How is it that ye do not discern this time?
Signs of the times
I. CONSIDER THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF OUR OWN AGE.
1. The times are sadly darkened with superstition.
2. A parching wind of unbelief is sweeping over the Churches.
3. Religious apathy abounds. The remedies for this are--
(1) Prayer.
(2) Personal activity.
4. There is an evident withdrawal of the Holy Ghost from this land. The earth has her harvest, but where is the harvest of the Church. Where are revivals now? The Spirit is grieved, and is gone from the Church; and why is it? Have Christian men become worldly? It is true that you can scarcely tell a Christian from a worldling, nowadays? O for more holiness, then; this is the demand which the times make upon us. Ye men of God, be holy, yea, be ye perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Has unbelief restrained the dew and rain of the Spirit? Is it true that He cannot do many mighty works among us because of our unbelief? O for more faith, then. Put up the prayer, “Lord, increase our faith,” and rest not day nor night till the prayer be heard.
II. Now, I have to use the text in reference to THE TIMES WITHIN US. There is a little world within our bosom, which has its winds and its clouds, and if we are wise we shall watch. First, I shall speak to believers. Believers, there are times with you when the cloud rises out of the west, and straightway ye say, There cometh a shower. Times of refreshing-you have had them; look back upon them, they are choice memories. You must have the Spirit of God, or how can you live? Much more, how can you bring forth fruit unto perfection? Watch for these showers, then, and when they come, use them. Open your heart, as the earth opens her furrows after a long drought, when there are great gaping cracks in the soil ready to drink in the shower. Let your heart be receptive of the Divine influence. Wait upon the Lord, and when the Lord comes to bless you, be like Gideon’s fleece, ready to imbibe and retain the dew, till you are full of it. Believers, we have to speak to you also about spiritual drought, for you have such seasons, “Ye see the south wind blow, and ye say, There will be heat; and it cometh to pass.” You have your droughty times--at least, I have mine. They may be sent in chastisement. We do not value the blessing of the Spirit enough, and so it is withdrawn. Sometimes they may be intended to try our faith, to see whether we can strike our roots deep down into rivers of waters which never dry, and tap the eternal springs which lie beneath, and yield not to the summer’s drought. Perhaps our times of drought are sent to drive us to our God, for when the means of grace fail us, and even the Word no longer comforts us, we may fly to the Lord Himself, and drink at the well-head. Perhaps, however, this drought has been occasioned by ourselves. Worldliness is a south wind, which soon brings a parching condition upon the spirits of men. My last and most solemn work is now to come. I have to speak to sinners. Ungodly men are fools before God, but they are very often the reverse of fools in common life. They know what weather there will be, they can read the signals of the skies. Now I ask them to use the wit they have, and of themselves judge that which is right. If you lived in Palestine, when you saw a cloud you would expect a shower. When you see sin, do you not expect punishment? (C. H.Spurgeon.)
Sign of a coming shower
Miss Rogers, in her “Domestic Life in Palestine,” says:--At Haifa, I was sitting one day in the oriel window at the British consulate, with the Rev. Dr. Bowen (the late lamented bishop of Sierra Leone); black clouds came travelling quickly from the west over the lead-coloured sea. Dr. Bowen observed, in the words of Christ, “When ye see a cloud rise out of the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower; and so it is.” He had scarcely uttered the words, when the clouds spread, and fell in a tremendous torrent; the sea swelled, and rolled heavily to the shore; the ships looked as if they would break away from their anchors, and loud peals of thunder made the casemented recess in which we sat tremble violently. Why even of yourselves Judge ye not what is right?--
Christ appealing to the man within the man
To judge what is right, in the matter here under notice, is to form a right conclusion as to the question of questions, “What think ye of Christ?” And, you observe, our Lord speaks of a possibility of drawing the true answer, not from “evidences” commonly so called, not from “signs of the times,” not from miracles, not from proofs of power exhibited to the senses, but from within--from something inside the man, saying to him, God is here. Adistinction is made in the text between a discernment of truth by “signs,” and a judgment upon it exercised from within. It is quite clear that the words “of yourselves” express something more intimate, more essential to the man, than that action of the mind upon external evidences for the want of which He has just reproved them. The “signs” are clear, He says, but you ought not to want them. There is that in you which ought to have “judged what is right,” as to Me and My gospel, without waiting for other evidence of wonder or sign. Brethren, there is something in us to which Jesus Christ appeals, besides the mere intellect. It is quite clear that Jesus Christ, when He was upon earth, placed not one part but the whole of the man in the judgment-seat before which He pleaded. If He had been satisfied with a formal assent to His revelation; if His object had been to reckon His followers by millions, and to cover the inhabited world with churches, without further question as to the state of hearts towards God, or as to the character of lives in the view of eternity; He might have said,
“How is it that, with evidence so conclusive, ye do not discern this time?” but He would never have gone on to say, “Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?” This addresses that compound thing, that complex being, of which intellect is but one element, and not the noblest. Jesus Christ stands upon earth, and, seeing us as we are, as such speaks to us. When He has gained our first attention, if so it be, by miracles, He goes on to reason with us concerning ourselves. He reminds us that there is that in us which makes us first rebels against duty, and then cowards before conscience; rovers in pursuit of satisfactions which come not, and slaves in the prospect of inevitable death. He deals with us as persons not all intellect; persons whose life is lived in many homes and many regions, of thought and feeling, of memory and hope, of companionship and affection, making it indispensable that one who comes to us with an effectual treatment of our actual condition should not only convince our understandings as to his claims and his credentials, but also (and much more) draw our hearts towards himself as the very rest and home and satisfaction of our being. And as this is His aim, so this is His method. He stands here in the midst of us, and His first words are, “When ye pray, say, Our Father.” Say it, whosoever you be, and whatsoever. It is a revelation, pure and simple--lie brings it to us out of the great heaven--and yet He is able to appeal to us, His audience, as to the self-evidencing character of this which He says. “Even of yourselves,” He says, judge what I say. Is it not good? is it not true? is it not verified within? And so of the rest. “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Does not He who thus speaks bring His own witness with Him? Well must lie know us. “Never man spake like this man.” Try whether this word, which is so good, so pure, so lovely, has not, in the very being so, its evidence of Deity in the speaker. Is there not here the very knowledge of the Omniscient? Is there not here that very Fountain of goodness, whose thoughts are at once ours and not ours? Is not this what I mean by God? Shall I not rest and nestle at once under the shadow of this wing? (Dean Vaughan.)
The meanness and falseness of the common excuses for irreligion and immorality
These words appear, by the parallel places in the other evangelists, to have been originally designed against those amongst the Jews, who from dislike of the strictness of our blessed Lord’s morality, pretended ignorance of His Divine mission, after He had given abundant proofs of it; when yet, without any separate proofs of it at all, the main things which He taught carried their own evidence along with them, and every man’s heart bore witness to their truth. “The Pharisees came forth, with the Sadducees also, tempting Him, and sought of Him a sign from heaven” (Matthew 16:1; Mark 8:11). But He, with no less dignity than prudence, refused to gratify a curiosity, both ill-meaning and endless; and “ sighing deeply in His spirit,” as St. Mark informs us, at this perverse disposition of theirs; told them, with a kind, because needful, severity of speech, where the defect lay. “A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign”: your sinful inclinations and lives, not the want or the desire of sufficient evidence, prompt you to this demand: and “verily I say unto you, there shall be no sign given,” no such visible manifestation of Divine glory as you insolently require, vouchsafed “to this generation:” nor is it requisite. “When ye see a cloud rise out of the west, straightway ye say, there cometh a shower, and so it is. And when ye see the south wind blow, ye say there will be heat, and it cometh to pass. Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth: but how is it that ye do not discern this time?” That is: on other occasions you appear very able to judge of things by the proper indications of them. How can you then, with any colour of sincerity, pretend, that amidst so many prophecies fulfilled, and so many miracles performed, you have not, after all, sufficient conviction, that this is the season when the Messiah should appear, and that I am He? Nay, as to the principal part of My doctrine, which is the real cause of your antipathy to the whole; as to the great precepts of pure religion and uniform virtue, and your need of repentance and faith in God’s mercy; what occasion is there for any farther demonstrations of them, than your own hearts, if honestly consulted, will not fail to afford? “Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?” Now this method of reasoning is equally applicable to unbelievers and cavillers in all ages. It is in vain for them to invent new difficulties, or magnify old ones, concerning the authority of our religion; while the reason of things, the truth of facts, and the nature of God and man continue to exhibit so full proof of those fundamental articles of it, the eternal obligation of moral duties, the sinfulness of every one’s nature and life, the necessity of repentance, and humble application for pardon and grace. And, since the true quarrel of such persons is against these doctrines, and these cannot be shaken; they had much better reconcile themselves to the whole, than make fruitless attacks upon one part; in which, if they were to succeed (as they never will), they would, in point of argument, be almost as far from their favourite scheme, of liberty to do what they please, and think highly of themselves notwithstanding, as they were before. For the whole of their case is: they perplex things on purpose, in order to complain that they are not clear: walk with their eyes wilfully shut, and then insist that they cannot be blamed if they stumble, for it is quite dark, and they do not see a step of their way. For the confirmation of this, let us take a view of the fundamental parts of practical religion--those which men are most apt to fail in--and see which of them all any one can fairly say he was ignorant of, or doubtful about, and had not the means of sufficient light to direct his steps.
1. To begin with the belief and worship of Almighty God. Is not every man capable of seeing, let him be ever so little acquainted with nature, that the heavens and the earth, the order of the seasons, the returns of day and night, the whole frame of things in general, is full of use and beauty; and must be the work of amazing power, wisdom, and goodness? And what He hath made, no doubt but He governs and superintends. This is the plain obvious account of things, that one should think must almost offer itself of course to every common mind, without any learning at all; and the deepest learning gives it the strongest confirmation. And what, then, hath any one to plead for himself, if he lives regardless of Him “in whom he lives, and moves, and hath his being”; without gratitude to His bounty.
2. Let us now proceed to the duties which we owe to our fellow-creatures. The sense of these, because they are of more immediate importance to the good of society, God hath imprinted with greater strength on our minds than even that of our obligations to Himself. As it must be the Will of Him, who is so just and good to us all, that we should be just and good to one another, and from this principle, as the root, every branch of right behaviour springs; so He hath planted in our hearts a natural love of equity, a natural feeling of kind affection; a natural conscience, applauding us when we act according to these dispositions, condemning us when we violate them; and seldom do we deserve its reproaches, but either at the time, or soon after, we undergo them.
3. The third part of our duty is the government of ourselves, according to the rules of sobriety, temperance, and chastity. Now who doth not know, that the observance of these virtues is right and fit: that the violation of them is prejudical to the reason, the health, the reputation, the fortunes, the families of men, and introduces riot and madness, confusion and misery into the world?
4. But further yet: Doth not every man know in his conscience, that, plain as his duties to God, his fellow-creatures, and himself are, he hath more or less transgressed them all; that he hath a nature continually prone to transgression; that, therefore, he needs both pardon for what is past, and assistance for the time to come; and that he can have neither but through God’s undeserved mercy? Upon the whole, since most of the main branches of our duty are thus obvious to our understandings of themselves; and all of them are constantly taught us, by the holy scripture, by the laws of our country, by the opinion and consent of the wisest and best of mankind, by the instructions of persons appointed for that purpose; what account do we imagine we shall possibly be able to give, why religion, so easily apprehended, is so little practised by us! If any doubt of the reality of the command; the reason is, that they desire to doubt: and how can we flatter ourselves that anything is excusable, which proceeds from a disposition of mind so grossly and wilfully wrong? Suppose a servant of ours had purposely kept out of the way of receiving our orders, or invented perplexities and cavils about the meaning of them, or the certainty of our having delivered them, because he had no mind to obey them: would that justify him? Should we not immediately tell him, that what he easily might and clearly ought to have known and understood, he was inexcusable, if he would not know and understand? And what must we think of our great Master in heaven, if we try to impose on Him with devices and tricks, that will not pass amongst ourselves? But in reality men have not this excuse, if it were one. They do know how they ought to behave; they do know that they ought “to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this world, looking for” the recompences of another; and they well know in the main what particulars this obligation comprehends; how grievously they have fallen short of them, and what need they have to repent and humbly beg forgiveness and strength, through Him who hath procured us a title to both. We can easily deceive ourselves; we can make specious pleas one to another for our failings; which the occasion that we have for allowances in our turn incline us often to look upon very favourably in our neighbours. But, in the sight of God, supposing a thing incumbent on us, and supposing it easily known to be so; what can be said to the purpose why we did not perform it? “We were poor and ignorant.” But we were not, or we needed not to have been, ignorant in this particular. “We were suspicious and doubtful.” But our doubts were affected, not real; or partial, not honest and upright. Still there are some, especially in some circumstances, who are to a much greater degree excusable for the sins they are guilty of than others. But yet all excuse is not a justification; and will least of all prove such to those who, instead of endeavouring to act right, set themselves to contrive reasons why their acting wrong should be dispensed with. It is true, the very best have their faults, and faults not indulged shall be forgiven us; if we are truly sorry for them, and earnestly apply to God’s mercy through Christ for pardon, and carefully watch against the return of them. (T. Secker.)