Acts 28:7-15

Chapter 103

Prayer

Almighty God, thy house is full of light. Thou hast called us to be children of the day and not of the night, and to walk as those who love the open day and the bright morning and the sunny place. We would answer that great call in the strength of thine own grace, for of ourselves we love the darkness, and we hide ourselves in vicious concealment; only by the power of thy grace can we come out into the full daylight, and walk as at midday in the sight of angels and of men. Work in us this great miracle of the love of light. May we dwell in light; may we be healed by light; may our whole soul be radiant with the presence Divine. That this may be so, in all the fulness of its meaning, grant unto us now, in answer to eager intercession, the precious gift of the Holy Ghost. He will work in us all the good pleasure of the Divine will; he will take of the things of Christ and show them unto us. In the Cross he will find deeper mysteries and tenderer compassions than we have yet realised, and in the blood of Christ he will find the cleansing of which every human soul is in need. So then we come to thee to work thine own miracles. Our hands are feeble, our eyes cannot see, our faculties are turned aside in a great perversion thou alone canst work the miracle of restoration and perfect us in all the purpose of thy wisdom. Thou delightest to hear our prayer, though so poor, so wanting in range of thought and in depth and tenderness of feeling. Thou dost accept it as a struggle, as an endeavour which thou wilt bring to fruition, because of thine own love, and thou dost answer us because all our little prayers are magnified in the great intercession of our one Priest and Saviour. We come to sing our hymn, to unite in noble psalm of adoration and thanksgiving, and to take part in anthems of triumph and ecstasy, so that our souls may no longer be guilty of the sin of dumbness, but may be found uttering themselves in the Divine courts in all solemnity of praise and joyousness of thanksgiving, because thy tender mercies are over all thy works, and thou art spreading daily the table of thy great creation. We have come to read thy word, to see still more deeply into its sacred meaning, to hear with acuter attention all the finest tones of its celestial music, and to store the heart with answers to every temptation, and with statutes and precepts which shall guide and uphold our life. We have come to hear thy word in brotherly tones, translated into the sympathy of the day and the speech of the passing time. Into whatsoever speech thy word be translated, may no part of its substance be lost; may the variety be only in the expression; may we find the eternal quantity in the solemn and holy doctrine. May we be abased by thy Gospel messages, and then exalted; humbled and stripped of every pretence and plea, and then clothed with the riches unsearchable of the grace of Christ Jesus the Lord. Thus may we leave our burdens here, and our darkness, our frailty and our fear, and all our infirmity and littleness, and go out as from the presence of the Lord, with hearts renewed, with shining faces, with hands filled, and with faith enlarged and confirmed. Let thy mercy be given unto each of us according to individual condition and circumstance. Thou dost give impartial blessings, and thou dost not omit to give special benefactions where they are specially needed. Thou knowest the weariness of some, the heart-brokenness of others, the trial of human patience, the assault made upon frail temper; thou knowest the uncertainties of life; the continual battle and the nightly disappointment; thou knowest our whole situation, and all the discipline we have to undergo; thou knowest our hearts their weaknesses, all their vulnerable points, and thou knowest the temptations that assail and beset us, like an army intent upon our overthrow. Knowing all these things, thou wilt not withhold from us the blessings special and individual which the struggling and needy heart requires. Keep our eyes from tears, our feet from falling, and our soul from death. Enlarge our spiritual outlook, increase our spiritual riches, confirm our spiritual desires, and satisfy our spiritual aspirations. Then shall the day be full of blessings a right memorable time, a Sabbath of God in the days of men; and we shall live in the strength of it many days, and accomplish our pilgrimage with cheerful hearts, with undaunted courage, with sacred and immortal hope. To the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, One-Three, Three-One, Equal, Indivisible, United, Personal, Eternal, Redeeming be all kingdoms and powers, all dominions and glories, all thrones and riches, time without end. Amen.

Act 28:7-15

7. In the same quarters were possessions of the chief man of the island, whose name was Publius; who received us, and lodged us three days courteously.

