Newspaper Page Text
6
LOVE AND THE COMMANDMENTS
Tabernacle Sermon by Reb. Len G. Rroughton, T). D.
Steuographically reported for The Golden Age. —Copyright applied for
“A new commandment I give unto you, that ye
love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye
also love one another. By this shall all men know
that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to
another” (Jno. 13: 34-35).
HIS text brings us into the heart of the
gospel. Hitherto the world has been
governed by law.
We are not to understand by this
that law is not to be valued. Law has
its place, but love is its fulfillment.
Law is the stem, love is the -flower.
When a man tells me that the ten com
mandments are not binding upon his life
T
today, I at once become suspicious of him. If any
one of the commandments is destroyed society is af
fected. The law of love does not do away with the
prohibition of the Sinai, it only makes law easy and
natural.
One whose life is dominated by the principle of
love finds it perfectly natural to observe the com
mandments. If one supremely loves God he will
not be an idolater. The natural thing for him to
do will be to worship him, but to worship him in
such away as to express his love.
He will not take his name in vain; he will ob
serve the Sabbath; honor his mother and father, in
in fact, the natural thing for him to do will be to
fall in line with the expressed will of God.
Love is not only the heart of the gospel, but it is
likewise the heart of the old order. The ten com
mandments themselves rest upon love.
THY GOD AND THY NEIGHBOR.
Hear Jesus’ own summary of the ten command
ments: The scribes and Pharisees had come to him
trying to entrap him. They asked him, "Which
is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus
answered, 4 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
mind, and with all thy strength. This is the great
and first commandment. And the second like unto
it is this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
On these two commandments'the whole law hang
eth and the prophets.”
How beautifully Jesus here epitomizes the teach
ing of the commandments and divides them into the
two great sections: The first four relate to man’s
relation to God; the last six to his relation with his
fellow men.
If one loves God supremely he will keep right re
lations with him, and the same is true if one loves
his neighbor as himself. Nb man can do his neigh
bor a conscious injury if he loves him as he loves
himself. There would be no need of a law against
theft, murder, adultery and the like if there were
such love in all our hearts. Who could think of
stealing from one loved as life is loved? Who
could think of murdering one who is loved as one
loves himself? What man, however strongly tempt
ed, could allow himself to wreck the character of a
woman whom he loves as he- loves himself?
Whenever you hear of a man doing such a des
perate act on account of love, you may know that
there is either something the matter with the love,
or the sanity. Love worketh no evil. "Love think
eth no evil.”
The other day a man shot a bullet through the
heart of a woman whom he claimed to love better
than his own life. He said that he killed her be
cause he loved her and was unwilling for her to be
loved by another. He lied. He may have had what
the vast majority of the world calls love, he may
have been infatuated with her —this I do not deny—
but infatuation is not love. It masters, but it mas
ters in the wrong way. Love protects, love will
suffer, love will be tried; but love is a strong hand
ever extended to defend.
Infatuation is a weakling. It fawns and falls
before the object of its charm. The world ought
to see this, It would save many a moral wreck,
The Golden Age for November 19, 1909.
and prevent many a mismatch in marriage. It
might add to the number of bachelors and old
maids, but one had better a thousand times be either
than to be mismatched for life.
Infatuation wears out. When the eyes begin to
droop and the hair begins to tinge with gray, in
fatuation departs. The reverse is true of love.
Love holds on. Love never forgets the object of its
first charm. The shifting scenes upon the stage of
life cannot efface the one of long ago.
Love may be misdirected and ofttimes is. It may
be held dormant and not assert itself for a long
time. Strange circumstances and scenes may be
needed to bring it out, but every human heart has
a capacity for it. There is no man that cannot
love. There is no man upon whose heart-strings the
fingers of this charmer cannot make music.
LOVE AND LOVE.
There is a difference between love and infatua
tion, and there is also a difference in love itself.
There is a conjugal love, and love of friendship, the
love of man as man, and the love of a disciple.
LOVE EXPRESSED IN LIBERTY.
The love of which Jesus speaks in the new com
mandment is the love of a disciple.
The commandment is addressed to disciples; the
world is not contemplated in it. The world’s mas
ter is the devil. He incites hate, bickerings, envy
ings, jealousies and the like. It is impossible for
the world to love as Jesus loved.
His was a love of liberty. He felt perfectly free
in their presence, and they felt perfectly free with
him. There was no restraint; there can be none
where love holds sway.
But some one may ask, "Js this safe?” "Would
this not abrogate the moral law, and turn the world
over to license?” Most assuredly not. The liberty
of Christ is not the license of the devil; the liberty
of Christ is law baptized in love. It is restraint
with the consciousness of its restraining lost.
How blessed such a state in the church of today!
I am sorry to say we have very little of it. It is
one of the subjects we theorize a great deal about,
but practice very seldom. One can tell it when he
sees it at work. Certainly no one need tell me
when I enter a church whether it is there or not.
It shows itself in the very expression of the people.
The hard-hearted worldling is just about as acute
in detecting it as any of us. He sees the very op
posite of it in his contact with the world. He is
prepared to appreciate the real thing when he sees
it in the church. Oh, that our churches could see
this! It would knock out forms and ceremonies, so
cold and lifeless.
A very worldly man once said to me, "The reason
I do not go to church more than I do, is because
things are not free and easy. I feel all the time
like I am in a vise. Everybody else impresses me
the same way. There is more stiffness in the
church than anywhere else in the world.”
I feel sure that he was right. The early church
knew nothing about our present stilted forms of
worship. There was the greatest liberty on the day
of Pentecost, and there has got to be liberty today
or else we are going to have to close our doors. It
is no trouble to have a crowd, provided the few
stiff-necks, who want things moved upon the plan
of stilted dignity, will bend to the tastes of the
world, with respect to the freedom of worship.
THE FAMILY OF ADAM.
The love of Jesus was also the love of kinsfolk.
The disciples were regarded as members of the
same general family. This is to be borne in mind
as we face this commandment. It may be a bit
hard, but, nevertheless, it must be done. It brings
all mankind into one common family, Jew and Gen
tile, white and black, red and yellow; all the off
spring of Adam, We are to love as Christ loved
us.
Do we do it? Do we express this love in our re
ligious treatment of the Negro? I am not speak
ing of his social treatment. One has a right to keep
company with whom he pleases. But the religious
treatment of the Negro in this country does not ex
press the spirit of the new commandment. To be
sure we give him his liberty, such as we have. The
sad part of it is, we are too willing to do this. He .
needs training; his religious conceptions need to be
enlightened. His white Christian brother is the one
to do it, until he is able to do it himself. Do we do
this? Do we not, as a matter of fact, somewfliat
ostracize the man who does do it?
Take our family altar: How many of us think
of the Negro servant when you read the Scriptures
and pray around our table? How many of us in
vite the negro servants in to join with us in that
worship? Never mind what the inflamed passions
of men may decree, the new commandment makes
just this kind of treatment obligatory upon Chris
tians.
THE SACRIFICE OF POSITION.
Again, the love of Jesus expressed itself in the
sacrifice of position. As God he was everything; he
ruled the heavens and the earth. Before him an
gels bowed and chanted praises to his name. His
love for us called him from his position of honor to
take the place of the humblest of men.
The new commandment lays this same obligation
upon us. Have we got it? Do we know anything
about it? As a matter of fact, is it not almost al
together wanting? I speak of the church. If we
were dominated in the church by this love there
would not be such a scramble for honors and rank.
Men and women seeing the need would disregard
position in favor of opportunity. That man who
thinks of his social position being affected this way
or that by his church relation would be brought to
repentance.
I know good women who refrain from doing cer
tain kinds of Christian work because they say they
cannot afford it socially. I once knew a young lady
who seriously criticised and wounded another young
lady in her church who laid herself out to rescue
and save a woman whose character had become sus
picious. "Oh,” said the critic, "I know Jesus did
that, but we can’t afford to do what Jesus did.”
Is that remark true, or not? Jesus said, "If any
man will be my disciple, let him deny himself and
take up his cross and follow me.” Did he mean
this, and can we afford it? We will wish some day
'that we had done as he did.
"THE SERVANT IS NOT GREATER THAN HIS
LORD.”
Look at the arrangement of the churches in our
cities. See where the rich and the so-called upper
tens all worship. There is here and there an excep
tion, but the rule is, they worship among themselves.
What is the reason for this? It certainly is not
because such churches furnish the largest opportun
ity. The very opposite is true, and they know it.
It is because their social tastes and opportunities
are better satisfied. Nine times out of ten w’hen
such people move to our cities they never think of
where they can be of most service to God and hu
manity, but where they can find a church with most
congenial social relations? Sometimes it is where
is the church or Sunday school that will give them
an opportunity to marry their children to the best
advantage?
Such excuses as these is an abomination in the
sight of God. The man or woman who is governed
by them knows nothing of the spirit of the new
commandment, and will have to pay for it in the
end.
Again, the love of Jesus was also the love that
served. Instead of trying to get everything out of
his brethren, he was trying to put everything into
them, Yonder was a blind man, sitting on the
(Continued bn Page Nine,)
