And Abimelech gat him up to Mount Zalmon, he and all the people
that were with him, and Abimelech took an ax in his hand, and cut down a
bough from the trees, and took it, and laid it on his shoulder.... And all
the people likewise cut down every man his bough, and followed Abimelech,
and put them to the hold, and set the hold on fire upon them; so that all
the men of the tower of Shechem died also, about a thousand men and women. - Judges ix: 48, 49.
Abimelech is a name malodorous in
Bible history, and yet full of profitable suggestion.
Buoys are black and uncomely, but they tell where
the rocks are. The snake’s rattle is hideous,
but it gives timely warning. From the piazza
of my summer home, night by night I saw a lighthouse
fifteen miles away, not placed there for adornment,
but to tell mariners to stand off from that dangerous
point. So all the iron-bound coast of moral danger
is marked with Saul, and Herod, and Rehoboam, and
Jezebel, and Abimelech. These bad people are
mentioned in the Bible, not only as warnings, but because
there were sometimes flashes of good conduct in their
lives worthy of imitation. God sometimes drives
a very straight nail with a very poor hammer.
The city of Shechem had to be taken,
and Abimelech and his men were to do it. I see
the dust rolling up from their excited march.
I hear the shouting of the captains and the yell of
the besiegers. The swords clack sharply on the
parrying shields, and the vociferation of two armies
in death-grapple is horrible to hear. The battle
goes on all day, and as the sun is setting Abimelech
and his army cry “Surrender!” to the beaten
foe. And, unable longer to resist, the city of
Shechem falls; and there are pools of blood, and dissevered
limbs, and glazed eyes looking up beggingly for mercy
that war never shows, and dying soldiers with their
head on the lap of mother, or wife, or sister, who
have come out for the last offices of kindness and
affection: and a groan rolls across the city,
stopping not, because there is no spot for it to rest,
so full is the place of other groans. A city wounded!
A city dying! A city dead! Wail for Shechem,
all ye who know the horrors of a sacked town!
As I look over the city I can find
only one building standing, and that is the temple
of the god Berith. Some soldiers outside of the
city, in a tower, finding that they can no longer defend
Shechem, now begin to look out for their own personal
safety, and they fly to this temple of Berith.
They get within the door, shut it, and they say, “Now
we are safe. Abimelech has taken the whole city,
but he can not take this temple of Berith. Here
we shall be under the protection of the gods.”
Oh, Berith, the god! do your best now for these refugees.
If you have eyes, pity them. If you have hands,
help them. If you have thunderbolts, strike for
them.
But how shall Abimelech and his army
take this temple of Berith and the men who are there
fortified? Will they do it with sword? Nay.
Will they do it with spear? Nay. With battering-ram,
rolled up by hundred-armed strength, crashing against
the walls? Nay. Abimelech marches his men
to a wood in Zalmon. With his ax he hews off a
limb of a tree, and puts that limb upon his own shoulder,
and then he says to his men, “You do the same.”
They are obedient to their commander.
Oh, what a strange army, with what
strange equipment! They come to the foot of the
temple of Berith, and Abimelech takes his limb of a
tree and throws it down; and the first platoon of
soldiers come up and they throw down their branches;
and the second platoon, and the third, until all around
about the temple of Berith there is a pile of tree-branches.
The Shechemites look out from the windows of the temple
upon what seems to them childish play on the part of
their enemies. But soon the flints are struck,
and the spark begins to kindle the brush, and the
flame comes up all through the pile, and the red elements
leap to the casement, and the woodwork begins to blaze,
and one arm of flame is thrown up on the right side
of the temple, and another arm of flame is thrown
up on the left side of the temple, until they clasp
their lurid palms under the wild night sky, and the
cry of “Fire!” within, and “Fire!”
without announces the terror, and the strangulation,
and the doom of the Shechemites, and the complete
overthrow of the temple of the god Berith. Then
there went up a shout, long and loud, from the stout
lungs and swarthy chests of Abimelech and his men,
as they stood amid the ashes and the dust, crying:
“Victory! Victory!”
Now, I learn first from this subject
the folly of depending upon any one form of tactics
in anything we have to do for this world or for God.
