Verse 13
Plain Speaking
Let us use these words as Jesus Christ used them in Matthew ( Mat 15:7 ), "Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you." There are three points, the first of which is the importance of plain speaking on all questions affecting the interests of truth. Jesus Christ was pre-eminently a plain speaker. He did not round his sentences for the purpose of smoothing his way. When he had occasion to administer rebuke or to point out the errors of those who were round about him, he spoke keenly, incisively, with powerful effect upon the mind and conscience of those who heard him. In his speech we find many hard words, many sayings which would not be accounted courteous. He called men "blind leaders," "fools," "vipers," "whited sepulchres," and other names equally descriptive of moral deformity. He never appears to have used these names with hesitation or misgiving, but pronounced them as if they were the right names and were rightly distributed to the parties who heard him speak. He calls certain persons "hypocrites." He does not say behind their backs that they were hypocrites, but he looked straight at them and right through them, and said, "Ye hypocrites." If we had more such plain speaking it would be a great advantage. It must, however, be understood that as between man and man, where there is plain speaking on the one side there must be liberty of equal plainness on the other. Plain speaking must not be played at as a game of mere skill or chance; it must proceed upon distinct moral convictions, and come out of a sincere piety, a deep reverence for all that is holy, beautiful, good. Plain speaking, thus arising and thus applied, would become one of the most influential agents in the purification of our social intercourse. Many men speak plainly, but they speak their plain words so that the right individual may have no opportunity of hearing them. There are some men who are very courageous when the enemy is far away. There are many persons who imagine that they have actually spoken plainly to the individuals who have been hypocritical and false when they have told their friends, in a semi-confidential tone, that they very nearly said so-and-so. It is in this way we play with our consciousness. We think that if we have very nearly said it, and told somebody else how nearly we did say it, that we have actually gone nine-tenths of the way of saying it and of defending righteousness and truth. We know very well when men speak to us hypocritically. Alas, what skill we have attained in withholding the word of condemnation under such circumstances! Were we courageous, were we equal to the occasion, we should soon put an end to a good deal of the common hypocrisy of the world.
There is probably no man who would not applaud sincerity; yet when we come to apply sincerity, we all quail before it and protest against it. It is so in the exposition of divine truth. The preacher may say in general terms to all the world, "You are sinners before God," and he would be declared to be laying down sound doctrine. But if he were to lay his hand upon any one man and say, "You are a bad man," he would be charged with rudeness. We can sit and hear the world condemned; but when all this generality is narrowed down to a personal application without which application the doctrine is simply sounding brass we begin to complain that we have been rudely treated. We grow more and more away from the candour which underlies and beautifies all truly sincere speech. We begin in childhood with wonderful candour, beautiful simplicity of intercourse, and we grow away from that into conventionality and artificialism; and he is the clever man who can best conceal himself. Jesus Christ spoke plainly. He spoke all that was in his heart concerning wickedness to the people themselves, and thus he was often misunderstood and ill-treated. The disciples came to him and said, "Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying?" People have come to us with the selfsame reproach, and we have been cowardly enough to regret our plainness of speech. If we have spoken directly to a man, and have heard afterwards that he was "offended," we have blamed ourselves. We have a right so to blame ourselves if the speech came out of an evil spirit, but in so far as it was spoken with the dignity of truth and the consciousness of innocence it ought not to have occasioned even a momentary pang of self-reproach.
Two things are required in the plain speaker. Personal rightness. "He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone." We have nothing to do with the hypocrisies which may exist between other people, except in so far as we know them personally; but when hypocrisy is practised upon ourselves, then the scathing word of truth may be spoken. More, however, than personal rightness is needed: there must also be moral fearlessness. Our courage is not always equal to our convictions. We know the right, and yet dare not pursue it The right word suggests itself to our lips, and our lips dare not pronounce it. What manner of persons ought we to be who profess Christ? We are not discussing common laws of social courtesy and common intercourse. We are now asking ourselves in Christ's presence, and in the presence of his great Cross, what ought to be our sincerity, transparency, reality, as the bearers of his gracious name? If we dabble in immoral excuses, if we shuffle and wriggle, what can we expect of men who profess nothing higher than common courtesy and common conventional relationship as between man and man? Yet this is a most difficult point to carry into practice, because we may show a hypocritical love of the right; our very plainness of speech may come out of a subtle hypocrisy; and we may think to get ourselves reputation for honesty by speaking coarsely to other people. It is no easy matter this, and nothing can help us to do it with dignity and tenderness and self-distrust, with modesty and trembling, and yet with emphasis, but the indwelling, all-sanctifying Holy Ghost!
Notice the far-seeing spirit of prophecy. Jesus Christ said to the men of his day, "Esaias prophesied of you." Esaias prophesied hundreds of years before they lived. Jesus Christ says to the men of his day, "Esaias had you in his eye." Observe the unity of the moral world; observe the unchangeableness of God's laws; see how right is ever right and wrong is ever wrong; how the centuries make no difference in the quality of righteousness, and fail to work any improvement in the deformity of evil. If any man would see himself as he really is, let him look into the mirror of Holy Scripture. God's book never gets out of date, because it deals with eternal principles and covers the necessities of all mankind. Let us then study the word of God more closely. No man can truly know human nature, who does not read two Bibles, namely, the Bible of God as written in the Holy Scriptures, and the Bible of God as written in his own heart and conscience. Human nature was never so expounded as it is expounded in holy writ. No man ever comes to this book without feeling that his particular case in all the minuteness of its detail, in all the subtlety of its mystery has been dealt with by the holy writers. We praise other books because of the knowledge of human nature which they display, and we are right in making them one standard of our admiration and applause. We delight in a writer's power of analysing human nature, human feeling, human conduct. We say, "He knows human nature thoroughly." Therefore such writers get hold of us and carry us away captive, and rightly so. If that be a true standard of judgment at all, I bind men who have not lost all candour and all simplicity to look at the Bible in the light of their own standard. The Bible exposes the very innermost recesses of human nature; sets a light where no other hand ever placed a candle; lights up the pathways of our most secret life and thought; and we begin to feel that the first book we must shut up when we are going to do evil is God's Book. This is the great hold, the sovereign mastery, which the Book of God has over the ages, that it knows us, that it gives articulation to our dumb reproaches, that it puts into the best words the things which we reap against ourselves and cannot fully explain. Esaias knew us; Jeremiah has analysed and dissected and anatomised us. If any man would know the human heart, he must read the human heart in God's Book.
Notice the high authority of the righteous censor. When Jesus Christ spoke in this case he did not speak altogether in his own name. He used the name of Esaias. All time is on the side of the righteous man; all history puts weapons into the hands of the man who would be valiant for truth. The righteous man does not draw his authority from yesterday. The credentials of the righteous man are not written with ink that is hardly dry yet. It draws from all the Past. A good man does not stand alone in his good works. The man who comes to teach truth brings a great multitude with him. The glorious company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship of the prophets, the noble army of martyrs! We are little in ourselves, in our individuality; looked at in our simple personality, we are not worthy a moment's consideration. But the man who lifts up his voice for truth and right speaks with the sound of mighty thunderings and the impressiveness of many waters. Young preachers of the gospel, believe this. It is not your little bit of paper that you are depending upon as your authority when you enter the pulpit. Teachers of the young, parents, in your family education, business men, in your commercial relations, honourable souls of all kinds, believe this: When you speak a right word, the prophets speak through you, the apostles prolong the strain, and the grand old martyrs seal it with their blood! Thus the tiniest instrument in God's hand becomes a match for walled cities and fortressed hosts and men who set themselves against the Lord and against his anointed. You are poor in number now, meagre in agency; but they that are for you are more than they that are against you. You seem to be alone, but you are not alone. Esaias is looking over your shoulder; Jeremiah is saying, "Be emphatic;" martyrs are crying, "Play the man for truth;" all history says, "Do not fail: this is a crisis; the right word now is a battle won." Speak it! "Be thou like the heroic Paul; if thou hast a truth to utter, speak it boldly, speak it all!"
