424. Common Sense in Religion
Common Sense in Religion
Luk_16:8 : ’93The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.’94
That is another way of saying that Christians are not so skillful in the manipulation of spiritual affairs as worldlings are skillful in the management of temporalities. I see all around me people who are alert, earnest, concentrated, and skillful in monetary matters, who in the affairs of the soul are laggards, inane, inert. The great want of the world is more common sense in matters of religion. If one-half of the skill and forcefulness employed in financial affairs were employed in disseminating the truths of Christ, and trying to make the world better, within ten years the last Juggernaut would fall, the last throne of oppression upset, the last iniquity tumble, and the anthem that was chanted over Bethlehem on Christmas night would be echoed and re-echoed from all nations and kindred and people: ’93Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will to men.’94
Some years ago, on a train going toward the Southwest, as the porter of the sleeping-car was making up the berths at the evening-tide, I saw a man kneel down to pray. Worldly people in the car looked on, as much as to say, ’93What does this mean?’94 I suppose the most of the people in the car thought that man was either insane or that he was a fanatic; but he disturbed no one when he knelt, and he disturbed no one when he arose. In after conversation with him I found out that he was a member of a church in this city, that he was a seafaring man, and that he was on his way to New Orleans to take command of a vessel. I thought then, as I think now, that ten such men’97men with such courage for God as that man had’97ten such men would bring the whole city to Christ; a thousand such men would bring this whole land to God; ten thousand such men, in a short time, would bring the whole earth into the kingdom of Jesus. That he was successful in worldly affairs, I found not. That he was skillful in spiritual affairs, you are well persuaded. If men had the courage, the pluck, the alertness, the acumen, the industry, the common sense in matters of the soul, that they have in matters of the world, this would be a very different kind of earth in which to live.
In the first place, my friends, we want more common sense in the building and conduct of churches. The idea that adaptiveness is always paramount in any other kind of structure. If bankers meet together and they resolve upon putting up a bank, the bank is especially adapted to banking purposes; if a manufacturing company put up a building, it is to be adapted to manufacturing purposes; but adaptiveness is not always the question in the rearing of churches. In many of our churches we want more light, more room, more ventilation, more comfort. Vast sums of money are expended on ecclesiastical structures, and men sit down in them, and you ask a man how he likes the church; he says, ’93I like it very well, but I can’92t hear.’94 As though a shawl factory were good for everything but making shawls. The voice of the preacher dashes against the pillars. Men sit down under the shadows of the Gothic arches, and shiver, and feel they must be getting religion, or something else, they feel so uncomfortable.
O my friends! we want more common sense in the rearing of churches. There is no excuse for lack of light when the heavens are full of it, no excuse for lack of fresh air when the world swims in it. It ought to be an expression, not only of our spiritual happiness, but of our physical comfort, when we say: ’93How amiable are Thy tabernacles, O Lord God of hosts! A day in Thy courts is better than a thousand.’94
Again I remark: We want more common sense in the obtaining of religious hope. All men understand that in order to succeed in worldly directions they must concentrate. They think on that one subject until their mind takes fire with the velocity of their own thoughts. All their acumen, all their strategy, all their wisdom, all their common sense, they put in that one direction, and they succeed. But how seldom it is true in the matter of seeking after God! While no man expects to accomplish anything for this world without concentration and enthusiasm, how many there are expecting after a while to get into the kingdom of God without the use of any such means.
A miller in California, many years ago, picked up a sparkle of gold from the bed of a stream which turned his mill. He held up that sparkle of gold until it bewitched nations. Tens of thousands of people left their homes. They took their blankets, and their pickaxes, and their pistols, and went to the wilds of California. Cities sprang up suddenly on the Pacific coast. Merchants put aside their elegant apparel, and put on the miner’92s garb. All the land was full of the talk about gold. Gold in the eyes, gold in the ears, gold in the wake of ships, gold in the streets’97gold, gold, gold. Word comes to us that the mountain of God’92s love is full of gold; that men have been digging there, and have brought up gold, and amethyst, and carbuncle, and jasper, and sardonyx, and chrysoprasus, and all the precious stones out of which the walls of heaven were builded. Word comes of a man, who, digging in that mine for one hour, has brought up treasures worth more than all the stars that keep vigil over our sick and dying world.
