Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 92, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 April 1916 — A Sermon for Quiet People [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A Sermon for Quiet People

By REV. L. W. GOSNELL

Superintendent of Men. Moody Bible Institute of Chicago.

TEXT—The God of Isaac.—Exod. 2:9. Speaking of the story of Isaac, found In the Old Testament, Mark Guy

Pearse says: “Turning from tbs story of Abraham, with its stirring scenes and splendid triumphs, to the uneventful record of Isaac, is as when on a breezy day I have stood on the cliff and watched the waves as they leapt in showers of spray, whilst the birds have screamed and

wheeled about the crags, and far out at sea the ships have left their traces in foam —then turning inland, I have gone down the hillside into the still valley, sheltered from the winds, and there the lonely plowman drove the team across the heavy clods. All is still —dull, if you please to call it so—that is Isaac.” As another has put it, “the salient feature of his life is that it has no salient features.” He is a type of the commonplace people of whom God has made so many. How thrilling it is to know that God is the God of Isaac and of all like unto him! Isaac’s life was no doubt a disappointment to men. He came by miraculous birth, yet proved to be Just an ordinary man. Many have hoped to be the happy fathers of artists, sculptors, musjcians and scholars, but, their children have turned out to be house painters, stone masons, and dry goods clerks. Still, it is well to have entertained these hopes, for if our children are no more remarkable than they are, in spite of our ambitions, what might they have been If we had had no ambitions for them. Isaac’s life was directed by God. This appears especially in the story of his marriage, found in Gen. 24. “The steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord,” no matter -how dull and brown his life may be outwardly; an “ordinary” life may still be an “ordered” life. Horace Bushnell, in his great sermon on “Every Man’s Life a Plan of God,” states his theme thus: “That God has a definite plan for every human person, girding him visibly or invisibly for some exact thing, which it will be the true significance and glory of his life to have accomplished.” In character Isaac was marked by the passive virtues. We do not appreciate patience, gentleness, meekness, and other quiet graces as much as we should. ,

Submission was a marked element in his make-up. When Abraham would offer him as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah he made no resistance, though the knife actually flashed over him. What a picture he was of our Lord In his submission (Heb. 10:5-7). This element appears again in Isaac’s life at Gerar. As fast as he would dig wells at this place the Philistines would contend for them, but instead of quarreling, Isaac would move on and dig another well., The outcome of his meekness was that the Philistines came to him to make a covenant, saying, “We saw certainly that the Lord was with thee.” Even now there is a sense in which the meek inherit the earth.

This quiet man was thoughtful, and we see him going out to meditate in the fields at the eventide (Gen. 24:63). Quiet- people may know things better than others and know them more deeply. This twentieth century, “with bloodshot eye and fevered pulse,” has lost the art of meditation, but only when truth saturates us does It really become a life power. » Isaac was affectionate, as manifested in his relation to his mother and his wife (Gen. 24:67). We need such people in the world. We have often noticed that a plain mother, who has a great heart, will be adored by a son who shines in the world of science or letters. How suprising it is to find that this quiet man was, nevertheless, sensuous. “Isaac loved Esau because ho did eat of his venison” (Gen. 25:28; 27:24). We have, in this matter, a suggestion of one danger of the quiet life. Alexander Wright says the greatest glutton he ever knew never crossed his own doorstep and his only walk was his desk and the dining table. Temperance, or, as the Revised Version renders, self-control. Is a grace. much Insisted on in the New Testament.

Isaac's commonplace life is notable because linked with Christ. He was an ancestor of Christ and also a type of him in that his birth was supernatural and that, “In a figure," he was offered up and also raised from the dead. Our lives may be made significant, in that they, too, may be linked with Christ. Paul exhorts that even slaves shall do their work, not as unto their earthly masters, but as unto the Lord, “for,” says he. “ye serve the Lord Christ.” Our commonest actions can be done with the same mqtive as our highest, deeds —"to- be well pleasing him;” “The world passetit away and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever”