the entire revelation of God? We see God as we see the universe: one man sees the geology of the earth, another its geography; a third searches with eager quest the chambers of the lights above. It is the same universe, and we need all the views of all the men in order to combine into one massive totality the complete meaning of things. Beware of those teachers who pin you down to definitions in words. For example, a pedantic mind will say to you, "What do you mean by God?" Say you mean what you cannot tell. A God that can be explained is a God that can be abandoned, or patronised, or kept in the house for occasional purposes. Others will say, "What do you mean by belief?" You mean all the actions of the soul in one sublime and inexplicable effort. You have not to account to the pedants for your creed, but to account to God, by loving service, for your faith. We have words on the road, but the end will be so, just as in the training of the young mind. Consider the imbecility of teaching a child to pronounce words of two letters! But is that the end of your instruction? If it were, it would not be worth doing. It is part of a process: first the letter, then the two letters, then the three; the syllable, the two syllables, and the whole word; and then the rhythm of words, so that they are not pronounced singly, as if they had no relation to one another, but with the fluency which is rhythm, the intermingling and gliding which is true eloquence; and then the music that says to speech: "We are much obliged to you for what you have done, but your mission is over: now let us praise God." So we go in earthly training from letter to syllable, from syllable to word, from word to eloquence, from eloquence to music; and that is but an analogue by which we may see the larger process, the grander culture, which shall end in the song of the hundred and forty and four thousand, and thousands of thousands, and a number which no man can number—the anthem that fills the universe and satisfies its infinite Creator. So Paul did not descend to analysis, nor did he vex the minds of his fellow-passengers by definitions: he uttered a short, terse phrase as his sublime faith, and founded upon it a gospel for all the world that was with him. Paul did not say that he had invented this hope; he said rather that it was granted to him by a revelation—an angel stood by him and gave him a message. That is the only ground on which we can stand in religious matters. Consciousness has its value, so has impression, so has reasoning; but the Word is the only rock on which we can. securely build. We are saved by the outward, not by the inward—that is, by something beyond ourselves, not by something in ourselves. We are instructed by others, we are trained by others, we are corrected by others; why this infinite mystery about being Saved by others? It is the culmination of processes with which we are familiar, and which ought not to be turned into a theological riddle. In all the great crises of life, when vital questions are uppermost, when great results are impending we want an authoritative voice. We are then impatient with any man who says, "I have an impression," or "It occurs to me," or "I venture to suggest." We want a voice from heaven, an assurance from God. As Christians, we believe that such a word is in the Bible. "What is written in the law? how readest thou?" "Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee."

Let us rest here awhile. Let us think of this in our own dark nights. Let us call it to mind in our own little ship when strained and creaking sorely as if in pain. God's sea is great; our boat is small. It is never God's way to thrust his great power against our weakness—to batter down with his thunder the reed that is bruised.