4. The ruler who came to Jesus was young, and the gospel which Jesus preached to him is peculiarly appropriate to the young. There is a gospel oijlattery which is sometimes preached to the young. It dwells on the innocence of youth. It speaks of early life as beautiful in its sinlessness. It encourages the idea of natural grace. And it soon becomes an excuse for indolence and the vague listless waiting for perfection. Christ did not bid the young man do without Him ; He invited him to come to Him and follow Him.
* Newman Smyth.
ST MARK 275
Side by side with the gospel of flattery is the gospel of indulgence. Young men are excused their self-will and self- pleas- ing, sometimes even their gross sins, on the ground that young men will be young men, and that it is better for a man to sow his wild oats in youth. Taught by experience it is sup- posed that he will grow weary of the world, sick of sin, and become at last steady, moral, and exemplary in his day and generation.
The gospel of Christ is none of these. And yet it is suitable to the young. For —
{V) It speaks to their conscience, — There is no part of a man's life in which his sensibilities are so keen, his mental pain, his spiritual remorse so bitter. Happy he whose conscience at a late stage, even of a Christian experience, has recovered one-tenth part of the sharp edge it had in childhood.
(2) It speaks to their affections. — The longing for love is one of the first and strongest impulses of our nature. This gospel, " Come, follow me," says to thirsting hearts, to the young who have none to love them, or not as they would be loved, " there is One who loves you, you personally, with as much concentra- tion, as much warmth of affection, as if you were the only being in His universe ; who loved you when you loved not Him."
(3) It speaks to their energies. — For there is in the young a capacity of activity. It is the Creator's gift and the creature's glory. This gospel offers the fullest scope to the energies of mankind. It makes it a solemn duty that a man should work ; it looks forward to the great future when every one will be judged by his works.
(4) It speaks to their aspirations. — I believe there are moments in the early life of all of us when we long after a perfection which is not ours. We have an ardent desire to be better, to be able to say " No " to temptation, to be able with more steadfastness to pray to God and to praise Him. Christ says to us then, " Come, follow me." His gospel recognises and respects these aspirations. Only in following Him can we meet tempta- tion; only in His presence can we hold steadfast communion with the Father.
276 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
The white doves brood low With innocent flight. Higher, my soul, higher I Into the night ! — Into black night!
Beyond where the eagle Soars strong to the sun. Nought hast thou, if only Earth's stars be won — Earth's stars are won.
Beyond, where God's angels Stand silent in might. Higher, my soul, higher ! Into the light ! —
Straight to God's light!*
^ Maarten Maartena.
Believe and Receive.
ft
Literature.
Campbell (J. M.), Responsibility for the Gift of Eternal Life, 126.
Caughey (J.), Revival Sermons and Addresses, 42.
Cornaby (W. A.), Let us Pray, 85.
Ealand (F.), The Spirit of Life, 38.
Farquhar (J. W.), The Gospel of Divine Humanity, 90.
Finney (C. Q.), Revivals of Religion, 74.
Hammond (E. P.), Early Conversion, 108.
James (J. G.), Problems of Prayer, 67.
Lockyer (T. F.), The Inspirations of the Christian Life, 83.
Moberly (R. C), Christ our Life, 142.
Murray (A.), The Ministry of Intercession, 104.
„ „ With Christ, 78, 86.
Spurgeon (C. H.), New Park Street Pulpit, vi. No. 328. Vaugban (J.), Sermons (Brigbton Pulpit), ix. No. 763. Christian World Pulpit, Ixxiii. 248 (Campbell). Clergyman's Magazine, 3rd Ser., viii. 155 ; xvi. 61 (Heath) Treasury, xvi. 76 (Murray).
278
Believe and Receive.
Therefore I say unto you, All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them. — xi. 24.
1. Here we have a summary of the teaching of our Lord on prayer. Nothing will so much help to convince us of the sin of our remissness in prayer, to discover its causes, and to give us courage to expect entire deliverance, as the careful study and then the believing acceptance of that teaching. The more heartily we enter into the mind of our blessed Lord, and set ourselves to think about prayer as He thought, the more surely will His words be as living seeds. They will grow and produce in us their fruit — a life and practice exactly corresponding to the Divine truth they contain.
2. Yet the promises to prayer in the twenty-third and twenty-fourth verses of this eleventh chapter of St. Mark are so wonderful, that we are almost compelled to fall back before them, and ask ourselves whether we can have heard, or can have understood, aright. At the first sound, they surround our imaginations as with an air of fairyland ; they seem to be something out of relation with the severities of the things that are : something out of relation with the necessary stringencies of a moral life. Then, if we feel that there is in our first sense something wrong, and begin to limit, to qualify, to explain, often it is not merely any childish misunderstanding of the promise, it is the promise itself that is slipping away from us ; the solemn declaration of Christ begins to mean — nothing very definite or distinguishable : or, worse still, men find ground for pleasant mockery at the hollowness of a rehgious aspiration so transparently unreal. Do the words mean what they say, or do they not ? or what do they mean ?