Acts 4:19

THE DECISIVE TEST

‘Whether it be right in the sight of God.’

Acts 4:19

This decisive test must always be used as to every action, ‘Whether it be right.’

And the world wanted then, and the world wants to-day, sons and daughters who are bold enough to stand side by side with those two grand men at Jerusalem, and live and act in the sight of God, asking always this question: ‘Whether it be right?’ The world, I say, wants it now.

I. Take for example our business life, that which we call business life, in what does it consist? It consists in the making, the handling, the producing, the buying and the selling of material things; and what would you suppose ought naturally to be the most important condition? Would it not be that men should be able to trust each other implicitly? But is this so? What is the meaning of all our complicated system of lawyers and courts and police, if it were not that this trust, this character, is not very common? Why? Because righteousness does not take quite the proper place in our thinking.

II. Then, again, just consider for a moment our social life, our social entertainments. Now our social entertainments are not things that can possibly stand altogether outside of our Christian faith. Christianity has not got to ask leave to go and be present. The aim and object of Christianity must be to sweeten and to purify and to ennoble, and if there is any entertainment whatever where Jesus Christ could not be present, if it is too bad for His Presence, it is too bad for you, and too bad for me.

III. There are times when the asking of this question will demand considerable courage.—We are not now in danger of the stones and the torture, which might, indeed, have been used against St. Peter and John; but many a man, and many a woman, too, has to face a certain amount of ridicule, the refined sneer, or the coarser jeer, and these things are sometimes harder to bear with courage than downright persecution.

IV. This courage will never be ours unless we have certain positive convictions as to truth; unless in our heart of hearts we believe that the truth that we profess is worth defending at all costs. The man who has no convictions of truth may be a very pleasant person in a drawing-room or a club, but he is not a man who will ever bear any strong, or high, or holy witness to God and Christ.

V. Another condition is consecration to God.—We cannot bear a true witness to our Blessed Lord unless we ourselves have knelt at His Feet and laid our sins before the Mercy Seat. If we wish to influence others, we ourselves must have consecrated our own hearts to Christ.

—Prebendary J. Storrs.

Illustration

‘I wonder very much whether the participators in many of our entertainments, the managers, the caterers, and those that attend them, ask the question: “Whether it be right in the sight of God?” How often do we bring up our acceptances, our refusals, our indulgences, our rejections, our expenditure, our dress, our drink, to the criterion of the Christian conscience, and ask ourselves “whether it be right in the sight of God”? I wonder how often we ask ourselves about this particular thing, whether it may be harmful, not only to ourselves, but to others who are more exposed to temptation than we are?’

ST.