Self-discipline.
I. What, as regards man, guilty man, is the final cause of the atoning Cross, the red altar of the all-blessed substitute of the sinner? It is the creation, in the penitent who embraces that one hope set before him, of a character in harmony with that God, equally absolute in grace and in "severity," who spared not His own Son. I do not say that this is the immediate purpose of the Cross, as set out in Scripture. No, it has first to effect, not transfiguration of character, but acceptance of person. It has to effect the objective reality of a righteous pardon. But that sacred pardon, or call it rather acceptance, a nobler word, is all the while a means and not an end. Its end, as far as the justified are concerned, is the transfiguration of character. The millstone of condemnation is lifted away, on purpose, above all things, that the penitent may be made effectually willing, with a will disengaged from the fears and the repulsions of the unpardoned state, to be trained into a character in harmony with God and capable of His heavenly presence.
II. We inhabit a period full of subtle tendencies to self-indulgence. I mean the moral self-indulgence which, in plain words, abhors not evil; the temper that can tolerate what ought to be intolerable to the conscience, even if it be some elaborate romance of sin, it only it comes in a garb that commends it to the intellect and the imagination. Too often the soul that has grasped personal justification yet forgets to grasp what should be its direct result; no negligent repose in sacred privileges, but the real and glorious work of the will in the strength of the peace of God. The assured and gladdened disciple too often needs to be reminded that his liberty is the liberty to observe, and love and do every detail of his Redeemer's will; that in his happy faith he is to find the nerves of his unwearied virtue; that from his whole plan of life down to its minutiaeof daily personal habits, public, private, and solitary, aye, down to his sleep, his table, and his dress, he must habituate himself to the moral and spiritual consciousness of being under discipline. For he is being trained under his Lord's grace and guidance, into the characterof the Gospel.
H. C. G. Moule, Christ is All,p. 175.
The Teacher and the Taught (Sermon to Sunday School Teachers).
I. You are workmen of God. The great Worker has called you to His counsels, and He has assigned to you a task. Much of His purpose and government, of His mercy and judgment, proceeds in utter independence of all human aid or cooperation; but there is a larger portion of His blessedness which He only communicates to men through the human mind and heart. God waits and asks for the cooperation of His children, and finds for every kind of talent, intellect, and moral energy, some work to do. In one sense, indeed, every atom of every world is busily at work for God; and in one sense, every mind has a work to do for God, consciously or unconsciously, which no other mind can accomplish. Surely the highest dignity God could confer on any human being is to use Him for a purpose and work like this.
II. You are students of God's Word. If you are not students, if you are not doing your best to understand God's truth, you will soon exhaust your stock of capital, you will be perpetually baffled when you need not be, by the inquiries of the youngest children; you will not be thoroughly furnished for this great work. If Timothy needed to give himself to reading, exhortation, doctrine, it is equally necessary that you should devote yourselves to the study of revealed truth within your reach, and commune with the Spirit of its Author.
III. You are servants of the Church. One great function of the Church is to teach the world. It may be the function of some to exhort, of some to console. There are some in the Church whose great work seems to be to rule;the work of others is to give. The teaching office of the Church is not and cannot be confined to the pastorate. The Church should regard the school as a portion of its own operations, and the teachers as its own servants or representatives.
IV. Once more, you are watchers for souls. It is a wise and wonderful thing to save souls, to win souls. Are you habitually aware of the grand dimensions of your work? Do you never slip into routine? Are you always alive to its magnitude? Take heed to your doctrine that it be (1) scriptural, (2) comprehensive, (3) connected and ordered upon some plan, (4) appropriate to the class of minds with which you have to deal. "Take heed to thyself." Thou art not only to be free from the blame of others, and from the accusations of thine own conscience, but to be a pattern of purity and honour, of spirit and love, of word and conversation. Thou art to be a specimen of what a Christian ought to be, in the transactions of daily life, at the innermost shrine of earthly affections, on the highways of the world. A pattern to believers. Ordinary believers naturally look to those who teach for the deepest faith and for the highest kind of life. Patient perseverance in such godlike work is a way not only of securing the salvation of others, but our own salvation too. This taking heed to ourselves is, indeed, necessary, in order that we should have any influence with those that hear us. This taking heed to the doctrine is utterly indispensable to our own salvation. Let us continue in them, and remember that when we thus seek the salvation of others, we are seeking our own.
H. R. Reynolds, Notes of the Christian Life,p. 311.
The Comparative Influence of Character and Doctrine.
As a means of moral and religious influence, life should precede doctrine, character be regarded as of even greater importance than verbal teaching. We may perceive this by reflecting
I. That life tends very greatly to modify a man's own views of doctrine.
II. It affects also his power of expressing or communicating truth to others.
III. It has in many respects an influence which direct teaching or doctrine cannot exert. Actions are (1) more intelligible, (2) more convincing than words, and (3) they are available in many cases in which the teaching of the lips cannot, or ought not, to be attempted.
J. Caird, Sermons,p. 301.
References: 1 Timothy 4:16. W. Elmslie, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxxiv., p. 305; Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 257.
The Life to Come.
Consider:
I. The certainty of the life to come. I admit that our storehouse of proofs is here, in the revelation of God. It is here that life and immortality have been disclosed by the Great Teacher, who came down from heaven, and not only disclosed in His instructions, but set in a most vivid light, by the miracles He wrought, in bringing men back from the grave, and by His own resurrection, the type and pledge of the resurrection of the race. The teaching of the Bible accords with the workings of the human mind, with the analogies of things, as we see them around us, and with the general constitution of nature.
II. What are the characteristics of the life to come? The future is to be but the full development, in different circumstances, and in a different form of life, of the present. The symbols used in the Scriptures, and the analogies they adopt to illustrate and throw light upon the subject, all show that the life which is, is to give shape and form and impart its elements to the life which is to come.
III. While we shall be the same beings, as far as our moral consciousness is concerned, the materials of thought, the objects which shall excite the passions and determine the experience shall be the same. The present is the great storehouse of the future, wherein we are laying up the elements of our future experience. Our emotions in the life to come, whether present or prospective, shall exist in view of the past. He that is holy shall be holy still; and he that is filthy shall be filthy still; rising in holiness or sinking in degradation for ever.
E. Mason, A Pastor's Legacy,p. 186.
Reference: 1 Timothy 5:1-16. Expositor,1st series, vol. in., p. 380.