8. And it came to pass, that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux: to whom Paul entered in, and prayed, and laid his hands on him, and healed him.

9. So when this was done, others also, which had diseases in the island, came, and were healed:

10. Who also honoured us with many honours; and when we departed, they laded us with such things as were necessary.

11. And after three months we departed in a ship of Alexandria, which had wintered in the isle, whose sign was Castor and Pollux.

12. And landing at Syracuse, we tarried there three days.

13. And from thence we fetched a compass, and came to Rhegium: and after one day the south wind blew, and we came the next day to Puteoli:

14. Where we found brethren, and were desired to tarry with them seven days: and so we went toward Rome.

15.. And from thence, when the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as Appii forum, and The three taverns: whom when Paul saw, he thanked God, and took courage.

Five Remarkable Things

There are five remarkable things in this statement. The first is, that Paul should have healed, and not Luke. Luke was a physician; but he does not mention any healing as having been done by his skill. Paul was a tent-maker and a preacher, and he healed the sick. Many scientific readers have ascribed to Luke great skill in the matter of description, acute precision in observation, and no one has been able to find fault with any statement which Luke has ever made regarding human suffering and healing. Yet Luke healed none. Luke kept the diary; Luke wrote the journal; Luke magnified the preacher and the intercessionist and said nothing about his own professional education and talent. This is exactly what is taking place today. It is religion that heals: the medicines are grown in God's garden. The physician himself, in proportion as he is a great man, will tell you that however skilful he may be in describing your disease, he has to go out of himself for the remedy that is to mitigate or to heal it. Everything is in Christianity. The doctor does you good in proportion as he leads you out of yourself, and that he can only do in proportion as he is led out of himself. We are healed by God; we are healed by faith. What men can do for us is of the nature of help. A very gracious and beneficent assistance an assistance for which we can hardly be too grateful, but beyond that is the mystery of faith, the miracle of hope, the wonder-working of confidence, the marvel and the mystery of spiritual operation and comfort. Christians are the greatest healers in the world. Christianity is nothing if not a healer. It does not deal with the detail always, but it so nourishes the fountain of life, replenishes and renews the springs of energy, as to touch the particular through the general. If we were Christians, we would not be sufferers; if we were hidden in God, we should have no disease in the sense of burden and trouble. The eater would still consume us, the biter would still close his teeth upon us, the black visitant would still darken our dwelling; but we should have joy in tribulation, we should know that death was abolished, that what was taking place was but a natural sequence, an inevitable process, the end of which was the better life, the brighter day, the sweet home known to us by the mysterious name of heaven. When you take Christianity out of your civilisation you do not know what a vacancy you leave behind. We are so familiar with its presence that we do not acknowledge its necessity; we are so aware that it is part of the very substance of our life that we do not uncover our heads in the presence of its ineffable dignity. Let us live in the faith that Christianity heals, that Christianity destroys death, that Christianity fills up the grave with flowers, and that all the healing of human disease is a miracle wrought not on earth, but in heaven. Bless the Lord, O my soul, who healeth all my diseases!

