Allow me just to hint, that to be a believer in the gospel is no dishonour to a man’s intellect. While the gospel can be understood by the poorest and the most illiterate, while there are shallows in it where a lamb may wade, there are depths where leviathan may swim. The intellect of Locke found ample space in the gospel; the mind of Newton submitted to receive the truth of inspiration as a little child, and found something in its majestic being higher than itself, to which it could not attain. The rudest and most untaught have been enabled, by the study of the Holy Scripture of God’s truth, to enter the kingdom; and the most erudite have said of the gospel, it surpasses thought. I was thinking the other day what a vast amount of literature must be lost if the gospel is not true. No book was ever so suggestive as the Bible. Large tomes we have in our library which it takes all our strength to lift, all upon Holy Scripture; myriads upon myriads of smaller volumes, tens of thousands of every shape and size, all written upon the Bible; and I have thought that the very suggestiveness of Scripture, the supernatural suggestiveness of Holy Writ, may be in itself a proof of its divine wisdom, since no man has ever been able to write a book which would have so many commentators and so many writers upon its text as the Bible has received, by so much as one millionth part.
15. III. CHRIST IN A MAN, THE GOSPEL IN THE SOUL, is the power of God and the wisdom of God. We will picture the Christian from his beginning to his end. We will give a short map of his history. He begins there, in that prison house, with huge iron bars, which he cannot file; in that dark damp cell, where pestilence and death are bred. There, in poverty and nakedness, without a pitcher to put to his thirsty lips, without a mouthful even of dry crust to satisfy his hunger, that is the place where he begins — in the prison chamber of conviction, powerless, lost and ruined. Between the bars I thrust my hand to him, and give to him in God’s name the name of Christ to plead. Look at him; he has been filing away at these bars many and many a day, without their yielding an inch; but now he has put the name of Christ upon his lips; he puts his hand upon the bars, and one of them is gone, and another, and another; and he makes a happy escape, crying, “I am free, I am free, I am free! Christ has been the power of God to me, in bringing me out of my trouble.” No sooner is he free, however, than a thousand doubts meet him. This one cries, “You are not elect”; another cries, “You are not redeemed”; another says, “You are not called”; another says, “You are not converted.” “Avaunt,” he says, “avaunt! Christ died”; and he just pleads the name of Christ as the power of God, and the doubts flee apace, and he walks straight on. He comes soon into the furnace of trouble; he is thrust into the innermost prison, and his feet are made fast in the stocks. God has put his hand upon him. He is in deep trouble; at midnight he begins to sing of Christ; and lo! the walls begin to totter, and the foundation of the prison to shake; and the man’s chains are taken off, and he comes out free; for Christ has delivered him from trouble. Here is a hill to climb, on the road to heaven. Wearily he pants up the side of that hill, and thinks he must die, before he can reach the summit. The name of Jesus is whispered in his ear: he leaps to his feet, and pursues his way, with fresh courage, until the summit is gained, when he cries, “Jesus Christ is the strength of my song; he also has become my salvation.” See him again. He is suddenly beset by many enemies; how shall he resist them? With this true sword, this true Jerusalem blade, Christ and him crucified. With this he keeps the devil at arm’s length; with this he fights against temptation, against lust, against spiritual wickedness in high places, and with this he resists. Now, he has come to his last struggle: the river Death rolls black and sullen before him; dark shapes rise upward from the flood, and howl and frighten him. How shall he cross the stream? How shall he find a landing place on the other side? Dread thoughts perplex him for a moment; he is alarmed; but he remembers, Jesus died; and catching up that watchword he ventures to the flood. Before his feet the Jordan divides asunder; like Israel of old, he walks through, dry shod, singing as he goes to heaven, “Christ is with me, Christ is with me, passing through the stream! Victory, victory, victory, to him that loves me!”
16. To the Christian in his own experience Christ is always the power of God. As for temptation he can meet that with Christ; as for trouble he can endure that through Christ who strengthens him, yes, he can say with Paul, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Have you never seen a Christian in trouble, a true Christian? I have read a story of a man who was converted to God by seeing the conduct of his wife in the hour of trouble. They had a lovely child, their only offspring. The father’s heart doted on it perpetually, and the mother’s soul was knit up in the heart of the little one. It lay sick upon its bed, and the parents watered it night and day. At last it died. The father had no God: he rent his hair, he rolled upon the floor in misery, wallowed upon the earth, cursing his being, and defying God in the utter casting down of his agony. There sat his wife, as fond of the child as ever he could be; and though tears would come, she gently said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” “What!” he said, springing to his feet, “you love that child? I thought that when that child died it would break your heart. Here I am, a strong man; I am mad: here you are, a weak woman, and yet you are strong and bold; tell me what it is that possesses you?” She said, “Christ is my Lord, I trust in him; surely I can give this child to him who gave himself for me.” From that instant the man became a believer. “There must,” he said, “be some truth and some power in the Gospel, which could lead you to believe in such a manner, under such a trial.” Christians! try to exhibit that spirit wherever you are, and prove to the worldling that in your experience at least “Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God!”
17. And now the last point. In the Christian’s experience, Christ is wisdom, as well as power. If you want to be a thoroughly learned man the best place to begin is to begin at the Bible, to begin at Christ. It is said that even children learn to read more quickly from the Bible than from any other book; and this I am sure of, that we, who are only grown up children, will learn better and learn faster by beginning with Christ, than we could by beginning with anything else. I remember saying once, and since I cannot say it better I will repeat it, that before I knew the Gospel I gathered up a heterogeneous mass of all kinds of knowledge from here, there, and everywhere; a bit of chemistry, a bit of botany, and a bit of astronomy, and a bit of this, that, and the other. I put them altogether, in one great confused chaos. When I learned the Gospel, I got a shelf in my head to put everything on just where it should be. It seemed to me as if, when I had discovered Christ and him crucified, I had found the centre of the system, so that I could see every other science revolving around it in order. From the earth, you know, the planets appear to move in a very irregular manner, — they are progressive, retrograde, stationary; but if you view them from the sun, you would see them marching around in their constant, uniform, circular motion. So with knowledge. Begin with any other science you like, and truth will seem to be awry. Begin with the science of Christ crucified, and you will begin with the sun, you will see every other science moving around it in complete harmony. The greatest mind in the world will be enlarged by beginning at the right end. The old saying is, “Go from nature up to nature’s God”; but it is hard work going up hill. The best thing is to go from nature’s God down to nature; and if you once get to nature’s God, and believe him, and love him, it is surprising how easy it is to hear music in the waves, and songs in the wild whisperings of the winds; to see God everywhere, in the stones, in the rocks, in the rippling brooks, and hear him everywhere in the lowing of cattle, in the rolling of thunders, and in the fury of tempests. Obtain Christ first, put him in the right place, and you will find him to be the wisdom of God in your own experience.
18. But wisdom is not knowledge; and we must not confound the two. Wisdom is the right use of knowledge; and Christ’s gospel helps us, by teaching us the right use of knowledge. It directs us. That Christian has lost his way in a dark forest; but God’s word is a compass to him, and a lantern too; he finds his way by Christ. He comes to a turn in the road. Which is right, and which is wrong? He cannot tell. Christ is the great signpost, telling him which way to go. He sees every day new straits to sail; he do not knows which way to steer. Christ is the great pilot who puts his hand on the tiller, and makes him wise to steer through the shoals of temptation and the rocks of sin. Get the gospel, and you are a wise man. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and right understanding
