Daily Devotionals

Devotional: April 23rd

ENTHUSIASM FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS

And was clad with zeal as a cloke - Isaiah 59:17

YOU may think that fiery enthusiasm has little to do with greatness; I believe it has everything to do with it, and that the difference between men is very largely to be found here, whether they flame up into the white heat of enthusiasm for the things that are right, or whether the only things that can kindle them into anything like earnestness and emotion are the poor shabby things of personal advantage. I need not remind you how, all through John the Baptist’s career, there burnt, unflickering and undying, that steadfast light; how he brought to the service of the plainest teaching of morality a fervour of passion and of zeal almost unexampled and magnificent. I need not remind you how Jesus Christ Himself laid His hand upon this characteristic, when He said of him, "he was a light kindled and shining." But I would lay upon all our hearts the plain practical lesson that if we keep in that tepid region of lukewarmness which is the utmost approach to tropical heat that moral and religious questions are capable of raising in many of us, goodbye to all chance of being "great in the sight of the Lord." We hear a great deal about the "blessings of moderation," the " dangers of fanaticism," and the like. I venture to think that the last thing which the moral consciousness of England wants to-day is a refrigerator, and that what it needs a great deal more than that is, that all Christian people should be brought face to face with this plain truth - that their religion has, as an indispensable part of it, " a spirit of burning," and that if they have not been baptized in fire, there is little reason to believe that they have been baptized with the Holy Ghost.

" Full of the Holy Ghost," as a vessel might be to its brim of golden, wine! Full! A dribbling drop or two in the bottom of the jar: whose fault is it? Why, with that rushing mighty wind to fill our sails if we like, should we be lying in the sickly calms of the tropics, with the pitch oozing out of the seams, and the idle canvas flapping against the mast? Why, with those tongues of fire hovering over our heads, should we be cowering over grey ashes in which there lives a little spark? Why, with that great rushing tide of the river of the water of life, should we be like the dry watercourses of the desert, with bleached and white stones baking where the streams should be running? "Oh! thou that art named the house of Israel, is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Are these His doings?" But if we stay ourselves on God, amidst struggle and change here, He will gladden us yonder with perpetual joys. " Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved." Every one of us knows that to be kept unmoved will demand the exercise of power far beyond the limitations of humanity. We are swept by such surges of passion; we are swayed by such storms of temptation; we are smitten by such shocks of destiny, that to stand steadfast is beyond our power. And there is only one thing that will make us steadfast, and that is that we should be, if I might use such a figure, bolted and lashed on to, or rather incorporated into, the changeless steadfastness of the unmoved God.

I long that you and myself may be a flame for goodness; may be enthusiastic over plain morality; and may show that we are so by our daily life, by our rebuking the opposite, if need be, even if it took us into Herod’s chamber and made Herodias our enemy for life.

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