Matthew 7:2

Matthew 7:2

The New Testament is full of a natural and necessary reciprocity between man and the things by which he is surrounded. Every gift has its return, every act has its consequence, every call has its answer in this great, live, alert world, where man stands central, and all things have their eyes on him, and their ears open to his voice.

I. Even with man's relations to the material earth this law is true. "They treated nature as they would." So all men all races treat nature according to their wills, whether their wills be the deep utterance of their characters, or only the light and fickle impulses of self-indulgence. And what they are to nature, nature is to them to one man the siren, who fascinates him to drunkenness and death; to another the wise friend, who teaches him all lessons of self-restraint and sobriety, and patient hope and work.

II. But after all, our relations to the world of nature are little more than illustrations of our relations to the world of men. Let us see how true the law which we are looking at is there. I think there grows in us a strong conviction with our growing years that for a man to get bad out of the world of fellowmen is not necessarily a disgrace to the world of fellowmen, but is certainly a disgrace to him. There are men in the world today who are being made worse by living with the best and purest. Souls are darker for the sunshine, souls are colder for the warmth, with which they live in daily company. And why? Because heaven does not make holiness, but holiness makes heaven; because if you do not give yourself in sympathy to goodness, goodness cannot give itself in influence to you; because with what measure ye mete it shall be measured unto you. Each man gets out of the world of men the rebound, the increase and development of what he brings there.

III. And now in that great giving in, that supreme self-consecration, does our law still hold? Indeed it does. Nowhere does it so completely hold. For there are different measures in which men give themselves to Christ, and Christ despises none of them, but in different measures He again is compelled to give Himself back to them. With what measure each gives himself to the Saviour, the Saviour gives Himself in His salvation back to each. As when in some foreign land, in some strange shrine of Romish or Pagan worship, all glorious with art, all blazing with the light of precious stones, there bend around the altar the true devotees who believe with all their souls; while at the door, with heads uncovered and with faces solemnized by the presence of a ceremony in which they do not believe and in which they take no part, lingers a group of travellers full of joy at the wondrous beauty of the place; and as when the music ceases and the lights go out they go away, each carrying what it was in him to receive the devotee his spiritual peace, the artistic tourist his spiritual joy; so men bestow themselves on Christ, and by the selves that they bestow on Him the giving of Himself to them must of necessity be measured.

Phillips Brooks, Sermons in English Churches,p. 265.

References: Matthew 7:3. S. Cox, An Expositor's Notebook,p. 266. Matthew 7:6. Ibid.,p. 279.