Malachi 3:16-17 Then they that feared the LORD spoke often one to another: and the LORD listened, and heard it… This book of remembrance, like the jewels referred to in the next verse, was doubtless suggested by the customs of ancient courts. The king used to bring out and display his jewels on State occasions, and nearly, every Eastern monarch appointed an official journalist to keep a record of passing events. He was called the Court chronicler, and his business was to write the history of his times, especially the notable names and incidents. There was little room for the annals of the poor or for anything that touched the life of the common people. Now the prophet lifts the thought above that Court chronicler and book to another Book which is written before the King of kings, and he intimates that the doings recorded there belong to a different class: socially, much lower; morally and religiously, far higher. The pages of that other book are not devoted to the men who fill the exalted stations and make a great display of wealth and power; because, as the prophet tells us, in those times the high places were ruled by injustice, immorality, and irreligion. But there were a few people whom the searching eyes of God followed with tender love and approval, for the most part obscure people, lost in the crowd, and remote from the world of fashion; people whom the Court scribe would dismiss as so much dirt. But they were the only objects of interest to the greater King, for they alone in those godless times were living soberly, righteously, reverently, walking humbly in the fear of God, keeping the old religious fires burning and bravely maintaining their hold on faith and prayer through obloquy and persecution. They were like the few in Sardis who had not defiled their garments. Now, I need not tell you that this is not the only mention in the sacred Scriptures of that Book of Remembrance. In fact, we hear of it more or less all through the Bible. It appears as far back as Moses, who spoke of those who are written in God's Book; it is found more than once in the Psalms of David, who trusts that his very tears will be found written in the Book; it occurs in Isaiah and in other minor prophets, and it is always referred to, I think, as the Book which God keeps to record the doings and perhaps the sufferings also of His faithful ones who are forgotten or despised by the world. The thought is taken up and carried on by our blessed Lord Himself. Jesus says, "Their names are written in heaven"; and a dozen times at least in the Epistles and the Apocalypse there is mention made of certain unrecognised Christian workers, holy women and others, whose names are written in what is called the Book of Life, or the Lamb's Book of Life. I. I venture to say to you this first, THAT THAT BOOK OF REMEMBRANCE MUST BY THIS TIME BE A PONDEROUS AND MANY-VOLUMED LIBRARY, if all the unchronicled workers and saints have been written down in it, because they are a company which no man can number. The saints whose names you find in the calendar and who figure in Church history are comparatively few, and they were not always the best and most saintly of their class. Some of them got canonised and admitted to the calendar by favouritism of pope and cardinal, and by what we vulgarly call backstairs influence, rather than by election and sanction of God. There were ten thousand times more, and perhaps better, saints whose names are only in heaven's calendar; in fact, the real history of God's kingdom has never been written by any human pen. You read the so-called history of the Church, ecclesiastical history, as produced by the labours and researches of a Mosheim or Neander, and it is often exceedingly unedifying reading and woefully disappointing. If it were the story of Christ's Church, it ought to be in the main the stow of lowly, self-forgetting, Christ-like men and women. Instead of that, you find the greater part of those pages devoted to the record of ambitions, envyings, strifes, heresies. You find there the carnal, the secular, and the worldly themes almost everywhere predominant. The true and beautiful story of the Church is not written there or in any book which is accessible to us, it is only written in God's Book of Remembrance; for surely the real makers and builders and defenders of the Church have been in all ages the men and women who patiently suffered for it, earnestly laboured for it, without thinking of gain or distinction. Those in all ages have kept the Church alive, preserved it as the salt of the earth, the light of the world. And yet they are not even known by name. There were a few notable men, never to be forgotten — Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, Hooker — but most of them were obscure — cobblers, bachelors, weavers, unlearned Bible readers, lay preachers — and beneath the notice of the scribe. Their names are written in letters of glory in God's Book of Remembrance. II. Now, so it has been all through Church history. I venture to say to you, secondly, that THE SAME THING SUBSTANTIALLY IS TRUE TO-DAY. Most of the noble and Christ-like deeds — all but an infinitesimal part of them — have no chance whatever of getting written down in any book except that unseen book on which the unseen hands are busy. Most of the brave, humble, self-denying lives which are spent in the service of Christ and humanity find no place whatever in the world's prints. I should think you all know that it is not always the best things that get most talked about; it is not always the grandest and divinest things that are pushed into notoriety and reported. A prayer-meeting is never reported; at least, I have never seen one reported. A round of visits among the sick, the sorrowful, and the dying — that never gets into print. A brave confession of Christ in the midst of an unbelieving company — nobody thinks of writing that down. If you are ambitious to have your names passed from mouth to mouth in the streets, and printed in large type in all the public journals, there are various ways of getting it done, some of them not too creditable. You can accomplish it by an extraordinary display of genius, or an extraordinary display of folly, and one will serve quite as well as the other. You won't do it by keeping the Ten Commandments, but you may do it by breaking some of them. III. Now, may I say to you, lastly, that THIS CHEERING TRUTH CONTAINED IN OUR TEXT IS GIVEN TO BE AN INCENTIVE AND AN INSPIRATION TO ALL WHO ARE ENGAGED IN RELIGIOUS WORK, BUT ESPECIALLY TO THE LESS KNOWN AND TO THE UTTERLY UNDISTINGUISHED AMONG THEM. — and they always form, as you know too well, the vast majority? Most of you have to continue in well-doing without the least chance of flattering human recognition. A few leaders in religious work do shine a little, perhaps, in the public eye; that is, the generals in a great army are sometimes put on a pedestal, and they gain a little glory, but the rank and file, the private soldiers who do the rough marching, and most of the rough fighting too, there is very little glory for them either in ordinary warfare or in the greater warfare of the Captain of our salvation. It is very true of most of you, that if you are anxious to gain human praise for your fidelity to Christ, and the work you do in His name, you will be disappointed. Quiet devotion to the service of the Lord Christ does not fetch the gallery, to say the least of it; it does not bring plaudits from the pit. It is human genius that wins human praise, or intellectual cleverness, sometimes mere showiness; it is smartness that secures successes in the business world. The man who wins a walking match, or a motor-race, or a horse-race will win a hundred times more popular favour for the time being than the man who spends his life as the Divine One did who went about doing good. If in Christ's work men are dependent at all upon these things they frequently fall into dejection. Now, just think what it means to have your names and labours written in that Book of Remembrance. Well, it certainly means this — though a vast number of people would be perfectly astounded to hear it — it means that an earnest, zealous, Christ-loving, Christ-serving life, and its works of patience and faith, are deemed by heaven the things best worth recording and best deserving to be kept in remembrance. In those higher courts they are not absorbed and excited with the things that we poor mortals go mad about. Possibly they are not so profoundly interested as we are in the movements of presidents and rulers, in the startling speeches of politicians, and in the prospects of political parties, and certainly not in the revelations of the criminal court, the scandals of high life, and the result of the latest pedestrian contest. No doubt heaven sees all these things, because nothing is hid from the all-watchful eyes, but they stir no buzz of admiration in angelic circles, you may be sure. A young man in the city steadfastly resisting its temptations and keeping himself undefiled for Jesus' sake; a maiden bringing her life and laying it at the Master's feet, and vowing to love Him first and best; a girl in the shop or factory adorning her Christian profession amidst unchristian workmates; a business man holding his conscience and integrity amid all the shady doings and unveracities of the market and commercial life: these are the things which the heavenly penmen note down. We sometimes talk and, maybe, think that this Book of Remembrance — I have often heard it referred to in that way — is kept to record the base and the evil things: your own failures, the inconsistencies of your Christian life, the darker things. I declare this: the book is never once referred to in that way in the Bible. God has no wish, you may be sure, to keep a record of all failing and bad things; He has no delight in beholding, dwelling upon them. He tells us, indeed, that when our sins are once forgiven He forgets them; they are cast into the depths of the sea, and come into His mind no more. No, it is the fair and the better things of the Christian life and labours that find a place in that great book. (J. G. Greenhough.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. |
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