Is it a bogus company that is formed? Is it undeveloped territory? Oh, no; the story is true. There are hundreds and thousands of people in the house who would be willing to rise and testify that they have discovered that gold, and have it in their possession. Notwithstanding all this, what is the circumstance? One would suppose that the announcement would send people in great excitement up and down our streets, that at midnight men would knock at your door asking how they may get those treasures. Instead of that, many of us put our hands behind our back, and walk up and down in front of the mine of eternal riches, and say: ’93Well, if I am to be saved, I will be saved; and if I am to be damned, I will be damned, and there is nothing to do about it.’94
Why, my brother, do you not do that way in business matters? Why do you not to-morrow go to your store and sit down and fold your arms, and say: ’93If these goods are to be sold, they will be sold; and if they are not to be sold, they will not be sold; there is nothing for me to do about it.’94 No, you dispatch your agents, you print your advertisements, you adorn your show-windows, you push those goods, you use the instrumentality. Oh, that men were as wise in the matter of the soul as they are wise in the matter of dollars and cents!
This doctrine of God’92s sovereignty, how it is misquoted and spoken of as though it were an iron chain which bound us hand and foot for time and for eternity, when, so far from that, in every fibre of your body, in every faculty of your mind, in every passion of your soul, you are a free man’97a free man, and it will no more to-morrow be a matter of choice whether you shall go to Boston or Philadelphia, or stay at home, than it is this morning a matter of free choice whether you will accept Christ or reject Him.
In all the army of banners there is not one conscript. Men are not to be dragooned into heaven. Among all the tens of thousands of the Lord’92s soldiery, there is not one man but will tell you, ’93I chose Christ; I wanted Him; I desired to be in His service; I am not a conscript’97I am a volunteer.’94 Oh, that man had the same common sense in the matters of religion that they have in the matters of the world’97the same concentration, the same push, the same enthusiasm! In the one case, a secular enthusiasm; in the other, a consecrated enthusiasm.
Again, I remark: We want more common sense in the building up and enlarging of our Christian character. There are men here who have for forty years been running the Christian race, and they have not run a quarter of a mile! No business man would be willing to have his investments unaccumulative. If you invest a dollar you expect that dollar to come home bringing another dollar on its back. What would you think of a man who should invest ten thousand dollars in a monetary institution, then go off for five years, make no inquiry in regard to the investment, then come back, step up to the cashier of the institution, and say, ’93Have you kept those ten thousand dollars safely that I have lodged with you?’94 but asking no questions about interest or about dividend? ’93Why,’94 you say, ’93that is not common sense.’94 Neither it is, but that is the way we act in matters of the soul. We make a far more important investment than ten thousand dollars. We invest our soul. Is it accumulative? Are we growing in grace? Are we getting better? Are we getting worse? God declares many dividends, but we do not collect them, we do not ask about them, we do not want them. Oh that in this matter of accumulation we were as wise in the matters of the soul as we are in the matters of the world!
How little common sense in the reading of the Scriptures! We get any other book, and we open it, and we say, ’93Now, what does this book mean to teach me? It is a book on astronomy; it will teach me astronomy. It is a book on political economy; it will teach me political economy.’94 Taking up the Bible, do we ask ourselves what it means to do? It means our conversion and eternal welfare. But instead of realizing this, we go into the Bible as botanists to pick flowers, or we go as pugilists to get something to fight other Christians with, or we go as logicians trying to sharpen our mental faculties for a better argument, and we do not like this about the Bible, and we do not like that, and we do not like the other thing. What would you think of a man lost on the mountains. Night has come down; he cannot find his way home, and he sees a light in a mountain cabin; he goes to it, he knocks at the door; the mountaineer comes out and finds the traveler and says, ’93Well, here I have a lantern; you can take it and it will guide you on the way home;’94 and suppose that man should say, ’93I don’92t like that lantern, I don’92t like the handle of it; there are ten or fifteen things about it I don’92t like; if you can’92t give me a better lantern than that I won’92t have any?’94 Now, God says this Bible is to be a lamp to our feet and a lantern to our path, to guide us through the midnight of this world to the gates of the celestial city. We stop and say we do not like this about it, and we do not like that, and we do not like the other thing. Oh, how much wiser we would be if by its holy light we found our way to our everlasting home!
Then we do not read the Bible as we read other books. We read it perhaps four or five minutes just before we retire at night. We are weary and sleepy, so somnolent we hardly know which end of the book is up. We drop our eye perhaps on the story of Samson and the foxes, or upon some genealogical table, important in its place, but stirring no more religious emotion than the announcement that somebody begat somebody else and he begat somebody else, instead of opening the Book and saying, ’93Now I must read for my immortal life. Heaven and hell are involved in this Book.’94
How little we use common sense in prayer! We say, ’93Oh, Lord, give me this,’94 and ’93Oh, Lord, give me that,’94 and ’93Oh, Lord, give me something else,’94 and we do not expect to get it, or, getting it, we do not know we have it. We have no anxiety about it. We do not watch and wait for its coming. As a merchant, you telegraph or you write to some other city for a bill of goods. You say, ’93Send them to me by such an express, or by such a steamer, or by such a rail train.’94 The day arrives. You send your wagon to the depot or to the wharf. The goods do not come. You immediately telegraph, ’93What is the matter with those goods? We have not received them. Send them right away. We want them now, or we do not want them at all.’94 And you keep writing, and you keep telegraphing, and keep sending your wagon to the depot, or to the express office, or to the wharf, until you get the goods. In matters of religion we are not so wise as that. We ask certain things to be sent from heaven. We do not know whether they come or not. We have not any special anxiety as to whether they come or not. We may get them and may not get them. Instead of at seven o’92clock in the morning saying, ’93Have I got that blessing?’94 at twelve o’92clock, noonday, asking, ’93Have I got that blessing?’94 at seven o’92clock in the evening saying, ’93Have I received that blessing?’94 and not getting it, pleading, pleading’97begging, begging’97asking, asking until you get it. Now, my brethren, is not that common sense? If we ask a thing from God, who has sworn by His eternal throne that He will do that which we ask, is it not common sense that we should watch and wait until we get it?
But I remark again: We want more common sense in doing good. Oh, how many people there are who want to do good, and they are dead failures! Why is it? They do not exercise the same tact, the same ingenuity, the same stratagem, the same common sense in the work of Christ that they do in worldly things. Otherwise they would succeed in this direction as well as they succeed in the other.
There are many men who have an arrogant way with them, although they may not feel arrogant in their soul. Or they have a patronizing way. They talk to a man of the world in a manner which seems to say, ’93Don’92t you wish you were as good as I am? Why, I have to look clear down before I can see you, you are so far beneath me.’94 That manner always disgusts, always drives men away from the kingdom of Jesus Christ, instead of bringing them in. When I was a lad I was one day in a village store, and there was a large group of young men there full of rollicking and fun, and a Christian man came in, a very good Christian man, and without any introduction of the subject, and while they were in great hilarity, said to one of them, ’93George, what is the first step of wisdom?’94 George looked up and said, ’93Every man to mind his own business!’94 Well, it was a very rough answer, but it was provoked. Religion had been hurled in there as though it were a bombshell. We must use common sense in the presentation of religion to the world.
Do you suppose that Mary, in her conversations with Christ, lost her simplicity? or that Paul, preaching on Mars Hill, took the pulpit tone? Why is it people cannot talk as naturally in prayer meetings and on religious subjects as they do in worldly circles? For no one ever succeeds in any kind of Christian work unless he works naturally. We want to imitate the Lord Jesus Christ, who plucked a poem from the grass of the field, and a sermon from a raven’92s wing.
We all want to imitate Him who talked with farmers about the man that went forth to sow, and talked with the fishermen about the drawn net that brought in fish of all sorts, and talked with the vine dresser about the idler in the vineyard, and talked with those newly affianced about the marriage supper, and talked with the man cramped in money matters about the two debtors, and talked with the housekeeper about the yeast that leavened the whole lump, and talked with the shepherd about the lost sheep.
We might gather even the stars of the sky and twist them like forget-me-nots in the garland of Jesus. We must bring everything to Him’97the wealth of language, the tenderness of sentiment, the delicacy of morning dew, the saffron of floating cloud, the tangled surf of the tossing sea, the bursting thunder-guns of the storm’92s bombardment. Yes; every star must point down to Him, every heliotrope must breathe His praise, every drop in the summer shower must flash His glory, all the tree branches of the forest must thrum their music in the grand march which shall celebrate a world redeemed.
Now, all this being so, what is the common-sense thing for you and for me to do this morning? What we do I think will depend upon three facts: The first fact, that sin has ruined us. It has blasted body, mind, and soul. We want no Bible to prove that we are sinners. Any man who is not willing to acknowledge himself an imperfect and sinful being is simply a fool and not to be argued with. We all feel that sin has disorganized our entire nature. That is one fact. Another fact is that Christ came to reconstruct, to restore, to revise, to correct, to redeem. That is a second fact. The third fact is that the only time we are sure Christ will pardon us is the present. Now, what is the common-sense thing for us this morning to do in view of these three facts? You will all agree with me, to quit sin, take Christ, and take him now.
Suppose some business man in whose skill you had perfect confidence should tell you that Monday morning, between eleven and twelve o’92clock, you could by a certain financial transaction make five thousand dollars, but that on Tuesday perhaps you might make it, yet there would not be any positiveness about it, and on Wednesday there would not be so much probability, and Thursday less, Friday less, and so on less and less’97when would you attend to the matter? Why, your common sense would dictate, ’93Immediately I will attend to that matter, between eleven and twelve o’92clock, Monday morning, for then I can surely accomplish it, but on Tuesday I may not, and on Wednesday there is less prospect and less and less. I will attend to it to-morrow.’94 Now, let us bring our common sense in this matter of religion. Here are the hopes of the Gospel. We may get them now. To-morrow we may get them, and we may not. Next day we may and we may not. The prospect less and less, and less and less. The only sure time is now’97now. I would not talk to you in this way if I did not know that Christ was able to save all the people, and He could just as easily save all the people in the Tabernacle as though there were only one person here. I would not go into a hospital and tear off the bandages from the wounds if I had no balm to apply. I would not have the face to tell a man he is a sinner unless I had at the same time the authority of saying he may be saved.
Suppose in Venice there is a Raphael, a faded picture, great in its time, bearing some marks of its greatness. History describes that picture. It is nearly faded away. You say, ’93Oh, what a pity that so wonderful a picture by Raphael should be nearly defaced!’94 After a while a man comes up, very unskillful in art, and he proposes to retouch it. You say, ’93Stand off! I would rather have it just as it is; you will only make it worse.’94 After awhile there comes an artist who was the equal of Raphael. He says, ’93I will retouch that picture and bring out all its original power.’94 You have full confidence in his ability. He touches it here and there. Feature after feature comes forth, and when he is done with the picture it is complete it all its original power. Now God impressed His image on our race, but that image has been defaced for hundreds and for thousands of years, getting fainter and fainter. Here comes up a divine Raphael’97I shall call him a divine Raphael. He says, ’93I can restore that picture.’94 He has all power in heaven and on earth. He is the equal of the One who made the picture, the equal of the One who drew the image of God in our soul. He touches this sin and it is gone, that transgression and it is gone, and all the defacement disappears, and ’93where sin abounded grace doth much more abound.’94 Will you have the defacement, or will you have the restoration?
I am well persuaded that if I could by a touch of heavenly pathos in two minutes put before you what has been done to save your soul, there would be an emotional tide overwhelming. ’93Mamma,’94 said a little child to her mother, when she was being put to bed at night, ’93mamma, what makes your hand so scarred and twisted, and unlike other people’92s hands?’94 ’93Well,’94 said the mother, ’93my child, when you were younger than you are now, years ago, one night, after I had put you to bed, I heard a cry, a shriek upstairs. I came up and found the bed was on fire, and you were on fire, and I took hold of you and I tore off the burning garments, and while I was tearing them off, and trying to get you away, I burned my hand, and it has been scarred and twisted ever since, and hardly looks any more like a hand; but I got that, my child, in trying to save you.’94 O man! O woman! I wish today I could show you the burned hand of Christ’97burned in plucking you out of the fire, burned in snatching you away from the flame. Aye, also the burned foot, and the burned brow, and the burned heart’97burned for you. By His stripes ye are healed.
Autor: T. De Witt Talmage