Acts 19:21

DISAPPOINTED HOPES

‘I must also see Rome.’

Acts 19:21

St. Paul has become more of a power, his authority is recognised in so many of the Asian cities, that he determines to visit the great capital, and to preach his view of Christianity in the famous centre of the world. This Roman journey and work no doubt for years entered into St. Paul’s prayers. And his prayer was granted. The long ‘agony’ and wrestling with the Holy Spirit was successful. The Lord heard His servant’s wish. St. Paul found himself at Rome; but how? in what position? He saw Rome, but disappointed. His earnest prayer granted, his life-wishes realised, but all so altered with him.

I. Many an one of us win our heart’s desire, and find it so different from what we hoped, dreamed of, longed for.

(a) The man may win his post—the coveted post; he may—probably will—find it full of anxieties, perplexities, cares, even disappointment. He may win wealth, station, high consideration, all those things once he thought so desirable; and with these, perhaps, he will find the hour of health and strength gone, the power of enjoying and even of using the much-coveted possession. Rank, consideration, wealth—gone, hopelessly gone. At Rome, the longed-for Rome, like St. Paul; but, like St. Paul, a captive, hemmed in, hampered, hindered, bearing about a dying body. Like St. Paul, he must forget himself; he must set to with the weary work, the restless anxieties, the weak and fading health, and do his best for his Master and his Brother. He must never lose heart, but bravely struggle on. He must, as did St. Paul, remember it is the Lord’s hand leading him. Perhaps he himself has been unwise in coveting the higher post, the more exalted rank, the ampler fortune; but now he has won these so-called golden gifts, and with the gifts the chains of increased painful care, of ceaseless worry and anxiety, perhaps of broken health, which makes all life, all living, a weary burden. He must take up his heavier cross bravely, and carry it to the end for his Master’s sake uncomplainingly, as did St. Paul.

(b) Are there no women among our worshippers to-day who in past years have longed for another, a more stirring, a brighter life; have longed for a home, as it is called, of their own; for husband and children, for a so-called independent life; and finding these, have found many a trouble, many a care, many a sorrow? The Rome they longed for is very different from the Rome of their girl-dreams. Dear sisters, if you are disappointed, disillusionised, if robed in many sorrows, be brave. You wished these things, you know. Now do your duty lovingly, uncomplainingly, training up little souls for Christ; teaching them by the silent, golden example of your own self-denying life, how lovely a thing it is to be a Christian, that in coming days, when God has called you home, these may oftentimes call to mind their mother’s sweet, calm life of trust, of love, of prayer! oftentimes call to mind how she told them of her Redeemer, who had helped her bear her sorrows, who had given her her glorious hope, and who, she said, was waiting for her!

II. How did St. Paul behave under his heavy sorrow?—As a brave Christian should. He braced himself up to new and fresh work. Debarred from his old free toils in the worship by day and in the ‘upper room’ by night, debarred from those missionary circuits which had done so much in old days, when Ephesus was his head-quarters, now comparatively alone and friendless, he did his best. He gathered new congregations as best he could—soldiers, camp followers, court attendants—and spoke his Master’s words to these. But it was a very different audience which listened to the prisoner St. Paul, to the chained and suspected plotter against the empire, to the congregations he dreamed of swaying when once he could get to queenly Rome. He wrote, too, the Ephesian Epistle, and the Colossian and Philippian letters, and the touching request to Philemon. Noble expositions of doctrine, but two of them coloured with a prison colouring, with a sad hue tinging every thought.

So passed two years, perhaps more, at Rome—his dream-city. Yes; God had heard his prayer.

—Dean Spence-Jones.

Illustration

‘We all, I think, “long to see Rome.” Do we not? On in front we see, like St. Paul, a dream-city, far different from the one in which our lot is cast. What do we want there? Is it gold, or leisure, or power, or pleasure? Do we, in our plans for the future, in our hopes for what will happen “after long years,” at all think of the Kingdom of God, of the advancement of His glory, of the being able better to help our sister and our brother in their need and trouble, in their sickness and sorrow? Or in our dream-city of the future do we only, or even chiefly, see one figure—ourselves? If our hopes and aims are coloured with a noble colouring drawn from heaven, if our building of the future is raised up story upon story, the corner-stone of which is Christ, then God will surely hear our prayer, and we shall too, like St. Paul, see Rome, the dream-city we so long for.’