But the third excuse is the most extraordinary that could be given. Saith Christ, “in that she poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial.” What! did this woman forestal the Messiah’s death? And had she the fond idea that, since no loving hand might embalm him, she would anoint his sacred body by anticipation? Did her faith just then penetrate those deep shades of mystery about to be gradually unravelled? I think not. I think her love was more conspicuous than her faith. It strikes me that in these words we have rather the construction that Christ put upon her act. If so, the virtue of her action was derived from him on whom it was wrought. “Your righteousness is of me,” saith the Lord. Sometimes when your heart prompts you to go and do such-and-such a thing for Christ, you cannot tell what you are doing. You may be doing a very simple thing in appearance, but there may be some wonderful, some matchless meaning in it. Christ may be but sending you, as it were, to take hold of one golden link—mayhap there are ten thousand links that are hanging to it, and when you draw out that one, all the ten thousand will come after it. This woman thought she was just anointing Christ. “Nay,” says Christ, “she is anointing me for my burial.” There was more in her act than she knew of. And there is more in the spiritual promptings of our heart than we shall ever discover to the day of judgment. When first of all the Lord said to Whitfield, “Go and preach out on Kennington Common,” did Whitfield know what was to be the result? No, he thought, doubtless, that he should just stand for once on the top of a table, and address some five thousand people. But there was a greater intent in the womb of Providence. The Lord meant that to set the whole country in a blaze, and to bring forth a glorious renewal of Pentecostal times, the like of which had not been seen before. Only seek to have your heart filled with love, and then obey its first spiritual dictate. Stop not. However extraordinary may be the mandate, go and do it. Have your wings outstretched like the angels before the throne, and the very moment that the echo vibrates in your heart, fly, fly, and you shall be flying you know not whither—you shall be upon an errand higher and nobler than your imagination has ever dreamed.
III. Now I come to the conclusion, which is this,—TO APPEAL PERSONALLY TO YOU, and ask you whether you know anything about the lesson which this woman’s history is designed to teach.
Imagine your Saviour, who has bought you with his blood, standing in this pulpit for a moment. He lifts up his hands, once rent with the nails, he exposes to you his side, pierced with a spear. Now picture him. Lose sight of me for a moment, and see him! And he puts to each one of you the question—”I suffered all this for thee, what hast thou ever done for me?” Answer him now! Like honest followers of the Lamb of God, look back and see what you have ever done. You have gone up, you say, to his house. Was not that for your own profit? Did you do it for him? You have contributed to his cause. Ah! you have, and some of you have done well in this thing; but think, how much have you given in proportion to what God has given to you? What have you done for Christ? Well, you have perhaps, some years ago, taught children for him in the Sabbath school, but it is all over; you have not been a Sunday-school teacher these last many years. Jesus asks you, “What have you done for me? In three years,” he says, “I wrought out your redemption; in three years of agony, of toil, of suffering, I bought you with my blood; what have you done for me in these ten, twenty, thirty years, since you knew my love, and tasted of my power to save?” Cover your faces, my friends, cover your faces. Let each man among us do so. Let us blush and weep. Lord Jesus! there was never such a friend as thou art; but never were there such unfriendly ones as we are. Christ has some of the most ungrateful followers that man ever had. We have done little. If we have done much, we have done little. But some of you have done nothing at all for Christ.
That question answered, there comes another. I beseech you, let the vision of that crucified One stand before you. He says to you this morning, “What will you do for me.” Putting aside the past—you have wept over that, and blushed,—what will you do now? Wilt thou not now think of something that thou canst give him, something that thou canst do for him, something thou canst consecrate to him? Come, ye Marys, bring out your alabaster box! Come, ye loving Johns, lift your heads for a moment from his bosom, and think of something that you can do for him who lets you lean your head upon his heart. Come, come, ye followers of Christ! Need I press you? Surely, if you needed it, my pressing would be in vain. But no; instinctively inspired by the Holy Spirit, you will each of you say, “Lord Jesus, from this day forth I desire to serve thee better; but, Lord, tell me what thou wouldst have me to do.” He does tell you now. I do not know what it is. The Spirit shall tell that to each one among you. But I do entreat you think not about it, but do it.
To the whole church of Christ I have one word to speak. I do feel—and I speak here of myself and of all Christians as in one mass—I do feel that the church of Christ in these days too much forgets her obligations to her Master. Oh! in the early church how did religion spread! It was because no man thought his life his own, or counted anything dear to him, so that he might win Christ, and be found in him at last. Look how the ancient church, which was but a handful, within a century had stormed every known nation, and had carried the gospel throughout the length and breadth of the entire known world. But now we stay at home, penned up in England, or cooped up in America. We go not abroad where heathens dwell. Though we send here and there a man—one drafted as it were out of thousands; we do little or nothing for the evangelization of the world, and the sending forth of the ministers of the truth. Why, the early church, if it were here now, and we were gone, would within another fifty years sound the trumpet of the heavenly jubilee throughout the entire earth. With our means of travelling, with our appliances, with our books and helps, give such a church as the first Pentecostal one but fifty years, and the whole earth would be covered with the knowledge of the Lord, God the Holy Spirit going forth with them. But no, we cannot spend our lives for Christ, we are not like the soldiers who marched to victory over the dead bodies of their brethren. We shall never sow the world with truth till it is sown with our blood again. “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” I would that the church would burst forth from all her bonds, and send out her chosen warriors to do battle against the infidel hosts. And what if they should fall? What if they should die? With the Spirit of Christ inflaming our hearts, we should go forward, our courage nothing damped nor our ardor abated for all that—each one counting it an honor to die for Christ, each one throwing himself into the breach determined to win for Christ, and spread his name through the whole earth, or else to perish in the attempt. God give to his church this zeal and ardor; and then the time to favor Zion, yea her set time, shall have come.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
