XXXI.
THE THINGS THAT CANNOT BE SHAKEN
This word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that
are shaken, as of things that are made; that those things which cannot
be shaken may remain."-HEBREWS xii. 27.
WHAT majesty there is in these words! They bear
the mint mark of Deity. No man could presume to utter them; but they become
the august speaker. Their original setting is even more magnificent, as
we find them in the Book of Haggai: "Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Yet
once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth,
and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the Desire
of all nations shall come."
These words were first spoken to encourage the Jewish
exiles on their return from Babylon to their ruined Temple and city. The
elder men wept as they thought of the departed glories of earlier days,
and God comforted them, as he delights to comfort those who are cast down.
"Be comforted," said he in effect, "there is a crisis coming, which will
test and overthrow all material structures; and in that convulsion the
outer form will pass away, however fair and costly it may be, whilst the
inner hidden glory will become more apparent than ever; nay, amid all the
sounds of wreck and change, there will come the Desire of all nations,
the substance of which these material objects are but the fading and incomplete
anticipation."
These Hebrew Christians were living in the midst
of a great shaking. It was a time of almost universal trial. God was shaking
not earth only, but also heaven. The Jewish tenure of Palestine was being
shaken by the Romans, who claimed it as their conquest. The interpretation
given to the Word of God by the rabbis was being shaken by the fresh light
introduced through the words and life and death of Jesus. The supremacy
of the Temple and its ritual was being shaken by those who taught that
the true Temple was the Christian Church, and that all the Levitical sacrifices
had been realized in Christ. The observance of the Sabbath was being shaken
by those who wished to substitute for it the first day of the week.
The first symptoms of this shaking began when Jesus
commenced to teach and preach in the crowded cities of Palestine, and all
people flocked about him. The successive throes became more obvious when
the Jewish leaders sought to silence the Apostles and stay the onward progress
of the Church. The Book of the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles,
are full of evidence of the intensity of that revolution which must have
made many godly people tremble for the Ark of God. And the climax of all
came in the fearful siege of Jerusalem, when, once and forever, the Jewish
system was shattered, the Temple burned, the remaining vessels sunk in
the Tiber, and the Jews were driven from the city which was absolutely
essential for the performance of their religious rites. The whole New Testament
is witness to the throes of one of the mightiest spiritual revolutions
that ever happened; as great in the spiritual sphere as the French Revolution
was in the temporal.
It was amidst these fires that this Epistle was
written. "Take heart," says the inspired writer; "these shakings come from
the hand of God." Listen to his own words, I shake. And they
shall not last forever, yet this once; nor will they injure anything of
eternal worth and truth. He shakes all things, that the material, the sensuous,
and the temporal may pass away; leaving the essential and eternal to stand
out in more than former beauty. But not a grain of pure metal shall be
lost in the fires; not a fragment of heaven's masonry shall crumble beneath
the shock.
In such a time we are living now.
Everything is being shaken and tested. But there is a divine purpose in
it all, that his eternal truth may stand out more clearly and unmistakably,
when all human traditions and accretions have fallen away, unable to resist
the energy of the shock. And who will bewail this too bitterly? Who shall
weep because the winds strip the trees of their old dead leaves, if only
the new spring verdure may be able to show itself? Who shall lament that
the heavy blow shatters the mold, if only the perfect image shall stand
out in complete symmetry? Who shall mourn over the passing away of the
heaven and the earth, if, as they break up, they reveal beneath them the
imperishable beauty of the new heavens and the new earth in which dwells
Righteousness?
THEOLOGICAL SYSTEMS ARE BEING SHAKEN. There was
a time when men received their theological beliefs from their teachers,
their parents, or their Church without a word of question or controversy.
There was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or chirped. It
is not so now; the air is filled with questionings. Men are putting into
the crucible every doctrine which our forefathers held dear. There is no
veneration shown for time honored creeds or theological distinctions or
doctrinal formularies. The highest themes, such as the Nature of the Atonement,
the Necessity of Regeneration, the Duration of Future Punishment, are being
criticised in the public press.
Many children of God are very distressed about this,
and fear for the truth of the Gospel. They speak as if there were no other
agents in the conflict but those of mortal birth. They lose sight of the
eternal issues at stake, and the unseen forces which are implicated in
the conflict. Is it likely that God will allow his precious Gospel to be
overshadowed or robbed of all essential elements? Has he maintained it
in its integrity for these ages, and is he now suddenly become a mighty
man who cannot save? When it seemed as if evangelical doctrine had died
out of the world in the sixteenth century, because it lingered only amid
some obscure and humble saints, he raised up one man, who rolled back the
tides of error, and reared once more the standard of Gospel truth; and
can he not do it again?
In these terrible shakings, not one jot or tittle
of God's Word shall perish; not one grain of truth shall fall to the ground;
not one stone in the fortress shall be dislodged. But they are permitted
to come, partly to test the chaff and wheat as a winnowing-fan; but chiefly
that all which is temporal and transient may pass away, whilst the simple
truth of God becomes more apparent, and shines forth unhidden by the scaffolding
and rubbish with which the builders have obscured its symmetry and beauty.
"The things which cannot be shaken shall remain.
ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEMS ARE BEING SHAKEN. It is not
enough that any religious system should exist; it is asked somewhat rudely
to show cause why it should continue to exist. The spirit of the age is
utilitarian, and is reluctant to consider any plea for mercy which is not
based on a clear evidence of service rendered to its pressing necessities.
The signs of this are abundantly evident. Now it
is the Disestablishment of the Church which is proposed; a proposal which
fills with horror those who regard it as necessary for the maintenance
of Christianity in our midst. Teachers of religion are challenged to show
reason for assuming their office, or of claiming special prerogatives.
Methods of work are being weighed in the balances; missionary plans trenchantly
criticised; religious services metamorphosed. Change is threatening the
most time-honored customs; and all this is very distressing to those who
have confused the essence with the form, the jewel with the casket, the
spirit with the temple in which it dwells. But let us not fear. All this
is being permitted for the wisest ends. There is a great deal of wood,
hay, and stubble in all our structures which needs to be burned up; but
not an ounce of gold or silver will ever be destroyed. The waves may wash
off the weed which has attached itself to the harbor wall; but they will
fail to start one constituent stone. The simplicity of early Church life
has been undoubtedly covered over with many accretions which hinder the
progress of the Church and impede her work; and we may hail any visitation,
however drastic, which shall set her free. But the Church herself is founded
on a rock, and the gates of hell shall never prevail against her.
Well was it for the Church of Christ when the days
of persecution lay sorely on her. Never was she so pure, so spiritually
powerful, as then. And if such days should ever be allowed to return, and
God were to shake her fabric with the fierce whirlwinds of martyrdom, there
would be no need for anxiety. The time-servers, the mere professors, the
creatures of fashion would stand revealed; but those who had experienced
the work of God in their souls would endure to the end, and their true
character would be manifested. "The things that cannot be shaken will remain."
OUR CHARACTERS AND LIVES ARE CONSTANTLY BEING SHAKEN.
What a shake that sermon gave us which showed that all our righteousnesses,
on which we counted so fondly, were but withered leaves! What a shake was
that commercial disaster which swept away in one blow the savings and credit
of years, that were engrossing the heart, and left us only what we had
of spiritual worth! What a shake was that temptation which showed that
our fancied sinlessness was an empty dream, and that we were as sensitive
to temptation as those over whom we had been vaunting ourselves.
What has been the net result of all these shakings?
Has a hair of our heads perished? The old man has perished; but the inward
man has been daily renewed. The more the marble has wasted, the more the
statue has grown. As the wooden centers have been knocked down, the solid
masonry has stood out with growing completeness. "The things which could
not be shaken have remained."
"Go on, great Spirit of God: shake with thine earthquakes
even more violently these characters of ours, that all which is not of
thee, but of us, and therefore false and selfish, may be revealed and overthrown,
so that we may learn our true possessions. And as we see them saved to
us from the general wreck, we shall know that, having been given us by
thyself, they must partake of thine own permanence and eternity. Let us
learn the worst of ourselves, that we may learn to prize thy best."
At the most these shakings are temporary. "Only this once," child of God!
Then, nevermore!
THERE ARE A FEW THINGS WHICH CANNOT BE SHAKEN. God's
Word. Heaven and earth may pass away; but God's Word-never! All
flesh is grass, and all the glory of man, his opinions, his pretensions,
his pomp and pride, as the flower of grass, beautiful, but evanescent;
but the Word of the Lord shall stand forever, and this is the Word which
by the Gospel is being preached. Let us not fear modern criticism; it cannot
rob us of one jot or tittle of God's truth. Scripture will shake it off,
as the Apostle did the viper which fastened on his hand, and felt no hurt.
God's Love. Our friends' love may
be shaken by a rumor, a moment's neglect, a change in our estate; but God's
love is like himself, immutable. No storm can reach high enough to touch
the empyrean of his love. He never began to love us for anything in ourselves,
nor will he cease to love us because of what he discovers us to be. The
love of God, which is in Jesus Christ our Lord, is unassailable by change
or shock.
God's Eternal Kingdom. "We receive
a kingdom which cannot be shaken." Amid all our revolutions and political
changes that Kingdom is coming. It is assuming body and shape and power.
It is now in mystery, but it shall soon be revealed. And it cannot be touched
by any sudden attack or revolt of human passion. "The God of heaven shall
set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed."
Let us count up our inalienable and imperishable
treasures; and though around us there is the terror of the darkness or
the pestilence of the noontide, we shall be kept in perfect peace; as when
some petty sovereign eyes with equanimity the mob arising to sack his palace,
because long ago he sent all his treasures to be kept in the strong cellars
of the Bank of England.
This world of change and earthquake is not our rest
or home. These await us where God lives, in the city which hath foundations,
and in the land where the storm rages not, but the sea of glass lies peacefully
at the foot of the throne of God. We may well brace ourselves to fortitude
and patience, to reverence and Godly fear; since we have that in ourselves
and yonder which partakes of the nature of God, and neither thieving time
can steal it, nor moth corrupt, nor change affect.
It is out of a spirit like this that we are able
to offer service that pleases God. Too often there is a self-assumption,
a vainglory, an energy of the flesh, that must be in the deepest degree
objectionable to his holy, loving eye. It partakes so much of the unrest
and chafe of the world around. But when once we breathe the Spirit of the
Eternal and Infinite, our hand becomes steadier, our heart quieter, and
we learn to receive his grace. We do not agonize for it; we claim and use
it, and we serve God with acceptance, through the merits of Jesus Christ
our Lord.
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Chapter XXXII.