Delivered
from the muckrake
Set
your hearts on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand
of God… not on earthly things (Col
3:1,2).
“Oh!
deliver me from this muckrake!” So
cried Christiana in John Bunyan’s The
Pilgrim’s Progress.
Part
two of the book describes the pilgrimage of Christian’s wife,
Christiania, their four sons, and the maiden neighbour Mercy. After
her conversion, Christiania comes across a man with a muckrake who
could only look down at the ground. Someone was holding a cælestial
crown above his head, offering to give him the crown in exchange for
the muckrake. But the man did not look up or notice the crown;
instead, he moved around the muck at his feet being careful to rake
out the bits of straw and small sticks.
Christiana
tells Interpreter she thinks she knows who the man is, “a man of
this World.”
Interpreter
confirms what Christiana says and explains the vision. The muckrake
of worldly man shows his carnal mind. The worldly man would rather
pay attention to the straws, sticks and dust at his feet than to the
cælestial crown held out to him by Christ. This, continues
Interpreter, shows that to some people heaven is but as a fable and
that the things they see around them in the world are the only things
substantial. Muckraker could only look downwards, for when earthly
things begin to exercise power upon men’s minds, hearts are carried
away from God. It
is at this point that Christiana cries out, “Oh! deliver me from
this muckrake.”
In Colossians 3 the Apostle Paul tells us to throw away the muckrake. We are to set our hearts above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God and not on the earthly things.
In Colossians 3 the Apostle Paul tells us to throw away the muckrake. We are to set our hearts above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God and not on the earthly things.
The
church commemorates the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ on the
40th
day after Easter (this year, May 5th).
Because Christ, with whom we, by faith, have been raised, is in
heaven, we need to look away from the earthly things and seek the
heavenly things.
One
of the earthly things Paul mentions from which we are to look away is
greed which he calls idolatry. Greed is lust for more things. We all
need things, but we are quick to make the stuff of this life a god.
We do well to pray the prayer of Proverbs 30:8, which Christiana
added to her plea for deliverance from the muckrake, “Give me
neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.”
Recently
we received a thank-you note from a young couple for the wedding gift
we gave them. At the end of the note they wrote, “We know it’s
only ‘stuff.’” Yes, only stuff, stuff that will not last
forever and so not worth holding on to too tightly.
In 1 John 2:16,17, John said:
For
everything in the world–the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his
eyes and the boasting of what he has and does–comes not from the
Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but
the man who does the will of God lives forever.
Do not forget
the lesson of the Parable of the Sower. The deceitfulness of wealth
can choke the good seed of the Word of God and make it unfruitful.
Keep
a very loose hold on the things of this world. Throw away the
muckrake and receive, from Christ, the cælestial crown. Keep
singing and praying to Christ above:
We
revere you, Lord and Saviour;
We
implore your grace and love.
Hear
our prayers and help us ever
Seek
the things that are above (Book of Praise, Hymn 41:2).
