502. Divinity Impoverished

Divinity Impoverished

2Co_8:9 : ’93Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor.’94

That all the worlds which on a cold winter’92s night make the heavens one great glitter are without inhabitants is an absurdity. Scientists tell us that many of these worlds are too hot or too cold or too rarefied of atmosphere for residence. But if not fit for human abode, they may be fit for beings different from and superior to ourselves. We are told that the world of Jupiter is changing and becoming fit for creatures like the human race, and that Mars would do for the human family with a little change in the structure of our respiratory organs. But that there is a great world swung somewhere, vast beyond imagination, and that it is the headquarters of the universe, and the metropolis of immensity, and has a population in numbers immense beyond all statistics, and appointments of splendor beyond the capacity of canvas or poem or angel to describe, is as certain as the Bible is authentic. Perhaps some of the astronomers with their big telescopes have already caught a glimpse of it, not knowing what it is. We spell it with six letters, and pronounce it heaven.

That is where Prince Jesus lived nineteen centuries ago. He was the King’92s Son. It was the old homestead of eternity, and all its castles were as old as God. Not a frost had ever chilled the air. Not a tear had ever rolled down the cheek of one of its inhabitants. There had never been a headache or a sideache or a heartache. There had not been a funeral in the memory of the oldest inhabitant. All the people there were in a state of eternal adolescence. What floral and pomonic richness! Gardens of perpetual bloom and orchards in unending fruitage. Had some spirit from another world entered and asked, What is sin? What is bereavement? What is sorrow? What is death? the brightest of the intelligences would have failed to give definition, though to study the question there was silence in heaven for half an hour.

The Prince of whom I speak had honors, emoluments, acclamations, such as no other prince, celestial or terrestrial, ever enjoyed. As he passed the street, the inhabitants took off from their brows garlands of white lilies and threw them in the way. He never entered any of the temples without all the worshipers rising up and bowing in obeisance. In all the processions of the high days he was the one who evoked the loudest welcome. Sometimes on foot, walking in loving talk with the humblest of the land, but at other times in chariot, and among the twenty thousand that the Psalmist spoke of, his was the swiftest and most flaming; or, as when St. John described him, he took white palfrey with what prance of foot and arch of neck and roll of mane and gleam of eye is only dimly suggested in the Apocalypse. He was not like other princes, waiting for the father to die and then take the throne. When years ago an artist in Germany made a picture for the Royal Gallery representing the Emperor William on the throne, and the Crown Prince as having one foot on the step of the throne, the Emperor William ordered the picture changed, and said: ’93Let the Prince keep his foot off the throne till I leave it.’94 Already enthroned was the Heavenly Prince side by side with the Father. What a circle of dominion! What multitudes of admirers! What unending round of glories! All the towers chimed the Prince’92s praise. Of all the inhabitants, from the center of the city, on over the hills and clear down to the beach against which the ocean of immensity rolls its billows, the Prince was the acknowledged favorite. No wonder my text says that ’93he was rich.’94 Set all the diamonds of the earth in one scepter, build all the palaces of the earth in one Alhambra, gather all the pearls of the sea in one diadem, put all the values of the earth in one coin, the aggregate could not express his affluence. Yes; St. Paul was right.

To describe his celestial surroundings, the Bible uses all colors, gathering them in rainbow over the throne and setting them as agate in the temple window, and hoisting twelve of them into a wall, from striped jasper at the base to transparent amethyst in the capstone, while between are green of emerald and snow of pearl and blue of sapphire and yellow of topaz, gray of chrysoprase, and flame of jacinth. All the loveliness of landscape in foliage and river and rill, and all enchantment aquamarine, the sea of glass mingled with fire as when the sun sinks in the Mediterranean. All the thrill of music instrumental and vocal, harps, trumpets, doxologies. There stood the Prince, surrounded by those who had under their wings the velocity of millions of miles in a second, himself rich in love, rich in adoration, rich in power, rich in worship, rich in holiness, rich in ’93all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.’94

But one day there was a big disaster in a department of God’92s universe. A race fallen! A world in ruins! Our planet the scene of catastrophe! A globe swinging out into darkness, with mountains and seas and islands, an awful centrifugal of sin seeming to overpower the beautiful centripetal of righteousness, and from it a groan reached heaven. Such a sound had never been heard there. Plenty of sweet sounds, but never an outcry of distress or an echo of agony. At that one groan the Prince rose from all the blissful circumjacence, and started for the outer gate and descended into the night of this world. Out of what a bright harbor into what a rough sea! ’93Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor.’94

