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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Following the Christ (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 34. Live It
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Live It
I stood one day on the abrupt edge of a little hill in a Southern Japanese city. There, in a great tree hanging out over the edge, had hung the bell that called together the faithful retainers of the lord of the province, when they were needed. There, nearly thirty years ago, a little band of Japanese youth, of noble families, had gone out at break of day one Sabbath morning, and solemnly covenanted to follow the Lord Jesus, and to devote their lives to making Him known throughout their land. Boys still in their tender teens most of them were. And that covenant was not lightly made, for already the fires of persecution had been kindled, and these fires burned fiercely but could not compete with the fire in their hearts. And as one goes up and down the island empire of the Pacific today, he can find traces of their lives cropping up everywhere, like gold veins above the soil.
And as I sought to trace the hidden springs of the power at work behind all this, I found it was in the life of one young man, a simple, holy life burning with a passion for Jesus. In this life could be found the kindling of the tender flames burning so hotly in these young hearts. He was a young American officer engaged, by the feudal lord of the province, to teach military tactics and English. He dared not teach Christianity; that would have meant instant dismissal. So for two years he lived the message, so simply and lovingly that he won the love of his pupils. Then they came Sundays to his house to hear him read the English Bible, because they loved him. As he prayed the tears would run down his face, and they laughed to think a man would weep, but they came because they loved him. He really loved them into the Christian life. I was reminded of the line in Hezekiah's song of thanksgiving after his illness, "Thou hast loved my soul up from the pit." (Isa_38:17, margin.) This young teacher lived his pupils to the Lord Jesus. The latter part of his life was a sad one, but nothing can change the record of those earlier years.
I saw recently a news item telling how many million copies of the Bible are being printed every year. The item slurringly remarked that the statisticians didn't seem concerned yet with figuring up how many of them were read. But, I thought, what these Bibles need is a new binding. This Bible I carry is bound in the best sealskin, with kid-lining. It is supposed to be the best binding for hard wear. But there's a much better sort of leather than that for Bible binding; I mean shoe leather. The people want the Bible bound in shoe leather. When we tread this Bible out in our daily walk, when what we are becomes an illustrated copy of the Bible, the greatest revival the earth has known will come. With utmost reverence let me say that our Lord Jesus wants to come and walk around in our shoes, and live inside our garments, and touch men through us.
I remember something in my early Christian life that was a sore temptation to me. There were some Christian leaders who had helped me greatly by their preaching and writings. Then it chanced that I was thrown into personal contact with them, now one, now another. And I had a sore disappointment. It's hard to find that your idol has clay feet. It's doubtless wrong to have idols. Yet youth is the time of such idol worship. The disappointment was a very sore one. Then out of it I was led to see that the Master never disappoints. And there was a drawing nearer to Himself alone.
And then a questioning arose: was some one perhaps looking at me? And a burning desire came to be more in life than in speech, not only for the sake of some one, perchance looking; but for the sake of that other One, the Man with eyes of flame, His looking. I need hardly tell you that it has been my blessed privilege to have had personal contact with leaders whose fragrant lives are so much more than word or act.
The Nazareth life means that the Lord Jesus lived His message, amid commonplace surroundings, in the midst of what is called the dull monotony of the daily round. That is, in the place where it is hardest to do it, He lived every bit of what He taught. And as we follow, simply, obediently, the Spirit will lead us along this same road. The same experience will happen to us. Could there be a greater evidence of the power of this Holy Spirit than to do such a thing with such as we know ourselves to be? Yet He will, if we let Him. A big "if" you say? But not too big to be taken out of the way, out of His way. He will live out through us what He puts into us, by and with our constant consent.
This is the meaning of the Nazareth life. Our part is obedience, simple, intelligent, strong obedience to Him. The result will be this same experience, a Nazareth life of purity and power lived by the Spirit's power.
This was the thought in the mind of Horatius Bonar, as he wrote of the unnamed woman who anointed our Lord's head, and of whom Jesus said that what she had done should be told as a memorial of her, wherever the Gospel should be preached.
"Up and away like dew in the morning,
Soaring from earth to its home in the sun,
So let me steal away, gently and lovingly,
Only remembered by what I have done.
My name and my place and my tomb all forgotten,
The brief race of time well and patiently run,
So let me pass away peacefully, silently,
Only remembered by what I have done.
Gladly away from this toil would I hasten,
Up to the crown that for me has been won,
Unthought of by man in reward and in praises,
Only remembered by what I have done.
Up and away like the odours of sunset
That sweeten the twilight as darkness comes on,
So be my life—a thing felt but not noticed,
And I but remembered by what I have done.
Yes, like the fragrance that wanders in freshness,
When the flowers that it comes from are closed up and gone,
So would I be to this world's weary dwellers,
Only remembered by what I have done.
I need not be missed if my life has been bearing,
As the summer and autumn move silently on,
The bloom and the fruit and the seed of its season;
I still am remembered by what I have done.
I need not be missed if another succeed me,
To reap down these fields that in spring
I have sown;
He who ploughed and who sowed is not missed by the reaper;
He is only remembered by what he has done.
Not myself but the truth that in life I have spoken,
Not myself but the seed in life I have sown,
Shall pass on to ages—all about me forgotten,
Save the truth I have spoken, the things
I have done.
So let my living be, so be my dying,
So let my name be emblazoned, unknown,—
Unraised and unmissed I shall still be remembered,
Yes,—but remembered by what I have done."