Here is an article written by Bramwell Booth in 1892 on the subject of childhood as metaphor for discipleship:____________________
The words “The Kingdom of Heaven” have, in this Gospel, clearly a two-fold significance. They stand for the Kingdom of Grace on earth, and for the everlasting Kingdom of Righteousness in the world to come. It is in respect to both these aspects of the Kingdom of God that we may learn lessons of importance from the declaration of Jesus which stands at the head of this brief paper.
Childhood, like sunshine, possesses certain unfailing characteristics the world over. They are manifest to all, they appeal to all, and they are admitted by all. Inspiration, poetry, prophecy, and history alike, acknowledge and extol them. Whether in the Zulu kraal or the Whitechapel slum, the gentle touch of baby-fingers holds bound the hearts of savages. God has made it so.
Jesus Christ, with a wisdom which is a signal proof, if one were needed, of the divinity of His teaching, always made His illustrations of universal truths such as were capable of universal understanding. His choice in this case cannot very well be misunderstood – nor its application.
1. Among these characteristics of the child, first in order comes its entire dependence upon parents, or responsible guardians, for all that makes life possible in the present or profitable in the future. I need not enlarge – the fact is obvious that, whether viewed in regard to physical, mental, or moral requirements, a child must depend upon the care of another.
Is it not so in the Kingdom of God’s grace? How much have we not gained by “leaning hard”? And how much have you who read these lines lost by reliance on yourself, or by refusal to hang alone and desperately on the Lord and Father? The dependence for all of the little children is the only way to the supply of the Kingdom’s plenty.
In the dependence of the child upon the parents who gave it being is also a lesson. There are no orphans in God’s world so far as He is concerned. All men are His offspring. On the just and the unjust alike He sends His rains and sheds His sunlight. But in a new and intimate fashion, the Newborn Son becomes directly dependent on God the Father of His people. He can claim the portion of the Heir. All the promises of the Bible and all the declarations of the Holy Ghost are yea and amen for him. He rests not upon intermediaries; he depends no longer on his own obedience, or his faith, or his humble service; he depends on the one Central and Eternal Fact, on the one Father and Savior.
Now dependence means, in such a case, that the Father gives light or guidance, gives support, gives courage, gives holiness, and gives spiritual vigor. The child of grace looks for them, asks for them, receives them, and the more really he goes, the more really is he of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
The glorious condition of spiritual being which is called Heaven ought to be more of a reality to us all. The Bible abounds with references to it. Life, like a stormy sea whose every wave is tipped with the white flecks of death, ebbs and flows amidst the dead and the dying. To all of us, the last goodbye of some precious one has moved our earthly souls and called us to gaze on the distant glories of the many mansions. Why then should we not more really bring thoughts and hopes of that abiding City into the daily round of toil? Jesus opens for a moment one of the portals of that Heavenly Kingdom when He declares that its citizens are citizens whose character is, in some wondrous way, as the character of a little child.
It must be even so – at least as regards their entire dependence on the One Chief Joy of that City. Is the Heavenly Kingdom a place of rewards? He bestows them. Is it a land of rest? He will give rest. Is it a place of joy? He is the light of it. Is it the Home of ceaseless song? He is the theme of every song and the Source of every harmony. His children see Him as He is. They serve Him day and night. He is their Light and Glory. He wipes away their tears. He sends them forth to minister as flames of fire. In Him they live and move and have their being. He and He alone, is the ALL-IN-ALL of the Kingdom of Glory, as of the Kingdom of Grace.
2. But it is the faith – the trustfulness of childhood, which is its most striking feature and which more than anything, ennobles the child-life amidst the dreary materialism of its elders. Ah, to believe – that is the touchstone which turns all things into gold, which changes the monotony of deepest poverty into a prospective plenty, and peoples the whole world with friends while friendship is yet a thing unknown. Faith is the twin sister of dependence. Hand-in-hand they make the journey of youth a very garden, albeit a garden of flowers rather than of fruit. The child’s confidence in those it loves, in their promises, in their purposes, its reliance on every happiness yet in store, and its simple faith above all in mother and in father, all this has its deep significance for us in the light of those words of Jesus – “of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
For what is the chief essential of the life of righteousness? The life of faith. By faith we are saved. By faith we obey. By faith we live. By faith we stand. By faith we endure. Just as the simple trust of the child is the secret of its brightest hopes and the enumerator which multiplies its largest joys, so in the Kingdom of Grace to believe is the secret of happiness and, again, to believe is the secret of power.
How has it been with you? Has your experience been of the believing, or of the miserable trying-to-see kind? Have you been seeking to solve the mysteries of sin and sorrow for yourself and to unravel the tangled skein of a selfish life without God? Ah, dear friend, I entreat you to come back to the child-faith in Jesus! Let your tempest-tossed spirit cast anchor at the foot of His cross. Never mind yesterday. Never mind tomorrow. Believe now in His love, in His blood, in His cleansing power. Begin again and begin now!
Faith is friendly to new beginnings. That is a mark of its influence on children. They have an unlimited capacity for the beginning again and seem never to weary, if only there be a shadow of a prospect of success this time. And in the life of the true servant of the Cross, faith begets the same mark of vigor. Discouragements – nay disasters – but serve as “stepping-stones to higher things.” The spirit of a Christian is the spirit of faith, and the spirit of faith is the spirit of fresh departures and of new beginnings.
“By faith the worlds were made.” In your faith, even though it is but as the grain of a mustard seed, lay the possibilities of other worlds. The Jewish people, numbering as the sand on the seashore, and in continuance before all other nations, were compassed about by Abraham’s faith. David’s faith had in it the foundation of a Royal Dynasty whereof the Kings shall reign forever. Mary’s faith placed her name and her sex in the triumphant position of “bruising the Serpent’s head” for all mankind. Paul’s faith for the Gentiles carried the Gospel out of the narrow limits of a Hebrew sect and had in it the whole future of the Christian world. Yes indeed, faith is the Sprit of Creation – new as well as old.
And if faith is an essential element of real joy here, how much more will it be a condition of bliss in the Everlasting Kingdom! Then we shall see face to face. Then, truly, we shall know even as we are known. But it will be an ever-present happiness. There are no promises beyond this. Faith in the unchanging love and in the sovereign wisdom and power of the Father and Ruler must still be a condition of intelligent and growing blessedness. The very light from the Throne would lose its brightest beams, the songs of the great multitude their sweetest notes, and the voice of the Lamb its tenderest vibrations but that unwavering and unchanging faith in every redeemed soul divines that at least here is a continuing City whose glories and whose God are forever and forever.
3. The beauty of obedience as well as its intrinsic worth is best manifested in the true submission of the child. It is in the period of childhood that obedience to the behests and submission to the will of another is universally felt to be in harmony with nature and in accordance with the provisions of Providence. Every wise parent labors to teach the child that to obey is the first lesson of life. Every happy child has learned it, and in its happiness is henceforth itself an object-lesson in the principles of the Divine government of man.
To obey – is that not that one great business of the life of holiness? Power to obey – is not that the promise of grace? If submission is the constant proper state of our natural childhood, is it not of just such submission in the child of God that the Kingdom of Heaven boasts and glories? Insubordination is the very essence of the Kingdom of Evil. Willing submission and joyful and affectionate obedience are the very strength of the subjects of the Kingdom of God.
So it is of obedient children Christ designs to form His Kingdom. We are to fashion ourselves as such. We are to obey the heavenly calling, for to obey is better than sacrifice. He took upon Him, in His holy incarnation, our form, that He might be obedient unto death, and that we might receive power to become the sons of God. He is the Savior and Author of salvation to all that obey Him.
What about your obedience? I know your works, your desires, your former love and past service. Perhaps these are all good. But do you obey Him? Are you an obedient son or daughter, submitting the inward ambitions and purposes of your heart, as well as the outward expressions of your will, to Him in all things? Of such, and only of such, is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Obedience has, of course, the still higher significance of the service which is ever joined to sonship in the economy of the Gospel. The forgiveness of sins, the adoption of grace, the witness of the Spirit, all point to usefulness. Peter, even before he denied his Lord, received that same Lord’s command, “When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren;” and indeed, the union of the two ideas, Salvation by the Cross and Service of the Christ, runs through the whole Bible. How indeed could it be otherwise in the revelation of Him who, out of the fullness of His glory, gave His only Son – gave Himself – to be obedient unto death for the redemption of a race of rebels? Like begets like. If we are really children begotten by Him and made in His image, it is an inborn necessity that we seek His glory in the restoration of those who are without.
The obedience of adoring love is the first law of the Heavenly Kingdom. Here the best we can render is but the imperfect service of imperfect beings; then, when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away and the full demands of the King of Righteousness of the Saints, the Blood-sealed Testimony of the martyrs, will be the characteristics of those who sit down at the marriage Supper of the Lamb. Such they were in the Kingdom of Grace and of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. Thither, from east and west, from north and south, they have gathered out of every nation, with His Name in their foreheads, to serve Him day and night in His larger and more perfect service than they offered Him below. To obey the Everlasting Will, to obey perfectly, and to love to obey, will be at once the supreme joy and the crowning glory of the Kingdom of Heaven.
_________________
Childhood, like sunshine, possesses certain unfailing characteristics the world over. They are manifest to all, they appeal to all, and they are admitted by all. Inspiration, poetry, prophecy, and history alike, acknowledge and extol them. Whether in the Zulu kraal or the Whitechapel slum, the gentle touch of baby-fingers holds bound the hearts of savages. God has made it so.
Jesus Christ, with a wisdom which is a signal proof, if one were needed, of the divinity of His teaching, always made His illustrations of universal truths such as were capable of universal understanding. His choice in this case cannot very well be misunderstood – nor its application.
1. Among these characteristics of the child, first in order comes its entire dependence upon parents, or responsible guardians, for all that makes life possible in the present or profitable in the future. I need not enlarge – the fact is obvious that, whether viewed in regard to physical, mental, or moral requirements, a child must depend upon the care of another.
Is it not so in the Kingdom of God’s grace? How much have we not gained by “leaning hard”? And how much have you who read these lines lost by reliance on yourself, or by refusal to hang alone and desperately on the Lord and Father? The dependence for all of the little children is the only way to the supply of the Kingdom’s plenty.
In the dependence of the child upon the parents who gave it being is also a lesson. There are no orphans in God’s world so far as He is concerned. All men are His offspring. On the just and the unjust alike He sends His rains and sheds His sunlight. But in a new and intimate fashion, the Newborn Son becomes directly dependent on God the Father of His people. He can claim the portion of the Heir. All the promises of the Bible and all the declarations of the Holy Ghost are yea and amen for him. He rests not upon intermediaries; he depends no longer on his own obedience, or his faith, or his humble service; he depends on the one Central and Eternal Fact, on the one Father and Savior.
Now dependence means, in such a case, that the Father gives light or guidance, gives support, gives courage, gives holiness, and gives spiritual vigor. The child of grace looks for them, asks for them, receives them, and the more really he goes, the more really is he of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
The glorious condition of spiritual being which is called Heaven ought to be more of a reality to us all. The Bible abounds with references to it. Life, like a stormy sea whose every wave is tipped with the white flecks of death, ebbs and flows amidst the dead and the dying. To all of us, the last goodbye of some precious one has moved our earthly souls and called us to gaze on the distant glories of the many mansions. Why then should we not more really bring thoughts and hopes of that abiding City into the daily round of toil? Jesus opens for a moment one of the portals of that Heavenly Kingdom when He declares that its citizens are citizens whose character is, in some wondrous way, as the character of a little child.
It must be even so – at least as regards their entire dependence on the One Chief Joy of that City. Is the Heavenly Kingdom a place of rewards? He bestows them. Is it a land of rest? He will give rest. Is it a place of joy? He is the light of it. Is it the Home of ceaseless song? He is the theme of every song and the Source of every harmony. His children see Him as He is. They serve Him day and night. He is their Light and Glory. He wipes away their tears. He sends them forth to minister as flames of fire. In Him they live and move and have their being. He and He alone, is the ALL-IN-ALL of the Kingdom of Glory, as of the Kingdom of Grace.
2. But it is the faith – the trustfulness of childhood, which is its most striking feature and which more than anything, ennobles the child-life amidst the dreary materialism of its elders. Ah, to believe – that is the touchstone which turns all things into gold, which changes the monotony of deepest poverty into a prospective plenty, and peoples the whole world with friends while friendship is yet a thing unknown. Faith is the twin sister of dependence. Hand-in-hand they make the journey of youth a very garden, albeit a garden of flowers rather than of fruit. The child’s confidence in those it loves, in their promises, in their purposes, its reliance on every happiness yet in store, and its simple faith above all in mother and in father, all this has its deep significance for us in the light of those words of Jesus – “of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
For what is the chief essential of the life of righteousness? The life of faith. By faith we are saved. By faith we obey. By faith we live. By faith we stand. By faith we endure. Just as the simple trust of the child is the secret of its brightest hopes and the enumerator which multiplies its largest joys, so in the Kingdom of Grace to believe is the secret of happiness and, again, to believe is the secret of power.
How has it been with you? Has your experience been of the believing, or of the miserable trying-to-see kind? Have you been seeking to solve the mysteries of sin and sorrow for yourself and to unravel the tangled skein of a selfish life without God? Ah, dear friend, I entreat you to come back to the child-faith in Jesus! Let your tempest-tossed spirit cast anchor at the foot of His cross. Never mind yesterday. Never mind tomorrow. Believe now in His love, in His blood, in His cleansing power. Begin again and begin now!
Faith is friendly to new beginnings. That is a mark of its influence on children. They have an unlimited capacity for the beginning again and seem never to weary, if only there be a shadow of a prospect of success this time. And in the life of the true servant of the Cross, faith begets the same mark of vigor. Discouragements – nay disasters – but serve as “stepping-stones to higher things.” The spirit of a Christian is the spirit of faith, and the spirit of faith is the spirit of fresh departures and of new beginnings.
“By faith the worlds were made.” In your faith, even though it is but as the grain of a mustard seed, lay the possibilities of other worlds. The Jewish people, numbering as the sand on the seashore, and in continuance before all other nations, were compassed about by Abraham’s faith. David’s faith had in it the foundation of a Royal Dynasty whereof the Kings shall reign forever. Mary’s faith placed her name and her sex in the triumphant position of “bruising the Serpent’s head” for all mankind. Paul’s faith for the Gentiles carried the Gospel out of the narrow limits of a Hebrew sect and had in it the whole future of the Christian world. Yes indeed, faith is the Sprit of Creation – new as well as old.
And if faith is an essential element of real joy here, how much more will it be a condition of bliss in the Everlasting Kingdom! Then we shall see face to face. Then, truly, we shall know even as we are known. But it will be an ever-present happiness. There are no promises beyond this. Faith in the unchanging love and in the sovereign wisdom and power of the Father and Ruler must still be a condition of intelligent and growing blessedness. The very light from the Throne would lose its brightest beams, the songs of the great multitude their sweetest notes, and the voice of the Lamb its tenderest vibrations but that unwavering and unchanging faith in every redeemed soul divines that at least here is a continuing City whose glories and whose God are forever and forever.
3. The beauty of obedience as well as its intrinsic worth is best manifested in the true submission of the child. It is in the period of childhood that obedience to the behests and submission to the will of another is universally felt to be in harmony with nature and in accordance with the provisions of Providence. Every wise parent labors to teach the child that to obey is the first lesson of life. Every happy child has learned it, and in its happiness is henceforth itself an object-lesson in the principles of the Divine government of man.
To obey – is that not that one great business of the life of holiness? Power to obey – is not that the promise of grace? If submission is the constant proper state of our natural childhood, is it not of just such submission in the child of God that the Kingdom of Heaven boasts and glories? Insubordination is the very essence of the Kingdom of Evil. Willing submission and joyful and affectionate obedience are the very strength of the subjects of the Kingdom of God.
So it is of obedient children Christ designs to form His Kingdom. We are to fashion ourselves as such. We are to obey the heavenly calling, for to obey is better than sacrifice. He took upon Him, in His holy incarnation, our form, that He might be obedient unto death, and that we might receive power to become the sons of God. He is the Savior and Author of salvation to all that obey Him.
What about your obedience? I know your works, your desires, your former love and past service. Perhaps these are all good. But do you obey Him? Are you an obedient son or daughter, submitting the inward ambitions and purposes of your heart, as well as the outward expressions of your will, to Him in all things? Of such, and only of such, is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Obedience has, of course, the still higher significance of the service which is ever joined to sonship in the economy of the Gospel. The forgiveness of sins, the adoption of grace, the witness of the Spirit, all point to usefulness. Peter, even before he denied his Lord, received that same Lord’s command, “When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren;” and indeed, the union of the two ideas, Salvation by the Cross and Service of the Christ, runs through the whole Bible. How indeed could it be otherwise in the revelation of Him who, out of the fullness of His glory, gave His only Son – gave Himself – to be obedient unto death for the redemption of a race of rebels? Like begets like. If we are really children begotten by Him and made in His image, it is an inborn necessity that we seek His glory in the restoration of those who are without.
The obedience of adoring love is the first law of the Heavenly Kingdom. Here the best we can render is but the imperfect service of imperfect beings; then, when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away and the full demands of the King of Righteousness of the Saints, the Blood-sealed Testimony of the martyrs, will be the characteristics of those who sit down at the marriage Supper of the Lamb. Such they were in the Kingdom of Grace and of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. Thither, from east and west, from north and south, they have gathered out of every nation, with His Name in their foreheads, to serve Him day and night in His larger and more perfect service than they offered Him below. To obey the Everlasting Will, to obey perfectly, and to love to obey, will be at once the supreme joy and the crowning glory of the Kingdom of Heaven.
_________________
W. Bramwell Booth. All the World. December, 1892.
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