Hinderers of Christian world.
The apostle elsewhere expresses in a sentence what was the common experience of his missionary life. He says (1 Corinthians 16:9), "A great door and effectual is opened unto me, and. there are many adversaries." And we must still accept the fact that, if we will do any special work, or manifest in work any energy or individuality, we shall soon have persons opposing, misrepresenting, and hindering us. Here, in the very outset of St. Paul's missionary career, the influence of the "unbelieving Jews" is indicated, and this fanatical Jewish party persistently followed up the apostle wherever he went, trying to destroy his work and create prejudice against him. It may be said—What great things St. Paul would have accomplished if he had not been checked by these hinderers! But a deeper view of the influence permanently exerted on the Church by St. Paul's life and writings would rather lead us to say—What sublime things St. Paul did accomplish in spite of the hinderers, and even out of the very impulse excited by their opposition; for in this, too, God made "the wrath of man to praise him"! More and more clearly is it now seen that a man's moral nobility is gained, not by silent, unresisted growths, but by the steady, persistent, often imperiling, conflict with adverse influences and open foes. And that which is true in the individual life is true of the composite Church life. We may thank God that he has overruled, for the Church's permanent good, the hinderers, the opposers, the persecutors. We may consider
I. THE SOURCES WHENCE COME THE HINDRANCES TO CHRISTIAN WORK, They have always come both from without and from within the Church; but our thought is new chiefly confined to hindrances coming from without. Hinderers are generally:
1. Persons of antagonistic disposition, who always take "the other side," are quick to imagine some evil in everything attempted, see no good in anything with which they are unassociated, and have a sort of natural horror of things that are new.
2. Or persons who have strong religious prejudices, which they feel the fresh thing tends to undermine, and for which they consequently fight as if they were the truth of God.
3. Or persons who cling to doctrinal forms or to ceremonial rites, and fail to see that God may send forth floods of new life, too mighty to be kept within their prescribed riverbanks, and so they vainly try to hold back God's floods.
4. Or persons who have no faith in the future, and cannot trust God to oversee and overrule the future, even as he does the present and has done the past.
5. Or persons whose temporal condition may be injuriously affected by the new enterprise; as illustrated by the shrine-makers of Ephesus. The phases which these hindrances take in modern life need to he carefully observed and thought out.
II. THE INFLUENCES WHICH HINDRANCES MAY HAVE UPON THE MIND AND FEELING OF THE WORKERS. Those influences, of course, differ according to the disposition of the workers. We may divide them into these classes.
1. Hindrances will dishearten and depress some. It is characteristic of some that they are sunshine workers, and give up easily when the least cloud-shadow passes across. These are usually weakly in body and nervously sensitive, and they need encouraging and the frequent kindly word.
2. Hindrances wilt keep up in some a "dogged persistency." This expression is not the most graceful one, but no other so well expresses their condition of feeling. Like Nehemiah, they simply keep on, let other men talk, send messages, or do what they will; and if they say anything to the hinderers, it is only this, "We are doing a great work, therefore we cannot come down."
3. And hindrances arouse some to new and nobler activity. The spirit of the soldier is in them, and the very presence of a foe, and the very difficulties of an enterprise, touch and awaken the noblest within them. Direct application to present-day Church-workers should be made, and the duty of resisting the undue influence of hinderers pressed home.
III. THE INFLUENCES EXERTED BY HINDRANCES ON THE GROWTH AND PROGRESS OF CHRIST'S CHURCH. Apply to:
1. Internal growth in spirituality, in development of doctrine, in practical application of principle to details of life.
2. External progress. Hinderers give publicity to the Christian Church, calling the attention of many who would otherwise not hear of it. Hinderers waken the natural sympathy of men for a resisted and persecuted thing.
3. Hinderers increase the evangelizing and aggressive fervor of the Church, and so, by means of the hinderers, Christ's kingdom steadily advances. Illustrate by the persecutions of the early Church, the history of English Protestantism, and the tale of Christian life in Madagascar. The Church may have "many adversaries," but she learns how to make their very enmity her inspiration.—R.T.