THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA o Y ARY SCHOOL THE COLLECTION OF NORTH CAROLINIANA ENDO\XED BY JOHN SPRUNT HILL CLASS OF 1889 CB P363P /. UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 00032690669 FOR USE ONLY IN THE NORTH CAROLINA COLLECTION THIS TITLE HAS BEEN MICROFILMED Form No. A'368 Evangelistic Sermons and Life Sketch RICHMOND PBE3S, IXC, PRINTEH3 REV. R. G. PEARSON, D. D. 9^^^ a_H-^ ^ EVANGELISTIC SERMONS BY THE Rev. R. G. PEARSON, D. D. WITH LIFE SKETCH BY HIS WIFE MARY BOWEN PEARSON CONTENTS. Life Sketch of R. G. Pearson 9 Sowing and Reaping 73 Preparation to Meet God 91 Excuses 117 Receiving Sinners 151 The Paschal Lamb 182 The Brazen Serpent 213 mt Bk$U\i nf a. ($. Pf arBon To trace to its source a river that has gladdened introduction. some land by bearing in its waters fertility to soil and refreshment to man is a task that has attracted many a traveler and richly rewarded many an explorer. To follow to its beginning a life that has borne comfort to sad hearts, hope to discouraged ones, and messages of salvation to lost men, is a work as far surpassing this as spiritual is superior to material truth, and help for human hearts is above all physical benefits. The life of R. G. Pearson, as lived out before his fellow men, was such an one, and traced to its source to find the springs from which it flowed is to discover at its headwaters the words of the Lord Jesus Christ : "He that believe th on me from him shall flow rivers of living water. This spake he of the Spirit that they which believe on him should receive." Outside the Bible, as well as within its sacred folds, God uses hu- man lives as object lessons of His saving grace, pa- tient love, guiding hand and overruling providence. The Pearson family were originally Quakers, and ^^® Family, emigrated from North Carolina in the early part of the nineteenth century. An interesting incident of their journey from North Carolina to Mississippi re- veals what type of people they were. Two families, the Pearson and one whose name is not known to us, left the Old North State together, moving in wagons, as was the custom of those early days. They jour- neyed on together until Saturday afternoon, when the ChUdhood. 10 LIFE SKETCH Pearsons halted, struck camp, and prepared to spend the Sabbath in rest and worship. The other family drove on. On Monday morning, with teams rested and themselves refreshed, our people resumed their journey, and on Friday overtook and passed their fel- low travelers. Stopping again the second Saturday, they were repassed by their companions in travel, but before reaching their destination, the Sabbath-keep- ing family again overtook the first, and finally both families reached Mississippi about the same time — the one with teams jaded, themselves worn and weary; the other fresh and strong for the work of unpacking and getting settled in their new home. Hilary Pearson and his wife. Temperance Walker, both came at different periods from North Carolina, and first met and were married in Mississippi. To them were born two daughters and three sons, one son dying in infancy. Robert Gamaliel, the third child and eldest son, was born June 9, 1847. His father was a farmer, and Robert spent all the early years of his life in the country — the cool, green, beautiful country — living a free, simple, joyous life. With strong local attachments, he cherished the mem- ory of his childhood's home with deep tenderness, re- turning there again and again for periods of rest. The field and woods never lost their charm for him. The trees seemed rooted in his richest feelings, and his sweetest memories clustered in their branches. The mulberry tree that he planted near the door, the splen- did oaks on the lawn, were as old friends to him, and, as many another country lad, he knew every tree of the woods by name. The birds also were his friendly LIFE SKETCH 11 neighbors, and in manhood he detected the first note of the bluebird in the spring, always welcomed the robins on their return, and in walks along hidden paths through the woods he would invariably pause with a smile and a look of earnest attention as he caught the rich, liquid song of the hermit thrush. Through the years of his young life he had watched their habits, observed their nesting places and grown familiar with their songs, until they had become a part of his life. To the child who has eyes to see, Mother Nature is a most efficient teacher, and espe- cially is she successful in instilling a strong affection for the lessons which she imparts, not only winning and charming her pupils, but making her teachings molding influences upon their characters. Even a lit- tle child seems to understand that no "dead mechan- ism guides the stars or wakes the flowers from their sleep." Naturally they see God in His own world and look "through nature up to nature's God." Few books were in the Pearson family. "Line '^^^ ^°™®* Upon Line, Precept Upon Precept," was one to which this son often referred as of special interest and value to him. "Pilgrim's Progress" and "Abbott's Histo- ries" were others that he enjoyed. Educators are now saying that the mind of a child is perplexed by many books, while it holds with wonderful tenacity the knowledge gained from a few. When only six years old Robert Pearson made public confession of his faith in Christ. This was at the old "Gin House" meeting, beneath the spacious roof of which multitudes could be gathered. As pen- itents were crowding to the altar, Robert went along Conversion. 