535. The Saving Look

The Saving Look

Heb_12:2 : ’93Looking unto Jesus.’94

In the Christian life we must not go slipshod. This world was not made for us to rest in. In time of war you will find around the streets of some city, far from the scene of conflict, men in soldier’92s uniform, who have a right to be away. They obtained a furlough, and they are honestly and righteously off duty; but I have to tell you that in this Christian conflict, between the first moment when we enlist under the banner of Christ, and the last moment in which we shout the victory, there never will be a single instant in which we will have a right to be off duty. Paul throws all around this Christian life the excitements of the old Grecian games’97that sent a man on a race, with such a stretch of nerve and muscle that sometimes when he came up to the goal he dropped down exhausted. Indeed, history tells us that there were cases where men came up and had only strength just to grasp the goal and then fall dead. Now, says this apostle, making allusion to those very games, we are all to run the race, not to crawl it, not to walk it, but ’93run the race set before us, looking unto Jesus’94; and just as in the olden times, a man would stand at the end of the road with a beautiful garland that was to be put around the head or brow of the successful racer, so the Lord Jesus Christ stands at the end of the Christian race with the garland of eternal life, and may God grant that by his Holy Spirit we may so run as to obtain.

The distinguished Welliston, the chemist, was asked where his laboratory was, and the inquirers expected to be shown some large apartment filled with very expensive apparatus; but Welliston ordered his servant to bring on a tray a few glasses and a retort, and he said to the inquirers: ’93That is all my laboratory. I make all my experiments with those.’94 Now, I know that there are a great many who take a whole library to express their theology. They have so many theories on ten thousand things; but I have to say that all my theology is compassed in these three words: ’93Looking unto Jesus,’94 and when we can understand the height and the depth and the length and the breadth and the infinity and the immensity of that passage we understand all.

I remark, first, we must look to Christ as our personal Saviour. Now you know that man is only a blasted ruin of what he once was. Our body is wrong. How it is ransacked of disease! Our mind is wrong. How hard it is to remember, and how easy to forget! The whole nature disordered, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot’97wounds, bruises, putrefying sores. There is in Brazil a plant they call the ’93murderer,’94 for the simple reason that it is so poisonous it kills almost everything it touches. It begins to wind around the root of the tree, and coming up to the branches, reaches out to the ends of the branches, killing the tree as it goes along. When it has come to the tip end of the branch the tree is dead. Its seeds fall to the ground and start other plants just as murderous. And so it is with sin. It is a poisonous plant that was planted in our souls a long while ago, and it comes winding about the body and the mind and the soul, poisoning, poisoning, poisoning’97killing, killing, killing as it goes. Now, there would be no need of my discoursing upon this if there were no way of plucking out that plant. It is a most unfair thing for me to come to a man who is sick and enlarge upon his disease if I have no remedy to offer. But I have a right to come to a man in financial distress or physical distress if I have financial re-enforcement to offer or a sure cure to propose. Blessed be God that among the mountains of our sin there rolls and reverberates a song of salvation! Louder than all the voices of bondage is the trumpet of God’92s deliverance, sounding, ’93O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy help.’94 At the barred gates of our dungeon, the conqueror knocks, and the hinges creak and grind at the swinging open. The famine-struck pick up the manna that falls in the wilderness, and the floods clap their hands, saying, ’93Drink, oh thirsty soul, and live forever,’94 and the feet that were torn and deep-cut on the rocky bridle-path of sin now come into a smooth place, and the dry alders crackle as the panting hart breaks through to the water brooks, and the dark night of the soul begins to grow gray with the morning, yea to purple, yea to flame, from horizon to horizon. The batteries of temptation silenced. Troubles that fought against us captured and made to fight on our side. Not as a result of any toil or trouble on our part, but only as a result of ’93Looking unto Jesus.’94

’93But what do you mean by ’91Looking unto Jesus’92?’94 some one inquires. I mean faith. ’93What do mean by faith?’94 I mean believing. ’93What do you mean by believing?’94 I mean this: If you promise to do a certain thing for me, and I have confidence in your veracity’97if you say you will give me such a thing and I need it very much, I come in confidence that you are an honest man, and will do what you say. Now the Lord Jesus Christ says: ’93You are in need of pardon and life and heaven; you can have them if you come and get them.’94 You say: ’93I cannot come and ask first. I am afraid you will not give it to me.’94 Then you are unbelieving. But you say: ’93I will come and ask. I know, Lord Jesus, thou art in earnest about this matter. I come asking for pardon. Thou hast promised to give it to me, thou wilt give it to me, thou hast given it to me.’94 That is faith. Do you see it yet? ’93Oh,’94 says some one, ’93I cannot understand it.’94 No man ever did, without divine help. Faith is the gift of God. You say: ’93That throws the responsibility off my shoulders.’94 No. Faith is the gift of God, but it comes in answer to prayer.

