Quiet Talks on John's Gospel Part 6

And this, mark it keenly, is still the plan. "The-same-came-for-witness"

is meant to be true of each follower of the Christ. This is to be the dominant underchording of all our lives. This is to be the never-absent motive gripping us, and our possessions and our plans. The rest is incidental in a true life.

It may be a "rest" that takes most of the waking hours with most of us, most of our strength and thought. But there's an undercurrent in every life. And the undercurrent is the controlling current. It makes us what we really are. It may be quite different from the upper current controlled by the outer necessities of circ.u.mstances. And with the true Jesus-man _this_ is the undercurrent, this thing of witnessing.

Do you know something of Jesus? Do you know the cleansing of His blood?

Do you know the music of His peace in your heart? Do you know a bit of the subtle fragrance of His presence? Do you know the power of His Name when temptations come, when the road gets slippery, and your feet go out from under you--almost. Then His Name, its power, and you hold steady.

Do you know something about such things?

Then _tell_ it. This is the plan--_telling_. It's a Gospel of _telling_.

Tell it with your lips tactfully, gently, boldly, earnestly. But tell it far more, and most with your life. Let what you are, when you're not thinking about this sort of thing, let that tell it. That's the greatest telling, the best.

And, softly, now, when you get to the end of telling what you know, listen quietly, don't go to digging into books for something to tell your cla.s.s or the meeting or the crowd. Don't do that. Books have their place, good books, but it's always a sharply secondary place, or third, or lower down yet. Poor crowd that must be fed on retailed books worked over! Don't do that. _Know more._ Know Jesus better. Trust Him more fully. Risk more on following where He clearly leads. Then you can tell more and better.

Sometimes I'm asked, "How can I have more faith?" Well, not by thinking about your faith. Not by books or definitions chiefly, however they may help some. I can tell you how: _Follow where the Master's quiet voice is clearly calling._ Go where it is plain to you that that pierced hand is leading.

"Ah! but the way is a bit narrow," you think. "And it's steep. There are sharp-edged stones under foot. And those bushes are growing rank on both sides narrowing the path. And thorns scratch and hurt and sting. This other road where I am now--this is a good Christian road. My Christian brothers are here. I'd rather stay here."

And so you _stay_. You don't _say_ "no" to the calling voice. You simply _act_ "no." No wonder you get confused and tangled. It's only in the path of following clear leading that there comes sweetest peace, with no nagging doubts and mental confusion. There only will you have more faith, know more of Him, touch with whom is the realest faith. And so only will the witness be told out to the crowd on the street of your life, of the power and satisfying peace of this Jesus.

This is the witnessing we're sent to do. And the crowds crowd to listen, when it's given. This is the way _the_ Witness did. He followed the clear Father-voice, though the road led straight across the regular roads through thorn hedges and thick underbrush. Should not the servant tread it still?

The word that John uses here underneath our English word _witness_ is the word from which our English word _martyr_ comes. And martyr has come to mean one who gives his life clear out in a violent way for the truth he believes. But, do you know, that is easy. "Easy?" You say, "Surely not, you're certainly wrong there." No, you are right. It is not easy. To face a storm of lead, or feel the sharp-edged blade, or yield to the eating flame,--that is never easy.

But this is what I mean. There's the heroic in it, and that helps. You brace yourself for it. The terrible crisis comes. You pull together and pray and resolutely, desperately, face it. A little while, and it's over. You've been true in the sharp crisis. You have taken a place with the n.o.ble army of martyrs. And we who hear of it have a martyr's halo about your head.

But there's something immensely harder to do. Without making a whit less than it is the splendid courage of martyrdom, there's something that takes immensely more courage, and a deeper longer-seasoned heroism, and that is to be a _living_ martyr, to bear the simple true witness tactfully but clearly, when it takes the very life of your life to do it, though it doesn't take your bodily life in a violent way.

You know they don't martyr people these days for their Christian faith.

At least not in the western half of the earth, the Christian hemisphere.

No, that's quite behind the calendar. That's rather crude, quite behind the cultured advanced Christian progress of _our_ day. Our Christian civilization has gone long strides beyond that. We have grown much more refined. Now we kill them _socially_. Many a one who would live true to the Jesus-ideals in daily life in a simple sane way finds certain social doors shut and carefully barred.

We kill them _commercially_ now. The man who will quietly hew to the Jesus-line in business is quite apt to find his income reduced. The bulk of business shrinks. The thermometer is run down below the living point.

We kill men by _frost_ now. The blockade system is skilfully used; isolation and insulation from certain circles. We are much more refined.

The great need to-day is of _living_ witnesses to the Christ in home, and social circle, in the street, and in the market-place.

"So he died for his faith; that is fine, More than the most of us do.

But stay, can yon add to that line That he _lived_ for it, too?

"It's easy to die. Men have died For a wish or a whim-- From bravado or pa.s.sion or pride.

Was it hard for him?

"But to live: every day to live out All the truth that he dreamt, While his friends met his conduct with doubt, And the world with contempt.

"Was it thus that he plodded ahead, Never turning aside?

Then we'll talk of the life that he led"

Even more than the death that he died.

The Forgotten Preacher.

With a simplicity in sticking to his main point, John goes quietly on: "_that he might be a witness of the light_." That's rather interesting.

It was of the _light_ he was to bear witness; not of himself. It was not the technical accuracy of his work, not its scholarliness and skill that absorbed him, but that the _crowd got the light_. Rather striking that, when you break away from the atmosphere round about, and think into it a bit.

Here's a man walking down a country road. It's a hot day. The road's dusty. He gets a bit weary and thirsty. He comes across a bit of a spring by the side of the road. Clear cool water it is. And some one has thoughtfully left a tin-cup on a ledge of rock near by. And the man gratefully drinks and goes on his way refreshed. He quite forgets the tin-cup.

Sometimes the tin-cup seems to require much attention, up in the corner of the world where my tent is pitched. It has to be handled very carefully and considerately if one is to get what possible drops of water it may contain. The human tin-cup seems to bulk very big in the drinking process, sometimes, in my corner of the planet. It is silver-plated sometimes; just common tin under the plating. There's some fine engraving on the silver-plating, n.o.ble sentiment, deftly expressed, and done in the engraver's best style. But the water is apt to be scanty, the drops rather few, in this sort of tin-cup. It's a bit droughty.

And sometimes even this has been known to occur: they have a.s.sociations of these human tin-cups for self-admiration and other cultural purposes.

And they have highly satisfactory meetings. But meanwhile, ah! look!

hold still your heart, and look here. There's the crowd on the street, hot dusty street, exhausted, actually fainting for want of water, just good plain water of life. But there's none to be had; only tin-cups!

John was eager to have men get a good drink. He was content as he watched them drink, and their eyes lighten. He was discontent and restless with anything else or less.

Do you remember the greatest compliment ever paid John, John the Herald?

John was a great preacher. He had great drawing power. To-day we commonly go where people are hoping they'll stay while we talk to them.

But John did otherwise. He went down to the Jordan bottoms, where the spirit ventilation was better, and called the people to him. And they came. They came from all over the nation, of every cla.s.s. Literally thousands gathered to hear John. He had great drawing power.

And then something happened. Here is John to-day talking earnestly to great crowds down by the river-road. And here he is again to-morrow; but where are the crowds? John has lost his crowd. Same pulpit out in the open air, same preacher, same simple intense message burning in his heart, but--no congregation! The crowd's gone. Poor John! You must feel pretty bad. It's hard enough to fail, but how much harder after succeeding. Poor John, I'm so sorry for you.

But if you get close enough to John to see into his eye you quit talking like that. And if you get near enough to hear you find your sympathy is not needed. For John's eye is ablaze with a tender light, and the sound of an inner heart music reaches your ear as you get near him. And if you follow, as you instinctively do, the line of the light in his eye you quickly look down the road.

Oh! There's John's crowd. _They're listening to Jesus._John's crowd has left him for his Master. And the forgotten preacher is the finest evidence of the faithfulness of the preacher. The crowd's getting the water, sweet cool refres.h.i.+ng water of life, direct from the fountain.

They've clean forgotten the faithful common tin-cup. And John's so glad.

John came that he might bear witness of _the light_. And he did. And the crowd heard. And they flocked to the light.

Here's a man preaching. And the people are listening. The benediction is p.r.o.nounced. And they go out. And as they move slowly out they're talking, always talking. We don't seem yet to have demitted our privilege of talking after service. Here are two. Listen to them. "Isn't he a great preacher? so scholarly, so eloquent, so polished; and all those cla.s.sical allusions. I didn't understand half he said; he certainly is a great preacher. We're very fortunate in such a man."

And the preacher, whoever he be, may know this for a bit of the certainty that occasionally _will_ sift in. He may be a scholar. I wouldn't question it. And a polished orator. I wouldn't question that.

But in the main thing, the one thing he's for, as a _Jesus-witness_, he is a splendid scholarly polished failure. Men are talking about _him_.

They've forgotten his Master, if indeed--ah, yes, if indeed he _have_ a Master! He has a _Saviour_, let us earnestly hope, and willingly believe. But a _Master_! One that sweeps and sways his mind and culture and life like the strong wind sweeps the thin young saplings in the storm--clearly he knows nothing of that. Men are talking of _him_.

And here's another talking a bit It may be just a simple homely talk. Or he may likewise be scholarly and eloquent. A man should bring his best.

The old cla.s.sic is beaten oil for the lamps of the sanctuary. But there's the soft burning fire of the real thing in his message. And the people feel it. The air seems a-thrill with its quiet tensity. And the last amen is said. And again they go out.

And here are two walking down the road together, and as they come to the cross-street, one says to his companion, "Excuse me, please, I have to go down _this_ way." And the "have-to" is the have-to of an intense desire to get off alone. And as he goes down the side street he's talking, but--to himself. Listen to him: "I'm not the man I ought to be, I wonder if Jesus is really like he said. I wonder if the thing's really so. I believe--yes, I really think I'll risk it. My life isn't like it should be. I'll risk trying this Jesus-way. I'll do it."

The man's clean forgotten the speaker. Oh, yes, he remembers the tone of the voice, and the look of the face, but indistinctly, far away. He's face-to-face with Jesus! And the forgotten speaker is the finest evidence of the faithfulness of his speaking. He is holding up the light. And men run into the light. They've clean forgot the little tin candlestick, they are so taken up with the light it holds.

The One Thing to Aim At.

And John keeps driving in on the point in his mind: "_that all might believe through Him_"; that they might listen, stop to think, agree as to the thing being believable, then trust it; then trust _Him_, the Light, risk something, risk, _themselves_ to _Him_, then love, love with a pa.s.sionate devotion. This was John's objective. It was the bull's-eye of his target never out of his keen Spirit-opened eye. Nothing else figured in.