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 EORGE W. TRUETT 
 
 
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 BX 6333 .T8 W4 
 
 Truett, George W. 1867-194^ 
 
 We would see Jesus 
 
We Would See Jesus 
 
 And Other Sermons 
 
We Would See Jesus 
 
 And Other Sermons X^- ^'^ ^^''^•' 
 
 .OCT 31 1S3 
 
 By Xi:!;-0(;iCALSF-VV 
 
 GEORGE W. TRUETT, D. D. 
 
 Castor First Baptist Church, Dallas, Tex<u 
 
 Compiled and edited by 
 I. B. CRANFILL, LL. D, 
 
 A 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 London and Edinburgh 
 
Copyright, 19 15. by 
 FLEMING H REVELL COMPANY 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 
 
Foreword 
 
 IT is with great joy that this volume of sermons is 
 given to the world. It has been a task attended 
 with many difficulties. The first great difficulty 
 was in securing the consent of Pastor George W. 
 Truett for such publication. While the writer has 
 for years pressed upon him the duty of allowing his 
 sermons to be published in book form, it was only a 
 year ago that he agreed that this work should be 
 done. During the intervening time he has more 
 than once hesitated, but has at last permitted the 
 editor and compiler to proceed with the work. 
 
 These sermons were stenographically reported and, 
 aside from the correction of obvious minor errors 
 inevitable in rapid speaking and reporting, they 
 appear just as they came hot from the preacher's 
 heart. I have not wanted to have them marred by a 
 too critical revision by either the author or the 
 editor. He has had very little time for corrections, 
 and I have had no disposition to make changes or 
 suggest emendations. The sermons, then, appear as 
 preached. 
 
 The life- sketch which accompanies this volume is 
 solely the work of the writer. I feel sure that if 
 Pastor Truett had been consulted he would never 
 have been willing for it to appear in the volume. 
 It is not that the biographical data are not correct, 
 for they are, but on account of his modesty the sub- 
 
 6 
 
6 FOEEWOED 
 
 ject of the sketch would, I am sure, have forbidden 
 its publication if he had known all that it contained. 
 
 I have also taken the liberty, on my own account, 
 of giving herewith a character sketch of Pastor Truett 
 by Dr. John E. White, which cannot fail to be of 
 interest to the reader. 
 
 With these words this volume is sent out upon its 
 mission of helpfulness and love. When these sermons 
 were preached many were led to Christ under the 
 spell of their appeal ; it is the hope of the writer that 
 thousands may be brought into abiding fellowship 
 with our Eedeemer through the reading of the pages 
 that follow. 
 
 To every soul in need of light and help ; to every 
 heart bowed under the weight of sin or grief or 
 tears ; to every one whose face is clothed upon with 
 life's sunset glow ; to every one tempted, discouraged, 
 sad-hearted or bereaved, this book is sent with the 
 devout prayer that it may bring hope and comfort, 
 and give them, each and all, new visions of the 
 Master's grace and love. 
 
 J. B. C. 
 
Contents 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 XII. 
 
 Life Sketch of Geoege W. Teuett 
 
 George W. Tbuett the Man and 
 Preacher .... 
 
 I. We Would See Jesus 
 
 II. A Prayer for a Eevival . 
 
 III. Trumpeting the Gospel . 
 
 IV. A New Testament Good Man . 
 Y. An Old Testament Good Man . 
 
 VI. The Temptation of Our Saviour 
 
 VII. Intercessory Prayer 
 
 VIII. The Growth of Faith 
 
 IX. Christ's Message to the Weak 
 The Conquering Hosts of God 
 The Supreme Gift to Jesus 
 
 The Subject and the Object of the 
 Gospel 
 
 9 
 
 16 
 
 23 
 
 36 
 
 54 
 
 76 
 
 92 
 107 
 121 
 137i^ 
 150 
 166 
 182 
 
 199 
 
Life Sketch of George W. Truett 
 By J, B, Cranfill 
 
 THE life story of George W. Truett had its simple 
 beginning in a quiet farmhouse which nestled 
 in the woods in an escarpment of the Blue Ridge 
 Mountains of North Carolina. His parents were C. L. 
 and Mary Truett. His father, who at the ripe age of 
 eighty-six is still among us, is, himself, a man of mark in 
 his community, and his mother, whom this writer had the 
 pleasure of personally knowing, was one of the most esti- 
 mable Christian women it has ever been ray pleasure to 
 meet. 
 
 George W. Truett was reared to farm work, and many 
 were the days that he followed the furrow and harvested 
 the crop on that quiet farm where his father and mother 
 and other loved ones lived and wrought. 
 
 Into that home came many important periodicals. While 
 C. L. Truett, the father, was a man of unostentatious life 
 and limited resources, he placed within reach of his chil- 
 dren the best literature the world was then producing. 
 Not only that, but there was a growing library in that 
 home. There were such classics as Bunyan's ''Pilgrim's 
 Progress," Baxter's "Saints* Everlasting Rest," Pendle- 
 ton's ''Christian Doctrines," Fox's "Book of Martyrs," 
 and some choice works of fiction, and upon these the mind 
 of the subject of this sketch fed, grew and expanded with 
 the ongoing of the years. 
 
 In his boyhood George W. Truett had but limited 
 9 
 
10 LIFE SKETCH OF GEOEGE W. TRUETT 
 
 educational advantages, but such as he had were eagerly 
 grasped, with the result that his mind was enriched and 
 found increasing expansion. At the age of eighteen he 
 began teaching. A year afterwards he founded the Hia- 
 wasse (Georgia) High School, and was its principal for 
 three years. This school drew students from many sec- 
 tions far and near. 
 
 It was during his incumbency as principal of this insti- 
 tution that he visited the Georgia Baptist State Conven- 
 tion, an account of which is given in the character-sketch 
 appearing in this volume from the pen of Rev. John E. 
 White. 
 
 C. L. Truett always had the heart of a pioneer. Many 
 is the time that he looked across the old North Carolina 
 hills and wondered what alluring prospects lay beyond. 
 But it was not until some of his children had found the 
 western trail and landed in Texas that he and his devoted 
 wife moved to Whitewright, Grayson County. Before the 
 parents and other loved ones had made their way to 
 Texas, George W. Truett had dreamed of a college course 
 at Mercer University, but when the entire household had 
 left him, it was not difficult to turn the heart of the young 
 teacher towards the western land. When he was twenty- 
 two years of age, after having established Hiawasse High 
 School upon an enduring foundation, he bade good-bye to 
 the sights and scenes where he had known both trials and 
 triumphs and sped away to Texas. 
 
 In 1889 the writer of this sketch resigned the position 
 of financial secretary of Baylor University at Waco to ac- 
 cept, what seemed to him, the larger work of Superin- 
 tendent of all the Texas Baptist Mission work. Upon his 
 resignation the trustees of Baylor University were much 
 at sea to find one who could successfully cake up the work 
 
LIFE SKETCH OF GEORGE W. TRUETT 11 
 
 that the former secretary had voluntarily laid down. It 
 was at about this time that a letter came to B. H. Carroll, 
 then and for years before and afterwards president of the 
 Board of Trustees, in which the statement was made that 
 there was a young man at Whitewright, George W. Truett 
 by name, whom the writer believed (and the writer was 
 R. F. Jenkins, one of the best loved Baptist pastors Texas 
 has ever known) would make an ideal financial secretary 
 for our Waco School. 
 
 One sentence in the letter was very impressive. He 
 said, *♦ There is one thing I do know about George W. 
 Truett — wherever he speaks the people do what he asks 
 them to do." The result of this correspondence was that 
 t)r. Carroll asked the young Whitewright preacher to meet 
 him at a missionary mass-meeting which was held at 
 McKinney in January, 1891. The result was that George 
 W. Truett was unanimously elected to this work ; he ac- 
 cepted it, moved to Waco, and entered upon the task, and 
 before two years had passed more than $92,000 (a very 
 large sum then), needed for the emancipation of Baylor 
 University, had been raised, and the school was free. 
 During those trying months the young preacher had the 
 cooperation and help of B. H. Carroll, than whom there 
 has never been a more loyal, loving, patient, sincere 
 co-laborer and friend. 
 
 It was an epochal hour when Baylor was thus freed from 
 debt. The successful financial secretary at once entered 
 Baylor University as a student, and continued his studies 
 there until in 1897 he was graduated with high honors. 
 In the meantime he accepted the call to the pastorate of 
 the East Waco Baptist Church. At that time this fraternity 
 was worshipping in an antiquated old-time meeting-house 
 which in every way had been long out of date. 
 
12 LIFE SKETCH OF GEOEGE W. TEUETT 
 
 George W. Truett has never been able to work under 
 any kind of restraint. He could no more continue to 
 preach in that old house than the eagle could be confined 
 to the cage of the humming-bird. He at once set about 
 the erection of a new, commodious and modern house of 
 v/orship, with the result that the house was built and dedi- 
 cated free of debt. During these years he was married to V^ 
 Miss Josephine Jenkins, the much-loved daughter of Judge 
 and Mrs. W. H. Jenkins of Waco. 
 
 In the early part of 1897 C. L. Seasholes resigned as "» 
 pastor of the First Baptist Church at Dallas. This writer f 
 was then editor of T/ie Baptist Standard. He was asked 
 by Col. W. L. Williams, senior deacon of the First Baptist 
 Church at Dallas, to suggest to him and through him to 
 the church an appropriate man to fill their vacant pastor-^ 
 ate. He named George W. Truett. He was quite young J 
 — less than thirty years of age. In a large measure he was 
 untried, but the Holy Spirit led this noble fraternity to 
 call him as their pastor. After prayer and deliberation, he 
 came and cast his lot among them. In September of 1897 
 he officially took charge of the work, which place he has 
 since filled and which pastorate his loving flock hope he 
 will fill to the last day of his earthly life. 
 
 His work as pastor and preacher has been a successions"^ 
 of triumphs. To-day the First Baptist Church of Dallas is 
 the foremost contributing church in the bounds of the 
 Southern Baptist Convention. It has not only led Texas 
 — it has led the whole South, and, conditions considered, 
 has led the entire United States, thus verifying that Scrip- 
 ture axiom, "Like people, like priest." With a member- 
 ship of 2,378, with a Sunday-school having an enrollment 
 of between three and four thousand pupils, with aggregate 
 contributions last year of almost ;^ 100, 000, with conversions 
 
LIFE SKETCH OF GEOEGE W. TRUETT 13 
 
 and baptisms at practically every service, with a spirit of 
 devotion and service known near and far, this church, 
 under the leadership of their beloved pastor, is pressing 
 on, conquering and to conquer. 
 
 Soon after George W. Truett's graduation from Baylor 
 University, its Board of Trustees, with a unanimous and 
 hearty vote, elected him to the presidency of that institu- 
 tion. In this election the alumni, the faculty and the 
 student body heartily joined, and if there was ever pressure 
 brought to bear upon a young man, recently installed in a 
 useful pastorate, to relinquish his charge and enter upon a 
 career of great usefulness in educational leadership, the 
 subject of this sketch felt such pressure. The final battle 
 was fought out by the young pastor on his knees, with the 
 result that his shepherd heart clave to his flock, where it 
 yet abides. 
 
 This is not the only call our friend has had to leave 
 Dallas. Calls have come from almost every great city in 
 every state and also from countless organizations and fra- 
 ternities. If the amount of salary had ever been an object 
 he certainly would have been sorely tempted to leave the 
 western land and plunge into the glare and glamour of 
 some northern or eastern metropolis. 
 
 The decision of this pastor to remain with this flock has 
 been amply vindicated. A few years ago, in response to a 
 crying need for more room, the church building was en- 
 larged to practically three times its former seating capacity, 
 and even thus early it is found yet to be too small. On 
 some Lord's Day occasions the seating capacity of the new 
 building is severely taxed. 
 
 As the years have passed and as the fame of George W. 
 Truett has grown and broadened, the calls upon his time 
 and service have become vastly multiplied. It is not aJ. 
 
14 LIFE SKETCH OF GEORGE W. TEUETT 
 
 ways that he goes to the large and more fruitful fields. 
 Recently he went out to a country place, and there for al- 
 most two weeks preached with all the fervor with which he 
 preached when holding a meeting in the city of New York. 
 Many of the country folk were led to Christ and the 
 church and cause were greatly strengthened. 
 
 It was an interested and interesting group of his friends 
 and brethren who met together a little more than two years 
 ago to devise a plan for giving their pastor a home. It 
 was promptly provided. It is not in the nature of a par- 
 sonage or a pastorium, but was built and given in fee sim- 
 ple to the pastor and his wife. His membership well knew 
 that he would never have a home in any other way. They 
 rejoice that he has this home among them, and it is their 
 cherished hope and wish that he will occupy this home as 
 their pastor until his life's day is done. 
 
 The question is constantly arising, " What of this man ? ' ' 
 The writer hereof is allowing this answer to be made by 
 another pen, but from his own personal knowledge he es- 
 says a modest answer to the query on his own account. 
 The man is one of the most remarkable it has ever been 
 my privilege to know. For liberality of spirit, self-sacri- 
 fice, gentleness of heart, purity of character and life, sym- 
 pathy, helpfulness, liberality and love, this writer does not 
 believe George W. Truett has any superior, and he has few 
 if any peers. He has a heart for all humanity. He is 
 absolutely innocuous to the blandishments of flattery or 
 wealth. 
 
 It is no wonder, therefore, that here in Dallas where he 
 has spent a longer period of his life than at any other place 
 except at the home of his boyhood, he is universally be- 
 loved. He IS called to more houses of mourning, conducts 
 more funerals, consoles more of the bereaved, is the reposi- 
 
LIFE SKETCH OF GEOEGE W. TRUETT 15 
 
 tory of more confidences of the tempest-tossed, the heart- 
 broken and distraught than perhaps any man in this broad 
 land. Not only is he universally beloved in Dallas, where 
 he is best known, but throughout all Texas his name and 
 self-sacrificing deeds are almost a household word. 
 
 He has often given down to his last penny, and then 
 borrowed more money at the bank to give away. He is 
 always hard pressed and will be to the end of his earthly 
 life. The other day the writer of this sketch, when speak- 
 ing to him, told him of a gift a mutual friend had made to 
 a bereaved home in order to help defray the funeral ex- 
 penses. The pastor, with those searching eyes turned upon 
 the writer, said : " That is what money is for, and that is 
 all it is for." 
 
 His work seems but just begun. He is now in the flood- 
 tide of his greatest usefulness and power. He has not 
 yet reached the half-century mark, and it is not too much 
 to hope that before his earthly days shall end he will 
 achieve new heights of usefulness of which now we scarcely 
 dare to dream. 
 
 Dallas, Tixas. 
 
George W. Truett, the Man and Preacher 
 
 By Rev, John E. White, D, D, 
 
 (The following character sketch was written some years since when 
 Dr. Truett held a meeting with Dr. White, who was then pastor o* 
 the Second Baptist Church, Atlanta, Ga.) 
 
 IN the gallery of the South' s strong men — men who 
 are at the front of moral leadership in her marvelous 
 progress, the picture of George W. Truett would not 
 lack much of the foremost place were the vote left to the 
 admiration of the more than two million white Baptists of 
 the Southern Baptist Convention. 
 
 The coming of this Texanic-Carolina-Georgian to preach 
 in the Second Baptist Church, Atlanta, during the Con- 
 certed Baptist Evangelistic Campaign is therefore an event 
 of more than ordinary interest. 
 
 Call him "Texanic," because he comes from Texas and 
 brings the Texan breadth and sweep atmospherically with 
 him: Texanic being something better than titanic, more 
 pervasive, more comprehensive of a certain great quality 
 that encircles men who come within George Truett' s area. 
 
 Call him ''Carolina," because he sprang out of the 
 rough, mountainous territory of the Old North State, drew 
 his breath from its hills, received its birthmark on his 
 spirit. It is a rude, rough country, but its crops are men. 
 Think of hardest, stubbornnest land, the simplest, most 
 backward section of modern American life — untouched by 
 railroads, not a half-dozen jcomfortable churches, less than 
 
 16 
 
THE MAN AND PEEACHER 17 
 
 seventy days' annual free school term, supported out of 
 less than one dollar per capita free school funds and yet 
 the land of red blood and new brain cells, and you have 
 Clay County, North Carolina, as George Truett knew it in 
 his youth. 
 
 He was born near the county site, Hayesville, in the 
 year 1867. 
 
 Call him also "Georgian," because Georgia gave him 
 his growing pains — perhaps his initial thrust forward. It 
 was in 1889, in the court-house at Marietta, Ga., that his 
 star first scintillated strikingly. The scene is worthy a 
 picture in the Baptist valhalla. 
 
 The Georgia Baptist Convention was in session. Ferd C. 
 McConnell, not yet himself known to fame as "Forensic 
 Cyclone McConnell," the present distinguished leader of 
 Atlanta, Ga., was down from the mountains of Rabun 
 County with the story of the struggle for the mountain 
 boys and girls at Hiawasse. 
 
 <' They are there," he shouted, ** like gold for the touch 
 of the miner's pick and they are fit to stand in the presence 
 of kings, packed full of brains and character waiting for 
 a chance. If you don't believe it I'll show you ! George ! 
 Where is George Truett?" George not being forthcom- 
 ing immediately the orator called again, "Brethren, I do 
 believe he's got skeered and run off." Then some one in 
 the rear of the court-house said, " Here he is." A pale, 
 twenty-two-year-old mountain youth was forced out in the 
 aisle and obediently up to the prisoners* dock, looking 
 half- frightened and vastly embarrassed by the focus of 
 eyes. " Brethren, this is George Truett and he can speak 
 like Spurgeon. George, tell them what the Lord has done 
 for you and what you are trying to do up in the mountains." 
 
 Then George began. It was a simple story, but epic in 
 
18 THE MAN AND PEEACHEB 
 
 its pathos of quiet recital of the hopes and passions of an 
 unsung heroism. 
 
 It was a story of struggle for the lives of others who 
 might have what had been denied to him — a college edu- 
 cation. It grew larger with each word — till every heart 
 was thrilling with that plaintive, pleading sort of voice 
 which carries so well the burden of tears which seem ever 
 laid on it. But the speech was no pitiful plea of poverty — 
 who ever heard that out of a Southern mountaineer? It 
 was rather the cry of the youth who bore the banner with 
 the strange device — Excelsior, the strong persuasion of a 
 just matter, the logic of one who, denied himself, was re- 
 solved to let his lack plead for others. 
 
 Dr. J. B. Hawthorne, then at the crowning of his great 
 career in Atlanta, was one of those who sat heart-broken 
 under the mastery of that speech. This was his testimony : 
 
 " I have heard Henry Grady at his highest, but never in 
 my life has my soul been so swept as that boy from the 
 mountains swept it that day in the court-house in Marietta.'* 
 
 Another great Georgian was present on that occasion — 
 Calder B. Willingham, of Macon. He at once arose and 
 said : "I want the honor of giving that young man a col- 
 lege education. If he will come to Macon I will pay his 
 expenses at Mercer University till he graduates." Then 
 and there the compact was sealed, the convention being 
 witness. The youth went back to the mountains with 
 something to say to his old friends — the peaks of Rabun 
 and the clouds and the God he knew face to face behind 
 great nature's thin veil, of a new hope and a great joy set 
 before him. 
 
 Strange is Providence ! The path of George Truett's 
 life did not lie towards Macon. He never saw Mercer 
 University and yet I think till this day he regards himself 
 
THE MAN AND PEEACHER 19 
 
 as a sort of alumnus of Mercer University, as one of those 
 shadowy sons who dreamed their course through her 
 halls. 
 
 With September, 1889, no boy, but a letter, went to Mr. 
 Willingham. His father had resolved upon Texas. A 
 man in years, but a son in loyalty, went with that resolve 
 out of the mountains of North Georgia to the great new 
 land as blindly in sheer obedience, and I doubt not as 
 faithfully as Abraham went into Canaan. Now, what will 
 the prophets say of this ? Listen : That boy will go to 
 Texas ; in less than four years he will save a college from 
 financial despair and endow it ; in four years more he 
 will graduate from it, and in five years more he will be 
 elected to its presidency. Well, that is what George W. 
 Truett did in Texas. 
 
 But he is not the president of Baylor University. This 
 is a very interesting fact to us just now in Atlanta. He is 
 a preacher. Dear old bill -boarded, newspapered, sensa- 
 tion-surfeited Atlanta; agog yesterday over Elbert Hub- 
 bard and to-day over Fluffy Raffles, but she has one sav- 
 ing clause : She loves a preacher if he is a real preacher. 
 George Truett will win Atlanta wholesomely. He will win 
 here as he wins in the West by being what he is, a man who 
 means it without trying to. What he is speaks as loud as 
 what he says. He is a preacher. That is the point of his 
 distinction. He is content to be that. He is an evangel, 
 not evangelist. There is not an "ist" nor a twist in all 
 his make-up. Plain, mountain-hearted, love-torn George 
 Truett, the man who woos cowboys in Texas to their 
 knees, wins cities also. 
 
 People will come from hearing him preach in the Second 
 Baptist Church asking themselves what it is that constitutes 
 the acknowledged power of his preaching. And they will 
 
20 THE MAN AND PREACHER 
 
 get various answers, but in one all opinion will meet. It 
 is something in the man himself — the man behind the ser- 
 mon, and in it through and through as an incarnation of 
 truthfulness in a messenger. Many sermons will bear un- 
 derstanding and yield to analysis their secret of charm as 
 sermons. I doubt if the newspapers were ever meant for 
 George Truett, though many of his sermons have been re- 
 ported in full. He belongs preeminently to that class of 
 preachers who illustrate the claim that the press can never 
 usurp the function of the pulpit ; who convince us that 
 preaching is in the highest sense an incarnation, something 
 more than a report of the truth, something more than the 
 proclamation of the Gospel. 
 
 George Whitfield could so speak the most commonplace 
 words as to send chills through his audience. George 
 Truett has much of this power to communicate to men his 
 soul on the most ordinary vehicles of thought and language. 
 His adjectives and adverbs take on its spiritual quality as 
 the dull black wire takes on the electric current. 
 
 Electricity, however, is scarcely a fortunate figure. He 
 is least of all of the spectacular type. There is nothing 
 angular or irregular in him. He has none of the person- 
 ality run to seed — individualism on a pious spree. The 
 strongest personalities are not eccentric. Eccentricity is 
 unnecessary to such men. They have specific gravity be- 
 yond the need of peculiar advertisement. Too much of 
 what men call personality in the pulpit, in the view that 
 preaching is an incarnation, must hinder rather than help 
 the Gospel purpose. Is it possible that evangelism, which, 
 reduced to the terms of psychology, is egotism, can be the 
 appointed power of God unto salvation ? At least George 
 W. Truett's power, as a preacher, can have no such ex- 
 planation. "Heart power" is the phrase most often em- 
 
THE MAN AND PREACHER 21 
 
 ployed to explain him. Ask somebody what they mean by 
 that. It is not as easy as it seems. 
 
 With George Truett before my mind's eye — "heart 
 power" is just what seems to me the only vital power of 
 the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Translated into the visible, audible, realizable fact soon 
 to stand in the pulpit of the Second Baptist Church, 
 " heart power " is this : 
 
 A man of substantial flesh, enough to be a man of like 
 passions with other men ; an open Saxon face — a serious 
 face, some say a sad face. 
 
 A voice set to a very pronounced key of pathos — a 
 cadence that individualizes his speech. Alas, for those 
 who attempt to pilfer it ! An impression of unfeigned 
 sympathy, as of a man who has suffered, and whose pain, 
 whatever it be, has become lost in a larger pain, through 
 exchange of all personal life sorrows for the great human 
 sorrow everywhere. 
 
 In declining the presidency of Baylor University he said 
 simply in explanation : *' I have sought and found the 
 shepherd's heart." Perhaps this is the real secret of George 
 W. Truett' s unique place in Texas and among the South- 
 ern Baptists. 
 
 Many lips have quoted the great avowal which F. W. 
 D. Meyer puts into the mouth of Paul the Apostle, but 
 none whom I know can appropriate it more seriously than 
 George W. Truett, when he stands up before a congrega- 
 tion of his fellow men to preach the Gospel that saves. 
 
 " Oft when the word is on me to deliver, 
 Lifts the illusion and the truth lies bare. 
 Desert or throng, the city or the river 
 Melts in a lucid tjaradise of air. 
 
22 THE MAN AND PBBACHEB 
 
 " Only like souls I see the folk thereunder 
 
 Bound who should conquer, slaves who should 
 be kings ; 
 Hearing their one hope with an empty wonder, 
 Sadly contented in a show of things. 
 
 '* Then with a rush the intolerable craving 
 Shivers throughout me like a trumpet call. 
 Oh, to save these, to perish for their saving, 
 Die for their life. He offered for them all." 
 
We Would See Jesus 
 
 Teoct : ^^ We would see Jesus." — John xii. 21. 
 
 THE age-long cry of the human race has been^j •< 
 for the revelation of a personal God, able 
 and willing to forgive human sin, and to 
 give rest to the human conscience. From the days of 
 Job, man's cry has been : "Oh, that I knew where I 
 might find Him !'' Plato voiced such cry when he 
 said: '^ We look for a God, or a God-inspired man, 
 who will show us our duty and take away the dark 
 ness from our eyes." Through long generations oi 
 Jewish history there thrilled the longing, and was 
 voiced the prophetic hope of a coming Messiah, able 
 and willing to meet man's deepest needs. In the 
 fullness of time He came, and the fame of His words 
 and deeds soon filled the land. A great feast was 
 had in Jerusalem, and along with the thousands who 
 attended it there came some Greeks, whose cry also 
 was: "We would see Jesus." That was the first 
 voice from the outside world that gave a hint of the 
 awakening of its sleeping conscience to the fact that 
 Jesus was to be the Saviour and Sovereign over the 
 Gentile as well as the Jewish world. 
 
 Marvelous was the impression made upon Jesus by 
 that outside cry. It came at an hour when His work 
 
 23 
 
24 WE WOULD SEE JESUS 
 
 seemed ready to fail ; but from, that hour there was a 
 new tone of triumph in His words. No more do we 
 hear His plaintive cry over unbelieving Jerusalem ; 
 but His thoughts are bravely turned towards Calvary, 
 and His victorious shout is : ' ^ The hour is come that 
 the Son of Man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I 
 say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the 
 ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die, it 
 bringeth forth much fruit. '^ He speaks again : 
 ''Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? 
 Father, save Me from this hour : but for this cause 
 came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name. 
 Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, ' I have 
 glorified it and will glorify it again. ' " His heart 
 thrills with the sense of His glorious mission, and He 
 speaks again : "Now is the judgment of this world ; 
 now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And 
 J , if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men 
 unto Me." 
 
 '[ Why would we see Jesus ? We may well wish to 
 sae Him, because of what He was and is in His own 
 personality. He was both God and man, the God- 
 man, in one person. Never did hyphen elsewhere 
 mean so much as here, the God-man. It both joins 
 and divides. It marks distinction and yet unity. 
 Jesus was as really God as though He were never man, 
 and as really man as though He were never God. 
 In the face of this truth, well might the chief apostle 
 say : " Without controversy, great is the mystery of 
 godliness : God was manifest in the flesh, justified in 
 the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, 
 believed on in the world, received up into glory. '^ 
 The most stupendous truth ever submitted to human 
 
WE WOULD SEE JESUS 25 
 
 thought is that stated in John's five simple words : 
 ^* The Word was made flesh." 
 
 In the study of Jesus we need always to begin with 
 His humanity. That is where the early disciples be- 
 gan, and that is the rational order. A proper con- 
 ception of His humanity must be the basis for a 
 proper understanding of His Divine nature and work. 
 
 In these days men sometimes tell us of their diffi- 
 culties concerning the deity of Jesus, rather than His 
 humanity. In the earlier days, unbelief made its 
 stoutest assaults upon His humanity. The earlier 
 heresies were gnostic heresies that denied that Jesus 
 was really a man. One school of gnostics held that 
 the body of Jesus did not belong essentially to His 
 nature, but that the Messiah descended upon Jesus at 
 His baptism, and left Him before His death. Another 
 school held that His body was but a mere illusion, 
 a veneer of human nature, wjtl) Godhood hidden 
 behind the face of a man. And still another school 
 held that His body was a body from heaven, having 
 nothing in common with earth. 
 
 Against all such theories the title which Jesus 
 chose for Himself attests His true and real humanity. 
 ''He took not on Him the form of angels ; but He 
 took on Him the seed of Abraham.". He was a vital 
 part of the race that He came to save, bone of its 
 bone and flesh of its flesh. He had a human mother 
 and a human birth. He grew, as did others, in 
 wisdom and in stature. His feelings and needs were 
 as those of other men. He was weary and hungry 
 and thirsty. He craved human companionship and 
 sympathy. He was *'a man of sorrows and ac- 
 quainted with grief." '' Wherefore, in all things, it 
 
26 WE WOULD SEE JESUS 
 
 behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, 
 that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest, 
 in all things pertaining to God to make reconcilia- 
 tion for the sins of the people. " 
 
 Behold Him, not ^^ A Son of Man," but ^^The Son 
 of Man," for all humanity was summed up in Him. 
 He was the one perfect, ideal, complete man^ 
 ^ ' Which of you convinceth Me of sin ? ' ' was and is 
 His fearless challenge. ''I find no fault in Him" 
 was and is the universal testimony of His friends and 
 foes. \In Himself Jesus combines all those gracious 
 qualities that abode severally in His people. If we 
 would look for the highest example of meekness, we 
 would not look to Moses, but to Jesus, who was un- 
 approachably meek and lowly in heart. For the 
 highest exami)le of patience we would not look to 
 Job, but to Jesus, who, when He was reviled, reviled 
 not again. For the highest example of wisdom we 
 would not look to Solomon, but to Jesus, who spake 
 as never man spake. For the highest example of con- 
 suming pity we would not look to weeping Jeremiah, 
 but to Jesus, as alone He weeps over Jerusalem. For 
 the highest example of soul -absorbing zeal we would 
 not look to Paul, but to Jesus, of whom it was said : 
 "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." For 
 the highest example of love we would not look to 
 John, but to Jesus, who, while we were His enemies, 
 loved us and gave Himself for uso ^^1 other men 
 have but fragmentary goodness ana greatness ; that 
 of Jesus is complete, perfect, wanting nothing. The 
 search-light of criticism has been focused on Jesus 
 through the long centuries, and yet it has failed to 
 find in Him one suggestion of sin, one ill -spoken 
 
WE WOULD SEE JESUS 27 
 
 word, oue selfish deed. Men talk about not believ- 
 ing in miracles. What will they do with Jesus of ^ 
 Nazareth ? He is the preeminent miracle of all the 
 ages. Who was that one and only perfect man?_ 
 Was He not more than a man ? 
 
 The only rational solution of the humanity of 
 Jesus is the acknowledgment of His Deity. For 
 men to laud Jesus as a great and good man, while 
 they repudiate His Deity, is to involve themselves 
 in logical contradictions and moral inconsistencies 
 which it is impossible either to reconcile or under- 
 stand. Remember the claims that this wise and holy 
 One makes for Himself: *'I am the light of the 
 world." ^*]^o man cometh unto the Father but 
 by Me." ^^He that hath seen Me hath seen the 
 Father." *^I and the Father are one." ^'Come 
 unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and 
 I will give you rest." If Jesus Christ be not more 
 than a man, what must be thought of the presump- 
 tion and vanity of these mighty claims? How is it 
 that man's conscience accepts without protest or 
 hesitancy these mighty claims? That question 
 must forever remain an insoluble mystery on any 
 other premise than that Jesus was God manifest in 
 the flesh, in whom dwells all the fullness of the God- 
 head bodily. From His cradle to His grave the 
 proofs of His Godhead were, in His own person, 
 finding constant illustration. The shepherds came 
 to salute Him as king, and the magi, with their rich 
 gifts, came from the Far East to worship Him, while 
 He was yet a tiny babe upon His mother^ s heart 
 While a lad only twelve years of age, His superla- 
 tive wisdom utterly astounded the learned doctors 
 
28 WE WOULD SEE JESUS 
 
 in the temple. As a young man he patiently 
 wrought at the workman's bench, teaching us how 
 the Infinite One can calmly wait, girt with the con- 
 
 iSciousness of His divine mission. When He came to 
 prosecute His public ministry He had only to speak the 
 
 , word and the winds were hushed, the storms calmed, 
 
 ' the hungry thousands fed, the sick made well and the 
 dead brought back to life. He lived as none other ever 
 
 .lived. He died as none other ever died, and from 
 Olivet He went back to His Father the cousummator 
 of history, the victorious Saviour of a lost world. 
 ^ **We would see Jesus," not only because of what 
 He is in His matchless person, but, also, because of 
 what He is and does for man. He is man's Saviour 
 from sin. " Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He 
 
 ' shall save His people from their sins." If Jesus 
 were merely a perfect example or a matchless 
 
 j teacher for man, then He could not encompass 
 man's deepest needs. ^Sin is the terrible tragedy, 
 the intolerable yoke in every human life. Our high- 
 
 ! est and eternal joy in seeing Jesus is in seeing Him 
 as our Saviour from sin. By His expiatory death on 
 the cross, *'the just for the unjust," Jesus answers 
 the eternally vital question how a guilty sinner may 
 have forgiveness and salvation and happiness here 
 and forevermore. 
 
 Forever God, forever man. 
 
 My Jesus shall endure : 
 
 And fixed on Him my hope remains 
 
 Eternally secure. 
 
 It was said of Mozart that he brought angels down, 
 and of Beethoven that he lifted mortals up. Jesus 
 
WE WOULD SEE JESUS 29 
 
 does both aud more. He is God's way to mau, He is 
 mau's way to God, the true Jacob's ladder between 
 earth and heaven. 
 
 And the glorious truth is that His Gospel may be 
 put into the ci;ucible of human experience. Man 
 may personally know whether Jesus can give peace 
 to the troubled conscience, whether He can give light 
 for life's bedarkened problems, whether He can give 
 healing for earth's staggering sorrows. The world is 
 filled with men and women, this houy^ who have 
 vainly sought everywhere for peace and light and 
 help, but they found it not until they found it iu 
 Jesus, Tlxese men and women have tested Him, and 
 in their deepest consciousness they know better than 
 they know anything else that through Him their 
 darkness has been dispelled, their burdens lifted, 
 their victories won. Tell me how it is that, of all 
 the sons of men since the world began, it was never 
 heard that a man was saved by Plato, or by Socrates, 
 or by any one else but by Jesus Christ alone. How 
 is it that He alone has been able really to redeem 
 men from the fatal grip of appetite and passion and 
 sin ? There can be but one logically intelligent an- 
 swer, and that answer is, that in Jesus Christ we 
 have the only begotten Son of God, God of God, 
 Light of Light, very God of very God, the one 
 Divine and all-sufQcient Saviour. 
 
 How may we see Jesus'? May we see Jesus to- 
 day ? Not, to be sure, with our physical eyes, but 
 with the eyes of the mind and heart. May we ap- 
 proach Him, realize Him, be conscious of His per- 
 sonal presence and help, even as we are conscious of 
 the presence and help of parent, or teacher, or dear- 
 
30 WE WOULD SEE JESUS 
 
 est earthly friend ? These are vital questions that go 
 to the depths of our hearts. I make bold to answer 
 them that Jesus may be, ought to be, more real to 
 us than is any other person in all the world. Jesus 
 is not some mere theory, some inspiring memory, 
 some vague, personal influence ; but He is a Person, 
 to be approached, to be felt, to be trusted, to be 
 loved, and to be obeyed even unto death. How may 
 we thus see Jesus as we are daily driven by the mani- 
 fold problems and duties of the earthly life! 
 
 If we would see Jesus, we must make much of His 
 Book. If we would know a person, we must under- 
 stand him. If we would trust a person, then our 
 trust must be based on knowledge. Jesus cannot be 
 seen, will not be graciously real to the man who 
 neglects the Bible. It is true that *Hhe heavens de- 
 clare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth 
 His handiwork." But, left to nature, the Bible 
 taken away, man cannot know of God's tenderness 
 and love, cannot know how to love and trust and 
 obey Him properly. Though man might name 
 every star that blazes in the eternal depths ; though 
 he might map the heavens and tell the constellations 
 as his familiar friends ; though he might understand 
 the voice of the flowers ; though he might catch the 
 monologues of the mountains, the dirges of the 
 oceans, the symphonies of the spheres ; though all 
 nature might speak to him the mighty secrets of its 
 origin and Maker, in all this man would see only 
 the majesty and mightiness of God. In God's hand 
 would be the sword of justice, on His lips the word 
 of wisdom, and around Him the resplendent robe of 
 righteousness, at once man's envy and despair. Only 
 
WE WOULD SEE JESUS 31 
 
 in the Bible may man find out the mercy of God, in 
 the forgiveness of sins, through Jesus Christ. 
 
 Other books may be read, some of them with much 
 profit, God's book must be read, and read humbly, 
 reverently, earnestly, continuously, if we would see 
 much of Jesus. / If you have read the life of Chinese 
 Gordon, one of the noblest Christians of his or any 
 other age, you discerned that the secret of that won- 
 derful life was in the fact that he spent long hours 
 every day in the study of the Bible. He had many 
 books in the Soudan, but this was the testimony that 
 he left concerning them : ''I may as well part with 
 all my books except two, the Bible and the Con- 
 cordance, so far as they contain essential knowledge." 
 
 If we would see Jesus, we must know much of 
 Becret prayer — mark you, of secret prayer. Secret 
 prayer is the unerring thermometer to our life of 
 prayer. If ever we are sincere in prayer, it is 
 when we are in secret prayer. It is then, if ever, 
 that we are conscious of God. Jesus said, '^But 
 thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and 
 when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father 
 which is in secret ; and thy Father which seeth in 
 secret shall reward thee openly." How much do 
 we give ourselves to secret prayer? Is it not just 
 here that most of all we fail? We go about the 
 doing of many things, but is not secret prayer one 
 of the things that we largely leave undone? It 
 takes time to become spiritual, and time spent alone 
 with God is the best spent time in all one's life. 
 
 Again, if we would see Jesus, we must watch 
 against sin^ ^ith uncompromising warfare.^ There 
 4iT^*^ be absolute sincerity and whole-hearted thor^ 
 
 \€ 
 
82 WE WOULD SEE JESUS 
 
 qughness at this poiut. That were but hollo"W 
 mockery for a man to pray for forgiveness, his own 
 heart the while burning with hatred and festering 
 with grudges against some fellow creature. The 
 amputating knife of genuine repentance must be put 
 to sin, if we would hope for the smile of Jesus and 
 for the benefit of His blood which cleanseth from all 
 sin. God can't afford to answer some men's prayers ! 
 For Him to do so would be to put a premium upon 
 gin. The hidden wedge of gold and the Babylonish 
 garment must be disclosed and restored, if men may 
 hope for answered prayer. It is sin that separates 
 l^etweeu man and God. It is sin that cuts the nerve 
 of ajl acceptable prayer. Sin is a veil through which 
 Jesus cannot be seen. Sin is an insulator that turns 
 away the currents between man and God. It is '' the 
 supplication of a righteous man that availeth much.'' 
 '' If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not 
 hear me." No man who is not keenly sensiti*'© to 
 sin can know much or see much of Jesus. '* Blessed 
 ai-e the pure in heart, for they shall see God" — sea 
 Him here and now in daily experience. ^' Who shall 
 i ascend into the hill of the Lord ? Or who shall stand 
 ; in His holy place 1 He that hath clean hands and a 
 i pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity 
 nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing 
 of the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his 
 salvation." Oh, what need have we for frequent and 
 most rigid self-examination, that we may become in- 
 creasingly sensitive to every approach of sin. And 
 \ye are to watch with all diligence against the little 
 sins. It was the little foxes that spoiled the vines* 
 If we carelessly cherish what may seem to us to be 
 
WE WOULD SEE JESUS 33 
 
 inconsequential sins, for example, pride, which goeth 
 before destruction, and envy, which is as rottenness 
 in the bones, these sins will consume us as doth a 
 cancer and more and more will they hide from us the 
 face of Jesus. 
 
 If we would see Jesus, we need to magnify the 
 blessedness of Christian fellowship. The old-fash- 
 ioned experience- meeting, when men and women 
 came together just to tell, timidly though joyfully, 
 what they saw and felt and knew of the things of 
 Jesus — would to God our churches had it back again ! 
 ^'Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to 
 another, and the Lord hearkened and heard it, and a 
 book of remembrance was written before Him for them 
 that feared the Lord, and that thought on His name." 
 Sometimes a preacher's sermonic fires burn low, and 
 not a text will give up its treasures, dig for them 
 though he may. What does the preacher do ? Let 
 such preacher find and talk with some one who 
 has a vital knowledge of the saving grace of God, 
 and sermonic fires will immediately burn again. 
 
 Once again, if we would see Jesus, we must be busy 
 for Him. The indolent Christian cannot see much or 
 know much of Jesus. Idleness is one of the most 
 terrible foes to grace^ It is the running stream that is 
 the healthy streami. The stagnant pond breeds miasma 
 and malaria and death. Many a Christian who is 
 spiritually sick, he knows not why, would thrill with 
 a new joy and new visions of Jesus if only he would be 
 busy for Him. Doubt, unbelief, despondency are all 
 cut to pieces by activity. Jt is the man who does 
 Christ's will unto whom isxevealed His doctrine. 
 
