369. The Panacea

The Panacea

Mat_14:12 : ’93And his disciples came and took up the body, and buried it, and went and told Jesus.’94

An outrageous assassination had just taken place. To appease a revengeful woman, Herod had ordered the death of that noble, self-sacrificing evangelist, John the Baptist. The disciples were in great trouble. There was no court to which they could make appeal. But grief must have utterance, and if there be no sympathetic ear to hear it, then it must be cried aloud to the winds, and the woods, and the waters. But there was an ear ready to listen. What beauty of pathos and what wonderful picture in the words of my text, they ’93went and told Jesus’94! He was ready to listen, and he was ready to assuage their grief.

We see Christ standing, his own face shadowed with his own sorrow, surrounded by a group of disciples in violent gesticulation, with many tears and with great outcry of woe. Raphael, with skilful hand putting upon the wall of a palace a picture of Bible story, was not so skilful as the plain hand of the evangelist, as he puts upon canvas the sketch of the text, they ’93went and told Jesus.’94

The Goths and the Vandals came down from the north of Europe and upset the gardens, and broke down the altars, and swept away everything that was good and beautiful; and ever and anon in the lives of men there are rough-handed despoilers, crusaders who come down to despoil and plunder, and to ransack the soul. No cavern is so deeply cleft in the mountain as to allow you shelter from trouble. The foot of the fleetest courser is not swift enough to bear you beyond pursuit. The arrows brought to the string fly with unerring dart, and often you have fallen pierced and stunned.

Now, I bring you a catholicon for all your troubles. I am going to gather all your griefs’97I do not care what they are’97I am going to gather all your griefs into a bundle and set them on fire with a spark from God’92s altar. The prescription of the text, which healed the sorrow of the disciples, is just as successful a prescription today, and will heal all your sorrows.

In the first place, I commend the behavior of the disciples in the text to all who feel themselves sinful and unpardoned. There comes a time in every man’92s life when he wakes up to an appreciation of a sinful nature. The thought may not have enough heft to fell him’97it may only be like the flash of a cloud at the close of a hot summer day’97but the man must somehow get rid of that feeling. One man flies to prayer, another man stimulates himself with ardent spirits, another man dives deeper into secularities. It is not wonderful when a man sees his eternity poised on an uncertainty, that he is determined to do something violent and immediate. Now, can it be that there is among us one man who is unwilling to have the cancer of sin taken from his soul, when the Divine Surgeon is ready to do the work, and do it successfully? I cannot believe it.

I think the first thing for you to do if you are oppressed with a sense of your sinfulness, is to go and tell Jesus. Why, that is the business of Christ. He does other things, but I think the great business of Christ is to pardon. To relax the grip of death from your soul, and to plant your unshackled foot on a golden throne, Christ allowed the tortures of the bloody mount to transfix him. With the beam of his own cross, he will this morning crush in the door of your dungeon. Out of his own thorny crown, he will pick enough gems to make your brow blaze with eternal victory. In every tear of his wet cheek, in every gash of his wounded side, in every long and blackened mark of laceration from shoulder to shoulder, in the grave-shattering, heaven-storming death cry, I hear the words’97’94Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.’94 Oh, what a glorious Gospel! What a Gospel to preach! What a Gospel to hear! ’93Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.’94

’93Oh,’94 says some man, ’93Why, then, you propose to cure the wound of sin by making another wound’97the wound of conviction.’94 Why, my brother, that is what every physician does of all schools. The physicians, when they find an old rankling wound, they come with caustic, and they burn it out, and then health and restoration come. Here is the old sore of sin, and God comes by his convicting grace, and he burns it out, and the flesh comes again as the flesh of a little child. Well, there is not a man among us who is not ready to have that process go on in his soul. He says: ’93That’92s reasonable, that’92s right, that’92s just what I would suppose, and I mean to have that process in my soul.’94 When, my brother, when? ’93Oh,’94 you say, ’93Some time!’94 Well, I cannot afford to have you put off the subject in that way, and you cannot afford to put it off in that way. I want to know just when.

I have heard that Alfred, the king, before the invention of timepieces, used to measure the day by three wax candles. Each wax candle would burn eight hours, so that when one candle was consumed eight hours were gone; two wax candles, sixteen hours were gone; and when the third wax candle had been consumed, then the twenty-four hours’97the whole day’97was gone. Oh, I wish instead of measuring our days and nights and years on earth by a timepiece we would measure time by mercies and opportunities, which are burning down and burning out, never to be relighted, lest we wake up with the discomfiture of the foolish virgins, and cry, ’93Our lamps are gone out!’94

But, in the second place, I commend that behavior of these disciples in the text to all the tempted. I have heard people say they were never tempted’97people who have come to mid-life that never have been tempted. Oh, my friends, it is because they have never tried to do right! If a man be handcuffed and hobbled, and he lie quiet, he does not test the power of the chain or the manacle; but let him once try to rise up and break off the handcuffs and the shackles, then he finds out the power of the chain. If you do not know the power of temptation, it is because you are bound hand and foot of sin, and have never made the attempt to be emancipated.

It is easy enough to go down stream in a boat. You can lie upon your oars. You go just as the tide goes. But suppose you turn around and head up stream, then it is not so easy making progress. As long as you go down with the tide of sin and iniquity it is easy enough to go that way; but when you turn around and head toward God and heaven, then it is a struggle’97an awful struggle.

Can it be that you have never tested the power of temptation? You have one kind of temptation; you, another; you, another. There is not a person who has not been tempted, whether you realize it or not. I never like to hear a man say, ’93Oh, I couldn’92t be tempted the way that man is!’94 He could not be tempted the way you are. A lion cannot understand why a fish should be caught with a hook, and the fish cannot understand why the lion should be caught with a trap. You may be free from certain kinds of temptation, but there are other kinds after you. You see some men with a phlegmatic temperament. ’93Why,’94 you say, ’93that man hasn’92t any temptations at all.’94 You mistake him. He has temptations to indolence, to censoriousness, to sink down into mere latitude and longitude of fattiness, to lie down on the road of life, to stop great enterprises. He has just as many temptations in one direction as you, being of a nervous and excitable temperament, have temptations in another direction.

You will see some aged man arise in a prayer-meeting, and at eighty years of age he talks so sweetly of Christ and heaven, you say, ’93That man has lived without temptation.’94 Ask him. He has as many temptations at eighty years of age as he had at twenty. They are only different styles of temptation. Ask that aged man whether he has lived beyond the reach of the powers of darkness in this world, and he will say it has been a conflict all the way through.

Sixtus was a cardinal, and he wanted the pontifical chair, and history says he pretended to be sick and crippled. He, said: ’93Now, if you elect me to that chair, I shall occupy it, and I shall not live long anyhow, and then you will put some one else in the chair.’94 He was elected to that position. He moved to it on crutches. Getting to the chair he threw aside the crutches. He said: ’93While I was hunting for the keys of St. Peter, it was appropriate I stooped; but having found the keys of St. Peter, there is no reason why I should stoop any longer.’94 So his crutches were gone, and he was well. Oh, how suggestive of temptation! It seems at one time to be wan, and weak, and crippled, but give it a throne, and it becomes a tyrant to grind your soul into ruin.

Well, you say: ’93All persons being tempted, what are we to do when we are assailed of temptation? When the wave dashes against us is there nothing to hold on to? Is a man to go into this war with the world, the flesh, and the devil with no help?’94 I will tell you; the wisest thing for you to do in the day of temptation is, like these disciples of my text, to go and tell Jesus. In the eyes that wept with the Bethany sisters I see shining hope. In that voice that broke the silence of the tomb until the widow of Nain got back her son, and stupendous sorrow made up in the arms of rapture’97aye, in that voice I hear the command and the promise: ’93Cast thy burden on the Lord, and he will sustain thee.’94 He knows all about temptation. Tempted in all points like as we are. Go and tell Jesus.

Again, I commend this behavior of the disciples in my text to all those who are slandered and abused and persecuted. When these disciples saw that Herod had taken the head of John the Baptist they knew their own heads were not safe. Every John has his Herod. There are people that do not think overmuch of you. Your misfortunes would be honeycomb to them. They hiss at you through their teeth, and misinterpret your actions, and would be glad to see you upset. They would be the most submissive mourners in your funeral procession.

Every one comes during the course of life to be pommelled. Some slander comes at you, horned and tusked and hoofed, to trample and to gore you, and you think you are peculiar in that respect. No. ’93All who live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution.’94 If you are able this morning to say, ’93I haven’92t an enemy in all the world,’94 it is proof positive you have not done your duty; for when a man does his duty he challenges all earth and hell, and that challenge will bring against him opposition, and scorn, and persecution. It is so in all circles of life.

One would have thought that if any man ought to have been free from persecution it was George Whitefield, bringing great masses of the people into the kingdom of God, wearing himself out for Christ’92s sake; and yet the learned Dr. Johnson called him a mountebank. Robert Hall preached about the glories of heaven as no uninspired man ever preached about them, and it was said when he preached about heaven his face shone like an angel’92s, and yet good Christian John Foster writes of Robert Hall, saying: ’93Robert Hall is a mere actor, and when he talks about heaven the smile on his face is the reflection of his own vanity.’94 John Wesley stirred all England with reform, and yet he was caricatured by all the small wits of his day. He was pictorialized, history says, on the board fences of London, and everywhere he was the target for the punsters; yet John Wesley stands today before all Christendom, his name mightier than any other except ’93the name that is above every other name’94’97the name of Christ. And can you expect to escape hardship, and assault, and abuse, and slander? You will not.

But what are you to do when you are lied about and assaulted? Are you going to hunt up the slander? While you are explaining one falsehood, there will be fifty people who have just that moment heard of that particular falsehood. While you are not to omit every opportunity of setting yourself right, I want to tell you of one who had the hardest things said about him, whose sobriety was disputed, whose mission was scoffed, whose companionship was denounced, who was pursued as a babe, spat on as a man, and howled a after he was dead. Go to him with all the wounds of your soul.

