022. Struggle and Victory

Struggle and Victory

(Preached After a Domestic Bereavement.)

Gen_32:26 : ’93Let me go, for the day breaketh.’94

The dust is rising from a traveling herd of cattle and sheep and goats and camels. They are the present which Jacob is sending to appease the anger of his offended brother. That night Jacob halts by the brook Jabbok. No rest for the weary man, no shining ladder to let the angels down into his dream; but a fierce combat until the morning with an unknown contestant. The two’97Jacob and the stranger’97seize each other, each trying to throw to the ground the other. The stranger, to show his superior power touches Jacob, and the thigh-bone springs from the socket, and Jacob goes limping and a cripple all his days. As on the morning sky the clusters of purple cloud begin to ripen, Jacob finds out it is an angel with whom he has been wrestling, and not one of his brother’92s coadjutors. As the angel stretches himself up into the rising morn, he cries out, ’93Let me go, the day breaketh!’94

First of all, I learn from my subject that God lets His children go into terrific struggle. Jacob loved God; God loved him; but there Jacob is left alone in the midnight by the brook Jabbok to struggle with this mighty influence. So all the way down through the ages. For Joseph, a pit; for Daniel, a wild beast’92s den; for David, dethronement and exile; for Peter, a prison; for Paul, a shipwreck; for John, desolate Patmos; for Vashti, insulting cruelty; for Josephine, banishment; for Mr. Burns, the outrage of the Montreal populace; for Catherine, the Scotch martyr, the drowning surges of the sea; for John Brown, of Edinburgh, the pistol-shot of Lord Claverhouse; for McKail, a scaffold; for Hugh Latimer, a stake; for Christ, a cross.

Some one said to a Christian reformer, ’93The world is against you,’94 and the Christian reformer replied, ’93Then I am against the world.’94 So it has been a struggle all the way through the ages. But why need I go to those memorable instances, when I can come into the life of a thousand persons in this house today and find illustration of the truth of what I am now proclaiming? You have found life a wrestling’97a midnight wrestling by the brook Jabbok. This man found the struggle in Wall street, this one in Broad street, this in Atlantic street, this one in Fulton street, this one in Chestnut street. What you bought you could not sell. He whom you trusted fled. Help you expected did not come. Some great financial trouble with long arms and grip like death, took hold of you and tried to throw you into the dust. It was midnight wrestling by the brook Jabbok. It has been all the way up to this time a question as to whether you would throw it, or it would throw you.

Here is some one else who has had a wrestling with evil appetite. It came stealthily upon him. He did not know the force of that appetite until he began to resist it; but some day he woke up and said, ’93Now, for God’92s sake, and for the sake of my soul, and for the sake of my wife and children, I must stop this.’94 O what an hour that was! What a solemn hour it is when a bad appetite rises up determined to destroy a man, and a man rises up and swears in the strength of the eternal God that he will destroy it. Then the angels of light look down in sympathy, then the angels of darkness look up in spite. O what an hour it is, and how many a man, biting his lip until the blood came, and with scalding tears, cried out by the brook Jabbok in the midnight, ’93God help me!’94 I have seen a man in that contest completely flung, completely wrestled down into the dust. Without any appeal to God for help, and depending on his own force of resolution, he went into the combat, and he fought well for a while. It seemed as if he was going by sheer force of earthly resolution to throw the bad habit, and he struck strongly, and he struck decisively, it seemed for a while; but his arm got weaker and weaker and weaker until it fell palsied by his side. First of all, I saw the auctioneer’92s mallet come down on the pictures, then on the musical instruments, then on the fine upholstery of the parlor. Then I saw him drop into the ditch. Then I saw him shrink away from all kindly associations; I saw him fall away from the house of God, where he had been an ornament’97I saw him fall away, and fall away forever. He was contending with his own right arm, and the evil habit threw him.

Blessed be God, I have seen the other result’97a result just opposite to that which I have been depicting. The evil habit came on regaled with cups of dissipation, and the two grappled’97the giant of habit and the man who wished to be disenthralled’97they clinched, they struggled. The giant of evil habit began to waver. It became weaker and weaker, and it fell, and when the triumphant wrestler put his heel on the neck of the overthrown habit, the shout was heard, ’93Thanks be unto God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.’94 It was a midnight wrestle by the brook Jabbok, and it was a triumph, as it will be for every man who puts his trust in the Lord and does his best.

Elsewhere I saw a struggle going on, and the sorrows of widowhood came, the sorrows of struggling for a livelihood. It is a sad thing to see a man contending for a livelihood amid many disadvantages; but to see a delicate woman with a group of helpless little ones at her back, fighting the giant of poverty’97that is a scene overwhelming to any sympathetic heart. People passed by. They saw it was only an humble home, but they did not know that between the four walls of that plain house there was a courage greater than Hannibal scaling the Alps, greater than was seen in the pass of Thermopylae, greater than when at Balaklava ’93into the jaws of death rode the six hundred.’94 She fought for bread, she fought for shelter, she fought for clothing, she fought with aching head and weak side and exhausted strength. Midnight struggle by the brook Jabbok. Perhaps she said, ’93Hath the Lord forgotten to be gracious? Must I fight this battle alone?’94 No, no; in the darkness of that midnight, and in the sough of the wind and in the ripple of the brook Jabbok were heard the words, ’93Thy fatherless children I will preserve them alive, and let thy widows trust in me.’94 Victory again by the brook Jabbok. Midnight wrestle again triumphant. A weak woman’92s arm infused with the strength of the Lord God Omnipotent. So the struggle has gone on, and O how many have had it! Blessed are all those who put their trust in this God; they shall never be put to confusion. You must have struggle, and you will have victory.

I learn again from this subject that often God’92s people are trying to throw down their best blessing. Jacob thought it was an enemy he was fighting with that night. Oh, no! it was an angel of mercy that had come to promise a blessing to him and to his children afterward. So it has been with you and with me. How many times we have tried to throw down our greatest blessing. Your great misfortunes in life have turned out to be your greatest advantage. Come, now, be frank, and tell me, is it not true that through the sorrows of life you have come to the highest Christian experience? What were you before you lost that child? What were you before that great financial calamity came? All wrapped up in this world. But I think if you would calmly today sit down and count the things that have turned out to your greatest advantage, you would find out they were those things that you thought were sent for your destruction. It was a midnight wrestle by the brook Jabbok with something you wanted to put down, but God had sent an angel of mercy to your soul. David, pursued into the wilderness by his recreant son, becomes the sweet singer of Israel. Through scourging and shipwreck and imprisonment, Paul comes to be the great apostle. The hurricane that struck the house where Job’92s children were banqueting, and slew the children, turned out with other misfortunes to make Job write that magnificent poem which has been the astonishment of the ages.

I know of no way of getting the wheat out. of the straw except by threshing it. I know of no way of purifying the gold except by putting it in the crucible. Go among these men and women who have accomplished most for God’97go anywhere, and you will find they have had the baptism of tears. There is something beautiful about baptism on sacramental day, when the water is sprinkled on the face of the child; but there is a more solemn baptism than that, and that is the baptism of tears. Just look at the consolation which comes to God’92s children. See how often those things which seem to have been full of disaster turned out to be full of blessing. See the difference between the experience of those who trust in this world and those who trust in God.

Rossini, after he had played ’93William Tell,’94 the five hundredth time, was serenaded by a band of musicians. Then they came up and gave him a golden crown of laurel leaves, and put it upon his brow, and while he was in that great triumph he said to a friend aside, ’93I would give all this brilliant scene’97all this brilliant scene for one hour of love and joy and comfort.’94 Compare that man, amid all his artistic triumphs, his melancholy, with the feeling of Isaac Watts, sick again and again with dire sicknesses, tired and annoyed and persecuted and perplexed, yet writing this as his experience:

The hill of Zion yields

A thousand sacred sweets,

Before we reach the heavenly fields,

Or walk the golden streets.

Then let our songs abound,

And every tear be dry;

We’92re marching through Emanuel’92s ground,

To fairer worlds on high.

Oh, it is prosperity that kills, and it is trouble that saves. As long as the Israelites were half starved in the wilderness, and going from hardship to hardship, they behaved quite well; but after a while they wanted meat, and the Lord sent a great flock of quails that darkened the sky, until they fell all around about the encampment; and they took of these quails, and ate and ate and stuffed themselves until they died. Hardship they endured; the prosperity destroyed them. It is not the vulture of trouble that eats out the life of the soul; it is the quails, it is the quails. Ah! do not fret about your misfortunes and about your trials, and do not fight against God, do not be rebellious against painful providences. You are trying to wrestle down an angel of mercy; you are trying to overthrow that which came for your blessing. Behold Jacob in the midnight by the brook Jabbok.

My subject also impresses me with the fact that while we may triumph over our troubles, they leave their marks on us. Jacob prevailed against this angel; but the angel touched him, lamed him for life, and he went limping on his way. What so prematurely ploughed those wrinkles on your face? Why has your hair become gray before it was time for frost? What has hushed the hilarity in your dwelling? You have been trouble-touched. Are we stoics that we can see our cradle rifled of the bright eyes and the sweet lips? Must we stand unmoved and see the garden of our earthly delight uprooted? Will Jesus, who wept Himself, be angry with us if we weep over a grave that swallows what we love best? Oh, no! We must weep. You shall not drive back the tears to scald the heart. Thank God for the strange and mysterious relief that comes in tears. Under this gentle rain the flowers of comfort put forth their bloom. God pity the dry, the withered, the parched, the all-consuming grief which wrings its hands and grinds its teeth and bites the nails into the quick, but cannot weep. Jesus wept. Blessed be God that there is comfort for all our sorrows, and that there is comfort in tears; but do not blame those who do not come out of their despondency very quickly; do not chide them because they are not as gay as once they were. Do not think it is because they are weak. They have been trouble-touched.

My subject also kindles with a great joy when it prophesies the dawn. No one ever wanted to see the morning more than Jacob did. And what an announcement! ’93The day breaketh!’94 What a cry for all philanthropists and for all Christians. The world is brightening. The Church of God has just been planting its batteries. It is going forth ’93fair as the moon, clear as the sun, terrible as an army with banners.’94 It is a mighty Church, and it is to become the Church universal. It is to bring all nations under its sway. ’93The day breaketh! The day breaketh!’94

The bigotries of the earth are falling. Some of us remember when we thought that if a man would get to heaven he must believe in the perseverance of the saints, or in their falling away from grace; that he must be an Arminian or a Calvinist; that he must believe in liturgy or no liturgy. Those times have passed, and we have come to believe that if a man loves the Lord Jesus Christ, and trusts Him, he will get to heaven without any doubt at all, whatever else he does believe or does not believe.

I, one Sabbath during the summer vacation, went into a Presbyterian church, and it was communion day, and I took the sacrament and my soul was strengthened. The very next Sabbath I was in a Methodist church, and I sat at the love-feast and my soul was strengthened. The very next Sabbath I was at Sharon Springs, New York, in an Episcopal church, and when the invitation was given to those who desired to take the sacrament to kneel at the altar, I knelt, and I cannot tell which communion service was the most helpful to my soul. I could not tell then; I cannot tell now. ’93I believe in the communion of saints, and the forgiveness of sins, and the life everlasting. Amen.’94 The bigotries of the earth are giving way before the doctrine of Christian brotherhood. ’93The day breaketh! The day breaketh!’94

I look off upon this audience this morning, and I see many who are going down into the waves of trouble that have come clear above the girdle. I want to tell you of the cessation of hostilities. God is going to let you free after a while. The grave will break, the dead will rise. The morning star trembles on the brightening sky. The gates of the east are swinging open. ’93The day breaketh!’94 When Philip Melancthon and Martin Luther sat down in discouragement and talked over the gloomy state of the Church, they got more and more gloomy; but after a while Martin Luther got up and said to Philip Melancthon, ’93Come, Philip, let us sing the forty-sixth psalm: ’91God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea: though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.’92’93

When we go out of this world our departure may be a struggle. We have a great many good friends here whom we will be sorry to leave’97friends with whom we played in childhood or counseled with in manhood. The lattice may be turned to keep out the sun, or a book may be set to dim the light of the midnight taper, or the house may be filled with the cries of widowhood and orphanage, or the Church of God may mourn our departure; but if Jesus calls, all will be well. It will never be told that in the last hour we cried for help and could not get it. The hours of the night of death will go by. It will be one o’92clock in the morning, two o’92clock in the morning, three o’92clock in the morning, four o’92clock in the morning, five o’92clock in the morning. ’93The day breaketh!’94 So I would have it when I die. I am in no haste to be gone. I have no grudge against this world. It is a very bright world to me. The only fault I have to find with it is it treats me too well. But when it is time for me to go, I want to be ready’97 my worldly affairs all settled. If I have wronged others, in that last hour I want to be sure of their forgiveness. If there are hands stretched out from this world to hold me back, there will be hands stretched out from the other world to draw me on. Then, Lord Jesus, help me on and help me up. Unfearing and undoubting, may I step right out into the light and be able to look back to friends and kindred who would detain me, saying, ’93Let me go, let me go, the day breaketh!’94

Since I last stood here the waves have gone over us. Have you lost a child? Then you understand the grief? Have you not lost one? You cannot understand it. I would not dare to trust myself very far in this reference or allusion. I only make reference to it that I may thank you for your deep, wide, magnificent sympathies. First of all, God helped us, and next you. When, last Sabbath afternoon, we were riding to Greenwood, I said, ’93I cannot understand this composure which I feel, and this strange peace;’94 and it was suggested then and there: ’93There is a vast multitude of people praying for us.’94 That solved it. Again I thank you. God bless you all in your persons and in your homes. I gave that one to God in holy baptism just after his birth, and God has only taken that which was His own. I stand here today to testify of the comforting grace of God. Religion is a tremendous reality. God will wipe away all tears from our eyes. There shall be no more sorrow or sighing: neither shall there be any more pain. ’93The day breaketh!’94

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage