God’s ways may and do change, His principles never. It is by reading the Bible as a book of principles rather than of maxims that real intelligence is gained in the Word.
It is true that in the disposition of God’s ways under the Jewish economy earthly prosperity attended those who lived a godly life in the fear of Jehovah. It is likewise true that those in this dispensation “that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.”
It is further true, as an abiding principle, apart from change of dispensation, that “bodily exercise is profitable for a little,* but piety is profitable for everything, having promise of life, of the present one, and of that to come” (N.Tr.). In other words, a godly life, apart from the testimony it brings with it—a testimony peculiar to this dispensation—is profitable, not merely in a future and spiritual sense, but in a present and temporal one.
{*“That is, ‘some small things,’ rather than ‘a little time.’ It is in evident contrast with everything. (Note, N.T.).}
For instance, the high principles and sterling integrity of the Quakers led to their prosperity in business. God blessed providentially their regard for their servants and surroundings. Now a man who is converted in high life may, through his conversion, lose caste, position, and wealth; but a man converted in low life almost invariably gains.
In the same way godliness leads to health of mind and body. Timothy—with his weak stomach and “often infirmities,” abstemious almost to the point of legality—was likely to live longer than a besotted drunkard. The reader can pursue this line of thought almost ad infinitum.
It was so in the case of the blessed Lord. “Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.”
So far as Scripture throws any light upon the early life of our Lord, we do not find the least sign of opposition on the part of men, or disfavour in the eyes of the world. Not till He began His public ministry do we read of opposition and hatred. It began at the start—“His own received Him not”; and ended in the wild cry of fanaticism, “We will not have this Man… Away with Him,” and in a malefactor’s death.
His early life was divinely simple in its graciousness and naturalness. God and man marked with delight His physical and intellectual growth as a man. He “increased in wisdom and stature,” and favour rested upon Him from the throne of God to the village of Nazareth.
These remarks make plain, we trust, the two sides of Christian life—first, that of godly living, which causes men to admire and trust, and by its very nature brings temporal as well as spiritual blessings in its wake; secondly, that of our testimony, which brings opposition deep and fierce in proportion to its purity and power.
Some may say, “What about that verse, ‘All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution’”? Kindly mark the three characteristic and pivotal words in that verse—“IN CHRIST JESUS.” That plainly involves in its very nature a testimony, even in life, that goes beyond the godliness of a Jew, and brings in our distinctive place as separate from the world, its rudiments, maxims, and ways, and leading to possible conflict at every turn.
A saint of God, with a bad report as to his ways from those without, has grave reason to judge himself. On the other hand, one whose testimony meets with favour from the world on all sides has likewise grave reason to judge himself. The salt of testimony is wanting—the distinctive present testimony.
Now let me point out that a saint’s evil ways or unfaithfulness may bring him governmentally into the very same position that another may be brought into by his faithfulness to God.
Take a scriptural illustration, which suggests the title of this paper—Joseph ruling in prison, Samson grinding in prison. These two events contain this very lesson for us in a very practical way.
Joseph is a young man, slave to a captain of Pharaoh’s guard, whose wife again and again tempts him to sin. It is a fearful temptation; but he resists, and through faithfulness to God in the matter is thrust into prison. There God gives him favour in the eyes of all, and he rules as absolutely as the very governor of the gaol, save that he himself is a prisoner.
Poor Samson! a Nazarite! one whom God used mightily against his people’s foes. How he is fallen! He lusts after a woman. No such motive actuates him as that which led him down to Timnath. Then he sought an occasion against the Philistines, but now his heart is ensnared, and with his secret—the secret of his Nazariteship—wormed out of him by her, he is captured by his foes, and those very eyes which lusted after a Philistine are put out by the Philistines. Weakened, disgraced, and cast into prison, he, who once was a terror to the Philistines, is seen grinding corn for them.
Joseph and Samson are both in the same circumstances—in prison; but how different—one ruling, the other grinding
The thing that tempted them is what tempts us—not the actual gross sin, necessarily, but what it symbolizes, viz., worldliness. The New Testament distinctly and repeatedly makes use of the fleshly sins of the Old Testament to warn us to steer clear of the world in all its ways, thereby showing very clearly how awful in God’s sight is the giving up on the part of His people of their unworldly and heavenly character. Take one proof text: “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?”
And remember, God may put one who shuns the distinctive testimony that belongs to a Christian into the very position that he seeks to avoid by his culpable cowardice. He might have got into it by his faithfulness as Joseph did, in which case God would have supported and honoured him. Instead of which, through his unfaithfulness he may have to learn in shame with Samson the lessons which God, who loves His own, must teach them.
There is no shadow of doubt about it that the roughest road to heaven is the easiest and the happiest if it be the way of God’s appointing. Paul and Silas in the inner prison were happier by far than the man who had the key of their cell in his pocket.
No one passed through this world so supremely happy as the Man of Sorrows. Rejected here, He dwelt in the Father’s bosom. What a place of untold joy!
And if our distinctive testimony—unworldliness and the like—bring upon us loss both socially and in business, it is real and substantial and actual gain both now and for ever. A man who is wealthy and miserable is not so well off as the one who is poor and happy.
The blessed Lord’s position before Pilate was immeasurably superior to that of the Roman judge.
Paul before Agrippa with chains on his wrists and ankles was immeasurably superior to the Jewish king.
The world did not think the Christians worthy to live any more than it did their Lord when they crucified Him; but the Holy Ghost puts a true value upon them, as He did of some in earlier days, “Of whom the world was not worthy” (Heb. 11:38).
May God graciously enable us to live a pure and gracious life before the eyes of the world, and not be ashamed of the testimony of the Lord with its reproach and contumely—on the one hand to be in favour, and on the other in daily reproach.
And then, when the day of power and glory and manifestation arrives, we shall reign with Him. May God grant it.
“Who suffer with Thee, Lord, below,
Shall reign with Thee above;
Then let it be our joy to know
This way of peace and love.”