"_It is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing._"--Gal. iv. 18.
Zeal is a subject, like many others in religion, most sadly misunderstood. Many would be ashamed to be thought "zealous" Christians. Many are ready to say of zealous people what Festus said of Paul: "They are beside themselves,--they are mad." (Acts xxvi. 24)
But zeal is a subject which no reader of the Bible has any right to pass over. If we make the Bible our rule of faith and practice, we cannot turn away from it. We must look it in the face. What says the Apostle Paul to Titus? "Christ gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, _zealous_ of good works." (Titus ii. 14.) What says the Lord Jesus to the Laodicean Church? "Be _zealous_ and repent." (Rev. iii. 19.)
My object in this paper is to plead the cause of zeal in religion. I believe we ought not to be afraid of it, but rather to love and admire it. I believe it to be a mighty blessing to the world, and the origin of countless benefits to mankind. I want to strike a blow at the lazy, easy, sleepy Christianity of these latter days, which can see no beauty in zeal, and only uses the word "zealot" as a word of reproach. I want to remind Christians that "Zealot" was a name given to one of our Lord Jesus Christ's Apostles, and to persuade them to be zealous men.
I ask every reader of this paper to give me his attention while I tell him something about zeal. Listen to me for your own sake,--for the sake of the world,--for the sake of the Church of Christ. Listen to me, and by God's help I will show you that to be "zealous" is to be wise.
I. Let me show, in the first place, _what is zeal in religion_.
II. Let me show, in the second place, _when a man can be called rightly zealous in religion_?
III. Let me show, in the third place, _why it is a good thing for a man to be zealous in religion_?
I. First of all, I propose to consider this question. "What is _zeal_ in religion?"
Zeal in religion is a burning desire to please God, to do His will, and to advance His glory in the world in every possible way. It is a desire which no man feels by nature,--which the Spirit puts in the heart of every believer when he is converted,--but which some believers feel so much more strongly than others that they alone deserve to be called "zealous" men.
This desire is so strong, when it really reigns in a man, that it impels him to make any sacrifice,--to go through any trouble,--to deny himself to any amount,--to suffer, to work, to labour, to toil,--to spend himself and be spent, and even to die,--if only he can please God and honour Christ.
A zealous man in religion is pre-eminently _a man of one thing_. It is not enough to say that he is earnest, hearty, uncompromising, thorough-going, whole-hearted, fervent in spirit. He only sees one thing, he cares for one thing, he lives for one thing, he is swallowed up in one thing; and that one thing is to please God. Whether he lives, or whether he dies,--whether he has health, or whether he has sickness,--whether he is rich, or whether he is poor,--whether he pleases man, or whether he gives offence,--whether he is thought wise, or whether he is thought foolish,--whether he gets blame, or whether he gets praise,--whether he gets honour, or whether he gets shame,--for all this the zealous man cares nothing at all. He burns for one thing; and that one thing is to please God, and to advance God's glory. If he is consumed in the very burning, he cares not for it,--he is content. He feels that, like a lamp, he is made to burn; and if consumed in burning, he has but done the work for which God appointed him. Such an one will always find a sphere for his zeal. If he cannot preach, and work, and give money, he will cry, and sigh, and pray. Yes: if he is only a pauper, on a perpetual bed of sickness, he will make the wheels of sin around him drive heavily, by continually interceding against it. If he cannot fight in the valley with Joshua, he will do the work of Moses, Aaron, and Hur, on the hill. (Exod. xvii. 9--13.) If he is cut off from working himself, he will give the Lord no rest till help is raised up from another quarter, and the work is done. This is what I mean when I speak of "zeal" in religion.
We all know the habit of mind that makes men great in this world,--that makes such men as Alexander the Great, or Julius Caesar, or Oliver Cromwell, or Peter the Great, or Charles XII., or Marlborough, or Napoleon, or Pitt. We know that, with all their faults, they were all men of one thing. They threw themselves into one grand pursuit. They cared for nothing else. They put every thing else aside. They counted every thing else as second-rate, and of subordinate importance, compared to the one thing that they put before their eyes every day they lived. I say that the same habit of mind applied to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ becomes religious _zeal_.