Alexander MacLaren :: Slothfulness and Its Cure (Hebrews 6:12),

Slothfulness and Its Cure

'That ye be not slothful, but followers of Him who through faith and patience inherit the promises.' — Hebrews 6:12.

This is the end of a sentence, and the result of something that has been stated before. What is that? 'We desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end.' Diligence is the opposite of slothfulness, and the former is to be cultivated that the latter may not overtake us. But it is 'the same diligence,' and that expression raises the question — The same as what? Now the writer has just been praising his readers for 'their work of faith and labour of love' which they showed in ministering to the saints. And then he says, in effect, 'I wish that you took as much trouble to cultivate your own Christian graces as you do to help other people in regard to these outward matters, for then there would be no fear of your becoming slothful, and you would be treading in the steps of those that have gone before, and who now inherit the promises.'

That is to say, there are a good many Christian people who spend a good deal more pains and effort upon the less central and deep things of Christian conduct than they do upon the keeping of the centre and mainspring of all in active operation. Some of us need the hint — 'Look after your own Christian graces as diligently as you do after works of benevolence'

1. Note here, then, first, a danger that still threatens all Christians.
   

   The words of my text in our Authorised Version are somewhat inadequately translated, and the first clause would much more truly read, 'that ye become not slothful' than that 'ye be not slothful.' The same somewhat peculiar word, which is here rendered 'slothful,' is employed a little before in the letter, where the writer is excusing himself for not entering upon some deep truths, because he says to his readers, 'You have become dull of hearing.' It is the same word that is employed here, and we might paraphrase the meaning somewhat thus: 'You have become dull of hearing; take care lest you become dull all through. The palsy has begun in your ears, and it will spread to your eyes and your hands and your heart before long, if you do not 'mind.' The first sign of a growing torpor and indifference in the Christian life generally lies here — in carelessness in accepting the teaching of Christian truth. The ear becomes dull, and the whole man follows suit, and becomes languid. And this danger of becoming 'slothful,' not so much in the sense of not working, as of being dull and torpid, inert, having no feeling, having no active energy in the inner life; half asleep, paralysed — this is the danger that hangs ever over all of us, and is only to be faced victoriously in one way, and that is the way which the writer of this Epistle here points out — namely, by unslumbering diligence and continual watchfulness against the creeping on of this subtle palsy. As surely as friction will stop a train, unless there is the perpetual repetition of the impulse that drives it, as surely as the swing of the pendulum will settle into a vertical position, drawn by the gravitation of the earth, unless the mainspring urges it on moment by moment, so surely will the most vigorous, cheery, active Christian character gradually become duller and duller, until it settles down into a condition indistinguishable from death, except on condition of unslumbering vigilance and constant effort. We are all tending to become slothful, sluggish, and we may overcome the tendency if, and only if, we set ourselves with all our hearts to do it. If you take a ladleful of molten metal out of a blast furnace, and set it down on the ground and leave it, in half an hour's time there is a scum on the top and its temperature has lowered, I know not how many degrees, and presently all heat will have gone from it. No warmth, no depth of feeling, no firmness of resolution, no joy of clear faith will last of itself. We have to keep the flame alight and alive. 'We desire that every one do use the same diligence that ye become not' — as you certainly will if you do not use it — 'sluggish, or torpid Christians.'

2. The next point here is the way by which that tendency can be victoriously faced and overcome.

   It was by 'faith and patience' that all the men of old had reached the true land of promise and entered on the inheritance of the saints in light. And these are still the means by which the ever-present pressure of that tendency to become slothful is to be overcome. Now it is important to remember that in this Epistle 'faith' predominately means that faculty by which we lay hold of the unseen, and realise future blessings as our own. So it is used in the great eleventh chapter, in which the writer, as it were, reads the muster-roll of the heroes of the faith in order to establish his contention that the bond between God's saints and Him has always been one and the same — namely, faith. Of course, that shade of meaning of the word rises up quite naturally from the other aspect in which it is most frequently used in the New Testament — viz., the reliance upon Jesus Christ, for He Himself is for us the revealer of things unseen, and the certifier and assurer of the things hoped for in the future. But the predominant reference of the word in this letter is, as I say, to the attitude of mind by which we grasp the unseen, and make the future blessings which God premises to us our own by anticipation. And, says the writer, that faith which thus stretches out a long arm through the mists to lay hold of the solidities that are beyond the mists, that faith is the means by which we shall most effectually ward off the tendency to sluggishness and inertness, which will otherwise get the better of us all.

   The word here employed for patience is not the ordinary one used for that virtue, which means chiefly perseverance in a given course of conduct in spite of many difficulties, and pressures of sorrows and troubles. But the word employed here is the same which is often rendered 'long-suffering.' This 'patience' is not to be regarded as something added to faith, but rather, it is the characteristic result of faith. The faith which, although the vision tarries, waits, and is not shaken, though many days may pass and we seem little nearer the realisation of our hopes; an obstinate, persistent, long-lasting confidence and realisation of the unseen and future good is what the writer recommends to us here as the sovereign antidote, which by our own efforts we may secure, against the tendency to slumber and to death. By faith which is long-breathed, and can live below the water for a long time, believing in the blue heavens that are above, a faith which is patient, we shall overcome the tendency to torpor, deepening to death, as in the case of a man who goes to sleep in a snowstorm.

   So, dear brethren, we come to a very familiar thought rather duty of Christian men and women, systematically and consciously to cultivate for themselves the habit of realising the unseen, living in the presence of the solemn realities yonder. Oh! if we walked through this illusory and passing world of ours with that great white throne and Him who sits upon it ever blazing before us, do you think we would go to sleep then? If we cultivated the sense of belonging to that unseen order of things, and being but lodgers and strangers, passers-by for a night here, should we be able to fall asleep as we do? The man that goes to bed in a hotel, and says, 'I am going away by express train in the middle of the night' does not fall into a very sound sleep. If we realised, as we ought to do, where our affinities are, of what country we are really the citizens, to whom we belong, and where the things are that really are, then we should find it hard to be slothful and easy to march strenuously on the road that God marks out for us. Cultivate the habit of consciously realising that you are strangers and sojourners here, and 'declare plainly that you seek a country,' and seek it, not as those who may, perchance, not succeed in their quest, seek it, not as those do who are looking for a thing that is lost, and perhaps Will never be found, but seek it, as, indeed, the original plainly expresses, as those to whom that land of their search is the land of their nativity to which they belong, their fatherland, the mother-country of them all.

   So let us cultivate not only the habit of thus realising the unseen, but of living in the conscious possession, even now, of the great things that God has promised for us. And let us see to it, dear friends, that that faith holds out with patience, and lasts all the long weary days, as they seem to us according to our poor measure of time, which may yet intervene between the present moment and our reaching home. The look-out man at the bow of the ship, as he gazes out on an empty ocean and sees not a sail nor anything but the long wash of the waves running to and indenting the horizon, gets drowsy. But let a little tip of white show itself away out on the blue, and all his senses are alert in a moment. If we clearly and constantly saw where we are going and what is coming to us, the salvation that is 'being borne' toward us, we should not sleep any more. Therefore, let us give diligence to cultivate the patient faith which will keep us awake.

3. Lastly, note the encouragement to the effort of faith.

   'Be ye' imitators of those who through faith and patience — these two graces which yet are one — 'inherit the promises.' The writer probably includes among these inheritors the sainted dead of the old Covenant, of whom he says in chapter 2. that they 'died in faith, not having received the promise,' and any of the new Covenant who had passed into the other world. And he declares, by the strong language of my text, which is even stronger in the original by the use of a present participle, the present blessedness of all the departed saints. They do now inherit the promises. The metaphor is drawn, consciously or unconsciously, from the old story of Israel's possession of the Promised Land, and so suggests all the ideas of rest, of the wanderings being over, of victory, of peace, of society, of each man having his portion of the great land which belongs to all, which that story naturally brings with it, And for us there may come the encouragement of looking to those dear ones that have gone before us, knowing that they 'stand in their lot' in the

   Canaan of God, and that we, too, may stand in ours. And so from the thought of their present blessedness in their present inheritance, we may gather cheer, whilst we struggle and tramp along the wilderness road. And, again, we may gather encouragement not only from the thought of where and how their wanderings have ended, but from the remembrance of the path that they trod. We have no strange road to walk, but one beaten by holy feet from the beginning, and plain for us too. They have passed along the King's highway, and having passed, and having entered into their rest, they remain as witnesses that it is 'the right way to the city of habitation.'

   But we have to look higher than to them, and to take for our encouragement not only the pattern of all the pilgrims that have gone before us, but that of the Lord of the march, the 'Breaker,' who is gone up before us, and 'looking off' from the cloud of witnesses, to 'look unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of faith, who trod the road, every step of it, and left footprints not unstained with blood in which we may plant our poor feet, 'having left us an example that we should follow in His steps.'