CHAPTER 15
newspaper notices, various kinds of compliments, which at last sapped the strength, stole away the humility, and destroyed the power of one of God’s devoted servants.
The harm was not all done at once, but spiritual people could see the damage being inflicted, and beheld it with intense sorrow. The man, once so humble, developed spiritual pride before he was aware of it. He can not endure contradiction. He finds it difficult to pardon a criticism passed on himself or work. He has a keen relish for praise; it is like incense in his nostrils. He does not care to hear others complimented; it is wearisome to him. He wants the censer swung before him mainly, if not altogether; and if it is not done, he drops hints to bring about the swinging of the sweet thing. Time was that newspaper puffs and notices humbled him, but now he carefully cuts them out or sends marked copies of the paper to
individuals or to others papers, that the echo of his greatness might dwell long in the land.
He is a spiritually fallen man. He has an idol in his life, and it is himself.
He is a self-worshipper. He says that it is not so, but it is evident to all that Christ has really the second place in his life. He was once great in his littleness, but is now little in his greatness. The trouble is that he does not realize it. God knows it, men see it, but he, the fallen one, is the last to recognize it. God, in His goodness, will yet show His servant these melancholy things. The pillow of the Satan-deceived and fame-deluded man will yet be wet with bitter tears over the fact that he could not stand success; that he was faithful enough in a humble and obscure sphere, but lost his head completely when elevation and promotion came.
Few men can stand success. All are willing to risk it, and thousands who enter upon that condition get spiritually hurt, and, worse still, go into backsliding, and some into gross sin.
We recently heard some grave-eyed, serious-faced men speaking of Hobson, the hero of the Meramac. They were deploring his late conduct and the remarkable weakness he was exhibiting. One of them said, “He could not stand success; the flattery of a nation was too great for him.”
The silence which followed the remark was eloquent as well as pathetic; all felt the words of the speaker were true.
We never hear a young preacher much praised, but we tremble for him. No one can tell the harm that has been done here by indiscreet Christian men and women. It is true that the flattered, patted, and petted man of God says that he needs all this kind of word-incense and tongue-anointings; but a glance at the spiritual giants of the Bible, Joseph, Elijah, Daniel, and Paul
— shows that they had none of this coddling and nursing, taffying and sugar-plumming.
Few can stand it. Few can be trusted on pinnacles. Few can wield the scepter of any kind of power without making a bludgeon of it to others and finally a tripping-stick for himself. Under the strange, intoxicating influence of public notice, public applause, and the dizziness of high position, — behold, the simplicity and sincerity of Christ is lost. The humble man grows haughty, the once lowly child of God becomes
domineering, and the meek, obscure preacher in time evolves into a dreaded ecclesiastical tyrant and autocrat.
A friend of the writer saw a man elected to the highest position in the Church. He said that in twelve hours the “swelling” of the man was painfully apparent to his best friends.
Few can stand success and power. Some, thank God, like Elijah, can do so;
may their tribe increase! But many can not; down they go. Look at them tottering already! See them falling! Hear the crash! My God, have mercy!
A second moral test is that of failure.
This is the opposite of the other. It is to see the work of our hands fail, or apparently fail. It may be a failure of a single effort, a series of efforts, or a lifetime work.
In Elijah’s case it was the apparent defeat of the greatest purpose and effort of his life. He was looking for a result that would honor God and bless the people. His victory on Mount Carmel, his triumph in prayer on the brow of the mountain overlooking the sea, and the destruction of Baal’s prophets, had prepared him to expect the complete overthrow of idolatry in Israel and the universally-accepted and peaceably-restored worship of God. To his amazement this does not follow, but instead he gets a message from Queen Jezebel that she is determined to have his life, and that speedily. The Scripture tells us that when Elijah heard that, “He
went for his life.” Then followed his dejection under the juniper-tree and his low spirits in the cave on the mountain. In his own words, — “he wanted to die.” He who stood the test of success and glorious victory went down under the test of temporary reverse or apparent failure.
As a rule, a less number lose spiritual ground here than through the test of success. Still many weaken and go down at this point, so that the lesson is needed to be taught and the warning-signal held up.
With failure comes the falling away of friends. It is sad to say, and can be said without bitterness or cynicism, that there is a class of admirers and followers who are simply fair-weather adherents. They can go from Bethany to Jerusalem with an acclaiming crowd with you, but fall away in the journey from the Judgment Hall to Calvary. They are enraptured with one’s success, but when the tide of popularity or prosperity seems to turn, they also turn.
One does not have to live long to see this most melancholy feature of human nature. If ever a man needed comfort and sympathy, it is when adversity comes, when a strange revolution of life’s wheel pulls him down in temporal things, and heavy hands of power and influence are
outstretched to keep him down. Now is the time for the grasp of the hand, the cheery smile, the warm word of love, the sympathetic visit, or the reassuring letter. But not always do these things come, and, worse still, from where they might have been expected.
This forsaking, turning away, and cooling off towards one in misfortune, has been seen even in the home. Men in fine financial condition have had a court and deference paid them by their families, which they imagined to be the outcroppings of love and devotion; but when trouble came, and they could not do as formerly, they discovered a failure in attention and an absence of affection, which first surprised and grieved, and then, as the cause flashed upon the mind, shocked and hardened them.
Here comes in, then, the power of failure. It alters our surroundings, seems to change people, shakes one’s confidence in those formerly trusted, and so opens the heart wide to sorrow, despair, and a profound spirit of skepticism as to many things and all people.
An additional feature of failure is a certain loneliness attendant upon it.
The successful man is sought after, the failing man is let alone. Elijah had the entire wilderness to himself after his rebuff and defeat at Jezreel. In like manner men are allowed to have solitary hours, lonely days, and empty rooms after failure comes.
Let a man fail in a speech or sermon, and he will be struck with the fact, how few will hunt him up. It is the man who carried everything before him, and who needs no human comfort, who is surrounded and fairly covered up with congratulations.
Let a man lose his fortune, or his business position, or fail in a great undertaking, or come short of what was expected of him by his friends, and at once he hears the sighing of the wilderness around him, and knows that in heart and life he is alone.
This is a crucial hour, a most wonderful opportunity in the character-world, a battlefield for either a great victory or equally stupendous defeat. What shall it be? Will the man rise or sink? Will he push on or stop? Will he rise superior to the test or go down under it?
While it is the soul’s glorious opportunity, it is also Satan’s hour. Here he has captured great numbers, as, lying under the juniper-tree, they said they were no better than their fathers, that hope was in vain, and they only craved for themselves the privilege to die.
Happy the man who will stand the test, push on through the desert, hold to his faith in God, and keep the sweetness and cleanness of his soul in spite of everything. He shall come into the “confirmed,” “strengthened,”
“established,” “settled” experience which Paul writes about, and after that obtain the crown of glory that fadeth not away.