 And still again, if we would see Jesus as we ought 
 
34 WE WOULD SEE JESUS 
 
 and as we may, we must give ourselves completely to 
 His guidauce and governmeut. Jesus will be Lord 
 of all, or He will not be Lord at all. The reason why 
 so many people get so little out of their religion is 
 because they put so little into it. If men would see 
 Jesus, see Him to the deepest joy of their hearts, and 
 from Him 'have the noblest victories in their lives, 
 then, for all this, they must pay the requisite price. 
 Paul paid such price. Gladly did he suffer the loss 
 of all things, home, kindred, inheritance, comforts, 
 country, life itself, that he might have the excellency 
 of tije knowledge of Christ Jesus, his Lord. Do you 
 wonder that he had visions and revelations which 
 could not be put into speech ? Do you wonder that 
 his letters abound in doxologies, as he contemplates 
 the unfolding glory of his Lord ? Paul paid the price 
 for his glorious visions of Jesus. 
 
 Here, then, is the vital question for us. Will we 
 pay the price to see Jesus as we need to see Him, as 
 He would have us see Him ? Are we willing to live 
 for Him, to put Him first, to do His will, be what it 
 may, lead where it will ? Eight here is the supreme 
 battle of the Christian life. It is the battle between 
 Christ and self. The self-centered life will not see 
 Jesus, and must surely fail. The Christ-centered life 
 will mount higher and higher in its visions of Jesus, 
 and will more and more exult in the victory that 
 j overcomes the world.*) George MacDonald well puts 
 ^his truth in simple verse : 
 
 I said, ''Let me walk in the fields; " 
 He said, " Nay, walk in the town ; ** 
 
 I said, *' There are no flowers there ; 
 He said, "No flowers, but a crown." 
 
WE WOULD SEE JESUS 86 
 
 i said, " But ihe sky is black, 
 There is nothing but noise and din ; ** 
 
 But He wept as He sent me back — 
 
 ''There is more," He said, "there is sin." 
 
 I said, " But the air is thick 
 
 And fogs are veiling the sun ; '* 
 He answered, '' Yet souls are sick. 
 
 And souls in the dark undone." 
 
 I said, " I shall miss the light. 
 
 And friends will miss me, they say; *' 
 
 He answered me, *' Choose to-night 
 If I am to miss you, or they." 
 
 I pleaded for time to be given ; 
 i He said, " Is it hard to decide ? 
 
 It will not seem hard in heaven 
 
 To have followed the steps of your Guide." 
 
 I cast one look at the fields. 
 
 Then set my face to the town ; 
 He said : *' My child, do you yield ? 
 
 Will you leave the flowers for the crown ? " 
 
 Then into His hand went mine, 
 
 i\nd into my heart came He, 
 And I walk in a light divine, 
 
 The path i had feared to see. 
 
 Oh, men and vromen, if we will pay the price, we 
 may daily see Jesus— may know that He walks with 
 us, talks with ns, and lives with us, and lives in us, 
 our certain help for every day and duty of earth. 
 And thus seeing Him and serving Him, brighter and 
 better shall be all our days, even unto that blissful 
 day when we shall pass through the gates of the 
 celestial city, where we shall be *'like Him, for we 
 shall see Him as He is." 
 
n 
 
 A Prayer For a Revival 
 
 Text: "Wilt Thou not revive us again, that 
 Thy people may rejoice in Theet" — Psalm 
 Ixxxv. 6. 
 
 THE text is a short prayer, but volumes of 
 meaning are wrapped up in it. God give 
 us to-night to pray it from the very depths 
 of our hearts! It is a prayer for God's people. 
 " Will Thou not revive us again, that Thy people 
 may rejoice in Thee?'' David does not pray about 
 conditions or circumstances, that these may be 
 changed, but he prays for people, for God's peo- 
 ple. "Wilt Thou not revive us again, that Thy 
 people may rejoice in Thee?" For David had 
 learned the lesson far back in that olden time, that 
 if there be any deep, great work of grace wrought for 
 the world that is lost, then such work of grace will 
 begin in the hearts of God's people. . It is true and 
 does not need to be argued that, when God's people 
 are right, things always go well with His work, and 
 when God's people are wrong, things go badly with 
 His work. 
 
 It is a lesson that comes down to us through all 
 the generations, that, going before any great, deep 
 work of grace, God's people have waited before Him 
 in confession of sin, in supplication for His grace, in 
 the humbling of their hearts, in the submission of 
 
 36 
 
A PRAYER FOR A REVIVAL 37 
 
 their wills to Him, that He might do for them and with 
 them according to His holy will. That is surely the 
 lesson that comes down to us, touching God's work 
 and people all through the generations. There is no 
 such thing, brethren, as any great, deep, far-reaching 
 work of grace anywhere, if God's people do not ex- 
 perimentally know the mighty means of prayer 
 touching such work of grace. All history as it I 
 touches God's people and His work in the world is 
 the confirmation of this statement. When Israel 
 down in Egypt prayed after the right fashion, then 
 it was that deliverance came. In the days of Nehe- , 
 miah, when God's work had run down, and when 
 Nehemiah, with the faithful ones about him, waited 
 upon God for its reviving and its rebuilding, when 
 they prayed after the right fashion, the walls of God's 
 house went up again. It was so in the days of good 
 King Josiah. The thing that preeminently char- 
 acterized the revival for the glory of God in his time 
 was the right waiting before God of His people. 
 And surely the one marvelous thing about that in- 
 comparable meeting on the Day of Pentecost, the 
 influence of which kept on in such wondrous fashion 
 for a generation ; surely the one marvelous thing 
 about that meeting, from the human view -point, was, 
 that for ten days God's people just prayed. For ten 
 long days they tarried yonder in the quiet pla<je, 
 away from the crowd, waiting, with one accord, for 
 power from on high. When will we learn thej 
 lesson, brethren, that it is time gained in all respects 
 if we give ourselves very, very much to the blessed 
 exercise of prayer in carrying on God's work in the 
 world ! For my part, I do not believe that in any . 
 
38 A PEAYER FOR A REVIVAL 
 
 of these '^ revival ^' or ^' special meetiugs" that we 
 have that God i^ honored in them, or that people 
 are really regenerated in them, it' going through them 
 and before them and after them there is not the mov- 
 ing of the hearts of God's people in prayer. 
 
 When will we rightly lay such great matter to 
 heart ? It is fundamental to the real success of all 
 God-saving effort. And you yourselves are the wit- 
 nesses that I speak the truth to-night. In your own 
 Christian experiences, out from the past, even as I 
 talk, there come to you the memories of the occasions 
 when you were specially blessed of God in the win- 
 ning of souls. Those mighty spiritual blessings that 
 came to you ; those days of the right hand of God ; 
 those days when yon heard His stately steppings ; 
 those days when you saw His mighty Spirit pierce 
 the hearts of sinful men and bring them down, thos^ 
 were the times when your own hearts were empty of 
 their self-sufaciency, and when with a cry unto 
 God from the deepest depths of the soul, you be- 
 sought Him to arise and plead His own cause, and 
 save lost sinners for whom Christ died. You your- 
 selves, I say, are witnesses to that same significant 
 truth. When ;^:ouJ^V£jtiad.5pecia^ 
 tQ-wi33^them to. God, it was. always when you had 
 powfii^with God.^ 4.nd ,iTi£jaLJQ^aQiMs£-P^^s:£^j!nth 
 God — itjs a thi ng unknown in His spiritualMxigdom 
 — iLtheyJ^not^en of prayer^ m en of real interces-, 
 s ion. men jwho knowjthe meanlngof the secret place, 
 idier e alone thej look into, the King' s iace^until He 
 Sj^eato[_His message to them.^ There is no such thing 
 as power to win lost men to God if His people do 
 not pray. You yourselves, I say, are witnesses tif 
 
A PRAYER FOR A REVIVAL 30 
 
 that great fact. The times when you have had power 
 with men so that they could not resist your appeals, 
 so that you saw their faces humbled before you, and 
 you saw the conquest of the soul go on before your 
 very eyes, those were the times when you were in 
 touch with the great King, when your soul had 
 conscious fellowship with Him, when you took hold 
 of Him and felt that you were one vvith Him. Men 
 who come to realize that experience do so through 
 the gracious medium of prayer. 
 
 '* The burden of the Lord, " when that is upon them, 
 then it is that men know the burden of prayer. O 
 brethren, this light, easy, tearless, hop, skip and 
 jump method in the matchless work of turning men 
 to God is not the New Testament way. If men are 
 turned to Almighty God in any blessed fashion, then 
 the people of God know about it, and there is a cry 
 unto Him, the deepest cry of their hearts is heard, 
 that lost sinners may be saved. God's people always 
 cry like that if any mighty movement of His Spirit 
 and His saving grace is felt among the people. 
 
 When I was a little lad I recall how that again 
 and again I went to the old country church to their 
 appointed *^ protracted meetings '^ every summer, and 
 the farmers would gather in at the morning meetings, 
 and then again at the evening meetings, two services 
 a day, and they would thas daily gather together for 
 several days. Great crowds came, but often nothing 
 seemed to be done. I have seen and heard those 
 farmers, as they would meet and chat under the great 
 trees before the morning service. Often they would 
 talk about this and that and then one would say to 
 the other: ** Neighbor, have you any burden for 
 
i. 
 
 40 A PEAYEE FOE A EEVIVAL 
 
 souls to-day?^' and the answer would come back 
 rather shrinkingly : " No, neighbor, I haven't any 
 special burden, yet, for souls, I am sorry to say." 
 And the next day that would be repeated. They 
 would thus talk around on the edges of the meeting, 
 maybe for days, and then one would say : *' Have 
 you any burden about this meeting to-day 1 Have 
 you any burden for souls to-day ? " And the answer 
 would be with trembling lip and with eyes suffused 
 with tears: ^'I have, O neighbor, I have. God is 
 my judge, how last night I felt to call upon Him 
 through the long, long night, and I saw my own boys 
 lost, and I saw your boys lost, and I saw our neigh- 
 borhood lost. Oh, I have a burden for souls I can- 
 not describe.'' I was at first too small to know what 
 it all meant, but I can recall with what awe I would 
 listen to it all, and even as a little child my soul was 
 perfectly sure that God was somewhere near. And 
 He was ! And when we would go into the old 
 country meeting house, on such a day, and the meet- 
 ing would begin, and trembling lips would lead the 
 prayers, and the hymns would be sung, God would 
 come down into that meeting, and men that day were 
 brought down by the life-giving Spirit of God. 
 Whereas for days before the meetings wer^ per- 
 functory and stilted and cold, now they were kindled 
 into a strange glow. Sobs were heard on every side, 
 and lost men asked : ^^ What must we do to be 
 saved ? " What had happened, brethren ? That 
 " burden of souls " had come to God's people, with- 
 out which soul-winning effort is largely in vain. 
 Whenever they have that ^* burden of souls," things 
 sjlorious always come to pass in the kingdom of God. 
 
A PRAYER FOR A REVIVAL 41 
 
 We had better wait : we had better betake our- 
 selves to the quiet place ; we had better search our 
 hearts, and beg Him to search them for us ; we had 
 better go alone, each one for himself or herself, and 
 talk with God, each one pouring out his soul to this 
 effect : " O God, give me to feel about Thy work like 
 Thou wishest. Come down in Thine own way, and 
 open the gates to my soul, so that I shall feel about 
 Thy work as Thou wishest. '^ You and I need to do 
 that, brethren, and we need to do that to-night, with 
 special reference to the work that is just now before 
 us. 
 
 Some months ago a pastor was out in a vast country 
 camp- meeting. A large arbor was provided, and 
 from night to night there gathered a mighty crowd, 
 so that the pastor needed to put his voice out to the 
 last limit to be heard. But for days, so far as could 
 be judged, nothing much was done. One night the 
 preacher went to his room, and was making ready to 
 retire, when the gentleman with whom he stopped 
 came in. The host had very little to say, and the 
 preacher made ready for sleep, and now was in the 
 bed, while the host sat there on the cot on the other 
 side of the room. Both slept in the same room. The 
 good wife of the host was gone, having departed a 
 few years before, to be with the Lord. He had two 
 grown daughters, popular and beautiful, but worldly 
 —worldly, it seemed, after an unusual fashion. He 
 sat over there that night on his cot, and after a while, 
 j ust as the preacher was ready to sleep, a sob was 
 heard, and the preacher looked up, and beheld his 
 kindly friend with his face in his hands, and his 
 great body fairly quivering. Said the preacher : 
 
42 A PRAYEE FOR A REVIVAL 
 
 "What is the troubled' calling his host by name. 
 He answered : " You ought to know what the trouble 
 is. You have been in my home for three or four 
 days. You ought to know what the trouble is." 
 The preacher said : '^Yes, I do ; it is the girls." 
 The host replied : '^ It is even so. Their mother is 
 gone, and the sense of responsibility for them comes 
 over me to-night as I never felt it before in all my 
 life.'^ Then he added : " Oh, if Mary (that was the 
 older one) would only come to Christ, if she would 
 only come to Christ, the problem, I think, would be 
 settled with Jennie. Jennie always does what Mary 
 does." The preacher said : " Well, we will pray for 
 Mary to-night," and out of his bed he came, and 
 knelt by his host. They talked to God about Mary, 
 specifically about her, that the Almighty Saviour 
 might Himself take hold of her heart, and bring her 
 to Himself. She was an amiable, beautiful girl, as 
 has been said, but utterly indifferent about the claims 
 of the soul, so far as could be seen. Then the 
 preacher went back to his bed. After a while the 
 door stood ajar, and the anxious father was seen 
 quietly going out through the moonlight, and then 
 the door was closed, and the preacher was soon 
 asleep. In the early morning time the door was 
 again quietly opened, and in came the host. A 
 glance at his cot showed that he had been absent for 
 the night. The preacher asked : '' Where have you 
 been?" And the answer was: '^I will tell you 
 about it, but you need not speak of it to the others. 
 It is not a matter to be spoken of. I have been out 
 there all night long talking to God about Mary ; and 
 that is not all. Mary will come to Christ to-day." 
 
A PRAYER FOR A REVIVAL 43 
 
 Said the preacher: ^^Do you look for that?'^ He 
 simply answered : "Yes, you will see that blessed 
 result to-day.'^ And that day, when the preacher 
 finished his sermon at the morning meeting, and 
 asked, while they sang, if anybody had found the 
 Saviour, to come and confess Hkn before all the peoi)le, 
 before they could start the music at all, Mary came, 
 with smiling face, and said : " I found Him while you 
 preached. '^ Do you doubt, my brethren, that there 
 was a vital connection between that man's prayer 
 and that child' s return to Christ ? The very next day, 
 before the preacher had preached ten minutes, the 
 other daughter, Jennie, rose up in the midst of the 
 great crowd, and said: '^Papa, I have found the 
 Saviour, too." I ask again, do you doubt that there 
 was a vital connection between that prayer and that 
 child's return to Christ ? O God, burden us for souls ! 
 Burden us for souls ! Ah, Paul had the " burden 
 for souls." Hear him : ''I say the truth in Christ, I 
 lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the 
 Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and con- 
 tinual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that 
 myself were accursed from Christ, for my brethren, 
 my kinsmen, according to the flesh." The '^burden 
 for souls " — may God give it to us all ! This is God's 
 way — may His way be ours ! 
 
 Why is this God's way? The reasons for it could 
 be multiplied. Here are some. This is God's plan. 
 Because in His own infinite wisdom He chose that it 
 should be His plan, that is enough for us. God hasi' 
 revealed all along that one of the mightiest instru-l 
 ments in His kingdom for the furtherance of His 
 cause in this world, for the turning of men to Christ! 
 
44 A PRAYER FOR A REVIVAL 
 
 fis prayer. See the inj unctions to us to pray. We 
 are to pray without ceasing. We are to pray for all 
 men. We are not to so sin against the Lord, and so 
 sin against men, as to cease praying for men. Be- 
 hold how the Scriptures magnify the place of prayer 
 in the kingdom of God for the furtherance of His 
 truth. It is God's plan, and we are to address our- 
 selves to God's plan. Whenever we know God's 
 mind about anything, then we have reached the end 
 of the debate. We are to obey Him unreservedly. 
 
 And, then, we go further, and see that as labor is 
 good for us in the world physical, so is it in the world 
 spiritual. Spiritual labor is an exercise of incalcu- 
 lable moment. As ii^ the physical world physical 
 labor is for our upbuilding, in the world spiritual, 
 spiritual labor, the exercising of ourselves unto 
 Godliness, is the thing made very much of in the 
 Scriptures. 
 
 Nor is that all. This kind of waiting upon God, 
 this kind of confession of helplessness, and of supplica- 
 tion for grace and power, fits us to take care of peo- 
 ple when they are saved. O brethren, how sad it is 
 that our young Christians, so many times, get such a 
 pitiful start in the Christian life ! It is a great thing 
 for a Christian to be well born, and that is one reason 
 why we need to guard the churches of Jesus Christ. 
 The churches of Jesus Christ are the supreme centers 
 of evangelization. One of the things we have most 
 earnestly to protest against, in these times, is the 
 carrying away of evangelistic efforts from the 
 churches of Jesus Christ. The churches are the hot- 
 beds wherein the plants are to be grown to the 
 Saviour's honor. This is certainly a time when the 
 
A PEAYER FOR A REVIVAL 45 
 
 churches need to give their most vigorous and faith- 
 ful attention to this meaningful truth. Ring it out 
 everywhere that the churches are the centers where 
 evangelistic effort may be most wisely conducted. 
 When Christ's church is spiritual, and calls upon 
 Him with all humility, and with self-abnegation, and 
 He answers back, and gives them a soul saved, then 
 the church is ready to take care of that soul. Why 
 is it that in very many of our churches vast numbers 
 remain little spiritual babes all their lives? The 
 answer is their start was bad. Their surroundings 
 were not of a gracious sort. They were not put on 
 the right track, and kept going on the right track. 
 We are ready to take care of the young converts, 
 when they come to us, in answer to the right sort of 
 prayer. What would become of that little new-born 
 babe if it should be taken from its mother's arms, 
 and thrown into the snow banks ? And what will be- 
 come of the little new-born child of God if it be 
 ushered into a church where the atmosphere is luke- 
 warm, and worldly, and indifferent to God's claims? 
 There is likely to be one outcome, only, to that little 
 religious life. The shipwreck of happiness and use- 
 fulness, for the most part. Our God has ordained 
 this great method of carrying on His work, so that 
 when souls are given to us, we are able to take care 
 of them after the right fashion. 
 
 Not only that, but this is His plan, in order to 
 teach us what we seem to forget most quickly of all — 
 salvation is of the Lord. That is the truth that we 
 seem to learn last of all, and the truth that we seem 
 to forget most quickly of all, — salvation is of the 
 Lord. Oh, we accept it theoretically. You ask if 
 
46 A PEAYER FOR A REVIVAL 
 
 we believe it, and with great promptness we answei 
 that we do, and yet, do we ? How much do we be- 
 lieve it ? How long we are forgetting that vital truth, 
 that we can raise men from that cemetery yonder as 
 easily as we can regenerate the most amiable child in 
 your Sunday-school to God, — that we can speak a world 
 like this into life as easily as we can regenerate the 
 most lovely soul in this city ! Salvation is a divine 
 work. Regeneration is a divine work. Conviction 
 for sin is a divine work. The turning of men to God is 
 a divine work. The making of men ready for heaven 
 is a divine work. We learn that when we are on 
 our knees before God. When we are out talking, 
 and moving among men, we may go a great deal on 
 the doctrine of salvation by works, but when we are on 
 our faces before God, our helplessness is borne in upon 
 us, md then, with self-abnegation and a sense of our 
 utter insufaciency, we humbly wait upon God for 
 Him to do His work. And, mark it, when our atti- 
 tude is right before Him, He always uses us to do His 
 work. 
 
 'Will we mate this prayer in our text personal to- 
 night? That is the crucial poin^ I must ask you to 
 face. Will we make this prayer of our text, to- 
 night, personal 1 **Wilt Thou not revive us again, 
 that Thy people here may rejoice in Thee?" Will 
 we make it personal ? Do we wish for it to be per- 
 sonal ? I am going to ask you that direct question, 
 and I am going to ask you to answer it, and I beseech 
 you to answer it in sincerity and truth. Is this our 
 prayer to-night? For let us know full well that each 
 one of us shall be a helper or a hindrance in this 
 proposed work. All along we are one of these two 
 
A PEAYER FOR A REVIVAL 47 
 
 things in Christ's work. I speak now to Christians. 
 I speak to those who have named Christ's name, who 
 know and profess His cause to love. We are one of 
 these two things in Christ's work. We are either 
 helpers or hinderers in giving salvation to the perish- 
 ing around us. 
 
 Who hinders Christ's work ? First of all, the idle 
 Christian hinders His work. Christians are not made 
 to be idle. They are not made to be dumb. They 
 are not made for their lips to be sealed so that they 
 give forth no testimony to the dying around them. 
 Christians are made to be busy. Christians are left 
 in the world to be active, to be active for Jesus 
 Christ. The idle Christian, then, hinders the cause 
 of God in the earth. O Christian, if thou art idle, 
 thou art hindering somewhere the advance of the 
 great kingdom of God. The idleness of Christians 
 surely hinders the march of the kingdom of God. 
 Call to mind those solemn words of Jesus : " He that 
 is not with Me is against Me ; and he that gathereth 
 not with Me scattereth abroad." What does your 
 heart say to that ? Jesus cursed the fig tree because 
 it was idle. It ought to have borne fruit, and it did 
 not, therefore He cursed it. Meroz of old was cursed 
 because Meroz was idle. Meroz did not take up 
 arms against the other tribes of Israel. Meroz did 
 not lift up the black flag, and turn traitor to Israel. 
 Meroz simply stayed at home and left her brothers 
 to go out and fight the battle, and they went out and 
 fotight, and won, but with their victorious refrain 
 there was mingled the refrain of the curse of the 
 angel of God : ^' Curse ye Meroz, curse ye bitterly 
 the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to 
 
48 A PEAYER FOR A REVIVAL 
 
 the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against 
 the mighty." The idle Christian hinders God's 
 work. 
 
 Nor is that all. The Christian not right with God 
 hinders His work, and this is a matter of unspeak- 
 able gravity, if only we rightly knew it. If he is 
 not right in his outward conduct, we can see how 
 that hinders God's work ; but, brethren, what wounds 
 the Lord Jesus Christ receives in the house of His 
 friends. His real friends, from men who do love 
 Him, men who, if they were crowded to the wall, 
 would die for Him ! And yet what wounds He re- 
 ceives at the hands of such men, full niany a time, 
 by their inconsistent words and their inconsistent 
 works. How we hinder the cause of Jesus Christ 
 ourselves ! We need not trouble so much about the 
 attacks of some blatant infidel out yonder, who rails 
 against the Bible. That is not the supreme trouble 
 at all, but the trouble supreme to the advancement 
 of our Lord's kingdom in this world is with the 
 people of His kingdom, with those who love it, and 
 who are of it, and yet whose lives do not harmonize 
 with it. There is our supreme trouble. If we are 
 saying wrong things, or if we are doing wrong 
 things ; if, in our lives, inconsistencies may be 
 seen ; if there is marked worldliness, and if we fall 
 so far short of the characteristics of what a Christian 
 ought to have, so that men about us believe that our 
 religion is just a theory, and not the dominating 
 passion of our lives, then are we hindering the cause 
 of Christ to a very sad degree. 
 
 Nor is that all. We hinder the cause of Christ, 
 oh. so sadly, even though outwardly all may seem 
 
A PEAYEE FOE A EEVIVAL 49 
 
 10 be well with us, if inwardly it is not well with us. 
 I do not know of any thought for the Christian more 
 terribly serious than this — that the secret condition 
 of his heart, which condition his wife does not know, 
 cannot know, — nor his most intimate earthly com- 
 panion ; which condition is known only to him and 
 to God, the secret condition of his heart, is helping 
 men in this city heavenward, or turning them hell- 
 ward. The secret condition of your heart, a condition 
 where no other eye can look, save One, that secret 
 condition is now helping men up, or dragging them 
 down, even as you sit in this building to-night. If a 
 man's heart be right with God, then one prayer 
 prayed from such a heart will have more power 
 with God and with men than a thousand years of 
 praying if the heart be all wrong with God. No 
 wonder, then, that David prayed : '' O God, restore 
 unto me the joy of Thy salvation.'' Not salvation, 
 mind you. He had that, but he prayed, ' ' Give me 
 back again the joy of Thy salvation, and then I will 
 teach transgressors Thy ways, and then sinners shall 
 be converted unto God." When a man is right with 
 God, then there is power in his praying. When a 
 man is right with God, he may lock the heavens, as 
 did Elijah, or, like him, he may unlock them. Mind 
 you, it is the supplication of a ^ ' righteous ' ' man 
 that availeth much. So the secret condition of our 
 hearts is helping now, or hindering now, these ap- 
 pointed gospel meetings, and will help or hinder 
 them all along. If there is one picture in the Bible 
 more than another that is solemn in the extreme, it 
 is the picture of Achan's secret sin, and the doom 
 that followed, in Joshua's army, in the olden time. 
 
A^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 50 A PRAYEE FOE A EEVIVAL 
 
 which sin was known only to himself and to God, 
 until Achan was searched and exposed. O breth- 
 ren, I had this night rather be nailed up in my 
 coffin and buried alive than to go through thes« 
 gospel meetings with my heart all wrong; and my 
 soul out of harmony with God ; for I will either 
 help or I will hinder others. Death were prefer- 
 able infinitely than that a man should go on as a 
 Christian, himself hindering salvation, himself 
 hindering the blessed current of life that comes 
 from God to man. Death were preferable to that. 
 But every Christian is one of these two things— a 
 hinderer or a helper. He is a channel through 
 which God is pleased to send His grace and bless- 
 ings to lost men, or he is a clog to stop up that 
 channel. 
 
 Is this text our prayer to-night? *'Eevive us 
 again" — do we pray it? Know this, dear friends, 
 God has a blessing for us here, if — if what? God 
 has a blessing for us here, blessed be His name, if 
 only we wish it sufficiently. There is a recipe for 
 ^ soul- winning effort given back yonder in the seventh 
 chapter of Second Chronicles, the observance of 
 which never fails : '* If My people, which are called 
 by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, 
 and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways ; 
 then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their 
 sins, and will heal their land.'' Don't you see it! 
 The observance of that recipe never fails, and never 
 will. We shall have here a great blessing, brethren, 
 if we will faithfully live out the truth of this one 
 verse. 
 
 Are we going to be satisfied if Christ's people are 
 
A PRAYEE FOE A EEVIVAL 51 
 
 not revived ? Then they will not be. Are we going 
 to be satisfied if men all about us are not convicted 
 for sin, and by divine power turned to Christ ? Can 
 we be satisfied if that result does not come ? Then it 
 will not come. Any preacher who can complacently 
 preach on, mouth in and month out, and year in and 
 year out, without seeing men converted ; who can 
 preach on through all that, and eat heartily and 
 sleep soundly, will not see many converts under his 
 ministry. I tell you, it is a life and death business in 
 which we are engaged. Any church that can sit 
 with folded hands and be satisfied if men are not 
 turned to God, that can be easy with such a condi- 
 tion, will not have men added unto her, whose testi- 
 mony will be, ''In that place I was turned unto 
 God." Do we wish to be revived ? We shall have a 
 great turning to God here, blessed be His name, if we A 
 wish it enough. 
 
 May I take one moment more just to talk to you 
 about your plain duty ? O God, bear Thou in upon 
 us to-night the realization of this thought : We are 
 left here to speak to dying men and women and chil- 
 dren, at every possible place, and in every possible 
 way, concerning the saving grace of Jesus Christ. 
 Shall I talk to you about such duty ? You Christians 
 are to remember that teaching school is incidental ; 
 practicing medicine is incidental ; pleading law is in- 
 cidental ; being a farmer is incidental. All these 
 things are but mere incidents in tne life that you are 
 left here to live. The supreme thing for which you 
 live is to point men to Christ. 
 
 Shall I talk to you about your responsibility? 
 That is, indeed, a solemn question: "'Am I my 
 
52 A PEAYER FOR A REVIVAL 
 
 brother's keeper! " The answer must be that I am 
 his keeper to the last limit of my ability to help him. 
 And by just letting him alone ; by simple neglect, I 
 may become my brother's spiritual murderer. Yonder 
 is a man, let us suppose, dying on the streets of 
 Dallas to-night. You will see him as you go home. 
 He is sick, or drunk and helpless. We will imagine 
 that it is a cold and stormy night. The snow and 
 sleet are falling fast. The man is helpless. He lies 
 in the gutter, all unconscious, it may be, of his awful 
 danger. You look upon him, and pass him by. 
 You must leave him to that awful fate, and in the 
 morning he will be dead. And in the sight of 
 heaven his blood will be required at your hands. 
 You have no right to leave your brother to such a 
 fate as that. Here is a neighbor or a child, or a 
 brother, or a friend in spiritual night, and he does 
 not realize it. He is condemned under the law of 
 God, and he does not apprehend it. He may be in 
 eternity to-morrow, and he does not take it to heart. 
 He is without God, and without hope, and without 
 light, and without life, and without grace, and with- 
 out salvation, and you know it. Leaving him alone, 
 to die in his sins, with such knowledge in your pos- 
 session, means that, going down the dusty way of 
 death, his blood may be required at your hands. 
 
 Do you wish for God to revive you and this church 
 and His people here just as He wishes to do it ? Do 
 you men and women here to-night wish Him to send 
 you that quickening of conscience, that renewal of 
 strength, that restoring of the joy of salvation, that 
 will help you to do what He asks at your hands? 
 Do you wish that ? Do you wish a revival here, just 
 
A PEAYER FOE A EEVIVAL 53 
 
 Ike He wishes it ? What say your hearts f Answer 
 honestly, and we are ready to be dismissed. Every 
 man and woman here who answers back from the 
 heart, ** Before God, I do, to-night, go on record, 
 with His eye upon me, and in the sight of men, that 
 I wish Him to come during these quiet meetings, and 
 absolutely have His way with me and with these 
 meetings, " will now, in this solemn moment, quietly 
 signify such wish by standing. 
 
 (During the solemn pause many quietly rose.) 
 The preacher added: ^'Behold us. Lord, as our 
 solemn wish is now recorded in Thy sight, and in 
 each other's sight. From our hearts we would most 
 fervently pray, ' Wilt Thou not revive us again, that 
 Thy people may rejoice in Thee ? "' 
 
m 
 
 Trumpeting the Gospel 
 (An Anniversary Sermon) 
 
 FEOM Paul's First Letter to the Thessalonians, 
 the first chapter and eighth verse, this sentence 
 is taken for our text : 
 
 " From you sounded out the Word of the Lord, not 
 only in Macedonia and Achaia;, but also in every 
 place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad j so 
 that we need not speak anything.^' 
 
 Paul is here paying a most remarkable compliment 
 to the church at Thessalonica. We shall search in 
 vain in all the Scriptures for a more delicate and beauti- 
 ful, and yet worthy compliment than this paid by Paul 
 to that old-time church. Paul's compliments were 
 worth having. He was no fulsome flatterer. He was 
 discriminating and just, sincere and true ; and there- 
 fore the more beautiful and significant stands out this 
 compliment that Paul paid that church. *' You are 
 a dynamic force for the Gospel," said Paul ; ^^you 
 have made, and are making, an impression for it so 
 wonderful that I do not need to say one word." Did 
 you ever note a more desirable compliment ? 
 
 Some time before this Paul had gone from Philippi, 
 where he had been assaulted, maltreated, beaten, into 
 this heathen city of Thessalonica. When he opened 
 his lips to speak the wonderful words of life, there 
 
 64 
 
TRUMPETING THE GOSPEL 55 
 
 was a remarkable response right in the heart of that 
 heathen capital. Men who served idols, men steeped 
 in the lust of idolatry and in the basest forms of vice 
 that enshrouded that city, heard this man tell about 
 One who came from the Father's house to reveal the 
 Father's love, and who gave Himself to break the 
 shackles from men who would be disenthralled, and 
 who would walk in the sunlight of truth and right- 
 eousness. And they believed that message, and from 
 that hour they voiced it with their noble living. 
 From that hour their lives were fundamentally 
 changed. 
 
 You have noted, haven't you, what an eye Paul 
 had for strategic places ? He was a seer. He had 
 the forecast of the first statesman of the world. He 
 knew that what was done in a city was a thing not 
 done in a corner, but everybody would hear about it 
 and know about it, and feel it, according to whether 
 it should be good or bad. He knew that, and he 
 put that great heart and hand and brain of his on 
 the city. As goes the city so shall go the country 
 and the whole land. The city is the nerve-center 
 and the storm-center of civilization and of Christian- 
 ity. If these cities are not saved, Christianity is lost 
 and all is lost. If these cities are saved the whole 
 land shall be vocal with the songs of heaven. Paul 
 knew that, and that statesman-like eye of his swept 
 those cities of Europe and Asia, and his heart cov- 
 eted those centers, those strongholds for God. 
 
 Let everybody keep his eye on the city. That 
 little remote village yonder, far in the country place, 
 away from the noise and confusion of the city, is 
 vitally interested in what we do here in the city, and 
 
66 TEUMPETING THE GOSPEL 
 
 we must not forget this, nor must they. A road 
 leads from that little village, or from that remote 
 country schoolhouse to the city ; and not only does 
 the road lead here, but the boy out there is coming 
 here, and we shall contaminate him and damn him, 
 or we shall disenthral him and add to his strength 
 and nobleness, and send him back a joy to the old 
 folks that sent him away with so much concern. 
 The little remote country community is vitally in- 
 terested in the city, interested in its laws, interested 
 in it in every respect. There is no drawing a line 
 and saying, *'The city shall stay on this side." It 
 isn't going to do it. *' And the country shall stay 
 OD that side." It isn't going to do it. We are 
 neighbors, and ever becoming more so, mingling and 
 intermingling. We are to plan our deeds of noblest 
 strength right in the heart of the city. Paul did that 
 in Thessalonica, and in the other cities of the time in 
 which he lived, showing what an eye he had for 
 strategic situations. 
 
 Did you notice this expressive word that Paul em- 
 ployed ? We come upon it here for the first time, 
 and I think the only time in the 'New Testament, in 
 its description of the business of a church : ^'From 
 you sounded out the word of life." The church is 
 to be God's trumi)et. ''From you is trumpeted 
 forth the word of life." From this trumpet the word 
 of life is to be sounded forth. A church is God's 
 agency supreme in the world through which His love 
 is revealed and His grace made kuown. That is the 
 busiuess of a church, and here it is strikingly set 
 forth. 
 
 Let us look at two or three vital truths that are 
 
TEUMPETING THE GOSPEL 57 
 
 enwrapped in this compliment Paul pays to the 
 church at Thessalonica. 
 
 And, first, he tells us the kind of men that sounded / 
 out the word of life. The context gives us the de- 
 scription of such men. They were men who pos- 
 sessed the fundamental virtues of the Christian life, 
 the cardinal virtues, the vital virtues — three of them. 
 **Eemembering," said Paul, '* without ceasing, your ^ 
 work of faith, your labor of Igye, and your patience 
 of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ." These are the 
 fundamental, Christian virtues, and these Christians 
 in Thessalonica possess them. "Your work of faith, 
 your labor of love, your patience of hope. " What 
 a trio that, and how fond Paul was of such trios ! 
 In concluding that incomparable chapter on Love, 
 the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, Paul 
 said: "And now abideth faith, hope, love, these 
 three ; but the greatest of these is love. ' ' The abid- 
 ing virtues, the cardinal virtues, the fundamental 
 virtues in a Christian life, were possessed by these 
 Thessalonian Chi'istians, who sounded forth the word 
 of life, about whom Paul spoke so glowingly. 
 
 And Paul further said : ^ ' You were possessed by 
 these virtues; you did not receive the Gospel in A 
 word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, 
 and in much assurance. '' "That is to say," said 
 Paul : "You were absorbed by these great matters ; 
 you took your religion seriously ; you accounted it 
 the first thing in the world to be true followers of 
 God, to be faithful imitators of Christ." And still 
 further, said Paul: "You held constant, you were *^ 
 invariable in the midst of sorest trials." Go read 
 again in the book of the Acts, and see how those 
 
68 TEUMPETING THE GOSPEL 
 
 early ChristiaDS in Thessalouica were assaulted by 
 the mob, how their blood flowed down their backs 
 from the scourgings laid on them by cruel persecu- 
 tors. Mark how they were hunted like the wild 
 beasts on the mountains, how they watched, and yet 
 as they watched, mark how they sang their songs of 
 praise and voiced their hymns of obedience to Jesus ! 
 
 L^Paul said to those Christians: ^' You were constant 
 in the midst of sorest trials ; you did not recant when 
 the battle became fierce ; you did not flee, coward- 
 like, when the stress of the storm was on you ; you 
 were true." Oh, what a tribute was that for Paul 
 to pay a little group of Christians, that they were 
 constant, that they were invariable, that they obeyed 
 without wavering ! What a tribute was that — to 
 the dependable man ! 
 
 I have had occasion to say it before, but I would 
 say it again and again — I care less and less for what 
 you are pleased to term your brilliant man. I care 
 ^^ more and more for your dependable man — the man 
 true in every storm, the man who, when folks dis- 
 cuss him in their little circles and cliques and cau- 
 cuses, must say : ' ' You may put that man down as on 
 the side of right though the heavens fall." Your 
 
 *-^ependable man, your man who is not a weather- 
 vane, your man who does not try to ride two horses 
 at the same time going in opposite directions, he is 
 the salt of the earth, the life-blood of civilization. 
 William Pitt made correct answer when one asked 
 him one day : "Mr. Pitt, what would you pronounce 
 
 •^ the first qualification for a prime minister of Great 
 Britain I " And he said : " The first qualification is 
 patience." Said the questioner : " What would yon 
 
TRUMPETING THE GOSPEL 59 
 
 pronouDce the second qualification for a prime minis- ( 
 ter of Great Britain ? ' ' And Pitt replied : ' ' The sec- 
 ond qualification is patience." *'Well, then," said 
 the questioner, '' what would you pronounce the third 
 qualification?" And he said: *'The third is pa- 
 tience." Wasn't it wisely said? We need patience 
 to hold on, patience to plod, patience to persevere, 
 patience to keep at our work without wavering or 
 fainting. ^'Be thou faithful unto death" — not until 
 death — that isn't what it says, that isn't what it 
 means. "Be thou faithful unto death" — that is, ^1_, 
 die before being unfaithful. Any man ought to 
 
 prefer any hour to die than to play the ignominious ; 
 
 traitor and be unfaithful to the right thing. "Be 
 thou faithful unto death ' ' — die before being unfaith- 
 ful — "and"— note the great promise — " I will give 
 thee the crown of life." Now such were the men 
 to whom Paul paid this incomparable compliment. 
 
 Notice here also the means that they employed for 
 sounding out this word of God, this Gospel of life. 
 The context explains that fully for us. First of all, 
 the chief means for sounding out this conquering ^ 
 Gospel was that such Gospel produced in debauched 
 lives the most marvelous transformations. There is 
 nothing else in the world so moving, so startling, as 
 for a man to be soundly converted by the Gospel ot 
 God. These men of Thessalonica were converted all 
 over, they were fundamentally changed. They had ' 
 long served idols, but when Paul's Gospel came in, 
 breaking those idols into dust, presenting Jesus, the 
 Way, the Truth, and the Life, the Emancipator of 
 sin-driven men, the Life-Bringer, the Hope-Giver — 
 when they heard that, they turned away from their 
 
y 
 
 60 TRUMPETING THE GOSPEL 
 
 idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait 
 for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the 
 dead, even Jesus, who delivered us from the wrath 
 to come. 
 
 There is nothing so wonderful as a true conversion, 
 as for a man to be genuinely saved. We are hearing 
 a great deal these days about all manner of prescrip- 
 tions for advancing Christianity. They are telling us 
 much, these days, about ^'socializing Christianity." 
 I am shy of much of that kind of talk. ^The greatest 
 thing in the world is for the individual man to be 
 saved by the Gospel, for such man to have a Divine 
 power to come into his life and turn him to God. 
 That is the greatest thing in the world. ? The best 
 advertisement for this Gospel which we love is a saved 
 man, living his religion. That is the supreme adver- 
 tisement. ^ Paul said: ''You men are my advertise- 
 ment J you are such a good advertisement I do not 
 need even to speak anything." Did you ever hear 
 of a more wonderful compliment than that % Oh, this 
 is to be our glory, our predominant passion, to see 
 men saved, to see men converted divinely by this 
 glorious Gospel, transformed, changed, saved ! 
 
 I have told you before, I think, of the most remark- 
 able conversion I ever saw. Will you bear with me 
 while I tell you again about it? The occasion was 
 several years ago, in a great outdoor Texas meeting. 
 Conditions religiously were dreadfully hard and bad 
 where such meeting was held. I think I never knew 
 them worse. Men with white locks about their ears 
 were lost, and even their grandchildren followed in 
 forbidden and ruinous paths ; and the few people of 
 God in the community were down and beaten and de 
 
TEUMPETING THE GOSPEL 61 
 
 feated, it seemed. One of the causes for such condi- 
 tions was that a group of men had had a series of 
 little, pesky, religious debates, and the result was 
 that conditions were hard and harsh and bad on 
 every side. 
 