Was there ever a contrast so overpowering as that between the noonday of Christ’92s celestial departure and the midnight of his earthly arrival? Sure enough, the angels were out that night in the sky, and an especial meteor acted as escort, but all that was from other worlds, and not from this world. The earth made no demonstration of welcome. If one of the great princes of this world steps out at a depot, cheers resound and the bands play and the flags wave. But for the arrival of this missionary Prince of the skies not a torch flared, not a trumpet blew, not a plume fluttered. All the music and the pomp were overhead. Our world opened for him nothing better than a barn-door. To know how poor he was, ask the camel drivers, ask the shepherds, ask Mary, ask the three wise men of the East, who afterward came to Bethlehem. To know how poor he was, examine all the records of real estate in all that Oriental country, and see what vineyard or what field he owned. Not one. Of what mortgage was he the mortgagee? Of what tenement was he the landlord? Of what lease was he the lessor? Who ever paid him rent? Not owning the boat in which he sailed or the beast on which he rode or the pillow on which he slept. He had so little estate that in order to pay his tax he had to perform a miracle, putting the amount of the assessment in a fish’92s mouth and having it hauled ashore. And after his death the world rushed in to take an inventory of his goods, and the entire aggregate was the garments he had worn, sleeping in them by night and traveling in them by day, bearing on them the dust of the highway and the saturation of the sea. St. Paul in my text hit the mark when he said of the missionary Prince, ’93he became poor.’94

The world could have treated him better if it had chosen. It had all the means for making his earthly condition comfortable. Only a few years before when Pompey, the general, arrived in Brindisi, he was greeted with arches and a costly column which celebrated the twelve million people whom he had killed or conquered, and he was allowed to wear his triumphal robe in the Senate. The world had applause for imperial butchers, but buffeting for the Prince of Peace. Plenty of golden chalices for the favored to drink out of, but our Prince must put his lips to the bucket of the well by the roadside after he had begged for a drink. Poor? Born in another man’92s barn and eating at another man’92s table and cruising the lakes in another man’92s fishing-smack and buried in another man’92s tomb. Four inspired authors wrote his biography, and innumerable lives of Christ have been published, but he composed his autobiography in a most compressed way. He said, ’93I have trodden the wine-press alone.’94

Poor in the estimation of nearly all the prosperous classes. They called him Sabbath-breaker, wine-bibber, traitor, blasphemer, and ransacked the dictionary of opprobrium from cover to cover to express their detestation. I can think now of only two well-to-do men who espoused his cause, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. His friends for the most part were people who, in that climate, where ophthalmia or inflammation of the eyeball sweeps ever and anon as a scourge, had become blind, sick people who were anxious to get well, and troubled people in whose family there was some one dead or dying. If he had a purse at all it was empty, or we would have heard what the soldiers did with the contents. Poor? The pigeon in the dovecot, the rabbit in its burrow, the silk-worm in its cocoon, the bee in its hive is better provided for, better off, better sheltered. Ay, the brute creation has a home on earth, which Christ had not. A poet says:

If on windy days the raven

Gambol like a dancing skiff,

Not the less he loves his haven

On the bosom of the cliff.

If almost with eagle pinion

O’92er the Alps the chamois roam,

Yet he has some small dominion

Which no doubt he calls his home.

But the Crown Prince of all heavenly dominion had less than the raven, less than the chamois, for he was homeless. Ay, in the history of the universe there is no other instance of such coming down. Down until there was no other harassment to suffer, poor until there was no other pauperism to torture. Billions of dollars spent in wars to destroy men, who will furnish the statistics of the value of that precious blood that was shed to save us? ’93Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor.’94

Only those who study this text in two places can fully realize its power, the Holy Land of Asia Minor and the Holy Land of Heaven. I wish that some day you might go to the Holy Land and take a drink out of Jacob’92s well and take a sail on Galilee and read the Sermon on the Mount while standing on Olivet and see the wilderness where Christ was tempted, and be some afternoon on Calvary at about three o’92clock’97the hour at which closed the crucifixion’97and sit under the sycamores and by the side of brooks, and think and dream and pray about the poverty of him who came our souls to save. But you may be denied that, and so here, in another continent and in another hemisphere, and in scenes as different as possible, we recount as well as we may how poor was our Heavenly Prince. But in the other holy land above we may all study the riches that he left behind when he started for earthly expedition. Come, let us bargain to meet each other on the bank of the river just where it rolls from under the throne, or at the outside gate. Jesus got the contrast by exchanging that world for this, we will get it by exchanging this world for that. There and then you will understand more of the wonders of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, ’93though he was rich, yet for your sakes became poor.’94