The men whom Jesus Christ condemned were outwardly very good looking men. For example, they were very technical. They said, "The disciples do not wash their hands; this is a very sad business, and must be inquired into. They were very particular in saying how often it was to be done, which hand was to be uppermost, and how the evolution was to proceed. They were also a very critical set of men; they criticised the disciples. They were not shame-faced about their technicality; they went right up to the Master and said, "How is this?" There was courage in the men. They had a complaint, and they spoke it out clearly. Then they had great reverence; strong veneration for traditional practices, traditional customs. They did not like the Past to be altogether ignored and dishonoured; they spoke in the name of the elders. So the men were not altogether bad. They were technical, they were critical, they were traditional. Jesus turned upon them this bolt of thunder, "Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?" They never took our Lord unawares. He never had to ask for time to find a suitable weapon. He was clothed with the whole armour of God. Touch him anywhere, and his answer was instantaneous and complete. So with us. We may be technical. We may like to see the order of divine service pursued in a certain way, first singing, then reading, then praying, then singing, then preaching. We are strong upon these points. But what if we can go home and do a sneaking action? We may be critical. We may say the preacher's grammar was not very exact; the singing was not scientific, there was a good deal of flatness and somewhat of discrepancy in the way in which the psalmody was conducted. Up to that point we are noble men. But what if we oppress the hireling and lay a heavy hand on the weak? We are fond of traditions. We like to talk about that "dear old minister" that died about fifty years ago; and that "nice old Christian friend" that used to do so many beautiful things. We have a great reverence for these men and their way of doing things. But what if tomorrow morning we speak a savage word to a lonely creature, and drive into despair some soul that would be thankful for one ray of light? Away with our technicality and criticism and tradition, if we are not sound at the core, right and true to great principles! Let us beware lest we strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.
Then what is to be our help in all this matter of reality? Jesus Christ must be the help of our souls. He who spoke plainly must teach us to speak plainly; he who set the example must give us strength. And he will do it We are not to speak as if we ourselves were infallible, and other people were guilty sinners. We are not to take upon us any air that savours of self-righteousness and self-satisfaction. When we speak plainly we are to speak tenderly. "Consider thyself, lest thou also be tempted." We are not to treat all men alike; we are to discriminate; we are to make a difference. On some we are to have compassion; to some men we are to speak as the lightning would speak, if it could open its lips, in the name of God; to others we are to speak as the dew would speak, could it tell all that is in its pure heart. We are to argue with some men with sternness of tone, and we are to speak to others with heartbreaking pathos. Tears are to be the secret of our power; forbearance is to be our secret of influence; and moderation is to do what exaggeration could never accomplish. We thus need a wise and understanding heart to know what to say, and especially to know how to say it, because we may ruin our cause by a tone! What, then, are we to do? We are to study Jesus Christ "Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart." We are to copy his example, not only in its dignity and power and lustre, but in its condescension, humility, gentleness, tearfulness, and infinite kindness. There is a way of administering reproach which misses its very object; there is a way of speaking the right word which turns it, for all practical purposes, into the wrong word. So, then, it must be to Christ we come, and in Christ's school we study. Lord, help us to speak from the height of thy Cross! Knowing the mystery of love in thy love, may our lips say the right word in the right way, and thus save souls from death and turn many to righteousness!
Prayer
Almighty God, we thank thee that we have not come unto the mount that might not be touched and that burned with fire, and unto lightnings and thunders and tempests: we have come unto Mount Zion, the hill of Zion, the sacred place; drawn to it by the persuasion of thy love, hastening to it because of our need of rest. We thank thee that we live under the dispensation of thy Spirit. Now we hear the still small voice that our hearts can listen to in the darkness; and hear every tone of thy word. We have come unto the general assembly and church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven. We rejoice that we are here. We bless thee that thou dost speak to us without the trumpet of the thunder. Thou hast a word for them that are weary and are ill at ease, and thou dost speak it silently, tenderly, graciously, so much so that thy very utterance is itself a promise and a benediction. Speak to us every one. Show us all thy will. Reveal thy commandments unto us, and show that, by thy grace, by the help of thy Holy Spirit, the yoke of Christ is easy and his burden is light. Thus shall thy commandments become our song in the house of our pilgrimage; in law we shall find rest; in the bidding of thy commandments we shall find the beginning of mercy; the deeper meaning of things will be revealed to us, yea, by the pureness of heart wrought in us by God the Holy Ghost, we shall see God. For this vision we long; it will give brightness of view to all other things, and rightness of value; it will show us that our light affliction is but for a moment, that our pilgrimage is but one short day's walk. O show us thyself! not in the intolerable splendour of thy glory, but in the tenderness of thy providence, the goodness of thy dealing with us day by day; and with these visions before our soul we shall know no more the pain of anxiety, the torment of distress, but shall rest in the Lord, waiting patiently for him, and in walking in the way of thy commandments, be they great or small, we shall find peace unto our souls. We have no hope in our own prayer; we mingle it with the intercession of the One Priest, we commit it to the mystery of the mediation of Jesus Christ himself; and as the Cross is our altar, and our Saviour is our Advocate, we are assured of thy reply, thy great Amen.
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