I like this, Merv. I’m looking forward to moving this sermon on to my Kindle and listening to it.
[quote=“Mervin_Bitikofer, post:1294, topic:50194”]
somebody only truly “has” something when it is theirs to share with everyone else.
If you really know it’s yours, you don’t have to hoard it.
For real!
Good point. If I remember right about “Surprised by Joy,” he discusses how he always sought after joy, in mythology, Boxen (his imaginary world of animals shared with his brother as a boy), and northern tales–but found it ever vanishing–till he, surprisingly, found it after giving his own goals up to God through Christ.
(252) All Things From God
The thing I am reasoning toward is this: that, if everything were thus seen in its derivation from God, then the inheritance of the saints, whatever the form of their possession, would be seen to be light. All things are God’s, not as being in his power–that of course–but as coming from him. The darkness itself becomes light around him when we think that verily he hath created the darkness, for there could have been no darkness but for the light. Without God there would not even have been nothing; there would not have existed the idea of nothing, any more than any reality of nothing, but that he exists and called something into being.
From MacDonald’s final unspoken sermon “The Inheritance ”
Who would say such a thing! 
(253) Absolute Being
…for there could have been no darkness but for the light Without God there would not even have been nothing; there would not have existed the idea of nothing, any more than any reality of nothing, but that he exists and called something into being.
Nothingness owes its very name and nature to the being and reality of God. There is no word to represent that which is not God, no word for the where without God in it; for it is not, could not be. So I think we may say that the inheritance of the saints is the share each has in the Light.
But how can any share exist where all is open?
The true share, in the heavenly kingdom throughout, is not what you have to keep, but what you have to give away. The thing that is mine is the thing I have with the power to give it. The thing I have no power to give a share in, is nowise mine; the thing I cannot share with everyone, cannot be essentially my own.
…
All the light is ours. God is all ours. Even that in God which we cannot understand is ours. If there were anything in God that was not ours, then God would not be one God. I do not say we must, or can ever know all in God; not throughout eternity shall we ever comprehend God, but he is our father, and must think of us with every part of him–so to speak in our poor speech; he must know us, and that in himself which we cannot know, with the same thought, for he is one. We and that which we do not or cannot know, come together in his thought. And this helps us to see how, claiming all things, we have yet shares. For the infinitude of God can only begin and only go on to be revealed, through his infinitely differing creatures–all capable of wondering at, admiring, and loving each other, and so bound all in one in him, each to the others revealing him. For every human being is like a facet cut in the great diamond to which I may dare liken the father of him who likens his kingdom to a pearl. Every man, woman, child–for the incomplete also is his, and in its very incompleteness reveals him as a progressive worker in his creation–is a revealer of God.
From MacDonald’s final unspoken sermon “The Inheritance ”
GM shows us his “St Francis of Assissi” side.
(254) Beasts
…reveals him as a progressive worker in his creation–is a revealer of God. I have my message of my great Lord, you have yours. Your dog, your horse tells you about him who cares for all his creatures. None of them came from his hands . Perhaps the precious things of the earth, the coal and the diamonds, the iron and clay and gold, may be said to have come from his hands; but the live things come from his heart–from near the same region whence ourselves we came. How much my horse may, in his own fashion–that is, God’s equine way–know of him, I cannot tell, because he cannot tell. Also, we do not know what the horses know, because they are horses, and we are at best, in relation to them, only horsemen. The ways of God go down into microscopic depths, as well as up into telescopic heights–and with more marvel, for there lie the beginnings of life: the immensities of stars and worlds all exist for the sake of less things than they. So with mind; the ways of God go into the depths yet unrevealed to us; he knows his horses and dogs as we cannot know them, because we are not yet pure sons of God. When through our sonship, as Paul teaches, the redemption of these lower brothers and sisters shall have come, then we shall understand each other better. But now the lord of life has to look on at the wilful torture of multitudes of his creatures. It must be that offences come, but woe unto that man by whom they come! The Lord may seem not to heed, but he sees and knows.
From MacDonald’s final unspoken sermon “The Inheritance ”
Mervin, thank you for your diligent and thoughtful posts here.
I have learned from and enjoyed them
I found a Bonhoeffer quote that reminded me of Macdonald’s heart, I think. He preached, like Bonhoeffer, in praise of God’s work on progress for us.
Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
(255) Diversity of Souls
The Lord may seem not to heed, but he sees and knows.
I say, then, that every one of us is something that the other is not, and therefore knows some thing–it may be without knowing that he knows it–which no one else knows; and that it is every one’s business, as one of the kingdom of light, and inheritor in it all, to give his portion to the rest; for we are one family, with God at the head and the heart of it, and Jesus Christ, our elder brother, teaching us of the Father, whom he only knows.
We may say, then, that whatever is the source of joy or love, whatever is pure and strong, whatever wakes aspiration, whatever lifts us out of selfishness, whatever is beautiful or admirable–in a word, whatever is of the light—must make a part, however small it may then prove to be in its proportion, of the inheritance of the saints in the light; for, as in the epistle of James, ‘Every good gift, and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.’
From MacDonald’s final unspoken sermon “The Inheritance ”
(256) The Disillusioned
‘Every good gift, and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.’
Children fear heaven, because of the dismal notions the unchildlike give them of it, who, without imagination, receive unquestioning what others, as void of imagination as themselves, represent concerning it. I do not see that one should care to present an agreeable picture of it; for, suppose I could persuade a man that heaven was the perfection of all he could desire around him, what would the man or the truth gain by it? If he knows the Lord, he will not trouble himself about heaven; if he does not know him, he will not be drawn to him by it. I would not care to persuade the feeble Christian that heaven was a place worth going to; I would rather persuade him that no spot in space, no hour in eternity is worth anything to one who remains such as he is. But would that none presumed to teach the little ones what they know nothing of themselves! What have not children suffered from strong endeavour to desire the things they could not love! Well do I remember the pain of the prospect–no, the trouble at not being pleased with the prospect–of being made a pillar in the house of God, and going no more out! Those words were not spoken to the little ones. Yet are they, literally taken, a blessed promise compared with the notion of a continuous church-going! Perhaps no one teaches such a thing; but somehow the children get the dreary fancy: there are ways of involuntary teaching more potent than words. What boy, however fain to be a disciple of Christ and a child of God, would prefer a sermon to his glorious kite, that divinest of toys, with God himself for his playmate, in the blue wind that tossed it hither and thither in the golden void! He might be ready to part with kite and wind and sun, and go down to the grave for his brothers–but surely not that they might be admitted to an everlasting prayer-meeting! For my own part, I rejoice to think that there will be neither church nor chapel in the high countries; yea, that there will be nothing there called religion, and no law but the perfect law of liberty. For how should there be law or religion where every throb of the heart says God! where every song-throat is eager with thanksgiving! where such a tumult of glad waters is for ever bursting from beneath the throne of God, the tears of the gladness of the universe! Religion? Where will be the room for it, when the essence of every thought must be God? Law? What room will there be for law, when everything upon which law could lay a shalt not will be too loathsome to think of? What room for honesty, where love fills full the law to overflowing–where a man would rather drop sheer into the abyss, than wrong his neighbour one hair’s-breadth?
Heaven will be continuous touch with God. The very sense of being will in itself be bliss. For the sense of true life, there must be actual, conscious contact with the source of the life; therefore mere life–in itself, in its very essence good–good as the life of God which is our life–must be such bliss as, I think, will need the mitigation of the loftiest joys of communion with our blessed fellows; the mitigation of art in every shape, and of all combinations of arts; the mitigation of countless services to the incomplete, and hard toil for those who do not yet know their neighbour or their Father. The bliss of pure being will, I say, need these mitigations to render the intensity of it endurable by heart and brain.
To those who care only for things, and not for the souls of them, for the truth, the reality of them, the prospect of inheriting light can have nothing attractive, and for their comfort–how false a comfort!–they may rest assured there is no danger of their being required to take up their inheritance at present. Perhaps they will be left to go on sucking things dry, constantly missing the loveliness of them, until they come at last to loathe the lovely husks, turned to ugliness in their false imaginations. Loving but the body of Truth, even here they come to call it a lie, and break out in maudlin moaning over the illusions of life. The soul of Truth they have lost, because they never loved her. What may they not have to pass through, what purifying fires, before they can even behold her!
From MacDonald’s final unspoken sermon “The Inheritance ”
These last couple days, I’ve included longer than usual portions - but I make no apologies for that, given the wealth of these particular sermons, along with the fact that this is the last of these entries to draw from that particular wealth. This one follows directly on the heels of the last, and indeed reaches the actual conclusion of GM’s final sermon.
(257) Evil
What may they not have to pass through, what purifying fires, before they can even behold her!
The notions of Christians, so called, concerning the state into which they suppose their friends to have entered, and which they speak of as a place of blessedness, are yet such as to justify the bitterness of their lamentation over them, and the heathenish doubt whether they shall know them again. Verily it were a wonder if they did! After a year or two of such a fate, they might well be unrecognizable! One is almost ashamed of writing about such follies. The nirvana is grandeur contrasted with their heaven. The early Christians might now and then plague Paul with a foolish question, the answer to which plagues us to this day; but was there ever one of them doubted he was going to find his friends again? It is a mere form of Protean unbelief. They believe, they say, that God is love; but they cannot quite believe that he does not make the love in which we are most like him, either a mockery or a torture. Little would any promise of heaven be to me if I might not hope to say, ‘I am sorry; forgive me; let what I did in anger or in coldness be nothing, in the name of God and Jesus!’ Many such words will pass, many a self-humiliation have place. The man or woman who is not ready to confess, who is not ready to pour out a heartful of regrets–can such a one be an inheritor of the light? It is the joy of a true heart of an heir of light, of a child of that God who loves an open soul–the joy of any man who hates the wrong the more because he has done it, to say, ‘I was wrong; I am sorry.’ Oh, the sweet winds of repentance and reconciliation and atonement, that will blow from garden to garden of God, in the tender twilights of his kingdom! Whatever the place be like, one thing is certain, that there will be endless, infinite atonement, ever-growing love. Certain too it is that whatever the divinely human heart desires, it shall not desire in vain. The light which is God, and which is our inheritance because we are the children of God, insures these things. For the heart which desires is made thus to desire. God is; let the earth be glad, and the heaven, and the heaven of heavens! Whatever a father can do to make his children blessed, that will God do for his children. Let us, then, live in continual expectation, looking for the good things that God will give to men, being their father and their everlasting saviour. If the things I have here come from him, and are so plainly but a beginning, shall I not take them as an earnest of the better to follow? How else can I regard them? For never, in the midst of the good things of this lovely world, have I felt quite at home in it. Never has it shown me things lovely or grand enough to satisfy me. It is not all I should like for a place to live in. It may be that my unsatisfaction comes from not having eyes open enough, or keen enough, to see and understand what he has given; but it matters little whether the cause lie in the world or in myself, both being incomplete: God is, and all is well. All that is needed to set the world right enough for me–and no empyrean heaven could be right for me without it–is, that I care for God as he cares for me; that my will and desires keep time and harmony with his music; that I have no thought that springs from myself apart from him; that my individuality have the freedom that belongs to it as born of his individuality, and be in no slavery to my body, or my ancestry, or my prejudices, or any impulse whatever from region unknown; that I be free by obedience to the law of my being, the live and live-making will by which life is life, and my life is myself. What springs from myself and not from God, is evil; it is a perversion of something of God’s. Whatever is not of faith is sin; it is a stream cut off–a stream that cuts itself off from its source, and thinks to run on without it. But light is my inheritance through him whose life is the light of men, to wake in them the life of their father in heaven. Loved be the Lord who in himself generated that life which is the light of men!
THE END.
From MacDonald’s final unspoken sermon “The Inheritance ”
And so ends the portion of Lewis’ excerpts that are drawn from GM’s unspoken sermons. Others to follow now will continue to be drawn from his other works.
I am so behind on reading! So much going on.
My sympathies. What a wonderful problem, though! I’m home from school with a slight fever today. So part of my rest will be catching up on reading of my own.
(258) Loss of the Shadow
Then first I knew the delight of being lowly; of saying to myself, “I am what I am, nothing more.” “I have failed,” I said, “I have lost myself—would it had been my shadow.” I looked round: the shadow was nowhere to be seen. Ere long, I learned that it was not myself, but only my shadow, that I had lost. I learned that it is better, a thousand-fold, for a proud man to fall and be humbled, than to hold up his head in his pride and fancied innocence. I learned that he that will be a hero, will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work, is sure of his manhood.
From the project Gutenberg website – “Phantastes” - near the end of chapter 22.
(259) Love
I knew now, that it is by loving, and not by being loved, that one can come nearest the soul of another; yea, that, where two love, it is the loving of each other, and not the being loved by each other, that originates and perfects and assures their blessedness. I knew that love gives to him that loveth, power over any soul beloved, even if that soul know him not, bringing him inwardly close to that spirit; a power that cannot be but for good; for in proportion as selfishness intrudes, the love ceases, and the power which springs therefrom dies. Yet all love will, one day, meet with its return. All true love will, one day, behold its own image in the eyes of the beloved, and be humbly glad. This is possible in the realms of lofty Death. “Ah! my friends,” thought I, “how I will tend you, and wait upon you, and haunt you with my love.”
From the project Gutenberg website – “Phantastes” - near the end of chapter 24.
I’m glad to have seen this gem from Phantastes since that is one of the few of GM’s works that did not captivate me (like it apparently did Lewis), and I never finished it. Preventing me from reaching gems that Lewis shared with us here. I regret there being only two that Lewis shares from this story … perhaps I need to revisit it now and try again for myself, given how goldenly valuable even the necessarily omitted “sluff” has been that Lewis did not have room to include in his compilation.
"Yet all love will, one day, meet with its return. All true love will, one day, behold its own image in the eyes of the beloved, and be humbly glad. This is possible in the realms of lofty Death. “Ah! my friends,” thought I, “how I will tend you, and wait upon you, and haunt you with my love.”
How deeply real and beautiful are MacDonald’s paintings of the final Christian hope, compared to the pale ‘Christian’ imaginings of heaven he so rightly dismissed earlier.
I read Phantasies years ago and only remember the way the phantasy began, with the room disolving before the man’s eyes. MacDonald’s powers of description are captivating. I need to read it again.
This quotation is gorgeous, incredibly hopeful. I was struck by the same section, Merv. But also this before it:
We look forward to a time when this is all corrected. But for now, it is necessary that we can be released from “the power of love” when selfishness is introduced.
I too think those last two bits from Phantastes to be gorgeous for what they paint - with holy imagination.
Say more about that if you care to - since I think I followed, but am not sure. Is the quote saying that it’s a blessed thing when we feel the sting of removal from love’s domain, because therein lies our hope of being driven back into it?
(260) From Spring to Summer
The butterflies, with wings looking as if all the flower-painters of fairyland had wiped their brushes upon them in freakful yet artistic sport, came forth in the freedom of their wills and the faithful ignorance of their minds. The birds, the poets of the animal creation–what though they never get beyond the lyrical!–awoke to utter their own joy, and awake like joy in others of God’s children. The birds grew silent, because their history laid hold upon them, compelling them to turn their words into deeds, and keep eggs warm, and hunt for worms.
These quotes drawn from GM’s “Alec Forbes” various volumes - this one Volume 1, chapter 32
Hmmm. I wonder about the birds and their history.
A certain Dane wrote at least 5 sermons about Jesus’s admonission to learn from the lily and the bird. I have read 3 that are grouped. From this verse, SK draws out that we should learn:
silence — so that we can listen to God, that is, to seek first his kingdom
obedience — The solemn silence of the bird and lily express unconditional obedience to only one master.
joy — learn from the lily and the bird to be unconditionally joyful in God, so that you fulfill the end of the Lord’s prayer.
He pulls these three together at the end — finally help for the reader lacking SK’s subtlety — with this:
And if you could learn to be entirely like the lily and the bird: ah, and if I could learn it, then the prayer would also be truth in you as in me, the last prayer in “The Prayer,” which (as an example for all true prayer, which of course prays itself joyful and more joyful and unconditionally joyful) in the end has nothing, nothing more to pray for or to desire, but, unconditionally joyful, ends in praise and worship, the prayer: “Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory.” Yes, his is the kingdom, and therefore you must unconditionally keep silent lest you direct disturbing attention at the fact of your existence—but through the solemnity of unconditional silence express that the kingdom is his. And his is the power, and therefore you must unconditionally obey and be unconditionally obedient in submitting to everything, for his is the power. And his is
the glory, and therefore in everything you do and everything you suffer you have unconditionally one more thing to do, to give him the glory, for the glory is his.
Oh, unconditional joy: his is the kingdom and the power and the glory—forever. “Forever”—behold, this day, the day of eternity, it indeed never comes to an end.
(261) The Door into Life
But the door into life generally opens behind us, and a hand is put forth which draws us in backwards. The sole wisdom for man or boy who is haunted with the hovering of unseen wings, with the scent of unseen roses, and the subtle enticements of “melodies unheard,” is work. If he follow any of those, they will vanish. But if he work, they will come unsought, …
These quotes drawn from GM’s “Alec Forbes ” various volumes - this one Volume 1, chapter 33
(262) A Lonely Religion
There is one kind of religion in which the more devoted a man is, the fewer proselytes he makes: the worship of himself.
These quotes drawn from GM’s “Alec Forbes ” various volumes - the end of Ch. 34.
Or they are very short term. The cult of celebrity has plenty of self-idolizers at the center. And hoards of devotees. For a while. Until the next, new improved, more lucrative one appears.
So, “don’t seek spiritual experience, but go about your work instead. During the working the spiritual things will be revealed unbidden.”?
If I understand right, I’m not sure work is really the key. Work can be a real distraction, or a consuming focus. The approach to work seems important.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
This is a place for gracious dialogue about science and faith. Please read our FAQ/Guidelines before posting.