All over glorious is my Lord,

He must be loved, and yet adored;

His worth if all the nations knew,

Sure the whole earth would love him, too.

I remark again that we must look to Jesus as an example. Now a mere copyist, you know, is always a failure. If a painter go to a portfolio or a gallery of art, however exquisite, to get his idea of the natural world from these pictures, he will not succeed as well as the artist who starts out and dashes the dew from the grass and sees the morning just as God built it in the clouds or poured it upon the mountain or kindled it upon the sea. People wondered why Turner, the famous English painter, succeeded so well in sketching a storm upon the ocean. It remained a wonder until it was found out that several times he had been lashed to the deck in the midst of a tempest and then looked out upon the wrath of the sea, and coming home to his studio, he pictured the tempest. It is not the copyist who succeeds, but the man who confronts the natural world. So if a man in literary composition resolves that he will imitate the smoothness of Addison or the rugged vigor of Carlyle or the weirdness of Spenser or the epigrammatic style of Ralph Waldo Emerson, he will not succeed as well as that man who cultivates his own natural style. What is true in this respect is true in respect to character. There were men who were fascinated with Lord Byron. He was lame, and wore a very large collar. Then there were tens of thousands of men who resolved that they would be just like Lord Byron, and they limped and wore large collars, but they did not have any of his genius. You cannot successfully copy a man, whether he is bad or good. You may take the very best man that ever lived and try to live like him, and you will make a failure. There never was a better man than Edward Payson. Many have read his biography, not understanding that he was a sick man, and they thought they were growing in grace because they were growing like him in depression of spirit. There were men to copy Cowper, the poet, a glorious man, but sometimes afflicted with melancholy almost to insanity. The copyists got Cowper’92s faults, but none of his virtues.

There never was but one being fit to copy. A few centuries ago he came out through humble surroundings, and with a gait and manner and behavior different from anything the world had seen. Among all classes of people he was a perfect model. Among fishermen, he showed how fishermen should act. Among tax-gatherers, he showed how tax-gatherers should act. Among lawyers, he showed how lawyers should act. Among farmers, he showed how farmers should act. Among rulers, he showed how rulers should act. Critics tried to find in his conversation or sermons something unwise or unkind or inaccurate; but they never found it. They watched him; oh, how they watched him! He never went into a house but they knew it, and they knew how long he stayed and when he came out and whether he had wine for dinner. Slander twisted her whips and wagged her poisoned tongue and set her traps, but could not catch him. Little children rushed out to get from him a kiss and old men tottered out to the street corner to see him pass. Do you want an illustration of devotion, behold him whole nights in prayer! Do you want an example of suffering, see his path across Palestine tracked with blood! Do you want an example of patience, see him abused and never giving one sharp retort! Do you want an example of industry, see him without one idle moment! Do you want a specimen of sacrifice, look at his life of self-denial, his death of ignominy, his sepulchre of humiliation. Oh, what an example! His feet wounded, yet he submitted to the journey. His back lacerated, and yet he carried the cross! Struck, he never struck back again! Condemned, yet he rose higher than his calumniators, and with wounds in his hands and wounds in his feet and wounds on his brow and wounds in his side, he ejaculated, ’93Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.’94 Ah, my brethren that is the pole star by which to set your compass, that the headland by which to steer, that is the light by which to kindle your lamps, that is the example that we ought all to follow. How it would smooth out the roughness in our disposition! and the world would be impressed by the transformation, and would say, ’93I know what is the matter with that man; he has been with Jesus and has learned of him.’94

Alexander was going along with his army in Persia, and the snow and the ice were so great that the army halted and said, ’93We can’92t march any further.’94 Then Alexander dismounted from his horse, took a pickax, went ahead of his army, and struck into the ice and snow. The soldiers said, ’93If he can do that, we can do it,’94 and they took their picks and soon the way was cleared and the army marched on. So our Lord dismounted from his glory and through all icy obstacles hews a path for himself and a path for us, saying: ’93Follow me! I do not ask you to go through any suffering or fight any battles where I do not lead the way! Follow me!’94

Again I remark, that we are to look to Christ as a sympathizer. Is there anybody who does not want sympathy? I do not know how anybody can live without sympathy. There are those, however, who have gone through very rough paths in life who had no divine arm to lean on. How they got along I do not exactly know. Their fortunes took wings in some unfortunate investment and flew away. The bank failed, and they buttoned up a penniless pocket. Ruthless speculators carried off the fragments of an estate they were twenty-five years in getting with hard work. How did they stand it without Christ? Death came into the nursery and there was an empty crib. One voice less in the household. One fountain less of joy and laughter. Two hands less busy all day long in sport. Two feet less to go bounding and romping through the hall. Two eyes less to beam with love and gladness. Through all that house shadow after shadow, shadow after shadow, until it was midnight. How did they get through it? I do not know. They trudged the great Sahara with no water in the goat skins. They plunged to their chin in the slough of despond and had no one to lift them. In an unseaworthy craft they put out into a black Euroclydon.

My brother, my sister, there is a balm that cures the worst wound. There is a light that will kindle up the worst darkness. There is a harbor from the roughest ocean. You need and may have the Saviour’92s sympathy. You cannot get on this way. I see your trouble is wearing you out, body and mind and soul. I come with a balm that can heal any wound. Are you sick? Jesus was sick. Are you weary? Jesus was weary. Are you persecuted? Jesus was persecuted. Are you bereaved? Did not Jesus weep over Lazarus? Oh, yes, like a roe on the mountains of Bether, Jesus comes bounding to your soul today. There is one passage of Scripture every word of which is a heart throb: ’93Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’94 Then there is another passage just as good: ’93Cast thy burden on the Lord, and he will sustain thee.’94 There are green pastures where the heavenly Shepherd leads the wounded and sick of the flock. The Son of God stands by the tomb of Lazarus, and will gloriously break it open at the right time. Gennesaret cannot toss its waves so high that Christ cannot walk them. The cruse of oil will multiply into an illimitable supply. After the orchard seems to have been robbed of all its fruit, the Lord has one tree left, full of golden and ripe supply. The requiem may wail with gloom and with death; but there cometh after a while a song, a chant, an anthem, a battle march, a jubilee, a coronation.

Again, we must look to Christ as our final rescue. We cannot with these eyes, however good our sight may be, catch a glimpse of the heavenly land for which our souls long. But I have no more doubt that beyond the cold river there is a place of glory and of rest, than we have that across the Atlantic Ocean there is another continent. But the heavenly land and this land stand in mighty contrast. These shallow streams of earth which a thirsty ox might drink dry or a mule’92s hoof trample into mire, compared with the bright, crystalline river from under the throne, on the banks of which river the armies of heaven may rest, and into whose clear flood the trees of life dip their branches. These instruments of earthly music, so easily racked into discord, compared with the harps that thrill with eternal raptures, and the trumpets that are so musical that they wake the dead. These streets along which we go panting in summer heat or shivering in winter’92s cold and the poor man carries his burden and the vagrant asks for alms and along which shuffle the feet of pain and want and woe, compared with those streets that sound forever with the feet of joy and holiness, and those walls made out of all manner of precious stones, the light intershot with reflections from jasper and chrysolite and topaz and sardonyx and beryl and emerald and chrysoprasus.

What a contrast between this world, where we struggle with temptation that will not be conquered, and that world, where it is perfect joy, perfect holiness, and perfect rest! When the plainest Christian pilgrim arrives at the heavenly gate it opens to him, and as the angels come down to escort him in, they spread the banquet and they keep festival over the august arrival and Jesus comes with a crown and says, ’93Wear this,’94 and with a palm and says, ’93Wave this,’94 and points to a throne and says, ’93Mount this.’94 Then the old citizens of heaven come around to hear the newcomer’92s recital of deliverance wrought for him, and as the newly-arrived soul tells of the grace that pardoned and the mercy that saved him, all the inhabitants shout the honor of the King, crying, ’93Praise him! Praise him!’94

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage