STEADFASTNESS
‘Grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel.’
The steadfastness of the Christian! It is compared to—
I. The stability of a building which rests not upon a sandy, insecure foundation, but rather like a fortress built upon some Gibraltar rock. Who can estimate the importance of a right foundation? No building can be stronger than the foundation on which it rests, and unless the fabric of our life be reared upon a base which storms are powerless to shake, it will fall in the hour of trial, and great will be the fall of it. Let us beware of self-confidences here.
II. Next we have the Apostle speaking of the believer being not only grounded, but settled.—The word ‘settled’ is derived from the Greek word for seat, and the thought is that of a man who has taken his allotted place in some assembly from which he has no right to be disturbed; or, if we like to adopt the idea of our modern word ‘settler,’ we see the colonist taking possession of the grant of territory allotted to him. The Christian is a settler. The rest of some begins on earth (Hebrews 4.). This is rest in God—the unchangeable, all-sufficient, all-satisfying portion of His people.
III. ‘Not moved away.’—This expression suggests that forces will be set in motion with the object of moving us away; nay, that they are already at work, and that we are in daily danger of yielding to them. That is the other side of the Apostle’s picture. The Christian assailed on every side, battling with tempests wild, breasting the tides of circumstance, tossed with rough winds, and faint with fear, and yet ‘not moved away,’ because his hope, as an anchor of the soul sure and steadfast, holds fast within the veil.
Rev. E. W. Moore.
Illustrations
(1) ‘The designer of the first Eddystone lighthouse was so confident of its strength that he expressed a wish to be in it in the fiercest storm that blew. Not long after his wish, alas for him, was granted; for in a tremendous hurricane that swept the coast the lighthouse was carried away, and the inventor, who was in it, perished. In this case, though the foundation was immovable, the building had not been deeply let down into it, as has since been so wonderfully accomplished.’
(2) ‘I remember reading some time ago a powerful description of a ship riding at anchor through a tremendous gale; the waves broke every moment over her deck; now she was whelmed in the foaming trough, and to spectators on the shore it seemed as if she must go down; but again she rose triumphant over the billows and shook off the surging seas as a seagull scatters from her wings the blinding spray. The white crests dashed upon her sides, the mighty breakers rose and fell, but the frail vessel, which seemed the plaything of their pride, was more than conqueror over them after all. She defied their utmost strength, and when the rolling and the pitching and the tossing all were over, she maintained her place; she did not drift, she was “not moved away.” ’
(SECOND OUTLINE)
THE NEED OF STEADFASTNESS
The Christian must know the need of steadfastness in view of—
I. The swift undercurrent of intellectual unbelief.—The leaven of unbelief is spreading everywhere. You find it in the popular literature of the day. It stares you in the face in magazines and newspapers; it assails the inspiration of Scripture, the vicarious sufferings of Christ, the new birth, the personality of the Holy Ghost, the eternity of future punishment, with equal temerity. It rejects revelation on the one hand, and accepts the crudest theories to account for the existence of true Christianity in the world on the other.
II. The flowing tide of worldly conformity.—The multiplication of enjoyments, the increased facilities of travel, have mightily aided that craving for excitement and amusement which is the sure mark of decline in the moral fibre of a nation or an individual. We seem to be in danger of emulating our Continental neighbours in this insatiate thirst for selfish gratification. And this spirit of worldliness is paralysing the Church’s vitality.
III. The rolling flood of open opposition to God and His truth.—When the Church shakes itself from the dust and begins to soar above the world, it will not be long before she encounters the devil.
—Rev. E. W. Moore.