“You haven’t tried taking him.” Let your young people see how tremendously these things count with you and as they are surrounded by the influences of the sanctuary they are more likely to be safe.
On this Decision Day I am going to say what I believe every day: It is not well with our young people until they have come to definite decision for Christ. Your fathers and mothers said to you, “Twill save them from ten thousand snares to mind religion young.” It will save your children too. I simply dare not think of what my own life would have been but for an early decision to be a Christian. That is why this day means so much to some of us and ought to mean more to all. I cannot believe that all is right with our young people until they have given themselves to Christ and joined His church. I say it about them and to them. You will be surrounded by temptations and perils and your great safeguard lies in giving yourself to Christ and letting Him be your Savior from sin. It is in fellowship with Christ that strength is renewed that keeps us straight.
I spoke just now of David’s agony and remorse, of his poignant cry, “Would God I had died for thee.” When I preach on that text I shall have to point out that the deepest agony in that cry was the circumstances of his own sin and failure. We would die to save our young folk from sin and anguish. Would it not be better to live so as to save them? It is so easy for many of them to go astray, we ought to leave nothing undone that we can do. Sometime ago I read in a religious weekly (Methodist Recorder Oct 13/24) the story of a girl who had been tricked into sin. I marked this sentence in a letter she wrote to a minister. “All my life I, through my own sin, shall be a looker in at other girls’ happiness.” Poor girl! The Lord deal tenderly with her wherever she is. But the sin is not hers alone. I say nothing of the sin of the one who tricked her, but I wonder if she might have been saved if someone had taken the trouble to teach and warn her, and lead her to Christ? A looker in at the happiness that might have been hers!
Are young Ted and Harry, Florence and Kate all right? Are they safe? It is our Christian duty to see that they are as safe as loving counsels, earnest prayers, pious examples, and sincere efforts to lead them to Christ can make them.
“RELIGION AS LOYALTY”—1 Kings 2.4
(Preached at Katherine Road 2/2/36 and Spring Head Mission 6/6/43)
1 Kings 2.4 “If thy children take heed to their way, to walk before me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul.”
“Living loyally under His (God’s) eye with all their mind and soul.” —Moffatt
The subject is Religion as Loyalty and it was chosen before the text was decided upon. You will not find the word loyalty in either the Authorized or Revised Version of the Bible; though the thing itself is on almost every page. Dr. Moffatt rightly introduces the word in this passage. Walking before God in truth is living loyally under His eye.
Though the text was not chosen until after the subject, I am not ashamed of it. It sums up what I want to say. I am not at all surprised that the promise made to David was that, if his sons would be loyal to God with all their mind and soul, there should never be wanting a man to sit on Israel’s throne. Men who live such lives are kingly men. But the subject is bigger than any text or incident in the Bible. The whole Bible is the text, and to be rightly conceived religion must be conceived as loyalty. Let us begin by asking an elementary question:
WHAT IS RELIGION?
Your dictionary will define it for you as “the outward act or form of which men indicate their recognition of a god or gods having power over their destiny.” Or it will give you this as an alternative: “A system of faith and worship.” Both definitions are true so far, and both are inadequate. If you have the soul of religion you will need a body in which it can express itself. For all our railing against creeds, I can’t for the life of me see how you can do without one of some sort. Your creed is your thought form. Still, neither of these definitions is finally satisfying. At the heart of religion is the idea and the fact of a tie, a covenant. Religion is vision of God, fellowship with God, making for righteousness. It implies faithfulness in the Divine side and loyalty on the human side. My simple definition of the Christian religion is faith in Jesus Christ our Savior and loyalty to Him as Lord. That compels the facing of another question:
WHAT IS LOYALTY?
Once more I turn to the dictionary and learn that loyalty is faithfulness in allegiance, being true to word and duty, it is devotion, fidelity. You know what it is for a man to be loyal to his king and his country. The loyal man plays the game and is true when others are not looking and when no galley applauds. He keeps the flag flying when things are at their worst. “Thy coat is shabby,” said a wife to her preacher husband in days when it cost to be loyal. “Yes,” came the answer, “but it has never been turned.” The loyalist is not necessarily the man who waves the biggest flag and gives the loudest cheer; he is the man who stays at his post, does his duty, never fails a friend but is faithful to the last. He is the man you can rely on. My point is that eventually religion is loyalty, an unswerving allegiance, a deathless devotion. It is something far more than correct views, right creeds, careful ritual; it is personal and passionate loyalty to the Lord, it means being bound to Christ by the soul’s tenacious purpose.
NOT DAZZLING, BUT DEPENDENCE
That may seem to make religion a rather colorless thing. There are times when loyalty wins the Victoria Cross or some other distinction. But in the main, loyal people do not dazzle or attract. Generally, they are the people who just keep on keeping on. They pursue their given ways without pomp or blaze of trumpets. They are doing a great work and cannot come down to receive the rewards of men. Think of and thank God for the men and women who have never been disloyal to the troth they plighted at the marriage altar—and you never hear of them! The most loyal man I ever knew, a man who served God in China for thirty years, a man who never broke his word or failed a friend—Frederick Galpin lived and died in obscurity and few recognized the heroic soul he was.
A few years ago I heard of the daughter of Tom Hughes—hardly anyone knew the author of Tom Brown’s Schooldays had a daughter and she had been living for thirty years in an East End tenement, seeking no publicity for the work she was doing. For thirty years, she had never had a holiday because the women she wanted to help couldn’t afford one. In our hearts we know that if loyalty is not dazzling, it is something better, it is dependable. You can be sure of these loyal folk. You can lean on them and they will not let you down. We owe an unpayable debt to the loyalty of those who seek no publicity or reward, who shun everything obtrusive and vulgar, and whose glory it is that they are dependable.
LOYALTY IN LIFE
I am insisting that religion is loyalty. It is, as Moffatt’s translation of the text says, “living loyally under God’s eye with all their mind and soul.” It means being loyal in the ordinary relationships of life. Tennyson said of Queen Victoria that she was “loyal to the royal within herself.” That is where loyalty begins. “To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day thou canst not then be false to any man” (Hamlet). It works out as in our great Bunyan, “True to ourselves, our fellow men and Thee.” Christ does not ask less than the best of the best ethics and moralities. He asks more—“what do ye more than others?” So religion means loyalty to your word as your bond. It means loyalty to your friends and never letting them down. It means never betraying a trust or proving unworthy of confidence. It means being loyal to your wife, your parents, your home. It goes down to your thoughts as well as expresses itself in your words and actions.
LOYALTY TO JESUS
But supremely, of course, the Christian religion is personal and passionate loyalty to Jesus Christ. It does not mean
