VIRTUES AND GRACES BEFITTING THE CHRISTIAN PROFESSION
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Hebrews 13:1. Brotherly love.—φιλαδελφία, the mutual love of Christians as such.
Hebrews 13:2. Angels unawares.—As Abraham (Genesis 18:2-22); Lot (Genesis 19:1-2); Manoah (Judges 13:2-14); Gideon (Judges 4:11-20).
Hebrews 13:3. Also in the body.—And therefore liable to similar treatment. “Remember those who are injuriously treated, as it becomes those who are themselves still in the body.” “Lucian’s tract dwells on the effusive kindness of Christians to their brethren who were imprisoned as confessors.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Hebrews 13:1-6
The Spiritual Man’s Earthly Sphere.—Christianity is a spiritual life that can live and thrive in earthly scenes and relations. Two things concerning it need to be constantly presented. It is a spiritual religion. It is a religion of everyday, commonplace, human life. And on each of these sides Christianity is placed in some peril when frail human nature has to deal with it. Overpress that Christianity is the religion of common life, and men will exaggerate the place and importance of good works. Overpress that Christianity is a spiritual religion, and men will soon take up with the idea that evil lies in matter itself, and then will try to separate themselves from every-day interests, responsibilities, and duties, and think that spiritual religion is best represented by hermits, monks, and nuns. This mistake is in no sense supported by the Scriptures. Our Divine Lord is precisely the example of a spiritual man who brought His spiritual life into relation with every-day, earthly scenes. And the first Christian teachers insist, most emphatically, that faith must be shown in the life, and they who believe must be careful to maintain good works. With great variety of treatment, with much persistency, this writer has argued that Christianity is a spiritual religion. He will not close his letter without making it quite clear that the spiritual is the practical. It is the sanctifying of the earth. It puts the tone into the commonplace. The best man of the world is the man of God. Of our Divine Lord it can be said, “The highest, holiest, manhood Thou.” And after Him, and in the human measures, that should be true of all who bear His name. The plea of the writer in the closing verses of the previous chapter is this—Because we are spiritual members of a spiritual kingdom, therefore let us seek grace whereby, in meeting our human obligations, and fitting to our earthly places, we may serve God acceptably. And in this chapter he indicates some of the earthly spheres in which our spiritual life ought to find constant, free, and beautiful expression.
I. The spiritual man’s brotherly love.—The new life which we have in Christ Jesus is essentially a sonship. The quickened soul, “born again,” finds itself born into a family life, with relations and duties to Father, and to brothers. And even the anxiety with which we try to meet our obligations to our Father must not lift us away from our holy concern for our brothers. “If we do not love our brother whom we have seen, how can we love God whom we have not seen?” But the duty of brotherly love may be approached from a lower standpoint than this. It may, however, be more persuasive on us if we have not ourselves reached the higher spiritual levels. In times of persecution and temptation, such as the Jewish Christian Churches were passing through, there were constant calls to brotherly helpfulness. Some were deprived of their means of living, on account of their profession of faith in Christ. Brotherly love could help them over times of strain and stress. Some were weak in faith, and in grave peril of yielding to enticement and persuasion. Brotherly love could steady the feet that were sliding, and restore the fallen in the spirit of meekness. In family life the brothers are considerate and helpful one toward another. There is no jealousy. Each rejoices in the other’s success; each shadows the other when he is imperilled; and each lifts the other when he falls. And within the brotherhood of the spiritual there should be the mutual bearing of burdens, which is the sure sign of brotherly love. The chief peril of brotherly love in a Christian community is the sectarian spirit, the dogmatism, and masterfulness, of exclusive and sectarian opinion. Brotherly love needs an atmosphere of mutual trustfulness, freedom to think, and freedom to let one another think.