Yes, grace, free grace, sovereign grace, omnipotent grace! Among the thousands of words in the language there is no more queenly word. It means free and unmerited kindness. My text has no monopoly of the word. One hundred and twenty-nine times does the Bible eulogize grace. It is a door swung wide open to let into the pardon of God all the millions who choose to enter it. John Newton sang of it when he wrote:

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,

That saved a wretch like me.

Philip Doddridge put it into all hymnology when he wrote:

Grace, ’91tis a charming sound,

Harmonious to the ear;

Heaven with the echo shall resound,

And all the earth shall hear.

One of John Bunyan’92s great books is entitled Grace Abounding. ’93It is all of grace that I am saved’94 has been on the lips of hundreds of dying Christians. The boy Sammy was right when being examined for admission into church membership, he was asked: ’93Whose work was your salvation?’94 and he answered: ’93Part mine and part God’92s.’94 Then the examiner asked: ’93What part did you do, Sammy?’94 and the answer was: ’93I opposed God all I could, and he did the rest!’94 Oh, the height of it, the depth of it, the length of it, the breadth of it, the grace of God! Mr. Fletcher having written a pamphlet that pleased the king, the king offered to compensate him, and Fletcher answered: ’93There is only one thing I want, and that is more grace.’94 Yes, my blood-bought hearers, grace to live by and grace to die by. Grace that saved the publican, that saved Lydia, that saved the dying thief, that saved the jailer, that saved me. But the riches of that grace will not be fully understood until heaven breaks in upon the soul. And there are here hundreds homesick for heaven, some because you have so many bereavements, some because you have so many temptations, some because you have so many ailments’97homesick, very homesick, for the fatherland of heaven and the music that you want to hear now is the song of free grace, and the music that you want to hear when you die is free grace, and forever before the throne of God you will sing of the ’93grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, though he was rich, for your sakes became poor!’94

Yes, yes; for your sakes! It was on no pleasure excursion that he came, for it was all pain. It was not on an astronomical exploration, for he knew this world as well before he alighted as afterward. It was not because he was compelled to come, for he volunteered. It was not because it was easy, for he knew that it would be thorn and spike and hunger and thirst and vociferation of angry mobs. ’93For your sakes!’94 To wipe away your tears, to forgive your wrongdoing, to companionship your loneliness, to soothe your sorrows, to sit with you by the new-made grave, to bind up your wounds in the ugly battle with the world and bring you home at last, kindling up the mists that fall on your dying vision with the sunlight of a glorious morn.

’93For your sakes!’94 No; I will change that. Paul will not care, and Christ will not care if I change it, for I must get into the blessedness of the text myself, and so I say: ’93For our sakes!’94 For we all have our temptations, bereavements, and conflicts. ’93For our sakes!’94 We who deserve for our sins to be expatriated into a world as much poorer than this, than the earth is poorer than heaven. For our sakes! But what a frightful coming down to take us gloriously up! When Artaxerxes was hunting, Tirebazus, who was attending him, showed the king a rent in his garments; the king said: ’93How shall I mend it?’94 ’93By giving it to me,’94 said Tirebazus. Then the king gave him the robe, but commanded him never to wear it, as it would be inappropriate. But see the startling and comforting fact while our Prince throws off the robe, he not only allows us to wear it, but commands us to wear it, and it will become us well, and for the poverties of our spiritual state we may put on the splendors of heavenly regalement. For our sakes!

Oh, the personality of this religion! Not an abstraction, not an arch under which we walk to behold elaborate masonry, not an ice castle like that which the Empress Elizabeth, of Russia, over a hundred years ago, ordered to be constructed. Winter with its trowel of crystals cementing the huge blocks that had been quarried from the frozen rivers of the North, but our Father’92s house with the wide hearth crackling a hearty welcome. A religion of warmth and inspiration and light and cheer: something we can take into our hearts and homes and business recreations and joys and sorrows. Not an unmanageable gift, like the galley presented to Ptolemy, which required four thousand men to row, and its draught of water was so great that it could not come near the shore, but something you can run up any stream of annoyance, however shallow. Enrichment now, enrichment forever.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage