The third man whom this text will help and comfort is the worker, the man or woman who is trying to do something for Christ’s sake. The Christian worker needs to be told that what he is trying to do is not nearly all that he is doing. What he is, is speaking as loudly as what he does or says. There is an aroma and fragrance about the life of the consecrated Christlike man or woman which sweetens and sanctifies other lives beyond what he or she can ever know. Some of the best sermons in the world have been preached by people who least suspected what they were doing. The invalid in the home does not know how real religion becomes to all who watch her patience and unselfishness. And among the busy and vigorous we often catch hints and reflections, that they never suspect, of what Christlikeness means. The man who has surrendered his life to God, indeed, is a channel of blessing to others beyond all he ever dreams of. He must not be disheartened when he realises how little he is doing, for the truth is he is doing far, far more than he knows. Wherefore, my brother, be of good cheer, and render your service to Christ with a quiet heart. Lay your course, and work your ship, and hoist your sail and trust. And the gifts of God will enrich you, and the winds of heaven will bring you on your way, even while you sleep.
Prayer
We give Thee thanks, O God, for all Thy bounties, undeserved and unearned; for the increase Thou dost send us while the stars are shining; for Thy gracious thirty-fold and sixty-fold beyond what we have sown. Every morning Thou leavest gifts upon our doorstep and dost depart unthanked. But this day we remember, and we bow our heads to render unto Thee our humble and our hearty thanks for all that Thou hast given us while we slept. Amen.
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Smoking Wicks
“The smoking flax he shall not quench.”
Isaiah 42:3
We read the 42nd chapter of Isaiah now as if it were a part of the Christian Evangel. And that is right. For whoever the Servant may have been, of whom Isaiah was thinking, it is Christ and only Christ who completely fulfils this prophecy. This is a true description of His spirit and His method. “The dimly-burning wick he shall not quench.”
The figure is easily understood. Here is a piece of flax floating in oil, and burning so faintly that it seems a mere charred end from which the smoke coils thinly upwards. Someone comes and snuffs it out, because it smells. That is the way of the world’s reformers, as Isaiah saw it, and we can see it still. By and by they will trim the wick and light it with fire of their own, but first they will quench the spark. But there is One to come, said Isaiah, shooting his arrow of prophecy in the air, who will go otherwise about it. He will not despise the spark because it is so feeble. He will tend it and foster it, and make the evil-smelling bundle of flax into a clear, shining light. And the saying has found its mark in Jesus Christ.
When a woman that was a sinner made her way into the house where He sat at meat, and wept at His feet, He amazed all those present by the extraordinary gentleness of His dealing with her. He did not refer to the evil in her life. He did not, as other good men would have done, first cast her down, that He might afterwards lift her up. He simply took the beautiful impulse after good which she brought Him out of a life besmirched and tawdry, held it in His hands—a mere spark of virtue—and breathing on it, blessed it, and behold it was a flame, burning up the evil in her life, a lamp lighting her path along a new and hopeful way. That was Christ. He does not, He will not quench the dimly-burning wick.
Now—and this is our point—if those who profess and call themselves Christians are to have the spirit in them that was also in Christ Jesus, must not this be their mark too? Does not this prescribe their attitude to life, that many-coloured, strangely-mixed compound of good and evil? Good in any form, however feeble, however mixed, as in this world it inevitably is, with what is evil, should find in those who call themselves by Christ’s name, its truest supporters, sympathisers, friends.
To the eye and heart in sympathy with it, beauty often peeps out in strange places.
“The poem hangs on the berry bush,
When comes the poet’s eye,
And the whole street is a masquerade
When Shakespeare passes by.”
So the mark of the Christlike heart is just that it discerns, and, discerning, loves the feeblest tokens of some inward grace that redeems a life from evil. Do not be afraid that by welcoming the scant good, you may be held to approve of the greater evil. That is a risk that God Himself rejoices to take. Did not Christ risk that, when He accepted that poor woman’s worship? Did He not risk it when He held out His hands to a man like Zaccheus? Does He not risk it always when He declares, “Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out?” And shall we refuse because the risk
