Sermons on National Subjects. Charles Kingsley

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СКАЧАТЬ what trouble they take; how they exercise their limbs; how careful and temperate they are in eating and drinking, how much pain and fatigue they go through to get themselves into perfect training for a race.  How much more trouble ought we to take to make ourselves fit to do God’s work?  For these foot-racers do all this only to gain a garland which will wither in a week; but we, to gain a garland which will never fade away; a garland of holiness, and righteousness, and purity, and the likeness of Jesus Christ.”

      The next example of abstinence which St. Paul takes, is from the prize-fighters, who were very numerous and very famous, in the country in which the Corinthians lived.  “I fight,” he says, “not like one who beats the air;” that is, not like a man who is only brandishing his hands and sparring in jest, but like a man who knows that he has a fight to fight in hard earnest; a terrible lifelong fight against sin, the world, and the devil; “and, therefore,” he says, “I do as these fighters do.”  They, poor savage and brutal heathens as they are, go through a long and painful training.  Their very practice is not play; it is grim earnest.  They stand up to strike, and be struck, and are bruised and disfigured as a matter of course, in order that they may learn not to flinch from pain, or lose their tempers, or turn cowards, when they have to fight.  “And so do I,” says St. Paul; “they, poor men, submit to painful and disagreeable things to make them brave in their paltry battles.  I submit to painful and disagreeable things, to make me brave in the great battle which I have to fight against sin, and ignorance, and heathendom.”  “Therefore,” he says, in another place, “I take pleasure in afflictions, in persecutions, in necessities, in distresses;” and that not because those things were pleasant, they were just as unpleasant to him as to anyone else; but because they taught him to bear, taught him to be brave; taught him, in short, to become a perfect man of God.

      This is St. Paul’s account of his own training: in the Epistle for to-day we have another account of it; a description of the life which he led, and which he was content to lead—“in much suffering, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watching, in fastings”—and an account, too, of the temper which he had learnt to show amid such a life of vexation, and suffering, and shame, and danger—“approving himself in all things the minister of God, by pureness, by wisdom, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the spirit of holiness, by love unfeigned;” “as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing all things.”—In all things proving himself a true messenger from God, by being able to dare and to endure for God’s sake, what no man ever would have dared and endured for his own sake.

      “But”—someone may say—“St. Paul was an apostle; he had a great work to do in the world; he had to turn the heathen to God; and it is likely enough that he required to train himself, and keep strict watch over all his habits, and ways of thinking and behaving, lest he should grow selfish, lazy, cowardly, covetous, fond of ease and amusement.  He had, of course, to lead a life of strange suffering and danger; and he had therefore to train himself for it.  But what need have we to do as St. Paul did?”

      Just as much need, my good friends, if you could see it.

      Which of us has not to lead a life of suffering?  We shall each and all of us, have our full share of trouble before we die, doubt it not.

      And which of us has not to lead a life of danger?  I do not mean bodily danger; of that, there is little enough—perhaps too little—in England now; but of danger to our hearts, minds, characters?  Oh, my friends, I pity those who do not think themselves in danger every day of their lives, for the less danger they see around them, the more danger there is.  There is not only the common danger of temptation, but over and above it, the worse danger of not knowing temptation when it comes.  Who will be most likely to walk into pits and mires upon the moor—the man who knows that they are there around him, or the man who goes on careless and light of heart, fancying that it is all smooth ground?  Woe to you, young people, if you fancy that you are to have no woe!  Danger to you, young people, if you fancy yourselves in no danger!

      “This is sad and dreary news”—some of you may say.  Ay, my friends, it would be sad and dreary news indeed; and this earth would be a very sad and dreary place; and life with all its troubles and temptations, would not be worth having, if it were not for the blessed news which the Gospel for this day brings us.  That makes up for all the sadness of the Epistle; that gives us hope; that tells us of one who has been through life, and through death too, yet without sin.  That tells us of one who has endured a thousand times more temptation than we ever shall, a thousand times more trouble than we ever shall, and yet has conquered it all; and that He who has thus been through all our temptations, borne all our weaknesses, is our King, our Saviour, who loves us, who teaches us, who has promised us His Holy Spirit, to make us like Himself, strong, brave, and patient, to endure all that man or devil, or our own low animal tempers and lusts, can do to hurt us.  The Gospel for this day tells us how He went and was alone in the wilderness with the wild beasts, and yet trusted in God, His Father and ours, to keep Him safe.  How He went without food forty days and nights, and yet in His extreme hunger, refused to do the least self-willed or selfish thing to get Himself food.  Is that no lesson, no message of hope for the poor man who is tempted by hunger to steal, or tempted by need to do a mean and selfish thing, to hear that the Lord Jesus Christ, who bore need and hunger far worse than his, understands all his temptations, and feels for him, and pities him, and has promised him God’s Spirit to make him strong, as He himself was?

      Is it no comfort to young people who are tempted to vanity, and display, and self-willed conceited longings, tempted to despise the advice of their parents and elders, and set up for themselves, and choose their own way—Is it no good news, I say, for them to hear that their Lord and Saviour was tempted to it also, and conquered it?—That He will teach them to answer the temptation as He did, when He refused even to let angels hold Him over the temple, up between earth and heaven, for a sign and a wonder to all the Jews, because God His Father had not bidden Him to do it, and therefore He would not tempt the Lord His God?

      Is it no good news, again, to those who are tempted to do perhaps one little outward wrong thing, to yield on some small point to the ways of the world, in order to help themselves on in life, to hear that their Lord and Saviour conquered that temptation too?—That he refused all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, when the devil offered them, because he knew that the devil could not give them to Him; that all wealth, and power, and glory belonged to God, and was to be got only by serving Him?

      Oh do you all, young people especially, think of this.  As you grow up and go out into life, you will be tempted in a hundred different ways, by things which are pleasant—everyone knows that they are pleasant enough—but wrong.  One will be tempted to be vain of dress; another to be self-conceited; another to be lazy and idle; another to be extravagant and roving; another to be over fond of amusement; another to be over fond of money; another to be over fond of liquor; another to go wrong, as too many young men and young women do, and bring themselves, and those with whom they keep company, and whom they ought, if they really love them, to respect and honour, down into sin and shame.  You will all be tempted, and you will all be troubled; one by poverty, one by sickness, one by the burden of a family, one by being laughed at for trying to do right.  But remember, oh remember, whenever a temptation comes upon you, that the blessed Jesus has been through it all, and conquered all, and that His will is, that you shall be holy and pure like Him, and that, therefore, if you but ask Him, He will give you strength to keep pure.  When you are tempted, pray to Him: the struggle in your own minds will, no doubt, be very great; it will be very hard work for you—sin looks so pleasant on the outside!  Poor souls, it is a sad struggle for you!  Many a poor young fellow, who goes wrong, deserves rather to be pitied than to be punished.  Well then, if no man else will pity him, Jesus, the Man of all men, will.  Pray to Him!  Cry aloud to Him!  Ask Him to make you stout-hearted, patient, really manful, to fight against temptation.  Ask Him to give you strength of mind to fight against all bad habits.  Ask Him to open your eyes to see when you are in danger.  Ask Him to help you to keep out of the way of temptation.  СКАЧАТЬ