IT looked a very nice clock. The case was a valuable one, and the dial and hands all that could be desired; in fact you would not have objected to it in one of your best rooms, from an ornamental point of view.
It was resting on the seat of a railway carriage opposite to me, where a gentleman had carefully laid it.by his side. Upon looking more intently I discovered that it had no works inside. I looked at its owner and said, “You have a professor there.”
“What do you mean?” he replied.
“Why, that case has all the appearance of being a real clock, but all that would make it valuable if you wanted to catch a train or keep an appointment is lacking. It is just like some people who profess to be Christians, and make a great show, but have no inward work to correspond with their outward pression.”
“Oh!” he said, “I see what you mean.”
About a fortnight afterward I was traveling on the same line, and who should be in the carriage but the gentleman returning home with the very same clock. Looking at me, he said, “It is a possessor now.” He then told me it had been in London being fitted with new works.
Now, a true Christian and a clock are alike in several things. We will look at some Paul mentions to the Colossians, to see if you can discover by these marks whether you are a mere professor or a true possessor.
The works inside a clock must move the hands outside. If it is not right inside, it will never be right outside. So with a true Christian, he must, to start with, be a true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul tells us that he had heard of their “faith in Christ Jesus” (Col. 1:44Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints, (Colossians 1:4))— heard that their confidence reposed in a real, though unseen, Saviour. They had tasted the “blessedness” of the man who “trusteth in the Lord.”
Now, faith is something unseen by others. It is a secret between the soul and the Lord. You remember in the Gospels, how the woman with the issue of blood “touched the Lord.” That was an act of faith known only to Himself and herself. He knew she had touched Him, she knew the virtue that had reached her.
Thus it ever is. A moment arrives in the history of all true believers when it can be said they have “faith in Christ.”
Now, wherever this is real, some outward expression will follow, so the next thing we read is of their “love to all the saints” (Col. 1:44Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints, (Colossians 1:4)).
By faith in Christ Jesus they had become children of God (Gal. 3:2626For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26)). Now, love to Him that begat always produces love for those begotten. Faith in an unseen Saviour produces love to all He has saved.
I remember before I was converted I would have turned down another street to avoid a man who wished to speak to me about the Saviour. After I had trusted the Saviour there was no one I was better pleased to see. This is ever a sure mark of divine life. It does not say love to the particular Christians at the place you attend, or love to those who are pleasing and attractive to you, but love to all the saints.
You meet a man whom you have never seen before. You discover he loves the Lord. There is a link at once. You are drawn out in divine affection to that man more than to your natural brother who is unconverted.
Then in verse 5 Paul tells us that these Colossians had a “hope” laid up for them in heaven. Now, that does not mean they had a hope of getting to heaven, but that heaven now contained the longing object of their desire, Jesus, who is gone back to the Father, and their souls were filled with a fervent desire to see that blessed Saviour, who had loved them and died for them. Once their hope was connected with earth, their joys with this world; now their treasure was in heaven.
When your treasure is there your heart will be also. Well may the apostle, in writing to the Romans, desire that the “God of hope” might fill them with all joy and peace in believing (15:13). It is the secret of happiness, and he desires that they “may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.” Now, it is a fact, whether in a clock or a Christian, that if the hidden springs are right they will move the hands correspondingly outside. So the apostle tells us that the fourth thing which marked the Colossians was “fruit” in “the world” (Col. 1:66Which is come unto you, as it is in all the world; and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth: (Colossians 1:6)).
Only let the heart get simply and wholly occupied with “Christ the hope of glory,” and the life of a believer will be marked by fruitfulness. The fruit, the Spirit of God produces, moves in three circles, as you may see by looking at Galatians 5:2222But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, (Galatians 5:22).
The first circle is love, joy, peace. That is a divine circle. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Spirit, and as Christ is laid hold of as our “hope,” joy and peace fill the believer.
Then toward others we have to show long-suffering, gentleness, goodness. This is the practical outcome toward those who try us by their ways and words.
After this we read, “faith, meekness, temperance,” that has to do with ourselves personally.
Christ was the meek and lowly one, and we are to take His yoke and learn of Him, and temperance is to mark us; everything which might carry us away or act like an opiate on our spiritual senses, we must avoid. If the secret springs of hope and faith are inside, this will produce the outward expression of love to all the saints and fruit in the world.
Now which are you, possessor or professor? I do not ask if you teach in the Sunday school, if you are a preacher of the gospel, or if you are liberal to the poor. You may lie all this, and yet never really have had “faith in Christ.”
A friend was telling me of a lady she knew who was very much like the clock without its inward springs. She was housekeeper to the rector of the parish, and greatly respected. I suspect if you had asked any of the parishioners they would have told you she was a most exemplary Christian, and she would have agreed with them, for she had formed a very high appreciation of her personal virtues, and thought if anybody had a right to heaven she had. She was kind to the poor, faithful to her master, regular in her attendance at church, and to the best of her ability had been serving God for fifty-two years, yet with all this she had no room in her heart for Christ. She did not object to attaching His work as a makeweight to her own merits, but as the personal object of her faith and as the One who had died for her, and in His death atoned for her sins, He was a total stranger to her. At fifty-two disease laid hold of her, the doctor pronounced her case hopeless, death stared her in the face.
A Christian visited her, and knowing that in a few weeks she would be in eternity, asked her as to her spiritual prospects. She told him she was happily and peacefully anticipating the great change, and recounted the virtues of her life as the ground of her hope, and felt sure God would take her to heaven on that ground. He soon discovered she was a mere professor, just like a handsome clock case without the works, so he solemnly said to her, “If you die as you are, you will be lost forever in hell.”
“You cruel man,” she said, “how dare you tell a woman like me such a thing?”
“If you die as you are,” he solemnly repeated “you will be lost forever in hell.”
“What!” she cried, “after being a faithful servant and living the blameless life I have?”
He rose, and as he left her solemnly repeated, “If you die as you are, you will be lost forever in hell.”
As the night rolled on and the clock struck the hours, those awful words rang in her ears and effectually prevented sleep closing her eyes.
Could it be true after all that she had deceived herself and others all her life? “Peace, peace,” she said, but her fancied peace had fled. Hell with its realities, the judgment seat, and a holy God who knew all about her, aroused her to agony of soul. The Spirit of God began to work in her conscience. He lighted up the dark chambers of her heart, and she discovered that she was a mere professor, and all her fancied “righteousnesses” were but “filthy rags.” Oh, how she longed for the morning light that she might send for the man of God to tell her what would meet her need. What a different task awaited him as he sat by her bedside the next morning. She was thoroughly awake to her state. She felt that the vessel of “good works” in which she hoped to reach the harbor of heaven was foundering in mid ocean, and nothing but rotten timbers were between her soul and a lost eternity.
How gladly she now listened to the story of the atoning work of Christ, and the virtues of His precious blood. Her visitor unfolded God’s gospel to her, and told of justice satisfied, of God’s holy claims all having been met, of a risen Saviour in glory, and of “righteousness unto all and upon all them that believe,” of a free salvation for “whosoever will.”
The once self-satisfied Pharisee listened, not only listened but believed, rested simply, wholly, and only upon Christ and His finished work. Peace, rest, and joy filled her soul, and praise and adoration filled her mouth, during the remainder of her life.
Her thankfulness to God was unceasing, for tearing off her robe of self-righteousness and clothing her in the best robe, even the righteousness of God, which is in Christ Jesus.
Now, my friend, which are you — professor or possessor? Are you a “cursed man” or a “blessed man”? You ask, What do you mean? Why, just this: God says, “Blessed is the man who trusteth in the Lord, whose hope the Lord is,” “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm” (Jer. 17:5-75Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. 6For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. 7Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. (Jeremiah 17:5‑7)); and you must be one or the other; say honestly which word describes you, “blessed” or “cursed.” Possessor or professor?
H. N.