Part 7
and God is not accepting you– and that fact is making you angry– there is a worse sin lying like a lion ready to devour you! It was so with Cain. Perhaps at that moment he had not seriously thought of killing his brother. He was angry, but he was not yet implacable and malicious. But God said, "There is a sin lying at your door that will come upon you to your destruction." May it not be the same with you, my Hearer? What if I were to look steadily in the face of some undecided person here, tonight, and say, "Friend, are you not accepted by God and are you angry? A sin is lying at your door which will be your ruin. You will go on from being a sinner to become a criminal." Is Hazael here? Shall I, like the Prophet, look you in the face till my tears begin to flow at the sight of you, and say, "I know what you will do. You will be a terror to all around you"? You would probably answer me as Hazael did–"Is your servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?"
Many a man would be horrified to be told what yet will be the fact in his case. Dreadful to tell, men that have been melted by a sermon have afterwards grown hard enough to perpetrate crimes that have brought them before the courts of their country! Almost converted, almost persuaded, it looked as if a vista opened up before them leading to endless glory and happiness–but in one sad hour they turned the other way. Like Felix, they waited for a more convenient season and their life was, from that day on, down, down, deeper and deeper and deeper–till it ended in the lowest
Hell. Oh, my dear Hearers, I am always fearful about those who are so near salvation and yet are not decided! Judas, who can preach the Gospel. Judas, who is an Apostle. Judas, who can say, "Lord, is it I?"–He is the man that at the last sells his Master! Though an Apostle in appearance, he was in heart a traitor and a son of perdition! The raw material for a devil is an angel! The raw material for the son of perdition was an Apostle–and the raw material for the most horrible of apostates is one who is almost a saint!
I say no more than I mean and than history can prove. There have usually been splendid traits of character about men who have been unfit to live. The question has been in their minds, "Which shall have the mastery?" and, for a while, the result has trembled in the balance! But when they have decided for evil, it has been decision with a vengeance. God gave Cain the clearest warning. He did as good as say–"Why are you angry? And why is your countenance fallen? There is an opportunity for you. If you do well, shall not you, even you, O Cain, be accepted? And if you do evil, sin lies at the door to spring upon you and drag you down." Oh that he had been capable of taking the warning and escaping the evil! Be you warned, O man or woman to whom these words shall come, lest your last end be worse than the first!
But there is yet another meaning which I must bring out, here, and that is one which is held by many critics, though it is questioned by others. I am content to go with a considerable following, especially of the old divines, who say that the word here used may be rendered, "If you do evil, a sin offering lies at the door." And what a sweet meaning this gives us! God graciously declares to angry Cain, "You can bring a sin offering, as Abel has done, and all will be well. You can present a bleeding sacrifice, typical of the great Atonement–a sin offering lies at the door." This should be an encouraging assurance to anyone who is anxious and, at the same time, greatly afraid that pardon is not possible. My dear
Friend, why need you grow despondent because another enters
Heaven? A sin offering lies at your door, also! You can have your sin forgiven even as his has been forgiven–come and try for yourself!
"Where can I find Christ?" asks one. He stands at the door! He waits for you! The offering is not far to seek. You have not to climb to Heaven to bring Him down. He has descended! You have not to dive into the depths to fetch Him up. He has risen from the dead!
"The Word is near you, even in your mouth," so says Paul. What then? If you would have it for your own and know its virtue, receive it into your soul. "Alas!" cries one, "I am dying! Where is the elixir which will restore me?" In your mouth! Swallow it, by God's Grace! You have not even to open the box to get out the pill.
It is in your mouth! Receive it into your inward parts. Jesus crucified is freely presented to you. All the merit of His death is here at this moment. Accept it. It is yours. A sin offering lies at the door! That is to say, the sufferings of Christ, the Atonement of Christ and the righteousness of Christ are available at this moment!
You may have all that Jesus has purchased–have it for nothing, the free gift of God! Repenting of sin and believing in Jesus, you have it all! Eternal salvation is yours if the Holy Spirit has made you willing to have it. "He that believes on Him is not condemned."
Only trust Him and the death of Christ is death for you and the righteousness of Christ is your righteousness! A sin offering lies at the door. God does, as it were, say, "Bring it, I will receive it and I will receive you, for its sake."
Do but take Christ by faith and bring Him before God. Say unto
God "My Father, I have no good works to trust in, but I trust Your Son. I desire to be rid of my sin and I trust in You to purify me. I pine to become a new creature and I trust in Your Spirit to newcreate me. Behold the bloody Sacrifice offered upon Calvary. I present it to You. For Jesus' sake accept me." He will do it, dear
Friend! He will do it!
I do not know that I can say any more. I wish that I could have said it better. I would speak right into your heart. May the Spirit of God so speak! Do not be angry because another is saved, but turn your anger on yourself because you have not accepted salvation.
Remember, if you do what other sinners have done, namely, simply come to Christ, you shall be accepted as they have been! And if you are not accepted, it is your sin that is preventing it. A sin offering is waiting to take away that sin. Oh, reject not the priceless gift! Trifle not with your soul and with your Savior! Do not incur an eternity of misery! Do not lose an eternity of bliss! "Turn you, turn you; why will you die, O house of Israel?"
If I never should occupy this pulpit again, what should I wish to have preached? Nothing but the Gospel which I have now preached for so many years. I wish I had spoken better, but I do not know that I could have said more. If these kind pleadings do not touch angry hearts, neither would they be affected though martyrs rose from the dead.
Ge 4:9 • Am I My Brother's Keeper?
ERMON 1399
Am I My Brother's Keeper?
"Am I my brother's keeper?"
Genesis 4:9
To what a shameful pitch of presumptuous impudence had Cain arrived when he could thus insult the Lord God! If it had not been on record in the pages of Inspiration, we might almost have doubted whether a man could speak so impudently when actually conscious that God Himself was addressing Him. Men blaspheme frightfully, but it is usually because they forget God and ignore His Presence. But Cain was conscious that God was speaking to him.
He heard Him say, "Where is Abel your brother?" and yet he dared, with the coolest impertinence, to reply to God, "I know not. Am I my brother's keeper?" As much as to say–"Do You think that I have to keep him as he keeps his sheep? Am I also a shepherd as he was and am I to take as much care of him as he did of a lame lamb?"
The cool impudence of Cain is an indication of the state of heart which led up to his murdering his brother and it was also a part of the result of his having committed that terrible crime. He would not have proceeded to the cruel deed of bloodshed if he had not, first, cast off the fear of God and been ready to defy his Maker. Having committed murder, the hardening influence of sin upon Cain's mind must have been intense and so, at last, he was able to speak out to God's face what he felt within his heart and ask, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
This goes a long way to explain what has puzzled some persons, namely, the amazing calmness with which great criminals will appear in the dock. I remember to have heard it said of one who had undoubtedly committed a very foul murder, that he looked like an innocent man. He stood up before his accusers as calmly and quietly, they said, as an innocent man would do. I remember feeling, at the time, that an innocent man would probably not have been calm! The distress of mind occasioned to an innocent man by being under such a charge would have prevented his having the coolness which was displayed by the guilty individual. Instead of its being any evidence of innocence that a man wears a brazen front when charged with a great crime, it should, by wise men, be considered to be evidence against him.
Well may he seem dispassionate and unmoved who has already been so unfeeling as to dip his hand in blood. If he were so hardened as to do the deed, it is not likely he will display much softness when the deed is brought home to him. Oh, dear Friends, let us shun sin, if it is only for the evil effect which it has upon our minds! It is poison to the heart! It stupefies the conscience, drugs it, sends it to sleep! It intoxicates the judgment and puts all the faculties, as it were, into a state of drunkenness, so that we become capable of monstrous bravery and blind impertinence which makes us mad enough to dare insult God to His face! Save us, O God, from having our hearts hammered to the hardness of steel by sin!
Daily keep us, by Your Grace, sensible and tender before You, trembling at Your Word.
Now, let us note, here, that while we are thus heavily censuring
Cain, we must mind that we are not guilty ourselves! If we look at it without prejudice, every kind of excuse that we make to God is a very high piece of presumption. When we are charged with any form of guilt, if we begin denying or extenuating, we are guilty of the sin of Cain as to impudence before God. And when there is any duty to be performed and we begin to shirk it, or try to make an apology for disobedience, are we not forgetting in whose Presence we stand? Does He charge me with what I have committed and shall I be so wicked as to attempt a denial? Does He bid me perform a duty and do I begin to hesitate, question and ask myself, "Shall I, or shall I not?" Oh, bold rebellion! The essence of treason lurks in every hesitancy to obey and dwells in every attempt to extenuate our fault when we have already disobeyed.
You think Cain a monster that he should dare to face it out with God? Yet God is everywhere present and every sin is perpetrated while He is watching! Against Him do we sin and in His Presence we do evil! And when we begin to make excuses for wrong done or hesitate concerning duty commanded, we are disobeying in the immediate Presence of the Lord our God. Since we have, doubtless, been guilty of this, let us humbly confess it and ask the Lord to give us great tenderness of conscience that from now on we may fear the Lord and never dare to stand up to question what He has to say. The very same thing, no doubt, lies at the bottom of objections to Bible Truths. There are some who do not go to Scripture to take out of it what is there, but seeing what is clearly revealed they then begin to question and judge and come to conclusions according to their notions of what ought to have been there.
No, but O Man, who are you that replies against God? If He says it, it is so! Believe it! Can you not understand it? Who are you that you should understand? Can you hold the sea in the hollow of your hand, or grasp the winds in your fist? Worm of the dust, the Infinite must always be beyond you! There must always be about the glorious Lord something that is incomprehensible and it is not for you to doubt because you cannot understand, but rather humbly to bow before His Presence who has made you and in whose hand your breath is. God save us from the presumption which dares to say with Pharaoh, "Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice?" and from the profane arrogance which replies to the Lord in the spirit of Cain!
Now, let us look quietly at what Cain said. He said to the Lord, "Am I my brother's keeper?" May the Holy Spirit guide us in considering this question.
First it is to be noted that MAN IS NOT HIS BROTHER'S
KEEPER IN SOME SENSES. There is some little weight in what Cain says. Generally some amount of truth clings to every lie and even in the greatest possible profanity there is, usually, something or other of truth, though it is grievously twisted and distorted. In this atrocious question of Cain there is some little measure of reason. In some sense no man is his brother's keeper. For instance, every man must bear his own responsibility for his own acts before Almighty God. It is not possible for a man to shift from his own shoulders to those of another his obligations to the Most High.
Obedience to the Law of God must be personally rendered or a man becomes guilty. No matter how holy his father, or how righteous his mother, he, himself will have to stand upon his own feet and answer for himself before the judgment seat of God. Each man who hears the Gospel is responsible for the hearing of it. No one else can believe the Gospel for him, or repent for him, or be born again for him, or become a Christian for him. He must, himself, personally, repent of sin, personally believe in Jesus
Christ, personally be converted and personally live to the service and Glory of God. Every tub must stand on its own bottom. There have been idle attempts to shift the responsibility to a certain order of men called priests, or clergymen, or ministers–according as the case may be–but it cannot be done.
Each man must seek the Lord himself–he must, himself, lay his load of sin at the foot of the Cross and he, himself, accept a personal Savior for himself. You cannot do with the matters of your soul as you do with the business of your estate and employ a priest in the same way as you engage a solicitor to represent you. There is one Substitute and Advocate who can plead for us, but no earthly sponsor can help you with Heaven. God demands the heart and with the heart man must believe unto righteousness–his own heart– for none can take his place. Personal service is required by the great King and must be rendered on pain of eternal destruction! No man can be his brother's keeper in the sense of taking upon himself another man's responsibilities.
And again, no one can positively secure the salvation of another, no, he cannot even have a hope of the salvation of his friend, so long as the other remains unbelieving. O unconverted people, we can pray for you, we can ask the Lord to renew you by His Spirit, but we can do nothing with you, ourselves! And neither will our prayers be answered until you, yourselves, make a confession of your sin and fly to Christ for salvation! It is, no doubt, a very great blessing to have friends who bear your names upon their hearts before God, but, oh, do not have any confidence in other people's prayers while you are prayerless! We ought to be very thankful that other people can pray believingly for us, but we shall never be saved if we remain unbelieving! Now, since we cannot convert other people, we are not responsible to do what we cannot do and, therefore, we are not our brother's keeper so fully as to be responsible for his acceptance or reception of Jesus.
And here let me say, in the next place, that those do very wrongly who enter into any vows or promises for others in this matter when they are quite powerless. To me it always remains a riddle, which I cannot explain except by the utter heartlessness and godlessness of this age, that men and women are to be found to come forward to solemnly promise concerning a little child, as yet unconscious, that it shall keep all God's holy commandments and walk in the same all the days of its life and shall renounce all the pomps and vanities of this present evil world! I dare not stop short of saying that you lie most frightfully if you make any such promise! You go farther than that–you are guilty of perjury before almighty God!
With what wrath He must look down upon persons, who, in an edifice which they think to be sacred to His honor and in the presence of those who wear vestments which are supposed to mark them out as peculiarly the messengers of God, dare to say that they will do that which is quite out of their power! You cannot do it and you know it! You have, perhaps, not renounced the pomps and vanities of the world for yourselves! Certainly YOU have not kept all God's holy commandments! How, then, can you do it for another? If you stood up there and promised before God that the child should grow eight feet high, that its hair should be of a yellow color and that its eyes should be green, you would be quite as much justified in making such a vow as in promising that which is prescribed in the Prayer Book–only there would be a touch of the ludicrous about that–but in this there is nothing that I can see to smile about, but everything to mourn over!
It is sad that the human mind should be capable of such a use of words that it should dare to pronounce a lie as an act of worship and then go calmly and quietly home as though everything had been done to please God! No, you cannot be other people's keepers. Do not, therefore, put yourselves into the awful position of promising that you will be. It is proper, here, to say that the most earnest minister of Christ must not so push the idea of his own personal responsibility to such an extreme as to make himself unfit for his work through a morbid view of his position. If he has faithfully preached the Gospel and his message is rejected, let him persevere in hope and not condemn himself.
I remember years ago, when I labored to feel the responsibility of men's souls upon me, I became very depressed in spirit and the temptation arose out of it to give up the work in despair. I believe that responsibility should be duly felt, neither do I wish to say a word to excuse any who are unfaithful, but in my own case I saw that I could harp on one chord of my nature till I destroyed my power to do good, for I became so unhappy that the elasticity of my spirit departed from me. Then I remembered that if I had put the Gospel faithfully before you and pressed it upon you–if you refused it I had nothing more to do with the matter except to pray over it–if I earnestly entreated the Lord to send a blessing and tried again and again to plead and urge with your consciences that you should be reconciled to God, and if I failed, I remembered that I should not be held responsible for not doing what I could not do, namely, turn hearts of stone to flesh and quicken dead sinners into life!
Our responsibility is heavy enough without our exaggerating it!
We are not men's sponsors and if they reject our Savior whom we faithfully preach, their blood must be upon their own heads. Our Lord did not always weep over Jerusalem–He sometimes rejoiced in spirit! No one thought must exclusively occupy our minds or we shall be good for nothing in practical life. We are not the keepers of other men's souls in a boundless sense–there is a limit to our responsibility and it is foolish to allow an excessive sensitiveness to burden us into semi-lunacy. There is, however, a sense in which we are our brother's keeper and of that I am now going to speak.
You will bear my warning in mind and it will not weaken the force of what I say, but it will increase its weight, because you will feel that I have looked at the subject all round.
II. So now, secondly, IN A HIGH DEGREE WE ARE, EACH
ONE OF US, OUR BROTHER'S KEEPER. We ought to regard ourselves in that light and it is a Cainish spirit which prompts us to think otherwise and to wrap ourselves up in hardheartedness and say, "It is no concern of mine how others fare. Am I my brother's keeper?" Let us be far from that spirit! For, first, common feelings of humanity should lead every Christian man to feel an interest in the soul of every unsaved man. I say, "common humanity," for we use the word, "humanity," to signify kindness.
Such-and-such a man, we say, has no human feeling. I am not quite certain whether human feeling is always so humane as the words would seem to imply. Humanity over yonder, at any rate, in Russia and Turkey, does not seem to be a flower worth cultivating– but we might pray to be delivered from such humanity! The most horrible beast in those regions appears to be a man. Humanity in Bulgaria? God save us from such humanity!
Yet I trust among us the expression may be used that common humanity leads us to desire the salvation of others. I am sure, my dear Friends, if you saw a man perishing for lack of bread, you would wish to share your crust with him. Will you let souls perish for lack of the Bread of Life without pitying and helping them? If we saw a poor wretch shivering in the winter's cold, we should be ready to divide our raiment that we might clothe him. Shall we see sinners without the Robe of Righteousness and not be anxious to speak to them of Him who can clothe them in fair white linen?
When a person is in jeopardy through accident, we rush anywhere and use every exertion if by any means we may rescue him and yet this life is trivial compared with eternal life and for us to be indifferent when men are perishing–indifferent to the dreadful woes which come upon impenitent sinners throughout eternity–is to act as if all brotherly compassion had fled our bosoms! Christians, I charge you, even upon so base a motive as this–because you are men and men are all your brothers, born of the same stock and dwelling beneath the arched roof of the one eternal Father– therefore care for the souls of others and be, each one of you, his brother's keeper!
A second argument is drawn from the fact that we have, all of us, especially those of us who are Christians, the power to do good to others. We have not all the same ability, for we have not all the same gifts, or the same position, but as the little maid that waited on Naaman's wife had opportunity to tell of the Prophet who could heal her master, so there is not a young Christian here but what has some power to do good to others. Converted children can lisp the name of Jesus to their sires and bless them! We have all some capacity for doing good. Now, take it as an axiom that power to do good involves the duty of doing good. Wherever you are placed, if you can bless a man, you are bound to do it. To have the power and not to use it is a sin!
In withholding your hand from that which you are able to do for the good of your fellow man you have broken the law of love. You do not need a special call to tell a sinner about Jesus. You need no special call to take a little child and tell it of the Savior's love. You need no revelation by angels from Heaven to tell you that what has benefited yourself will benefit your fellow men. All your knowledge, all your experience, all that you possess that Divine
Grace has given you demands a return in the form of service rendered to others! The Jews were God's elect nation–elect to keep the oracles of God for all the nations–but they failed because they never cared for the bearing of those great Truths of God upon the Gentiles. They fancied that they had received them for their own special benefit. The selfish spirit so grew upon them that when God's Grace to the heathen was mentioned it made them mad with rage!
