Walkers and Talkers
Two or three days ago, in our visiting, we came across a woman of scarcely middle life, with a spinal complaint, which prevented her walking.
During our conversation she said, "I can't walk much, but I can talk." Now, considering she had kept up an incessant talk for some minutes without any signs of weariness, we thought she spoke the truth.
When we left her cottage we could not help thinking how truly many of us could have repeated her words, in regard to our Christian life, "I can't walk much, but I can talk."
Now talkers should be walkers. It is sad, and humbling in the extreme, where there is "high talk" and "low walk."
In the offerings in Leviticus, the inwards and the legs go together; that is to say, the affections, and will, and all that was hidden-open only to the eye of God-expressed itself in the wondrous, perfect walk of the Lord Jesus Christ, and found its highest expression in His offering Himself up to God without spot.
The Pharisees, in scorn and hatred, could demand of Christ, "Who art Thou?" He could answer, "Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning." His talk and walk-be it said reverently-ever agreed. There was absolutely no discrepancy between His speech and His life. He was what He said He was. What a testimony!
So it should be with us. And just in proportion as our words lead people to think we are more perfect than we really are-more devoted, more intelligent in the things of God-just in that proportion are we Pharisees, and just in that proportion our talk and our walk do not agree.
Talking without walking is powerless, nauseating cant. It finds its full-blown expression in mere profession.
Talk without walk breeds more infidels, casts more stumbling-blocks in the road of anxious sinners, and does more harm to the Church of God, than any outward attack.
A body of consistent, earnest Christians, is the complete refutation of all the infidel arguments that were ever spun out of the depraved heart and head of man. A young man told his minister that it was not his preaching that had been used to his conversion, but his own mother's practising. In the long run the life tells more for God than the lip; and the lip only gains its authority and force when the life is behind it. Let us be more careful that walk and talk agree, so that in dependence upon God, by the Holy Spirit, we may be here wholly for His glory and use.