II. The spiritual man’s hospitality.—This is a virtue which takes various forms in adaptation to the social conditions of different ages and countries. Essentially it is cheerful willingness to give of our food and our shelter to those who may be journeying. Hospitality is temporary help, and help given in the form of a supply of passing bodily needs. It is seen in its simplest form in tribal life. The stranger is cheerfully entertained, and pays for all he receives by the news he brings or the pleasure of his conversation. So long as life is in its simpler forms hospitality to passers-by can be freely and safely given, as indeed it is in many parts of the world to-day. Civilisation changes the forms in which hospitality can be offered. Welcome of anybody and everybody to our homes becomes impossible; and there is danger of losing the spirit of hospitality, or of keeping it within such limitations as allow it to bear no impress of charity. The hospitality which had come to be only entertaining in order to be entertained our Lord severely condemned. The generous giving of our food and shelter to those who are temporarily brought within our range—as in times of convention, congress, etc.—is a distinctly Christian duty, an expression of the life of the “spiritual man.” The importance of the duty to the Jewish Christian Churches, in their times of persecution, will readily be understood. Men were often driven away from their town, and in wandering to find work would be placed in grave difficulties. They could not expect to receive hospitality from the bigoted Jews; among them these wandering Christians would only be scorned. Their hope of food and shelter lay only in the hospitality of those who, with them, named the Christ-name, those who shared with them the spiritual life. And some of these wanderers proved to be “angels unawares;” in their brief visits ministering such spiritual blessings that they who offered the hospitalities were more richly blessed than those who received them.
III. The spiritual man’s sympathy with the persecuted.—Whenever disabilities, afflictions, or persecutions come upon the Church, they directly affect certain individuals. They vicariously bear the burden for the whole Church, and therefore have special claim upon the sympathy of their fellow-members. What is said of the suffering “servant of the Lord” in Isaiah is continuously true—sublimely true of the Son of God, but in measures true of all the sons. We are too ready to say of the suffering ones, They are “stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” We do not see or feel as we should that they are bearing our burdens, and that therefore we should keep ourselves close knit with them in brotherly sympathy. There were some in bonds for Christ: the others should feel bound with them. There were some evil entreated for Christ’s sake: the others should have a fellow-feeling, and realise how hard to bear bodily suffering may be. Persecution may be a thing of the past; the vicarious suffering of some for the many is not. And the few sufferers still claim the sympathy of the many.
IV. The spiritual man’s sanctifying of human relationships.—The most prominent of these, and the typical ones, are connected with the sexes, and consequently the Scriptures illustrate the general relationships of human life by them. But it must also be added that Christianity, as a spiritual religion, distinctly raises the tone of the marriage relation, dignifies womanhood, and makes the natural relations spiritual friendships. The wrong is best conquered by the inspiration of the right. Find the full spiritual satisfaction in marriage friendships, and moral temptations altogether lose their power upon us. There is nothing active in us to which they can appeal.
V. The spiritual man’s culture of the spirit of contentment.—The most enslaving thing to man is the love of money. It wakens a restlessness and a dissatisfaction with everything; it excites a pushing to get which is too often not only a pushing before others, but also a pushing aside of others. That love of money is altogether out of place in the spiritual man. This does not say a spiritual man may not find fitting spheres for his energy, his activity, his enterprise, his ambitions. It does say that the restlessness and undue worry should be kept down by a cherished spirit of contentment; a restful satisfaction in the assurance that God provides, and never leaves His people desolate; and when He does not permit worldly success to be attained, even by earnest and persistent endeavours, works some higher benediction through the discipline of disappointment. Take what sphere of the earthly life and relation we may, there is room for illustrating the tone and character which the spiritual man can put upon it all. “Let us seek grace, whereby we may offer service well pleasing to God with reverence and awe: for our God”—the God of the spiritual Christian—“is a consuming fire.”
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Hebrews 13:1. Brotherly Love.—As the spokes of a carriage-wheel approach their centre they approach each other; so, also, when men are brought to Jesus Christ, the centre of life and hope, they are drawn towards each other in brotherly relationship, and stand side by side journeying to their heavenly home.—J. F. Serjeant.
Sonship involves Brotherhood.—The counsel of the writer was especially necessary, because times of peril and persecution tend to nourish self-interest, and to separate men from each other in order to secure themselves and their own. Brotherly love is the first result of Christian faith The sense of Sonship to God carries with it the sense of brotherhood with those who are also sons of God. Brotherly love is—
I. Based on a common birth.—This is true of the human brotherhood. Nothing can create the sentiment but the idea of a common parentage. A gentleman of Marseilles, named Remonsat, shortly before his death, desired that his numerous family might be assembled about his bed. He acknowledged the delight which his children had afforded him by their affection and attachment, and especially for the tender love which they bore to one another. “But,” continued he, “I have a secret to disclose, which will remove one of you from this circle. So long as I had any hopes of living I kept it from you, but I dare not violate your rights in the division of the property which I leave you. One of you is only an adopted child—the child of the nurse at whose breast my own child died. Shall I name that child?” “No, no,” said they with one accord, “let us all continue to be brothers and sisters.” They who are born of God, born from above, born of the Spirit, are brothers by virtue of their very birth—spiritual birth.
II. Sustained by a common fellowship.—If brotherly love is to continue, the family must keep together. If members are separated by distance, they must be kept in touch by letters and by gifts. Brotherly love in Christ’s Church is only maintained on the same condition. Those members always fail in this who are careless about keeping up constant relations.
III. Expressed in a common service.—It will always be found that the most loving members of a family are those who are most watchful of opportunities, and most ready to do kindnesses to the other members. And this is at least equally true of the brethren in the spiritual family of God.
Hebrews 13:2. On Behaviour towards Strangers.—A dislike of strangers is one of the earliest developed, most permanent, and most widely diffused passions of mankind. Thus arises the feeling of dislike between nations. The antipathies that are summed up in the one word race constitute the chief part of the history of mankind. The secret dislike of strangers clings to humanity even after civilisation has conquered its grosser antipathies. It appears even under its religious transformations. Let us set down a few of the arguments which might impel Christians of differing name to cultivate, and earnestly seek for, the company of “strangers.”
1. Communion with devout minds of ideas and habits foreign to our own is favourable to the vigorous development of all alike. The human race thrives on intermixture and intermarriage. Religious bodies which act on the non-intercourse principle soon lose their vigour, and sink from arrogant dogmatism into indifference.
2. Every Christian is a member of Christ, to whom all good men are assuredly dear, and we should strive to bring our sympathies into accord with those which burn in the bosom of the good Shepherd. To him unity—a real, social unity of heart and life—is the grand object of aspiration and prayer.
3. Every Christian has the prospect of being introduced sooner or later to every other Christian in existence, on the ground of the most intimate and eternal friendship—a friendship based on a common relation to redeeming Love. How vain, then, the shyness which shrinks in this world from intercourse with those who must be our companions for ever! It is the work of the Holy Spirit not only to reveal Christ to each of His members, but all the members of His body to each other.—Edward White.
Hebrews 13:3. Interest in Those under Disability.—The writer bases an argument, by which to urge the duty of Christian consideration and sympathy, on the fact that we are all sharers in a common experience. That experience, however, comes with special heaviness on certain individuals, who should therefore be treated as burden-bearers for the rest.
Hebrews 13:4. Marriage.—Society is generally in a sound and peaceful state, and its individual members virtuous and happy, in proportion as the nature of marriage is understood, and its obligations respected. The first efforts of wisdom in ancient lawgivers and poets were to render sacred the rights and duties of wedlock. But in almost every age, and especially in more matured states of society, there have not been wanting persons to maintain, in one form or another, that passion ought rather to be destroyed than controlled; and that instead of aiming to ingraft refined and spiritual feelings on the animal instincts of our nature, these should be wholly eradicated. Marriage, to many of this class, has seemed but an unworthy compromise between the flesh and the Spirit. An equal contempt for marriage appears to exist in some who disgrace our age. Marriage is not below, but above, them; it is too pure, not too gross, for their taste. Proud of what they call liberty, they laugh at the restraints of marriage, while it can be avoided, and submit to it at length as to a catastrophe. With the discretion of a wise man, and the authority of an inspired man, the writer draws a firm line between the extremes of sensuality and spiritual asceticism; he denounces lust, but extols holy and wedded love. The sentiment of the text appears to be at variance with 1 Corinthians 7, but the sentiments, though different, are not contradictory. The advice given in Corinthians applied to circumstances of present distress, in which a man might wisely limit his obligations.
I. What things belonging to the marriage state render it honourable, and enable it, as we may say, to put honour on those who enter it.—
1. Its institution. The time when, the place where, the manner in which, the Being by whom, marriage was instituted, all increase the honour with which its institution invests it.
2. Its nature. It is a union of two, and only two, human beings; a union not only of hands but of hearts, of soul as well as body. There is in marriage, when its true nature is realised, a union of souls, whose affections intermingle until two spirits become one, and, by a mutual consciousness, understand each other’s thoughts and share each other’s feelings. It is this which meets the wants of our intellectual and moral natures. Marriage is a permanent union. We need not think that, although marriage terminates in death, the union which it involves must then also necessarily close for ever. We may cheerfully expect its renewal.
3. Its purposes.
(1) The development of mind, formation of character, promotion of happiness, in all who are married.
(2) The preservation and increase of the human species.
(3) The education of the young in successive generations.
(4) Its typical import also renders it honourable.
II. What must be the course of those who would enter on and pass through it, so as to do honour to the state.—
1. Every step towards it must be taken in the fear of God.
2. If we would do honour to marriage, it must be solemnised with decency, according to the form prescribed by the laws of our country.
3. When marriage has been thus entered on, its duties must be steadily and cheerfully discharged. “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” Love, displaying itself in cheerful submission on the part of the wife, in gentleness of authority on the part of the husband, in soft words, kind actions, and delicate attentions on the part of both; love which takes the love of Christ to the Church, and the Church to Christ for its pattern; and becomes respectively, in turn, the image of each.—Jonathan Glyde.
The Honourableness of Marriage.—Probably this is an exhortation. “Let marriage be held honourable in all respects.” Scripture never gives even the most incidental sanction to the exaltation of celibacy as a superior virtue, or to the disparagement of marriage as an inferior state. Celibacy and marriage stand on an exactly equal level of honour according as God has called us to the one or to the other state. The mediæval glorification of monachism sprang partly from a religion of exaggerated gloom and terror, and partly from a complete misunderstanding of the sense applied by Jewish writers to the word “virgins.”—Farrar.
Hebrews 13:5. The Lawful and Unlawful Love of Money.—A strict adherence to the original gives us a very simple and beautiful form of this precept. “Let the turn τρόπος be unsilver-loving, and be contented with what comes to hand, for He Himself has said, I will never leave thee; no, never, no never forsake thee.” There are some of the commands of the New Testament which, taken without the salt of wisdom, seem to be poisonous, and to strike not merely at the welfare but at the existence of society. Such are the precepts against the love of money. Everybody loves money. Without it no man can live. It is a natural and necessary instinct which makes us love possession. The love of getting is the basis of the love of giving. But the “love of money” in Scripture means love in a bad sense, in the sense of covetousness. It may become greed and avarice.
1. Do not seek after money in this world as if it were God, the chief good.
2. Do not fix upon any amount of property which you must obtain, or else set yourself down as in a state of destitution.
3. Steadily adhere to God’s laws in the gaining, and in the expenditure, of property. In nothing is character more shown than in money matters. A man who is right here is usually right everywhere; a man who fails in money matters is probably corrupt to the core. We have just as much of the love of God as we have of the desire to submit to His rule in our personal affairs; and this is a test which will exclude multitudes from heaven. They banish God from their expenditure.—Edward White.
God with Us all the Days.—We can be sure of this, that God will be with us in all the days that lie before us. What may be round the next headland we know not; but this we know, that the same sunshine will make a broadening path across the waters right to where we rock on the unknown sea, and the same unmoving nightly star will burn for our guidance. So we may let the waves and currents roll as they list; or rather, as He lists, and be little concerned about the incidents or the companions of our voyage, since He is with us.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
No Leaving, No Forsaking.—This is God’s own word of promise to his people. In giving it He has, as it were, sworn by Himself, because He could swear by no greater, pledging Himself to His faithfulness.
This promise is—
I.
Emphatic.—“He hath said.”
II.
Ancient—“He hath said.”
III.
Divine—“He hath said.”
IV.
Personal—Not “us,” nor “them,” but “thee.”
V.
Unconditional.
VI.
Unalterable—“Never.”
VII.
Comprehensive—“Never leave, never forsake.”
VIII.
Unique.
IX.
Has been tested.
We have then—
1. The promise of Divine presence. He will ever be with us as the Witness of our lives—the Comforter of our hearts—our sovereign Lord.
2. Divine assistance for every time of need.—A. Griffin.
Hebrews 13:5-6. What is Characteristically Christian.—It was usual for the Christian teachers to close their epistles with direct practical applications. Here doing so is especially appropriate, because it was necessary to show that morals and piety were substantially the same in both dispensations. We may, however, properly expect these things to be more refined in the new. Absolute trust in Jehovah was the attitude of the older Jews; and this was met by the bestowment of material and temporal rewards. In trying to lift them into the spiritual region, it might seem to the Jewish Christians that their teacher was unduly negligent of the material and temporal. Practical Christian obligations and duties had to be dealt with by our Divine Lord—as in the “Sermon on the Mount”; and by His apostles—as in the close of their epistles. In this chapter the following practical things are dealt with. The duty of each Christian to his brother-Christian. The practice of hospitality. The expression of personal sympathy. The gaining of personal purity. Then there is summed up in the text the characteristic Christian tone. Three things are characteristically Christian.
I. A manner of life that is characteristically Christian.—Recall the New Testament use of the word “conversation.” Our Christian “turning about” in all the thousand-fold relations of life is to be “without covetousness”—that is, without a trace of grasping or getting for self. Covetousness was the great Jewish sin. This Christ corrects, by becoming the supreme aim of the soul. When the end of conversation is Jesus Christ, it cannot be getting for self. For us covetousness is self-centredness; and the remedy is Christ-centredness. To be “without covetousness” is quite consistent with enterprise and ambition in life. We may win the noblest things if we mean to win in a Christly way, and hold for Christ’s honour.
II. A cherished spirit that is characteristically Christian.—“Be content.” Advice easily misunderstood. Contentment is very difficult to a master or a father, but not at all difficult for a servant or a son; and these represent the Christian relations. Contentment is not indifference, or listlessness, though the confusion between these very differing things is often made.
1. Contentment means cheerfully accepting our place and duty, whatever it may involve.
2. Contentment involves fully doing the duty, when it is placed before us.
3. Contentment is consistent with prayer for change. True prayer is contentment.
III. A restful assurance that is characteristically Christian.—“The Lord is my Helper.”
1. We need covet nothing, since He gives all good.
2. We need be anxious about nothing, since He provides.
3. We need never be discontented, since what He gives must be best.
We know then three things that are characteristically Christian:
1. Making Christ our life-aim.
2. Accepting what He provides.
3. Resting our hearts in the sense of His presence with us.
Never Forsaken.—No need to name the Speaker—that majestic “He.” Two speakers and their two sayings.
I. God’s speech from heaven to earth.—“I will never leave thee.” These words nowhere occur literally. In Old Testament.
1. Jacob at Bethel (Genesis 28:15). The lonely pilgrim, with dim, dark future before him; we all face it sometimes. God speaks; the ladder descends, and bright in the blue star-depths the angels; “surely God is in this place.” One man, with that Companion, always in the majority.
2. Moses’ dying words to Joshua (Deuteronomy 31:7-8). God ratifies it to Joshua afterwards (Joshua 1:5). The promise to a warrior on the eve of sore battle. “Count the cost, reckon the enemy’s strength, but count not your resources and forget Me.” Brennus’ sword in the Capitol; Christ’s sword flung in for us.
3. David’s dying words to Solomon (1 Chronicles 28:20). Blessed are the parents who can so pass the covenant promise to their children. Pilgrim, warrior, builder—these sum up all our needs and all the promises. Its highest beauty in Christ’s word (Matthew 28:20).
II. Man’s answer from earth to heaven.—“The Lord is my Helper; I will not fear” (Psalms 118). The Revised Version says, “So that we do.” (not may) “boldly say.” We say we believe the promises: do we answer with perfect confidence—That promise I take for mine (Galatians 2:20), “He is my Helper, so I shall not fear?” No use to say to a man, “Do not be afraid.” World too strong for any man in it; life and death have tremendous powers to make cowards of the bravest. We would not be wise, if we were not, except on one condition: “Believe, and fear not.” You can resolve, “I will trust”; then surely comes the triumph and the shelter of the Divine companionship.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
The Joy of Memory.—The past struggles are joyful in memory, as the mountain-ranges—which were all black rock and white snow while we toiled up their inhospitable steeps—lie purple in the mellowing distance, and burn like fire as the sunset strikes their peaks.—Ibid.
Contentment based on Security.—The Revised Version makes important changes in these verses. “Be ye free from the love of money; content with such things as ye have: for Himself hath said, I will in no wise fail thee, neither will I any wise forsake thee. So that with good courage we may say, The Lord is my Helper; I will not fear: what shall man do unto me?” The one thing that makes restlessness and anxiety in life is uncertainty. When we are quite sure about anything, we either quietly submit, or we brace ourselves up to deal with it, for its mitigation or its removal. If everything is uncertain, contentment is impossible. If there is anything absolutely certain and wholly reliable—whether it be so to our faith, or whether it be so in what we call “actual fact”—upon it contentment can be based. The writer of this epistle reminds his readers that, for them, there is something absolutely certain: there is the unqualified Divine assurance—the word of the ever-living God—“I will in no wise fail thee, neither will I in any wise forsake thee.” In that unquestionable fact there was full ground on which to build a life of sweet content. What we have is secure to us, for He has given it. What we have not we are better without, for He has not thought fit to give it. What we wish for we may fully submit to His consideration who is always with us, and is our Helper to everything that is really good. The writer is evidently dealing with that kind of restlessness men feel when they want some more money, It is so easy to be caught and carried away by the love of money; so easy to think that every difficulty and anxiety of life would be mastered if only we had more money; and then it is so easy to fret and worry, and lose all contentment of heart, because of the limitations under which we are placed. The passage therefore has very pointed application to many of us in these days. We shall find our own applications of the counsels of this writer, if we consider—I. The spirit of Christian contentment; II. Something which makes Christian contentment impossible; and III. Something which provides a secure foundation for it.
I. The spirit of Christian contentment.—The apostle Paul tells us, that “godliness with contentment is great gain”; and it must be borne in mind that we are dealing, not with a common-place virtue, which can be urged on purely moral grounds, and grounds of expediency, but with that virtue as it is purified, ennobled, and inspired by Christian principle and the Christian spirit. We deal with that contentment which has “godliness” at the heart of it. The counsel of the text is precisely addressed to Christian disciples, and to them as, by their Christian faith, put into limitations, and even brought under persecutions and sufferings. It is assumed that their anxious conditions are out of their own control; and it is altogether unbecoming for the Christian to fret at what cannot be helped. He ought to have power—through his life in Christ—to bring his mind to his circumstances; to cheerfully accept his lot; to make the best of it, and to do the best with it; to “endure, as seeing Him who is invisible.” It is not an easy thing to speak wisely about “contentment,” because it seems to oppose the restlessness of ambition, which is the inspiration of endeavour, and the secret of all progress. Man is a restless, discontented being, by virtue of his very endowment as a moral being. He is always wanting what he has not, always reaching out his hand for something, always pushing into some dark place. And if he had not been thus, he could never have “replenished the earth and subdued it,” never have developed his civilisation, and never have looked on this life as the training-school of the eternal life. It may even be said, that man’s discontent is essential to his highest good, and that the individual and the nation are ruined when they become contented. A simple illustration will suffice to show this. The first inhabitants of the world massed themselves in the plains of Asia; and if they had been content there, the whole earth would never have been peopled and won. God filled them with restlessness and discontent, and they pushed out this way and that, streamed forth over hills and plains and rivers, and so the whole earth was won. Contentment is not the highest virtue for man, and it is not even for the Christian man. It may be the right thing at a particular time, and under particular circumstances, but we must be careful not to talk about it in an exaggerated way. Discontent may quite as truly honour God as content; but, given the condition of these Jewish Christians, and it may properly be urged that, for them, contentment was the duty of the hour. In pressing upon attention the claims of any one virtue, we are apt to forget that it must be developed in harmony with the development of other virtues. Christian enterprise, Christian hope, Christian ambition, must grow harmoniously with Christian contentment. A man who wants nothing is a poor, weak specimen of humanity, one who brings no honour to Christ. It is the man who wants desperately, and yet brings his want into obedience to Christ, and cheerfully accepts His will, who has the true contentment, and who honours Christ. In the “perfect man” in Christ there is this virtue of contentment; but it is proportionate with other virtues, and it is harmonious with a noble restlessness of discontent, which keeps the man “pressing toward the mark for the prize.” And it may further be shown, that contentment can never be the same thing in every man, because it must always be relative to disposition, and our response to different circumstances. There really is not much credit in some persons being contented. The truth is, that they have everything which heart can wish for; or else the truth is, that they have not spirit enough to be discontented. Some are naturally of a contented disposition, and there is no more credit in their being contented than in their being bodily sound. The only contentment worth having is that which is won in the sore conflict of life against natural disposition and hindering circumstance. Think of the “Mark Tapley” of fiction, who considered it was no “credit to be jolly,” unless circumstances were overwhelmingly distressing. A great many people are simply contented because they have no reason in the world to be anything else; and there is no Christian principle, no Christian triumph, in that. Contentment is put in the text in relation to “covetousness.” It is the opposite of a wrong state of mind and heart. It is not opposed to the getting of money, which may be perfectly legitimate, and indeed, for us, the duty of the hour. It is opposed to the fretfulness which always comes with the love of money, the passion for money, the craving merely to possess. That is wrong, bad, from every point of view, ethical, religious, and Christian. That love of money for its own sake is the root of all evil. “They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.” What we need to see is, that Christian contentment is a soul-mood, which properly belongs to the new life in Christ, and that necessarily attends upon that daily trust, dependence, and obedience which the Christian is ever seeking to nourish into strength. The life of faith on the Son of God is necessarily a life of soul-content that is quite consistent with active service. As a soul-mood it enables us rightly to appraise what we have; helps us to submit when we cannot have what we would; and above all permits of our recognising Divine, wise love in the provision that is made for us, which our relations with God in Christ assure us are arranged in precise and particular adaptation to us. The right spirit is seen in a striking example, taken from the life of our Divine Master. In the hour of His arrest there was the soul-mood of content with what was so evidently the will of God concerning Him just then, that He could rebuke hasty Peter, saying, “Thinkest thou that I could not even now pray to the Father, and He would immediately send Me more than twelve legions of angels?” Contentment is close kin with submission. To the open, trusting soul God’s will is revealed, and then the fitting response is a quiet acceptance of what must be, and a cheerful falling back to enjoy what we have. Lest any of you should be discouraged, because in you are high hopes and ambitions, and you feel that it is hard to be told to let all go, and rest content with your poor, limited present, let me remind you that, like unselfishness, contentment begins with a “day of small things.” It is but a germ in the character and life of the young, who very properly aim at high things, and mean to attain them. But the germ grows as life unfolds, and strain-times and cares and limitations nourish it. It comes to be the secret of peace—and of true power also—in the cultured Christian’s life.
II. There is something that can make Christian contentment impossible.—“Be ye free from the love of money.” Can we see the immediate application of these words? They were addressed to Jews; and grasping for money, scheming to get money, has been the Jewish characteristic through the long ages. It is the Rebekah-taint in the blood of the Abrahamic race. The Jews addressed in this epistle were trade-folk, busy getting money in the various towns where they dwelt. But becoming Christian proved a serious and often unexpected hindrance to their money-getting. It acted in two ways. Men cut off their dealings with them because of their faith in Christ. And they found that the Christ-conscience would not let them do the tricky things which they had done. So their incomes were failing, and they were tempted to apostatise, and fall back upon the old condition, which gave them free scope for their money-getting. The writer of the epistle appeals to them to master this money-loving, covetous spirit; to cheerfully accept their disabilities for Christ’s name sake; to see what gracious provisions their Divine Lord was making for all their real need; and to be content with such things as they had. It was a time of temporary limitations, such as does come in the histories of families, and towns, and Churches. Such times come and pass, and we are called to be heroic while they pass over us. Do not fret about being unable to get money; be thankful for what you have got. Remember He is yours, and with you, who could say, “The silver and the gold are Mine.” “Be content with such things as ye have: for Himself hath said, I will in no wise fail thee, neither will I in any wise forsake thee.” Think how the cherished love of money may, in a time of strain, badly influence us, spoil our Christian spirit. It may put us on schemes; and schemes so inspired are sure to be grasping, inconsiderate schemes, that mean the ensuring of our success at the cost of our yet more suffering fellows—schemes with the strong self-seeking taint in them. The poor motive, the covetous feeling, will master good motives, and close our hearts to all sweet charities and generosities. And even more spiritually serious is the way in which the love of money nourishes soul-trust in money, and that effectually puts God out of our thoughts, and makes all beautiful, satisfying, happy reliance on Him well-nigh impossible. Indeed, when our thoughts are so fully occupied with this getting of money, and we find ourselves put into limitations here, and limitations there, it is not easy to keep ourselves from complaining of God, as if, in some sort of wilfulness and forgetfulness of due consideration, He were dealing with us. Nothing He does seems to us to be right, for the love of money always spoils spiritual vision. Swell money-loving out into the spirit of the miser, and then ask, What sort of a God is the miser’s God? Can he see God aright? Can he know Him as He is? Would you care to be known as the servants of the miser’s God? Then let us beware lest any circumstances of life, or any negligences of our soul-culture, allow that love of money, that anxiety about money, to begin its fatal work in our souls” “Mammon” soon gets to be our god; and “ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
III. Something that makes contentment quite possible.—Here again it must be kept in mind that the writer addresses Christians, and endeavours to meet their particular case and condition. It is assumed that there is in them a due sense of God, and of the importance of having God in gracious relations. Those in whose hearts and lives God is enthroned alone will appreciate His promise, “I will in no wise fail thee.” Such a man has gained a right idea of his several possessions, and can put them in the right order of their value. What does he possess? God. That stands first. Then come, ranged in order, wealth, learning, family, and other self-things. The Christian possesses God, and in Him possesses all things. And our text does but help him to feel what all-satisfying possessions he has in having God. The Christian having God, God dominates him, makes his ends, as well as provides for his needs. He is no longer his own, and so no longer worries to secure the attainment of his own ends. But money-getting is a man’s own end. It is never God’s end for any man. It may be God’s means of disciplining a man, or of giving him the material for some useful service; but it is well to have it clearly stated, that getting money never was, and never will be, the end which God sets before any man. God with us becomes the all-sufficient basis of the true Christian contentment. This is plain enough if we see what it involves. “I will in no wise fail thee.” Can He fulfil so unqualified a word of promise? May we fill out that “in no wise,” to the very uttermost of our ever-changing circumstances and needs? Is God so present that He has the actual control of our life? Is it true that not even a farthing sparrow falls to the ground without our Father? Is power adapted to us there? and wisdom, precise to meet our need, there? Is love, working in all ways of gentleness, there? And may we be sure that everywhere in our life God is; always working; never failing; never failing to carry out His purpose, and secure our highest good? “I will in no wise forsake thee.” That is, I will not be absent at any time when I may be pressingly needed. The help is always efficient, and the help is always at command. On what safer basis could Christian contentment rest? But it is Divine help making its appeal to faith, not to sense or sight. It is the contentment of a living faith.
A Song of Contentment.—John Bunyan pictures his pilgrim in a time of sore strain comforted by hearing a little lad singing a song of peaceful, submissive content: “He that is down need fear no fall,” etc. It is such a song for the soul which our text provides—a song that can be crooned over day and night, sung over and over again when the stress of life is great. Peace, quietness, content—soul-content, may keep up this music, and get it echoed back from the experience of the saints of all the ages—“The Lord is my Helper; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?” Here is one echo that comes from a long-by past: “I have been young, and now am old; yet have I never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.” Here is another echo from times somewhat nearer to our own: “I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” This is the sure ground of Christian contentment: “All things are yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.”