Acts 21:13-14 Then Paul answered, What mean you to weep and to break my heart? for I am ready not to be bound only… 1. Paul's immediate object in going to Jerusalem was to come to some understanding with those Christian Jews who were "zealous for the law," and so to put an end to controversies which impaired the development of some of the nobler forms of the Christian life; and impeded the progress of Christian missions. To put an end to these troubles, Paul was willing "not to be a prisoner only, but also to die." 2. But the way in which the apostle speaks of his readiness to meet the dangers which menaced him is characteristic of his temper and spirit. It was Christ who was chiefly concerned in the evils of the schism. The Churches which were being divided by it were Christ's Churches: He had died for them. The work among the heathen which was being impeded was Christ's work: Paul was only His "slave." And so the apostle says that he is ready to become a prisoner and even to die "for the name of the Lord Jesus." 3. Paul was on fire with love for Christ, and the passion became more fervent as his life went on. That cooling in the ardour of our "first love" which some imagine to be inevitable, is not found in the life of Paul. Our question then is — How is a great love for Christ created in a Christian heart? I. Perhaps the first answer will be BY THE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. The answer is profoundly true; but it may be suggested by indolence. We may say that therefore there is nothing for us to do, and let things take their course. If this is our temper, this noble devotion will never be kindled in our souls. It is not by any magical process that the Divine Spirit achieves His great work; without our concurrence He will do nothing. II. Perhaps the second answer will be that WE MUST LEARN FROM THE FOUR GOSPELS ALL THAT CAN BE KNOWN OF CHRIST. This answer falls in with one of the strongest tendencies of modern religious thought. The Church has become weary of the problems of theology, and has turned to the earthly life of Christ. And the story contained in the four Gospels is the enduring wonder and glory of the history of our race. But how many have come to love Christ like Paul through simply reading the four Gospels? It is quite possible to read them and to feel their infinite charm; for the heart to be drawn strongly to Christ by what they tell us about Him, and to recognise Him as God manifest in the flesh, and yet not to love Him like Paul did. Has it ever occurred to you to ask whether, for you, the interest of Christ's history, like the interest of the history of ordinary men, closes with His death? If so, the kind of devotion which He inspired in Paul is impossible. Christ may be to us the grandest, the fairest, the most glorious of historic characters. We may believe that in Him the very life of God was expressed in a human character and history. But if the ties which during Christ's earthly life united the Divine and the human were dissolved at His death, then God was nearer to man while Christ was visibly present in the world than He has been since; and the awful, the infinite distance between God and ourselves remains what it was before Christ became man. The resurrection of Christ is for the Church as great a fact as the incarnation. But for the resurrection the incarnation would have been a mere passing wonder. I think that there are some of us who forget that Christ is living still. He is a memory with which we would not part for a thousand worlds, but still a memory, and nothing more. He was more than this to Paul. Paul declared that Christ was "alive." If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith also is vain. III. WE MUST KNOW THAT CHRIST HAS NOT MERELY A GLORIOUS PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND, BUT THAT HE IS STILL "ALIVE," that He is still the same Christ that delivered the Sermon on the Mount, etc., "the same yesterday, today, and forever." But we may believe and know that Christ is alive and yet think of Him with only wonder and reverence, or with only a faint affection, without any depth and energy in it. We may be so hot and eager to make sure of the blessings which Christ has revealed, that we hurry past Christ in order to grasp them; we think of Him a little, but we think most of them; just as a starving man might think of the bread and meat which a friend has brought, and forget the friend who brought them; just as a drowning man might think of his safety when lifted into the lifeboat, and forget the gallant men whose daring and skill have saved him from the wreck; or as an ardent student, excited by the teaching of some great master, might forget the master by whose genius End labour all his joy has been inspired. I also mean that we may be so zealous in good works as to forget who it is for whom we are working. And if we do not think much of Christ, it is certain that we shall not love Him much. IV. IT WAS TO THE DEATH OF CHRIST THAT THE APOSTLES MOST FREQUENTLY RECURRED TO DEEPEN THE INTENSITY OF THEIR DEVOTION TO HIM, and it is generally of His death that they are speaking when their love for Him flames out into expressions of vehement passion. There are comparatively few persons who, at the beginning of their Christian life, have any keen sense of sin; and apart from this, there can be no deep impression of the unique power of the death of Christ, through which we have remission of sin. This development of conscience is, however, certain to come if we persist in the endeavour to obey the law of Christ faithfully. And then the Divine forgiveness will not seem a matter of course, but something surprising and almost incredible, and we shall begin to see, as we never saw before, the infinite love and mercy of Christ in becoming a sacrifice for our sins. After this discovery has been made, every confession of sin and every prayer for pardon recalls to us afresh the infinite love of Christ in dying for us. The supreme proof of Christ's love takes possession of the soul, and we begin to think more of Him than even of the blessings which He promises in this world, or in the world to come. We love Christ. We find a keener interest and a deeper joy in learning and keeping His commandments. Then we receive — at first with great hesitation, then with increasing courage — those assurances, "The Father Himself loveth you because ye have loved Me." "If a man love Me he will keep My words," etc. God's great love for us is "shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost." There is a blessedness in being forgiven for Christ's sake. There is a deeper blessedness in knowing that the Divine love for us is so generous that it finds in us something to approve as well as much to pardon. V. We have not yet mastered Paul's secret. While we are thinking of Christ's love for all men, we may know nothing of His love for us as individuals. The world is very large and we are lost in the crowd. But Paul was not merely one of a crowd that Christ loved. HE KNEW OF CHRIST'S LOVE FOR HIMSELF INDIVIDUALLY, and a similar knowledge is necessary to us if we are to be inspired with a similar devotion. We must leave it to Him to manifest Himself to us when He sees fit, and in the ways which seem to Him wisest and best. These manifestations vary with the different circumstances of men, with their different temperaments, and with their different characters. 1. Some men as they look back upon their personal history, can recall decisive proofs that Christ has answered their prayers. And just as a man might sit down over a packet of letters which he had received at intervals during many years from his father or mother, and as he turned them over and recalled the circumstances in which they were written, might come to realise more vividly than he had ever realised before the warmth, the intensity, the endurance of his father's or his mother's love for him — so the remembrance of the special proofs that Christ has heard and answered our prayers produces sometimes what may be described as a revolution in our thoughts about Him. 2. The discovery may come to us in other ways. I suppose that there are times when to some of us it is a great surprise that we are still doing the will of God. Christ's personal, individual care for us is the only explanation of the continued existence of our higher life. In Him, not in ourselves, we see the root of whatever constancy we have shown in God's service; and so we learn that there is in Christ not only a love for the world for which He died — not only a love for all who keep His commandments, but a love for ourselves individually — a love which must have bad a depth, an energy, a tenderness in it — which fill us first with wonder, and then with an affection for Him, such as His love for all mankind and His love for all who are loyal to Him could not have inspired. 3. There is still another way in which our sense of the personal love of Christ is deepened as the years go on. We know that He is one with us in our endeavours to overcome sin and live righteously; that He is our closest and most constant ally; that in our severest conflicts He stands by us. We know that He has a large stake in the issue of every struggle. He does not merely stand by us; He is our comrade, and it is in His strength, not in our own, that we win all our real victories. Conclusion: When this supreme discovery of Christ's love for us is once made, it remains. There may be times when the sky is clouded, but we know that the splendour of the sun has not been extinguished. Christ has made, not our house, but our very selves His home. (R. W. Dale, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. |
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