(b.c. 420-397).

[Note.—"Malachi ('my messenger') is the last of the Old Testament prophets, as Nehemiah is the last of the historians; and the time of his ministry nearly coincides with Nehemiah's administration. The second temple was now built, and the service of the altar, with its offerings and sacrifices, was established; for it is a profane and insincere spirit in that service, especially among the priests, which he labours to correct. He complains also that divorces and intermarriages with idolaters have greatly multiplied—the very evils which Nehemiah so earnestly condemns. (Malachi 2:11. Comp. Nehemiah 13:23-27; Malachi 2:8, Malachi 3:8, Malachi 3:10; Nehemiah 13:10-11, Nehemiah 13:29). He lived between the years 436 and 397 b.c."—Angus's Bible Handbook.]

Malachi 1:1-6

Who was Malachi? Other prophets give the name of their father, and give some kind of local reference; but Malachi comes upon us absolutely without introduction, and so destitute of nominal claim that we are not sure that "Malachi" was his name at all. Who were his parents? Nobody knows. When was he born? No one can tell. When did he write? Nobody can find out. Yet here is the writing. The word "Malachi" means, The messenger of the Lord. He was a kind of John the Baptist. He was sure that something was coming upon the earth. He did not know what it was; it was something glorious, something such as had never been seen before by eye of man. It is interesting to watch the struggles of the prophets; they want to say what they can never express. There is a spirit within them which testifies that upon the earth there is coming great darkness, great agony, and afterward great joy such as no summer ever brought upon the glowing horizon. Sometimes a broken column is more pathetic than a completed pillar; it means so much. Sometimes the rhetorician is mightiest when his word quite breaks off, and he himself is stunned by an uncalculated amazement. What the prophets must have felt on this wise! They were always going to say what was in their hearts, but at the last the expressive word failed them. It will always be so in Christian service; we should always be going to do our best, and never be able to satisfy ourselves that nothing further can be done.

There have been ingenious men who have contended that all the prophets were not simple men as we are, but angels, for the time being at least, or incarnations, and that their names are significant of such embodiment and representativeness. "Hosea" = saviour. Why should any man bear that name as an hereditary right or casual custom, as who shall say, This boy shall be called Hosea? Names may thus be fantastically scattered abroad now, but the time was when names were offices, functions, characters, and indicators of destiny. Who knows but that the saviour-angel may have been incarnated in Hosea, and that his name may have been a writing from within rather than a cognomen chosen haphazard by some member of the family? "Joel": was there ever such a name on earth as "Joel"? Meaning no less than, The Lord God: sacredness had no higher sublimity in the imagination of the Jews. Was the boy called "Joel" as he might have been called by any common name in the history of our country? or was there an unconscious inspiration in the very designation of the child? There may be a danger of being fanciful in such interpretations, but there is an infinitely more awful danger of being blasphemous in our painstaking in the matter of excluding God from all our family life and all the details of our personal history. Beware of those people who are always telling you that this is fanciful, and that is unusual, and the other is eccentric; they will torture you with their monotony and propriety and folly. There should in our interpretation of life be a feeling that there is more in life than we have yet discovered. We should be quite willing to believe that when deaf and dumb Zacharias takes the slate, and writes a name upon it, he is but an amanuensis of God. Why not attribute much more to heaven than at present we ascribe to the throne of God? Why give God the oaks and the cedars, and keep back from him the grassblades and the little flowers that find in them green sanctuary? These prophets may have been angels; they may have been the word of the Lord incarnate. There are other critics who are bold enough to operate critically in this direction. The word of the Lord came to—not a syllable, not a writing, but the Logos, the Essential Speech, the all-creating Word—the fiat came to them, and dwelt in them, and they all heralded and forecast the final and consummate incarnation. There are those of course who say "The word of the Lord" means a verbal message, something to say; on the other hand, there are critics who contend that "The word of the Lord" is personality, not speech; and that such personality embodies itself in human life and human character, and avails itself of human ministry to get at the outlying wondering world.

Whether this be so or not, here is the writing, the speech that was made to Malachi in the name of the Lord. And that speech is called a "burden." The word of the Lord is always a load upon the soul. There be some who have no Lord in the heart, no Lord that needs carrying otherwhere than on the glib lips. The true prophet has always been a solemn man; he has always been bowed down, his attitude has been an unconscious attestation of his office. He did not know what he meant by that prone look when he seemed always to be looking at the place of graves rather than at the cradles of the stars. But the "burden" was pressing him, the weight gave him to feel his own weakness and littleness, and in his breathing there was a constant sigh, as the breathing of one who saw the world's life as the world itself never saw it. Thus the prophets were distinguished from all other men. The prophets are now seeking perhaps to be too much like other teachers. They have lost their native tongue; they are babbling in a foreign language which they imperfectly understand: when they get back to God's own speech to the heart, and tell the world what God has told them, tone for tone, word for word, the world will say, A new poet hath arisen; the old mantle has been recovered, and is now on the shoulders of a man worthy to bear it. Do not vulgarise your ministry; do not comedise God's gospel. "Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar"; give men to feel that the word has about it an edging and fringing, delicate, yet urgent as fire.

"The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel"—What! to Israel? We have been accustomed to read so much "against Israel." Can there be so much meaning in a change of prepositions? Can the one preposition be a naked sword all edge, and the other a sign of reconciliation, approach, and tenderness? It is even so. We should be careful how we lay too much stress upon little words, especially merely auxiliary words; yet sometimes it is the little word that carries all the meaning. An "if" may keep a man out of heaven. This word is a word of approach; it is God coming to Israel. The prophet has not to announce a great wind rising in the north, and coming down stormily upon the canvas tents of those who seek to shield themselves under such rags against the lightning of God; on the other hand, it is the Father coming towards, and coming more than half-way, and coming with sweet words and musical gospels to end the controversy, and establish the kingdom of peace.

This is proved by the words which immediately follow—"I have loved you, saith the Lord." But is not the grammar itself suggestive? Is not this something dead and gone? is not this a perfect tense, more than perfect or pluperfect? Is is not history, hoary, all but forgotten, an old, old love? So it it in English; it was not so as Malachi wrote it, his words are equal to, I have loved you, and do love. Had the words been, "I do love," that would have been weak, because the love might have been born but yesternight; had the words been, "I have loved you," that would have been pensive, sorrowful, and heartbreaking, because it is like reminding the soul of a song dead and lost: but seeing that it is "I have loved you, and do love," strength cannot be mightier, for all the past is there and all the urgent present, time and eternity are hand in hand. This is always so in God's relation to his people. His love is eternal, and it is immediate; it is from everlasting, and yet it always seems to be new-born. Where is there any old dew? Show us some dew a year old. It is the dew of the morning, and yet that same dew has been hanging about the altar of God's love ever since God lived. His lovingkindness is from everlasting, thy compassions are new every morning. This is the union of age and immediacy which we must realise in our personal experience. God's love comes in as our dearest friend, and yet it always comes in as a perfect surprise.

"Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us?" Here is ingratitude. Here, however, is our own experience. This is the law of the family. You have been supporting some one a long time, and because you do not attend to the very last appeal, all you did in the years that are gone is simply forgotten, and the inquiry is, Wherein have you been so kind? Treacherous is the memory when it has charge of recollections of good and favour and help rendered under circumstances which ought to have made the offering of such assistance an imperishable remembrance. Have we not had familiarity and experience in this matter? All you have done for your friends, let me assure you, is forgotten. They never speak well of you, except it may be in some general sense. Favours are soon forgotten. Yet whoso forgets a favour is no true man; he is a bad man, whatever his doctrinal professions may be. We should keep all our friends' kindnesses as so many evergreens, every kind action kept in the heart like a precious plant and not allowed to die. But God's favours are forgotten principally because they are so numerous. The very circumstance that ought to have made their memory indelible is a circumstance which causes the record to be soon obliterated. We become familiar with God's blessings, and we seem to have established some right in their succession. We expect the sun to rise; we complain to one another if there be anything like disappointment attending the circumstances of his rising; we say, Do you call this April? Why, in April we ought not to have such fog and darkness: where is the sun? What right have you to the sun? Why not rather say, God be praised, here is the sun: God might have kept back the light from a world that has forfeited every claim upon his complacency, yet here is the shining sun. Keep your gratitude green. Never let your thankfulness fall into decay. You might thus by keeping a perfect remembrance of favours received multiply those favours tenfold; the assistance that was rendered to you in childhood should be with you as a stimulating memory to old age.

Then the Lord undertakes to answer these people, and says, "I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau." We always wonder that this should be so, whereas in reality nothing of the kind occurred in our sense of the terms. You must understand the genius of a language before you can understand its particular terms or idioms or ways of putting things. In the olden time, in order to show that you loved somebody, you had so to say to prove that you hated somebody else; things were only learnt by contrast. God never hated any beast of the field. He would dethrone himself if he held in contempt the meanest worm upon the face of the earth. Do not apply your crooked and perverse etymology to God's words when he is struggling to say that he loves you. To love less was then thought to mean that on the other hand the love was infinitely great. "He that hateth not his father cannot be my disciple." No man can explain that etymologically; no dictionary holds all the meaning of that word; yet every soul that has entered into the passion of that love knows it. Is the father then hated? Nay, he is loved with tenfold greater love; but as compared with the sacrificial passion which the soul feels when it is kindled with the love of God, all other love falls as if in the rank and category of hatred, if not contempt. Believe not those who seek to teach that God has any partiality for one man above another. Is there no partiality then in God? Certainly there is partiality in God. Wherein is that partiality shown? In the matter of character. The Lord hates wickedness, disobedience, rebellion, every form of impiety, and sometimes the wickedness is personalised, as if God entertained personal animosity. God's partiality is on behalf of goodness, truth, uprightness: "What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" Then goodness is elected, predestinated, from eternity to heaven; and from eternity hell is reserved for wickedness.

In this case, however, there is a second and conclusive argument, illustrative of this same point in reference to character. Edom himself speaks, and therefore states the case in his own person. "Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places." There you have Edom, which is the other name for Esau. What will he do? He will defy God. He says in effect, God has thrown down the wall, but we will go back and put up stone by stone, and we will complete it. The Lord hath sent a blight upon the terraces of the mountains where grew the fruits of Edom, and Edom says, We will go and rebuild those terraces, and turn the rains of heaven and the sunlight of the morning to our own uses, and we will have flowers and trees and fruits. Will the Lord commit this infamy without protest or punishment? Nay, verily:—"Thus saith the Lord of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down." There you will have the explanation of character. Edom or Esau is rebellious; the Lord will not countenance the rebellion. Edom defies God, and God asserts his own right; Edom says he will build, and God says, Then so be it: build, and in the morning there shall not be left one stone upon another. He who fights God fights himself, and loses himself.

A great doctrine is laid down in Malachi 1:6 :—"A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master." That is the great doctrine. God founds an argument upon it; he says, Take it in either light: "If then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear?" There are two theories of God: the one is called the Fatherhood of God, and the other is called the Rulership of God. To some minds God is all Father, to other minds God is all Ruler or Sovereign: according as one or the other view is taken we have one or the other system of theology. The Lord says he will take either, and by either he will be judged and he will judge others. Thus, "a son honoureth his father," that is, he instinctively honoureth his father; whatever his father may be or may not be, there is something in the son which says, You should recognise that man with peculiar honour, and render to him filial homage, because, be he what he may to other people, to you he is father. The Lord says, So be it, I will take your own natural doctrine of parenthood: now if I be a father, where is your filial honour? On the other hand, other persons say the world is governed by sovereignty; here we are under a gubernatorial economy, we are under the hand of a despot; there is a voice which affirms destiny and doom. The Lord says, Very well, if that be your theory of the universe where is my fear? I will take either theory you please to propound, and I will ask you a question upon each. Now, if I am your father, where is my honour? If I am your tyrant, where is my fear? The Lord meets us on our own ground. We cannot escape God by inventing a new theory. Whatever our theory may be God says, Be it so: now where are we? If our theory be that this world made itself, the Lord says, If it made itself, how did it do it? Explain the process; or explain the still more difficult process that you, an intelligent man, can believe such utter unintelligibleness. If we say, This world is enough for us, the Lord says, Then what are you making of it? Let me examine your books, let me read your record, let me keep company with you for a whole year, that I may see what you are making of the only chance you will ever have in the universe. If we say the whole world is under the government of a good providence, then the Lord will say, Then where is your faith? Why this anxiety, why these wrinkles on the forehead, why these hot tears in the eye? Why that shaking in the chair as if you were in the presence of some deadly fear? Where is rest, where is confidence, where the sweet assurance that, come weal, come woe, God will appear for my deliverance, and set my feet in a large and inviolable place? If we say, Christ died for us and rose again, and we are Christ's, the Lord at once says, What are you giving to Christ or keeping from him? How do you fulfil your vow? Do you stand up to the square demand of your own oath? How then might the Lord charge us with fickleness, inconsistency, and a duality of life which means, with the head we acknowledge that Christ observes, but there is a devil tugging at our left hand, so that we serve him, the enemy, in some degree,—and to tell the truth we like it This is the tragedy of life. If a man shall arise at the last, and tell the Lord that he knew that he was an austere man, and therefore he had carefully kept the talent and rendered it back just as he got it, the Lord will say, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest... thou oughtest therefore. God pins us down with our own excuses. He takes them from us, and thrusts them through our head and nails us to the earth with the very metal which we supplied. Sinners are suicides. It is not God that kills them, they kill themselves.

Prayer

Almighty God, we rejoice that thou art light. Of light, thou art the fountain and the centre. God said, Let there be light; and there was light,—himself shone upon the brooding darkness. Shine in our hearts; be the morning of our lives; be the summer of our souls. Jesus Christ thy Son is the Light of the world. As long as he is in the world he is the Light of the world; he abideth with us for ever, therefore are we living in the day of light and in the presence of light: may we answer light by light, and thus may thy creation be full of glory. They that are of the darkness love the things that are evil; may we be children of the morning and not of the night, rejoicing in all things pure, beautiful, true, and lovely. If thou wilt answer this prayer for us at the Cross, we shall know that the blood of Jesus Christ thy Son cleanseth from all sin; we shall know that we have God in us as the light abounds in our whole thought and purpose. Chase away the last shadow; break up the evil empire of night; and bring in the sovereignty of divine effulgence. We bless thee for a religion that is full of light; we thank thee that we are called to fellowship one with another in the full light of day. Thy Church always meets at midday; it is the child of the noon; there is in it no love of darkness, no trace of mystery or secrecy that is corrupt: the Lord help us to realise our call into light, and may we be found in loving obedience serving the altar of the Cross. Amen.

A Gallery of Pictures

Malachi 1-4

We have some pictures in the prophecy that are very vivid, and some of them very humiliating. For example, we have a picture of the utterest selfishness in Malachi 1:10 :—

"Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought."

Yet they sang how good a thing it was to be but a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord. Men do not come to this kind of selfishness all at once. For some degrees of wickedness we must patiently and skilfully graduate. We do not attain the highest quality of iniquity at a bound; we cannot, speaking generally, extemporise the supremest kind of devilishness. We begin carefully, we proceed slowly, we take pains with the details of our action, and not until we have become inured to certain practices and usages do we take the final step that lands us in the very refinement and subtlety of evildoing. Nothing is so soon lost as spiritual apprehension, the power of taking hold upon the invisible, the eternal, the spiritual. There is so much against it We unhappily have eyes that can only see what we describe as the material, and in our folly we describe it as the real. That is the very lowest kind of philosophy. There is a metaphysic that denies the existence of everything we see; I would rather belong to that school of negation than to the school which affirms that there is nothing but what we can see with the eyes of the body. We are always tempted away from the higher lines. Who would shut his eyes and talk to nothing, and call it prayer? Who would have so many of his own aspirations dropping back upon his heart like dead birds, and still believe in an answering, benignant, loving God? Who would refuse the great bribe? There it is, visibly, tangibly, immediately; you can lay your hand upon it, and secure it, and if there is any need by-and-by to pray yourselves back again from the felony, and still retain its produce, then see the man of God and take his ghostly counsel. The distinction of Christianity is its spirituality. Christianity lives amongst the spirits. "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth." When we make Christianity a mere argument or a mere philosophy, we lose its whole genius and meaning. Christianity comes to kill the visible by putting it into its right perspective, and investing it with its right value, which is nothing beyond a mere convenience. Christianity comes to lift up the soul to God, and to fix the heart upon things unseen and eternal. Christianity comes to make a man blind to everything but God, and therefore to see everything aright because to see it in its relation to God. How far are we to blame for degrading Christianity from its proper level, and making it stand amongst so-called other religions to take its chance with the general mob? We can be attacked with some success, not to say with desperate savageness, if we fight the battle on wrong lines; but not when we stand upon Christ's lines, of direct living fellowship with God, doing everything for Christ's sake, glorifying God in our body, which is so-called matter, our soul, which plays a part in the psychical philosophies, and our spirit, the touch that makes us one with God. If we pray ourselves into higher prayers, ever-ascending until speech must be displaced by music, then we are upon a way where we shall find no lion, neither shall any ravenous beast go up thereon, it shall not be found there. And as for dying, we shall not die—"he was not, for God took him," shall be the rhythmic ending of a noble, beautiful, spiritual life. Losing this spiritual apprehension, what do we come to?—to men-service; we come to be men-pleasers, time-servers, investors, hirelings. When the true spirituality reigns in us we shall have no fear of man, we shall see the richest patron of all going out of the sanctuary, not because he is wounded in the back, but because he is wounded in the heart by the Spirit of God, on account of his unrighteousness, unfaithfulness, vanity, and worldliness; the Church will be the richer for his absence. Never let the spirituality of the Church go down, for then you open the door to every kind of invader; you make devastating encroachment possible; but laying hold of God, you shall be safe even from the insidious assaults and invasions of selfishness.

We have also a picture of the true priest:—

"The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity. For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts" (Malachi 2:6-7).

What was said of Levi should be said of every man in the varied ministry of the Church; he ought to be as beautiful as this. Yet not only beautiful, but massive, strong, pure, dominating; not asking permission to live and to preach, but granting permission to millionaires to chink their gold. It is quite true that here we have an ideal picture. It satisfies the imagination to have a word like "ideal" in its vocabulary. But may we not so use the word "ideal" as to find in it a temptation to a continual lowering of the spiritual stature, and a continual cooling of the spiritual temperature? Certainly these words are ideal; this is God making another Adam, this time out of marble, breathing into him the breath of life, and making him majestic and noble: this is God's conception of the true priest. Yet we call it ideal, and then go away to our commonplace. The minister of Christ cannot rise to perfection. If any man were to assume himself to be perfect he would justly discredit himself by that very assumption. What is it that is required of the true priest, preacher, minister, or pastor? It is required of him first that he be found faithful to his light, to his immediate inspiration; he is not to live for tomorrow, he is to live for this present day, with all its clamour and all its importunate necessity. But should not a man study consistency? Yes—No. Is it possible for an answer to be both in the affirmative and in the negative? Certainly. Wherein is to be the consistency of the preacher? In his spiritual sincerity. There he must never fail. As to his words and views, do we not live in an atmosphere? Are we not environed? Do not ten thousand ministries continually play upon every line and fibre of our nature? There may be inconsistency in words, phrases, terms, and statements, and yet there may be consistency of the finest quality and fibre in the moral purpose, the spiritual intent, the unchangeable loyalty to the Cross of God the Son. A preacher's perfectness should be found in the continuance of his aspiration, and the continuance of all practical endeavour to overtake his own prayers. Do not mock a man because his life is not equal to his prayer; when a man has no higher prayer to offer than he can live he may pass on into some other world in the Father's universe. Meanwhile, no man can pray sincerely, profoundly, continually, and want to be like Christ without growing,—not always upwards; there is a growth in refinement, in susceptibility, in moral tenderness, in sympathy of the soul for others, as well as a growth in knowledge, and stature in intellectual majesty. It is well to have an ideal before us. One of two things must happen in the case of the priest. "... Did turn many away from iniquity." That is a beautiful work for you, my preaching brother, to have done. You may never have been heard of beyond your own sphere, and yet within that sphere you may have been working miracles which have astounded the angels. You have kept or turned many away from iniquity. I have a brother who had great influence over one of his leading men, and that brother, though his name was never heard of beyond his own circle of ministerial exertion, laid himself out to save that man. That man's temptation was drink. The minister followed him, turned swiftly upon him at the public-house door, and said, No, not here! It was not much of a sermon to preach from a public point of view, but the poor tempted soul quailed under the interdict, and went home. Why, to have been the means of giving him one night's release from the devil was to have done a work worthy of the Cross! You cannot tell what your negative work amounts to—how many you have kept from going wrong, doing wrong, or speaking unwisely, untruly, or impurely; you do not know what your example has done. Be cheered, be encouraged; you do not always live in the miracle of Pentecost; sometimes you live in the quietness that can only do a negative work, but blessed be God, when he comes to judge our work there will be nothing negative about it He who has turned away a man from iniquity shall be accounted as one who has turned a soul to righteousness; he is a great judge, and he gives great heavens to those who serve him.

There is another line of thought—

"Ye have caused many to stumble" (Malachi 2:8).

How acute, how penetrating, how ruthless is the criticism of God! Here again we may not have been wanton in our irreligion, we may not have been irreligious at all in the ordinary sense of the term, but for lack of zeal, for lack of honesty, for lack of character, we may have caused the citizens of Gath to mock, and the daughters of Philistia to sneer at the Lord. "Caused many to stumble": how could they help it? They looked to the priests, pastors, guides, and teachers of the community for example, and they saw nothing but warning. They said, The speech of these men will be pure, gentle, courteous, gracious; they will especially speak of one another in terms of appreciation and brotherly regard. Hark! Why, this is talk we might have heard at the tavern; this is criticism we might have heard at hell's gate; this is censoriousness that would shame an infidel. What if they have gone away to mock the God whose name his own professors had forgotten? "Caused many to stumble"—by little-mindedness, by narrowness of soul, by lack of sympathy, by idolatry instead of worship, by pointing at a church-roof and calling it God's own sky. Here we should daily pray that we give offence to no man needlessly; here we should do many things that the Gospel be not hindered; here we may work miracles in the name and power of the Cross.

Another picture is that of a terrible judgment:—

"And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts" (Malachi 3:5).

O God, send some man to testify against us, and we can contradict him; send the oldest and purest of thy prophets to charge us, and we can recriminate, and remind him of his human nature, and tell him to take care of himself lest he fall, rather than waste his criticism upon us who have fallen. Send Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel; send all the minstrels of Israel, let them mass themselves into a cloud of witnesses, and we can laugh them to scorn, and tell them not to mock our fallibility by an assumption of infallibility of their own; but thou wilt not do this, thou dost come thyself. Who can answer thunder? Who can reason with lightning? Who can avert the oncoming of eternity? "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." He will be not only a witness, but a "swift witness"; he will break upon us suddenly, he will come upon us from unexpected points; where we say, All is safe here, there shall the fire leap up, and there through a hedge, where we thought to make a resting-place, shall a serpent break through to bite us. "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." "Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe." Yea, I call mine a man's hand, but to thee it is the hand of a little child; take hold of it, for the way is slippery, the crags are here and there very sharp, and the steep is infinite, and the enemy is already breathing upon my neck. O God, save me, or I perish! In that modesty we have strength; in that reliance upon God we have a pavilion that the thunder cannot shake, that the lightning cannot penetrate. I would hide me in the house of my Saviour's heart.

Then we have a picture of a perfect restoration:—

"And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts" (Malachi 3:11-12).

One nation cannot be good without another nation feeling it. When England is noble the whole world is aware of the transformation; when America has responded to the appeal of righteousness the whole globe feels as if a Sabbath were dawning upon the shores of time; when any nation does a noble deed it is as if all the world had prayed. Let us remember the might, the immeasurable might, of spiritual influence. Convert England, and you convert the world; convert London, and you convert England, speaking after the manner of men. Leave God to look after the results which you call material. Is there a devourer? God will rebuke him for our sakes. Does the vine cast her fruit before her time? Angels shall keep that fruit on the stem until it be purple with hospitality, yea, with the very love of God's heart; and as for the fields, their hedges will become fruit trees, and all the fences shall bloom and blossom because the Lord's blessing has fallen upon the earth. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." God will take care of the vine if we take care of the altar.

Then, lastly, we have a picture of a sun-lighted world:—

"But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings" (Malachi 4:2).

The last verse of the Old Testament is terrible; it reads"—"And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers"—that is good, but the last words—"lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." The Rabbi would never end with that; the Rabbi said, "No, I will go back and read the last verse but one." The Rabbi could not end with a curse. There are several books in the Bible that end with doleful words: "God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." The Rabbi could not defile the synagogue with making "evil" the climacteric word, so he read the verse before. Isaiah ends: "And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh." And the Rabbi said, We cannot end with that, we must end with the verse before. And the Lamentation,—"But thou hast utterly rejected us: thou art very wroth against us." And the Rabbi said, Read the verse before that; we cannot end with storm and darkness, and tempests of imprecation. Oh let us close with some word of comfort! So must it ever be with the true messenger of God. He will have to deliver his tremendous message; but blessed be the Cross of Christ, every sermon may end with music and light and joy. There is no text in the Bible that lies half a mile from Calvary. I do not care what the text is, there is a road from it right into Golgotha. Malachi has for his last word curse; but we may have for our last word blessing, we may have for our closing word peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." "Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God for he will abundantly pardon." If we added to that we should be attempting to paint the lily and gild refined gold. There is but one word that can be added to it, and that is not our own: "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.