 All these things were recounted in the preacher's 
 ears, as he began the meetings. 1 shall never forget 
 the repeated story of the people there concerning 
 one of their citizens, a man known for a radius of 
 hundreds of miles. I could speak his name, but will 
 not. He would not forbid it, for I could speak it to 
 God's praise. They told me much about this same Big 
 Jim. They said : *• He will come to the meeting once 
 this year ; then he will curse you and the meeting out, 
 and curse the churches, and then he will wait another 
 year to come again. That is his style. You need 
 not waste any preaching on him." They described 
 him so that I could not mistake him — he was the 
 largest man in all that section. One night I stood up 
 to preach, and in came Big Jim. I shall never for- 
 get the emotions that then possessed me. Here was 
 the chief of sinners, so the people said ; what could 
 be done for him ? 
 
 That night I preached, and God's Spirit moved 
 upon the audience mightily, and men with their white 
 locks and stooped shoulders were, like little children, 
 that night turned to the Saviour. Grandfathers that 
 night came, who had walked the wrong way for well- 
 nigh their threescore years and ten. And their grand- 
 children also came. The Spirit of the Lord was upon 
 us in marvelous fashion that night. 
 
 Yonder sat Big Jim like a granite shaft. And 
 when that service was concluded, a little group of 
 
62 TEUMPETIKG THE GOSPEL 
 
 people stayed behind and talked with one anothei 
 about the hour just past, as men are wont to talk over 
 such an occasion. Ever and anon they would refer 
 to Big Jim. They said : ^' He was here to-night, but 
 he won't be back." One said: **I believe he will 
 return ; I never saw him look as he looked to-night." 
 Another said, ''No;" another said, "Yes." Pres- 
 ently after I had left the tabernacle to find the cottage 
 where I slept, as I went along through the quiet 
 woods, I heard some one talking in the darkness of 
 the night. I did not mean to be an eavesdropper. 
 There were two of them talking, oh, so earnestly. 
 They were talking to God. This is what they were 
 saying: "Mighty God, the people are saying that 
 Big Jim is too much for Thee. Oh, break to pieces 
 our unbelief, and let all this country know that God 
 is Master of the situation, that He can save even the 
 chief sinner here ! ' ' They said : ' ' Master, we plead 
 Thy promise to Thy disciples about two who may 
 agree, and if agreeing concerning anything they 
 should ask. Thou wilt hear. We agree that we want 
 Big Jim saved for the glory of God, and to stop the 
 mouths of gainsayers once and forever in all this 
 section." 
 
 I quietly went my way, leaving them thus on theii 
 knees. They did not know that I had heard them, 
 nor do I know who they were. The next day came 
 and wore to evening, and again I stood up to preach, 
 and in came Big Jim again. Yonder he sat at the 
 rear of the tabernacle; and then I said, "Father, 
 give me the word of life for this brother man." 
 
 I told the story of the prodigal son, that restless, 
 wayward lad, who went away from home against the 
 
TEUMPETING THE GOSPEL 63 
 
 protest of love and wisdom's voice, and who went 
 from bad to worse, and down and down, until yonder 
 he is in the swine fields eating of the husks wherewith 
 he fed the swine. One day the prodigal became home- 
 sick and soul -sick and he said : "I have missed it all ; 
 my whole life's course is a grim sarcasm ; I have missed 
 it all. I can do better than this as a servant in my 
 father's house ; and worst of all, worst of all, I have 
 sinned against my best friend, I have sinned against 
 my father who loved me, and I have sinned against 
 my father's God. I will go back and I will tell him 
 all." You know the rest. You know how the fa- 
 ther, whose heart ached forever with an aching that 
 would not stop because the boy was gone, looked one 
 day and saw him coming, and while he was yet a 
 great way off, that father ran to meet him and to fold 
 that thing of rags and shame to his heart, while the 
 ^oy wept and said : '^ Father, I did not come back to 
 'ciSk to be your boy, but to tell you that I have sinned 
 against you and heaven, and that I am not worthy to 
 be called your son, but ask only to have a servant's 
 place." And the father said : ^'Kill the fatted calf 
 for the boy returned ; bring him the best robe ; put 
 on his finger the ring — emblem of love that never 
 dies." That was what I preached. And then I 
 said: ^'I bring you a Gospel to which I have an- 
 chored my very soul ; I am willing to die by it, and 
 I am trying to live by it ; I am going to meet God 
 with it when I stand before Him in the judgment. I 
 came one day and surrendered to that Saviour whom 
 God the Father sent. Is there a man here who will 
 surrender to Him now ? " 
 Big Jim started towards the preacher, and in a mo- 
 
64 TEUMPETING THE GOSPEL 
 
 ment half a thousand men were seeing him and all 
 these rose to their feet. Were they dreaming 1 Was 
 it too good to be true 1 They were on their feet, look- 
 ing, listening, sobbing. Down that long aisle came 
 Big Jim, and when he reached me he caught my 
 hand and said : "I put you on your sacred honor — 
 will Jesus Christ save me if I give up to Him ? " I 
 said : '^ On my sacred honor, I answer that He will.^^ 
 And then he looked at me again while the men, who 
 stood all about us now, were begging him to yield to 
 Christ. He spoke again : ^'But you must remember 
 that I am the worst man out of hell." I answered 
 back: ^'My Saviour died for the worst man out of 
 hell, and He is able to save him now." Once more 
 he looked at me and said : ''When would He save 
 me if I were to surrender myself to Him right now ? " 
 I said : ''On the authority of Jesus Christ, on which 
 I have rested my soul for time and eternity, I declare 
 that He will save you right now, and you yourself 
 may be the judge, if you will fully surrender to Him 
 now." 
 
 Then he turned that great, bronzed face, pitiful in 
 its anguish, up towards the heavens, and gasped this 
 prayer: ''Lord Jesus, the worst man in the world 
 gives up to you right now ! " 
 
 I cannot tell you all the rest. I don't know that 
 the angels could tell it all. But God unloosed hia 
 tongue, and Big Jim witnessed for Jesus then and 
 there as I never heard Him witnessed for before nor 
 since. Old grizzled meu came and kissed Big Jim ; 
 and old women came and kissed him ; and little chil- 
 dren kissed him, for the chief of sinners was saved. / 
 And then the word went to and fro as fast as tE* 
 
TRUMPETING THE GOSPEL 65 
 
 winds could carry it that God was in the midst of the 
 people forgiving sin. 
 
 Gentlemen, one such apologetic as that for Chris- 
 tianity sounds out the gospel word both far and near 
 as can nothing else in all the earth. We will stay 
 by the simple, old-fashioned, supreme vocation of 
 Christ's church, and that is to win men to God. 
 That is the biggest thing in all the world. And 
 when that is done, light will spread and darkness 
 will flee, and righteousness will follow. That was 
 the way the Gospel of old was made victorious. Men 
 were converted to God and others soon heard the 
 gladsome news, and themselves were led to ask the 
 way of life. 
 
 Then, again, these Thessalonians, by their lives, 
 attested their profession. Their profession was vin- 
 dicated by their lives. Paul said: '^Your life has 
 been so glorious, you have been such an inspiration, 
 such a blessing, such an example to all the people 
 throughout all Greece, north and south, that I do not 
 3ven need to say a word in defense of the Gospel, 
 fou are the Gospel embodied, you are the Gospel in- 
 carnated in lives, you are the Gospel lighting up a 
 house that was once inhabited by black evil things, 
 and now shines to the praise of God." Their lives 
 attested their profession. 
 
 Here is the best argument for Christianity : The 
 right kind of a Christian — mark you, the right kind 
 of a Christian. He is the one unanswerable, in- 
 vulnerable argument for Christianity in this world— 
 the right kind of a Christian. These men said, 
 wherever they went throughout Greece, north and 
 south, all through Macedonia^ all through Achaia, 
 
66 TEUMPETING THE GOSPEL 
 
 wherever they went, they said : ** We were de- 
 bauched, we were bad, we were enslaved, we were 
 handicapped by sin, we were depraved. We ac- 
 cepted Christ, and He changed our natures ; we are 
 now new men." And their lives said it much louder 
 than anything their lips could say. That is the power 
 of the Gospel. 
 
 Oh, my fellow Christians, that is its irresistible 
 power. You can feel some men, the Christian ele- 
 ment in them is so strong. That was the glory of 
 Phillips Brooks. You could not analyze his preach- 
 ing, it is often said, but you could feel him. That 
 was the glory of Robert E. Lee, that matchless man of 
 Southern history. That was the glory of William 
 Pitt, Prime Minister of Great Britain. That was the 
 glory of Washington, Father of His Country. That 
 is the glory of many a little modest man, and many a 
 little shrinking woman, whose life is radiant with the 
 sunlight of sincerity, and with a glorious enduement 
 of God^s goodness and truth and grace. These men 
 of old thus lived their religion. 
 
 There was another thing that was conquering in 
 their Christian character, and that was their faith 
 was as clear as the sunlight, and as enduring as a 
 granite mountain. Their faith — what a vital word is 
 that ! What a vital word that is for these times, with 
 all the theological millinery we have about us, and all 
 the fads and fancies, the cults and innovations ! 
 Their faith was as clear as the sunlight, as unshak- 
 able as Gibraltar. These men knew what they be- 
 lieved, and why, and they were able to give to every 
 man they met an answer for that marvelous hope that 
 illumined their way, and transformed their lives. 
 
TEUMPETING THE GOSPEL 67 
 
 I would summon you to-day, my fellow Christians, 
 to be clear in your faith. Know what you believe 
 concerning the things of religion, and why. The 
 man who speaks with the accent of sincerity and 
 definiteness is the man of power. Eemember the 
 apostle's question : *'If the trumpet give an uncer- ^- 
 tain sound '^ — (and remember we are trumpets for 
 Christ) — "if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, 
 who shall prepare himself to the battle?" Your 
 testimony for God is to be clear and unhesitating and 
 certain. Alas ! that some Christiaus in their faith 
 are like Eeuben of old, unstable as water, and like 
 him, too, it maybe said of each of them: "Thou \^ 
 Shalt not excel." Be clear in your faith. Don't be 
 religious mugwumps. Jesus was the very Prince ol 
 dogmatists, and His apostles after Him were to the 
 last degree dogmatic in their faith. Listen to Peter : 
 * ' Neither is there salvation in any other ; for there is 
 none other name under heaven given among men, 
 whereby we must be saved." That is dogmatic. 
 Listen to John, that disciple of love and gentleness. ^ 
 "Who is the liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the 
 Christ ? This is the anti- Christ, even he that denieth 
 the Father and the Son." Listen to Paul: "But 
 though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any 
 other gospel unto you than that we have preached 
 unto you, let him be accursed." And to increase the 
 emphasis, he repeats it in the next verse. Oh, my 
 fellow Christians, on this tremendous matter of 
 religious faith we want to be as clear as the sun- 
 light, and as unshakable as the everlasting hills. 
 " ^Tis conviction that convinces." 
 
 Take Carl Marx. He is the most dogmatic and 
 
68 TRUMPETING THE GOSPEL 
 
 pronounced personality that Germany has produced 
 in a hundred years — that noted Socialist leader. 
 Mighty passions and convictions and beliefs have 
 surged in his life, and he has put the stamp of his 
 forceful personality throughout all Germany and 
 Europe, and the world. Certainly you do not agree 
 and I do not agree with many of his teachings ; but 
 when a man with the passion and the conviction and 
 the personality and the power of Carl Marx goes 
 across the world, men will feel him. And there are 
 ten thousand fires burning in human hearts to-day be- 
 cause Carl Marx believed something. And the world 
 is studying this hour, in a way never before, the 
 teachings of Socialism, because Carl Marx believed 
 something. 
 
 Take the Eoman Catholic Church. She has two 
 special dogmas, which, both in season, and out of sejv 
 son, she proclaims : The dogma of the church, and the 
 dogma of the mass. We cannot in the remotest de- 
 gree accept her teachings concerning the church and 
 concerning the mass ; and yet that great body con 
 cerning which I would not willingly say one im- 
 proper or unjust word — that great body goes through 
 the earth proclaiming that the church should be 
 supreme in the regulation of all human conduct, in 
 the home, in society, in things political, everywhere. 
 Tou stand amazed, as do I, that such dogma should 
 have advocates. And you are the more amazed at 
 their other dogma that simple bread and wine are 
 actually changed into the very body and blood of 
 Jesus, their doctrine of transubstantiatiou, after the 
 blessing of such bread and wine, by the proper 
 ecclesiastic. And yet that mighty ecclesiasticism, 
 
TEUMPETING THE GOSPEL 69 
 
 through the centuries, has boldly taught these two 
 dogmas, and has put the impress of such teachings in 
 every land beneath the stars. They believe some- 
 thing — that explains it. I honor them, while utterly 
 differing from them, for persisting evermore in urg- 
 ing those amazing dogmas, because they believe 
 them. 
 
 And in the other days, when Martin Luther, that 
 immortal Protestant, who before was a Catholic 
 priest, came to believe the God-honoring doctrine 
 that men are not justified by human works, nor by 
 human righteousness of any sort, but that they are 
 justified by faith in Jesus Christ, Luther went out 
 and — aforetime a devout Eomanist — Luther went out 
 and proclaimed the doctrine of justification by faith 
 in such a way that he wrested Germany from the 
 hands of the Pope, and thrilled the world with his 
 mighty pronouncement of Protestantism. He be- 
 lieved something, and he avowed it. When he had 
 determined to go to the Diet of Worms, and men 
 tried to keep him from going because he would go 
 in the face of probable death, together with every 
 threatened punishment, he answered them back : 
 ''If there were as many devils as there are tiles on 
 every roof in Wurtemberg, I can but go and say what 
 my soul knows to be true.^' He believed something. 
 
 My fellow men, let us have a faith that does not 
 change with every change of the moon. John Knox 
 put his marvelous personality on Scotland and on 
 every other land beneath the sun because he believed 
 something. He rescued Scotland from the grip of 
 unbelief because he believed something. And John 
 Knox's daughter, Jane Welch, when they offered her 
 
70 TEUMPETING THE GOSPEL 
 
 her husband^ s freedom if he would recant, answered 
 like this: ^*I would sooner have my husband's 
 severed head brought me in a charger than for him 
 to deny the things he has taught and believed." Oh, 
 for a generation of great believers I 
 
 But there was another all important thing about 
 these early Christians. They attested their faith by 
 their deeds. They proved their religion by their 
 worka. They vindicated their hope by their deeds. 
 That is the apologetic that we must have— just that. 
 All my time could be spent on that one simple point. 
 But I leave it after referring to just one incident in 
 the life of David Brainerd. That Christly missionary 
 to the Indians, when he became so old and weak and 
 crippled with rheumatism that it seemed that there 
 was nothing else that he could do but wait there in 
 his little hut and die, was found one day kneeling on 
 the floor, too feeble to sit in his chair, teaching a little 
 Indian girl her A B C's. And men said : *^ What ! 
 Has it come to this? The great David Brainerd 
 down on the floor teaching a little Indian girl her 
 A B C's ! " And he said : '' Happy if with my latest 
 breath I may but be permitted even to teach a little 
 Indian girl her A B O's." 
 
 You will make the application, won't you, of this 
 old-time text? Every church, I remarked in the 
 beginning, is to be a trumpet for Jesus Christ — to 
 voice the word and love of Jesus Christ. My beloved 
 people here of this flock, you will make the applica- 
 tion. The church at Thessalonica was inevitably 
 situated to influence many people. How like youi 
 own ! Thessalonica was a city of telling commerce. 
 How like your own city here ! The roads were manj 
 
TRUMPETING THE GOSPEL 71 
 
 that came and went to Thessalonica. How like your 
 own ! And the blows struck for Jesus Christ yon- 
 der in Thessalonica sounded out throughout all the 
 province of Macedonia. Even so, a light here prop- 
 erly given will send its rays far and near. A 
 testimony here properly given will go far beyond 
 your own circles. Like Paul, who was a patriot, as 
 every man ought to be, you can say to-day : ^' I am 
 a citizen of no mean city. " And by reason of that 
 very position that you have, you are called upon to 
 sound out the word of life, of righteousness and truth 
 in every blessed and glorious way. 
 
 God has providentially thrust you into an exceed- 
 ingly responsible place. Do not shrink from it. Oh, 
 certainly there are times when you want to flee to the 
 woods never to come back, but you can't. God has 
 providentially thrust you into the gaze of the people, 
 far and near, and you are called upon all the more to 
 witness worthily for Jesus Christ. Here in Dallas 
 are several of our denominational Boards. Here is 
 your State Mission Board doing the largest state 
 mission work in all the world. Here also is your 
 Woman's Work, in its official organization. Here 
 also is your Young People's Board. Here is your 
 denominational paper. Here is your great Sanita- 
 rium. Then God has given us this noble church, 
 with her more than two thousand members. What 
 a host of people ! And your fear sometimes is as 
 mine, that this church will be a hospital of people 
 not active, instead of a barrack of soldiers aggressive 
 for God. 
 
 And then think of the army of strangers within 
 our gates. I have often wondered if our ministry to 
 
72 TEUMPETING THE GOSPEL 
 
 the strangers is not broader than our ministry to oui 
 own homes and firesides ; for scarcely a day passes 
 that some stranger near or far does not write to 
 give grateful testimony to the blessing brought 
 him in this worship with us here. By all these 
 facts we are called upon to be the right kind of 
 men and women. Then see our various church 
 agencies of this one church. See the Sunday-school, 
 the supreme opportunity of the church. To save 
 a boy is an incomparably bigger thing than to save 
 a man. To save a girl is more important than 
 to save a woman, for you save a life as well as a 
 soul when you save a child. Here too are our or- 
 ganizations for our hosts of young people. Here too 
 are the multitudes of women with their many and 
 mighty forces. There is nothing more pitiful than 
 for a woman saved through the blood of Christ tc 
 have her energies diverted into some little, narrow 
 shallow channel of selfishness, to gratify some smal^^ 
 passing impulse. Some time ago a cultured woman 
 came to her pastor, not in Dallas, I am glad to 
 remark, to say there was a Buddhist lecturer in the 
 city, and to ask if the pastor would not let the 
 Buddhist lecturer have the pulpit from which to ex- 
 ploit Buddhism. The pastor was amazed beyoL^ all 
 speech, and said so, that a woman, given her position 
 in this country, of happiness and honor — given such 
 position by Jesus Christ — would wish her pastor to 
 offer his pulpit for the exploitation of Buddhism, 
 when a woman in Buddhist countries slavishly waits 
 on her husband, is not worthy to eat at the same 
 table with him, gets such crumbs only as he chooses 
 to give, and is taught that she does not have any soul 
 
TEUMPETING THE GOSPEL 73 
 
 at all. What a tragedy it is when a woman, whose 
 chief charm is her religion, is diverted from her 
 church life into little, shallow, narrow channels of 
 til ought and activity. What a tragedy when her life 
 is taken up with religious cults and fads and isms, 
 and the deep practical things of Christianity are 
 forgotten. 
 
 I summon the Christian women who are here to- 
 day, given their incomparable position by the blood 
 of the Sou of God — I summon them to give their 
 best to Jesus Christ and to His church. And these 
 men, these saved men, I summon them to give their 
 best to Jesus and His church. My fellow men, if 
 Jesus Christ loved the church enough to die for it, 
 you audi surely ought to love it enough to live for it. 
 There are two great organizations in the world — there 
 are not many that are worth a great deal ; there are 
 two that are absolutely invaluable, the home and the 
 church. If you and I are to plant our labors in life 
 where they will count for the most, then let us conse- 
 crate our best labors for the home and for the church. 
 The home has been wretchedly neglected. I might 
 mention a host of agencies at work for the redemp- 
 tion of children that would have been made unneces- 
 sary by the right kind of homes. The church also 
 Vas been sadly neglected. 
 
 It is a day of organizations now. Sometimes I have 
 wondered if some men could find enough space on 
 their coats to put all the buttons of the various 
 organizations to which they belong. I have not a 
 word of railing to say against such organizations, but 
 I would say, my fellow Christian men, that in these 
 short lives that you and I are to live, we ought to 
 
 
T4 TEUMPETING THE GOSPEL 
 
 link our lives with those organizations that will count 
 the most, and with the organizations that are of most 
 vital value to a needy world. Let us invest our 
 lives, our love, our money, our service, not so that 
 the fruits and influences therefrom shall be evanes- 
 cent like some passing cloud of the morning, but so 
 that they may abide through all the coming years 
 and forevermore. I summon you to give your best 
 to Christ, your best to Christ to-day and always. 
 
 I have been with you many years. Oh, I know 
 the stress and the travail of th^ preacher's life. I 
 have gone to my room a thousand times and asked 
 God if I might be released from it all ; and then the 
 instant the words escaped my lips I have hastened 
 to say : ^' Nay, Lord, nay, only give me grace to be 
 the preacher I ought to be ! " Every waking hour I 
 sing : 
 
 " Happy if with my latest breath, 
 I may but speak Thy name ; 
 Preach Christ to all, and gasp in death, 
 Behold, behold the Lamb." 
 
 My grandfather was a preacher through the long, 
 long years. In his last illness his affliction was such 
 that he could not lie on his bed for one moment for 
 many days. But people came to him for a region of 
 forty or fifty miles, and there sitting in his chair, 
 with his last expiring breath, he preached Christ 
 Jesus, the world's one and only, but all-sufflcient 
 Saviour. I should like to go like that to the last, to 
 the last, witnessing for Jesus. O my fellow Chris- 
 tians, I summon you to give Christ your best of love, 
 of service, of life. His is the most virile, the most 
 
TEUMPETING THE GOSPEL 75 
 
 masculine, the most heroic, the sublimest business on 
 earth — the making of His Gospel victorious every- 
 where. Give Him your best, your best, your best, 
 forevermore. 
 
 O my fellow Christians of this church, a church 
 dearer to me than my heart's blood, God knows — my 
 fellow Christians of this church, I summon you anew 
 to-day to give your best to Christ ; to be done with 
 all playing at your religion ; to be done with all 
 lukewarmness. I summon you to come with the red 
 rich blood of human sympathy for all mankind, for 
 good and bad, for high and low, for rich and poor, 
 and give your best to win this city and state and 
 world to Jesus, so that you may hear that plaudit 
 which it were worth worlds at last to hear, *^Well 
 done, thou good and faithful servant." 
 
IV 
 
 A New Testament Good Man 
 
 Text: **He was a good man, and full of the 
 Holy Ghost and of faith ; and much people was 
 added to the Lord." — Acts xi. 24. 
 
 THIS is Luke's description of Barnabas. A 
 name is often the mirror of the nature be- 
 hind the name. Barnabas means ^ ' the son 
 of consolation." This name was given him by the 
 apostles to indicate the kind of man that they esteemed 
 him to be, and that he really was. Luke's descrip- 
 tion of Barnabas is one of the briefest, and yet, at the 
 same time, one of the most comprehensive ever given 
 <3oncerning any life. ^' He was a good man, and full 
 of the Holy Ghost and of faith j and much people 
 was added unto the Lord." 
 
 It is the Bible portrait of one of the most useful 
 men of which the Scriptures give any account. *' He 
 was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of 
 faith." This word ^' good " employed here by Luke 
 is not accidentally employed. It is the very word 
 that Luke meant to use. When he characterized 
 Barnabas as a good man, he meant exactly what he 
 said. You search in vain in the Bible for many 
 tributes as high as i? this tribute paid by Luke to 
 Barnabas. The Bible is very careful about its tributes 
 to men. Now and then there are the outflashings of 
 
 76 
 
A NEW TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 77 
 
 commendation and of approval, of splendid tributes 
 to men in the Bible, but yet not as many as you 
 might at first suppose. Exceedingly careful is the 
 Bible about the use of this word **good," as applied 
 to any man or to any thing. Luke, however, did not 
 misuse it. He meant to use this word, and it is 
 exactly the right word. We are very careless about 
 our use of that word ^^good.'^ It is a very strong 
 word, and should not be hawked about with careless, 
 indiscriminate use. We often talk about a '^good 
 man," when he comes far short of being a good man. 
 And the world talks about '^ good fellows," meaning, 
 maybe, that they are genial, or that they treat people 
 to a cigar, or something a good deal more hurtful 
 than a cigar ; meaning that they are hale fellows well 
 met, and not meaning good in any blessed sense at 
 all. Luke, when he uses the word ' ' good ' ^ with 
 reference to Barnabas, uses the right word. He did 
 not mean, to be sure, that Barnabas was a perfect 
 man. He would have badly missed it if he had made 
 any such claim for Barnabas. We read further along 
 in the story of this man Barnabas how he missed per- 
 fection quite badly. You recall that he and the 
 noble Paul had a '' sharp contention " one day. Hot 
 words followed. I do not know which was to blame 
 — perhaps both. It is generally that way. When 
 there is a serious difficulty, generally two people are 
 to blame instead of just one. At any rate, in this 
 case, sharp words were spoken by these two men. It 
 was a " sharp contention,'^ so the Scriptures describe 
 it, and then they parted asunder, one going his way, 
 and the other his. So there is the revelation of the 
 fact that this man was not any perfect man. The Bible 
 
78 A NEW TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 
 
 does not make any such claim for any man. It 
 distinctly repudiates that claim. *' If we say that we 
 have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is 
 not in us." '* There is not a just man upon the earth 
 that doeth good, and sinneth not." But when the 
 Bible speaks of a good man it looks at the tenor of 
 his life, at the great, absorbing, all-controlling drift 
 and tendency of his being, and with that view Barna- 
 bas measured up nobly, for he was a good man. The 
 Bible speaks of David as a man *' after God's own 
 heart." Did it mean that he was perfect ? Alas ! it 
 meant nothing of the sort. He was far from perfect. 
 Three of the most fearful crimes in all the catalogue 
 of crimes are laid at the door of this man David. He 
 was a traitor. Can there be anything much more 
 heinous than to be a traitor ? David was a murderer. 
 The blood of another man's hands was on his own. 
 He was an adulterer. Treachery, murder, adultery ! 
 These three black crimes, so closely linked with one 
 another, were laid at David's door. Did the Bible 
 mean to indicate that he was a man without blemish 
 or sin? Nothing of the sort. It meant that in 
 David's life, taken as a whole, there was a strug- 
 gle and an inclination after the good, and despite 
 the fearful sins into which he was so suddenly 
 plunged, indescribably awful, David did feel out 
 after the good, and after the will of God. And you 
 will make a fundamental mistake in studying the life 
 of David if you leave out of it his incomparable con- 
 fession in the Fifty-first Psalm. Never has there 
 been penned a confession of sin as deep as that in the 
 Fifty-first Psalm. Note some of its utterances: 
 "Have mercy upon me, O God, aceording to Thy 
 
A NEW TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 79 
 
 ioviDg kindness. According unto the multitude of 
 Thy tender mercies, blot out all my transgressions. 
 
 "Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and 
 cleanse me from my sins j for I acknowledge my 
 transgiessions j and my sin is ever before me. 
 Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done 
 this evil in Thy sight. 
 
 "Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. 
 Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Thou 
 desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it j Thou de- 
 lightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God 
 are a broken spirit ; a broken and a contrite heart, 
 O God, Thou wilt not despise.'* 
 
 There Dcver was a confession penned in the world 
 that was as deep as is the confession of David in this 
 Psalm. So you will altogether misinterpret the real 
 character of David if you do not include him in the 
 Fifty-first Psalm. The Bible nowhere means to in- 
 timate that any man is sinless in the flesh. Luke 
 does not mean it here. 
 
 Luke goes on after employing this word * ^ good ' ' 
 with reference to Barnabas, and pictures his char- 
 acter still further : "He was full of the Holy Ghost 
 and of faith. ' ' This indicates his spiritual intensity 
 —"full of the Holy Ghost." "Full," that is, he 
 was God-possessed. He was filled with the Divine 
 Spirit. And that explains the spiritual life that he 
 lived, as it was crowned with noble deeds. Have 
 you sometimes seen a noble river bed, wide and 
 deep, and yet the drought has come, and the water 
 has become lower, and the stream is narrower and 
 thinner, and all along in the river bed trash accumu- 
 lates, and evil things hide and lurk ? What a piC' 
 
80 A NEW TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 
 
 ture is that of the religious life largely devoid of the 
 Spirit of God. And then have you seen that river 
 bed filled with water ? The heavens have emptied 
 their abundant rains, and the waters have accumu- 
 lated and gathered until that great bed is filled to 
 overflowing, and all the accumulated trash is swept 
 before that mighty stream, as it rolls on to the sea. 
 That is the picture of Barnabas. He was full to 
 overflowing of the Holy Ghost. Men may to-day be 
 full of the Holy Ghost just as Bar d abas was. Men 
 may have, and ought to have their lives guided and 
 dominated to-day by the Spirit of God as really as 
 did Barnabas. It is all a mistake that God's people 
 may not have the guidance and the power of the 
 Holy Ghost to-day, even as they had it in the olden 
 time. I do not speak, of course, of the unusual signs 
 that were sometimes in the Spirit's workings, in the 
 apostolic times, but I do speak of the vitally essential 
 fact of the Spirit in the Christian's life to give guid- 
 ance and wisdom and light and power and strength. 
 Without His help, all our work is utterly futile. 
 We may daily have His help if we rightly ask for it. 
 Barnabas was also full of faith. The Lord Jesus 
 Christ was no empty abstraction to Barnabas. He 
 was no visionary, far-off theory. Jesus was real to 
 Barnabas. He looked to Him to save him, and then 
 he looked to Him to be the inspiration and guide of 
 his whole life. Christ was gloriously real. His 
 claims were real. His purposes in the world were 
 real. The conquering power of His kingdom among 
 men, these all were vitally real to Barnabas. He 
 was "full of faith," as well as ''full of the Holjf 
 Ghost." And men of heroic faith move the world. 
 
A NEW TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 81 
 
 Abraham was a mau of such faith. Sitting yonder 
 under the oaks of Mamre, Abraham was the might- 
 iest mau of his time, because he implicitly believed 
 God. Paul was a mau of such faith, and no man 
 about him could compare with him, because he be- 
 lieved God. Since Barnabas was a man "full of 
 faith," as well as '' full of the Holy Ghost," you are 
 prepared for Luke's further statement: "Much 
 people was added unto the Lord." Given a man 
 with such a character, with such a basis, and you 
 are prepared for the result, ' ' Much people added 
 unto the Lord," as the outcome of his labors. 
 
 And, now, let us look a little more carefully to see 
 the evidences, the fruits, the proofs, that Barnabas 
 was the good man, the spiritual man, that Luke de- 
 scribes him to be. What are these fruits ? There 
 are several that appear right on the surface of the 
 Scriptures. Here is the^jgt ; Baruabas_was a man 
 of the noblest generosity. That is our first intro- 
 duction to him. Back there in that remarkable 
 meeting that was sweeping the Jerusalem church, 
 and in which Barnabas was brought to Christ, the 
 very first revelation we have of this man Barnabas 
 was an expression of the noblest generosity of which 
 he was capable. The Scriptures say that having 
 land, he sold it and brought the price thereof and 
 laid it down at the apostles' feet, and joined himself 
 from that hour to the company of believers, and from 
 that hour went out a poor man, like Paul. Surely 
 that is a practical evidence that he was a good man. 
 Can a very covetous man be much of a good man ? 
 It will pinch him to be a good man at all. Can a 
 miserly, stingy, penurious^ hard-fisted man be a goocJ 
 
82 A NEW TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 
 
 man ? Won't it drive him to the last ditch to begin 
 to make such a claim as that ? He may be clever. 
 He may be smart. He may be witty. He may be 
 aggressive. He may be inflaential. He may be 
 powerful. But is he a good man? So the very 
 first fruits, the very first intimation of the character 
 of this man Barnabas is voiced in Luke's descrip- 
 tion, given in the fourth chapter of Acts, of his 
 noble expression of generosity in the gift of his 
 goods to the cause of Christ. I pause on that a mo- 
 ment more. The bondage of money is the most self- 
 ish bondage that ever puts its grip on the human 
 heart. There are fearful expressions of bondage 
 otherwise j the bondage of some awful habit, the 
 bondage to lust, the bondage to this thing or that, 
 fearful expressions of bondage here and there, as you 
 can think of them now. But the most galling and 
 selfish of all the expressions of bondage the world 
 ever heard of is the bondage to money. Oh, I 
 tremble for every Christian that I ever see rapidly 
 making money ! Nor do I stop at trembling. God 
 is my witness. As a matter of conscience, I pray for 
 every such person, that he may not be drowned with 
 the love of money, for it is the root of every kind oi 
 evil in the world. This man Barnabas was a mavt 
 that mastered his money, and any man who masters 
 his money is the master of the situation. Any man 
 whose money masters him is the most fearful slave 
 that to-day cringes before any altar in the world. 
 And, remember, a man may be mastered by a few 
 hundred dollars as well as by a million. A man 
 with just a few hundred dollars is often pulled 
 around by the nose just as really as the man of 
 
A NEW TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 83 
 
 millions. It was a most meaningful thing when, 
 years ago, in one of the large churches, some- 
 body sent from the audience a little note to the 
 preacher, saying: "The prayers of the church are 
 desired for a young man in the congregation who is 
 rapidly making money. '^ There could not have been 
 a more timely prayer offered in that congregation. 
 Years ago, when one of the large Eastern merchants 
 sent his ships on the high seas carrying the com- 
 merce for the nations, one ship was due on a certain 
 day, and did not appear, carrying $40,000 worth of 
 goods. The merchant found himself restlessly pacing 
 the floor, with the cold perspiration on his forehead, 
 so anxious was he about that ship. Day after day 
 passed beyond the time for its arrival, and no tid- 
 ings came, and he was in an agony about it, until 
 one day it dawned upon him : "I am a slave to my 
 money. I am now in abject bondage to it." And 
 then the fearful revelation shocked him to the 
 depths, whereupon he sat down immediately and 
 wrote out for the noble causes and institutions of 
 his city his checks for $40,000, the amount of goods 
 on that ship, saying : " I discover that my money is 
 actually my master. From this hour I will master 
 it, by the grace of God.'' 
 
 A man who can master his money has gone a long 
 way towards the right mastery, and a man right 
 about this question of money is likely to be right or 
 easily led to do the right on every other question of 
 religion. A Christian man wrong on the question of 
 his money is likely to be seriously wrong on every 
 other question in religion. Now that is putting it 
 strongly, but I do unhesitatingly believe every word 
 
84 A NEW TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 
 
 I am saying, and I would have these younger men^ 
 as well as the older ones, to-day to lay it to heart. A 
 man right on the question of his stewardship to God, 
 with his material possessions, is likely to be right on 
 every question that comes up in his religious life. 
 But the man wrong there is likely to be warped and 
 distorted and wrong everywhere in his religious life. 
 I pray you, then, to see that vital lesson that flashes 
 out here in the life story of Barnabas. Oh, how I 
 thank God for the exhibitions here in our own con- 
 gregation, from time to time, of the mastery that men 
 in this congregation have over their material pos- 
 sessions ! It seems as easy for some of you to give as 
 to drink water on a thirsty day. You are growing 
 in grace and enlarging in the noblest things of the 
 heart. But I must not tarry longer on this good 
 showing that Barnabas makes on giving. 
 
 Here is another. He was a missionary to the core. 
 When the news came that the Gentiles were being 
 converted, the Jerusalem church sent Barnabas down 
 to Antioch to see about that strange thing. You must 
 remember that in the beginning these Jewish Chris- 
 tians had short-sighted visions. They believed in the 
 Jew, and did not believe in anybody else. They had 
 narrow views ; believed that they were the people of 
 God, and besides them there were no others. So the 
 news came of a great work of grace down in Antioch, 
 an alien community, and this church said : *' Barna- 
 bas, you might go down and see about it.^' And, so, 
 Barnabas went down, and the Scriptures say that 
 when he came he saw the grace of God doing its 
 work, and he rejoiced. Nor did he stop at that. 
 The Scriptures say that he began exhorting them, 
 
A NEW TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 85 
 
 with all his might, to cleave unto the Lord. He was 
 a missionary to the core. The missionary is not a 
 selfish man. The missionary has the heart of the 
 Saviour of the world. The missionary's vision is not 
 circumscribed. The true missionary sees every 
 human being in all this great, wide world. Barna- 
 bas was a missionary. The real missionary cannot 
 be a narrow man. His heart feels and prays and 
 yearns and resolves, and would help humanity every- 
 where. 
 
 And, then, see again his devoted life to Christjs 
 cause. Oh, he was apostolic in his work ! Brethren, 
 we must remember that there is such a thing as being 
 apostolic in work as well as in doctrine. We talk 
 about doctrine, and certainly that is well. The man 
 who would be careless about the doctrine is a great 
 fool, or worse than a fool. It matters what a man 
 believes. The men who are great Christians are 
 great in doctrine. They have a basis for their 
 religious life. But there is such a thing as being 
 apostolic in work as well as in doctrine. Our 
 emphasis is not all to be put upon the fact that we 
 are to be apostolic in doctrine. Are we apostolic in 
 work? Do we put ourselves out in self-denying 
 service for other people ? Do we go forth laboring 
 for Jesus, not esteeming our lives dear to ourselves ? 
 Do we labor to help others, not counting our own in- 
 terests at all ? Oh, let us be apostolic in work as well 
 as in doctrine ! Barnabas was that sort of a man. 
 
 And, still again, Barnabas, in his name, gives us 
 another important indication 15f the blessedness of his 
 life. Barnabas was a ''son of consolation.^' He 
 was true to that expression. Because he was true to 
 
86 A NEW TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 
 
 it, the apostles surnamed him Barnabas, meaning 
 "a son of consolation.^' Isn't that a fine phrase for 
 you — '* a son of consolation " ? What genius a man 
 has who has the genius of comforting and consoling 
 the people ! Christianity is vigorous consolation. 
 Christianity means comfort to the people. Christian- 
 ity is not an oppressive thing, taking the heart and 
 the hope and the life and the peace out of men. Oh, 
 it is just the opposite. It is to hearten and to inspire 
 and to uplift the sons of men. What a genius, then, 
 a good man has when he has the genius of consola- 
 tion ! He is the man needed both in Church and in 
 State. Oh, these pessimistic croakers in politics, 
 what shall I say of them ? They make us weary. 
 These calamity howlers, these fellows who see the 
 bottom dropping out of everything, these men who 
 are always croaking and whining and grumbling, 
 may their tribe decrease ! The man who can put 
 heart and hope into others, the man who can see the 
 bright side of the cloud, the man who can lift up 
 lofty visions and noble ideals for his state, there is 
 your statesman, and there is your man to follow. 
 The man who, when the people are down, has the 
 genius of saying the right thing to them, the man 
 who can transform a state with constructive consola- 
 tion, he is the man to lead the people. Senator 
 Brown did it in Georgia. When the old state lay 
 withered and prostrate and bleeding at the close of 
 the war of the States, that man of such remarkable 
 common sense, and that man of dauntless optimism, 
 stood up and largely transformed Georgia in the af- 
 fairs of state. 
 The man with the genius for consoling in the no 
 
A NEW TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 87 
 
 blest seuse, how much such a man means in the affairs 
 of Church ! Mr. Spurgeon said he had one blind 
 man in his church, and now and then spells came 
 over his church, as come over many a church, when 
 the people's lips hung down, and when they whined 
 and cried and groaned. Spurgeon said that on such 
 occasions the blind man got up and said just the thing 
 that went through his church like an electric shock, 
 and brought them back to their senses. Oue day the 
 blind man asked them if God was dead ; he would 
 like to know. One day he asked if Jesus had va- 
 cated the world and let Satan have it ; he wanted to 
 know. And with words like that, with a genius al- 
 ways for saying the right thing, he put heart and 
 hope and spirit into the great church. Now, Barna- 
 bas had that same genius, after the noblest sort of 
 fashion. Christianity is vigorous comfort. And one 
 of the most beautiful designations, given far back be- 
 fore the coming of Christ, of Christ when He should 
 come, was this : "The consolation of Israel." And 
 one of the most beautiful titles given the Almighty 
 is this : ' ' The God of all comfort.' ' Barnabas teaches 
 us here a lesson of priceless moment. He knew the 
 word to speak in season to the man disheartened. 
 He knew the word to say to hearten and to inspire 
 and to give courage and strength, rather than the op- 
 posite. Have you paused to consider the power of 
 words? Men can undo you with their words. They 
 can take the heart out of you. They can take the blood 
 out of you. They can lay you prostrate. Or they 
 can lift you up and send you out, buoyant and leap- 
 ing as a strong man to run a race, with their worda 
 Let Barnabas teach us all at this vital point. 
 
88 A NEW TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 
 
 Then, we need to see, also, that this man Barnabas 
 was absolutely free from the mean spirit of jealousy 
 or envy. You remember when they started out on 
 their missionary tours it was Barnabas and Saul — 
 Barnabas first — but a little later Saul overshadowed 
 him. Then it was Saul and Barnabas always after 
 that. How did this man bear it ! He was perfectly 
 content to walk in Paul's shadow. He did not com- 
 pare in ability with Paul, and he was perfectly con- 
 tent to be subordinate to Paul's superior leadership. 
 There is not a single intimation of his jealousy towards 
 this young and rising man, not one. An envious man 
 is a little man. You cannot make anything else out 
 of him. He is a little man. He may be smart. He 
 may be clever. He may be witty, and talk fluently, 
 but he is a little man. An envious man is a danger- 
 ous man. Paul was a tremendously great man, and 
 Barnabas knew it, and Barnabas was the man to put 
 Paul to the front everywhere. Barnabas said : ^'I 
 will play second fiddle gladly. God made me to play 
 it. Who am I to be mouthing about it 1 This man 
 is incomparably greater and stronger than I am. I 
 will walk in his shadow. I will reinforce him. I will 
 make his work greater. I will do for this man every- 
 thing I can." Such a man is himself a mighty man 
 in the kingdom of God. It takes a great man to do 
 that. And along with Paul's name down the ages 
 forever will be linked the name of Barnabas. 
 
 Have you ever thought what Paul might have been 
 without Barnabas ? O Paul, probably the best friend 
 you ever had, next to Jesus, was Barnabas. Barna- 
 bas had that spiritual insight that discerned God's 
 man. Somebody speaks of it as the insight of th€ 
 
A NEW TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 89 
 
 Spirit of God. Barnabas had it. Barnabas tided 
 Paul over his hard places. You remember two occa- 
 sions, especially, when Barnabas stood for Paul, two 
 momentous occasions in Paul's life. Paul had been 
 converted down on the Damascus road, and went at 
 once to preaching, you remember. After a while, he 
 came back to the church at Jerusalem, and those 
 people were dubious of him. They were afraid of 
 him. He was a man who had made sore trouble for 
 them. He had persecuted the church. He had been 
 a terror to them, and they were exceedingly afraid of 
 him. Barnabas, with that spiritual discernment that 
 he had, said: ^^Come, brethren, this is God's man." 
 Barnabas stood for him. Barnabas got in behind 
 him. Barnabas tided him over that rough place. 
 That is a man worth while. Oh, how valuable are 
 these men in a church, or women, who can discern 
 the Christ in people, and despite the things that are 
 rather fearful, despite the things that are rather ob- 
 jectionable, can stand for them and say : ''Here, Jesus 
 Christ is in this person, and let us help him ; let us 
 hearten him ; let us lift him up ! " Barnabas did 
 that. And then you remember when the meeting 
 came at Antioch, Barnabas got down there, and the 
 meeting was too much for him. It was too big a 
 thing for him. He could not handle it. But he 
 said : ''I have a man who can handle it. I have a 
 man who can preach after a noble fashion," and away 
 he went and hunted up Paul, and brought Paul down 
 to Antioch, and there for a year stood behind Paul 
 in that great Antioch revival, Paul preaching the 
 Gospel of the grace of God with such wonderful 
 ■^wer, Barnabas knew, better than any Mason 
 
 ^' 
 
90 A NEW TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 
 
 knows the Masonic spirit, that Christ's Spirit was in 
 Paul. Great man, wasn't he? If you find the re- 
 motest feeling of jealousy towards any man, get to 
 your knees and stay there until it is banished forever. 
 A man is a little man that can have one shadow of 
 grief to come over him by reason of anybody's big- 
 ness or greatness or popularity or success. Barnabas 
 teaches us at this point, as we are taught by no other, 
 perhaps, in all the Word of God, except John the 
 Baptist. You recall how the crowds followed after 
 John. You remember how popular John was. How 
 he did sway those people as they came to hear him ! 
 But after a while another came on the scene, even 
 Jesus of Nazareth, and the crowd slipped away from 
 John. Some of John's friends, it seems, intimated to 
 him : ^* John, how about this? You have a rival in 
 the field. How about thisi The crowds are leav- 
 ing you. How about it? " You remember what he 
 said : ^' He must increase, but I must decrease." 
 There is a great man for you. *' He must increase, 
 but I must decrease. I am just a voice. I am just a 
 forerunner. I am the one to get the things a little 
 out of the way for the mighty coming of Himself. 
 He must increase, but I must decrease." There is 
 a mighty man for you. Barnabas was that sort of a 
 man. 
 
 liong enough have I spoken. One more word. 
 We cannot all be great men like Paul. None of us 
 can. But we can be good men like Barnabas. We 
 can be good men. O brethren, to be good men, that 
 is the first thing in the kingdom of God ! Genuine 
 goodness— not cleverness, not smartness, not intellec- 
 tuality, but goodness — that is the fundamental thing 
 
A NEW TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 91 
 
 in the kingdom of God. We may not be great. We 
 may not sway the multitudes. We may not have 
 our pictures in the papers. They may not be writ- 
 ing editorials about us. But we can be good men. 
 
 Do you not feel this morning to pray: *'Lord, 
 whatever the cost to us, make us genuinely good men 
 and women. " Let us pray that prayer with all our 
 hearts just now. 
 
An Old Testament Good Man 
 
 Text: "Caleb, tlie son of Jephunueli."— - 
 Joshua xiv. 6. 
 
 OUE study last Sunday morning was " Some 
 Lessons from the Life of Barnabas." Bar- 
 nabas was the Caleb of the New Testament, 
 while Caleb was the Barnabas of the Old Testament. 
 Not much is said in the Scriptures about Caleb, and 
 yet enough is said to put him before us as one of the 
 most inspiring examples of Old Testament history. 
 He stands before us as a man of much dignity, of un- 
 bending devotion to principle, with a faith and a 
 courage and a conviction after the very highest fash- 
 ion. We do well to study the examples in the Bible 
 of men who have wrought nobly in the cause of God. 
 Such character study will point us lessons of how we 
 may serve God to the best advantage. 
 
 Let us look, then, at some very meaningful lessona 
 connected with this life story to-day. And, first^ 
 what of the character of Caleb? Barnabas, as we 
 learned last Sunday morning, was called '' the son of 
 consolation." Caleb may well be called the man of 
 *'^gill heart," and in the life story given of him in 
 the Word of God there are certain manifestations 
 that appear in the story that show how truly he 
 might bear the name of Mr. Greatheart. See the 
 
 92 
 
AN OLD TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 93 
 
 outflasbing where his cheerfulness is one of the 
 marked expressions of his life. You search in vain 
 in this life story of Caleb to find a single instance 
 where he was pessimistic, or cheerless, or dejected at 
 all, but rather, the opposite shines out from his life 
 story all along. He is one of the sunniest characters 
 in all the Bible. Caleb had the New Testament 
 spirit, enjoined long afterwards by Paul, when Paul 
 urged: ^^Eejoice evermore." And when again he 
 said : "Eejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say, 
 rejoice," Caleb had caught that spirit most gra- 
 ciously, and throughout his eventful life he was the 
 man whose disposition was one of uniform and glori- 
 ous cheerfulness, t It is a most valuable lesson to 
 learn, dear friends. ^*The joy of the Lord is your 
 strength." The dejected, moping, cheerless Chris- 
 tian, the one without joy, the one whose face indi- 
 cates sorrow forever, is not the one who makes a 
 gracious impression upon an unbelieving world. 
 Caleb is a man, with all that hearty, cheerful, sun- 
 shiny life, to give men to understand how healthy 
 and happy a thing it is for one to be a genuine 
 Christian. 
 
 The manifestation of his heartiness of nature is 
 also seen in the power he had to calm other people. 
 You recall the report that the spies made when they 
 came back from the land which they were sent to ^ 
 spy out for Moses. You recall the report they gave 
 when they came back. Caleb and Joshua gave a | 
 gracious report. They did not minimize the difi&cul- \ 
 ties at all. They said, ''There are difficulties. The 
 men are mighty. Their cities are well fenced. Their 
 surroundings are such as to call for our earnest at- ' 
 
94 AK OLD TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 
 
 Itention, but we are well able to overcome all the 
 
 ■difficulties." Tbat was their report. And then you 
 
 remember the report of the other ten, their comrades. 
 
 They gave an altogether different report. All the 
 
 twelve agreed that it was a wonderful land, that 
 
 it flowed with milk and honey, that the grapes 
 
 of Eschol were not equaled by any other grapes, 
 
 that everything about the land was inviting and 
 
 glorious. But ten of them were overwhelmed with 
 
 i pessimism and unbelief. And when they had given 
 
 \ their pessimistic report, all the people broke forth 
 
 'into wailing and whining, and dismay seized the 
 
 / whole congregation of Israel. And then Caleb stood 
 
 \ up, this man of great heart, and calmed the whole 
 
 \ crowd. He so spoke as to still them, at least for a 
 
 i season, in that time of dejection and gloom. 
 
 Here then is a vital lesson : The men who can tran- 
 quilize others are much needed men. They are of 
 untold value to the world — the men who can tran- 
 quilize others. Almost any man can set other men 
 by the ears. In a dozen sentences he can set men 
 by the ears until they are ready to go at one another 
 like untamed beasts. But the man who can tran- 
 quilize others, the man who can quell the spirit of 
 the mob, the man who in state, in society, in the 
 clashes that come with the classes, the man who can 
 stand in their midst and still them, is a man of price- 
 less value to any community. The man who can do 
 that in a church, in the affairs of religion, the man 
 who can quickly bring discordant and divided ele- 
 ments to fraternal and common standing ground for 
 all, is a man of great price in the church of God. 
 The one who can do that in the family, with the 
 
AK OLD TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 95 
 
 little frictions that come in the family life, who can 
 suggest the way for the amicable adjustment of such 
 little frictions, that one does a priceless work in fam- 
 ily life. Nowy Caleb had that gracious power, the 
 gower of stilling others in the midst of tumultuous 
 and unhappy experiences. 
 
 And, again, the manifestation of the great-hearted-l 
 ness of Caleb is seen in the fact that his whole life 
 was filled with positive encouragement for other peo- 
 ple. O my friends, the man who has the genius to 
 encourage other people is the man this world is look- 
 ing for and needs. The man who can put heart into 
 men rather than take heart out of them, this world 
 suffers and pants and languishes for such a man. 
 Caleb had the noble genius for putting heart into 
 men. There are men who have the evil genius of 
 taking it all out. You can hear them for a dozen 
 minutes and feel like you had been to a funeral or to 
 something much worse. They can take the heart 
 out of you. They can look at you in a way to make 
 you feel a dozen years older. Caleb had the spirit of 
 heartening men. He could send men out with a 
 lofty, conquering spirit, and such a man is ever a 
 man of invaluable moment in this world. When 
 reverses come, when crops are bad, when business is 
 dull, when collections go slowly, when health seems 
 under its normal condition, the man who can step in 
 then and put spirit and heart into the people, the 
 man who has the genius to speak the word in season 
 to them who are weary, he is a man that church, and 
 state, and home, and society, and all classes and con- 
 ditions most earnestly need. Caleb was that sort oi 
 a man. 
 
96 AJN OLD TESTAMENT GOOD MAK 
 
 And then he was a man to the last degree courageous 
 in heart. When the ten gave their report, in which 
 they dealt out the doleful story of the greatness of the 
 giants in the land of Canaan, how large and mighty 
 were their cities, what grasshoppers they felt them- 
 selves to be, the heart of all the people was ready to 
 faint. Then Caleb stood in their midst and said : 
 '*Much that these ten men say is so. There are 
 great men in the land we have visited, and their 
 cities are large and mightily fortified, but we are 
 well able to overcome them." Not only able, he 
 said, but " well able " to overcome them. There is a 
 man of the loftiest courage. Every one of us needs 
 to cultivate the spirit of genuine and quenchless 
 courage, for there is constant need of such courage in 
 the daily battle of life that we must fight. There are 
 so many reverses and surprises and disappointments 
 that come in the conflicts of human life, that every 
 man needs, like Caleb, to cultivate the fortifying 
 quality of courage. Oh, how weary the world is of 
 whining and of crying and of pessimism, and of dis- 
 couragement ! Every man needs to set himself, as 
 did Caleb, to cultivating continually the noblest sort 
 of courage for the battle of life. 
 
 See another striking element in Caleb's character. 
 That was his conviction and fidelity to duty. Caleb 
 was a man who dared to be in the minority. He was 
 a man who could, without any blanching of face, go 
 against the crowd. He was a man who had his 
 anchorage thoroughly defined, and who adjusted 
 himself in absolute obedience to the convictions his 
 soul felt and knew to be right. He dared, therefore, 
 to be in the minority. He dared, therefore, to go 
 
AN OLD TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 97 
 
 agaiust the tumult of the crowd ; and in that he ex- 
 hibited one of the most commendable elements, and 
 one of the most forceful, that can be in a man's char- 
 acter. / Alas, what sacrifices of truth, and of prin- 
 ciple, and of right, are made, because men do not 
 dare to be in the minority ! In the world of politics, 
 how men trim, and cavil, and. cringe, rather than go 
 against the multitude. Caleb was a. politician of the 
 right sort, or rather, I should say, a statesman, — a 
 man who could be in the minority to-day, because the 
 minority was right, and who could patiently wait 
 for to-morrow, because ever is truth vindicated in 
 due time. In society, in life's social relations, how 
 many things are tolerated that people in their better 
 natures rebel against. And yet they do not squarely 
 brook the majority and say : *' I will have no lot nor 
 fellowship with this thing." One said to me re- 
 cently : ' ' I am ashamed every time I go through a 
 certain social performance in this city.'^ I replied : 
 ''Well, aren't you ashamed enough to turn the other 
 way? Why yield pliautly to the spirit of the 
 majority? Why not turn straight about, live 
 honestly, be on good terms with your conscience, and 
 squarely, with eagle eye, face the things that are 
 wrong, and with courageous hand push them utterly 
 aside?" Caleb was a man who could stand out 
 against the majority, looking to the revelation that 
 the truth would have to-morrow and to the victory it 
 would have. Ofttimes the maj ority are utterly wrong. 
 That "The voice of the people is the voice of God?' 
 is ofttimes not so. Ofttimes the minority is right. 
 And a man in the minority, with the consciousness 
 ^at he is in alliance with truth and principle, mu^ 
 
»8 AN OLD TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 
 
 be a man who, for no cause, would give up his con- 
 victions of right and truth and duty. Athanasius 
 uttered the pronouncement, *'I, Athanasius, against 
 the world, '^ and the stern theologian made the world 
 hear and respect him. 
 
 Martin Luther went, against all the protestations of 
 his friends, to the Diet at Worms, when they said : 
 "It means your death." And Luther said: "I 
 would go and declare what my soul knows to be 
 right, if every tile on every roof in Wurtemberg were 
 a devil.^' He won because he was true to principle. 
 And Calvary, on which hanged the Son of God, is the 
 crowning expression of the truth that the minority is 
 ofttimes the sublime winning force because it is right. 
 Here, then, is an element in Caleb's character, price- 
 
 1 less and powerful — his fidelity to duty against the 
 
 [^ majority. 
 
 Note again that Caleb was a man who was peren- 
 nially young. That is one of the most beautiful 
 things in his life story. Here was a man who never 
 did get old. Now, at the advanced age of eighty and 
 five years, he said : "I am as ready to go to war as I 
 was forty-five years ago. I am just as strong for it^ 
 and I am as ready for it. I am as eager for the 
 battle as I was back yonder at life's middle time./* 
 So there gleams out in the brief story of Caleb the 
 delightful thought that he was a man who lived to 
 the last breath of his life, young in spirit, and ever 
 enthusiastic in his work. This is one of the most 
 beautiful exhibitions of Caleb's remarkable character. 
 You notice him at this advanced age of eighty-five 
 years asking Joshua for the hardest job in all the_ 
 kingdom. **Let me go up yonder and conquer 
 
AN OLD TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 99 
 
 Hebron, that city in the mountains, fortified so 
 well and surrounded by the sons of Anak, those 
 giants we heard about years ago. Let me have that 
 hard task, and I will go and drive them out, even as 
 Moses promised me forty-five years ago,.'' And 
 Joshua allowed him to go upon that difiQcult mission. 
 A man is already an old man who talks about *^ be- 
 ing let alone, having done his part.'' No man must 
 talk like that in this brief and important life. A 
 man's face must be set like a flint towards doing his 
 duty, until the last brealh shall expire from his 
 body. I say it to day, from my heart of hearts, the 
 very hour that I cannot heartily work for God, that 
 hour I want to go home. There is not any place, 
 there is not any need for any man ever to get old in 
 this world. And if a man will link himself with the 
 right things, and have the right view-point in the 
 life he lives, he will never be an old man. Moses 
 was one hundred and twenty years old when he died, 
 but the Scriptures tell us that his eye had lost none 
 of its brightness, nor was his natural force in any 
 wise abated, and the reason is not hard to find. 
 Moses had the right view-point for his life. Moses 
 was linked with the right things. Moses had his 
 anchorage first of all to God, and accepted the 
 central truth of the Christian religion, that a man 
 whom God has saved belongs utterly to God, to live 
 or to die, to stay here or to go hence, according to 
 God's will. Nor was that all in Moses' case. Moses 
 linked himself with great causes for the lifting up of 
 his oppressed fellows. Moses lived not a day for 
 himself. Why should he? Moses was not con- 
 cerned about his own ease or aggrandizement. Why 
 
100 AN OLD TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 
 
 should he be ? Life is missed in its sublime meaning 
 if any man lives for himself. Moses gave himself as 
 a servant, with his marvelous powers of brain and 
 heart, a servant to lift up poor, beaten, oppressed 
 'Israel. And Moses in self- forgetting sacrifice laid 
 ; his life on the altar for the restoration of Israel to 
 jher proper place among the nations of the earth. 
 [No wonder he was still a young man when he died. 
 You take men who live like that, and they are not 
 old men. Glorious spectacle was that of Gladstone, 
 beyond eighty, with an eye yet bright, and with a 
 mind well poised and keen and clear. Gladstone 
 was linked with everything in the world that would 
 make for the uplifting of humanity. And a man 
 who thus links his life is not a man ever to get 
 old. Caleb was perennially young, and at the ad- 
 vanced age of eighty and five Caleb asked for the 
 hardest job that was ever given him in his life. 
 *• ' Let me have Hebron, ' ' he said. Hebron meant diffi- 
 culty. Hebron meant battle. Hebron meant most ex- 
 acting work. Hebron meant awful conflict. Hebron 
 meant a fight to the finish. But there, at the ad 
 vanced age of eighty and five, he said : *' Put on my 
 shoulders the hardest thing I have ever had to do, 
 and I will go forth to the battle.'^ And forth he 
 went and won, to the everlasting credit of his name. 
 Oh, how stimulating that record is ! Do you 
 wish to make the most of life ? Then do not seek 
 the soft, easy places of life. Why should it matter 
 to me if there should come home to me to-day the 
 conviction that God would have me betake myself 
 to dark and besotted Africa, to give myself in un- 
 stinted devotion to lifting up that race? Why 
 
AN OLD TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 101 
 
 should I halt a moment ! I am not mine own, nor 
 is a single power I possess mine own. I am God's. 
 Why should I not adjust myself to what He asks, I 
 in my sphere, and you in yours? If you would 
 make life truly great, great in its deepest and high- 
 est sense, get the view- point Caleb had, and look not 
 for the easy and soft places in life, but look for the 
 places where you can have full opportunity to put 
 every power of your nature on the altar for God, In 
 the high service of humanity. Here is where many 
 Christians fail. I haven't a question that many 
 preachers largely fail because they are looking for 
 easy and soft places. The oiie thing we are to think 
 about, to care for, is that we may stand in the battle's 
 front and in the thick of the fight, every man where 
 God wants him, whether lawyer, doctor, minister, 
 teacher, banker, farmer, or what not. If God has 
 hard tasks and big jobs, and gigantic undertakings, 
 let each one give himself to them with the spirit of 
 Caleb, scorning easy places, asking for God to give him 
 anything He wishes, in His infinite wisdom and love. 
 I speak to men here to-day, a large company, and 
 very few of them with gray hairs, but we will have 
 them after a little if we live. Let us address our- 
 selves to life's problems as did Caleb. Let us make 
 up our minds never to get old, never. Let us make 
 up our minds that we will never admit for a breath 
 to ourselves that suggestion of the devil, that we 
 have *'done our part." Done our part ! Done our 
 part in life ! "Why, if we should live ten million 
 years, and give every moment to the service of God, 
 every di'op of our blood, every thought of our brain, 
 we would the:i haye, barely made a start in giving to. 
 
102 AN OLD TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 
 
 God that which He so rightfully deserves at oui 
 hauds. Let Caleb teach us. Let him teach us how 
 always to be young. I know some old men, and you 
 do, too, as the world counts it, that are not old at all. 
 They are as young as lads of twenty-one. They are 
 linked with great causes. They are forgetting them- 
 selves. They hear the heart-beat of a suffering world. 
 They plan and they give, and they love, and they go, 
 and they serve, forgetting self. They will never get 
 old, but like Caleb they will come down to the end 
 at last with perennial youth. 
 
 But see again Caleb's case. Caleb * ^ wholly followed 
 the Lord his God.'' That is what the Scriptures say 
 again and again about him. And that is the secret, 
 the sublime secret, of all the other wonderful elements 
 of his character we have been considering. Caleb 
 wholly followed the Lord his God. 'Whenever a 
 man does that, what does he care for the clamor of 
 the multitudes? Whenever a man does that, what 
 does he care for the view of the majority? When- 
 ever a man does that, what does he care for anything 
 except the ^* Well done " of the God whom he serves ? 
 Caleb wholly followed the Lord his God. Caleb said 
 that for himself: *^I have wholly followed Him.'' 
 And Moses said it about Caleb. And God Himself 
 said : " My servant, Caleb, has wholly followed Me." 
 So that he had the testimony overwhelming of the 
 reality of his devotion to God. Now, in that fact re- 
 sides the sublime secret of Caleb's marvelous power for 
 God. And just there is the pivotal point upon which 
 is determined man's relation to God and his relation 
 to man. Here is where men are undone. If men do 
 not follow God definitely and whole-heartedly, if men 
 
AN OLD TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 103 
 
 do not follow God, putting the reins of their lives into 
 His hands, then such men make practical shipwreck of 
 Christian usefulness and Christian joy. Brethren, the 
 supreme peril to us all is that we take our religion too 
 easily. Our religion is not some nice bandbox affair. 
 Our religion means battle and suffering and service. 
 Our religion means the forgetting of self. Our re- 
 ligion is to soothe the brow of every aching head, 
 and to give glad cheer to every cheerless heart, and 
 to lift up every fallen life. . The constant trouble is 
 that we take our religion too easily. Caleb's spirit 
 is the spirit for us all — whole-hearted devotion to God. 
 Oh, for that spirit, which found its expression in 
 Paul, which found its expression in Luther, which 
 found its expression in Wesley, which found its 
 expression in Knox, which found its expression 
 in Spurgeon, which found its expression in David 
 Brainerd. Brainerd said: ''I had rather win 
 one poor lost soul for Christ than to win mountains 
 of gold and silver for myself.'' That is the spirit 
 that will consume the evil of the world and take 
 away its chaff and make life a great and sublime 
 thing. That is the spirit Caleb had, and that is the 
 spirit for us all. 
 
 I do not wonder that many Christians get so little 
 out of religion. The explanation is at hand. They 
 put so little into it, I do not wonder that most of 
 the time they stumble along in the dark. They live 
 in the dark. I do not wonder that all along they are 
 swept with coniaicting emotions. They put them- 
 selves where such emotions can have the fullest sway. 
 The Christian life is not to be lived in the twilight. 
 The Christian life is to be open and aboveboard, 
 
104 AN OLD TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 
 
 and straightforward, and definite, and pronounced. 
 The man who lives that sort of a Christian life reaches 
 up any time with his hand and touches the hand of 
 Christ. Caleb lived that sort of a life. » O friends, 
 if you would have power in your family, where some 
 are gainsaying and ungodly, if you would have power 
 in life's social relations or business relations, as you 
 touch elbows with men, then yield never one iota to the 
 admission of the wrong thing into your life. Stand 
 like Caleb, with whole-hearted devotion unto God. 
 
 Just here, I say, is the explanation for a thousand 
 ills in human life. I talked yesterday at length with 
 a strong business man, upon whom troubles have re- 
 cently come with terrible force and fury. Years 
 ago, when I preached in another place, he found 
 Christ and nobly confessed Him. Now he is down 
 in the dark and deep valley of distress. He said : 
 ** I have come a long distance to go over this matter 
 with you." I said: '^The physician must diagnose 
 his case before he is willing to give any medicine. 
 Now, answer me, first, some questions honestly, and 
 we will go over the whole matter." And when I 
 probed the man with questions, I could not find that 
 he had one religious habit in his life which he lived 
 up to with a day's consistency — not one. He said : 
 ^' Why, I see after my business on Sunday, and I have 
 not read my Bible for mouths, and I go to church 
 with awful irregularity, and I can hardly tell you 
 when I did go alone and get down and utter a 
 prayer." I said: '^You have come this distance to 
 ask me to tell you the trouble. You do not need that 
 I tell you that you have trifled with your profession, 
 and are trifling with your Saviour, and are trifling 
 
AN OLD TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 105 
 
 with your church, and are trifling with the Scriptures, 
 and are trifling with everything holy. You want to 
 know why you have doubts? You have only to use 
 your mind a second to find out. You want to know 
 why you have no peace and no joy? You want to 
 know why the joy of those other years is all gone — 
 that zest, that interest in religion? The answer is 
 right at your side. There is no conscientious devo- 
 tion in your life to God, nor will you have those 
 bright, blessed days again until you play the man for 
 the Almighty." 
 
 Oh, my brethren and friends, God is my witness, 
 there never passes a day that the most fervent prayer 
 of my soul for you is not offered that you may wholly 
 follow God ! Oh, I grieve, beyond what you can 
 know, to see you living any double, half-hearted life. 
 I grieve to see you missing that steadfast joy, and 
 that Christian power, that can only come to the men 
 who walk as Caleb walked, who are straightforward 
 and pronounced, and who give the benefit of the 
 doubt always to God, and never to themselves. It 
 comes to me again and again what a brother said 
 some time ago in this church, that for a long while 
 he just had enough religion to make himself thor- 
 oughly miserable, to give him a kind of a toothache 
 feeling. You know exactly what he meant. He was 
 living a half-hearted life. There is the explanation 
 of 10,000 troubles in the Christian life. Men do not 
 wholly follow God. Let Caleb teach us at that vital 
 point, for here is the real secret of his masterful life. 
 
 The hour is past. You will indulge me this other 
 word. What was the result of it all in Caleb's life ? 
 God gave him long life. Nor was that all. God gave 
 
106 AN OLD TESTAMENT GOOD MAN 
 
 him continued opportunity and strength to serve Him 
 with that long life, so that in his old age, at eighty- 
 five, he had the greatest victory that he had ever had 
 in all his life. Oh, isn't it glorious for a person to 
 grow old like that ? The other day an old preacher 
 came into one of our Workers' Conferences, and he 
 said : ^^ I preached yesterday to my people, and my 
 text was, * That I might finish my course with joy ! ' " 
 He said, ** I was hedging for myself. I want to finish 
 my course with joy, not to finish it soured and em- 
 bittered and pessimistic, making everybody miserable 
 about me, but I mean, by God's grace, to finish my 
 course with joy." He said, ''I told my country 
 church yesterday I was going in to serve them with 
 more zeal and love than ever before." He will not 
 get old. He will not be a misery to his children and 
 grandchildren. He has the right view- point of life. 
 Caleb had it, and God gave him increased opportunity 
 and strength as a great leader, and then God rewarded 
 him with the great possession that forty-five years be- 
 fore he had seen. And then, with it all, God gave 
 him rest. 
 
 O soul! is Caleb's God yours? Eeceive Him to- 
 day to be yours, and follow that God like Caleb fol- 
 lowed Him. And if you are here to-day with all 
 sorts of subterfuges, and evasions, and speculations, 
 and doubtful questions in your life, just be done with 
 them, and just be straightforward and pronounced 
 and true, like Caleb, to God. And your light and 
 day and usefulness in the Christian life will grow 
 brighter and brighter, even until that blissful day 
 when you shall hear the Master say : *' It is enough .; 
 y^ come home, My friend, to be forever with the Lord. ^ 
 
VI 
 
 The Temptation of Our Saviour 
 
 Text: "Then was Jesns led up of the Spirit 
 into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." 
 — Matthew iv. 1. 
 
 THE temptation of Jesus was not a visionary 
 one, but it was a real one. He was tempted 
 in all points like as we are, yet without sin. 
 The only difference between His experience and ours 
 is that we yield often to temptation, while He yielded 
 never. It behooved Him to be so that in all respects 
 He would be touched with the feeling of our infirmi- 
 ties ; and now no temptation that comes to man is 
 beyond His appreciation and sympathy and help. 
 
 It is significant that the temptation of Jesus follows 
 His baptism immediately. During that wonderful 
 baptismal scene the heavens were opened, and God's 
 Spirit descended like a dove and lighted upon Him, 
 and out from the heavens there came a voice which 
 said, ^^This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well 
 pleased." How swift and surprising are the muta- 
 tions of human experience ! Just after the heavenly 
 proclamation that He is God's Son, immediately 
 comes this sore temptation. Well did a great preacher 
 say, " Do not question the validity of your baptism 
 because it was succeeded by a fierce temptation." 
 That is often true. Triumph is often followed by 
 trial instantly. The hour of exaltation is very often 
 
 107 
 
108 THE TEMPTATION OF OUR SAVIOUE 
 
 succeeded immediately by the hour of humiliation 
 and trial. The wondrous voice from out the clouds, 
 the heavenly voice, is often succeeded by the voice 
 from beneath, the voice from the pit. Blessed shall 
 it be for us to remember this, and then shall we 
 know that our sonship with God is not dependent 
 upon the rapidly varying moods of our earthly ex- 
 perience. 
 
 You will note that this trial of Jesus was not an 
 accident. See the text, ** Then was Jesus led up of 
 the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the 
 devil. ^' ^^Led up to be tempted" — that is not an 
 accident. There is purpose in that. Christ's tempta- 
 tions were not accidental, but they were all included 
 in the great purpose which God had respecting the 
 life and sufferings and death of His Son. ^* Led up 
 of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the 
 devil.'' That is the language. I grant you that 
 there is deep mystery in it, and yet the great truth 
 still abides that God's purpose pours through it all. 
 Take away from life the thought of its education, and 
 you have destroyed the deep meaning of human life. 
 ^'Led up of the Spirit to be tempted of the devil." 
 That is the strange language, and yet the Scriptures 
 show that thought all through their ever unfolding 
 revelations. Not that man is solicited of God to do 
 evil. Never! Never! ^^Let no man say when he 
 is tempted, I am tempted of God ; for God cannot be 
 tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man." 
 In no instance is man ever tempted of God to do evil, 
 but in many instances, yea, in the instance of the life 
 of every child of God, every one is subjected to trial, 
 to discipline, to education. Do not the Scriptures 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF OUE SAVIOUR 109 
 
 elearly show that in the long ago God did tempt 
 Abraham ! That is, He tried him ; He put him to 
 the test. He subjected him to a process of self- 
 examination and education that more than any other 
 experience would strengthen his character. Under- 
 staud, then, that trial is an essential part of God's 
 great program for our lives. ^' Beloved, think it not 
 strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, 
 as though some strauge thing happened unto you ; 
 but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's 
 sufferings. " 
 
 You notice that the Spirit of God here led Jesus 
 'Muto the wilderness" to have His sore conflict. 
 How often that is the case ! Was it not so with 
 Moses for forty long years ? If Moses is to formulate 
 the great principles of law and education and religion 
 that are forever to dominate the world's thought and 
 largely shape its life, it is needful that he spend forty 
 years in the wilderness. Likewise also for a season 
 must the wilderness be the home of Elijah. It must 
 needs be true also of John the Baptist, who is to preach 
 repentance as none other ever did preach it, save the 
 Lord. And so of Paul, if he is to be earth's first 
 apostle, he must spend three years in the quiet of 
 Arabia. If Buuyan is to write an allegory that shall 
 be unmatched and forever matchless, he needs the 
 twelve years' imprisonment of Bedford jail. If Milton 
 is to write a poem that has no peer of its kind, he 
 must know the isolation that came to him from blind- 
 ness and other sore trials. All these wondrous 
 workers must needs be taken into the wilderness, to 
 have a trial, to have a testing time, to go through 
 the discipline of training that the wilderness alone 
 
110 THE TEMPTATION OF OUE SAVIOUR 
 
 can give them. My brethren, the danger of this age 
 is that people live too much in crowds. No man 
 shall ever come to the highest mark as a thinker and 
 useful worker who lives always in the crowd. We 
 have our magnificent systems of education, and our 
 myriad inventions for the saving of labor and for 
 adding to man's convenience ; and then we have the 
 great system of news-gathering, that rains all the 
 news of this planet down at our doors every morning 
 and every evening ; and thus, it is to be feared, we 
 are getting away from the race of the world's great 
 thinkers, because we are not led often euough to the 
 wilderness, that there, single handed and alone, we 
 may think out and fight out some of the deep battles 
 of the inner life. 
 
 Let us look at these three temptations that came to 
 Jesus in the wilderness. These three comprehend 
 every possible temptation that ever comes to man- 
 kind. First, there was the temptation through the 
 body. After forty days and forty nights of fasting, 
 Jesus is an hungered. For days and nights He has 
 been miraculously sustained. Now His human body 
 is thrilled with the sense of hunger. The humanity 
 cries out and gives expression to its pain. Just in 
 the nick of time the devil appears. Oh, he is an 
 arrant coward. There is not a thing brave about 
 the devil. He is always sinuous and slimy and cow- 
 ardly. He never did a courageous thing in his life. 
 He never came to a man save at his weak point and 
 at his weak time. Now, when the humanity of 
 Jesus is put to its sorest test, the shrewd, cowardly 
 imp of the pit appears ctnd appeals with a temptation 
 to Jesus' hungry body. What was that temptation I 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF OUR SAVIOUE 111 
 
 Yielding to it would have meant what ? The yield- 
 ing to it on the part of Jesus would have meant the 
 palpable distrust of His Father. Satan said to Him : 
 *' Why, you are hungry. Make bread out of rocks. 
 Tarn these stones into biscuit. A hungry man 
 ought to eaf Jesus could have done it, but to have 
 yielded to that temptation would have been to show 
 forth absolute distrust of His Father and utterly 
 discard His guardianship and protection. And so 
 Jesus hurled back at the tempter the sublime state- 
 ment, '*It is written, Man shall not live by bread 
 alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the 
 mouth of God." Christ here says that His Father 
 does not have to turn the rocks into bread in order 
 to sustain the life of His Son. He can preserve life 
 otherwise. Bread is not the main thing in a man's 
 life. God's Word, proceeding out of His mouth, is 
 far more worthy and helpful than mere earthly 
 bread. Christ would yield not to the seductive 
 tempter. He would trust His Father whose provi- 
 dential love would in no wise fail Him. 
 
 That is a piercing temptation, to which all men are 
 subjected, the temptation that comes to the body. It 
 was by just that that Adam and Eve were led to fall. 
 The temptation began with an appeal to the body. 
 With subtle voice the tempter whispered, '* The tree 
 is good for food, and it is pleasant to the eyes, and 
 it is a tree to be desired to make one wise," and by 
 this time Eve was ready to eat of the fruit, and to 
 give also unto her husband, and even thus was 
 brought to pass the fall and ruin of the race. The 
 temptation of the body, its name is legion. There 
 is selfishness, appealing to us on the one hand with 
 
112 THE TEMPTATION OF OUE SAVIOUE 
 
 its manifold expressions. There is appetite, pulling 
 and tugging at the very vitals of our life every day. 
 There is indolence, that rocks us and soothes us, and 
 continually whispers to us sweet things about the 
 welfare and comfort of our dear bodies. Appetite 
 in all its forms unceasingly knocks at the door of 
 our hearts and talks about the necessity of our eatiog 
 this particular food and doing this particular thing. 
 Well might Paul cry out, ' ' Who shall deliver me 
 from the body of this death ? ' ' Very many of the 
 sorest temptations of life come through the body. 
 This one appealed to Jesus through His body, but 
 victoriously He met it, and completely foiled the 
 tempter. 
 
 Then the tempter approached our Lord again 
 from an utterly different standpoint. He takes Him 
 up into the holy city, and sets Him on a pinnacle of 
 the temple, and now he makes to Him this remark- 
 able statement ; ^' Cast thyself down, for it is written, 
 He shall give His angels charge concerning thee, and 
 in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any 
 time thou dash thy foot against a stone. ^' Do you 
 see how sly it was ? This is wonderful for the devil 
 to be quoting Scripture, but he quotes it here, just 
 like he always quotes it. He does not quote it cor- 
 rectly. What he says here does sound like Scrip- 
 ture, but he leaves out the salient point. Here is 
 what he says to the Master : '' Cast thyself down ; for 
 it is written, He shall give His angels charge con- 
 cerning thee." Satan fails to quote all the sentence. 
 He left out a few words that were the key to all oi 
 it. These were the words left out: ''To keep thee 
 in all thy ways." That is to say, God will keep 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF OUR SAVIOUR 113 
 
 thee in thy rightful waj^s, in thine appointed ways, 
 in God's providential ways, in the ways marked out 
 by His own infinite wisdom and love. He will keep 
 thee in these ways, but the devil leaves all that 
 qualifying condition out, he omits the vital point of 
 the Scripture. This is a subtle temptation indeed. 
 Do you see its cunning and audacity ? It is nothing 
 short of an appeal to Christ to experiment upon the 
 purpose and power of God, and to force meanings 
 into His promises wholly foreign to the intention of 
 His Spirit, and to put God into a situation forbidden 
 both by His Word and nature. Its meaning broadly 
 interpreted is, let man do what he wills, however 
 careless or wilful or self-risking it may be. God is 
 pledged to keep him. Criminally sad is this wrest- 
 ing of the Divine promises. Just here even many a 
 Christian stumbles to his great shame and harm. 
 He shuts his eyes and presumes upon God. Have 
 you not seen it an hundred times ? Men thus trifle 
 with health, with character, with evil influences. 
 They dwell upon their own great strength, they 
 write down strong resolutions, they pray ; but they 
 turn from all these into presumptuous sins. God 
 has a plan and limit and purpose and boundary in 
 all that He says and does. He never anywhere says 
 that His child shall be safely upheld if he presumes 
 to cast himself down from the pinnacle of the temple. 
 Only does He promise to keep His children in lawful 
 ways ; but they must not presume to dally with 
 danger and say, God will keep me ; nor to go forth 
 into sin, saying, grace will abound. 
 
 You will also notice that the devil here talks about 
 ** angels.'^ *^Cast thyself down, and He shall giv^ 
 
114 THE TEMPTATION OF OUR SAVIOUR 
 
 His angels charge concerning thee.^' Yes, he talks 
 glibly about *' angels." You have heard some men 
 talk with a degree of seeming familiarity with God 
 and His Word, and yet the trend of their lives 
 stamps them as the enemies of the cross of Christ. 
 The devil quoted Scripture and talked about angels 
 and all that, and yet he was the adversary, the se- 
 ducer, the old dragon of the pit. Quoting Scripture 
 does not mean that a man is in fellowship with God. 
 Talking about angels does not mean that a man has 
 any sort of kinship to them. Jesus repelled this 
 temptation as He did the other, and the devil is 
 hurled into defeat again. 
 
 And now Satan comes the third time, and this time 
 he takes Jesus up on an exceeding high mountain, 
 and shows Him all the kingdoms of the world and 
 the glory of them, and then he makes to Jesus this 
 proposal : '^If you will fall down and worship me, 
 I will give them all to you." Unparalleled impu- 
 dence ! Unbridled presumption ! Not a solitary inch 
 of apy of these kingdoms did the devil own, not one 
 has he ever owned, and not one shall he ever own. 
 To be sure he is here, but he is an intruder here. He 
 is on property that is not his own, and it is the busi- 
 ness of the redeemed of God while they abide on the 
 earth to contest every inch of the ground with this 
 personal devil. Nor shall our work be done below 
 till the whole earth be redeemed to God. There is a 
 personal devil operating among men, seeking ever to 
 influence and destroy them, just as literally as there is 
 a personal God seeking to redeem and save. The 
 denial of this proposition is the baldest infidelity. 
 But suppose the devil had had all those kingdoms of 
 
THE TEMPTATION OP OUR SAVIOUR 115 
 
 the world that he declaimed about. Suppose they 
 had been his, for argument's sake. Could the Lord 
 have yielded to his proposal ! Nay, never ; it 
 would have meant instant dethronement of the Al- 
 mighty. It would have been the instant annihila- 
 tion of the kingdom of righteousness. What is this 
 proposal heie 1 It is substantially this : The devil 
 says, ^* Saviour, Messiah, Son of God, I have a pro- 
 posal to make to you. You have three years yet to 
 live. You have just been baptized. You have three 
 years in which to preach and suffer, and to be scourged, 
 and to be wounded in heart, both by your enemies and 
 friends, and at the end to die on the shameful tree of 
 the cross. You have all that ahead of you. Sup- 
 pose you and I go into partnership. You bow down 
 and say just one prayer to me, and I will make you a 
 title deed to all of this business. Let us go into 
 partnership. Let us have an amalgamation of heaven ^ 
 and hell. Let us have a compromise of the two great , 
 establishments upon mutual terms, and then the liow 
 and the lamb will lie down side by side, and the devil 
 and God will be twin brothers, and there will be no 
 conflict at all. That means for you, O Jesus, no 
 humiliation, no weariness, nor pain, nor conflict 
 with all the complexities and difficulties of your 
 plan of salvation. And it also means for you, O 
 Jesus, no betrayal, no dark Gethsemane, no Cal- 
 vary and no death. Take a nearer route to ruler- 
 ship. Just make one concession to Satan, and he will 
 vacate the field, and you shall have it all your own 
 way." That is Satan's distinct proposal in that 
 awful hour. Shall the Lord just pander one moment 
 to this proposal from the pit I Is there anywhere 
 
116 THE TEMPTATION OF OUR SAVIOUR 
 
 any possible amalgamation of the principles of 
 righteousness with the principles of unrighteousness ? 
 Nay, never ; it cannot be. If Jesus had that day 
 bowed before Satan and said : ^' I will say one prayer 
 unto thee, O Satan, for just one minute," the king- 
 dom of righteousness would have been forever anni- 
 hilated that same minute. That momentary com- 
 promise would have meant defeat eternal to the 
 kingdom of God. There is a vast field of thought, 
 my brethren, here in this last point. There is not to 
 be a scintilla of compromise between the kingdom of 
 evil and the kingdom of righteousness. Any pander- 
 ing to any of the priucii)les of the kingdom of evil is 
 but a yielding to this subtle seduction and tempta- 
 tion of the devil, when he asked Christ on the moun- 
 tain to give him one moment^ s concession and 
 worship. That moment would have meant eternal 
 treason to truth, to righteousness, and to God. 
 
 Deep and broad is the lesson suggested by this 
 third temptation. There is not one inch of room for 
 pretense or double dealing in the kingdom of God. 
 
 Every questionable method in Christ^ s church, of 
 any shape, form, or fashion is but the pandering to 
 the kingdom of evil and the yielding to this third 
 temptation that came to Christ. 'Tis the same old 
 suggestion that so oft we hear, '' Let us do evil that 
 good may come." Every such policy is the palpable 
 and fundamental violation and subversion of every 
 principle inculcated by God's Word. I do not 
 hesitate to say this morning that if Christ's praying 
 one prayer unto Satan that day would have won all 
 the world. He could not have made such concession. 
 A salvation so effected would have been no salvation 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF OUE SAYIOUE 117 
 
 at all. The Lord, He is God, and to Him alone shall 
 be given homage and worship. For Jesus to have 
 made one concession would have been the utter anni- 
 hilation of His own righteous character, and His own 
 rightful authority over the children of men. You 
 must not do evil that good may come. If, by the 
 doing of some present evil, you think you can see 
 good out there in the distance, you are not to do it. 
 You are not allowed to do evil whatever the allure- 
 ment or harvest promised. That is identically what 
 Satan here proposes: *'0 Christ, do a little evil, 
 and I will get off the ground ! Say one prayer to me, 
 and I will vacate the whole territory." But the Lord 
 held out in the conflict steadily against Satan, and re- 
 pelled him a third time with the wondrous sentences 
 of His Father's Word. Somebody has suggestively 
 said that '' Of all the essences that the devil likes, he 
 best likes acquiescence." *' Resist the devil, and he 
 will flee from you." And the supreme weapon for 
 such resistance is that same conquering one used by 
 Christ : '' It is written." In all your conflicts with 
 temptation, O Christian, take 'Hhe sword of the 
 Spirit which is the Word of God." 
 
 Did you ever notice where the Lord got all these 
 quotations ? He got them from the Book of Deute- 
 ronomy. I haven't a doubt that our Lord knew 
 that many centuries later certain clever little men 
 would be trying to destroy this Book of Deuteronomy. 
 This is the book they are specially after now. The 
 Divine Son of God, looking down through the ages, 
 saw the coming conflict, and He got these quotations 
 out of the book that He knew would be so vehemently 
 attacked. 
 
118 THE TEMPTATIOI^ OF OUR SAVIOUR 
 
 There is this other suggestion in such quotation— 
 the overwhelming argument for the verbal inspira- 
 tion of God's Word. ^Not simply the inspiration of 
 ideas, not simply the inspiration of thoughts, but the 
 inspiration of the very words of God's Book. That is 
 an intangible, mazy, far-off, unapproachable, inde- 
 finable, inexplicable species of inspiration that leaves 
 out the plenary, verbal inspiration of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures. Jesus here forever gives this book His endorse- 
 ment. 
 
 But now, after these three conflicts with the tempter, 
 what becomes of the Saviour? The devil is com- 
 pletely routed; but what of the Saviour? Here is 
 the answer: *' Behold, angels came and ministered 
 unto Him." All during that dreadful conflict, lin- 
 gering near by, the angels of God watched the awful 
 struggle, as the Son of God did meet in the open field 
 the dark fiend of the pit, and contest with him every 
 inch of the ground. And now, when the devil is 
 baffled, defeated and driven away, the ^'angels came 
 and ministered unto Jesus." Thus it is evermore. 
 When Jesus prayed in Gethsemane that last awful 
 night, before He took up the march to the cross, say- 
 ing, '^ nevertheless, not My will, but Thine be done," 
 *' an angel appeared unto Him from heaven, strength- 
 ening Him." An angel came when Elijah was yon- 
 der, speeding away from the land of his enemies, who 
 sought to destroy him. He rests yonder in the moun- 
 tains, hungry, and weary, and alone. An angel came 
 and brought food unto him. The angels, doubtless, 
 are spectators in all our conflicts with the temptations 
 of life. ^^The angel of the Lord encampeth round 
 about them that fear Him, and delivereth them.'' 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF OUR SAVIOUR 119 
 
 What is the outstanding lesson to-day for us in all 
 this story of God's temptation ? The lesson is for us 
 to hold right on to the right, ever repelling the tempter 
 with this sure weapon which our Lord did use — "It 
 is written." Oh, be not misled and overcome by the 
 old fiend of the pit. Evermore stand on the sure 
 Word of God, and here shall you find rest and victory 
 for your souls. 
 
 There are two plans whereby men may resist temp- 
 tation. The one has been called ' ' The plan of resist- 
 ance;^' the other "The plan of counter-attraction." 
 Both are illustrated from stories in Greek mythology. 
 The one finds illustration in the story of the Greeks 
 who must sail by the Island of the Sirens, as they re- 
 turned from Troy. Bewitching strains of music came 
 to the Greeks as they neared the island, so that they 
 were seized with the desire to throw themselves into 
 the sea and swim to the sirens. But this would have 
 meant their certain and speedy death, and for this 
 alone the treacherous sirens sang their enchanting 
 songs. Then the leader made the Greeks to fill their 
 ears with wax, and had himself bound thoroughly to 
 the boat so that when they passed the shore where the 
 sirens dwelled, and they should begin their strains 
 of entrancing music, the men with stopped ears could 
 not hear, and the leader, though he should wish to 
 go, would be bound hand and foot so that he could 
 not ; and thus they could make the journey in safety. 
 This is the method of resistance, but that method is 
 not the best. The other story illustrated the other 
 method, the method of counter-attraction. It is the 
 story of the Argonauts, who sailed with Jason in 
 search of the golden fleece, and they also had to round 
 
120 THE TEMPTATION OF OUE SAVIOUR 
 
 that same southern shore of Italy, where sang the 
 sirens. They took on board with them Orpheus, 
 whose music entranced the very beasts of the forests, 
 and made even the trees to wave before him in hom 
 age. And now as they come where the sirens dwell, 
 and as the sirens begin to play the soft music, Or- 
 pheus strikes the wondrous notes of his lyre, so that 
 all the air vibrates with the sweet melodies, and all 
 the sailors on the boat laugh to scorn the sirens, and 
 the voyagers round the shore in safety. That is the 
 method whereby you and I are to overcome tempta- 
 tion in the experiences of our earthly life. This 
 alone is the sure way of triumph. ^' This I say, then, 
 Walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of 
 the flesh." " Ye shall know the truth, and the truth 
 shall make you free." ^'If the Son shall make you 
 free, you shall be free, indeed." 
 
 O my wearied, battling, tempted friends, whether 
 saved or lost, freely and fully admit Jesus into your 
 hearfc and life, and then shall you overcome. And 
 know that if left to your own poor strength, you shall 
 surely go down before temptation's power. Will you 
 not heed His precious call to-day ? It is this : '^ Be- 
 hold, I stand at the door and knock ; if any man 
 hear My voice, and open the door, I will come to 
 him, and will sup with him, and he with Me." 
 *' And whosoever will, let him take the water of life 
 freely.^' Come to Him now. Cast yourself utterly 
 and forever upon Him, and you shall find rest for 
 your soul. 
 
vn 
 
 Intercessory Prayer 
 
 Text: *' Moreover, as for me, God forbid that 
 I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray 
 for you." — 1 Samuel xii. 23. 
 
 THE text is one of the concluding statements 
 of the address of the prophet Samuel to his 
 people. I read you the chapter a moment 
 ago, that you might see the setting of the text, v 
 Samuel was God's prophet, and spoke to the people 
 the things that God would have them know, that 
 knowing they might obey. But after a while they 
 became impatient under his counsel and leadership, 
 and clamored for a king, and so persistently clam- 
 ored, that Saul was anointed king over them. And 
 then the prophet reminded them of his advanced age, 
 of his gray hairs, of his long life of service for them ; 
 and m his last words to them, reminded them that 
 sin, whenever and by whomsoever committed, would 
 be punished by the Almighty ; and if they expected 
 God's mercy and blessings, sin must be put away 
 from them, and obedience to the commandments of 
 God must characterize all their ways. In his address 
 there was brought home to the people a realization of 
 the gravity of their sin, that they had even gone to the 
 desperate length of discarding God's prophet and 
 clamoring for a selfish, ambitious king to be their 
 
 121 
 
122 INTEEOESSOEY PEAYER 
 
 leader. And so they cried uuto the prophet in their 
 distress and under the sense of their terrible situa. 
 tion, that he would pray God not to leave them, to their 
 wicked devices, nor to allow the calamity to overtake 
 them that even then was impending. His noble an- 
 swer was : ' ' Moreover, as for me, God forbid that I 
 should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for 
 you." 
 
 It is one of the sublimest utterances that ever fell 
 from any man's lips, especially when you take into 
 consideration the circumstances of such utterance. 
 The old man has lived unselfishly for his people. 
 He has wrought with all possible devotion and self- 
 abnegation through a long life for his people. Not 
 for himself has he wrought, but for them, for their 
 welfare, for their happiness, for the great causes and 
 principles that made for their profit, both for the 
 present and for the future. Now, at the close of his 
 notable life, they discard him and discredit him. 
 And then later they turn to him in their desperation 
 and extremity, by reason of their sins, and ask him 
 to pray for them, and he answers : ^ ' As for me, God 
 forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing 
 to pray for you.'' It is a marvelous utterance. 
 
 The text suggests the measureless importance of 
 intercessory prayer. Upon that theme I would speak 
 this morning : The importance of intercessory prayer. 
 It goes without any argument that very few, if any 
 of us, realize properly the far-reaching moment of 
 intercessory prayer in carrying on the cause of God 
 in this world. Our text suggests, first of all, our 
 responsibility to God for our praying. When they 
 appealed to Samuel not to cease to pray for them, 
 
INTERCESSOEY PRAYER 123 
 
 the prophet answered : " I could not so sin against 
 God as to cease to pray for you.^' Our praying, 
 then, has a relation of personal responsibility in the 
 sight of God. Man is responsible for every oppor- 
 tunity with which his life is in any way invested. 
 All of life's talents, its privileges, its opportunities, 
 are gifts from the Almighty to us, and unto Him we 
 are responsible for the use or the abuse of them all. 
 Man is responsible for the abuse made of his edu- 
 cation, for the education that he does have, for the 
 education that he can have. For the best possible 
 development of the resources of mind and heart and 
 life every man is responsible. Man is likewise re- 
 sponsible for his influence. If he could bring to pass 
 certain great causes for the welfare of men and the 
 glory of his Maker, by the use of his influence, then 
 he shall justly be held accountable in the sight of the 
 Almighty for such use or abuse of influence. Man 
 is responsible for the use or abuse of his money, and 
 he unto whom the Lord gives the power to get wealth 
 shall as certainly be held responsible for the use or 
 abuse of that talent as any man in the world en- 
 trusted with any other gift. 
 
 Now, prayer is one of the supreme opportunities 
 that God has vouchsafed unto men for the forward- 
 ing of His kingdom among men. Prayer is a force. 
 Paul talks about "helping together by prayer." 
 And for using or abusing such opportunity, God will 
 hold every one of us accountable. Prayer has then, 
 first of all, a direct reference to God ; and when we 
 look upon it like that, there comes home to us the 
 painful discovery of how much we have doubtless 
 lost by the neglect of this opportunity that God has 
 
124 INTEECESSOEY PEAYEE 
 
 offered us. We talk about latent powers. We talk 
 about the latent power of steam, that wrapped ap, 
 undisclosed, hidden power, of which the world for 
 so long a time did not have any just conception at 
 all, not even when its power began first to be dis- 
 covered and used. We talk about the latent power 
 of electricity, that now speaks messages around the 
 world in one or two moments. How little we knew 
 about that latent power until just a few years ago. 
 But the most marvelous latent power in the world 
 is the latent power of prayer. Do you doubt that 
 things all about us would be different if we had 
 prayed as we ought ? Do you doubt that conditions 
 in Church and in State would be marvelously changed 
 from what they now are if the sons of men had 
 called upon God as they ought ? 
 
 There are manifest reasons why men do not realize 
 the power of intercessory prayer. A number of them 
 will occur to us as we think upon the subject. Men 
 do not realize the responsibility and moment of 
 intercessory prayer, because they do not stop to think 
 that prayer is more than a privilege. Prayer is a 
 God-enj oined duty. It is not optional with us whether 
 or not we shall pray for men. It is a direct command 
 from the Almighty for us to pray for men, for all 
 men, without leaving one out in all the world. That 
 is a God-enj oined duty, as plainly indicated in His 
 Scriptures as is any other truth there indicated. We 
 have too much looked upon this matter of praying as 
 a matter of privilege. To be sure, it is a glorious 
 privilege, an exalted privilege, an incomparable 
 privilege, this privilege of preferring our requests 
 before God. Oh ! if we had to come home to us the 
 
INTEECESSOEY PEAYEE 125 
 
 awful realization that God would not hear us, no 
 matter how we called upon Him, it would paralyze 
 us and overwhelm us. Blessed and exalted above all 
 words is the privilege of prayer ! 
 
 But prayer is a great deal more than a privilege. 
 Prayer is a God-given duty, and no man is excused 
 from it, no matter what his belief, or character, or 
 condition in life. God asks all men to pray, to prefer 
 their requests before Him, to come unto Him con- 
 tinually, and tell Him out of their hearts, their hopes 
 and fears and needs and desires. We have too much 
 looked upon it simply as a privilege to be used or 
 not, according to our own wish. 
 
 And, again, we have not realized as we ought the 
 need and the danger of men all about us, for whom 
 we are to pray. Oh, if we could have the curtains 
 that separate us from eternity lifted, so that we 
 might have just one glance at the danger of men all 
 about us, the one thing we would do would be to 
 betake ourselves at once to our rooms, and fall down 
 there upon our faces before the Almighty, and en- 
 treat His mercy and favor and gracious hand of de- 
 liverance in their behalf. 
 
 Still again, we do not realize this matter as we 
 ought, because the answer to our prayers is so often 
 delayed. Time and time again different ones of you 
 have come to me and said: ^'I have asked — God 
 witnesseth the truth of what I say — I have asked for 
 Him to do this or that or the other thing for me, and 
 yet no answer has come.^' **Hope deferred maketh 
 the heart sick,'* and after a while the anxious mother 
 droops in her prayers, wanes in her expectations, 
 goes down under the withering paralysis of distrust 
 
126 INTEECESSOEY PEAYEE 
 
 of God, and to a large degree ceases to pray. And 
 so it goes with the devoted, clinging, patient, trust- 
 ful, Christian wife, as she beseeches God for the 
 strong man by her side, that he may be saved. Be- 
 cause the answer is often long delayed, we cease to 
 pray as we ought, leaving the whole matter, in some 
 stoical, unbelieving way, to the arbitrament of the 
 Almighty, in whom is infinite wisdom and from 
 whom must come every needed blessing. 
 
 But now for whom is intercessory prayer to be 
 offered ? Paul, in his first letter to Timothy, leaves 
 us without any sort of doubt about the persons for 
 whom prayer is to be offered. You read that epistle 
 and you will see that he thus enjoins prayer : ^^I 
 gxhort, therefore, that, first of all, supplications, 
 
 Api'i^yers, Intercessions and giving of thanks be made 
 for all men ; for kings, and for all that are in author- 
 ity ; " — that is, *' in eminent place," as the marginal 
 reading gives it, and the revised version, '■'• all that 
 are in high place." Why? ^' That we may lead a 
 quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. " 
 Note his exhortation well : *^I exhort that supplica- 
 
 \y tions, prayers, and intercessions be made for all 
 men." That is his injunction as to our prayers. 
 Look at it a moment. He enjoins that we shall pray 
 for all who are in authority, who are in an eminent 
 place. Look at the different classes that would come 
 under that head. There might be mentioned, first 
 of all, the rulers of state, men in positions of gov- 
 ernment, men who rule, men who make and exe- 
 cute laws. For these the mighty apostle enjoins 
 that there shall be prayer, unceasing, interces- 
 sory prayer. And it will readily occur to us that 
 
INTERCESSOEY PRAYEE 127 
 
 such praying is to be offered in behalf of men in 
 authority, without regard to their political principles 
 and preferment. God's people are to pray for all 
 who are in authority, however much they may differ 
 from them in politics or in the principles to which 
 these men subscribe. We owe it as a duty unto the 
 Almighty to pray unceasingly for all such men in 
 positions of state about us. And do you have the 
 shadow of a doubt that law would be better in its 
 construction and better in its enforcement, if daily 
 the sous and daughters of the Almighty made inter- 
 cessions for the right construction and enforcement 
 of law by those who sit in eminent position ? Be- 
 yond a doubt, every man of us must plead guilty to 
 the charge that we do not pray enough for men in 
 authority, for men who make laws, and our other 
 men who seek to execute the laws, for men in chief 
 positions, where men gather around them and take 
 their cue of life largely from these men who are in- 
 vested with leadership. Oh, the responsibility of 
 such a public man ! His position is a position at- 
 tracting the attention of uncounted hosts of men j 
 and if he be bad, and if he be careless of influence, 
 and if he disregard his relations to God, and if he be 
 without concern for the great principles of righteous- 
 ness and truth, what a hurtful mark he will leave in 
 the land in which he lives. God's men and women 
 are enjoined in Holy Scripture, directly and im- 
 pliedly, to offer intercessory prayer for men in 
 public position. And, I repeat, there is not the 
 shadow of a doubt that law would be better con- 
 structed and better enforced if the lawmakers and 
 axecutives had the unceasing prayers of the Deople 
 
128 INTERCESSORY PRAYER 
 
 in their behalf. It is not simply a question of privi- 
 lege for us, O brethren ; it is a question of duty, en- 
 joined directly and specifically upon us by the 
 Almighty Himself. 
 
 The reasons for this are manifest. Office is de- 
 ceptive. Position is always a thing of great danger. 
 Office is a thing full many a time so deceptive as 
 utterly to mislead men. Men after a while in posi- 
 tion are tempted to reach the place that Nebuchad- 
 nezzar reached, when he said: "Is not this great 
 Babylon which I have builded! " *' Which I have 
 builded. " The Almighty was utterly left out. And 
 so position is ever a thing deceptive ; and for that 
 reason men in public station, either in Church or 
 State, need the unceasing intercessions of the people 
 of God. And I repeat that the question of politics 
 hasn't anything in the world to do with our duty. 
 Christ's Church knows nothing of political lines in 
 it. It was uttered some time ago, very foolishly, by 
 a minister who should know better, that he would 
 not be the pastor of a church if every man in it did 
 not vote a certain way. The statement was extremely 
 foolish and improper. No such lines as that are to 
 be drawn in the Church of Jesus Christ. Without 
 any regard to a man's political affiliations, or prin- 
 ciples, or platform, God's people are enjoined to 
 offer prayer, fervently and unceasingly, that men 
 in authority may be guided aright, that through such 
 guidance the people may lead quiet and peaceable 
 lives in all godliness and honesty. 
 
 Then there are others besides civil officers that 
 are in eminent place. Oh ! in what eminent positions 
 are the ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ, and how 
 
INTEECESSOEY PEAYEE 129 
 
 great their need of the constaut intercessions of the 
 people of God ! Brethren, if the Apostle Paul would 
 write like this : ** I beseech you, pray for me,^^ how 
 much more the ordinary preacher needs to send forth 
 that cry to the people. Paul said : *' I beseech you, 
 brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and foi 
 the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me 
 in your prayers to God for me." If earth's greatest 
 preacher would make such a plea as that, how much 
 more the humble, ordinary, insignificant preacher 
 needs to throw himself at the feet of the people, 
 begging such intercessions from them in his behalf ! 
 
 Now, why is it so? The temptations of Christ's 
 preacher are manifold and grave. He is tempted all 
 along to professionalism ; and when Christ's preacher 
 preaches merely to preach, then his usefulness is at 
 an end. When Christ's preacher fails to preach with 
 the great throbbing passion and purpose that brought 
 the Son of God to the earth, that He might live and 
 die to make expiatory atonement for the sins of a lost 
 world, his usefulness as a minister of Jesus Christ is 
 already at an end. He is tempted to professionalism 
 all along, and professionalism in the ministry means 
 death to the preaching of the Gospel. He is tempted 
 to vanity by the applause of the world. Whenever 
 Christ's minister is lifted up with pride by the 
 applause of men, already that man's deterioration 
 and decline have begun, and if he follows on in that 
 inexcusable way, he shall sink to uselessness in the 
 kingdom of God. The reasons are many, dear 
 brethren, why God's ministers are to be constantly 
 upborne by the people in their intercessions. A 
 praying church makes a successful preacher. You 
 
130 INTERCESSOEY PRATER 
 
 may take any humble little preacher, and let him be 
 buttressed about by a church, that day in and day 
 out beseeches God to make him valiant and skillful 
 and strong in the Lord and in the power of His might, 
 and he will be a mighty preacher, I care not who he 
 is. The world is filled with examples demonstrating 
 tliat selfsame truth. They tell us that before Mr. 
 Spurgeon preached, every Sunday morning and even- 
 ing, a half hour was spent by his large body of church 
 officers praying just for the blessing of God upon the 
 preacher and the people for that service. He might 
 never preach again, and the people might never come 
 back again, or some man who, in the providence of 
 God, had come to that service might never come back 
 again. And therefore they waited at the throne of 
 grace, praying that the breath of the Almighty might 
 be upon the preacher's message, that men might be 
 turned to the Lord and be saved. And out from 
 such holy atmosphere the mighty preacher came 
 every time he stood up in his vast tabernacle to 
 preach the word of grace to the gathered thousands. 
 A praying church makes a mighty preacher. And 
 you may take any church where they do not pray 
 for the preacher, and the preacher there, no matter 
 who he is, gets on poorly. There is an atmosphere 
 in the kingdom of God, and that atmosphere is as 
 real as is the atmosphere in this physical world 
 about us ; and the atmosphere in which the preacher 
 of God preaches is of untold moment in the matter 
 of his preaching and usefulness for the lost world 
 unto whom he is sent to preach. When John Living- 
 stone stood up and preached at Shotts, in the days 
 past, a great many people were amazed at his preact- 
 
INTEBCESSOEY PEAYEE 131 
 
 ing, for under one sermon on one occasion five 
 hundred souls publicly acknowledged Jesus Christ 
 as their personal Saviour. When they looked into 
 the matter, they found that the night before, several 
 hundred had prayed all night that the next morning, 
 God's Spirit might so rest upon the preacher, that a 
 backslidden church and community might find out 
 again that God had power upon earth to save men. 
 The same story is substantially true of Jonathan 
 Edwards. When that wonderful revival came to 
 Yale University, in a past generation, people 
 seemed unable to account for such remarkable scenes 
 in that nobly historic old university. When they 
 looked into the matter, it was found that for weeks 
 and weeks every ministerial student in that school, 
 along with a number of other Christian young men, 
 had risen up before daylight, every morning, and 
 had gone to a certain room in the building, and had 
 poured out their hearts to God, that old Yale might 
 be shaken with a heaven-sent revival, and it came. 
 Can you doubt that it came because of this interces- 
 sory prayer? I have been rereading recently the 
 story of Charles G. Finney, one of the most eminent 
 and successful ministers that America has ever pro- 
 duced. Mr. Finney^ s revival meetings are yet mat- 
 ters of note throughout all the theological world. 
 He gives an account of his notable campaigns for 
 religion in the state of New York : Great meetings 
 were held, when hundreds and thousands of strong 
 men accepted the Saviour, in Utica, and in Bing- 
 hampton, and in Syracuse, and in Eochester, mighty 
 meetings, you remember, if you have read the story, 
 when hundreds and thousands of men, among them 
 
132 INTEECESSOEY PEAYEE 
 
 congressmen and judges and lawyers and eminent 
 men in every station, came to Jesus Christ. Mr. 
 Finney in writing about it afterwards tells us that 
 there was a thing going on all the time that he did 
 not know anything about. It was this : There was 
 a plain man in that state who was a minister, but 
 who preached with exceeding poverty of speech and 
 power so far as his public speech was concerned. 
 But he prayed : and when Mr. Finney came to that 
 state, this plain man, Abel Clary, betook himself to 
 prayer, shut himself up in his study and gave himself 
 for weeks, and even for months, unceasingly to 
 prayer, and in his journal, the simple diary that 
 Clary kept, were found long afterwards such entries 
 as these : "I have been strangely moved to-day to 
 pray for the salvation of Utica, and I have prayed 
 for a week for Utica." And then again, ^' I have 
 been strangely moved to-day to pray for the salvation 
 of Eochester, and I have prayed for Eochester for a 
 week." Nobody knew anything about it but the 
 one man, but after he was dead, Mr. Finney saw the 
 simple diary, and at the very times when Mr. Finney 
 was preaching the Gospel publicly with such unex- 
 ampled power in these several New York cities, this 
 plain man was on bended knee, interceding with God 
 to save those same cities. Do you doubt that there 
 was a vital connection between that man's humble 
 praying and the marvelous results that attended Mr. 
 Finney's preaching? Such illustrations might be 
 multiplied indefinitely. 
 
 Prayer is to be offered for all men. How much 
 the teachers need prayer, both the secular and the 
 religious teachers. Do you parents pray for the men 
 
INTEECESSOEY PEAYEE 133 
 
 and the women who teach your boys and girls in the 
 public schools ? If you are neglecting that you are 
 neglecting one of the most delicately and eternally 
 responsible matters in the world. Do you parents 
 pray for the men and the women that teach your 
 children in the Sunday-school classes? They are 
 hammering upon these plastic hearts, and as they 
 hammer, so shall be character and destiny to an aw- 
 ful degree with such children, for time and eternity. 
 Prayer unceasing is to be offered for them all. 
 
 But Paul sums it all up by asking that prayer be 
 made for all men. You will notice that by example 
 and precept there were several classes for whom 
 Jesus urges us to pray. He teaches us to pray 
 for the sick. That is the reason we had prayer 
 this morning, and why we have prayers at every 
 prayer-meeting, for our beloved members who are 
 sick. A man brought to Jesus his afflicted boy and 
 said to Him: "I want your help." And Jesus 
 healed him. Then the disciples took Jesus aside and 
 said : " We tried to heal him, and why could not we 
 do it ? " And He said : '" This kind can come forth 
 by nothing but by prayer." And then again the 
 Apostle James teaches us that God is well pleased 
 with our prayer when we present the sick unto Him. 
 Of course, it must be ever understood when we present 
 our loved ones in their distress unto God that we are 
 to submit to the will of God, whatever that may be. 
 
 Then there was this other class for which Jesus 
 prayed, and for which we are to pray, and that was 
 the children. You remember the account given in 
 the nineteenth chapter of Matthew, where the 
 mothers brought their children unto Jesus that He 
 
134 INTERCESSOEY PEAYER 
 
 might lay His hands upon them and pray. Wouldn't 
 you have rejoiced to have heard one of those prayers 
 Jesus made for that little girl or that little boy that 
 the mother brought to Him ? Do you suppose He 
 said : " Father, make this child to be rich in this 
 world' s goods ' ' ? Do you suppose He said : ^ ' Father, 
 let this child be lifted up until his name shall fill the 
 earth"? You do not suppose that. ''Father, let 
 this child be heavenly minded ; let this child love 
 Jesus Christ ; let this child give its life to the noblest 
 and the sublimest things." Don't you know in your 
 soul that He prayed like that ? Surely, surely, we 
 are to pray for our children. As the child goes, so 
 shall go the world, and therefore prayer unceasing is 
 to be made for these dear young lives, unable yet to 
 apprehend the deep responsibilities of human life. 
 
 Again, Jesus teaches us that we are to pray for all 
 His people everywhere ; not merely for a particular 
 church, not merely for a particular denomination, 
 but we are to pray for the true Israel of God every- 
 where, in all this earth. " Pray one for another " is 
 the voice of Jesus to His people in every age and in 
 every land. 
 
 And, still again. He teaches us that there is an- 
 other class to pray for, and I want you to see it as a 
 positive command : ' ' Pray for them which despite- 
 fuUy use you and persecute you." There is His 
 specific, direct command. That is a command that 
 may not be avoided ; that may not be disputed ; that 
 may not be disregarded. We are to pray for the men 
 who despitefully use us and persecute us. And right 
 there is the heroic place in Christianity. An un- 
 saved man cannot do it. An unsaved man cannol 
 
INTEECESSOEY PEAYEE 135 
 
 from his heart crave the favor of God upon his per- 
 secuting enemies. God's man can do it, by the grace 
 of God. And not only can he, but he is enjoined by 
 the Almighty to do that specific thing. O brethren, 
 will we never learn that the gospel of hate is the 
 gospel of destruction ? Will we never learn that for 
 a man to hate is for him to pursue a pathway of folly, 
 the end of which is filled with the most lamentable 
 consequences? Will we never learn that hate in- 
 capacitates a man for the noblest and truest living ? 
 Will we never learn that to hate fills the heart with 
 rancorous, unholy impulses, which unfit us to an aw- 
 ful degree for the solemn work of human life? 
 ^' Pray for them which despitefuUy use you and per- 
 secute you. " I hope you know the sweetness of that 
 same experience. I hope you know what it is when 
 you have been maltreated by some one to go alone 
 with God, and to commend that one to His mercy, 
 and to beseech the Almighty that good and not evil 
 may come upon the head of that one. If you have 
 learned that, you have learned one of the deepest, 
 sweetest, holiest experiences that the human heart 
 can ever know. 
 
 I am speaking too long upon this vital theme, and 
 I must close. We talk a great deal about ** un- 
 answered prayers." Let us then rather think about 
 our unoffered prayers. Your boy might have been 
 saved if you had prayed as you ought. I declare it 
 upon the authority of God's book. Your husband 
 might have been saved if you had prayed as you 
 ought, and lived rightly along with the praying. I de- 
 clare it upon the authority of that same book. Some 
 man for whose soul you yearn might long ago have 
 
136 INTEECESSOEY PEAYEE 
 
 stood up in the presence of the people of God, say 
 ing : ^^ Your God is mine, your hope mine," if you 
 and I and all of us had prayed for that man as we 
 ought. One of the deepest regrets of my life, I con- 
 fess it to you to-day, is that I have prayed so little 
 for lost sinners, compared with what I ought to have 
 prayed. O my people, our children, our loved ones, 
 to an awful degree are dependent upon our prayers. 
 And there are lost men, rulers of state, business men, 
 laborers and capitalists, the rich and the poor, the 
 old and the young, all about us, God forbid that we 
 should so sin against the Lord as to cease praying for 
 them ! Let us pray for them here and now with all 
 our hearts ! The Lord help us and hear us ! 
 
vin 
 
 The Growth of Faith 
 
 Text: *'And there was a certain nobleman, 
 whose son was sick at Capernaum. " — John iv. 46. 
 
 AEE there those here to-night who wish to be 
 Christians? Doesn't that dear boy over 
 there wish to be a Christian, and that older 
 one, turning into young manhood, and the young 
 man himself there, and that young woman — don't 
 you wish to be Christians? Then, listen, will you 
 not, to the simple exposition of the Scripture that 
 has just been read ? 
 
 It is good for us to see the matter illustrated of 
 how one comes to Christ and secures His blessing. 
 It is good to note how faith is illustrated, as it is 
 again and again in the Scriptures. It is illustrated 
 here in the case of this nobleman, who came to Jesus 
 with a great burden, and made to Him a great re- 
 quest, and received from Him a great blessing. Let 
 us look back a moment to the circumstances that led 
 up to this nobleman's visit and appeal to Jesus. 
 
 The nobleman was in trouble. He was a noble- 
 man, mark you, of some position and prominence, 
 and yet that did not save him from knowing what it 
 was to be in trouble. That old Spanish proverb is 
 true which says: ^^ There is no home without its 
 hush." The proverb itself carries with it its own 
 
 13? 
 
138 THE GEOWTH OF FAITH 
 
 plain meaning. ** There is no home without its 
 hush." Every home, however high it may be, and 
 prominent and wealthy, or if it be low and humble 
 and obscure, every home has about it something 
 that, sooner or later, brings to it a hush. It is so 
 with every home represented here to-night. Man is 
 prone to have trouble in this world, and if we have 
 missed it thus far, the day comes on apace when our 
 hearts shall be wrung to their depths, perhaps, with 
 some great sorrow. Let us not imagine that there is 
 any class, or any family, that will escape trouble 
 sooner or later. It will, sooner or later, find its way 
 into the palaco or castle, as well as the ho\ el of the 
 very poor. *^ Man is born unto trouble, as the 
 sparks fly upward." 
 
 This nobleman's trouble was about his child. His 
 child was nov* sick, near to the point of death, and 
 the man's heart was stirred with grievous concerp, 
 for his child. This is always a most tender sight, to 
 see a parent's watchfulness for his child, to see a 
 parent's concern for his child, a parent's love for his 
 child. Out of the Old Testament Scriptures, is there 
 anything more heart- wringing than David's lament 
 for his son Absalom, that poor, wretched fellow, who 
 was so little of a man, who was so much of a scape- 
 grace — that son who brought such distress upon his 
 father? Yet when tlie worst came, and the lad's life 
 was ended, the old man with unutterable grief wrung 
 his hands and cried: '^O my son Absalom, my son, 
 my son Absalom ! Would God I had died for thee, 
 O Absalom, my son, my son ! " It is the picture of 
 a true parent's love for his child, however wicked 
 and worthless the child. Oh, if this parental anx- 
 
THE GROWTH OF FAITH 139 
 
 iety could always be cairied deeper than mere ma- 
 terial things! If parents who would die for their 
 children, who would take out of their mouths the 
 last bite of food to give to their children, if these 
 parents would just go deeper than that, and look 
 after their children in their supreme needs, how 
 blessed it would be. If parents would put them- 
 selves out for the spiritual welfare of their children, 
 so directing their lives, so ordering their own ex- 
 amples as parents ! If parents would do that, then 
 how many the heartaches from which they would be 
 delivered, and how many the disasters they would 
 miss! When children in a home are worldly and 
 careless and godless, back of it all there is a fearful 
 cause. 
 
 It is good when trouble leads a man to God instead 
 Of away from God. It will always do one of these 
 two things. This man's trouble brought him to God. 
 Friend, are you in trouble 1 Come with it to God. 
 In this man's coming to Christ there is an illus- 
 tration of the growth of faith from the lowest to the 
 highest degree. Note the several degrees of faith. 
 First of all, this man sought Jesus' help. That is 
 the very first step in one's coming to Christ. I 
 mean, of course, from the human side. This man 
 sought Jesus' help. He was yonder, a day's journey 
 away from where Jesus was, and when he heard that 
 Jesus had come back to a certain familiar locality, 
 the man hastened from his house and from his sick 
 child, and with all speed came a day's journey to 
 lay before Jesus, face to face, the case of his boy. 
 He sought Jesus. That is the first great step, then, 
 »■ coming to Jesus. '* If thou seek Him, He will b© 
 
140 THE GEOWTH OF FAITH 
 
 found of thee.'^ **Seek ye the Lord while He may 
 be found." ^' In the day that thou seekest Me with 
 thy whole heart, I will be found of thee." ^'They 
 that seek Me early shall find Me." ^' Ye shall seek 
 Me and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with 
 all your heart. " So the very first step in our coming 
 to Christ for salvation is that we seek Him — that we 
 earnestly put ourselves into the great business of 
 finding Him. This man sought Jesus. He used the 
 means to come into contact with Him. He came to 
 where Jesus was. He poured out his heart to Jesus, 
 which is but another name for praying ; for when we 
 talk to Jesus, and tell Him of our needs and of our 
 wishes, then it is that we are praying. This man 
 did all that, but there was a weakness in it. What 
 was it? Jesus saw the weakness and exposed it to 
 the man. The man said, ' ' Sir, come down ere my 
 child die.' ^ That was the weakness. The man was 
 telling Jesus how He must do, in order for the child 
 to live. ''Come down,'^ he said. "Come and go 
 with me ; go where you can see the boy, where you 
 can talk to him, where he can talk to you ; come 
 down ere my child die.'' Do you not see the funda- 
 mental mistake in that man's appeal? See what 
 Jesus said to him : " Nobleman, except ye see signs 
 and wonders, ye will not believe." That is to say, 
 "Aren't you demanding signs and wonders before 
 you will put the boy's case into My hands at all?" 
 Just here is the vital mistake made by the seeker 
 after God. As long as the soul dictates to Jesus 
 how He shall bless, it shall not get His blessing. As 
 long as the sov' states terms to Jesus, it shall have 
 no favor of Kim, no forgiving love. So Jesus put 
 
THE GROWTH OF FAITH 141 
 
 this mau to the test, and said in effect : ** Aren^t you 
 demanding that I shall work signs, that I shall do 
 wonders for you, before you will commit your boy 
 to Me at all ? " The man saw the vital point, and 
 relinquished his boy without reservation or dictation 
 into Jesus' hands. O sinner, listen to this simple 
 statement : Since Jesus does the saving, does all of 
 it, won't 5^ou let Him save you His way? You will 
 never be saved any other way. You will never be 
 saved at all, be sure of it, until you just let Jesus 
 save you His own wdy. Now to-night He would 
 save you. He wishes to save you now. There is no 
 doubt about that. To- day is the accepted time al- 
 ways with Him, and never to-morrow. Now, to- 
 night, in this place, there are some who are not 
 saved. Do you wish to be ? Won't you now say, 
 **Lord, Jesus, I will not say that Thou must bless 
 me this way or that way, or some other way. I 
 simply ask that Thou wilt bless in Thine own Divine 
 way, and I do make absolute surrender of my case 
 now and forever to Thee." W^on't you thus yield 
 yourselves to Christ? If you will, you shall be 
 saved here to-night. O Spirit of God, wilt Thou not 
 draw these lost ones thus to trust themselves to 
 Christ? 
 
 And now here appears the second degree or mani- 
 festation of the nobleman's faith. What was it? 
 When the nobleman relinquished the boy into Jesus' 
 hands, Jesus said to him : ''Go thy way; thy son 
 liveth." And the Scriptures go further and say : 
 *'And the man believed the word that Jesus had 
 spoken unto him, and he went on his way." Eight 
 there is the seeking sinner saved. ''The man be- 
 
142 THE GEOWTH OF FAITH 
 
 lieved the word that Jesus had spoken unto him. '' 
 The man really took Jesus at His word. Eight 
 there the seeking sinner is saved. The sinu(ir may 
 weep ; the sinner may pray ; the sinner may be 
 filled with great grief ; the sinner's heart may be 
 sorely wrenched and disturbed ; the sinner may be 
 cast down and filled with gloom unutterable, and 
 yet go down, and deeper down and be forever lost, 
 unless he takes Jesus at His word, and closes in 
 with Him. When Jesus says: "Him that cometh 
 to Me, I will in no wise cast out,'^ the seeking sinner 
 is to answer back and say : * ' Lord, I will come ; I 
 will surrender to Thee ; I will take Thee to be my 
 Saviour ; though I do not understand it, yet it is 
 enough for me that Thou dost invite me. Gladly 
 therefore do I yield ; I surrender forever to Thee. 
 I take Thee at Thy word ; living or dying, I give 
 my all to Thee.'^ Eight there the sinner is saved. 
 
 O lost one, now listening so earnestly to what I am 
 saying, if Jesus were here to-night, and He should 
 say : " Will you trust your soul to Me ; if you will, 
 I will save you?" what would be your answer? 
 He will not force you. He will not bind you hand 
 and foot and tie you and drag you in. Christ does 
 not save that way. Christ sends His Word and His 
 Spirit to show you your need, to show you your 
 duty, to show you your danger, to convince your 
 mind and awaken your heart. He thus sets before 
 you life and death. He says: "The soul that will 
 surrender utt-erly to Jesus shall have life."' He also 
 says : "The soul that keeps away fiom Jesus, and 
 refuses to rely upon Jesus, must go down, forever 
 i^own, unto spiritual death." Now when the souJ 
 
THE GEOWTH OF FAITH 143 
 
 just closf'S in with Christ, and says: ^'I will take 
 Him at His word/' such soul is saved. His word 
 is: "Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in 
 Him, and He shall bring it to pass." "Then I will 
 commit my way to Thee, just as Thou hast said. I 
 close in with Thee, Lord Jesus, just as Thou hast 
 bidden me do, receiving Thee to be my Saviour. " 
 Whenever the soul does that, Christ saves such soul. 
 Do you see the nobleman going yonder! He is 
 singing. Ten minutes ago his face was covered 
 with the lines of anxious sorrow. Now he is sing- 
 ing. Listen how he sings, how cheerily he sings. 
 Let us stop him and talk with him : ' ' Nobleman, 
 why that joyous singing?" "My boy is better." 
 "When did you hear from him ? " "Yesterday; I 
 left home yesterday." "How was he when you 
 left?" "He was at the point of death." "And 
 is that the last time you have heard! " " Yes, yes, 
 it is the last time I have heard." "Ten minutes 
 ago, Mr. Nobleman, your face was covered with dis- 
 tress and sorrow. Now it is all gone. Why this 
 change!" "Because I put my boy's case into the 
 hands of Jesus, and He said that He would heal him, 
 and I have taken Him at His word." " Is that all. 
 Nobleman ! " " That is all. " ' ^ Do you mean to say 
 that what He said is the occasion for your joy!" 
 "That is just it.'' "Do you mean to say that the 
 reason why you are now happy is what Jesus said to 
 you!" "Yes, I mean that ; He has said that my 
 boy is to live and I take Him at His word ; He has 
 said it, and I am going back rejoicing ; He has said 
 it, and I expect to find it just like He said it ; He 
 has said it, and He will keep His word ; that is th? 
 
144 THE GROWTH OF FAITH 
 
 reason for all my joy.'' Right there the soul is 
 saved. O sinner, close in with Jesus, take Him now 
 at His word. 
 
 For the soul just to take Jesus at His word is the 
 simplest thing in the world, if only the soul may see 
 it. I said to a young man in the congregation last 
 night, who tarried after the service, and who was 
 deeply distressed about his soul : ^' What would you 
 do if Jesus Christ stood here by your side, in i)erson, 
 so that you could see Him, and touch Him and talk 
 to Him face to face ? And if He made to you the 
 distinct proposal : ' Young man, with all your sins, 
 and fears, and doubts, and difficulties, mentally, 
 morally, and of every other character, if with them 
 all you will make the surrender of yourself utterly 
 and forever to Me, I will save and keep you,' what 
 would be your answer?" In the twinkling of an 
 eye he said : ^' Why, I would do it." Then I sought 
 to show him from the Word of God that the way of 
 life is that simple. God comes to the sinner and 
 says : * ' Sinner, give Me your heart. " The sinner 
 answers: *'It is a bad heart." ''Yes, I will make 
 it good." '' It is a sinful heart. Lord." " Yes, that 
 is the reason I call for you ; it needs to be saved ; 
 it needs to be made anew " '• Well, Lord, I cannot 
 understand it." "I did not say that; I said, trust 
 it to Me." " Well, Lord, I have this serious trouble 
 and that." And He answers: '^Come along with 
 all your troubles, and I will manage every one of 
 them for you ; I will save you unto the uttermost ; 
 I know all about your every difficulty, and every sin 
 and every fear ; I came on purpose to save sinners. 
 Will you trust Me, that I may save you? If ever 
 
THE GKOWTH OF FAITH 145 
 
 you are saved, I must save you." The soul that 
 sincerely answers : '^ Lord, I close in with Thee, re- 
 ceiving Thee to be mine and giving myself to be 
 Thine forever," right there such soul is saved. 
 
 May I take a leaf out of my own little life, as I 
 sought the Saviour? I went for years seekirg the 
 Saviour. I do not believe there was a day in all those 
 years, from my boyhood up to young manhood, I do 
 not believe there was a day that I was not more or 
 less seeking the Saviour. But what misconceptions I 
 had about the way to be saved ! I believe now, as I 
 study the Scriptures, and study Christian experience, 
 and study my own experience, it seems to me now 
 that if any man at any time during those several 
 years had come to me and had shown me just this : 
 *^ If you are ready here and right now to give your- 
 self, your all, to Jesus Christ to be His forever, re- 
 ceiving Him to be yours, " it seems to me now that if 
 any man had put it that way to me, I would have 
 decided for Christ in one moment. I believe it 
 would have been closed with me, determined by me 
 in a moment. This matter of the soul's salvation is a 
 matter of direct dealing with the personal Christ. 
 He says: ^'What wilt thou that I should do unto 
 thee?'' 
 
 Now, what is Christ's Word? Here is one of His 
 sayings : ^' Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise 
 cast out." That includes you, my child. ^'Him 
 that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out." That 
 includes you, my young man. Why, do you think 
 this good and all-merciful Saviour would push you 
 away to-night if you said from your heart : " Lord, 
 I will give up to Thee," do you think He would re 
 
U-3 THE GEOWTH OF FAITH 
 
 ject you ? Why, the one great thing that He is 3on 
 cerned about is that sinners may come to Him. He 
 calls men to preach, that they may tell of His mercy 
 to those who need to be saved. He has His churches 
 in the world for the same great purpose. He sends 
 His Spirit to impress the lost, and to move upon 
 Christian hearts to pray for the lost. All these 
 gracious agencies are to bring you to say " yes '^ to 
 Jesus, to persuade you to give up to Jesus, just to 
 surrender yourself forever to Jesus. Won't you do 
 it ? He receives you, and saves you, with His own 
 great salvation. Just take Him at His word. You 
 never can save yourself, never, forever. If you went 
 around this world on your knees, leaving blood prints 
 every time you moved, that would not save you. 
 Christ must save, and Christ alone. 
 
 ** In my hand no price I bring, 
 Simply to Thy cross I cling." 
 
 You are j ust to receive Christ, to save you in His 
 own way. Are you ready thus to receive Him to- 
 night? Will you now thus receive Him? If so, 
 you will go home to-night one of the Lord's believ- 
 ing children. Will you do this to-night ? 
 
 *' But why, O preacher, do this to-night ? " I hear 
 your heart ask such question. I answer, for every 
 good reason do this to-night, and for no reason think- 
 able should you delay it till to-morrow. To-morrow 
 is not yours. To-morrow may not be yours at all. 
 It is forbidden you to put this matter off till to- 
 morrow. ** Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou 
 knowest not what a day may bring forth." "To- 
 day, if you hear His voice, harden not your hearc ' 
 
THE GROWTH OF FAITH 147 
 
 You are not even to think of to-morrow. Christ's 
 time is to-day. Christ's call is to-day. Your need is 
 to-day. Your duty is to-day. Your danger is to- 
 day. Christ says : "Close in with Me to-day." Do 
 you say: "Yes, I will ; I do to-night." You will, 
 then, to-night be saved. O God, bring the lost ones 
 to Thyself just now ! 
 
 There is yet another manifestation of faith in this 
 nobleman's case. When he went on down the way 
 that led him home, the servants met him before he 
 reached home, and they began their glad story : 
 "Master, the boy is well." He said : "When did 
 tht change come ? " And they said : "Yesterday, at 
 the seventh hour, the fever left him." "So the 
 father knew that it was at the same hour in the which 
 Jesus said unto him, * Thy son liveth ; ' and himself 
 believed, and his whole house." That is the last 
 stage of faith. That is assurance. He came and he 
 saw. There was the lad back from the gates of 
 death, sound and well. That was a happy home, 
 you may be sure. You may be sure that father told 
 them over and over again what Jesus said, and how 
 He looked, and everything that pertained to the vast 
 matter. What joy they must have had as they 
 talked about Him ! And they all believed, and 
 doubtless said : "He shall have our trust, our serv- 
 ice, and our love, all the days of our life. We know 
 that He is God, even our God forever. '^ That is the 
 last stage of faith. 
 
 The trouble with sinners is that they wish this last 
 part liist They wish assniance first. They feel 
 and iE their hearts say that if Christ would give 
 them to fee^ thi; or that, if He would fill their hearts 
 
148 THE GEOWTH OF FAITH 
 
 with peace and joy, they would then trust Him. 
 Trust Him without any such dictation. You must 
 put your case into Christ's hands and leave it there. 
 Yours it is to give up to Jesus. Yours it is to de- 
 cide for Jesus. Yours it is to choose Jesus. Yours 
 it is to say : '- Lord Jesus, I don't ask Thee to wait 
 on me another hour ; some time and somewhere I 
 have meant to settle this question : I won't ask for 
 more time ; I will settle it to-night ; I will take Thee 
 at Thy Word ; I surrender now, and forever, to 
 Thee." If you will do that to-night, you shall be 
 saved to-night. 
 
 O soul, wrong with God, take this great step 
 to-night. Take it before we go from this service. 
 What is the essence of faith ? The very essence of 
 faith is that the c^oul will willingly give up to the 
 will of Christ. You are already in Christ's hands, 
 O sinner. You are as much in His hands as is the 
 Christian. What is the difference, then? The 
 Christian is in His hands willingly. ''Have Thy 
 way with me, take the reins of my life and govern me 
 ever as Thou wishest. " That is the spirit of a Chris- 
 tian. Say to-night, O lost one, ''Lord, Thy way 
 shall be mine. Thy will shall be mine ; I give up to 
 Thee to-night, a poor, needy sinner ; I wish to be a 
 Christian ; Thou must make me one, and Thou hast 
 said if I would come to Thee that Thou wouldst not 
 cast me out ; I come now." Won't you do this now 1 
 In this last moment, for in a moment we must go ; 
 won't you close in with Jesus now ? Think about 
 going out to-night with your heart against Him ! 
 Oh, the wrong and the peril of it all, waiting until 
 some other time ! Won't you to-night close in with 
 
THE GEOWTH OF FAITH 149 
 
 Jesus, and to-night say '*yes " to Him, and to-night 
 give up to Him forever ? You remember the story 
 of the magistrate, Archias, of the city of Thebes. 
 He was going out one night to a place of feasting and 
 revelry, and one of his faithful servants intercepted 
 him on his way, and slipped into his hand a note. 
 Archias said: ^' What is it about?" And the 
 servant said : ' ' About a very serious matter, O 
 prince j be sure to read it before you go to that place." 
 And the prince thrust it down into his pocket, un- 
 read, muttering: "Serious matters later, but none 
 to-night for me!" And he went, unheeding, on, 
 and serious matters did come later. The letter was 
 a disclosure of a plot that the servant had discovered 
 that enemies had hiid to take that prince's life that 
 night, and the faithful servant had thus warned him 
 to stay away from that place of conspiracy and prob- 
 able death. But the prince did not heed the mes- 
 sage : did not even read it, and came to most serious 
 issues, even to death, that night, from that delay. 
 
 O soul, do you wish to be a Christian ? Do you, 
 my boy over there, and you, my young man over 
 there, whose heart has been touched again and again 
 with the call of the Gospel ? Do you wish to be a 
 Christian? Do you wish to be to-night? Listen 
 once more : "Him that cometh to Me, I will in no 
 wise cast out," Come now to Him, yield yourself to 
 Him, receive Him to be your personal Saviour, and 
 you shall go out of this house saved. We are going 
 to pray that you may settle it right now. Let every 
 head be bowed, and for a few moments let us pray 
 in silence. Lord, teach us how to pray ! 
 
IX 
 
 Christ's Message to the Weak 
 
 Text ; " A bruised reed shall He not break, and 
 smoking flax shall He not quench, till He send 
 forth judgment unto victory. "—Matthew xii. 20. 
 
 THE context was read a few moments ago 
 that you might see how this strange language 
 came to be used. Jesus went on the Sab- 
 bath day, with His disciples, through the corn-field, 
 and, being an hungered, they began to pluck the ears 
 of corn and to eat. This called forth the very cen- 
 sorious criticism of the Pharisees, who all through 
 the Saviour's public ministry sought to find fault 
 with what He said and did. He called to their re- 
 membrance that incident of the olden times when 
 David went into the house of God and did eat the 
 shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor 
 for them who were with him, but lawful only for the 
 priests to eat, and David was justified in doing it. 
 And then Jesus announced that the Son of Man was 
 Lord even of the Sabbath day. And next, Jesus 
 went into their temple, where there was a man with 
 a withered hand, and these same carping Pharisees 
 asked Him if it was right to heal on the Sabbath day, 
 that they might accuse Him. He answered them by 
 asking this question : "If one of you shall have a 
 sheep, and if it shall fall into a pit on the Sabbath 
 
 150 
 
CHRIST'S MESSAGE TO THE WEAK 151 
 
 day, will you wait until the next day to get it out 1 
 How much then is a man better than a sheep 1 
 Wherefore, I say unto you, it is lawful to do well on 
 the Sabbath day. " Then He said to the man : 
 ''Stretch forth thine hand." And he stretched it 
 forth and it was made whole, like as the other. 
 
 The indignation of the Pharisees had passed beyond 
 all limits now, and they went out and held a council 
 against Him, how they might destroy Him. And as 
 He withdrew from that place, the multitudes followed 
 Him, and especially those that were favorable to 
 Him, bringing to Him their troubled and their 
 diseased and their sick, and He healed them all. He 
 quoted to them the prophecy of Isaiah, made long 
 before, descriptive of the character of the Messiah 
 when He should appear among men. The conclud- 
 ing part of that description is the strange language 
 we have this morning for a text: '* A bruised reed 
 shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not 
 quench, till He send forth judgment unto victory.'' 
 
 Criticism is, I fear, a very common and dangerous 
 sin. I speak, of course, of uncharitable criticism, of 
 censorious criticism, of carping and faultfinding and 
 misjudging. That is a very common sin, I fear, and 
 surely it is a very dangerous sin. Many a wound is 
 received into many a life because some word was 
 spoken that was uncharitable, unjust, unkind, un. 
 christian, which wound is carried to the grave. 
 Jesus put His mighty protest against that kind of 
 thing. Do you not recall that when He came down 
 to the closing part of His marvelous sermon on the 
 mount He talked like this : ''Judge not, that ye be 
 not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye 
 
152 OHEISPS MESSAGE TO THE WEAK 
 
 shall be judged ; aud with what measure ye mete, it 
 shall be measured to you again." And then He 
 asks : '' Why beholdest thou the mote '' — a mote is a 
 little splinter, a tiny splinter — '^ Why beholdest thou 
 the tiny splinter that is in thy brother's eye, and con- 
 siderest not the beam " — a beam is a great log — 
 **considerest not the great log that is in thine own 
 eye?" And then He uses terrific words: '^Thou 
 hypocrite ! First cast out the beam"— the great log 
 — ''out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see 
 clearly to cast out the mote,"— the little splinter, — 
 ''out of thy brother's eye." What a mighty protest 
 the Saviour here brings against all uncharitable criti- 
 cism ! [ffow that strange setting was given this text. 
 Criticism harsh and reviling, and censorious, and 
 untrue, gathered around the life and works of Jesus, 
 and He made response to it one day on the occasion 
 of the text, quoting in His response the description 
 given of Him by Isaiah long before, as the prophet 
 foretold the character of the coming One who should 
 be the world's Saviour and King. 
 
 What then is the meaning of the text? In its 
 deep meaning, its teaching plainly seems to be that 
 the reign of Jesus Christ in this world is a reign of 
 gentleness and compassion and forbearance and pa- 
 tience and tenderness and love. Its teaching is that 
 while Jesus Christ is a lion to devour His adversaries. 
 He is at the same time a lamb, even the Lamb of God, 
 who will take away the sin of every soul that will 
 only venture to surrender utterly to Him. The teach- 
 ing of the text is that while Jesus Christ came into 
 this world to destroy the works of the devil, which de- 
 struction, thank God, shall be ultimately and effectu- 
 
CHRIST'S MESSAGE TO THE WEAK 153 
 
 ally accomplished, yet He came at the same time to 
 save poor devil-deceived and devil-driven souls, if 
 only out of the depths of repentant hearts they will 
 look unto Him. 
 
 Those two little metaphors that He employs are 
 very suggestive. He talks about the bruised reed 
 and about the smoking flax. Oh, what a glorious 
 teacher was Jesus I Every teacher ought daily to 
 study His method. He took up the simple things 
 of life, the things about which the people knew, and 
 from these He drew lessons which He proclaimed to 
 the people, so that their deep meaning would more 
 and more and more appear out of these simple matters 
 to the understanding of listening minds and hearts. 
 So here in the text the illustrations are exceedingly 
 simple. He talks about the bruised reed and about 
 the smoking flax. These are indeed very little and 
 insignificant things. The reed was the little musical 
 instrument employed by the shepherd as he led his 
 flocks over hill and vale. As he blew upon that 
 little reed, with its simple indentures, which reed 
 corresponds to the cane that grows on our river 
 banks, the shepherd's simple music was thus dis- 
 coursed. That reed after a while became bruised, 
 and then the shepherd threw it down to be trodden 
 under foot of men and beasts. And Jesus' word 
 was : '' I will not break the bruised reed." And He 
 talked about the smoking flax. The writers on Ori- 
 ental customs tell us that the smoking flax was some- 
 thing that corresponds to the little wick that you 
 have seen put down into a vessel of oil or grease, one 
 end of which is ignited and gives out light. That 
 light may be blown out, and yet the flax continues to 
 
154 CHEIST'S MESSAGE TO THE WEAK 
 
 smoke. Jesus took that simple illustration and said ■ 
 ^' I will not quench the smoking flax." 
 
 Let us see if we may not learn to-day something of 
 the wondrous tenderness and good cheer in these 
 simple illustrations employed by the Saviour. 
 
 First of all, they suggest weakness. Jesus does not 
 cast us off and desfcroy us because of our weak d ess. 
 Oh, how weak we are ! What is weaker than a little 
 bruised reed ? What is weaker than that little smok- 
 ing flax ? Now out of those little ordinary illustra- 
 tions the Master would teach us a wonderful lesson 
 for the cheer of our oft dispirited hearts and for the 
 strengthening of our wearied, driven lives. Look at 
 ourselves in any way that we may, and our painful 
 weakness will be discovered to us. 
 
 Oh, how weak we are in knowledge ! How little 
 we know ! How little we know about anythiug ! 
 How little we know about ourselves, about God, 
 about God's word ! How little we know about His 
 providence ! How little we know about the great, 
 deep, blessed mysteries of grace ! Oh, wondrous 
 truth. He does not cast us off, even though we are so 
 weak in knowledge ! 
 
 And how weak we are in faith ! You and I, assem- 
 bled for the simple service of this Lord's Day morn- 
 ing, ought to believe more profoundly in Jesus 
 Christ than did the men who saw Him after He had 
 risen from the dead. We ought to-day to believe 
 more in Jesus than did Thomas, who, when he 
 looked upon Jesus, cried out: ^' My Lord, and my 
 God.'^ Nineteen hundred years of Christian history 
 are behind us. Thomas and his fellow disciples 
 were in the beginning of the Christian era. We 
 
CHRIST'S MESSAGE TO THE WEAK 155 
 
 have seen our Lord 's Word put to every possible test. 
 We have seen every doctrine of that Book pounded 
 upon with all the forces of evil known to men and 
 demons, and yet the Book stands, more immovable 
 and impregnable than Gibraltar. We have more 
 right to believe on Jesus Christ to-day than the men 
 who saw Him after He had come from the dead, and 
 who journeyed those forty days with Him, as He yet 
 further revealed the mysteries of His kingdom. And 
 yet how painfully weak we are in faith ! Take such 
 a promise as this: '*If two of you shall agree on 
 earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it 
 shall be done for them of My Father which is in 
 heaven.'' And still we cower, and falter, and are 
 impotent, are unbelieving before a promise like that. 
 And yet, thank God, He does not cast us off. 
 
 How weak we are, too, in resisting temptation! 
 Wasn't it Mr. Spurgeon who said that there is a 
 back door to every heart, and if Satan fails to get in 
 at the front door, then he enters in at the back door ? 
 When w^e see him coming to the front door, we some- 
 times arm ourselves and resist him, because we are 
 steadfast in the faith. This is the victory that over- 
 cometh the world, and Satan too, even our faith. 
 We sometimes see Satan coming, and we resist him 
 earnestly, looking unto God for wisdom and help, 
 and thus is Satan beaten back, even as Goliath was 
 vanquished by David of old. Then we felicitate 
 ourselves upon our splendid achievement, and ere 
 we are aware, Satan has gone around and come in at 
 the back door, and stormed the very citadel of our 
 being, and we have been caught in his snare and 
 have gone down into temptation and sin. Thank 
 
156 CHRIST'S MESSAGE TO THE WEAK 
 
 God, He does not cast us off utterly, leaving us with 
 out hope, even though we do that ! 
 
 And then, how weak we are when we are called 
 upon to endure afflictions. Oh, how we chafe and 
 fume and fret and worry under life's afflictions, not 
 laying to heart the gracious promises of God con- 
 cerning them ! Take such a promise as this : '* For 
 our light afliction, which is but for a moment, work- 
 eth for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight 
 of glory." Or take this; "And we know that all 
 things work together for good to them that love God, 
 to them who are the called according to His pur- 
 pose." And yet we chafe and fume and worry over 
 the afflictions of life, which afflictions are often God's 
 disciplinary chastisements to humble us, and to con- 
 quer our selfishness, and to win us away from the 
 things that harm us, and to bring us closer to heaven 
 and to Christ. 
 
 And then how weak we are in zeal. One of the 
 most heart-breaking things on this earth is the weak- 
 ness of God's people in their zeal for Him. Why 
 will any of God^s children ever walk in a course of 
 life that could at all suggest the compromise of their 
 Lord ? Why will they do it ? How can they do it ? 
 Yet they do those very things. O brethren, blessed 
 be the mercy of God, that though we are weak in 
 faith, though we are weak in knowledge, though we 
 are weak in the resistance of temptation, though we 
 are weak in the endurance of affliction, though we are 
 weak in standing up for Jesus, the very thing we are 
 left in the world to do, yet He does not cast us off ! 
 
 Nor is that all. These two little illustrations sug- 
 gest a still deeper truth. Jesus does not cast His 
 
CHRIST'S MESSAGE TO THE WEAK 157 
 
 people off, even though seemingly their lives may be 
 worthless. That bruised reed seems to be a worth- 
 less thing. The shepherd has got it bruised, and no 
 longer does it discourse music for him, and he throws 
 it down to be trampled under foot of man and beast. 
 Jesus takes it up, turns it into an illustration, and 
 points a profoundly cheering lesson for the tempted 
 and weak. Christ does not throw His blood-bought 
 child away, even though he may be weak, and even 
 though, to human appearances, he may sometimes 
 be worthless. Frequently, we raise the question: 
 **Now, what good am I, anyway, in the kingdom of 
 God ? I can see how that preacher is accomplishing 
 something ; I can see how that Sunday-school worker 
 is bringing something graciously to pass. But, oh, 
 what good am I ? " O sir, if you are a regenerated 
 child of God, He will not cast you off. He will not 
 cast you off. "I will not break the bruised reed." 
 
 Nor is that all. These illustrations would suggest 
 that sometimes we reach the place, not only of weak- 
 ness in the kingdom of God, and not only of seeming 
 worthlessness in the kingdom of God, but where our 
 lives seem positively offensive in the kingdom of 
 God, and yet He does not utterly cast off such worth- 
 less ones. 
 
 I doubt if I am speaking to a single Christian par- 
 ent here to-day whose Christian course, at some 
 time or another, has not been grievously offensive 
 in the kingdom of God. Why were you not cast 
 off? Because of the infinite mercy of God. That is 
 the reason why the backslider, the really saved soul 
 that was tempted and seduced away from holiness 
 and righteousness, is not linally lost. Jesus Christ 
 
158 CHRIST'S MESSAGE TO THE WEAK 
 
 will not quench the smoking flax. The greatest 
 comfort in the world for the backslider is wrapped 
 up in this Scriptural truth. Jesus will not quench 
 the smoking flax. Why? Down underneath that 
 little smoking flax there is some fire. There would 
 not be smoke unless there was some fire. It may be 
 just a little fire, but there is some, and Jesus will not 
 quench that little, tiny, smoking spark. Sometimes, 
 ofttimes, our lives seem only to be smoking things 
 for God. Yet He will kindle that little spark of 
 fire underneath the smoke, and will cause the wick 
 to be lighted again, and this lighted wick may yet 
 kindle a great conflagration. Oh, there are worlds 
 of comfort here for the return of the backslidden 
 Christian ! 
 
 Now what is the gracious encouragement of this 
 text for Christ 's people ? Here it is, as I see it. The 
 encouragement of this text for Christ's people is that 
 the least little Christian in the world is as really 
 saved as is the greatest, so far as his salvation is 
 concerned, so far as his regeneration is concerned, so 
 far as his justification is concerned. But, so far as 
 his happiness is concerned, so far as his usefulness is 
 concerned, so far as his joy is concerned, so far as his 
 peace is concerned, that is another question. There are 
 degrees of peace and joy and happiness in the Chris- 
 tian life. But the teaching of this text, borne out by 
 God's Word, is that the salvation of the least little 
 Christian in the world is as certain a fact as is the 
 salvation of Paul, or of Abraham, or of any other 
 who has mightily influenced the world for the Divine 
 glory and for human good. Now, do you know a 
 sublimer truth than that! Do you, Christian, 
 
CHEIST'S MESSAGE TO THE WEAK 159 
 
 know any sweeter truth than that the least little 
 Christian cleansed by the blood of Christ is as 
 thoroughly saved and will as certainly get to heaven 
 as the greatest Christian on the face of the earth ? 
 In the true believer there is planted an incorruptible 
 seed which liveth and abideth forever. Oh, isn't 
 that glorious? 
 
 Now, why is that so ? That is so because this little 
 Christian, first of all, cost the Lord Jesus Christ just as 
 much as the big one cost Him. This little Christian 
 had the same price paid for his redemption as had 
 the mightiest Christian who ever testified for Jesus. 
 This little Christian, I say, cost our Lord just as much 
 as did the biggest. Sometimes we have heard a song 
 that went something like this : 
 
 *• One drop of the blood, one drop of the blood, 
 
 He shed upon Calvary's brow, 
 Will cleanse me from sin and free me within 
 And make me e'en whiter than snow." 
 
 The song is not a good one. It does not convey 
 the truth, just as some other sweet sounding songs do 
 not convey the truth. Every drop of the blood poured 
 out from all those gaping wounds in His dear body 
 was for me. That agony of the cross, all that desola- 
 tion, that loneliness, those quivering limbs, that fall- 
 ing blood, all of it, all of it, was for me. Jesus 
 Christ did not die for men in the bulk, but He died 
 for the individual. " The Son of God who loved me, 
 and gave Himself for me. " I cost my Lord all oi 
 Gethsemane and all of Calvary. I cost Him as much 
 as did Paul. He paid the same price for the leasfc 
 f^ne in His kingdom as for the greatest. 
 
160 CHRIST'S MESSAGE TO THE WEAK 
 
 Nor is that all. Jesus Christ will see to the cer- 
 tain salvation of the least little Christian as well as 
 the greatest, because He does the saving. Oh^ 
 precious truth, most glorious doctrine, salvation is 
 by grace. The least saint in His kingdom will be as 
 certainly saved as the greatest, because the salvation 
 of both is by grace. ^'By grace are ye saved, 
 through faith, and that not of yourselves ; it is the 
 gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.'' 
 And so that little, timid, shrinking Christian, daring 
 hardly to venture the public confession that he be- 
 lieves on Christ, yet if he does really believe on Him, 
 he is as thoroughly saved as the mighty Christian 
 who shoutB, '* I know that my Eedeemer liveth," be- 
 cause Jesus does the saving of them both. Marvelous 
 comfort is this for the timid children of God ! It is 
 the testimony of God's word. ^^ My sheep hear My 
 voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And 
 I give unto them eternal life ; and they shall never 
 perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My 
 hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is greater 
 than all ; and no man is able to pluck them out of 
 My Father's hand. I and My Father are one." Oh^ 
 there is a cable that Satan will never break, never ! 
 Never in perdition will Satan shout: "Here is one 
 who once was saved through Jesus' blood." Never ! 
 Satan may harm our influence. He may do terrible 
 hurt to our happiness. He may afflict us with many 
 sorrows here. But never will he hold a banquet in 
 hell over the blood-washed child of God ! Tell it 
 everywhere, the least little Christian is as really 
 Baved as is the greatest and the happiest and the 
 most useful. " Blessed be the God and Father of o\^ 
 
CHEIST'S MESSAGE TO THE WEAK 161 
 
 Lord Jesus Christ, who hath begotten us again into a 
 lively hope, to au inheritance incorrupt! bJe, and un- 
 defiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven 
 for you who are kept by the power of God through 
 faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last 
 time." Isn't it glorious? Salvation, not of human 
 works, salvation by the infinite grace of Almighty 
 God ! O brethren, it is the sweetest thing I ever 
 heard in this world, salvation through the grace of 
 God. Christ's work of salvation is sure. Yonder, in 
 my native state of iTorth Carolina, when the railroad 
 came through those towering mountains, the Alle- 
 ghany range, some years ago, it wound around moun- 
 tainsides and went over yawning chasms, and 
 through tunnels, and by the edges of awful precipices. 
 If the train had turned just an inch or two, it would 
 have gone over with all the passengers, hundreds of 
 feet below, and dashed them to instant death. One 
 day the engineer took his wife and little sou into the 
 engine with him, as they made that run from Ashe- 
 ville to Murphy. And the little son, five years old, 
 laughed with delight as he looked out of that window 
 at the yawning chasms and fearful precipices. The 
 mother after a while said : '^ Son, aren't you afraid? 
 If this train were to jump off this track we would be 
 dashed to death, all of us, in one minute. Aren't 
 you afraid ? " And with perfect assurance the little 
 man answered : ^ ' No, mama, I am not afraid because 
 my papa is running this engine.'^ Glory be to God, 
 Jesus Christ guides the engine of the car of salva- 
 tion ! There will be no collisions and there will be 
 no wrecks. There will be no dashing over the 
 precipices to the rocks of eternal death for any one 
 
162 CHEIST'S MESSAGE TO THE WEAK 
 
 who has surely rested his case for salvation upon the 
 Son of God. Do you see that ship yonder on the sea ? 
 See how it tosses. A great storm is sweeping the sea. 
 Do you see the ship far out there, many hundreds of 
 miles in mid-ocean? Do you not also see the angry 
 clouds, and do you not hear the awful roar of 
 thunder? On that ship is an old captain, quietly 
 sitting at the helm, smoking with perfect com- 
 placency. He is not afraid. On that same ship is a 
 little girl, an orphan child, of a dozen years, crossing 
 the ocean to loved ones yonder where she can have a 
 home, because her own parents are dead. The timid 
 girl of a dozen years is on the sea for the first time. 
 The child trembles and sobs and wrings her hands, 
 she is so distressed. But is not the child's life as 
 safe as that of the quiet captain ? She is on the same 
 ship. brothers, we live because we are in Christ. 
 If you are just in Christ, your salvation is an absolute 
 certainty. Some time ago a pastor found himself on 
 the outskirts of the city, making pasteral calls, as 
 night came on. As he turned homeward, he was at- 
 tracted by what seemed to be the sobs of a child. It 
 was even so. A little lad had lost his way. The 
 older boys had taken him there, had purposely left 
 the little fellow, and he did not know how to get 
 home and night was coming on. The pastor, as he 
 drove along, heard the sobs, found the little fellow, 
 and listened to his story. The boys had taken him 
 out there and had left him. The pastor said, after 
 he heard it all: "Will you trust me to take you 
 home?" The little fellow came out from under the 
 electric light and searchingly looked up into the 
 preacher's face. What should he do? He had been 
 
CHEIST'S MESSAGE TO THE WEAK 163 
 
 deceived once. But after searching the preacher's 
 face with his little earnest eyes for a moment, lie 
 said : "Yes, sir ; you may take me home." The lit- 
 tle fellow knew the street and number. The preacher 
 took him home. The mother was already distraught 
 with unspeakable anxiety for the little thing that was 
 missing. And when the preacher took the little 
 thing to the door, the mother was overwhelmed with 
 joy as she clasped the child to her heart and thanked 
 the preacher. What if that preacher had stopped 
 when he got the little one half-way home, and had 
 left the little fellow to whatever fate might happen to 
 him ? O sirs, wiU Jesus Christ begin the work of 
 salvation in a human soul and abandon that soul I 
 Never, forever! '^He which hath begun a good 
 work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus 
 Christ." 
 
 How long is this blessed preservation to continue ! 
 *'• A bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking 
 flax shall He not quench, till He send forth judgment 
 unto victory." There is to be '* victory." That is a 
 noble word, and nobler still when applied to the 
 triumph of God's grace in a believer's heart. Yonder 
 lay General Wolfe dying on the heights of Abraham, 
 wounded to death in the fearful battle. They laid 
 his mortally wounded body under a tree, and while 
 his life-blood ebbed away, as he lay there attended 
 by two of his men, they heard shouts on the field, 
 and the shout was: "They fly, they fly." And 
 the dying Wolfe, arousing himself from his death 
 struggle, said : " Who is it that flies? " And they 
 said: "General, the enemy flies." Then clasping 
 his hands, he said, barely able to be heard: "Vic- 
 
164 CHEIST'S MESSAGE TO THE WEAK 
 
 tory ! I die happy." O my brothers, it is victory 
 for the soul that surely relies upou Jesus Christ. It 
 is victory here, and hereafter. The white hairs of 
 these men and women tell us that soon, ah, too soon, 
 we must follow them yonder to the grave, and they 
 shall sleep with their fathers. But it is victory for 
 them. Is there anything more beautifully glorious 
 than a ripe old Christian waiting for the summons to 
 go home? It is victory for these middle-aged men 
 and women, out in the thick of the battle, driven and 
 beaten and tossed. Oh, it is victory, so far as your 
 salvation is concerned, if you are hidden with Christ. 
 It is victory for these young Christians. Oh, how 
 Satan does his utmost to delude the human soul on 
 this vital point. A thousand times, I dare say, men' 
 have said to me : "I would like to be a Christian, 
 but I am afraid that I could not hold out long." 
 I answer : " You cannot hold out until sundown, 
 you cannot hold out five minutes, you cannot hold 
 out sixty seconds." Christ holds the soul that 
 surrenders to Him. Christ comes in and reinforces 
 it. Christ has been formed within such soul the 
 hope of glory, and greater is He that is in you 
 than he that is in the world. Oh, that we may be 
 clear on this vital point as we deal with lost men. 
 They cannot live the Christian life, if left to them- 
 selves, for one hour. See how Paul put it: "1 
 know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that 
 He is able to keep that which I have committed unto 
 Him against that day." 
 
 My message is done and my hour is gone. What 
 about it all ? My closing word to these Christians, 
 first of all, is that they be happy to-day in the 
 
CHEIST'S MESSAGE TO THE WEAK 165 
 
 precious thought that they are saved. Have you 
 really surrendered to Christ 1 If yes, then we will 
 walk the heaveuly street together. Have you re- 
 ceived Jesus Christ to be your Saviour? *^I am 
 persuaded that ueither death, nor life, nor angels, 
 nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, 
 nor things to couie, nor height, nor depth, nor any 
 other creature shall be able to separate us from the 
 love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 
 Oh, just sit down, this blessed Lord's Day, and 
 pouder this precious truth : ''I am saved, I am 
 saved, thank God, I am saved ! " Do I speak to 
 some who are unhappy, some backslidden souls, 
 some lukewarm, indifferent Christians, some who are 
 among the fleshpots of Egypt, some who are not 
 living up to their privileges ? Then I would bring 
 you back to consider afresh the vital question 
 whether you have really taken Jesus to be your 
 Saviour. Oh, let us be clear on this point. O back- 
 slider, who in the other days had joy and peace in 
 your Christian living, and now the heavens seem 
 like brass, come back to-day, confessing your sins 
 and yielding yourself afresh to this all-merciful 
 Saviour. O soul, neglecting your duty to Christ, 
 come back to-day ! O church member, not in con- 
 scious fellowship with Jesus, come back to-day. 
 Come and confess your backslidings and sins, and 
 He will surely heal you. Come back. You ought 
 to do it to-day. Act this morning upon His blessed 
 promise : '^ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and 
 just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all 
 unrighteousness. " 
 
X 
 
 The Conquering Hosts of God 
 
 Text: ^' And when tlie servant of the man of 
 God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an 
 host compassed the city both with horses and 
 chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, 
 my master ! how shall we do % And he an- 
 swered, Fear not ; for they that be with us are 
 more than they that be with them. And Elisha 
 prayed and said. Lord, I pray Thee, open his 
 eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the 
 eyes of the young man and he saw ; and, behold, 
 the mountain was full of horses and chariots of 
 fire round about Elisha."— 2 Kings vi. 15, 
 16, 17. 
 
 THE text calls our attention to one of the 
 most interesting events in all the Old 
 Testament Scriptures. There are several 
 remarkably interesting events connected with the life 
 of this man Elisha. This one we are now to consider 
 is one of the most beautiful, one of the most instruct- 
 ive, and one of the most comforting for the people of 
 God. Here in the text are two men, the poles apart 
 in their feeling and in their spirit. One is swept 
 with consternation and fear, and the other is perfectly 
 calm and tranquil. The one is dismayed by the pros- 
 pects of harm from the enemies about them. The 
 other calmly looks above all the dust and tumult of 
 jarth and sees and trusts One able and ready, and 
 
 166 
 
THE CONQUERING HOSTS OF GOD 167 
 
 certain, to take care of His people. The latter man 
 is steadfast in faith, which faith God's children ought 
 ever to bear towards Him. The former is held ter- 
 ribly in the grip of material things and earthly sur- 
 roundings and thus comes short of the privileges of 
 the lofty and conquering faith the child of God ought 
 to have. 
 
 The text strikingly suggests a lesson that needs 
 always to be laid to heart, and that lesson is that 
 God's presence wdth His people is not a mere theory, 
 but a most glorious fact. Our theory, to be sure, is 
 that God is with His people. We delight to say 
 that He does not leave them in the sixth trouble, nor 
 forsake them in the seventh ; that He never fails nor 
 forsakes. That is our theory. The truth of this 
 Scripture mightily brings out the lesson that the 
 theory is a fact ; a fact that can be relied upon ; the 
 piost certain fact in the life of God's child; the fact 
 that never fails. Yes, God is with His people. They 
 may rely upon it. He never fails nor forsakes them. 
 He does keep His word to His people. 
 
 Many striking lessons are suggested by this old- 
 time incident. Some of these lessons I desire to con- 
 sider with you to-day. The first is, God's presence 
 with His people is not realized by the enemies of 
 God and His people. This truth is forcefully brought 
 out in the context. The king of Syria, Benhadad, 
 utterly forgot to reckon upon God when he was mak- 
 ing war against Israel's king and prophet and people. 
 Men always miss it to the last degree who do not 
 reckon upon God. God's enemies, who are likewise 
 the enemies of His people, fail at this point, which 
 is a vital point. They do not reckon upon God's 
 
168 THE CONQUEEING HOSTS OF GOD 
 
 presence with His people. That illustration finds 
 the most striking expression in this old-time story. 
 The king of Syria was bent on doing destruction to 
 the king and country of Israel. So he laid the finest 
 plans and gave himself to the most splendid military 
 tactics to destroy the king of Israel and the people of 
 Israel, and yet he found himself every time foiled. 
 His best laid plans came to naught. He went down 
 every time in defeat. His shrewdly laid plans, when 
 he came to the execution of them, were all utterly 
 futile. His projects to surround the king and his 
 army were somehow always baffled. When, again 
 and again, he pursued his well-laid plan, supposing 
 that this time he had the king in a net, the king was 
 not there, neither were his men. So, by and by, the 
 king of Syria, in great disappointment, and with 
 heart much piqued, called his men together and said : 
 '' What nan do I have who is for the king of Israel ? 
 uThere must be some traitor in my camp. Now, who 
 is it 1 " And one of them answered back : '^ Not at 
 all, O king. Your diagnosis is incorrect. It is not 
 some man in your army that is making the trouble 
 for you. God has a man on the other side, one man, 
 and all your secrets, whispered in your bedchamber, 
 God communicates to that proi>het, EKsha, and the 
 prophet communicates them to the king, and when 
 you are just ready to take them in your net, they are 
 not there to be taken. That is the explanation.'' 
 And then the king said: ''Where is he? I will 
 make short work of him. If he be the hindrance, 
 then the hindrance shall be removed. Let that man 
 be found." And so the king gathers about him a 
 great army, and he sends them forth by night to 
 
THE CONQUERING HOSTS OF GOD 169 
 
 surround this prophet, this one lone prophet, as he 
 was in Dothan. The whole army is to surround him, 
 and then with the coming of the morning to capture 
 him. 
 
 What a tribute the bad man unconsciously pays to 
 the good man ! Think of sending a great army after 
 one man ! Think of sending horses and chariots and 
 a great host, with all the accoutrements of war, after 
 one lone man ! Yet that is the tribute that the bad 
 man pays to the good mau. All along the bad man 
 feels the emanations from the good man of an influ- 
 ence, invisible and subtle, yet strangely mighty, and 
 this, time and again, strikes terror to the bad man's 
 heart, as well it may. It was that same feeling that 
 provoked bloody Queen Mary to say on one occasion : 
 " I fear the prayers of John Knox more than I fear 
 an army of ten thoasaud men." There was some- 
 thing in John Knox, the outflowing of which smote 
 terror to the heart of the cruel queen. So, also, this 
 wicked king unconsciously pays a marvelous tribute 
 to this man of God. He sends a great a rmy, equipped 
 with all the equipments of war, to startle and terrify 
 and to capture the plain, simple prophet of God. 
 
 Now, the folly of this man is the folly of every 
 other bad man. The extreme folly of this Syrian 
 king was that he did not reckon upon God. This 
 the enemies of God all along fail to do. This was the 
 mistake made by Edward, the king of England. 
 When Edward, king of England, rode out before the 
 Scottish troops before the battle of Baunockburn, he 
 said to the great general who rode along by his side : 
 '•'' Why, there is just a handful of those fellows, and 
 we have an army that are as the sands of the sea for 
 
170 THE CONQUEEING HOSTS OF GOD 
 
 multitude. There is just a handful of those men. 
 Do they mean to fight us ? " Then in a moment more 
 all those Scottish troops kneeled down in plain sight 
 of the army of Edward, and the general who rode 
 alongside Edward said ; ^' See, king. Yon men who 
 pray will win the day or they will die." They 
 reckoned on God, while King Edward and his 
 hosts left Him out. Bad men, all along, are failing 
 to reckon upon God, and are thus making their ever- 
 lasting mistake. That has been the ruinous mistake 
 of the persecutor through the generations. The man 
 who thinks to undo God's work by swords, by imple- 
 ments of war, by carnal weapons, the man who thinks 
 to do that, fails sooner or later, and fails utterly. He 
 always fails, as surely he ought to fail. With pardon- 
 able pride my Baptist people may point to one 
 record, and that is that never in all the stretch of the 
 centuries did Baptists persecute for religion's sake. 
 Here is one chaplet of glory men will never take 
 from the brow of my beloved people. We have al- 
 ways contended that every man must be allowed to 
 worship God without restraint or proscription. We 
 have contended that the thumbscrew and the rack 
 and the tortures of the Inquisition and every con- 
 ceivable expression of persecution are all utterly 
 inimical to God's spirit and to God's plan. But the 
 bad man forgets that God will not have His people to 
 trust in carnal weapons. That would be for them to 
 compromise His spirit and His purpose and His 
 revelation to man. 
 
 Here, then, is the mistake of the persecutor al- 
 ways. It was the mistake of Pharaoh when he op- 
 pressed Israel in Egypt. Pharaoh did not reckon 
 
THE CONQUERmO HOSTS OF GOD 171 
 
 upon God. Moses said : '^ You had better take God 
 into your plans." Moses said: **You must sooner 
 or later consciously come into direct dealing with 
 Him." Moses said: ^'You may not always trifle 
 with Him with impunity.'^ Moses said : ^^ There is 
 a pay-day coming." Moses said: "O king, you 
 had better consider Him who sits in the heavens, unto 
 whom all men must answer. You had better reckon 
 upon Him." But Pharaoh scouted it all and scorned 
 it all and laughed at it all. But one dark night the 
 death-dealing messenger, God's angel, marched up 
 and down the borders of Egypt, and when the morn- 
 ing came, the wailing land of Egypt, from border to 
 border, sounded out the desolate cry of uncounted 
 hosts, because the first- bom in every house lay dead. 
 Then the king's heart relented and he said : "There 
 is a God, and I cannot trifle with Him." That was 
 the trouble with Herod, who had the Innocents put 
 to death — thinking thus to foil the purpose of God. 
 Herod thought that by sword, by faggot, by carnal 
 weapons, he could obliterate the kingdom of God. 
 That way has always failed. When they have ap- 
 plied the torch to one child of God, persecuting him 
 to death, burning him at the stake for religion's sake, 
 out of the ashes have come troops of Christians who 
 said : '• ' We believe what that man believes whom 
 you have just burned to death. We are ready to be 
 burned for the same thing." And when they have 
 drowned some man in the same spirit, out of the 
 gurgling waters have come ten thousand men, and 
 they have said : ' ' Drown us. We believe the same 
 thing. " The bad man fails to reckon upon God and 
 is doomed. The king of the olden days left God out 
 
 ^ 
 
172 THE CONQUEEING HOSTS OF GOD 
 
 of his plans and was doomed. Every such man ig 
 doomed. Poor Voltaire left God out of his plans, 
 utterly scouted the doctrines of God ; scouted them so 
 completely as to say : ''In a little while there will 
 not be a Bible left, nor a Christian." He printed 
 that direful prophecy on his printing-press. See 
 what has come to pass. God's people have captured 
 that printing-press for righteousness, and the same 
 printing-press to-day prints this blessed Word of 
 God, and the house in which poor Voltaire lived is 
 now, they tell us, a great Bible store from which are 
 scattered everywhere the leaves from the Book of 
 Life. Poor Tom Paine, whose writings have harmed 
 so many young men — poor Paine said in 1809; ''In 
 oae hundred years there will not be a Bible left." 
 The one hundred years are barely gone, but more 
 than twenty times the number of Bibles that the peo- 
 ple ever heard of before have been printed and scat- 
 tered over the world since that direful prophecy. 
 He did not reckon upon God. Poor Ingersoll, who 
 went up and down this great country, lecturing to 
 large audiences with his striking wit and sarcasm, 
 building Up men of straw to knock them down— on 
 the very spot where he wrote his lecture which he 
 was pleased to style : " The Mistakes of Moses," on 
 that very spot they have builded a noble house of 
 worship, open every day in the week and every week 
 in the year, in which building scores and hundreds 
 and thousands every year hear of God and many be- 
 lieve and live. 
 
 Every man who leaves God out of his reckoning 
 comes to desolation. The business man who leaves 
 Him out will come to defeat. That was the sig- 
 
THE CONQUERING HOSTS OF GOD 173 
 
 nificance of that parable which Jesus spoke to us 
 about the rich man. He wished to build great 
 barns because the old barns were inadequate. He 
 would fill them with his harvests, and then be ready 
 for every exigency. But in the unexpected hour, in 
 the very heyday of his glory, when he was on the 
 pinnacle of his splendid worldly achievement, God 
 suddenly took him in hand, with the awful state- 
 ment : " This night thy life shall be required of thee, 
 thou fool." Men who do not reckon upon God come 
 to just such destruction. So it was with the king of 
 Syria. So it always is. So it ever shall be. 
 
 Let us study a second lesson suggested by the text. 
 It is that God's presence is often not realized by His 
 own people. We see that here in the case of Elisha's 
 servant. It is altogether probable that this name- 
 less servant of Elisha was a Christian. He was daily 
 with the prophet of God. He ministered to him. 
 They were close companions. It is probable, there- 
 fore, that this servant of Elisha was a Christian. 
 But note the contrast between the two men. The 
 servant was swept with fear. Apprehension seized 
 him. Awful dismay possessed him as he looked 
 around one morning and saw the city surrounded 
 with horses and chariots and a great host of soldiers, 
 with all the implements of war. He came back to 
 the prophet with the cry : ''Alas, my master, how 
 shall we do ? " Now see how the prophet spoke : 
 ' ' Fear not, for they that be with us are more than 
 they that be with them." ''Why, there are just two 
 of us. Master," cries the servant, "there are just 
 two of us, and there are thousands of them ; what can 
 we do ? " And the prophet makes some such reply 
 
174 THE OONQDEEmG HOSTS OF GOD 
 
 as this: ''There is One, an invisible One, and that 
 One counteth more in the carrying forward of the 
 cause of right than all the armored battalions of men 
 that can ever make their tramp felt in all the world. ^* 
 Then the prophet prays: "O God, open his eyes 
 that he may see ; just let the young man see." And 
 the Lord opened his eyes and behold, the mountains 
 were filled with horses and chariots of fire round 
 about the two men. 
 
 Oh, that is a faithful picture of the situation to- 
 day ! How like Elisha^s servant are we all at times ! 
 We look and we see tlie horses and the chariots and 
 the marvelous display of carnal weapons, and we 
 feel : " Alas, who are we, and what can we do in the 
 presence of such foes and forces I '^ And the more 
 that we cherish such a spirit, the more easily may 
 the enemies of God triumph over us. The awful prob- 
 lem, the awful sin with the people of God, is their 
 behavior like unto the behavior of Elisha's servant. 
 Take our many fears. How fearful we can be ! 
 How easily dismayed we can become ! What terrific 
 apprehensions do we allow, at times, to possess us ! 
 What darts of trouble we see flying around us ! Oh, 
 what moaning winds come to us ! And we say : 
 "Things are just awful, just simply awful!" 
 Things are not awful at all while God is with us. 
 Some one put it right when he said that even God's 
 people insist on having a trouble factory in their 
 houses, and if trouble does not come along naturally, 
 they put the factory to work and make it come. We 
 somehow imagine that this is a part of the Christian 
 program, that we should be cast down with trouble; 
 I think I have told some of you at the prayer- meet 
 
THE CONQUERING HOSTS OF GOD 176 
 
 ing of an experience elsewhere, where time and again 
 I called to see an old woman, who was very well- 
 to-do, who had a magnificent bank account, large 
 plantations, splendid material possessions ; and every 
 time I visited her she dealt out to me the sad story 
 of her apprehensions and fears. She was afraid 
 somebody would get that bank stock. She was 
 afraid somebody would manipulate her out of those 
 great plantations, and out of that splendid home left 
 her by her husband. She was afraid that at last the 
 outcome would be for her that she would have to die 
 in a poorhouse. I heard that as long as I could, and 
 at last I ventured to say : ''Well, my good woman, 
 what if you do have to die in the poorhouse ? What 
 does that signify"? If you are God's child, as you 
 say, fais convoy of angels would as surely meet you 
 fchere, to carry you up to the heavenly heights, as 
 they would call for you were you in the splendid 
 palace. ^^ How she did dishonor God by all such 
 talk. I knew another Christian who, every time the 
 spring came, could see hobgoblins and specters and 
 ghosts. It was the year when there was not going 
 to be any rain ; certain not to be any rain that year. 
 It was the year when the farmers would not make 
 any corn. It was the year when the wheat was all 
 going to rust. It was the year — you could see the 
 signs now — when the boll weevil was going to get 
 all the cotton. I have heard him talk like that for 
 years and years. And every such word was to the 
 dishonor of God. There is your man playing the 
 act of Elisha's nameless servant, and saying, 
 "Master, we are done for. We have at last come 
 to the bottom of the ditch. '^ He is leaving God out 
 
176 THE CONQUERING HOSTS OF GOD 
 
 The man who applies that principle in Christian life 
 and work is Elisha's servant over again. Whenever 
 a man knows his duty he is to do that duty. He is 
 unhesitatingly to do that duty, and God will take 
 care of the results. I saw a man join the church 
 once in another city. He was converted graciously, 
 and he was a magnificent man, but he said : ''I can- 
 not join the church here. If I join a church, I must 
 move somewhere else. I cannot join here." And 
 why sach a conclusion, he was asked. And then he 
 narrated the story of a dif&culty between him and a 
 man in the church. Their difficulty was supposed 
 to be serious, very serious. Who was to blame, I 
 do not know, nor care — perhaps both were to blame. 
 He said : * ' The years — many of them — have gone 
 since the difficulty, and we have never looked into 
 each other's faces, and we have never presumed to 
 speak to each other. I wish I could be in the 
 church, but it is unthinkable that I should, under 
 the circumstances, offer to join this church and ex- 
 pect to be received." I could easily meet that argu- 
 ment, and did so with the doctrine of individual re- 
 sponsibility to God. He said: ^'Well, what might 
 happen if I offered to join the church?" I said: 
 **That is not your lookout. That is God's lookout. 
 Your business is to do your duty, to walk down the 
 aisle like a man for God, with the inflexible purpose 
 to obey God and leave all the results with Him. " 
 At the very next service he stood up and said : "I 
 have made my surrender to God. Men and breth- 
 ren, I wish to be with you in the church ; if you feel 
 willing, I would be glad to have a place with you." 
 The first man to get his hand was the man who had 
 
THE CONQUERING HOSTS OF GOD 177 
 
 not spoken to him in a dozen years, and in one min- 
 ute the family feud was at an end. We see specters 
 and hobgoblins and all sorts of difficulties when we 
 do not see God ; but, my brethren, when we just admit 
 God upon the premises, then our difficulties vanish 
 like the clouds before the all-glorious «uu. God for- 
 give our unbelief! How it hinders His work, and 
 how we let our fears, like those ten spies in Joshua's 
 time, paralyze our faith and our powers. 
 
 There is another lesson in the text I would briefly 
 mention. There was one man here who was true and 
 who saw God. The true servant of God always sees 
 Him. Elisha was the true servant of God, and he 
 saw God. Oh ! isn't it sublime how Elisha behaved 
 himself when the servant said; "This city is 
 surrounded by armed men. We are at our wit's 
 end!" "What do I care for the armed men?" 
 replies the prophet. * ' God is my refuge and strength, 
 an ever present help in time of trouble." There was 
 God's man. He was like his predecessor, Elijah, on 
 Carmel's height, when he and the hosts of Baal met 
 in the one great decisive test as to who was the 
 true God. I need not here recite the familiar and 
 wonderful story. 
 
 Elisha is walking worthily in the footsteps of his 
 predecessor. So he says in effect to the young man, 
 "Why, young man, how much do you count God for — 
 God's interest in His children, and in His cause, and 
 in His chosen people over whom He watches more 
 tenderly than a mother watches over her children ? 
 Young man, how much do you count Him for ? " 
 Isn't it a thrilling spectacle — the spectacle of a man 
 who believes God and ever strives just to do His 
 
178 THE CONQUEEING HOSTS OF GOD 
 
 V wilH See Abraham. God said : " Go, Abraham." 
 ^^ Where?" ''Never mind; go." And Abraham 
 went out, not knowing whither he went, perfectly 
 peaceful, perfectly satisfied. '' I have the mandate 
 of heaven's King behind me and it is all right. I 
 am going through an untrodden wilderness, but it is 
 all right. I know not where I shall land, I know not 
 the outcome, but it is all right." When God said: 
 *' Offer Isaac on the altar," it was all right. It was 
 all right because the chief factor in his life was God. 
 
 J See Nehemiah. He was a serious patriot, a true 
 
 reformer, a genuine man. He is to rebuild the 
 walls of Jerusalem, but he is an exile. With no 
 resources but his faith in God, he goes to his great 
 task. Though laughed at, sneered at, joked about, 
 on and on he goes. He tells us why ; '' The God of 
 heaven. He shall prosper this work that I am trying 
 to do." So it always goes with the man who just 
 believes and obeys God. O brethren, if only our 
 eyes were opened what might we not see ! That re- 
 markable Sunday-school worker, who passed to heaven 
 a little while ago. Dr. H. Clay Trumbull, tells in 
 one of his books of this scene that occurred a few 
 years ago : A ship was coming back from the other 
 side of the sea, and on it were a great many people, 
 and one day the passengers sang that glorious song : 
 ''Jesus, Lover of My Soul." As they sang it, one 
 of the singers was strangely attracted by a voice just 
 behind him, and he looked around and searched the 
 face of the singer. When the song was finished the 
 stranger introduced himself to the one whose voice so 
 strikingly arrested his attention, and said : "Were 
 you in the Civil War in the sixties ? " He said : "I 
 
THE CONQUEEING HOSTS OF GOD 179 
 
 was ; I was a Confederate soldier." ** I thought you 
 were,'^ replied the first 5 ^4t all comes back to me ; 
 you were one night on picket duty and hummed the 
 song we have just sung. I was a Union soldier, in 
 command of a squad of men. That night we heard 
 you sing this same song. Tenderly you sang the 
 words : 
 
 " 'AH my trust on Thee is stayed; 
 All my help from Thee I bring ; 
 Cover my defenseless head 
 With the shadow of Thy wing ! ' 
 
 We had our guns leveled on you, but when you came 
 to those words I said : ' Boys, we must not shoot 
 such a man as that ! ' " And now, after those many 
 years, they thus met. How do you explain that 
 deliverance ? God touched the hearts of those Union 
 soldiers and held back their will and their bullets 
 from this poor man's head. It is no wonder that the 
 soldier from the South and from the North there on 
 the ship went into each other's arms and blessed 
 God for the overruling providence of the One who 
 never slumbers nor sleeps, and who never forgets to 
 care for His own. Oh ! if men would be wise in 
 their relations to God ! If He be left out of their 
 plans, then are they doomed. 
 
 An eminent Texas lawyer told me recently an 
 incident confirmatory of the very lesson I am now 
 mentioning. Twenty-five years ago when this lawyer 
 came to make his home in the city where he yet 
 resides, he and the richest man in the city saw a 
 great deal of each other. The rich man disregarded 
 God : he caroused, he revelled, he went to the bad. 
 
180 THE CONQUEEING HOSTS OF GOD 
 
 He lived only for this world. The Christian lawyei 
 said : ^' One evening I was going up the street to the 
 church to prayer- meeting, and I met this man, and 
 he said : ' Where are you going ? ^ calling me by 
 name. I said : ^ I am going to prayer-meeting. You 
 had better go with me.' He said : ' Prayer-meeting, 
 and you a practical lawyer ! You ought to have 
 more sense than that. Yoq will not get any cases at 
 that rate. Nobody will want you for their lawyer. 
 People don't want prayer -meeting men for lawyers. 
 You had better come with me and go to the dram 
 shop and let us have a good time together.' " Said 
 the lawyer : '^ I made an earnest plea that the end of 
 that way was death. He laughed me to scorn. But 
 only a few years passed, only a few, until all his 
 property was gone, the property of that God-forget= 
 ting man. All his property was gone, and his house- 
 hold wrecked and his prospects blasted, and he died 
 a pauper and was buried by the county. " O men, 
 my brothers, there is a vital difference between God's 
 man and the man not His. 
 
 I have spoken long enough. You will indulge me 
 another word. Our constant danger is that we shall 
 look too largely at material things. We must see Him 
 who is invisible, and trust in Him and in His love. We 
 are at times greatly cast down. We must look up, 
 That is our hope. The text is true. They that be 
 for us are infinitely more than they that be against us. 
 Sometimes we see justice perverted. Sometimes we 
 see the ends of righteousness caricatured. Sometimes 
 court-house trials are a contemptible farce. Some- 
 times the saddest spectacles of the miscarriage of law 
 openly and defiantly blaze in a city's life. You will be 
 
THE CONQUERING HOSTS OF GOD 181 
 
 cast down by mauy things if you take short views and 
 look merely at earthly things. God reigns and cares 
 and loves. They that be for us are infinitely more than 
 they that be against us. Look up, my brethren, look 
 up. And at the last, know that the day does come 
 when every weapon against God shall be ground to 
 the finest powder. Job's question is the question 
 that sounds through the ages : *^ Who hath hardened 
 himself against Him and hath prospered ? " Never 
 one. The prosperity may seem to be there, but it is 
 only the crackling of the dry thorns consumed by the 
 fire. There is no prosperity for a living creature that 
 lives in permanent defiance of the Will and Word of 
 Almighty God. At the end of such defiance there 
 are the ashes of remorse and the doom of death. 
 Men and women who hear me to-day, what are your 
 real relations to God? Have you made peace with 
 Him ? Are you right with Him ? Do you see God, 
 as did Elisha? Do you reckon upon His infinite 
 power I Are you in harmony with His will ? Is 
 your vision of eternal things keen and clear*? Do 
 you walk by faith and not by sight! Are God's pur- 
 poses real and are His promises personal to you ? In 
 the secrecy and deepest sincerity of your souls, I pray 
 you to-day, each one for himself, to lay these ques- 
 tions to heart. Do take time to realize God. 
 
XI 
 
 The Supreme Gift to Jesus 
 
 AS we come to this first Lord's Day of theN'ew 
 Year, the one sentence that has kept ringing 
 in my heart as a suitable word for us to-day 
 is the oft quoted saying of Paul concerning the 
 Macedonian Christians, namely : 
 
 ^'But first they gave their own selves to the 
 Lord."— 2 OoE. viii. 5. 
 
 Paul is here praising the early Macedonian Chris- 
 tians in words remarkably gracious and heartening, 
 as you observed while you listened to the Scriptural 
 reading, a moment ago, from the eighth chapter of 
 Second Corinthians. Praise from Paul was certainly 
 noteworthy. He was no fulsome flatterer. He spoke 
 words straight and direct and true. When men 
 needed rebuking, Paul was just the man to give such 
 rebuke. And now, when he finds an unusual case of 
 devotion to Christ, and of sacrifice for Christ, and of 
 glorious witnessing to the power of the grace of 
 Christ, Paul sets it forth in this chapter in words that 
 fairly breathe with beauty and blessing. 
 
 These early Macedonian Christians, though sorely 
 afflicted themselves, with their means of living piti- 
 fully reduced, yet out of their affliction and poverty 
 got together an offering for some needy people far 
 away. Though themselves in dire distress, yet with 
 
 182 
 
THE SUPREME GIFT TO JESUS 183 
 
 all the good will of the givers, and with a prayer for 
 God's favor upon their united gifts, they sent their 
 offerings, voluntarily and joyfully, to far-away people 
 who were in need. Paul makes a telling discourse 
 upon such an unusual deed, and pays his tribute to it 
 in a way that makes life loom larger and the possibil- 
 ities of human nature seem grander as we read his 
 tribute. But the point of his praise is what we need 
 to see clearly to-day ; and that is that no man can 
 please Christ and do His will as He wishes until the 
 supreme thing is done toward Christ and for Him, 
 namely, until life itself is unreservedly laid on the 
 altar for Him. When one's life is fully laid on the 
 altar for Christ, all else in service for Him is easy 
 and natural and blessed, because the greater in- 
 cludes the less. Just as long as a Christian proposes 
 to serve God with little driblets of money and time 
 and service, the Christian life is vitiated and stunted 
 and misrepresented. But when a Christian faithfully 
 apprehends the truth that the Christian life calls for 
 the actual giving of life unto Him who gave His life 
 for us, then a thousand smaller questions are settled 
 in one moment, and settled once for all. 
 
 There are two simple but practically vital truths 
 that may be seen in this story of the Macedonian 
 Christians, whose conduct called forth such positive 
 praise from Paul. 
 
 First of all, these early Christians put the cause of fX 
 Christ as the first thing in their lives. Wasn't that 
 altogether praiseworthy and consistent and necessary? 
 Where should Christ's cause be put ? I am speaking 
 this morning to an army of Christian men and women, 
 and upon you, one by one, I would press the ques- 
 
184 THE SUPEEMB GIFT TO JESUS 
 
 tion, even as with a sword point, upon the deepest 
 conscience. Where should Christ's cause be put by 
 the Mends of Christ ? These early Christians clearly 
 put it as the first thing in their lives. Untold mis- 
 chief comes to Christian men and women, and to the 
 vital cause that they represent, when they higgle 
 and haggle and fail to put Christ's cause as the first 
 thing in their lives, making it the center and heart of 
 their thought and activity. 
 
 The most superficial views are often taken by 
 Christians concerning the Christian life. It is some- 
 times vainly thought that if we can add largely to 
 our numbers, then are we indeed making progress. 
 It does not necessarily follow that, an army is making 
 progress because it keeps adding soldiers to the 
 ranks. The Bible never one time gives any such 
 hint that an increase in numbers is the way of 
 progress in the Christian warfare. The Bible 
 never once gives any encouragement to the doc- 
 trine that we shall be strong according to our 
 numbers. Indeed, we are warned again and again, 
 by warnings direct and implied, as to the snare that 
 there is in numbers. There stands out like some 
 dark cloud the old story of David's numbering the 
 kingdoms of Israel and Judah, to warn God's people 
 forever that they must not put their confidence in 
 numbers. Never once does God put the emphasis 
 on numbers. Eead the story of Gideon's vast army 
 reduced to three hundred men, and see how God 
 utterly discounts numbers. Often it is given us to 
 see how God signalizes the mighty victories that may 
 be obtained by handfuls, consecrated and definitely 
 committed to His program. It is not "How many 
 
THE SUPEEME GIFT TO JESUS 185 
 
 do we count in the kingdom of God?" but "How 
 much do we weigh ? " It is not quantity in the 
 kingdom of God that counts, but it is quality. You 
 can sometimes put your hand on one man in a 
 community who seems to have the power of a thou- 
 sand ordinary Christian men. His very nod is 
 empire j his very footfall law ; the very crook of his 
 fiuger is power. The explanation is that he lives 
 his religion. It is not duration that counts in 
 human life, but intensity. Some men die at thirty 
 and have done more for humanity than others dying 
 at one hundred and thirty. The first mentioned live 
 while they live, with the one motive of doing the will 
 of God. 
 
 Again, it is manifest that men sometimes have the 
 mistaken conception that if they had more money 
 they could forward Christ's cause in a victorious way. 
 They were never more mistaken. Never one time is 
 the emphasis in the Bible put upon material, visible 
 resources. To be sure, I have no sympathy at all 
 with the anarchistic outcry that is sometimes heard 
 against money. I do not hesitate to say that men 
 who can make money ought to make it — legitimately 
 to be sure — for all illegitimately gained money is a 
 curse to him who gains it. Men who have gifts in the 
 world of business, commanding gifts, strategic gifts, 
 who can amass money legitimately and properly, 
 ought to do so ; but money in the kingdom of God is 
 not the supreme thing at all. The early disciples of 
 Jesus were without money, and yet they shook the 
 Eoman empire to its foundations with their spiritual 
 power. They did not have vast bank accounts, and 
 yet the pagan empire was shot through with gleams 
 
186 THE SUPEEME GIFT TO JESUS 
 
 of heavenly light in one short generation. Money 
 is not the supreme thing in the kingdom of God. 
 Full many a time it is a terrible handicap, a perilous 
 hindrance. Full many a time men turn to it instead 
 of to the arm invisible and almighty. To the degree 
 that men put their confidence in human, visible, 
 material resources, to that degree are they weak and 
 iiot strong at all. 
 
 What then is the supreme thing to be laid to heart 
 tn the kingdom of God 1 It is pointed out here for 
 us by these Macedonian Christians. It is to put 
 Christ's cause as the first thing in our thinking and 
 doing, literally to put it first, and to build around it 
 as the center of all our thought and all our activity. 
 These early Christians, by the glorious example de- 
 scribed here for us by Paul, point the way for us, if 
 we would make the Christian life a thing of ever- 
 growing happiness and ever-increasing triumph over 
 the world about us. How all things would be 
 changed about us if we would put First things First ! 
 
 Now, Christ's cause is to be put first by Christians 
 — not off in a corner, treated as some little stepchild, 
 unloved and in the way. Christ's cause is to be put 
 first everywhere, and forever to be put first. That is 
 the need of the world to-day. The one constant tug 
 at my heart concerning this Pan -European war is 
 that it will blazon forth the truth before all the 
 nations that the one kingdom that is to have supreme 
 attention at the hands of humanity, because it is the 
 one hope of humanity, is the kingdom of Christ. 
 The only kingdom that shall last, the one kingdom 
 that shall ultimately break to pieces every other 
 kingdom, the one kingdom whose right it is to have 
 
THE SUPEEME GIFT TO JESUS 18'* 
 
 undisputed sway in all the earth, is Christ^ s kingdom, 
 and Christ's friends should always and everywhere 
 put His kingdom first. That is the outstanding need 
 of the world to-day. "Seek ye first the kingdom of 
 God and His righteousness." Seek it first — not sec- 
 ondly, nor thirdly, nor subordinately, nor optionally, 
 nor incidentally. " Put My cause first '' is ever the 
 call of Jesus to His people. Put it first when you go 
 to the bank. Put it first when you stand before 
 court and jury. Put it first when you go from 
 house to house ministering to the sick. Put it first 
 when you stand in the high place of the teacher. 
 Put it first in the pulpit. Put it first in the market- 
 place. Put it first in the real m of government. ' ' Put 
 My kingdom. My cause, My will, first," is forever 
 His call. One is King and Lawgiver for humanity, 
 and that is Christ. Christians are to hear this 
 call, and act on it, and live it, and relate all life 
 to it. That is what the world supremely needs. It 
 is not fine church houses ; it is not buildings marked 
 with marvelous architecture ; it is not delicately 
 stained glass windows ; it is not eloquent preachers ; 
 it is not vast piles of money ; it is not large numbers. 
 Its need is for men and women who are themselves 
 separated unto Christ and whose dominant concern 
 is to put His will first. Such men and women are to 
 be the salt of the earth, to put their healing touch on 
 the whole mass of needy and unredeemed humanity. 
 That is the world's first need — to put Christ first. 
 
 Paul stated it for us when he said : " To me to live 
 is Christ ; " or, freely translated, "To me to live is 
 for Christ to live over again." Said Paul : " I am 
 t» think His thoughts, and to talk His talk, and to 
 
188 THE SUPEEME GIFT TO JESUS 
 
 do His deeds as best I can, and to live His life, and 
 to offer myself as did He for humanity." That is 
 the business of a Christian in this world. What 
 other business could a Christian have? After I am 
 redeemed from the curse of the law, by Jesus, who 
 died for me, the Just for the unjust, the Sinless for 
 the sinner, I am left for a little while in the earth to 
 reincarnate the spirit, the teaching, the life, of Jesus, 
 and I am to put Him first. So that, when Paul 
 said: *' Ye are not your own ; ye are bought with a 
 price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in 
 your spirit, which are His," he was just stating the 
 simplest, plainest, fairest truth that can be put into 
 human words. You Christian men and womeu liter- 
 ally belong to Christ. I charge you therefore to put 
 His cause where it ought to be. Let His will be 
 regnant in all human life just as it ought to be. 
 Then even this earthly life is, indeed, a thing of sur- 
 passing glory. 
 
 You will observe that these early Macedonian 
 Christians, in all their various callings, thus en- 
 throned Christ's will and made it regnant in all their 
 daily temporal affairs. The religion of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ is not simply a showy business for Sun- 
 day. If you are going to make any choice, and put 
 your best foot forward at some particular time, in 
 Christian living, do it yonder in the market-place, 
 rather than here when you are singing some beauti- 
 ful hymn. Do it in the home, where the nervous, 
 impatient child is taxing you to the limit. Live for 
 Christ out there, where you closely touch humanity, 
 where all the sharp currents of life clash. There put 
 the will of Christ first. These early Christians in 
 
THE SUPEEME GIFT TO JESUS 189 
 
 all their daily avocations put Christ's cause first. 
 Oh, isn't that what we need, what we supremely 
 need ? We are going to get on miserably if a man 
 is a schemer and a cheat yonder in his business, and 
 a pious, long-faced saint here in church. We are 
 going to get on badly if the teacher forgets, and is a 
 nervous scold in the schoolhouse, where plastic life 
 is being touched and shaped by her every minute. 
 What the world needs is for this leaven of Christian- 
 ity to be incarnated in our lives, as we touch human- 
 ity the six busy days in the week, as well as on the 
 Lord's Day. The grocery man ought to be better, 
 and the laundry man, and the messenger boy, and 
 the butcher, and the telegraph boy, and the doctor, 
 and all the rest, because you and I cross their paths, 
 and look into their faces, and greet them for a mo- 
 ment in life's daily battle. Our Christianity is to be 
 radiant out there in the midst of the seething humanity 
 which is dying without God, It was so with these 
 early Christians, because they put Christ's cause first. 
 What a glorious day that will be — may God speed 
 its full triumph ! — when in all callings and among 
 all classes and conditions of humanity shall be real- 
 ized that noble injunction of Paul: ''Whether ye 
 eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory 
 of God." I can see how the modest teacher, just as 
 truly as any prophet in his pulpit, can glorify God 
 at her far- reaching task. I can see how the lawyer, 
 standing before court and jury, can mightily glorify 
 God, as he pleads for the fundamental principles of 
 righteousness and justice and mercy. I can see how 
 the financier, and the struggling girl with her type- 
 writer, and the needlewoman, the farmer, the man 
 
190 THE SUPREME GIFT TO JESUS 
 
 driving the dray — humanity in all its phases and at 
 all its tasks out there in the big battle of life — can glo- 
 rify God as really as did Paul, if each one will simply 
 put Christ's cause where the Macedonian Christians 
 put it — put it first. 
 
 Isn't it a glorious thing that we have the examples 
 in this dear country of ours of many of our clearest- 
 minded and most influential men who put Christ 
 first *? Whatever may be your politics, that does not 
 concern me at all ; that never concerns the pulpit. 
 The preacher is as much concerned for the souls of 
 men who follow one political party as another. But 
 whatever may be your politics, you must be pro- 
 foundly grateful for Woodrow Wilson, that modest 
 but mighty Christian man at the helm of this nation ; 
 and you must be likewise grateful for the Secretary 
 of State, Mr. Bryan ; and you must be deeply grate- 
 ful for that masterful leader yonder in Great Britain, 
 Lloyd George — grateful that these personalities, 
 world-touching personalities, bow down like little 
 children, daily asking for wisdom and strength from 
 God for their tasks. The gracious influence of such 
 men for Christianity is literally beyond human com- 
 putation. And here in your own modest circles of 
 life there are men in this task, and women in that, 
 who are incarnating the ideals of Jesus, and are put- 
 ting His cause first, and they in their sphere, as well 
 as these mighty ones mentioned in their sphere, are 
 positively and constantly blessing humanity. God 
 speed the day when Christians, when you and I here 
 in this meeting-house this first Lord's Day morning 
 of the New Year, shall understand that what Christ 
 waits for and asks at our hands is that we will do 
 
THE SUPREME GIFT TO JESUS 191 
 
 in life what we are here to do I That we will have 
 the right sense of our vocation ! And that we will 
 relate ourselves to the one embracing task that we 
 are in the world for, here in the little vestibule of 
 time preceding eternity, to put Christ's cause first, 
 and then pass from time to be with Him in the larger 
 House of Life, where all the conditiojis of life are 
 perfect forevermore ! 
 
 There is another vital truth to be emphasized, and 
 that is that the secret of such wonderful devotion on 
 the part of these Macedonian Christians is explained 
 in the very words of the brief text : ' ' But first they 
 gave their own selves to the Lord." As certainly 
 as we are here, my brothers, the crux of the whole 
 matter of living the Christian life is stated here in 
 this sentence : ' ' But first they gave their own selves 
 to the Lord." You have a thousand questions 
 settled when this one big question is settled : I am 
 here to go where, and to speak what, and to live as, 
 Christ wishes, and to that I dedicate my life. When 
 that is done, the many questions of life all adjust 
 themselves into harmonious concord with the one 
 consuming purpose of life. 
 
 Note carefully the words: "But first they gave 
 their own selves to the Lord." They gave them- 
 selves. It is just at that point that we most sadly 
 fail as Christians. We propose to give Jesus little 
 compartments in our lives, and then desire Him to 
 leave us to ourselves with the larger compartments. 
 Oh, that is the tragedy of our Christianity ! These 
 early Christians just did what a Christian is in the 
 world for, what you and I are here for — namely, to 
 do Christ's will, to represent Christy to be His wit- 
 
192 THE SXJPEEME GIFT TO JESUS 
 
 ness, to be His friend, to carry forward His kiDgdom, 
 to make victorious His will everywhere. If we can 
 carry out His will by ill health better than by good 
 health, let ill health come ! If we can do it better 
 by poverty than by riches, let us have poverty ! If 
 we can do it better to be persecuted and hunted and 
 sent to our graves misunderstood. Lord, let it be that 
 way ! Thy will be enthroned and made victorious 
 through us, come as it will, cost what it may ! It is 
 not a theory that you and I are inescapably respon- 
 sible for the doing of the will of God. That is the 
 preeminent fact of life. 
 
 I have told you before of scenes I have witnessed 
 and lessons I have learned in connection with the 
 camp-meetings I have attended with the cattlemen, 
 here and there, in the great West. It is one of the 
 most refreshing joys of my life thus to be with them. 
 They are heroes and empire builders. One morning 
 I preached to that great group of cattlemen, gathered 
 in a cleft of the mountains, perhaps a thousand men, 
 on this searching text : ^' Ye are bought with a price ; 
 therefore, glorify God in your body, and in your 
 spirit, which are God's." And that morning I was 
 making the insistence that Christ should be the 
 absolute Master of life, just as I am making it this 
 morning. When the service was done, one of those 
 cattlemen locked his arm in mine and said : * ' If you 
 are willing, we will go for a walk. I have something 
 to say to you. " And up the long mountain canyon 
 we took our walk, more than a mile away from the 
 many camps. He said not a word as we were going 
 His great chest rose and fell like some seething 
 furnace. It was evident that he had something 
 
THE SUPEEME GIFT TO JESUS 193 
 
 serious to say, and I waited for him to break the 
 silence. When we were more than a mile away, he 
 turned and faced me, and with gasping words he 
 said : "I want you to pray a dedicatory prayer for 
 me/^ I said: *'What do you wish to dedicate?'^ 
 And then he said, with sobs : **I never knew until 
 to-day that I am responsible for my very property to 
 Jesus J I have not been a Christian long, and I have 
 not heard much about Him, and I do not know much 
 about what He expects of me. I never knew until 
 you i)reached to-day that all these thousands of cat- 
 tle, every hoof of them, that I have said were mine, 
 are not really mine, but that they belong to Christ, 
 and that I am simply His administrator, His trustee, 
 His steward. Never until to-day did I know that. 
 And I never knew until to-day that these twenty- 
 five miles and more of spreading ranch lands, that I 
 have said were mine, are not mine at all, but His ; 
 that the title to every acre is in Him ; not until to-day 
 did I know that. Now," he said, "I want you to 
 bow down here and tell Him for me that I will take 
 my place ; I will accept my stewardship ; I will be 
 His administrator on His estate. And then when you 
 are through, I wish to pray." Of course I prayed 
 the best I could, the man consenting and assenting, 
 with sobs and words, as I prayed. And when I had 
 finished and waited for him to pray, he waited some 
 minutes before he could speak, sobbing like a little 
 child ; and when, at last, he did speak, he said : 
 *^ Master, am I not in a position now to give you also 
 the loved one for whom I have long been praying ? 
 Am I not in a position now to give him to you f 
 Along with all else, I do give him to you ; save hina 
 
194 THE SUPEEME GIFT TO JESUS 
 
 for your glory ; I give him to you to-day forever.*' 
 We walked back to the camp, and not a word was 
 said on the return journey. Then the day wore to 
 evening, and the men again came together for wor- 
 ship, and I stood before them in that mountain 
 canyon, once more to preach. Nor had I preached a 
 dozen minutes until the wild young fellow on the 
 outskirts of the great crowd of a thousand cowmen 
 rose up and said : ^* I cannot wait until that man is 
 done his sermon to tell you that I have found the 
 Lord ! " Do you doubt that there was a vital and 
 fundamental connection between the right relation of 
 that ranchman to Jesus Christ and the home-coming 
 of him for whom he prayed ? Oh, there is no telling, 
 my brothers, how much power a man may have to 
 drive back Satan and beat down the very mountains 
 of sin ; there is no telling how much helpful power 
 any man or woman may have, would have, even you 
 and I, if only we will relate ourselves to the will of 
 Christ like we ought. These early Christians did 
 that, and the glory of God was over them beyond all 
 words to tell. 
 
 You will notice that they did it voluntarily. Paul 
 said : " They were willing of themselves. '' Nobody 
 coerced them. Nobody drove them. Nobody 
 scolded them. Nobody sought to wheedle money 
 out of them by all sorts of vain pleas. God pity us ! 
 I have no respect for that sort of thing in religion. 
 Here these men came, and they laid themselves, their 
 very lives, on the altar, for Christ. When a man 
 does that supreme thing for Christ, is there any 
 problem in his giving ? Is there any problem in his 
 giving money or time or talk or service? Wheo 
 
THE SUPEEME GIFT TO JESUS 195 
 
 the supreme thiug has been given to Christ, you have 
 gone to the heart of the Christian life, and then the 
 Christian life can be made a great sun, lighting up 
 the darkness near and far, and piloting many in the 
 upward way. 
 
 Here is the test and here is the measure of our 
 power to bless humanity. I tell you, no matter how 
 brilliant a man is, no matter how gifted, no matter 
 how generous, if he will not put his life into the 
 service of Christ, he shall come short utterly of the 
 supreme thing. Life must be given for life. Life 
 must make its impact on life. Far more than all the 
 checks you can ever write is the writing of yourself 
 into the right kind of service for a weary, sinful 
 humanity. Incomparably better than any check 
 that you will ever lay on the altar of Christ is for 
 you to lay yourself on Christ's altar. You have be- 
 wailed the fact that you did not have the money to 
 give. You forget that you have something so much 
 better than money. You have bewailed the fact that 
 you lived from hand to mouth and could not put your 
 dollars and hundreds on the altar for Jesus, as do 
 others ; but you could put something on the altar for 
 Christ in comparison with which money seems but 
 as a trifle. '^I seek not yours, but you." That! 
 means that Christ seeks your manhood, your woman- 
 hood, your personality, your individuality, your 
 reputation, your character, your tongue, your brain, 
 your example, your very life. Humanity waits for 
 that, and the kingdom of God comes — comes with 
 power, comes to conquer, when Christian men and 
 women put themselves, their lives, on the altar for 
 their King and Eedeemer. 
 
196 THE SUPREME GIFT TO JESUS 
 
 That is the lesson for us to-day. That is the 
 supreme lessou out of this old time story./ O 
 preacher, and there are numbers here to-day, and be 
 assured that your coming always makes us glad, you 
 and I shall make pitiful progress in our exalted call- 
 ing if we do not die to self and live to Christ ! / O 
 Sunday-school worker, you will make slow progress 
 if you have imagined you have discharged your 
 Christian task when you have sat before your class 
 once a week^ for forty five miuutes or less, and have 
 said a few things about the lesson. There are no 
 secularities in the right kind of a Christian life. 
 You and I are to put ourselves on Christ's altar 
 twenty-four hours a day, living for Christ, sleeping 
 when we sleep to His glory, serving or resting or eat- 
 ing or suffering or going or waiting, all for Chi'ist. 
 Whatever He wishes, that is the supreme lesson we 
 are to learn and to ti'anslate into daily deed. 
 
 Have you thus given yourself to Christ 1 O my 
 friends, what is your spiritual condition to-day? 
 Are you halting Christians, derelict Christians, duty- 
 neglecting Christians, backslidden Christians, with 
 your years hurrying like the flying clouds'? Are 
 you to go on like that until, some evening when the 
 shadows of the night come to shroud the world, you 
 come down to sudden death and startle your family 
 with the gasp : ^'I have lived with practically no 
 thought of Christ at all? '' O men and women, the 
 one thing that makes life really great is that we are 
 here for a little season to do the Father's will, just 
 like Jesus who came down from heaven, saying : 
 *• My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and 
 to finish His work." Is that your thought of life, 
 
THE SUPREME GIFT TO JESUS 197 
 
 your effort in life ? Are you related to Christ to-day 
 like you ought to be? We ought willingly to go 
 through fire and flood to do anything Christ wishes 
 at our hands, when we remember what He did and 
 does for us. He gave His all for me. Yon cross was 
 for me. That bloody sweat in Gethsemane, O God, 
 was for me. That cry after cry, while the world was 
 darkened, and the earth was shaking, and the sun 
 would not shine on that scene of scenes, all that was 
 for me. O soul, is gratitude dead within thee? O 
 man, hast thou lost all sense of the eternal proprieties? 
 After what Christ did for us, surely we are ready to 
 go any length for Him. Don't you say so to-day? 
 With all my heart I would say it for myself. If this 
 is to be my last year, O our God, I would dedicate 
 myself to make it better than any previous year, to 
 help more people, to gladden and bless more lives, to 
 hearten souls, God helping me ! O men and women, 
 let us put Christ first. Let us seek to bury all our 
 pitiful mistakes, wanderings and defects in one great 
 heap to-day, and let us say : ^'Master, from to-day 
 Thou Shalt be first with me and mine ! " Oh, the 
 happiness in such a life as that ! Oh, the safety of 
 such a life as that! Oh, the usefulness of such a 
 life, for that is the life planted like a tree by the 
 rivers of water, in the glorious service of Christ. 
 
 Are there those here to-day who say : ^^ Sir, we 
 never did begin the Christian life at all ? " Then, I 
 ask, don't you think it is high time that you awake 
 out of sleep ? The day is far spent. Opportunity is 
 passing, even now. Don't you think it is time to-day 
 to be rightly related to Jesus ? We are going to sing 
 one of the most beautiful hymns that is ever sung, and 
 
198 THE SUPEEME GIFT TO JESUS 
 
 while we sing it I wonder if there are not duty- 
 neglecting Christians present who will say : ^^ With- 
 out waiting to confer with flesh or blood, to-day I 
 renew my vows with God, I do my duty to-day. 
 Down in my deepest conscience I hear a voice, a 
 clamant voice, a voice calling me to active service in 
 Christ's Church ; I will obey to-day." Come then to 
 these front pews and wait. There are others who 
 say : " We cannot take that step, we are not ready 
 to go that far ; but we do wish to-day to take the 
 great step of the public commitment of ourselves to 
 Christ, who alone forgiveth and saveth sinners. We 
 will receive Him as our Saviour and yield our lives 
 to His control this Lord's Day morning, the first of 
 the New Year, that Christ may forgive and cleanse 
 and save and guard and guide and use us from this 
 day forward and forever, according to His holy will.'' 
 You, too, come, while now we sing, and before all the 
 people let the great confession be made of your 
 choice of the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour and 
 Master to-day and forevermore. 
 
XII 
 
 The Subject and the Object of the Gospel 
 
 {Annual Sermon preached before the Southern Baptist Convention 
 at Louisville, Ky., May 12, 1899.) 
 
 Text : ^' TjDto me, who am less than the least of 
 all saiuts, is this grace given, that I should preach 
 among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of 
 Christ." — Ephesians iii. 8. 
 
 FIEST and foremost of all Christ's servants in 
 the work and triumphs of Christianity stands 
 the Apostle Paul. And yet the most marked 
 characteristic of his wondrous life was his humility. 
 If any man might have presumed to profess ^'sinless 
 perfection, ^^ Paul was that man ; but he would have re- 
 garded such profession as an unspeakable blasphemy. 
 See how he speaks of himself : ' ' Unto me who am less 
 than the least of all saints." A few years before he 
 designates himself as "the least of the apostles.^' 
 And just a few years later he confesses that he is the 
 " chief of sinners.'* As he grew in the experimental 
 knowledge of God's grace, he also grew in humility 
 and self-distrust Humility always obtains in pro- 
 portion as men see the goodness and greatness of God. 
 It was so with Job and Jeremiah, and Isaiah. It is 
 ever so. These men who do not know whether Christ 
 is much, are certain to think themselves much. Those 
 whom God greatly honors in service are those whom 
 He first greatly humbles. 
 
 199 
 
200 SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL 
 
 *^ God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the 
 humble. ' ' And when He gives grace to the humble He 
 y gives all other grace. ^ ' Only by pride cometh con- 
 tention. " Pride was the chief ingredient in the sin 
 that turned angels into demons. If Satan ever again 
 knows what it is to hope, it surely must be when he 
 sees Christ's preacher inflated with his own proud 
 conceit, for he remembers that this was the snare 
 whereby he fell into eternal condemnation. 
 
 Well pleased is our great Master when He sees the 
 becoming grace of humility adorning the lives of His 
 servants. Both by precept and example He magni- 
 fied its beauty and power. His whole earthly life 
 was the illustration and demonstration of His say- 
 ing : '^I am among you as one that serveth." And 
 constant was His reiteration of the great truth, 
 *' Whosoever would be first among you let him be 
 servant of all." The true motto for all His people is 
 that spoken by John: *'He must increase, but I 
 must decrease." 
 
 Notwithstanding the lowly view Paul had of him- 
 self, he greatly magnified God's grace in making him 
 a preacher of the Gospel. Everywhere Paul went, his 
 life bore out the saying, ''I magnify mine office. '^ 
 The preacher who does not should at once give up 
 his office. 
 
 Nothing can take the place of the Christian minis- 
 try. The progress of civilization, the making of 
 many books, the increase of schools and learning, the 
 marvelous triumphs of the press — mighty as are all of 
 these agencies, — they can never supersede the divinely 
 sent preacher. *' It pleased God by the foolishness of 
 preaching to save them that believe. '^ 
 
SUBJECT AND OBJECT OP THE GOSPEL 201 
 
 Let not Christ's minister for one moment lose sight 
 of the divineness of his mission. Of such preacher 
 some one has truly said : ''He holds a Divine com- 
 mission, he proclaims a Divine revelation, he is 
 animated by a Divine purpose, he accomplishes a 
 Divine result, he is dependent upon a Divine Spirit." 
 If the preacher will but be true to his sublime and 
 Divine appointment, he shall stand among men with- 
 out rivalry or competition — earth's mightiest man. 
 In the great crises of the past, matchless has been the 
 influence wielded by God's prophets and preachers. 
 When all other voices have failed, they have rallied 
 the wavering people to the standards of truth and 
 righteousness. 
 
 It was the golden -mouthed Chrysostom who became 
 the oracle of the hour in the days when Antioch was 
 smitten with terror. It was the flaming Augustine 
 who rallied his fellow countrymen from despair and 
 breathed into their lives new hope and purpose, when 
 imperial Eome lay bleeding and trampled beneath the 
 heel of an invading oppressor. It was the plain, yet 
 invincible Luther, who, when reeking corruption 
 reigned in the papal court and spread its blight over 
 all Europe, spoke forth words that echoed as the 
 thunder and were piercing as the lightning, stirring a 
 revolution that thrilled all Christendom and marking 
 a new epoch in the civilization of the world. 
 
 As in the past so shall it be in the future, that 
 God's foremost instrument is His preacher, in both 
 the civilization and the evangelization of the world. 
 
 Let it also be said in passing that there was an ele- 
 ment in Paul's preaching that must needs be in all 
 effective preaching. It was his tone of authority. 
 
202 SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL 
 
 He believed with all his heart his message, and ai 
 God's ambassador he delivered it without quailing, 
 for one moment, under any fire. "There's untold 
 power in him who knows his mission is a thing of 
 God's own willing, and that it cannot fail, though 
 doubts may shroud in cloud the transient hour. " It 
 is conviction that convinces. Earth's last place for 
 stammering and indefiniteness is the pulpit. Christ's 
 ambassador is to proclaim his Master's message rather 
 than to defend it. He is a witness rather than an 
 advocate. Christianity is nothing if it is not dog- 
 matic. It has no reason for its existence if it is not 
 sublimely positive. It is not a conundrum to be 
 guessed at, or a theory to be speculated upon, but it 
 is a divine revelation which is to be implicitly ac- 
 cepted and followed with the deepest heart-throb of 
 our lives. Christ's preacher is not here primarily to 
 teach Christian evidences or apologetics, but his mes- 
 sage is like that of the prophet of old — "Thus saith 
 the Lord." 
 
 To be continually on the defensive is contrary to 
 the very genius and purpose of the Gospel. The 
 preacher is to be concerned mainly with the preach- 
 ing of positive truth rather than the refutation of pass- 
 ing error. Let not the last blatant attack of infidelity 
 against the Bible be noticed overmuch. It is not the 
 chief business of God's minister to answer the last fool 
 who has escaped from the mortar in which he was 
 brayed. The Gospel faithfully preached is its own 
 best defense. Let us who preach remember that we 
 speak by divine authority ; not theories, but facts ; 
 not what we don't know, but what owr souls do know 
 to their profoundest depths. I give it as the humble 
 
SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL 203 
 
 ft 
 
 but deepest conviction of my heart that the overmas- 
 tering necessity of the modern pulpit is a return to that 
 dogmatic tone of authority that characterized the 
 apostles in the preaching of the Gospel, and that must 
 be found in all effective preaching the world over. 
 O my brethren, if we shall but magnify our office as 
 did Paul and be content just to be faithful preachers 
 of Christ, blessed, eternally blessed, shall be the re- 
 sults of our ministry. 
 
 " 'Tis not a cause of small import, 
 A preacher's care demands ; 
 But what might fill an angel's heart, 
 And filled the Saviour's hands." 
 
 Paul was saved for a specific purpose — he was 
 called unto a great mission. It is so with all the 
 redeemed of Christ. What was Paul's mission? He 
 tells us in our text : ''That I should preach among 
 the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." Let 
 two thoughts growing out of the text engage our 
 attention. 
 
 First. The subject-matter of the preacher's mes- 
 sage. 
 
 Second. The ministry is the heaven-appointed 
 exponent of the mission of every redeemed soul. 
 
 The first thought of our text is : 
 
 I. The subject matter of the preacher's message. 
 From the day when Paul first stood up as a witness 
 for Christianity, until that eventful day when he laid 
 his head upon the block as a martyr for the truth, he 
 unwaveringly held to one great theme, and that theme 
 was salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ. 
 Once in his long ministry he seemed somewhat to 
 
204 SUBJECT AKD OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL 
 
 leave his themec It was when he contended with the 
 philosophers of Athens in his oration on Mars Hill. 
 And there, beyond all other places, did his labors 
 prove most feeble. It is significant that immediately 
 afterwards when he came to Corinth he " determined 
 not to know anything among them, save Jesus Christ 
 and Him crucified." Always and everywhere he is 
 careful thus to go on record : ^' We preach not our- 
 selves but Christ Jesus the Lord.-' The heaven- 
 appointed center for all true preaching is Jesus Christ, 
 and to leave that center is to lose the dominant power 
 and purpose of the Gospel. 
 
 The plan of human redemption, with Christ as the 
 great keystone in the mystic arch, is the culmination 
 and perfection of God's infinite mercy, wisdom and 
 love. To bring it to the attention of man, to vitalize 
 it and make it a reality to him, all the providences 
 of God have been directed for 6,000 years. From the 
 hour that the smoking blood of man's first offering 
 rose from the sacrificial altar down through the ages 
 to the tragedy of Calvary, every act of worship, every 
 command of God, and every providence were so many 
 sign-boards pointing to that last and supreme act in 
 God's wonderful plan. Calvary has been the focal 
 point upon which all the powers of darkness have 
 hurled their darts, and it has been the glorious prism 
 that has caught the light of heaven and sent its re- 
 fracted rays into the thick darkness of earth. To 
 make a world, to create a system, to swing into space 
 this mighty canvas, was the work of a word. 
 
 But the plan of man's redemption required the 
 highest effort of the divine mind. It vacated the 
 throne of the Son in heaven and brought the ' ' mighty 
 
SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL 206 
 
 God " to earth to dwell auioiig meD. In the fuUuess 
 of time, God sent Him forth and yonder He lies the 
 infaut of Mary in Bethlehem's manger. For thirty 
 and three years He walks the earthly way ^* a Man of 
 sorrows and acquainted with grief. ^ ' " He is despised 
 and rejected of men. " They plot for His destruction. 
 The last night of His life has come and He is betrayed 
 into the hands of His enemies. A mock trial is 
 hurriedly had, and He is adjudged to die upon the 
 cruel cross. The awful hour for His death has come 
 and hellish malice nails Him to the shameful tree. 
 Between heaven and earth He hangs, suffering, bleed- 
 ing, praying, dying. His head has fallen upon His 
 breast. He is dead. They take Him down and now 
 earth's darkest night has come — the Lord of life and 
 glory lies silent in the grave. The fiends of darkness 
 now rise up and hope begins to bloom in hell, for the 
 Sun of Eighteousness has been eclipsed ! Ah, wait ! 
 Sing not too fast, ye legions of the pit ! The dark 
 night will pass awa^^ and there will dawn a victorious 
 morning. The morning has dawned. The fallen 
 Conqueror breaks the bands of death and puts the 
 grave beneath His feet. Before a gazing world He 
 ascends on high, leading captivity captive, and gives 
 gifts to men. And now again He is on His throne, 
 where He reigns and loves and waits, to give salvation 
 to any one who will only dare to trust Him. 
 
 My brethren in the ministry, if Christ has given 
 unto us the grace of preaching, though like Moses 
 we may have but a stammering tongue, yet in view 
 of what man's redemption cost, in view of its divine 
 authority and purpose, shall we ever in any presence, 
 under any earthly pressure, for any kind of reason* 
 
206 SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL 
 
 so far forget our heaven- appointed mission, so grieve 
 our dear Eedeemer, so wrong a dying world, as to 
 preach anything else except the riches of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ? Preach philosophy, or science, or 
 culture, or worldly wisdom, or beautiful platitudes, 
 preach merely to please men or eutertain? Sooner 
 far let us commend to the lips of a famishing child a 
 painted glass filled with painted water ; or to a 
 starving castaway apples of Sodom ; or to a heart- 
 broken mother a poem on the North Pole ; or to a 
 dying sinner the fables of ^sop. 
 
 Here, brethren, is our message made out for us. 
 It is Jesus Christ — in His divine personality, in the 
 spotlessness of His humanity, in His offices as Prophet, 
 Priest and King, in the atoning efficacy of His death, 
 in the power of His resurrection, in the prevalence of 
 His intercession, in the certainty and purpose of His 
 coming again. 
 
 Does some one venture to say that this theme is 
 ' ' too narrow ? ' - Before he does, let him remember 
 that ''the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and 
 the weakness of God is stronger than men. " Let him 
 remember also that Christ on the cross is the harmony 
 of every doctrine of divine revelation. There is seen 
 the enormity of man's sin and its infinite punishment. 
 There the mercy and truth of God meet together, and 
 there His justice and love are made to shine with 
 eternal glory. This theme '' too narrow ? '^ It is an 
 infinite ocean ever expanding before Him who seeks 
 to know its meaning. Well does Paul say of it that 
 it is '' unsearchable." In Christ is seen the procuring 
 cause of man's justification, redemption, sanctification 
 and glorification forever with God. In Him is infinite 
 
SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL 20'i 
 
 knowledge for every student, and comfort for all 
 broken- bear tedness, and forgiveness for every peni- 
 itent wanderer. This is the only balm in Gilead that 
 will surely heal the health of earth's sorrowing, sin- 
 sick people. We ^'daub with untempered mortar" 
 when we dare to preach anything else for the healing 
 of the sorrow and sin of a ruined world. Man's sin- 
 fulness is ever the same, and Christ's Gospel is ever 
 the same, and this message alone will break up the 
 fallow ground of a sinful heart and turn it to God. 
 Wherever it has gone, from king to barbarian, it has 
 turned men from darkness to light and from the 
 power of Satan unto God. 
 
 Why should we preach Christ and Him only ? Be- 
 cause this is the " only name under heaven given 
 amoug men whereby we must be saved, '^ and it is to 
 save souls that we are called into Christ's service. 
 Every other duty of the preacher is iucidental to this 
 one supreme and all-controlling object of the Gospel. 
 Yet all the preachers in the world left to themselves 
 could not bring to repeutauce one child of sin. 
 Christ must save and Christ alone. He left us the 
 supreme lesson in homiletics when He said, *'And 
 I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men 
 unto Me." It is the attractive power of the cross, 
 gleaming like a search-light through the words and 
 thoughts of the preacher, that kindles a fire on the 
 altar of the sinner's conscience, and turns him to 
 God. It is only of Christ that the Divine Spirit 
 testifies, and utterly futile, ''twice dead, plucked up 
 by the roots," are all our efforts, if we do not have 
 "^he Holy Spirit's fructifying presence and power. 
 
 Paul knew whence came his power. He knev 
 
208 SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL 
 
 mat with all his strength of wisdom and learning, 
 left to himself, he was as powerless to save a soul as 
 an atom floating in the sunbeam is to quench the 
 sun. Salvation by any human merit was to him a 
 criminal doctrine. He preached salvation by the 
 Lord. In every message he boldly avowed the 
 Deity of Jesus of Nazareth, in whom dwelled all 
 the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He was God 
 manifest in the flesh, God over all, with unques- 
 tioned and absolute right to the loyalty and love of 
 every human heart. Christianity does not ask for 
 compliments. Christ is all and in all. We are not 
 of those who believe in a Congress of Eeligions 
 where Christ may receive little if any larger atten- 
 tion than Brahma, or Buddha, or Mohammed, or 
 Joseph Smith ; or where it may even be conceded 
 that Christianity is the best form of religion, pro- 
 vided it be also understood that all the other relig- 
 ions contain essential and saving truths. No, with 
 all our souls we will denounce such treason against 
 Jesus Christ. Christ is God, or He is the arch- 
 deceiver of the ages. And for every theory against 
 His Deity, whether it be Socinian, Sabellian, Uni- 
 tarian, or what not, we will say to their advocates : 
 ''Gentlemen, your theories are unutterably con- 
 temptible to us, and we will have none of your 
 bouquets about Christ's 'splendid humanity' while 
 you scout His Deity. '• But our challenge shall be : 
 " If the Lord be God, follow Him ; but if Baal, then 
 follow him." 
 
 We should preach Christ and Christ only, because 
 we have no warrant or authority for preaching any- 
 thing else. Paul wrote to the Galatians : "But 
 
SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL 209 
 
 though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any 
 other gospel unto you than that which we have 
 preached unto you, let him be accursed." And then 
 in the very next breath, in order more deeply to im- 
 press this fundamental truth with the curse attend- 
 ant upon its violation, he repeats the awful sentence : 
 ^' As we said before, so say I now again, if any man 
 preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have 
 received, let him be accursed." Ah, brethren, like 
 Paul, we will have no ^' other gospel," for if salva- 
 tion through the atonement of Christ shall fail, then 
 all has failed, for this is the very ultimatum of God. 
 To be sure "other gospels" are abroad these latter 
 days, but we shall unwaveringly hold to the one — 
 ^* Christ and Him crucified." And though many 
 are seeking to be rid of that word "crucified," to us 
 the great central fact of our redemption is that 
 "Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree." 
 Salvation by His blood shall ever be our theme — we 
 will know no other. We are not ignorant of the 
 "other gospels" that are now being offered as sub- 
 stitutes for the one. We have the gospel of philos- 
 ophy, the gospel of culture, the gospel of science, 
 the gospel of sociology, the gospel of refined human - 
 Itarianism that is stealthily finding its way into some 
 pulpits and is gilding much of our modern literature 
 as it softly talks about ' ' reconstructed manhood. " 
 We know about them all, and we know that with all 
 their keenness of speculation and polish of learning 
 and profundity of philosophy, not one of them has 
 ever regenerated a single soul. We are not of those 
 who have concluded that the old gospel of the cross 
 is unsuited to the advanced thought and aesthetic taste 
 
210 SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL 
 
 of these cultured times. Not philosophy, nor cul- 
 ture, nor sociology, nor humanitarianism, in fullest 
 possible measure, can save lost men. Underneath 
 them all, the human heart will still sin on and sigh 
 for Emanuel's peace and pardon. The old, old story 
 uttered by lips touched by a live coal from off God's 
 altar and driven home to men's consciences with the 
 voice of divine authority —this and this only can 
 make the spiritual wilderness to blossom as the rose. 
 It was such preaching by George Whitefield that, 
 more than all things else, stirred the heart of the 
 calculating Franklin, and sent terror to the soul of 
 the skeptical Hume. This was the theme of Spur- 
 geon for nearly forty years, and under his ministry, 
 more than any other in his generation, lost men 
 came flocking to God as doves to their windows, and 
 great Christian enterprises sprang up like magic, and 
 the ever-increasing philanthropy and spiritual power 
 of his church has been the wonder of this century. 
 
 In contrast with such preaching, shall I say a 
 word about the trivial and sensational themes of 
 some modern pulpits ? Many of them make us blush 
 for very shame, for they are a travesty .upon the 
 high calling of Christ's ambassador. Take this 
 series of sermons for instance — mind you, of ser- 
 mons : Shakespeare, Business, Courtiug, The Scold- 
 ing Wife, The Husband Who Stays Out Late at 
 Night, The Bicycle, The Two-headed Woman, Jack 
 and the Beanstalk, Tan Shoes and Negligee Shirts, 
 Bid Man Come from the Monkey? Ah, when the 
 preacher will thus pose as a mountebank and turn 
 the sanctuary of God into a show-house, do you won- 
 der at Sidney Smith's saying? ^ was this : ^* There 
 
r- 
 
 SUBJECT A:N^D object of the gospel 211 
 
 are three orders in creation, rneu, women, and 
 preachers.'' All such sensationalism in the pulpit 
 is worse than sawdust. It is born of the secular and 
 smacks of the street, and is a burning shame upon 
 the Christian ministry. If the history of preaching 
 proves anything, it proves that the preacher can 
 have no deep and permanent grasp of power except 
 as he holds up Christ and the great doctrines insep- 
 arable from Him. No other preaching will even 
 secure lasting morality, not to speak of regeneration. 
 
 Surely if any man who ever lived might have 
 hoped for good results from preaching something 
 else than Christ, Paul might have so ventured to try 
 it. He was deeply versed in all the learning of the 
 East, a great logician, a brilliant rhetorician, having 
 a fervid fancy, a soaring imagination, and a mag 
 netic power over men. He might easily have 
 brought to his feet the proud Pharisee, the stoical 
 Scribe, the curious Greek, and the credulous Barba- 
 rian. But at his feet he knew that they would have 
 been no better off, no nearer salvation than if they 
 had never heard his voice. He could have inter- 
 ested and pleased them, but he declared : ^*If I yet 
 pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ." 
 **I preached philosophy and men applauded; I 
 preached Christ and men repented." 
 
 My brothers, we are not here to win men by 
 cleverness of speech. We are to be concerned, not 
 that men may see our handsome bow and arrows and 
 our skilful use of the same, but that we may hear the 
 cries of the wounded of the Lord : '' Men and breth- 
 ren, what must we do to be saved 1 " You have heard 
 of certain preaching as an ** intellectual treat," as 
 
212 SUBJECT AND OBJECT OP THE GOSPEL 
 
 something '' perfectly grand," and all that. Our 
 mission as preachers means nothing of the sort. 
 If our preaching causes men to think that intellect 
 or anything else is even to be compared with the 
 saving of an immortal soul, then are we guilty of 
 treason against the Gospel of God's Son. 
 
 Paul had no time to deal in platitudes. To him 
 the world was lost. On the brow of every unsaved 
 man the awful judgment of God, *' condemned al- 
 ready," was written in letters of Stygian blackness. 
 This condemnation was to Paul no idle dream, but it 
 was a present, awful reality, the contemplation of 
 which burned in his bones like a fire and made him 
 *' count not his life dear unto himself" if only he 
 might preach unto a lost world the ' ' unsearchable 
 riches of Christ." 
 
 Paul might have taken to the lecture platform to 
 be what they now call a ''moral reformer." He 
 might have spent his days declaring against the 
 popular sins of avarice, pride and formalism ; or 
 against the abuses and corruptions of government, 
 and raised a world-wide riot against Eoman usurpa- 
 tion and tyranny. He might have poured the vials 
 of his wrath upon hypocrisy, extortion, licentious- 
 ness, and the whole category of common sins j but 
 instead of all this, he steadfastly clung to the one 
 sufficient theme, '' Christ and Him crucified." There 
 is now a great itch abroad in the land demanding 
 *' reform." From theology clear down to a city 
 council, there must be an overhauling of things. The 
 air is filled with screaming voices who propose to 
 adjust the discordant elements of both Church and 
 State. The rivers of reform must wash out the 
 
SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL 213 
 
 Augean stables everywhere, and scorching denuncia- 
 tion must be hurled against sin, whether in places 
 high or low. And shall not Christ's preacher faith- 
 fully rebuke sin everywhere ? Ah, yes, but His is a 
 far larger gospel than merely that. The preaching 
 that has Christ for its center will work every reform, 
 and such reform will be permanent. Eightly did some 
 one say that the proof of Christ's greatness was that 
 He could stand before the Eoman empire and never 
 strike it. He struck deeper than external conditions 
 — He struck the hearts of men. Though corruptioD 
 reigned on every side and sin was defiant, yet He 
 pointed men, not to outward conditions or questions, 
 but to the eternal verities of God. The emphasis of 
 His message was put upon God and not upon man. 
 It was so with the twelve ; it was so with Paul ; it 
 was so with John the Baptist ; it was so with God's 
 prophets of old ; it is so with every successful winner 
 of souls. 
 
 All sins are included in the one sin of the rejection 
 of Christ. For this reason, Paul knew — and the truth 
 is overwhelming, eternal, divine — that though he 
 could drive all men from their sins outwardly, yet 
 they would still be lost eternally, without ** Christ in 
 them the hope of glory." He knew that it was 
 worse than useless to drive all these devils out of the 
 heart, if there was not a '* strong man armed" to 
 keep them out. Otherwise the '4ast state of that 
 man would be worse than the first," He knew that 
 if He preached Christ, the power of God unto salva- 
 tion, and He was received into the heart, the expul- 
 sive power of this new affection would triumph over 
 ail sin and save the soul from death. 
 
214 SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL 
 
 Fathers and brothers, in the divine vocation of the 
 ministry, especially my young comrades in this holy 
 warfare, let us not be triflers in our heaven -appointed 
 mission. Contemptible is the memory of Nero — he 
 fiddled while Eome was burning. Aeropus, of 
 Macedonia, was one of the most insignificant kings 
 in history, because he spent his time whittling on 
 trifies while the supreme interests of his kingdom 
 were disregarded. How like them both is the 
 preacher who expends his energies upon secular and 
 transient themes, never touching the great center of 
 truth, and having an indifferent regard to the mo- 
 mentous interests of eternity. May our fidelity to 
 Jesus be far more sublime than that of the French 
 soldiers who so loved their Emperor that, thougii 
 wounded and dying on the field of battle, with one 
 last effort they would turn upon their elbows and cry 
 out as he passed : ^' Long live the Emperor ! '^ 
 
 O my brothers, it matters little what shall become 
 of us if only we shall exalt the name of Christ. Our 
 ease, our worldly prospects, our reputation, all may 
 go for naught, if only always and everywhere we may 
 know only this— to exalt the name of Christ. 
 
 ** Happy if with my latest breath 
 I may but speak His name ; 
 Preach Him to all, and gasp in death, 
 Behold, behold, the Lamb ! " 
 
 But now, more briefly, let us look at the second 
 thought deduced from the text : 
 
 n. The ministry is the heaven-appointed exponent 
 of the mission of every redeemed soul. As Paul was 
 saved for a specific purpose and called into a great 
 
SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL 215 
 
 mission, so is it true of every redeemed soul in the 
 kingdom of God. Salvation is often too narrowly 
 defined. It not only saves from, but it saves unto. 
 It not only bestows unspeakable benefits, but it 
 imposes world-wide obligations. It not only has 
 reference to ourselves, but we are made Christians in 
 order that we may instrumentally make other Chris- 
 tians. Paul's life was one sublime effort to be true 
 to the last command of Christ : '* Go ye into all the 
 world and preach the gospel to every creature." 
 That command has never been revoked, nor in any 
 wise modified, and is as binding upon us as it was 
 upon Paul or upon those that heard it as it fell from 
 the Master's lips on Olivet. 
 
 Christianity is essentially and fundamentally mis- 
 sionary. He who reads God's Word aright sees that 
 the missionary idea is the very essence of divine 
 revelation. It proclaims this truth with ten thou- 
 sand tongues of fire. If you could but banish from 
 the Gospel the missionary idea it would never give 
 forth another sound. No sinner would ever again be 
 invited to Christ. No Bible would ever again be 
 printed or circulated except as a money venture. 
 And the whole scheme of Christianity would collapse 
 under the superincumbent weight of an inordinate 
 and all-prevalent selfishness. 
 
 Missions is not simply an organ of the church, but 
 the church itself is the organ for missions. To this 
 end the church was made — for this cause Christ 
 brought it into the world. The work of missions 
 therefore is not a little optional annex to a church, 
 but it is as essential to the true work of the church 
 as is the heart essential to the human body. 
 
216 SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL 
 
 What is Christ's Church ? It is His body, the in 
 strumeut of His purpose of which He is the head. It 
 is the business of the head to direct and control the 
 body. Christ, the great Head, is lawgiver and 
 director over His body, the Church. The mission of 
 Christ's Church must be identical with the mission of 
 Christ Himself. What was His mission ? Find that 
 out and you will know the mission of every church 
 and every individual Christian. He Himself so 
 tells us : ''As My Father hath sent Me, even so send 
 I you." Here is the great source of the church's 
 authority and purpose. And a church could furnish 
 KO other evidence half so strong that she is not a New 
 Testament church as the refusal or disinclination to 
 obey Christ's last and all-inclusive commandment. 
 And a preacher, even though he may have been 
 baptized and may talk much about ''soundness in 
 faith, " could furnish no stronger evidence that he is 
 not in the apostolic succession than that he is not a 
 missionary. 
 
 High time is it that the consciences of very many 
 people were faithfully aroused as to the nature and 
 meaning of Christ's churches in the world. False 
 views abound on every side. A church of Christ is 
 not an ark in which a few of the elect are to be hap- 
 pily housed in order that they may float around joy- 
 fully over the drowning world beneath them. Nor is 
 it a ship, passage upon which will land us in the 
 heavenly country. Nor is it an insurance company, 
 to which we may pay dues now and then, and thus 
 certainly secure our dear selves against all loss. Nor 
 is it a hospital for healing all manner of sickness. 
 Nor is it a select social club with a toast-master to 
 
SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL 217 
 
 call out such themes as shall j) revoke the building up 
 of a mutual admiration society. Nor is it a debating 
 society where more attention is to be given to the fine 
 points of ecclesiasticism rather than to the consuming 
 passion of Christianity. Nor is it a school where we 
 may gather as students to be forever taught. Nor is 
 it merely a place of worship where we may give our- 
 selves to song and praise and meditation about our 
 heavenly inheritance. 
 
 Christ's Church is not any of these nor all of them 
 combined ; but with my whole heart I declare that 
 His Church exists primarily to give the Gospel to all 
 the world. 
 
 This great motive is its native air, and any church 
 that will persistently ignore this heaven-appointed 
 work does not have the moral right to the plat of 
 ground on which the church building stands. Chris- 
 tianity is incomparably more than a creed — it is a 
 life. Any other conception than that Christ's Church 
 is to be a soul -saving army is a caricature upon the 
 churches of the New Testament. And the day comes 
 on apace — may God speed its coming— when any 
 church not missionary both in spirit and practice 
 shall be regarded as a monstrosity, and when the 
 regular giving of money for world-wide evangeliza- 
 tion shall be as great a test of orthodoxy as is 
 baptism. 
 
 Furthermore, Christ's Church is to be sublimely 
 aggressive rather than defensive. He did not mean 
 that His soldiers should be chiefly engaged in building 
 forts of defense. Any church that merely sits and 
 sings *' hold the fort " will soon have no fort to hold. 
 We hear a great deal now about '^expansion." J 
 
318 SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL 
 
 dou't know what the politicians intend to make of it 
 all, but I do know that the key -word of Christianity 
 is expansion. * ' His dominion shall extend from sea 
 to sea, and from the river unto the uttermost ends of 
 the earth." Napoleon said: "Conquest has made 
 me what I am and conquest must maintain me." 
 Inviolably true is it of Christ's churches that con- 
 quest must ever be their watchword. Not only the 
 well-being but the very being of a church depends 
 upon its fidelity to the one design for which Christ 
 brought it into the world. Self-preservation demands 
 that it shall be missionary. The anti-mission spirit is 
 the death of spiritual develoi^ment. It is the fruitful 
 parent of coldness, selfishness, and hardness of heart, 
 and it is the hotbed and breeding place of suspicion, 
 bickerings, malice, heresy and all uncharitableness. 
 The consequences to a church without the mission 
 spirit are so direful that it becomes a hospital, and 
 unless it is converted, God removes its candlestick 
 and then it becomes a graveyard. Our only safety is 
 that we give ourselves to the supreme purpose and 
 passion of Christianity. Yea more, our very culture 
 shall become our hindrance if it be not inflamed and 
 impassioned by the Spirit of Christ. 
 
 What shall be our motive for this great work ! 
 The first and supreme motive for all missionary work 
 is the command of Jesus Christ. Surely this is an all- 
 sufficient reason. No Christian has the right to cavil 
 or halt one second here. Even though a thousand 
 objections to the work might be presented, and though 
 it were shown that it would take uncounted resources, 
 both of men and money, to reach one single heathen^ 
 yet the duty to obey would not be altered one iota. 
 
SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL 219 
 
 Oiir Saviour and Kiug commands world-wide evan 
 gelization, and disobedience to such command for any 
 cause is bald treachery to our trust as Christians, and 
 cold treason against Jesus Christ. 
 
 There are many other reasons for obedience to such 
 command, but they are unnecessary except as they 
 may awaken our zeal and strengthen our faith. 
 There are the motives of gratitude, and chivalry, and 
 sympathy, the marvelous missionary triumphs al- 
 ready achieved, and still other motives, potent and 
 urgent. But underlying all these motives and springs 
 of action is the plain, unchangeable command of 
 Christ. 
 
 At the bloody battle of Troy, Henry IV of France 
 said to his soldiers : -^ When you lose sight of your 
 colors, rally to my white plume. You will always 
 find it in the way to glory.' ' So when every other 
 motive to missionary effort fails, this one — loyalty to 
 Christ's command — stands firm as the adamantine 
 hills. And loyalty to Christ, we have always made 
 bold to say, is the fundamental principle in our 
 denominational life. We reject utterly all assumed 
 authority from any human source whatsoever. " One 
 is our Master, even Christ." We boldly repudiate 
 the right of pope or council, or anybody else, to ignore 
 Scriptural baptism, or change that ordinance in any 
 respect from the Christ-given pattern. 
 
 O my brethren, I pause and tremble as I ask what 
 shall be said of our loyalty to Christ's last but all- 
 inclusive command ? Take the figures : One billion 
 human beings are without the Gospel ; forty millions 
 die every year ; one hundred thousand die every 
 day ; four die every time we breathe ; and yet 
 
220 SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL 
 
 Southern Baptists are giving only a few cents a 
 member a year for their eternal salvation ! I wonder 
 if that is the one-thousandth part of our proper loy- 
 alty to Christ on the question of money ! I wonder 
 if hundreds of men in this Convention should not 
 this hour be preaching the Gospel in the regions 
 beyond ! 
 
 We shall not cease to make much of orthodoxy, 
 but I would write it this night in letters of living 
 fire that true orthodoxy is lacking in any preacher or 
 church that can close the ear against the Macedonian 
 cry of earth's perishing millions and maintain an in- 
 different concern to our Master's command to '^go." 
 There is a heresy of inaction as well as of precept. 
 How much better is faith without works than works 
 without faith? There is such a thing as a dead 
 orthodoxy. We may orate eloquently about creeds 
 and engage in endless discussion over the fine points 
 of ecclesiasticism, but above all this stands out the 
 living Word of God : ^ ^ Be ye doers of the Word, and 
 not hearers only. " "If ye love Me, ye will keep My 
 commandments." I plead for a living orthodoxy, 
 not a dry, dead dogma, out of which has gone all 
 the blood and heart- beat, leaving only a grinning, 
 ghastly skeleton behind, but an orthodoxy, every 
 pulsation of which can be felt and which is the in- 
 carnation of practical loyalty to God. 
 
 Our great people, wf'U is it J- p. own, are sublimely 
 set for the defense of the faith once delivered and as 
 sublimely set against all heresy. God be thanked ! 
 May we always stand for the simple faith of the New 
 Testament and declare that there is a difference, yea, 
 even an impassable gulf, between truth and erroi; 
 
SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL 221 
 
 But when we do this, let us remember that the ^* life 
 ia more than meat and the body more than raiment." 
 Let us remember that the deadliest of all heresies is 
 the anti-mission heresy. And let us remember that 
 the anti-mission heresy is the black plague of the 
 Southern Baptist Convention. 
 
 Brethren, the hour comes to our people, and even 
 now is, that the landmark that most of all needs re- 
 setting is the restoring of a predominant mission 
 spirit to all our people. Let it be understood 
 throughout all of our borders, from the blue waters 
 of the Chesapeake to the silvery sands of the Eio 
 Grande, that we regard as our life business the evan- 
 gelization of the world. That all our denomina- 
 tional enterprises have utterly missed their purpose, 
 if they do not stand for the central truth of Chris- 
 tianity. Let this be true of our denominational 
 papers, of our Christian colleges, of yonder match- 
 less Theological Seminary. Oh, when we have as 
 much Christianity as we have orthodoxy, then will 
 we soon take the world for Jesus ! 
 
 It is said that over the door of the Alhambra, an 
 old Moorish palace, on the one side, carved in stone, 
 was a book, and on the other side, reaching out to 
 clasp the book, was a hand. In connection with this 
 there was a legend that some day the hand would 
 clasp the book and then the Alhambra would fall. 
 That old Moorish palace may be taken as a symbol 
 of the dark kingdom of evil in the earth — Satan's 
 Alhambra, for whose subjugation and destruction 
 God's people go forth to war. When will Satan's 
 stronghold be beaten down and the victory of God's 
 people be complete? It will be when the hamd 
 
222 SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL 
 
 clasps the Book. The hand is the hand of Duty and 
 the Book is the book of Doctrine, and when duty 
 and doctrine go forth united in the fullness and 
 power of meaning intended of God, then shall the 
 Alhambra of sin speedily totter to its everlasting 
 doom and Christ shall be exalted Lord over all for- 
 evermore ! 
 
 Brethren, I believe that the hour of destiny has 
 come to our people. The voice of God's providence 
 rings out louder than the voice of many waters, * * Go 
 forward !'' Every Eed Sea of difiiculty has been 
 divided and the gates to all the nations stand ajar. 
 A little while ago the obstacles everywhere seemed 
 insuperable. An impassable wall surrounded China. 
 The ports of Japan were entirely sealed. The Dark 
 Continent was impenetrable, even to the explorer. 
 The isles of the ocean were thronged with cannibals 
 more to be dreaded than all the dangers of the sea. 
 Now the doors swing wide open to every people. 
 Japan is white to the harvest. India is restless to 
 hear of Jesus. The great men of China yearn to 
 know the oracles of God. Mohammed's crescent 
 wanes and the shrines of every false religion now are 
 tottering and their idols begin to crumble into dust. 
 The nations are impressible as the wax. The signs 
 of the times, the policies of governments, the majestic 
 march of events, are all instinct with divine mean- 
 ings and are the true burning bush whereby God is 
 mightily revealing Himself to the world. At last, 
 even the very elements of nature have all been laid 
 under tribute for the forwarding of the chariot. We 
 stand facing the opportunity of the ages. My broth- 
 ers, in the presence of such matchless opportunities, 
 
SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL 223 
 
 iu this day of the right hand of God, ought not every 
 mail of us to cease from all minor things and join in 
 the sublime effort at once to give the Gospel to the 
 world ? 
 
 A French drummer boy was once urged by a flee- 
 ing officer to " beat a retreat," and the boy replied : 
 •' Sire, I cannot beat a retreat, but oh, I can beat a 
 forward march that would make the dead fall into 
 line." O Baptists of the South, let us from this Con- 
 vention beat a forward march, the spirit of which 
 shall penetrate our churches like a flame of fire, and 
 this year call forth men and money in such won 
 drous fashion as shall fill the whole earth with aston- 
 ishment and demonstrate that our only concern this 
 side of heaven is to be loyal to Jesus Christ. Breth- 
 ren, I believe that even Satan himself marvels at our 
 slowness. Israel took forty years to make a journey 
 that ought to have been made in a few days. We 
 are doing that very thing to-day. One thousand of 
 our churches in the South ought to support one mis- 
 sionary each for the coming year. God give us obe- 
 dience to such heavenly vision ! 
 
 For a long, long while there came on every sigh- 
 ing breezing from the fair isle of Cuba a piteous cry 
 for help. At last our land rose up and with men 
 and money went forth and gave relief. Adown 
 the centuries there has come an unceasing cry in 
 tones of tenderest love : "I thirst." I hear it even 
 now, "I thirst." Whose is the voice? It is the 
 voice of Jesus dying on the cross, ^*I thirst." That 
 thirst has never yet been quenched. He thirsts for 
 China, for Asia and Africa, for the Filipinos, for 
 poor lost men wherever found. O let us rise up an5 
 
224 SUBJECT AND OBJECT OP THE GOSPEL 
 
 quench His thirst ! Then shall He see the travail of 
 His soul and be satisfied. And all the redeemed 
 shall be satisfied with Him, and from all their blood- 
 washed lips this glad hosannah shall ring out for- 
 ever : Emanuel — God with us ! 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 01095 3463 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
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