And, you saved ones, you owe much to God–but do not think that you are saved only for your own special benefit. It is a great benefit to you, but Grace is bestowed upon you like light that you may give it to others who are in darkness! It is bestowed upon you as the bread that was given by our Lord to His disciples in the desert that they might break it among the multitude–that all might eat and be filled! Think about this–that the power to do good involves the responsibility to do it wherever that power exists–and so, as far as you have any ability, you are by that very fact constituted your brother's keeper.
Another argument is very plainly drawn from our Lord's version of the Moral Law. What is the Second and great Commandment according to Him? "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Now, since we have loved ourselves so well that through God's
Grace we have sought and found forgiveness of our sin, should we not love our neighbor so well as to desire him to know his sin and to seek forgiveness? It was right of us to secure our highest interests by laying hold upon eternal life–but if we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, should we give ourselves any rest while multitudes are despising Christ and refusing salvation? No, Brothers and Sisters, we have never yet come up to the standard– but in proportion as we begin to love our neighbor as ourselves we shall certainly feel that God has made us in a measure to be our brother's keeper.
And again, without looking to other men's souls we cannot keep the First of the two great Commandments in which our Lord has summarized the Moral Law. It runs thus–"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength." But this we cannot possibly do unless we have a love towards our brother's soul, for well does the Apostle ask–"If a man loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?" It is all very fine to stand up and sing about your love to God and let the missionary box go by while your eyes are gazing into Heaven–but if you do not care for the heathens' souls, how can you care for God? It is all very pretty to be enamored of Christ and to have a sweet experience, or to think you have, and yet poor wretches in London are dying without the knowledge of the Savior and you can let them die and let them sink into Hell without emotion.
May God save us from such piety! It is very pretty to look at, like the gilt on the gingerbread in the old fairs, but there is no gold about it at all. A loveless religion is good for nothing! He who does not love his fellow man enough to desire his salvation and aim at it with all his might, gives no proof that he loves God at all! Think of these things and weigh my arguments with candor.
Once more. To the Christian man, perhaps the most forcible reason will be that the whole example of Jesus Christ, whom we call Master and Lord, lies in the direction of our being the keeper of our brother, for what was Jesus' life but entire unselfishness?
What was said of Him at His death but that, "He saved others: Himself He could not save"? The very fact that there is a Christ at all means that there was One who cared for others! That our Lord became a Man means that He loved His enemies and came here to rescue those who rebelled against His authority!
If we are selfish–if we make our own going to Heaven to be the one end of life–we are not Christians! We may call whom we please, Master, but we are not following Jesus Christ! Do you shed tears? But do you weep over Jerusalem? Tears for yourselves are poor things if there are never any for others. You pray and agonize– but is your grief ever caused by bearing the burden of other men's souls? Are you like He with whose name Gethsemane must ever be connected in our memories? Oh, though we gave our bodies to be burned, yet if we have not love for mankind it profits us nothing!
We may go a long way and apparently all the way in the externals of the Christian religion, but if the heart is never warm with a desire to benefit mankind, we are still aliens to the commonwealth of which Jesus is the great Head. I am sure it is so! I speak not my own mind, but the mind of Christ. If He were here, what would He say to anyone who called himself His disciple and yet never lifted his hand or moved his tongue to snatch the firebrand from the flame or save the sinner from the error of his ways? It must be so, then–we must be our brothers' keepers.
Let the next thought rise in our minds that we are certainly ordained to the office of brother-keeper because we shall be called to account about it. Cain was called to account. "Where is Abel your brother?" I would to God, dear Friends, and especially you, the young men of the College, who asked me to speak about missions, tonight, that you could now hear the Lord speaking to you and saying, "Where is Abel your brother?" Take first those who are united to us by the ties of the flesh, who come under the term, "brothers," because they are born of the same parents, or are near of kin. Where is John? Where is Thomas? Where is Henry, your brother? Unsaved? Without God? What have you ever done for him? How much have you prayed for him? How often have you spoken to him seriously about his state? What means have you used for his instruction, persuasion, conviction?
Dear Sisters, I must not let you off. Where is your brother? You sisters have very great power over brothers–more power than brothers have. Where, dear Mother–let me put the question very tenderly to you–where is your child, your son, your daughter? Not all that you could wish, you say? But can you say, if your dear child were to perish, that you are clear of his blood? Father, the boy grieves you–are you quite clear that you did not help to sow in him the sins which are now your trial? Come, have you done all that could be done? If, in a week's time, you had to follow in mournful procession, your son's body to the grave, are you quite clear? Quite clear? Relatives, I put you all together–are you quite clear of the blood of relatives? The day will come when the question will have to be put very plainly, "Where is Abel your brother?"
You cannot help it, I know, that such a one lives in sin and has become an unbeliever or a scoundrel. You cannot absolutely help it, but still, have you done all that you could have done towards the preventing of the sin by leading that soul into the way of life and peace? I pause for a moment to let that solemn enquiry go home to everyone. The proverb says, "Charity must begin at home," and certainly Christian love ought to begin there. Are our own houses swept? Our own children, servants, brothers and sisters–have we as much as lies in us sought to win them to Christ? For my part, I abhor the spirit which takes a Christian mother from her children to be doing good everywhere except at home! I dread the zeal of those who can run to many services but whose households are not cared for–yet sometimes such is the case.
I have known people very interested in the seven trumpets and the seven seals who have not been quite so particular about the seven dear children that God has entrusted to them! Leave somebody else to open up the Revelation and look to your own boys! Mind where they are in the evenings! And see to your girls, that they know, at least, the Gospel, for, indeed, there are some households where there is ignorance of the plan of salvation, albeit that the parents are professedly Christians! Such things ought not to be! Where is Abel your brother? Your son? Where is your daughter, your sister, your father, your cousin? See to this, that you begin at once, earnestly seeking the salvation of relatives!
But, Beloved, we must never end there, because brotherhood extends to all ranks, races and conditions. And according to each man's ability, he will be held responsible about the souls of others whom he never saw. Where is Abel your brother? Down in a back street in London? He is just going into the public house. He is half drunk already! Have you done anything, Friend, towards the reclaiming of the drunk? Where is your sister? Your sister who frequents the midnight streets? You shrink back and say, "She is no sister of mine!" Yes, but God may require her blood at your hands if you leave her to perish! Have you ever done anything towards reclaiming her? She has a tender heart despite her sin. Alas, many a Christian woman, many a Christian man who comes across the path of such will draw themselves up with a kind of Phariseeism, shake the dust off their feet and feel as if they were contaminated by their very presence!
Yet Christians ought to love the erring and the sinful–and if we do not, we shall be called to account for it. If we have an opportunity of doing good, even to the vilest, and do not use it, we shall not be guiltless! Some of you who get rich in London go and live out in the suburbs and I cannot blame you. Why should you not? But if you leave the heart of London, where the working people are without any means of Divine Grace–if you are content to hear the Gospel yourselves and withdraw your wealth from struggling
Churches among the poor, God will one day say to you, "Where is Abel your brother?"
City merchant, where are the poor men that earned your wealth?
Where are they who, after all, were the bone and sinew that made you rich–from whom you fled as though they were struck with the plague and whom you left to die in utter ignorance? Oh, see to this, you rich men, you persons in responsible positions–lest the blood of the poor of London be demanded of your souls at the great Day of Account! Yes, but London is not everywhere, nor is this little isle of England everything. Look, if you can, across sea and land to India where your fellow subjects live and, alas, die at this hour of famine. The day will come when God will say to English
Christians, "Where is the Hindu, your brother? Where is the Brahmin your brother? Where is the Soodra your brother?"
And what answer will be given by the men who ought to be there and have the ability to be there? What answer will be given by rich men who ought to help to send missionaries there, but suffer the millions to perish without a knowledge of Christ, not lifting their hand to help? And further still lies China! That does not bear thinking of, with its teeming millions–millions who have never even heard the sound of Jesus' name! Their destiny we leave with God, but still, we know that to be ignorant of God and of His Christ is a frightful thing–and every man who has light, unless his duty lies at home, should gird up his loins and say in God's name–"I will not have the blood of India streaming down my gory clothes, nor the blood of China pouring a curse upon my head." The Lord grant to all Christians to see their relation to mankind and to act a brother's part to all races!
One thing more upon this calling to account. The more needy, the more destitute people are, the greater is their claim upon us, for, according to the Account Book–need I turn to the chapter? I think you remember it–they are the persons for whom we shall have mainly to give an account–"I was hungry and you gave Me no meat. I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink. I was sick and in prison and you visited Me not; naked and you clothed Me not."
These objects of charity were the most destitute and poor of all–and the great question at the Last Day is about what was done for them!
So if there is a nation more ignorant than another, our call is there first. And if there is a people more sunken and degraded than others, it is concerning them that we shall have to give a special account!
Now, I close this second head about our really being our brother's keeper by saying this–there are some of us who are our brother's keeper voluntarily, but yet most solemnly, by the office that we hold. We are ministers. O brother ministers, we are our brother's keepers! "If the watchman warns them not, they shall perish." That is an awful sentence to me–"They shall perish." The next is not so awful, sometimes, to my heart, but it is very dreadful–"But their blood will I require at the watchman's hands." You cannot enter the Christian ministry without standing where you will need almighty
Grace to keep you clear of the blood of souls! Yes, and you Sunday school teachers, when you undertake to teach that class of children, you enter under the most solemn responsibilities!
I may add that all of you who name the name of Jesus, by that very fact, come into your measure of responsibility, for Christ has said, not of ministers, nor of Sunday school teachers only, but of all, "You are the light of the world." If you give no light what shall be said of you? "You are the salt of the earth." If there is no savor in you what will become of you but to be cast out and trod under foot of men?
III. My time quite fails me. I need much more, but if I leave those thoughts with you I shall be well content. However, I must occupy a little longer space while I speak on the third head, namely, that IT
WILL BE HIGH PRESUMPTION ON OUR PART IF, FROM
THIS NIGHT FORWARD, WE SHIRK THE DUTY OF BEING
OUR BROTHER'S KEEPER. I will set it very briefly in a strong light. It will be denying the right of God to make a Law and to call upon us to obey it if we refuse to do as we are told. God has so organized society that every man receiving light is bound to spread it–and if you decline the blessed service you will practically deny the right of God to require such service of you! You will be judging your Judge and lording it over your God. High treason lies in that!
Notice, next, that you will be denying all claims on your part to Divine Mercy because if you will not render mercy to others, and if you altogether deny your responsibility to others, you put yourself into the position of saying, "I need nothing from another"– consequently, nothing from God! Such mercy as you show, such mercy shall you have. The question is not what will become of the heathen if you do not teach them–the great question is what will become of you if you do not do it? If you let sinners die, what will become of you? That is the point. You put yourself out of the reach of mercy because you refuse to render it. When you bow your knee in prayer you curse yourself, for you ask God to forgive your debts as you forgive your debtors and, in effect, you ask Him to deal with you as you are dealing with others. What mercy, then, can you expect?
Indeed, there is this about it, too–that your act is something like throwing the blame of your own sin upon God if you leave men to perish. When Cain said, "Am I my brother's keeper?" He meant, probably, "You are the Preserver of men. Why did You not preserve
Abel? I am not his keeper." Some throw on the Sovereignty of God the weight which lies on their own indolence! If one soul perishes without being taught the Gospel, you cannot fling the weight of that fact upon Divine Sovereignty until the Christian Church has done her utmost to make the Gospel known! If we had all done all that could be done–I mean all of us who are Believers–and yet souls perished, the blame would lie with men themselves. But where we fall short–to that degree we are our brother's keeper–and we must not accuse the Lord.
And again, there is, to my mind, an utter ignoring of the whole plan of salvation in that man who says, "I am not going to have any responsibility about others," because the whole plan of salvation is based on substitution–on the care of Another for us–on the Sacrifice of Another for us. And the whole spirit of it is selfsacrifice and love to others. If you say, "I will not love"–well, the whole system goes together and you renounce it all if you will not love–you cannot have love's benediction. If you will not love, you cannot be saved by love. And if you fancy that the Christian faith leaves you unloving and selfish and yet takes you to Heaven, you have made a grievous mistake! There is no such religion propagated by the Word of God, for the religion of Jesus teaches that since Christ has so loved us we are, therefore, to love one another and to love the ungodly so as to endeavor to bring them to the feet of the Savior. God grant that these words may have a salutary effect by the Spirit of God applying them to your souls!
Last of all, it may turn out–it may turn out–that if we are not our brother's keeper we may be our brother's murderer! Have any of us been so already? When were you converted? Will you kindly look back to your sins before conversion? He must be a very happy man who did not, before conversion, commit sins which injured others!
But there are some persons whose lives, before they turned to Christ, were frightfully blended with the careers of others whom they have left to perish in the gall of bitterness! I have seen bitter tears shed by men who lived evil lives, when they have remembered others with whom they sinned. "I am forgiven. I am saved," one has said to me. "But what about that poor girl? Ah me!
Ah me!"
One man had been an infidel and he led others into infidelity. He has been saved, himself, but he cannot bring those back, again, whom he tutored in atheism. Before conversion you may have committed many a soul-murder. Ought not this to stir you up to seek now, if possible, as much as lies in you, to bring those to Christ whom once you led away and to teach the Living Word since once you taught the deadly word which ruined souls? Much solemn thought ought to arise out of this. Pray for the power of the Holy
Spirit to work by you to the salvation of those whom your evil influence drew towards the Pit.
But what shall be said of our conduct since we have been converted? May we not have helped to murder souls since then? I tell you a cold-hearted Christian makes worldlings think that Christianity is a lie. Inconsistent Christians–and there are such– woe, woe that it should be so! Bad-tempered, covetous, crossgrained, sardonic, snarling persons who we hope may be the Lord's people–what shall we say of these? How little they are like their Master! They are the propagators of death! I believe that nobody is more mischievous than a professor who is barely a Christian, or almost a Christian and continually shows his bad side to the world while yet he boasts of his piety! He disgusts the world with the name of Jesus!
Perhaps some of you have backslidden since your conversion and you have committed acts which have made the enemy to blaspheme the name of Christ. I charge you, by the love of God, repent of this iniquity! Look at what you have done! Look at how you have led others astray! Oh see to it at once! You know that when David had sinned with Bathsheba he repented and was forgiven, but he could never make poor murdered Uriah live again.
He was dead. You may have gone astray and damaged a soul eternally–you cannot undo the deed. Still, if you cannot revive the slain, you can mourn over the crime! Awake, arise, you sluggish
Christians, and ask the Holy Spirit to help you to be, from now on, your brother's keepers to the utmost of your power!
And do you not think that we may have been seriously injurious to others by denying them the Gospel? If you want to murder a man, you need not stab him–starve him! If you want to destroy a man, you need not teach him to drink or swear–keep back the Gospel from him! Be in his company and never say a word for Christ! Be where you ought to speak and be sinfully silent and who knows how much blood will be laid to your door? Do you not think that to deny a cup of cold water to a man and let him die of thirst is murder? To deny the Gospel–to have no word to say for Jesus–is not this soul-murder? God accounts it so. "Well," some say, "I could not speak or preach." No, but do you pray for the conversion of others? Some people also have money entrusted to them–they cannot go to India or China, which I have been speaking of, but many other men are ready to go–and they ought to assist in sending them!
I have men in the College ready to go, but I have no power to send them! The Missionary Society is in debt. They cannot send out all they would like to and yet here are people in England with thousands of pounds that they will never need! And yet the heathen may die and be lost before they will part with their gold! Is there no crime in all this? Does not the voice of your brother's blood cry unto God from the ground? I believe it does. You are not to do what you cannot do, but what you can do. And surely there cannot be any question about such a matter as this! If you were once to see persons in peril–if you stood on the beach and saw a good ship breaking up–if you were able to hold an oar you would want to be in the lifeboat.
There is not a woman among you but would be willing to spare her husband for such a task, or lend her own hand to push the boat down over the shingle till it was launched upon the wave. For life– for the precious life of our fellow men–we would do anything! But if we believe, as we do, that there is a world to come and a terrible
Hell–and that there is no way of salvation except by Jesus Christ– we ought to feel tenfold more for the rescue of the souls of men from the wrath to come!
If some shall be stirred by these words, my heart will greatly rejoice. But if you are awakened, do not promise to make an effort in your own strength–pray to God about it. Commit yourself to God and ask the Divine Spirit to lead you into ways of usefulness, that before you go from here you may have brought some souls to Jesus. And to His name shall be the Glory, forever and ever. Amen.
Ge 4:10 • Am I Clear of His Blood?
ERMON 0461
Am I Clear Of His Blood?
"The voice of your brother's blood cries out to Me from the ground."
Genesis 4:10
CAIN was of the Wicked One and slew his brother. "The way of Cain" is not hard to describe. He is too proud to offer atonement for his sin. He prefers his own way of sacrifice. He presents a bloodless oblation. He hates the obedience of faith. He smites the faithful Abel. Beware of the way of Cain, O proud self-righteous ones, lest you run therein, for the steps are few from self-righteous pride to hatred of true Believers and murder is not far thereafter.
There is the seed of every infamy in the proud spirit of selfjustification, and it is a great mercy that it does not more often show itself in all its terrific ripeness.
Look, bold boasters of your own merits, at the mangled body of the first martyr, for this is the full-blown development of your rebellious self-conceit. From all pride and vainglory, from all selfrighteousness and hatred of the Cross of Christ, good Lord deliver us.
This is not, however, the drift of my discourse this morning. I have rather to indicate the method in which we also may be guilty of this sin of blood-guiltiness concerning our brother.
Dear Friends, I feel assured that the text of this morning, terrible as it must have been in the ears of Cain, ought to ring in your ears, and mine. And it may be that while that cry is heard again, though at the distance of many thousand years, it may awaken some here present to a sense of guilt, and to a desire for amendment. And thus the blood of Abel may speak good, though terrible things to them, and prepare their ears to listen to the voice of that other blood, "which speaks better things than that of Abel."
First, we shall this morning enquire for the criminals whose brother's blood cries from the ground. Next, we will endeavor to show the hateful character of the crime. Then, thirdly, we will select the judgment. And fourthly, we will exhort the guilty ones to turn from their ways and to hear the voice of mercy.
First, then, we are to MAKE A SEARCHING ENQUIRY FOR THE CRIMINALS.
I do not intend to say much, this morning, about the act of actually slaying one's brother. The question of the rightness of war is a moot point even among moral men. Among those who read their Bibles, the allowance of defensive war may, perhaps, still be a question. But any other sort of war must certainly be condemned by the man who is a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. We shall say nothing, however, or but very little, concerning the criminality of those ambitious and unscrupulous persons who hurry nations into war without cause.
Lust of dominion and a false pride are setting the United States on a blaze. I know at this time a tragic incident connected with the present war in America. Four brothers left one of our villages in Oxfordshire, two of whom, if now alive, are in one army and two of them in the other. And, I doubt not, as desperately as any of their comrades, they are thirsting for each other's blood. What horrors cluster around the iniquity of civil war. On yonder soil it is the blood of brothers that cries from the ground. Men are fighting, one against the other, in this lamentable conflict for no justifiable cause.
The one cause which justified the war, as we thought–the snapping of the fetters of the slave–is gone. Emancipation is not proclaimed, the slave is forgotten.
What might have been a struggle for the rights of man is now a shameful and abominable slaughter of brothers by brothers. And a cry is going up to Heaven from those blood-red fields which God will hear, and will yet avenge on both sides. Oh that they would sheathe their swords and end it once and for all! What matters it if there are two nations or one? Better two in peace, than one divided with intestine strife! How much better to have even twenty nations of living men, than one nation of mangled corpses! What difference is it to the survivors if they have all the honor and dignity of conquerors, when they are stained up to their elbows in the blood of their fellow men?
Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, "Consider your ways."
Arise, you that draw your sword against your fellows and weep like the weeping of Ramah of old, and make your cities like Bochim, because of your iniquities! Go back to your homes in peace, beat your swords into plowshares, and your spears into pruning hooks, for Jehovah will have none of them. He casts out your armies like dung upon the field because every man of you smites his kinsman and his fellow!
That, however, is not my subject this morning. May God grant that whatever may come of this terrible struggle, His name may be glorified. At present I see nothing but a carnival of madmen–Hell let loose. And I fear that an evil demon has deceived both nations, and made them like ravening wolves and roaring lions.
I have to deal with you, however and not with those across the ocean. Let us come, therefore, to the point. There are many persons whose brother's blood cries to God from the ground. There is the seducer. He spoke with honeyed words and talked of love, but the poison of asps was under his tongue, for lust was in his heart. He came to a fair temple as a worshipper, but he committed infamous sacrilege and left that to be the haunt of demons which once was the palace of purity. Such men are received into society. They are looked upon as gentlemen, while the fallen woman, the harlot sister–she has to hide herself beneath the shadow of night.
None will make excuse for her sin. But the man, the criminal–he is called a respectable and reputable man–he may fill places of trust and posts of honor. And there are none who point the finger of scorn at him. Sir, the voice of that poor fallen sister's blood cries to Heaven against you! And in the day of judgment, her damnation shall be on your garments. All the infamy into which you have plunged her shall lie at your door. And among the dreadful sights of Hell, two eyes shall glare at you through the murky darkness like the eyes of serpents, burning their way into your inmost soul.
"You did deceive and decoy me to the pit," she says, "your arms dragged me down to Hell and here I lie to curse you forever and ever as the author of my eternal ruin." I know I address some such this morning. It were not possible that all men here were pure and spotless. Hear while yet there is time for your repentance, for the voice of her blood cries unto God from the ground for vengeance.
Then there are men who educate youth in sin. Satan's captains and marshals–strong men with corrupt hearts–who are never better pleased than when they see the buds of evil swelling and ripening into crime. We have known some such–men of an evil eye, who not only loved sin, themselves, but delighted in it in others. They pat the boy on his back when he utters his first oath. They reward him when he commits his first theft. Satan has his Sunday school teachers. Hell has its missionaries who compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and make him tenfold more a child of Hell than they are themselves. Most of our villages are cursed with one such wretch–and is there a street in London which is not the haunt of one such fiend, or more?
Oh, do I speak to any here who have applauded and praised young persons when they have commenced walking in the paths of infamy? Wretch! Have you sought to entangle them in your net?
Have you, like the spider, thrown first one film about them, and then another, till you have them safely in your coils to drag them down to the den of Beelzebub? Then the voice of your brother's blood cries from the ground, and at the judgment will be a witness which you shall not be able to confute–the witness of the blood of souls ruined by your foul and evil training. Beware you who hunt for the precious life!
Yes, and I know some base men who, if they see young converts, will take a pride in putting stumbling blocks in their way. They no sooner discover that there is some little working of conscience, than they laugh, they sneer, they point the finger. How often have I seen this in the husband who seeks to prevent the wife's attendance at the House of God and in the young man who jeers at his companion because he felt something of the power of religion! Is not this too frequent in our great establishments in London–where one young man kneels to pray and many are found to laugh at him and hurl some foul term at his head? Not content to perish, themselves, like dogs pursuing a rabbit, so will the wicked haunt the godly.
Oh, you who are the enlisting sergeants for the Black Prince of Darkness, you who seem never as happy as when you set your traps for souls to lure them to destruction–solemnly do I warn you. Oh, take the warning, lest God's avenging angel, without earnest, should soon overtake you with the dividing sword which shall smite you even to the neck, and make you feel how terrible a thing it is to have tried to ruin the servants of the living God.
Then there is the infidel, the man who is not content to keep his sin in his own breast but must publish his infamy. He ascends the platform and blasphemes the Almighty to His face! He defies the Eternal. He takes Scripture to make it the subject of unhallowed jest. He makes religion a theme for comedy. Take heed, Sir, there will be a tragedy by-and-by, in which you shall be the chief sufferer! What shall I say of those men who are more diligent by far than half of God's ministers are? Whose names we see plastered on every wall? They go from town to town, especially where in greatest numbers artisans are dwelling, and never seem content unless they are preaching against everything that is pure and lovely and of good report.
They utter things which would make your cheeks blush if you heard them, and at the very reading of which, the marrow of your bones might melt–dreadful things against the Most High–such as David heard when he said, "Horror has taken hold of me because of the wicked that keep not Your Law." Oh, Sirs! Should I address such persons here, the voice of your brother's blood cries to Jehovah this day. The young men you have deluded, the working men you have led astray, the sinners whose lullaby you have sung, the souls that you have poisoned with your foul draughts, the multitudes–the multitudes that you have deceived–all these shall stand up at the last, an exceedingly great army, and pointing their fingers at you, shall demand your swift destruction because you decoyed them to their doom.
And what shall I say of the unfaithful preacher? The slumbering watchman of souls, the man who swore at God's altar that he was called of the Holy Spirit to preach the Word of God? The man upon whose lips men's ears waited with attention while he stood like a priest at God's altar to teach Israel God's Law? The man who performed his duties half-a-sleep, in a dull and careless manner until men slept, too, and thought religion but a dream? What shall I say of the minister of unholy life, whose corrupt practice out of the pulpit has made the most telling things in the pulpit to be of no avail, has blunted the edge of the sword of the Spirit and turned the back of God's army in the day of battle?
Yes, what shall I say of the man who has amused his audience with pretty things when he ought to have roused their consciences, who has been rounding periods when he ought to have announced the judgment of God? Who has been preaching a dead morality when he ought to have lifted Christ on high as Moses lifted the serpent in the wilderness? What shall I say, Brothers and Sisters, of those who have dwindled away their congregations, who have sown strife and schism in Churches of Christ once happy, peaceful and prosperous? What shall I say of the men who, out of the pulpit, have made a jest of the most solemn things, whose life has been so devoid of holy passion and devout enthusiasm that men have thought the Truth of God to be fiction, religion a stage play, prayer a nullity, the Spirit of God a phantom, and eternity a joke?
Among all who will need eternal compassion, surely the unfaithful, unholy, unearnest minister of Christ will be the most pitiable! What did I say? No, rather the most contemptible, the most despicable, the most accursed! Surely, every thunderbolt shall make his brow its target and every arrow of God shall seek his conscience as its mark.
If I must perish, let me suffer any way but as a minister who has desecrated the pulpit by a slumbering style of ministry, by a want of passion for souls. God knows how oftentimes this body trembles with horror at the thought the blood of souls should be required at my hands. And I cannot, and I hope I never may–I cannot understand that lifeless performance of duty, that cold and careless going through of services which, alas, is too common. How shall such men answer for it at the bar of God–the smooth things, the polite and honeyed words, the daubing of men with the untempered mortar of peace, peace, when they should have dealt with them honestly as in God's name?
Oh, Sirs, if we ever play the Boanerges, we shall hear God's thunder in our ears and that forever and ever and, cursed of men, and cursed of the Most High shall we be without end. In Tophet we shall have this wail peculiar to ourselves, "We preached what we did not feel. We testified of what we did not know. Men received not our witness, for we were hypocrites, and deceivers, and now we go down, richly deserving it, to the very lowest depths of perdition."
But, my Hearers, think not when I thus speak of the ministry, that I am about to permit you to escape. The voice of your brother's blood cries to God from the ground, even though you are no infidel lecturer, though you have never been debauched, though you have taught no heresy, though you have spread no schism. If your life is unholy, your brother's blood is on your garments. "Oh," says one, "if I sin, I sin to myself." Impossible! As well might the gasses say "I am deadly to myself alone." As well might the cholera say "my deadly breath is for myself only." Your example spreads. You, like the leper, leave uncleanliness on everything you touch. The very atmosphere which surrounds you breeds contagion.
What others see you do, they learn to do. Some may rival you and exceed you, but if you taught them their letters, and they learn to read in Hell's book better than you, all that they learn afterwards will come to your door, because the elements of sin they learned from your practice. I am afraid many people never look at their transgressions in this light. Why, you cannot help being leaders and teachers. If in your own house you are a drunkard, your boys will be drunkards, too! I have heard of a man who flogged his boy for swearing, swearing at him all the time he did it. We know instances of men who feel as if they would sooner bury their children than see them grow up such as they are themselves–but yet how can it be helped?
Your practice must, and will, influence your children. No, not your children only, but all with whom you come into connection in the mercantile world. Do not think, Sir, if you are a great employer, that your men can know what your life is without being affected by that knowledge? There may be some among them who have an inward principle which will not yield to temptation, but I know of hardly anything more dangerous than for a number of operatives to come constantly into contact with one whom they look up to as a master–who is also a master of the arts of sin and a doctor of damnation to their souls. Oh, take care, if not for yourselves, yet for others, or else, as sure as you live, the voice of your brother's blood will cry unto God from the ground.
To come yet closer home to this present audience. How much of the blood of man will die at the door of careless professors. You that make a profession of being Christians, and yet live in sin, you are the murderers of souls by the thousands. And you, too, who are moral enough in your conversation, and regular in your attendance on the outward forms of religion–you who never weep over sinners, you who never pray for them, you who never speak to them–you who leave all that to your minister, and think you have nothing to do with it–the voice of your brother's blood cries from the ground to Heaven.
There died a man in your court the other day. You spoke not to him about his soul–his blood cries to Heaven against you! You live in a villa in the country. There was a neighbor of yours–you were on speaking terms with him but you talked not to him about his soul–he is dead. He is gone–his blood cries to God against you!
You have relations, relations to whom you could speak with familiarity. You have talked to them of business. You have befriended them, perhaps, in their needs, but you have never said a word to them about escaping from Hell and fleeing to Heaven.
When you shall hear the mournful news that they have departed this life–will not their blood cry against you from the ground where they are buried?
You work, young man, in an establishment where you are somewhat respected, and, without intrusiveness you might often say a good word for your Master, but you do not. The blood of your fellows shall cry against you if they perish! Do not think the minister is the only man who is responsible for souls? God has made you all watchmen. All of you, in your spheres, are to be watchers for the souls of men. And, "If the watchman warns them not," says the Lord, "they shall perish but their blood will I require at the watchman's hands."
I know you do not think of this, and I am sorrowfully conscious that I do not feel it myself so much as I ought to do. Ah, the servants of Satan shame me! They shame me, they shame me!
There comes at night a message to some of you who are the servants of Satan–"The master is come, and he calls for you." You leave your wife and your children without a tear. You go to your master's house and there are cups, foul cups, passing round, and you will drink, and drink, and drink, and drink on–never denying your master, confessing him with many an oath–saying to your