The second remarkable thing in this narrative is, that the poorest should have rendered help to the richest. Publius was the first man in the island, and his father "lay sick of a fever." Paul was a prisoner a shipwrecked prisoner who had nothing in his hand to give; who, therefore, from that point of view, was the poorest man in the island; yet he the poor, penniless, garment-less Apostle personally healed the father of the first man of the island. That is what sanctified poverty is always doing. So many mistakes are made about poverty. It is the richest thing in the whole world. It is rightly accepted and used about the grandest experience that man can have. I am not speaking of vicious poverty, criminal poverty, or poverty that is brought about by wilfulness and wantonness, but of the greater poverty, the subtle mystery of having nothing, of expressing the hunger and aspiration of contined necessity. Do not pity the poor: pity the rich. What folly is spoken about the poor! God's chosen ones, the very elect of his household, the crowned ones in his kingdom. Remember, in all these observations I speak about disciplinary poverty; not thriftless want, not sinful necessity about that I have nothing good to say. I am speaking of that poignant appeal which Jesus Christ himself said we have always with us. The world would not be worth living in but for its poor people. Life would be an intolerable monotony but for the sick child, the old man, the halting cripple, the cry at midnight. We want to plaster up the world, and new-stucco it, and call it happy. There is no happiness to be found in that way. So long as a man can pay you out of his hand, he does not touch the mystery of help at all: he must pay you out of himself out of his soul in great drops of blood; a mystery which the languid temperament, the cold mind, can only regard as an exaggeration and a romance. "The Son of man had not where to lay his head." What then did he give? Himself! We have not begun to give it seems impossible for us to give. He gives who gives life. That is what Paul did in the island: he gave life; virtue went out of him. Christ was magnified in his body by life. Oh for that sacred touch that has resurrection in it, for that warm hand that cannot come near me without healing my disease! What healing power we might have! What healing influence you who are poorest amongst us are continually exercising! You do not know you are called of God. The poor mother has done more for the world than her rich son can ever do. We must not speak of the great men, the princes of this world, those who have it in their power to do so much good. That is false talk; it is without sense or honesty. The poor people are keeping the world sweet and wholesome. The poorest of the saints of God are chosen rich in faith, and he who has an abundance of faith cannot be poor. He cares not where he lives or what his dinner is: he has meat to eat that the world knoweth not of, and the whole week is one bright, glorious Sabbath day. Yet how the poor misunderstand themselves in this particular! Some of you have said, in my own hearing: "Would it were in our power to do more for the Church than we can do!" You have mistaken the point altogether. The Church is not a counter, it is an altar; and by your patience, sacrifice, quiet, silent, beautiful heroism, you may do more for the Church than can be done by the man who has the gift of tongues and the faculty of prophecy. We expect much from the poor: we expect the tenderest tone, the tenderest sympathy, the richest experience; we expect them to tell us what strong men can never tell of the mystery of Divine communion and the miracle of communication with heaven.

The third remarkable thing in this narrative is that the ministry upon the island was all healing and no preaching. "So when this was done, others also, which had diseases in the island, came, and were healed." That is the glory of the Christian ministry it can begin anywhere. I wish to say something, in due time, upon the larger ministry. I will not now anticipate myself; enough to point the direction without traversing the ground. Christianity can begin everywhere, anywhere, at any time, and with any man. Christianity has no transformations to make, no dignities to put on, no ceremonies and processes of etiquette through which to pass. Christianity meets men everywhere and says, "All hail! What is your burden, what your necessity, what your sorrow, what your most urgent need?" It will be a long time before some people can have the prejudice cleansed out of them that the church-building is only for distinctively doctrinal and spiritual purposes. The Father's house is for everything good. There is no reason, in the necessity of the case, why this church should not be a hospital, a schoolhouse, a reading-room, a place for music and conversation and instruction in all high and useful knowledge. It is the glory of Christianity that it can begin where I want it to begin. The Church sends men to school to become preachers; I would have the Church send men to hospitals to become doctors, to academies to become musicians, to trades to become honest tradesmen in the world. I would as certainly have a collection for the purpose of apprenticing a youth to a carpenter, as have a collection for sending a man to a religious college. We are too narrow. Find a man in need anywhere and say, "All hail! we want you;" and I am doing God's will as truly in sending an honest-hearted boy with my money to learn a trade, by which he can do good work and through which he can speak good words, as in sending him to be equipped as a minister or as a missionary. All our medical students should be ours, and all our apprentices, in every trade and vocation, should go out from the Church, and all our musicians should be sweet singers in the sanctuary. Poor Church! little-headed, small handed Church! living along one little line only and letting humanity go to the devil on the ground of ceremony. Would God I could build a Church after my own heart, and have a place I could work in just as I want to work in it! It should be all for Christ, and every poor soul in the place who wanted a stick to light a fire should find it in the Church, and every beggar shivering for want of coat or pining for want of bread should find it in the Church. It should be all Church great, motherly, encompassing, redeeming Church. I would swallow up the State. One day with Paul would do much towards rearranging, redistributing, and enlarging Christian influence. Did Paul not preach then when he healed? Every healing is a sermon; every visit to the poor, paid in the right spirit, is a prayer. Why should we allow men who narrow every definition to lead the sentiment of the Church? Whatever good you do in the name of Christ and for the sake of Christ is a proclamation of Christ; a sermon without words not spoken, but done like a miracle.