Do not go around trying to crush this falsehood, and to crush that slander; you will only come out of the contest irritated and exasperated; but take the counsel of the text. Do as these disciples of the text did’97go and tell Jesus. Go into his presence and say ’93Lord, I see thy wounds, the wounds of thy head, the wounds of thy feet, the wounds of thy hand, the wounds of thy side, and by thine own wounds I ask thee to pity mine.’94 Try no longer to carry that burden. Oh, abused soul, go and tell Jesus!

Again, I commend the behavior of these disciples to the bereaved. How many signals of mourning do I behold among you! God has his own way of breaking up the family. The emigration from this world to the next is so vast an enterprise that God only can conduct it. That emigration from earth to eternity keeps three-fourths of the families of the world in desolation. The child that lay near the mother’92s heart is taken to lie in the cold and in the darkness. The laughter freezes to the girl’92s lip, and the rose scatters. The boy comes in from the harvest-fields of Shunem, saying: ’93My head, my head!’94 and dies on the lap of his mother. Widowhood stands with tragedy of woe struck into the pallor of the cheek, and orphanage cries in vain for father and for mother.

Sometimes when we nave sorrow our friends come in, and they try to sympathize with us to a certain extent; but they cannot understand all the grief. They do as well as they can, but they cannot understand it altogether. But, blessed be God! Christ knows. He has been all through the trouble, and all around about it. He has counted the tears, and counted the groans, and before the tears started and before the groans began he saw the hiding-place of the sorrow. Bone of our bone. Flesh of our flesh. Heart of our heart. Sorrow of our sorrow. As long as he remembers Lazarus’92 tomb, he will stand beside us in the cemetery. As long as he remembers his own heart-breaks, he will stand with you in the laceration of your affections. When he forgets his footsore way, and his lonely nights, and his weary mind, and his exhausted body, and his awful cross, and his solemn grave, then will he forget you; but not until then.

Sometimes when we have trouble our friends are far away from us. We write a letter, saying: ’93Come right away,’94 or we telegraph to them, saying: ’93Take the next train; come immediately’94; but it may take hours, it may take days before they reach us in our trouble. But I have to tell you now of one who is near to help, ever near, near before you, behind you, within you, nearer than the staff on which you lean, nearer than the cup you press to your lips, nearer than the handkerchief with which you wipe away the tears. I preach him, an ever-present Jesus. Sometimes when we have trouble our friends come, and they do all they can for us; but they cannot relieve all the trouble, they cannot disentangle our finances, they cannot cure our sick, they cannot raise our dead.

Blessed be God! the one to whom these disciples went has all power in heaven and on earth, and he will, at just the right time, balk our calamities; and at just the right time, in the presence of an applauding earth and a resounding heaven, will raise our dead. I preach him, an almighty Christ! The last sword will leap from the scabbard of omnipotence, and the last resource of infinite God be exhausted, before God will allow one of his children to cry for comfort and not get it.

I heard of a child who went to sea with her father, a sea captain, and when the first storm came in the midnight, the little child awakened and rushed out in a great fright, and cried: ’93Where’92s father? Where’92s father?’94 Then they told her the father was on deck, and that he was guiding the ship, and he was watching the storm, and she said: ’93Well, if father’92s on deck, then I’92ll go to sleep.’94 So she went to sleep. Oh, ye who are tossed in the storms of this life, I want to tell you the Lord is guiding the ship; your Father is on deck, and he will bring you through into the harbor! Oh, ye whose cheeks are wet with the night dew of the grave, ye whose hearts are tried with a sirocco, in the name of a religion which can wipe every tear, and lift every burden, and deliver every captive, and illumine every darkness, I implore you, go and tell Jesus! If you will not, if you try to carry your sins and your burden yourself, I tell you, my brother, plainly, your life will be a failure, your death will be disaster, and eternity a calamity; but if you will go to Christ with all your sins and all your sorrows today, your foot will strike the upward path, and the shining messengers who tell above what is done here will make the arches of God resound with the tidings that you have gone to tell Jesus.

Well, I look around, and I wonder whether you will carry your own burdens, whether you are going to be so foolhardy as to take the consequences of your own sin, when there is a balm, a balsam, for all wounds, and pardon for all transgressions. Soon you will be gone, and gone forever. You remember how Xerxes felt when he looked at his army’97two million men’97perhaps the greatest army ever marshaled. Xerxes rode along that army and reviewed it. Two million men! And after he had reviewed the troops he came to a hill, and he looked off upon the great host, and he burst into tears. One of his staff-officers expressed surprise that at a time when he ought to be full of exultation and triumph he should weep, and asked him why he wept: ’93Oh,’94 he said, ’93I weep because so soon all this host will be gone!’94 And so I look off among you, and I realize that soon you will all be gone’97gone from the church, gone from the home circle, gone from business circles, and gone forever. Whither? Whither?

’91Tis not for man to trifle;

Life is brief and sin is here:

Our age is but a falling leaf,

A dropping tear.

Not many lives, but only one have we’97

One, only one.

How sacred should that one life be,

That narrow span!

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage