From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: I should like to call attention this evening to verses 15 and 16 in the 12th chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans. In the 12th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, reading verses 15 and 16: "Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits."

Now, you'll remember that we are considering this subsection of this 12th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, the one in which the Apostle, as I was suggesting last Friday night, deals with the way in which we react to people and to things that happen to us. That's I think the best way of looking at this particular subsection. He's been dealing positively with how we are to behave, how we are to use the gifts that we are given in the church, and how we are to face life and other people in general.

But now he takes it from the other angle: the things that happen to us and how we react to them. Last Friday we were considering in terms of verse 14 how we are to react to persecution, and it was quite clear: "Bless them which persecute you; bless and curse not." We are to react in a positive way. Not merely to put up with it, but we are to feel sorry for these people and to pray for them. Instead of calling down God's curse upon them, we are to call down God's blessing upon them.

A most difficult thing to do, and I indicated, as I must keep on doing as we deal with every one of these injunctions, that this is something that can only be done by a Christian, by one who is born again, by one who has a new nature. Nobody else is capable of doing these things. And the Apostle, of course, is addressing his remarks to those who are truly Christian, as he has already been indicating so abundantly.

Well, now then, we come to the next, which is this: "Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep." Here again, you see, it is a reaction. They are either rejoicing or weeping, other people. And what he's concerned about is our reaction to that. What happens to us when we see this and experience this in our contact with other people? Now, the really interesting point here in this particular verse is the order in which the Apostle puts these two things.

You notice he puts the rejoicing before the weeping. And I think that this is something which is quite deliberate. He does it for the sake of emphasis. Now, the question that occurs and has often been discussed is this one: Which of these two things is the more difficult? To rejoice with those who rejoice or to weep with those who weep? On the surface, one might think that the first is easier, but it seems perfectly clear the moment you examine it that the really difficult one is the first one.

Why? Now, this brings us, I think, to the very heart of this matter. To weep with those who weep is something that is more or less natural. It is a most exceptional person who isn't touched at all by the sight of someone else weeping. By nature, by constitution, the natural man, however bad he may be, he feels some kind of response in him when someone is to be seen weeping. Because there are certain people who are so hardened that even that doesn't touch them. They're quite immune to it; they seem to be entirely lacking in any kind of sympathy.

But there are not many such people. The average person, indeed more than the average, is a person who reacts when he or she sees another person weeping. There is something in us all that tends to respond to that, and we are ready, as it were, to weep with them. Not only that. When a person is weeping, it means that that person, for the time being, is more or less down, in difficulties, humbled. Something or other has got this person down in that way and into a state of defeat, as it were. That is why this person is weeping.

And there again is something that makes it very much easier for us to weep with those who weep. It's simpler for us to be sympathetic toward those who are down than it is to rejoice with those who are up. And that is why I say without any hesitation that the first of these two is really the more difficult one. Because the ultimate problem with all of us, without a single exception, the ultimate problem with every human being is the problem of self, the problem of pride.

And involved in pride, of course, is jealousy and envy. And that is why I'm trying to show you that the first of these two injunctions is easily the more difficult of the two. Because when a person is rejoicing—well, he's got some cause for his rejoicing. What is it? Well, he's been successful, or he's had a piece of good fortune, something good, something uplifting has happened to him, and he feels he's very much on his feet, and he's very pleased, and he's very happy.

Now, I think if you examine yourselves and your experiences of life, you will find that it is because of that, correspondingly, more difficult for you to rejoice with those who do rejoice than to weep with those who weep. Because of this element of competition that comes in. Self is always looking at itself and concerned about itself and wants to be considered high and great and important. That's innate in human nature ever since the fall. That is one of the first things and the main things that happened to man as the result of the fall. He became proud, self-centered.

And so it happens that we find it very much more difficult to be happy with people who are successful than we do to sympathize with people who are not successful. Because, as I say, failure or lack of success or anything which gets us down doesn't put them into competition with us. Indeed, for the time being, we feel we're in a better position. We are not weeping; they are. We are up, and they're down. So we can afford to weep with them. That's why it's more or less natural.

But it is certainly not natural to rejoice with them that do rejoice. As we all, as I say again, must know from our own personal experiences. All that is worst in self is involved at this particular point. So the Apostle, I suggest, puts this first in order to emphasize it and to challenge us with the more difficult before he puts the less difficult. Now, it is something that one takes for granted, of course, that the Apostle in both cases, in both the joy and the sorrow, he's assuming that the cause of the joy and the sorrow must be something that is legitimate.

If a man is rejoicing because he's succeeded in doing something that is wrong—if a man comes along and is very happy because he's stolen some of money or something else from people—well, you don't rejoice with him. Obviously, it's taken for granted that the cause in both cases, the rejoicing and the sorrow, are legitimate. I mean, a man or a woman may be weeping because their ambition has been thwarted. You don't weep with them; you reprimand them. People can weep in anger and weep for very selfish reasons and because the self has been hurt. We don't weep with them. It's taken for granted that the causes of the joy and the sorrow are in both cases legitimate and are true.

But now you see the Apostle's emphasis once more is a positive one. He doesn't stop at saying that we mustn't envy people who are happy. Now, that's about as far as the world can go. This is, of course, at the very root of the whole of life. How often does one have to point this out? We are seeing it again this time of year when these political parties have their meetings. You'd think that they all love one another and they all rejoice in one another's success. I don't mean the people in the rival parties; I mean the people in the same party.

But do they? Well, that's where biographies are so important, and autobiographies, too. These smiling faces, these men who are applauding one another, are envious and jealous and go behind one another's backs. And you read of plots and so on. They appear to be rejoicing, but they're not rejoicing. And it's a very exceptional man in life, not only politicians, but members of learned professions, most intellectual people—this is something that runs right through it all, through all social circles and everything like that. The greatest problem of all is the problem of jealousy and of envy.

And about the highest the natural man can ever attain unto is just not to envy. And they find that well-nigh impossible. They can get to the stage of not showing it, but it's a very different thing not to show it and not to feel it. The question is that we mustn't even feel it. But that's negative. Not to envy is negative, whereas the Apostle is very positive. And he says you must take positive pleasure in the rejoicing of your fellow Christian. You must really enter into it and be pleased with his success or whatever it is that is leading to his rejoicing.

The negative is not enough. Now, there are many instances of this. There have been men who have cultivated a kind of detachment. Oh, I could elaborate this, you know; this is the story of mankind, and it shows you where the gospel comes in. There have been men who have been famous in history because of their so-called stoical calm. The way in which they've had the reputation of not being jealous and envious.

But the more you learn about such men, as I say, from their biographies and autobiographies, you find that what really happened was that they took great pains and, after much effort, were able to arrive at some kind of philosophical calm in which they put themselves into a position in which nothing could move them or be disturbed by them. They seem to get rid of all passion. You know, there are systems which can do this—this yoga that you read about; that does that kind of thing. Cultivate a kind of resignation, cultivate a kind of passivity, so that you're not affected by anything that happens.

But it's always negative, and it never approaches what we're dealing with here. It never knows what it is to rejoice with them that rejoice. All it can do is either not to show the envy or to produce this kind of—sometimes it's described as the Roman attitude. I could illustrate this from the history of this 20th century very simply and very easily. Your great Romans are not quite as unmoved and as dispassionate as their public image would lead you to believe.

There is a rancor and a feeling deep within, and sometimes this can show itself even in the form of disease. I'm one of those who is always ready to believe that the death of certain well-known persons from cancer, for instance, is, in my opinion, to be easily explained by this very thing that we are considering: thwarted ambition. Does something to the whole system, even leading to disease. I mustn't go into that. All I'm emphasizing is this: that the Apostle's injunction is a positive one.

That we are to positively rejoice with those that rejoice as if it were our own success. That's what he's postulating in Christian people with respect to one another. Well, now then, you see once more, isn't it obvious and plain and fair that no man can ever do this for himself? You can put on that artificial smile, but it's not even skin deep. You can put on an assumed pleasure and joviality and congratulations, but we're not being cynical when we say that it's well known that it's not real, it's not true.

The man of the world, the natural man, he cannot do this. There is only one way whereby this becomes possible, and that is the work of the Holy Spirit in us. Nothing else can produce this at all. And how does he do it? Well, you see, this is the glory of the Christian salvation. It is the one thing that deals with the problem of self. It deals with the problem of self and all that is involved in self. And it does this by means of the new birth and the new nature.

You see, nothing else can do it. And that is why our gospel is not one that teaches a modification of the self; it teaches a doctrine of regeneration, of a rebirth, a new being, a new person. Nothing else can ever enable one to come into this position. There is nothing that can deliver us from our self and all that is involved in that horror save this gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ our Lord.

And you see, it works like this: we are not only delivered from self, we are also identified with the others. That's the marvelous thing. We become members of the same family, we belong to the same head, we belong to the same body. Now, that's a vital part of this teaching. I read to you those verses from the first chapter of Philippians because they, in several places, bring out that very idea that we've got here.

But the whole doctrine of the church as the body of Christ, which we've already heard earlier in this chapter—all that carries with it implicitly this point that I'm now making. It is indeed one of the ways in which we show that we do belong to this one body. You remember how the Apostle has put it: "As we have many members in one body and all members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ and every one members one of another."

We spent time with that great doctrine because, as I say, you cannot do anything about these injunctions unless you're clear about the doctrine. Indeed, you've got to go back all along to verses 1 and 2. You've got to be not only not conformed to this world, but you've got to be transformed in the renewing of the very spirit of your mind before you can possibly do this kind of thing. But under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and as the result of his operation, you are given a new nature and you share it with others.

And it's this that enables you to rejoice with those who do rejoice. How? Well, you see, according to this teaching, nothing can happen to them without its affecting you, both negatively and positively, both as regards the weeping and the rejoicing. You remember how Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 12, where he deals with this idea of the church as the body of Christ in greatest detail. It's in verse 26. He says, "And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it."

You can't help yourself because whatever happens to the other is really happening to you. I mean, my body, as we saw in the illustration, is not something that can be divided into disparate segments which have nothing to do with one another and are only connected by means of some strings or by bars of iron or something. No, no. The body's one; it's organic, it's a whole. And whatever happens to one part of the body, the whole is involved, as I told you. Get infection in the tip of your little finger, and you'll soon have a headache and so on.

This unity leads of necessity to this. If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. You can't help yourself. You feel the pain. Now, there are many instances and examples of this in the scripture. Take, for instance, what you get in Acts 12 when James, the brother of John, was arrested and put to death by King Herod, and then he arrested Peter and threw him into prison. But we read that all the church prayed without ceasing for him. They were with him in the prison.

It's impossible for one to suffer without all the members suffering with him. You weep with those who weep because what happens to them is happening to you. But conversely, you rejoice with them that do rejoice for exactly the same reason. It is not only happening to them. Paul puts it, as we shall find in the 14th chapter: "No man liveth unto himself; no man dieth unto himself." He's talking particularly about Christians. We can't. If we are truly Christians, we cannot live independent, isolated lives.

It isn't we who decide this. It is God who's decided it in planning his salvation, and the Spirit makes us one, so that it must happen that what happens to the other affects and influences us. So we weep with those who weep, and we rejoice with those who do rejoice. And if one member is honored, we all rejoice with it. It isn't only happening to him; it's happening to the body of Christ, it's happening to the head. So we're rejoicing with our great and our glorious head.

Now, the Apostle has another very interesting and, I always feel, very moving way of putting this same thing. I always feel this is one of the most moving things he ever wrote when you consider what a man he was, what a strong man he was, what a virile personality he was. Listen to him in 2 Corinthians this time and in chapter 11. He's describing his troubles and problems and anxieties as a minister, as an apostle.

"In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches." And then in verse 29: "Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is offended, and I burn not?" That's it. This great and mighty man. He says if anybody is weak, I am made weak as well. If anybody offended, I burn. I burn in righteous indignation, I burn in sympathy. Nothing can happen to them. Though he's got all the care of all the churches, if this happens to any individual, he felt it with all the intensity of his big nature, his glorious character.

Well, now then, here it is, you see. So that it works out like this, doesn't it? There is no more thorough test of our profession of the Christian faith than just this. Oh, it's very much easier to be orthodox than it is to rejoice with them that do rejoice. It's very much easier for me to be right about every dot and comma and tittle of the faith to which I adhere than it is in actual practice to rejoice with them that do rejoice and to weep with them that weep.

But my friends, this is a part of the gospel, this is a part of the teaching. It's no use talking if we fail at this point. This includes the doctrine, as I say. Here is implicit this great doctrine of the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration and in baptizing us into the body of Christ. It's the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There's not much point in saying that we believe things like that unless we're aware that they're facts and realities in our daily and in our personal life.

I'm staying with this and emphasizing it for this reason: that I am more than ever convinced that it is the lack of this kind of thing that is accounting for the state of the church and for the fact that the masses are outside the church. You remember it was a taunt hurled at the early Christians, but it was a great compliment, too: "See how these Christians love one another." And it is that kind of thing that still impresses the world.

So you see, never divide doctrine and practice; the one is always with the other. And you test the reality of your doctrine by what happens to you in your conduct and in your daily behavior. Now, what a different story the story of the Christian church would have been if all Christians had implemented this injunction! If they'd rejoiced with those who rejoiced and if they'd wept with those who wept. I've been talking about church history.

Well, you read church history and you'll see how the devil has kept on coming in and creeping in and so twisting Christian people as to make them violate this injunction. And you see, men who have been jealous for the faith have been guilty in this respect on all sides. I'm not putting the one against the other; I'm putting them together: doctrine and practice, doctrine and experience. Here it is; let us face it. Well, now then, let's go on. In the next verse, the Apostle tells us to be of the same mind one toward another. That's the main injunction in verse 16.

But then he helps us to understand it and to practice it by going on saying, "Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate." And secondly, "Be not wise in your own conceits." Now, you see, all these things are intimately related. Rejoicing—they say that's a matter of the feeling and sensations. Well, I agree it is. But, of course, again, you can't divide a man's feelings from his thinking. Thinking and feeling and action are all inextricably mixed up together. So he now, in having told us to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep, he tells us now—listen to this; this will help you to do that. And here it is: "Be of the same mind one toward another."

What does this mean? Well, it means this: it means have a common mind. Agree with one another. Be united in feeling, in interests, and in the objects of your interest. Or, if you like it negatively, let there be no discord amongst you. Be of the same mind one toward another. Be minding the same things, if you like. Now, this New English Bible, as they call it, seems to me to have missed this completely. Their translation is: "Have equal regard one for another."

It doesn't mean that. This is much more a matter of the mind. What their translation applies much more to the previous verse. They say what they really mean by their translation is have the same opinion about others as you have about yourselves and so treat them well. That's a perfectly right thing to do, but I do suggest that that is not what this particular injunction is saying to us. What this is telling us is to have a common mind.

Now, it means unity and agreement with regard to the truth. It doesn't mean that as Christians we are bound to agree together about everything. It doesn't mean that. He means a unity with respect to the truth. And, of course, in pleading for this, the Apostle is doing something that he does in almost every Epistle he ever wrote. Let me show it to you in 1 Corinthians, in the first chapter, in verse 10: "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, that there be no divisions among you, but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment."

That is a perfect commentary on this injunction in Romans 12:16. You can't get a better. That's exactly what it means. Or again, take it in that first Corinthians once more in chapter 11, where he puts it like this, verses 17 to 19: "Now in this that I declare unto you, I praise you not, that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse. For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you, and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies, schisms, divisions among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you." He's dealing with exactly the same thing there.

Or take it in that first chapter of Philippians which I read at the beginning, and particularly in verse 27: "Only let your conversation, your manner of life and behavior, be as it becometh the gospel of Christ; that whether I come and see you or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel." That's what he's after.

Or again, in Philippians 3:15 and 16: "Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded. Let's think like this. And if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind—think—the same thing." That's what he's appealing for. You see, it is the same thing all along.

Or take it again in a striking statement in the Epistle to the Colossians in the second chapter. He says, "I would that ye know what great conflict I have for you and for them at Laodicea and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."

And indeed, he goes on with this. He says, "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving." Now then, this, you see, is the main idea in this particular injunction of the Apostle: that we are all to be minding the same things, by which he means thinking the same things. That our minds are to be working in the same way and along the same channels. That there be no division, that there be no schism, but that we be united in this way as Christian people.

Well, now then, how is this to be done? Well, he goes on, as I say, in two further injunctions to tell us how to do this. The next two injunctions are explanations or expositions of this first one and also indicate to us how it can be done. And the first is this: "Mind not high things." Now, here is an important statement. "Mind not high things." What does he mean by this? Well, he's already told us something very similar in the previous chapter, in chapter 11, in verse 20: "Well," he says, "because of unbelief they were broken off and thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear." Don't be high-minded. Same thing exactly here: "Mind not high things."

What does this refer to? Well, there's a bit of dispute about that. Some say that it refers only to thought, to intellectual pride and haughtiness. And I tend to agree that that is certainly its first meaning. But it isn't the only one. I think it also refers to high desires in a social sense or in any other realm whatsoever—ambition. I think haughtiness, intellectual pride is the main thing, but not to the exclusion of a desire for high or big or great things in a more general sense.

Now, here again, of course, is something that one finds running right through the Bible. You get many instances of this. Take, for instance, Psalm 131. It puts this before us in a very interesting and appealing manner: "Lord," says the psalmist, "my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty; neither do I exercise myself in great matters or in things too high for me. Surely I have behaved myself and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of his mother; my soul is even as a weaned child. Let Israel hope in the Lord from henceforth and forever."

Now, there's a man who realizes the danger of minding high things. He says, "Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty; neither do I exercise myself in great matters or in things too high for me." What a wise man he was! What a great deal of misery people have brought upon themselves because they haven't practiced that! What harm has been done in the church because people set themselves up as authorities who are not authorities, but are just succumbing to the spirit of haughtiness, becoming inflated in their own ideas.

However, let me give you a New Testament counterpart; it's 1 Corinthians again, chapter 8, which is virtually devoted to this from beginning to end: "Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth or builds up. If any man think he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know." And so on. In other words, in that eighth chapter, he deals with this whole question of the weaker brother, so-called, as over and against the stronger brother.

There were, you see, such people in the church at Corinth. Some people were more intelligent and intellectual than others, and they'd come to an understanding about this whole question of meats offered to idols. But there were others who couldn't; they haven't seen it yet. And this was causing trouble in the church at Corinth. The high-minded people, you see, these cleverer people, were despising the others, and the others were hurt and so on. And there was great trouble in the church as the result of this.

Now, that's the kind of thing he's dealing with here. He says don't become high-minded, don't become haughty, don't become intellectually proud. It's a devastating thing, intellectual pride, and it's been a curse in the church throughout our long history. I could again give you endless examples to demonstrate what I'm saying. But let me give you another quotation from Paul in 1 Timothy, in the sixth chapter. He deals again with this very point. 1 Timothy 6:17: "Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy."

Now, there is that first bit of this first injunction: don't mind high things. Then negatively—or, if you like, the reverse—instead of doing that, "condescend to men of low estate." Now, this is a little bit unfortunate as regards translation. The word "condescend" carries overtones, doesn't it? And it has become an objectionable word with us, and rightly so. So it would be better not to translate it as "condescend." The word that the Apostle really used is a word that means to be carried away with.

So he says don't be high-minded, but rather allow yourselves to be carried away by men of low estate. Now, let me show you why this is a correct interpretation. In Galatians 2:13, the Apostle uses exactly the same word. Listen to this. He's talking about himself and Peter down at Antioch. He says, "The other Jews dissembled likewise with him, insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation." Now, "carried away with" is exactly the word that is translated here by "condescend." But it's a much better translation.

Don't let yourself be carried away by things that inflate you and lead to arrogance, intellectual arrogance and pride and haughtiness. Allow yourself rather to be carried away in a different manner. Here again, we've got to watch our translation. "Condescend"—be allow yourself to be carried away with, it reads here in the Authorized, "by men of low estate." But that's a bit of interpretation on behalf of the Authorized translators. The word "men" is not there. Actually, all we have in the Greek is "the humble." Allow yourself to be carried away by the humble.

And the commentators have argued throughout the centuries as to whether this humble means humble things or humble people. Well, once more, it seems to me that the correct view of this is to say that it means both. Because people and things are again so mixed up and involved in one another that you can't separate them. And I believe that he means the two things. We must avoid becoming intellectuals. You're to use your intellect, but God forbid that any of us should ever become intellectuals. We are to try to understand the doctrine, yes, but the moment you become proud of your understanding, it's no use to you. That's minding high things, being rather pleased with yourself for your learning and your understanding and your knowledge. No, no, he says. Go in for humble things.

But the same thing applies to people. Because the inevitable effect of becoming proud of your knowledge is, as I say, as we've shown in 1 Corinthians 8, to despise people who haven't got it. So people come in with things. So he says here allow yourself to be carried away by people and things which are humble. It applies to both. Associate yourselves with humble things and humble people. But do it in a way that you're never guilty of condescension.

There is a way of mixing with humble people which is sheer patronage, patronizing. And it's despicable. It's thoroughly bad. That's why this word "condescend" must be taken right out. Your great people who deign to visit some lowly person. That's the antithesis of Christianity. No, no. It means become one with them. Become one with them. Allow yourself to be carried away by humble things and humble people. Not a suspicion of patronage or of condescension none whatsoever. That is the world at its worst and the opposite of Christianity.

Well, now once more, you see, we're facing one of the most thorough tests of our profession. Here again is something that cannot be imitated by the world. The world doesn't even often try to do this. But it does sometimes. And even then, it's a dismal and a complete failure. It is only the Spirit of God that can bring one into this condition. You get it, you see, in King David. So highly exalted and such a brilliant man. "I would sooner be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness." He didn't mind high things.

Or take the Apostle himself here in this very Epistle, in the first chapter, verses 11 and following: "I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift." Ah, you say, he's put himself on a pedestal, has he? "I may impart unto you some spiritual gift to the end that you may be established." Patronizing them? He isn't. "That is," he says, "that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me."

This mighty man, this greatest of all Christian teachers, he sits down with them on the same seat. It's an exchange, he says—you and me, mutual faith. I've got something to give; you've got something to give me. He could learn from them. This is the great Apostle, you see, putting his own injunction into practice. He really deals with the same thing exactly in 1 Corinthians 3: "If any man seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise." Same thing exactly.

But listen to James putting this, so that you don't feel that it's confined only to the Apostle Paul. James has exactly this same doctrine, especially in his second chapter: "My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come into your assembly a man with a gold ring and in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment, and ye have respect unto him that weareth the gay clothing and say unto him, 'Sit thou here in a good place,' and say to the poor, 'Stand thou there' or 'sit here under my footstool'—are ye not then partial in yourselves and are ye become judges of evil thoughts? Hearken, my beloved brethren. Has not God chosen the poor in this world rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?"

That's the only thing that matters to the Christian. Doesn't care whether people are rich or poor, high or low, whatever the world may say, intelligent or unintelligent. Is he a Christian? Is he rich in faith? Is he a child of God? If so, I belong to him. And I like talking to him; I like meeting him. Peter puts exactly the same thing. He reminds them in the first Epistle, chapter 5, that he is himself an elder, but he says in verse 3: "neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock."

That's it. And you see this, of course, the perfection in our blessed Lord himself. Friend of publicans and sinners. Friend of publicans and sinners. He sat down with them, he ate with them. Was misunderstood for doing it, but there was no condescension, there was no patronage. It was natural. He did it so easily. This was his holy nature. Do you remember him at the end how he took a towel and he washed the disciples' feet? He said, "Do that to one another." That's the way he did things; that's the way he lived. And he says one of the great tests of this gospel is this: the poor have the gospel preached to them.

Now, we must listen to this injunction: "Mind not high things, but condescend—be carried along with—lowly things and lowly people." There is nothing which is more incongruous with the Christian faith than social distinctions in the Christian church. But there have been. And I believe the present state of the church is partly to be accounted for by this. The Christian church, as you see her generally throughout the running centuries, has been a travesty of the New Testament church and the kind of injunction that we're examining here together.

You've had people who've been called princes of the church. Princes of the church—there's no such thing. Spiritual lords are a denial of this injunction. This is the thing that has done such harm to the Christian faith. Now, take it in a practical form. Why are the masses, the so-called working people of this country—why are they untouched by the gospel today and outside the Christian church? The answer they give you is this: that the Christian church is a snobbish society. That she's a society of the middle classes and some of the upper classes. That it's a class society.

This has been happening in this present century. It was our grandfathers who made the mistake. I followed this in South Wales. The working men had the impression that the chapel belonged to the bosses, to the owners, to the managers, and that they were institutions against the common man. All these divisions, these distinctions came in. See it still more in the Church of England, where your vicar was often a squire, a local squire, perhaps a son of the aristocracy. And these men, they mixed with the aristocracy, and they patronized the people.

These are the things that have done harm to the gospel. The image of the church that the ordinary man has is this very thing: that it's based upon these social divisions and distinctions and upon intellectual divisions and distinctions. And so often the impression is given that the ministry consists of those who are in some kind of continuing club of Oxford and Cambridge, and the people, as it were, are down there somewhere. This is the thing that is destructive of the Christian faith and is indeed a denial of the gospel itself.

Now, it's happened in every section of the Christian church. You remember the famous story of the poor old woman going out of a morning service in Edinburgh after she'd been listening to a learned sermon of one of these great pulpit princes, as they called them in the last century. Oh, how we are suffering today because of those pulpit princes and pulpit peers who didn't really preach the gospel, but entertained the people on the crest of the wave and didn't sow the seed for the future. They were too great to be evangelists, too great to preach in a way that everybody could understand.

But you remember the story: the poor old woman was going out, and somebody said to her had she enjoyed the service? She said yes, she had. And somebody said, "Well, what was it exactly he was preaching about?" She said, "Far be it from me to claim that I can understand or follow the mind of such a great man." That's the thing that has brought the Christian church to where she is today.

And that is the thing that happened in the last century. I again commend this to you. Read the history of the church in the last century and compare it and contrast it with the previous century. I'm referring chiefly to the free churches—the Church of England didn't change much. But there was a great change in the free churches. In the 18th century, as the result of the evangelical awakening, you had this very spirit that the Apostle is inculcating here in practice. But then, you see, a subtle change took place. They said, "We must have a learned ministry." And they began to have a learned ministry.

And these great men with their great minds—and the people didn't know what they were talking about. Who took their problems into the pulpit and talked about affairs of state—I have a kind of admiration for many of these men, but these are the men, it seems to me, who did the harm, like Dr. Dale of Birmingham and others whom I could mention. This is where the church went wrong. And this whole snobbish element came in, which is the antithesis of the spirit of the New Testament gospel.

There is nothing, I say, more devastating that can enter into the life of the church than this element. And it isn't confined to the church; you get it in religious movements, even evangelical movements. This snobbish element—everybody's not admitted. You've got to belong to a certain class, or you've had to be to a certain school, or you're not allowed to come into this particular group. Now, I not only ask you: where do you find that kind of thing in the New Testament? I go further: I say it is denounced completely and strongly in the whole of the New Testament teaching.

No, no. Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Mind not high things, but allow yourself to be carried along with lowly things and lowly people. Your only interest should be this: are they children of God? Are they heirs of eternity? Are they spiritually minded? They're the people to talk to, they're the people with whom you want to mix. Whether their grammar is perfect or not, it doesn't matter. I'm not putting any premium on ignorance or on bad grammar; all I'm saying is this: that isn't the kind of way in which you assess people. You assess them in spiritual terms.

It is the business of the man with a bad grammar to improve his grammar and so on. But you don't judge people in this realm in that way; you judge them in terms of the spirit. This fundamental thing that is in us all, and which should make us all say with David that we'd sooner spend the rest of our lives in the humblest position in the church of God than to have a kind of entry into your so-called high circles where Christ is not known, and Christ is not loved, and Christ is not honored. Mind not high things, but be carried along with lowly things and lowly people.

We've got to leave it at that, I'm afraid, for tonight. Oh Lord, our God, we humbly pray thee to look down upon us. We are all sinners, guilty sinners in thy sight. Lord, search us, try our ways, and show us if there be any evil way in us, and we know there is. Give us truth in our inward parts, oh God, and honesty before thy word. We know that finally nothing matters except that we should all be clean instruments whom thou canst use, fit for the master's use.

Oh Lord, we pray thee to apply thy word to us. Grant us thy pardon and forgiveness for our failure in understanding and in practice. And keep us ever, we humbly pray thee, to that simplicity which is in Christ Jesus. And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit abide and continue with us, now this night, throughout the remainder of this our short, uncertain earthly life and pilgrimage, and evermore. Amen.