Look over the weaponry of olden times javelins,
battle-axes, habergeons and show me a single
weapon with which Abimelech and his men could have
gained such complete victory. It is no easy thing
to take a temple thus armed. I saw a house where,
during revolutionary times, a man and his wife kept
back a whole regiment hour after hour, because they
were inside the house, and the assaulting soldiers
were outside the house. Yet here Abimelech and
his army come up, they surround this temple, and they
capture it without the loss of a single man on the
part of Abimelech, although I suppose some of the old
Israelitish heroes told Abimelech: “You
are only going up there to be cut to pieces.”
Yet you are willing to testify to-day that by no other
mode certainly not by ordinary modes could
that temple so easily, so thoroughly have been taken.
Fathers and mothers, brethren and sisters in Jesus
Christ, what the Church most wants to learn this day
is that any plan is right, is lawful, is best, which
helps to overthrow the temple of sin, and capture
this world for God. We are very apt to stick
to the old modes of attack.
We put on the old-style coat of mail.
We come up with the sharp, keen, glittering steel
spear of argument, expecting in that way to take the
castle, but they have a thousand spears where we have
ten. And so the castle of sin stands. Oh,
my friends, we will never capture this world for God
by any keen saber of sarcasm, by any glittering lances
of rhetoric, by any sapping and mining of profound
disquisition, by any gunpowdery explosions of indignation,
by sharp shootings of wit, by howitzers of mental
strength made to swing shell five miles, by cavalry
horses gorgeously caparisoned pawing the air.
In vain all the attempts on the part of these ecclesiastical
foot soldiers, light horsemen, and grenadiers.
My friends, I propose this morning
a different style of tactics. Let each one go
to the forest of God’s promise and invitation,
and hew down a branch and put it on his shoulder,
and let us all come around these obstinate iniquities,
and then, with this pile, kindled by the fires of
a holy zeal and the flames of a consecrated life, we
will burn them out. What steel can not do, fire
may. And I, this morning, announce myself in
favor of any plan of religious attack that succeeds any
plan of religious attack, however radical, however
odd, however unpopular, however hostile to all the
conventionalities of Church and State. We want
more heart in our song, more heart in our alms-giving,
more heart in our prayers, more heart in our preaching.
Oh, for less of Abimelech’s sword, and more of
Abimelech’s conflagration! I have often
heard
“There is a fountain
filled with blood”
sung artistically by four birds perched
on their Sunday roost in the gallery, until I thought
of Jenny Lind, and Nilsson, and Sontag, and all the
other warblers; but there came not one tear to my eye,
nor one master emotion to my heart. But one night
I went down to the African Methodist meeting-house
in Philadelphia, and at the close of the service a
black woman, in the midst of the audience, began to
sing that hymn, and all the audience joined in, and
we were floated some three or four miles nearer heaven
than I have ever been since. I saw with my own
eyes that “fountain filled with blood” red,
agonizing, sacrificial, redemptive and
I heard the crimson plash of the wave as we all went
down under it:
“For sinners plunged
beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.”
Oh, my friends, the Gospel is not
a syllogism; It is not casuistry, it is not polemics,
or the science of squabble. It is blood-red fact;
it is warm-hearted invitation; it is leaping, bounding,
flying good news; it is efflorescent with all light;
it is rubescent with all glow; it is arborescent with
all sweet shade. I have seen the sun rise on Mount
Washington, and from the Tip-top House; but there was
no beauty in that compared with the day-spring from
on high when Christ gives light to a soul. I
have heard Parepa sing; but there was no music in that
compared with the voice of Christ when He said:
“Thy sins are forgiven thee; go in peace.”
Good news! Let every one cut down a branch of
this tree of life and wave it. Let him throw
it down and kindle it. Let all the way from Mount
Zalmon to Shechem be filled with the tossing joy.
Good news! This bonfire of the Gospel shall consume
the last temple of sin, and will illumine the sky
with apocalyptic joy that Jesus Christ came into the
world to save sinners. Any new plan that makes
a man quit his sin, and that prostrates a wrong, I
am as much in favor of as though all the doctors,
and the bishops, and the archbishops, and the synods,
and the academical gownsmen of Christianity sanctioned
it. The temple of Berith must come down, and
I do not care how it comes.
Still further, I learn from this subject
the power of example. If Abimelech had sat down
on the grass and told his men to go and get the boughs,
and go out to the battle, they would never have gone
at all, or, if they had, it would have been without
any spirit or effective result; but when Abimelech
goes with his own ax and hews down a branch, and with
Abimelech’s arm puts it on Abimelech’s
shoulder, and marches on then, my text
says, all the people did the same. How natural
that was! What made Garibaldi and Stonewall Jackson
the most magnetic commanders of this century?
They always rode ahead. Oh, the overcoming power
of example! Here is a father on the wrong road;
all his boys go on the wrong road. Here is a
father who enlists for Christ; his children enlist.
I saw, in some of the picture-galleries
of Europe, that before many of the great works of
the masters the old masters there
would be sometimes four or five artists taking copies
of the pictures. These copies they were going
to carry with them, perhaps to distant lands; and
I have thought that your life and character are a masterpiece,
and it is being copied, and long after you are gone
it will bloom or blast in the homes of those who knew
you, and be a Gorgon or a Madonna. Look out what
you say. Look out what you do. Eternity will
hear the echo. The best sermon ever preached
is a holy life. The best music ever chanted is
a consistent walk.
I saw, near the beach, a wrecker’s
machine. It was a cylinder with some holes at
the side, made for the thrusting in of some long poles
with strong leverage; and when there is a vessel in
trouble or going to pieces out in the offing, the
wreckers shoot a rope out to the suffering men.
They grasp it, and the wreckers turn the cylinder,
and the rope winds around the cylinder, and those
who are shipwrecked are saved. So at your feet
to-day there is an influence with a tremendous leverage.
The rope attached to it swings far out into the billowy
future. Your children, your children’s children,
and all the generations that are to follow, will grip
that influence and feel the long-reaching pull long
after the figures on your tombstone are so near worn
out that the visitor can not tell whether it was in
1885, or 1775, or 1675 that you died.
Still further, I learn from this subject
the advantages of concerted action. If Abimelech
had merely gone out with a tree-branch the work would
not have been accomplished, or if ten, twenty, or thirty
men had gone; but when all the axes are lifted, and
all the sharp edges fall, and all these men carry
each his tree-branch down and throw it about the temple,
the victory is gained the temple falls.
My friends, where there is one man in the Church of
God at this day shouldering his whole duty there are
a great many who never lift an ax or swing a blow.
Oh, we all want our boat to get over
to the golden sands, but the most of us are seated
either in the prow or in the stern, wrapped in our
striped shawl, holding a big-handled sunshade, while
others are blistered in the heat, and pull until the
oar-locks groan, and the blades bend till they snap.
Oh, religious sleepy-heads, wake up! While we
have in our church a great many who are toiling for
God, there are some too lazy to brush the flies off
their heavy eyelids.
Suppose, in military circles, on the
morning of battle the roll is called, and out of a
thousand men only a hundred men in the regiment answered.
What excitement there would be in the camp! What
would the colonel say? What high talking there
would be among the captains, and majors, and the adjutants!
Suppose word came to head-quarters that these delinquents
excused themselves on the ground that they had overslept
themselves, or that the morning was damp and they were
afraid of getting their feet wet, or that they were
busy cooking rations. My friends, this is the
morning of the day of God Almighty’s battle!
Do you not see the troops? Hear you not all the
trumpets of heaven and all the drums of hell?
Which side are you on? If you are on the right
side, to what cavalry troop, to what artillery service,
to what garrison duty do you belong? In other
words, in what Sabbath-school do you teach? in what
prayer-meeting do you exhort? to what penitentiary
do you declare eternal liberty? to what almshouse do
you announce the riches of heaven? What broken
bone of sorrow have you ever set? Are you doing
nothing? Is it possible that a man or woman sworn
to be a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ is doing
nothing? Then hide the horrible secret from the
angels. Keep it away from the book of judgment.
If you are doing nothing do not let the world find
it out, lest they charge your religion with being
a false-face. Do not let your cowardice and treason
be heard among the martyrs about the throne, lest
they forget the sanctity of the place and curse your
betrayal of that cause for which they agonized and
died.
May the eternal God rouse us all to
action! As for myself, I feel I would be ashamed
to die now and enter heaven until I have accomplished
something more decisive for the Lord that bought me.
I would like to join with you in an oath, with hand
high uplifted to heaven, swearing new allegiance to
Jesus Christ, and to work more for His kingdom.
Are you ready to join with me in some new work for
Christ? I feel that there is such a thing as
claustral piety, that there is such a thing as insular
work; but it seems to me that what we want now is concerted
action. The temple of Berith is very broad, and
it is very high. It has been going up by the
hands of men and devils, and no human enginery can
demolish it; but if the fifty thousand ministers of
Christ in this country should each take a branch of
the tree of life, and all their congregations should
do the same, and we should march on and throw these
branches around the great temples of sin, and worldliness
and folly, it would need no match, or coal, or torch
of ours to touch off the pile; for, as in the days
of Elijah, fire would fall from heaven and kindle
the bonfire of Christian victory over demolished sin.
It is kindling now! Huzzah! The day is ours!
Still further, I learn from this subject
the danger of false refuges. As soon as these
Shechemites got into the temple they thought they
were safe. They said: “Berith will
take care of us. Abimelech may batter down everything
else; he can not batter down this temple where we
are now hid.” But very soon they heard the
timbers crackling, and they were smothered with smoke,
and they miserably died. And you and I are just
as much tempted to false refuges. The mirror this
morning may have persuaded you that you have a comely
cheek; your best friends may have persuaded you that
you have elegant manners. Satan may have told
you that you are all right; but bear with me if I tell
you that, if unpardoned, you are all wrong. I
have no clinometer by which to measure how steep is
the inclined plane you are descending, but I know
it is very steep. “Well,” you say,
“if the Bible is true I am a sinner. Show
me some refuge; I will step right into it.”
I suppose every person in this audience
this moment is stepping into some kind of refuge.
Here you step in the tower of good works. You
say: “I shall be safe here in this refuge.”
The battlements are adorned; the steps are varnished;
on the wall are pictures of all the suffering you
have alleviated, and all the schools you have established,
and all the fine things you have ever done. Up
in that tower you feel you are safe. But hear
you not the tramp of your unpardoned sins all around
the tower? They each have a match. They are
kindling the combustible material. You feel the
heat and the suffocation. Oh, may you leap in
time, the Gospel declaring: “By the deeds
of the law shall no flesh living be justified.”
“Well,” you say, “I
have been driven out of that tower; where shall I
go?” Step into this tower of indifference.
You say: “If this tower is attacked, it
will be a great while before it is taken.”
You feel at ease. But there is an Abimelech,
with ruthless assaults, coming on. Death and
his forces are gathering around, and they demand that
you surrender everything, and they clamor for your
immortal overthrow, and they throw their skeleton
arms in the windows, and with their iron fists they
beat against the door; and while you are trying to
keep them out you see the torches of judgment kindling,
and every forest is a torch, and every mountain a
torch, and every sea a torch; and while the Alps,
the Pyrénées, and Himalayas turn into a live coal,
blown redder and redder by the whirlwind breath of
a God omnipotent, what will become of your refuge
of lies?
“But,” says some one,
“you are engaged in a very mean business, driving
us from tower to tower.” Oh, no. I
want to tell you of a Gibraltar that never has been
and never will be taken; of a wall that no satanic
assault can scale; of a bulwark that the judgment
earthquakes can not budge. The Bible refers to
it when it says: “In God is thy refuge,
and underneath thee are the everlasting arms.”
Oh, fling yourself into it! Tread down unceremoniously
everything that intercepts you. Wedge your way
there. There are enough hounds of death and peril
after you to make you hurry. Many a man has perished
just outside the tower, with his foot on the step,
with his hand on the latch. Oh, get inside!
Not one surplus second have you to spare. Quick,
quick, quick!
Great God, is life such an uncertain
thing? If I bear a little too hard with my right
foot on the earth, does it break through into the
grave? Is this world, which swings at the speed
of thousands of miles an hour around the sun, going
with tenfold more speed toward the judgment-day?
Oh, I am overborne with the thought; and in the conclusion
I cry to one and I cry to the other: “Oh,
time! Oh, eternity! Oh, the dead! Oh,
the judgment-day! Oh, Jesus! Oh, God!”
But, catching at the last apostrophe, I feel that I
have something to hold on to: for “in God
is thy refuge, and underneath thee are the everlasting
arms.” And, exhausted with my failure to
save myself, I throw my whole weight of body, mind,
and soul on this divine promise, as a weary child
throws itself into the arms of its mother; as a wounded
soldier throws himself on the hospital pillow; as a
pursued man throws himself into the refuge; for “in
God is thy refuge, and underneath thee are the everlasting
arms.” Oh, for a flood of tears with which
to express the joy of this eternal rescue!