The fourth remarkable thing in this narrative is the grateful response which was made by the islanders. In the tenth verse we read, "Who also honoured us with many honours; and when we departed, they laded us with such things as were necessary." Gratitude is never done. How musically the verse reads! The islanders were not Christians, but the islanders were men, and having received healing at the hands of the Apostle, they honoured the whole little band of the disciples "with many honours." Mark the redundance of the thankfulness! There is always just one more little flower to give, and you must have that. This was a grateful response. It was not a fee that was claimed: it was a benefaction that was conferred under the inspiration of gratitude; and that spirit continues unto this day. If a man does not find his support in the ministry all the support he wants, it is a sign that he ought not to be in it. Is that a hard doctrine? I have reason to believe it, and therefore I do not hesitate to declare it. Every workman will have his wages. Trust the Christian heart. It may come in various ways, but come it will. That there will always be some ungrateful people is true enough, but we must not speak of the exceptions: they must not drag us down to their level. The great human heart is after all a grateful heart, and it will honour with many honours those that try to the best of their ability to do good in any way not in preaching only, but in private and in divers ways. The honour will come, and the lading with such things as are necessary will take place. This word "necessary" one rather objects to. And yet we accept it, because "necessary" in this connection is a flexible and variable term, and is not always defined by the receiver, but by the giver. Reviewing my life and I have passed more than the half of it, and am now in a position to review it with impartiality and without fear I have to thank God for gratitude not to be explained by myself, but only to be accounted for by Divine inspiration. I look back upon the way in which I have been treated, in little places and in great places and by all sorts of people, and I find this tenth verse in the twenty-eighth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles to be a piece of genuine human history.

The fifth remarkable thing I find here is the inspiring influence of friendship: "And from thence, when the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as Appii forum, and The three taverns: whom when Paul saw, he thanked God, and took courage." Reading between the lines, we wonder if Paul's courage had given way for one little moment. It would seem as if the lion himself might have been affected with momentary depression. We might never have heard of it but for the returning courage. Some men never tell us they have been ill until they tell us that they are quite well again. Then we say, "Have you been in suffering? You did not tell us that you were in low condition of body or mind. We knew nothing about it until you told us you were well again." One wonders if Paul had passed through a season of depression and fear and discouragement. I hope he had. We should get nearer to him if we felt he had been in the valley. When he was always on the mountain-top and waving a great red banner in the air we were almost afraid of him. He was so high away from our poor level; but if he had seasons of fear when he could only pray in a whisper and only look as if he were half blind, then we can touch him and say, "Brother! Comrade!" It was the habit of the ancients to go out to meet princes to go away for a mile or two or more and to stand on the road to wait for the incoming great one and to accompany him. The brethren went to where the road forked. They would have gone farther, but not knowing whether they might come by the right road or by the left road, they stood at the point and waited for their prince. When Paul saw them he knew them. How is it that we know some men at once? How is it that we fall almost instantly into common sympathy and masonry and fellowship, though we have never seen the men before in our whole life? That is the mystery of friendship; that is the mystery of love. When Paul saw the Christians, who had come out to meet him, up went his hands in sign of adoration and thanksgiving; and having thanked God, he became a great lion again, full of courage, every fibre attuned, his whole soul toned to its noblest music. "Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend." We need human associations, human cheerings and fellowships, kind speeches, terms of recognition, letters that make the house bright and warm. O my brothers! the day is very short: let us do no unkindness in it, but make it glow with deeds of noble friendship and make it sing with the music of truest Christian love!