The Biblical Illustrator
Ecclesiastes 9:17,18
The words of wise men are heard in quiet.
The superiority of moral to military force
“The words of wise men are heard in quiet”: words of thoughtfulness and conviction, silently dropping from the lips or the pen, are more mighty than the boisterous bombastic utterances of those who rule by force.
I. The one develops the highest elements of mind and character, the other does not. In what does moral power consist?
1. In a correct apprehension of moral truth.
2. An indomitable sympathy with moral truth; such a sympathy as Job had when he said, “Though He slay me,” etc. And as Paul, “I count not my life,” etc.
3. A practical embodiment of moral truth. But what have you in military power? No deep moral conviction, no high sympathies; nothing but tact, cunning, brute courage.
II. The one affords full scope for all the belligerent instincts in man, the other does not.
1. Military forces can only bring man into contact with the mere forms of his enemies. It does not touch the spirit of enmity; moral force does. The words of true moral power, heard in “quiet,” smite dishonesties, enmities, falsehoods.
2. There are hosts of enemies that military force cannot meet at all. What can military force do with ignorance, poverty, carnality, selfishness, diseases of all kinds? Nothing.
III. The one overcomes its enemies effectively, the other does not. Man is made to be subdued and swayed by the appeals of truth, justice, and kindness. We are told that in the East there are people who, by music, can so influence some species of serpent that, while under its spell, the deadly cobra may be handled as if it were utterly harmless. But if the charmer tread on the snake unawares, he is poisoned like any other man. This is something like the influence of moral force, of moral truth and love; it can subdue malignant minds. But military power cannot do this, it cannot touch the soul: no shot nor steel can reach the arena of soul.
IV. The one achieves its conquests without injury to self or object, the other does not. The moral force employed in moral campaigns, either in self-defence or in conquest, does not injure, but blesses the fighter. By it he gets good, his energy is renewed by exercise. Nor are others injured; no wealth is sacrificed, no sufferings are produced. But in military force all is ruined: commerce, governments, wealth, towns, cities, as well as millions upon millions of human life.
V. The one is sanctioned by the example of Christ, the other is not. When “He was reviled, He reviled not again.” From the subject learn:
1. The fearful moral ignorance of the world. Kings, statesmen, all have more faith in swords and bayonets than in moral truth.
2. The encouragement to use moral force in the correction of wrong.
3. The men who are destined to become the heroes of the future. (Homilist.)
One sinner destroyeth much good.
The destructiveness of sin
1. Sin, in itself, is a moral force of tremendous potency. Nothing finite or human can resist it, or counteract its malign influence. Sin, when it is finished, brings forth death. Ah! that is the terrible law of sin.
2. As a social moral force sin works on a broader field, and with the sweep and destructiveness of a cyclone, uprooting and destroying everything in its path. One cholera or fever-stricken man may infect a whole city: so one moral leper may impart the plague to all within the circle of his influence while living, and send the death-current down through many generations. One scoffer or infidel may blast the faith of a thousand souls. One bad book, the progeny of a single brain, may taint the morals of a nation, and, like Paine’s “Age of Reason,” sweep down through the centuries with the destructiveness of a moral sirocco.
3. Confine the view to a narrower social field--say the family, or the little neighbourhood, or the single church--and the same alarming fact is brought to light. The narrower the sphere the more intimate and constant the contact, as a rule the stronger the influence exerted. One evil child often leads astray a whole family group; one evil companion corrupts a whole circle; one bad example suffices to destroy the integrity of the whole body.
Lessons:
1. Be watchful and vigilant in regard to the first appearance of evil--
(1) in the individual himself. Timely rebuke, faithful admonition, earnest prayer and effort may arrest the tide of evil and save a sinner from the doom which he courts, and save society from the dreadful effects of an abandoned career.
(2) In the community in which he moves, in the way of warning, and in the way of hedging in and counteracting his destructive influence.
2. Remember, and act on the fact, that while “one sinner destroyeth much good,” one devout, earnest praying Christian may set in motion moral influences and forces that shall “turn many to righteousness.” (Homiletic Review.).