While I am writing this in my study, all the streets of my city, Exeter, are filled with the excitement of the General Election. Motor cars and every kind of vehicle, gaily bedecked, are carrying voters to the polling stations. Roars of cheering, and the din of children parading the streets with improvised instruments of music (?) are heard everywhere.
The great heart of the city, as the nation, is throbbing with the fever of party strife. What a spectacle of unrest it all presents! What brawling and confusion! What strife of tongues! What waste of words! Men rally around their chosen leaders. The wild fervor of partisanship severs men and women as far apart as the poles. Men are the slaves of an idea; they are prisoners who grace the triumphs of their leaders; they move about in the circumscribed limits of their proclaimed opinions.
I feel it laid upon my heart to write a little at a time like this. Your choice of a candidate whom you wish to represent you in the next Parliament has been made, and your vote has been given, and the result will be known later on today amid scenes of the wildest excitement.
All this reminds me most vividly of an election that took place well-nigh two thousand years ago.
In the city of Jerusalem two candidates were before the people, and the populace had to declare their will concerning them. Their names were passed from lip to lip, as the names of your candidates are today. The names of the two were: —
JESUS
Barabbas
One was the Son of God, the other was a robber. One had done everything that was good, the other everything that was wrong.
From the lips of tens of thousands of men and women — for women had a vote in this election as well as men — the cry rang forth, “Not this Man, but Barabbas.” They gazed on Jesus Christ, and they cried, “Away with Him! Away with Him!” “Why?” says the heathen. Governor, Pilate, “What evil hath He done?” He knew the evil Barabbas had done. But loud and insistent was the cry, “Not this Man, but Barabbas.” He was the world’s choice then — and Jesus was rejected and crucified.
You, my reader, are choosing a candidate for a few short years today. I want you to choose a candidate for eternity.
Choose today between the world, and Christ. “Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.”
God has chosen a Man, the Man after His own heart. God asks the world of men and women to choose His beloved Son. Will you vote for the Son of God today? Shall God speak in vain, “This is My beloved Son, hear Him”?
God asks you to choose the One He has chosen for you. Will you be persuaded to vote for the Son of God, and ratify, by your heart’s allegiance to Him now, what He did for you nineteen centuries or more ago! Shall God ask in vain? No; let your voices ring out your soul’s choice now, “Christ for me! Christ for me!”
You may have very pronounced opinions, and may say decidedly that you belong to one or the other of these two parties. Let me tell you what I believe. I will tell you in what I believe a Christian should be conservative and in what he should be liberal.
He should be Conservative in his Faith
He should never change in that. He should remember that “without faith it is impossible to please God”; that faith is the divine principle which lifts men from earth to heaven. Faith is the golden key that unlocks the treasures of eternity; faith is a voice that speaks in the ears of God; faith is a chain that binds the soul to Christ; faith is a life-giving, a life-preserving power that is based upon Omnipotence. Faith has made the feeble, strong; the weary, restful; the timid, heroes; the despairing, hopeful. Faith has lit dark hearts with splendor; and made the desert blossom as the rose. Faith has made music amid the discordant noises of a world of sin.
Faith lights up the Christian’s eye, and unlooses the Christian’s tongue: it makes the heart beat happily, and the feet run joyfully. Have you faith in Christ? You confide in your candidate; have you faith in Jesus? You can never please God unless you have faith in His Son. God will have all Honor given to Him. “All men must Honor the Son.” Honor Him by your faith now. Cannot you trust yourselves and your interests to the Saviour? He has given such a proof of His love, that you should not hesitate another moment to trust Him. He has died for sinners; and you are a sinner! He receives sinners, and you are a sinner! Are act of faith will save you. “Have faith in God.”
The Christian should be a Conservative in his Love
Yes, that must never alter. “We love Him because He first loved us.” I must love Christ better than my life, beer than the dearest object of my heart on earth. My love must be constant and unchanging. And He is worthy of it. The more I know of Christ, the more I love Him. Men are always failing and disappointing us; they fail to rise to what we expect of them. But Christ exceeds all that we can think. Our highest expectations are surpassed by Christ, our highest wishes He more than satisfies. Thus my love has an object that it can feed upon, and grow upon; the more I love, the more I shall love, and God is love. God make me conservative in my love!
Do you love Christ? Those who love Christ, love happiness, and life, and peace, and glory. Those who hate Christ, love death, and the grave, and misery and hell.
The Christian should be Liberal in his Life
He should be liberal in telling others of his love to Christ, and Christ’s love to him. He should ever be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in him. He should never be ashamed to acknowledge to whom he belongs and whose cause he espouses. He should everywhere make known the praises of his Saviour, and seek to win others to His side. He should with generous warmth declare what great things God has done for him; and with liberal heart pray that a like blessing might rest upon all around him. He should not be chained or fettered in his desires, but go out in love to the whole world: no narrow sectarianism should mar his usefulness, nor any broad departure from the will of God render his life useless. As God has blessed him with a bounteous hand, he should dispense those heavenly gifts to others. As God has lit the lamp of love in his heart by His Spirit he should shine as a light in a dark world, as a guide to those who are lost, and who are weary of the darkness. As God has spoken in love to him, he should be loving to those about him.
The Christian should be Liberal in his Service
He should be passive in the Master’s hands. “Here am I, send me.” “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? “These should be heart cries — deep desires to be used by God, and to be His messenger to a lost and guilty world. He should not be grudging of his time, or money, or opportunities, or health, or strength, but give all to God without reserve. “Take me, Lord, and use me,” this should be his prayer.
“Take my life, and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee;
Take myself; and I will be
Ever, only, ALL for Thee.”
This should be his song.
Yes, a Christian should be conservative in maintaining the Tights of God, in a world where those rights are challenged. He should be conservative in his unswerving trust in the word of God from beginning to end, in an age when the wisdom of man is employed to tear it to pieces. He should be conservative in his loyalty and love to the One whom the world has crucified and slain. He should be liberal in his outspoken testimony to the love that has saved him and blessed him eternally. He should be liberal in his work of faith and labor of love; liberal in his intense desire that the cause of Christ should spread in the world in which he lives, and the name of Christ be honored among men.
I Solicit your Vote and Interest for the Lord Jesus Christ
There is not a question you can ask, but what shall be answered fairly and fully from the word of God. Not a doubt that can arise in your minds but what shall be dispelled; not a fear but what shall be driven away. I ask you to give yourselves to Christ, because it will be for your soul’s advantage in time and in eternity. When earthly candidates have all passed away, and earthly parliaments are gone forever, Christ and His people will be dwelling in eternal bliss. When the strife of tongues shall cease on earth, and men no longer seek for place and power, the people of God will be in the home of God, and the eternal language of praise will flow from every tongue. When conservatives and liberals have all passed off this chequered changing scene, those who have placed their interests in the hands of Christ will find that the name of Christ is the Name for eternity. The parliament of heaven is never dissolved; the terms of grace are never altered. The promises Christ made to those who trust in Him, have their complete fulfillment in the glory where He is. The world is full of promises unfulfilled and of pledges unredeemed; but the accomplishment of all the promises of God, and the pledges of the Saviour, will be the glory of eternity.
Friends, shall I plead in vain for Christ? He has an interest in every one. He loves you and will make you happy. He will give you what the richest and the most powerful can never bestow, eternal life, and peace with God.
In closing, let me say a few more words. It is accounted a great thing to be a Member of Parliament. Yet what is that compared to being a member of the body of Christ? To have a right to sit, not in the Senate House of a mighty earthly nation, but in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; to be at home in the palace of the King of kings; to be owned before the angels as the King’s son!