12 LIFE SKETCH with them, in response to the invitation to confess Christ, and he overheard one man say to another: "That child doesn't know what he is doing." The remark troubled the little fellow, but did not deter him from pressing on. The circumstance gave him in after life a peculiar sympathy for little children in taking their first step toward God, and convinced him that children comprehend far more of spiritual truth than many older people give them credit for. Even in his early years he had his place of secret prayer, under the old hop vine that grew at the back of the garden fence. His eldest sister, observing the regularity with which he went to the same place at the same time (twilight) every day, and curious as to the reason, followed him one evening, and seeing him kneeling, she paused at a little distance, and in child- ish mischief said, loud enough for him to hear, ''Amen, Amen." He paid no attention, and she, finding that he ignored the interruption, left him after thisundis- Preac^er. turbcd. In referring to the incident he used laugh- ingly to say that his persecutions began early. One of his favorite pastimes was gathering the children, both white and colored, out in the grove and preach- ing to them. That he should preach was a convic- tion reaching back to his earliest recollection. Both father and mother were sincerely, simply Christians. The home presented a good example of domestic virtues — ruled by industry the six days, as God commanded, and the seventh, in equal obedience, was set apart as a day of rest and worship. Sunday School Robert's first Sunday school teacher was his own Teacher. father, who laid the foundation of the knowledge of LIFE SKETCH 13 the Bible which characterized his son in later years. The books used in Sunday schools then were those containing questions and answers from the Bible, be- ginning at Genesis and covering all the books, thus giving to the children a comprehensive grasp and con- nected view of the Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testaments. At the family altar also he was early led into a knowledge of and consequent love for the word of God, and had impressed upon him by example as well as precept the importance of obedience to its teach- ings. Another strong influence of those early days was the preaching of Rev. David Pressley (Associate Re- formed Presbyterian), who for forty years preached every month in that neighborhood, and during that time missed only two appointments — once when his wife died, and the other when swollen streams pre- vented his crossing. In after years the grandchildren and son-in-law of Mr. Pressley were converted under che preaching of Evangelist Pearson during the camp meetings which were held in his neighborhood. A precious reaping this of the faithful sowing by an hon- ored and beloved pastor. Robert Pearson early learned that God cannot be ^tioLT^™^ deceived and that sin is its own avenger — "that what- soever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." His father sent him one day to plant peas. A negro plowing open the furrows, and he following, dropped the peas. He wanted to go fishing that afternoon with several other boys, who, according to previous engagement, were to come by for him. But when 14 LIFE SKETCH they arrived his task was far from completion. It was a very real trial to him to have the boys go on, leaving him at a task that became increasingly irk- some as he watched them vanishing from sight and nearing the stream, which he well knew abounded in fish, and where every good fishing as well as "swim- ming hole" was known to him. Finally, temptation got the better of him, and, throwing the last basket of peas into a hollow stump, he hastened to join his companions. That night a good rain fell, and in a few days, to his dismay, a luxuriant crop of peas adorned the old stump. Later, his father, coming into the orchard, discovered the peas, took in the sit- uation, and, calling his son to him, questioned him about the matter. Deeply humiliated, the child made honest confession, and that wise father took time to make him see his sin in its double aspect of disobedi" ence and deception. The incident made a lasting impression, and he often expressed gratitude for the way in which that sin was detected and dealt with. Those who knew him in later life and his abhorrence of all deception, saw that not only were there elements in his nature of independence and courage and a faith which would have delivered him from the weakness that resorts to deception, but also that this lesson was so burned into his heart as to awaken a peculiar ab- horrence of all forms of deceit. hSio?*' Wholesome good cheer characterized the home life, and as a family they were given to fun, repartee and joking, and were fond of outdoor sports and fireside games. An amusing instance of Robert's fondness for practical jokes occurred during the Civil War. While LIFE SKETCH 15 his father was away in the army, Robert was sent into Starkville one day on some business, and meeting an old negro man coming out from the tow^n, a spirit of mischief seized the boy, and he said to the negro: "Uncle, didn't you know the Yankees were com- ing?" *'Law, no, young massa! I'se gwine home to my folks 'fo' dey git thar." And then he whipped up his horse and rushed for his home, leaving Robert quite amused. He went on into the town, forgetting all about the joke he had played, and spent several hours attending to the bus- iness in hand. As he was preparing to leave for home he observed groups of men gathering on the streets and talking excitedly. Joining one of these groups, he inquired into the trouble, and was told that a large force of Federal soldiers had suddenly appeared in his own neighborhood; that they were marching to- ward Starkville, making havoc as they went. Terri- fied by the thought of what might already have be- fallen his unprotected mother and sisters at home, he mounted his horse and rode under intense excitement, galloping the whole way, only to find upon arrival that the interrogation of a single question which he had propounded to the old negro had been trans- formed into multiplied exclamations at the end of a long story, filled out in detail by vivid imaginations, and gaining horror with each repetition. This fun- loving spirit remained with him through life and proved a saving quality in the midst of his labors in dealing with questions of solemn and eternal impor- tance. 16 LIFE SKETCH A^Si^ters "From my earliest recollection he and I were partners in all our youthful games and amusements; both being fond of games, and having but a limited variety, we often played marbles in the old-fashioned way — 'Line up the men,' 'Shoot from taw,' and 'Always aim at the middle man.' Another recreation was fish- ing. Living as we did only a haK-mile from a good-sized creek, we were often there, and with great dehght landed many a 'silver perch.' Influenced by his enthusiasm, we both fished with an earnestness and delight that characterized his devotion to duty in manhood. I often joined him in long tramps of squirrel and rabbit hunting. Many times on summer evenings we went to- gether to the peach orchard, and, each with a knife in hand we would climb the low-hmbed trees and sit there eating peaches through many a pleasant hour of the summer mornings and eve- nings. To this day I never hear July fUes or katydids but I think of those summer days, eating peaches in the orchard. Like a flash the happy memories come, and for one brief moment bring the joy that comes only with recollections of happy days of child- hood. Characteristic <T3tian palm grove, where each tree was straight as an arrow, forty feet without a Umb, cT-owned at the top with cone-hke crest of green, graceful palm leaves, and just below these, hanging in profusion, clusters of golden fruit, I felt that A New Work, 52 LIFE SKETCH the orange g^ove must yield the pahn of victory to its legitimate owTier, the Egyptian palm. "The Bible says the 'righteous shall flourish Hke the palm tree.' Beautiful and interesting are the suggested analogies. The palm grows straight, points ever heavenward, strikes its roots deep, bears fruit, needs pruning, and is a thing of joy and beauty forever." An epidemic of Asiatic Cholera, raging in Pales- tine, interfered with the plan to spend most of the time in the Holy Land. Returning to our home in Asheville for a short stay, we went forth again to meet engagements that were made before our departure in travel. This was continued until there developed serious organic heart trouble. Expert counsel was sought, and from Dr. Janeway, of New York, and good phy- sicians in Asheville, a thorough diagnosis was made and instruction given as to intelligent care of himself. At first his condition seemed so serious that it was thought his life work was finished, but, following the instructions given him with patient perseverance, the compensation which physicians told him was the one possible hope took place, and ten years were added to his life and a different field of service appointed by the Lord Himself. Leading out from evangelistic preaching to semi- nary teaching was another of the clear, providential orderings that was gratefully recognized through life. Becoming convinced, after repeated trials, that it was impossible for him to continue the arduous work of traveling and incessant speaking, we decided to return home at the close of a meeting at Huntsville, Ala., looking to God to make plain His will concern- LIFE SKETCH 53 ing any further service He had for him to do. Travel- ing through the beautiful middle Tennessee country, running toward Nashville, where a few days were to be spent, while sitting quietly thinking over the past and looking out wonderingly toward the future, there came to Mrs. Pearson a very distinct impression. She was deeply impressed and surprised, and after think- Guidance ing it over to herself for a time, she turned to her hus- band and said: "A very strong impression has come to me in the last half-hour that there is a work in Leb- anon, Tenn., which God would have you do." He replied: "I can't imagine what it is." "Nor can I," she said, "but it seems to me that it is something in connection with the university." 'T cannot teach," he said; 'T know how to do nothing but preach." "Perhaps so," she answered, "but the impression re- mains very clear and strong in my mind." Going on to Nashville that night, and sitting with a friend in the parlor, the doorbell rang, and a tele- gram was handed to Mr. Pearson. He read it, turn- ing to his wife, said: "This is from Lebanon, saying a committee from Lebanon will call to-morrow." They each looked at the other and said: "That looks like confirming the remarkable impression." The com- mittee called the next day, and in their interview stated that there was a plan on foot to establish a chair of the English Bible in the seminary at Lebanon, which was one department of the university, and they wanted to find if he would take that chair. He said : "I will prayerfully consider the matter." Going from Nashville to our home, and waiting still further on God to know His will surely, there seemed nothing 54 LIFE SKETCH At Work in Lebanon. A Brother Professor's Statement. lacking in every detail to dispose of home and fur- nishings, so that the way was made as easy and plain as could be asked, and the conviction to both was that this was the will of God for him. Entering upon his work at Lebanon with this set- tled conviction, he gave himself to that less taxing service with the same faithful, painstaking care that had characterized his life. It was a joy to him to have more time for study — careful, analytical study of the Bible — and that joy was heightened by the con- sciousness that the results of that study could at once be given to the young men in the seminary, prepar- ing them to go forth as preachers of that word. With burning zeal he sought to impress upon the young men the importance of loyalty to the w^ord of God and de- pendence upon that in their ministry, especially in this day when men, even in the pulpits, are denying its teachings and are substituting human opinions for God's authority. Seven complete years of service in the seminary at Lebanon were fulfilled. Every book in the Bible was diligently studied, carefully analyzed, and full notes of the outline written out. Then came the union of the C. P. and U. S. A. churches, and the seminary at Lebanon was united with Lane Seminary, in Cincinnati. A brother professor, F. K. Farr, gives a brief account of association with him then : "It was a source of great satisfaction to the faculty and all the friends of the Lebanon Theological Seminary, the Theological Department of Cumberland University, when, in 190.3, the Rev. Dr. R. G. Pearson consented to take up the work of the chai'' of the English Bible and Evangelistic Methods. It was almost en- tirely a labor of love on Dr. Pearson's part; the seminary, with LIFE SKETCH 55 its limited income, was not able to promise him an adequate sal- ary. Dr. Pearson's rich experience was freely placed at the ser- vice of his students. His methods and outlines of classroom w^ork were original with himself, and their merit was proved by the results. The dull we^-e aroused, the superficial were inspired to deeper study; the earnest student was encouraged to greater efforts. In the difficult task of faculty criticism of the pubUc efforts of students at 'rhetoricals' Dr. Pearson led his colleagues. With wit which 'stuck, but never stung,' he was ready to disclose a fault, w^hether of matter or of manner, so clearly to him who had committed it that his counsels seldom needed repetition. In his intercourse with his colleagues and in the meetings of the faculty he was a wise counselor and one who never spared him- seK in the discharge of any duty of administration which fell to his lot. No one made himself more loved; no one more honored his Master in the faithful discharge of duty. When the trustees of Cumberland University closed the Theological Department in 1909, Dr. Pear- son was called to the faculty of the newly and inde- pendently established Presbyterian Theological Sem- inary of the South, and continued his relation with it during the one year of its separate existence. Following testimonies of others as to his knowl- edge of the Scriptures and his skill in using them, we turn to what Mr. Pearson himself says of the impor- tance of Bible study, the methods he used in that study, and the results which he was sure would fol- low: The Importance of Studying the Scriptures. — Matthew 22:29. Studying the Scriptures is important because — 1. Without it there can be no correct conception of that most important of all things, salvation. 2 Timothy 3:15. 2. Without it there can be no assimilation of that nutritive food which promotes spiritual growth. 1 Peter 2:2. 56 LIFE SKETCH 3. Without it there can be no appropriation of that enriching property which produces spiritual fruit. Psalms 1 :2-3. 4. Without it there can be no guarantee of success in warfare, work or worship. Joshua 1:8. 5. Without it there can be no rightly dividing of the word of truth to those we try to teach. 2 Timothy 2:15. 6. Without it there can be no rooting and grounding in the truth which forestalls /aZse teachers and erroneous doctrines. Col. 2:6-8. 7. Without it there can be no Christlike loyalty to the Scrip- tures as the standard of authority. Matthew 26:53-54. Methods of Bible Study. 1. Read the Bible straight through as one great volume. 2. Make outhne of each book. 3. Make connected study of different sections. 4. Master "Mountain Peak" chapters. 5. Trace progress of development of doctrines. 6. Master key words and phrases, as "Righteousness of God." 7. Compare Scripture with Scripture. 8. Rely absolutely and prayerfully on the Holy Spirit to inter- pret the Scriptures to our spiritual understanding. ''Mountain Peak'' Chapters.— Genesis 1, 3, 12, 22; Exodus 12, 20; Leviticus 16; Numbers 14; Deuteronomy 28; 2 Samuel 7; Psalms 19, 23, 46, 119; Isaiah 11, 53, 61; Daniel 9; Ezekiel 28; Matthew 5, 6, 7; Luke 2, 24; John 1, 3, 13-17 inclusive; Acts 1, 2, 15; Romans 8; 1 Corinthians 13, 15; 1 Thessalonians 4; 2 Thessa- lonians 2; Hebrews 11; James 2; 1 John 3; Revelation 1, 2, 3, 19, 20, 21. Going to Montreat, he fulfilled an engagement made for lectures during the summer conference there. He found in this summer Bible conference, as he had found In the Bible conferences at Lebanon the two preceding summers, a "door great and effectual" opened to him to teach God's word to people who loved it, and of whom it could be truly said, ''that LIFE SKETCH 57 those who know it best seemed hungering and thirst- ing to hear it like the rest," and who in turn, were to become teachers of that word themselves. Dr. Walter Lingle, manager of the Montreat Plat- form, can tell bettter than any other of Mr. Pearson's work there : At Montreat. Dr. Walter Lingle. No sketch of Dr. Pearson's life would be complete without some J^^^^^^^^^ reference to his great work as teacher of the EngUsh Bible at Montreat Conference. He began his work at Montreat in the summer of 1910. We had thought of Dr. Pearson before as a Bible preaching evange- hst, with great spiritual power for winning souls. We were now to learn him in another role. He had not taught long until we knew that we were sitting at the feet of a master. The Bible hour became the most popular hour at Montreat. When the session was over, many requests came to the Program Committee urg- ing them to secure Dr. Pearson for the next sunmier, if possible. He needed no urging, for he had caught the spirit of the place and saw a great opportunity for service. In 1911 Dr. Pearson began his Bible hour on the opening day of the conference, and he began with Genesis. He moved straight forward, with the purpose of covering in a systematic way as much of the Bible as possible. Again large audiences flocked to hear him, and again there was great regret when he had finished his engagement. Just then another teacher notified us at the last moment that he would not keep his engagement. Dr. Pearson stepped into the breach at once and taught for two more weeks, to the de- Hght of all who heard him. Again requests poured in upon us to secure Dr. Pearson for 1912. This we gladly did, though it has been our rule not to put any one man on the program too often. Dr. Pearson was 58 LIFE SKETCH an exception to all such rules. In 1912 he began where he left off in 1911. In this way he went very thoroughly from Genesis to Job. Those who heard these expositions book by book will never forget them. His last week at Montreat was his greatest week. He broke away from his regular order to take up some special subjects on which he had been working for years, as rTea^chen"^ During this last week he taught with unusual power, and his audiences were the largest week-day audiences ever seen at Mon- treat. His last lecture was on August 9, 1912. Dr. Pearson knew his Bible as few men ever know it. He had a wonderful gift for selecting the sahent points in a book of the Bible, or in a chapter, and a wonderful gift for driving them home to the heart after he had selected them. There was always a dehcate humor in his lectures. One could tell when it was coming by the twinkle in his eye. He was never dull, and yet he was never fhppant. He could fairly flay the destructive critics and worldly church members. For all such things he had a fine scorn, and he could express it in a unique and telling way. We shall not see his like soon again. The Program Committee gave Dr. Pearson a most urgent in- vitation to take the Bible hour in the conference in the approach- ing summer of 1913, but he felt compelled to dechne on account of ill health. His last letter to us was dated January 9, 1913, closing with these gracious words: "The steadily growing inter- est in Montreat will doubtless make it easy for you to secure all the helpers you need, both for the Bible hour and all other de- partments of the work. We pray and trust great grace may be with you, and that both the workers and the work may be greatly prospered." Thus his work at Montreat was closed. When the books are opened and all things are known, we beheve that it will be found that his work at Montreat was one of the most far-reaching in- fluences of his life. He left profound impressions upon great, representative audiences, composed of men and women from every part of the church. Eternity alone will reveal the extent of his influence upon these men and women, and upon the church through them. LIFE SKETCH 59 At the conclusion of the second summer's engage- ment at Montreat, Dr. Whaling, president of Colum- bia Theological Seminary, came to that assembly m search of a teacher of English Bible in the seminary. He writes: "When it became necessary to fill the chair of EngHsh Bible, to'columbfa. pastoral theology and sacred rhetoric at the Columbia Theolog- ical Seminary, my attention was soon directed to Rev. Dr. R. G Pearson. He had conducted a meeting in the church of which I was pastor at Lexington, Va., and I weU remembered his pow- erful bibhcal sermons as fine specunens of expository discourses as I have ever heard. In addition, his work at Lebanon had be- come well known all through the South because of the masterly way in which he taught his classes the essential contents of the English Scriptures. Moreover, his series of lectures at Mon- treat had commanded wider attention and attracted larger audi- ences than anything of the kind had ever drawn at that famous assembly. So it was not at aU wonderful that from many differ- ent sources the suggestion came that he was eminently fitted to fill this important chair in one of our chief theological institu- tions. Though brought up in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and connected with it for many years, he belonged to the sound and conservative wing of that body, was a bibhcal and consistent Calvinist, and had no difficulty in making the trans- fer to the Southern Assembly. The board of directors of the seminary, without a single dissenting voice, and with singular unanimity and enthusiasm, elected him as one of its professors, and in addition he was asked to discharge the function of director of religious work, for which his past experience eminently pre- pared him. His election was most warmly received by the fac- ulty, alumni and students, and was indorsed far and wide by the constituency of the seminary. When the announcement was made at Montreat, the enthusiasm of hundreds who had been attending his lectures was unbounded, and by a rising vote of the vast audience in the great auditorium he was commended as a great master and divinely equipped teacher of the Enghsh Scriptures. 60 LIFE SKETCH Work at Columbia. Bible Class "His success in his chair at the Columbia Seminary was at once assuT-ed. His students without exception recognized his imusual fitness and gifts fo^ his difficult professorship. His brethren in the faculty found him in every way worthy of his position — frank, affectionate, considerate, loyal to principle, em- inently spiritual and intensely bibhcal, he found his place in their affection and confidence as a true and beloved man of God. The community and the church speedily responded to his presence. He taught in the First Presbyterian Church at 10 o'clock Sunday morning the largest adult Bible class in our entire communion, and held the undivided attention of that class from Sabbath to Sabbath with his unrivaled bibhcal expositions. The entire city felt his influence, and he was sought by all denominations for every kind of ministerial service. The members of the synod controlling the seminary were aroused by his work to fresh en- thusiasm for their institution. He gave a spiritual, bibhcal and evangelistic compiexion to the English Bible chair which it must continue to wear for ail the future. "His two brief years of service we^e all too short, but they were long enough to leave an indelible impress on the Theological Sem- inary which he came to love so much, and which so deeply appre- ciates the value of his services. When the earthly end came and sorrowing students and bereaved faculty and a sympathetic com- munity gathered in a vast concourse at the funeral service on Sabbath morning in the First Presbyterian Church, there was no one of our generation to whom Paul's triumphant words might be more appropriately appHed: 'For I am now ready to be offered, and the time for my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith. Hence- forth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.' 2 Tim- othy 6:8." The president and secretary of the Bible class tell of methods of teaching: *Tn October, 1911, Dr. R. G. Pearson, professor of English Bible in Columbia Theological Seminary, was invited by the ses- LIFE SKETCH 61 sion of the First Presbyterian Church to organize and teach a Bible class for the men and women of the congregation. We had never had a live and successful Bible class for adults, and the small one meeting in connection with the Sabbath school had languished for many years, with frequent change of teachers. "Dr. Pearson imdertook the work with his accustomed skill, energy and enthusiasm. The result has been one of the most notable Bible study classes in the country. It has met in the auditorium of the church at 10 o'clock every Sabbath morning with an average attendance of more than a himdred. Among the members are professors and students at the university, wo- men's college, and many Christian workers from our own and other churches, and business as well as professional men from the city. "From the first the interest and enthusiasm of the members has been marked, and the mfluence of the class upon the city has been noteworthy. It has, in fact, been by far the most stimu- lating, profitable and successful Bible class I have ever known. Dr. Pearson, in the handling of the class and in the teaching of his subjects, has shown himself a singularly skilKul leader and profound bibUcal scholar. "His remarkable success is due, in great measure, I beUeve, to g^^cess "1. His analytical method of treating his subject (using a Explained, blackboard, with topical outHnes, subdivisions, key words, charts, etc.). "2. His constant harmonizing of the Old and New Testa- ments. "3. His strikingly original appHcations, now humorous, now eloquent, of the great Bible truths to the practical questions of the day. "4. His power of stimulating a fresh interest in first-hand, personal Bible study. "5. Above all, the evangehcal and devotional spirit which en- ergizes his teaching to a remarkable degree. "Dr. Pearson is endowed with rare and brilHant gifts as a teacher, is a man of wide intellectual range, of warm human sym- pathies and of long and varied experience. He is fearlessly out- spoken and has a noble courage of his convictions. He avails 62 LIFE SKETCH himself of the most modern methods of teaching, such as we are accustomed to hear in the universities, in the treatment of ht- erary and historical subjects." The president of the Bible class tells of the last month's work: His Last "The average attendance of the class was remarkably steady and uniform, and the interest intense and constant. His com- mentary on the Bible was the Bible. He interpreted Scripture with Scripture. Every passage of the Old Testament foreshad- owed the New, and the New Testament interpreted and ex- plained the Old. "As from Sunday to Sunday, in the last year of his teaching, his physical powers perceptibly weakened, his zeal, devotion and inspiration just as perceptibly increased. As his pathway drew nearer to the brink of the river, he seemed to hve more absolutely in the divine life, and he reflected this life upon those around him. His messages became stronger and clearer, if possible, and his hearers more attentive and devoted. When his health prevented his attendance, the class was dazed, Uke sheep without a shep- herd, and dechned to hear the voice of a stranger. The privi- leges which this class enjoyed will not come again to this gener- ation, and the debt we owe to him can never be measured in time." Home Going. During the last season at Montreat he seemed as strong as usual, and in the early fall, after his return to Columbia, continued feeling unusually well. This led him to undertake a large amount of work. Early in December he began to show signs of failing strength, manifesting weariness when returning from classes, which he had never done before. In this run-down condition he contracted grippe, from which he was confined to bed for ten days. Somewhat improved by the rest, he got up, and, with his accustomed tenac- ity, resumed work in the Bible class and the seminary. LIFE SKETCH 63 Growing steadily weaker, he gave up first the Bible class, and tried to continue his work in the seminary. His wife, seeing the severe tax upon his strength, in- sisted that he lay down his work and go to bed. This he did, and, calling in a physician, he was told how imperative it was for him to have absolute quiet and rest How sweet that rest seemed to him when he finally made up his mind to take it. The overtaxed heart had grown so tired. The physician said that he must remain in bed at least a month and then go to the rolling chair, before he would be strong enough to walk, much less teach. From that day he himself seemed to realize the possible outcome, and as calmly as if arranging for some earthly journey, he gave in- structions to his wife about all important matters con- cerning both his work and her interests. Together they faced the possibility of recovery or of departure to be with the Lord, and, realizing that the hand that had guided them through the years held them still, they bowed their hearts in humble trust to the will of a loving Father, and had rest from anxious fears and glad hope, whether in life or death. None outside the physician and themselves real- ized the seriousness of the condition, and yet both had reason to believe that there was strong probability of recovery. He was confined to bed this time just twelve days, and he was cheerful and happy through every one of those twelve days. In a bright room, made cheerful with the warmth of the eastern sun, fresh flowers sent daily by loving friends, every care and comfort that medical skill and loving hands could render, and practically free from suffering except 64 LIFE SKETCH The "Abundant Entrance." Funeral Services. about two days, the last days were full of peace and hope and joy to all. On the last day (we little thought it the last), he said to his wife, as she sat beside him: "I thank God for this sickness, let it issue as it may." That night, after everything had been done as usual for his Gomfort, he wound his watch and went to sleep as sweetly as a little child. At 2 o'clock, going to him to see if anything could be done, and ministering to his simple wants, he said he had rested comfortably through the night, and then added: '*Go back to your couch and sleep; it is not necessary for you to stay awake." Again he seemed to have fallen asleep. Going to him after a time, he was lying on his right side, with arms folded, eyes closed, as if in normal sleep, but the spirit had flown. He had gone to sleep on earth to awake in heaven. The funeral service was held Sunday morning at the regular church hour for service. The sermon was preached by Dr. Rea- vis, pastor, from the text, *'I have fought a good fight; I have kept the faith; I have finished my course." The students of the seminary were the active pall-bearers, the seminary faculty and session of the First Church the honorary. At his own re- quest, we took him back to his old home town, Stark- vilie. Miss. There another service was held in the Presbyterian Church of Starkviile. The pall-bear- ers were his friends, some of his earlier and some of his later years. The service was one that will not soon be forgotten by those present. Kindred and friends of former years assembled in the church; all the pastors of different denominations were in the pulpit, taking part, just as they had done in evange- LIFE SKETCH 65 listic meetings with him in the past; songs familiar to the audience were sung — songs that they had sung in revival meetings with him, when penitents were called to make a confession of their Saviour. Earnest prayer had been made before that God would make this a blessing to his friends and loved ones, asking especially that some unsaved might be brought to Christ; that the ministers might be encouraged and strengthened for their work by the recognition of God's gracious dealing with His servant, and that some young man might be called from that congrega- tion to preach the glorious gospel, and that all the Christians there might get a new vision of the love of God, and through that vision be led into lives of closer fellowship with Him. Thus praying, and in expect- ant faith receiving, there was a manifest unction and power from the first words of the Scripture lesson through all the prayers and songs and sermon to the last prayer that was offered at the grave. Dr. Raymond, the pastor of the church for many years, now pastor emeritus, read the Scripture, a por- tion of the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians, and as he read a calm fell upon all, while the reality and the preciousness of these wonderful words seemed to take hold on the congregation. Slowly, clearly, with- out comment, he read on and on, and each sentence seemed in its glorious adaptation as if written for that time. The prayers, coming as they evidently did from the hearts of those who uttered them, found re- sponse in the hearts of those who heard. The songs sung with the spirit and understanding, seemed to glow with new meaning for all the congregation, who 66 LIFE SKETCH joined in as if in a gospel service. And then the ser- mon, setting forth the thought of the text, 'They glo- rified God in me," impressing the marvelous yet cer- tain fact of God, the great and mighty God, was guid- ing, empowering, controlling, using the human life — a life with the w^eaknesses and sins common to human- ity, yet blessing that life and making it a blessing. The blessed truth that God would have very one of those present thus to live with and for Him found a loving response in many a heart that day, so that the result of the preacher's words was to quicken into new faith hearts that had felt the chill of the world, to make real the word of God to the people, to convince of sin the sinner, and to lift into closer fellowship with Him- self some who had been drifting. Expressions ear- nestly spoken by many showed this to be a gracious answer to believing prayer, prayer which we believe God Himself had taught us to offer. ^Re'stfrom Following from the church to the cemetery, not far distant, a company of friends gathered around the family square, where we laid him to rest in the old home cemetery, beside his father and mother. Every- where the beauty of the springtime was seen — God's pledge and promise of that resurrection morning, when ''this mortal shall put on immortality, when that which is sown in weakness shall be raised in glory, and the terrestrial shall become the celestial." How these words, long familiar, seemed to burn and glow as they were brought by the Spirit in the power and preciousness of their meaning to the sorrowing, yet rejoicing, bereaved but believing hearts. And other tender words of our Saviour hushed the Labors." LIFE SKETCH 67 sob of the heart, while the eye of faith looked not upon the little company gathered around the open grave, but to the Father's throne, where welcoming loved ones gone before, and redeemed ones saved through his instiumentality, were there to greet him and to welcome him into the presence of the Redeemer himself. By grace we are enabled to look back with thanksgiving over the blessed years of a finished jour- ney, and forward to the eternity of unbroken compan- ionship in our Father's house. ''The highest honor in life, its crowning glory and its chief joy is to have worked with God." Sermon Delivered in Starksville, Miss., March 19, at tele Funeral of Rev. Dr. R, G. Pearson, Professor in Columbia Theological Seminary. By Rei. Thornton Whaling, D. D. Gal. 1:24: "They glorified God in me." Subject: "God in a Good Man." It is fitting that the body of our beloved brother should rest in the hope of the resurrection of the just in the quiet God's acre of your town. He was born here. He grew into manhood amidst its familiar scenes; the ashes of his father and mother and many other kindred are mingled with your soil; he loved his dear old town and was never tired of speaking of its charms, and he de- hghted to revisit his boyhood's home and to strike hands with those whom he had known and loved in the long ago. And hither, after more than three-score years of earthly pilgrimage, we bnng, according to his own request, all that is mortal of Rob- ert G. Pearson, that his sleeping dust may here await the glories of the resurrection morning. 68 LIFE SKETCH And it is equally fitting that those of his own blood and kin- ship and others who have the privilege and insight which comes from intimate and early association with him should assemble in this house of God this morning to magnify the grace of God so conspicuously manifest in him. The completest exhibition of His character which God makes to-day is made through some selected man whom God chooses and in whom He dwells with renewing and transforming power. Dr. Pearson was a remark- able man, who would have made his impress anywhere and at any time in any sphere where his activities were exerted. But I wish to speak solely of God manifested and glorified in him. I. God made a real man when He created him. A vigorous intellect, an active imagination, strong humor easily developing into pungent wit or swift repartee; keen powers of observation, always at work laying up treasures of information in the store- house of a retentive memory — all these mental powers marked him out as divinely destined for unusual influence. Combined with them was a moral nature of unmistakable strength, where an unmuzzled and unfettered conscience had the full right of way, and added to both mental and moral traits was an affectional nature of great depth and intensity. He loved wife and kindred and friends with a love which had no measure except the capacity of a great heart. Above all his other natural gifts was a will which was not made to be handled easily by every one who dared lay his hands upon it, but strong, steady and fixed, that will kept on the undisturbed road which itself had chosen. There was in him by creation a combination of gifts and qualities, mental, moral, affectional and volitional, which made mediocrity impos- sible and rendered it necessary that men should take knowledge of the fact that he was ahve and at work in the world. I cannot conceive of him as "lame or impotent" or ineffective in any sphe^ in which he labored, in any service in which he engaged to render. But it is not chiefly of God as manifest in his natural gifts I wish to speak, and so I remark next, that : II. God made him a representative and consecrated Christian by the influence of His grace within him. He was a Christian all his life. He never remembered the time when he did not love Jesus, hence he did not have to use LIFE SKETCH 69 half of his hfe fighting the other half, and hence also the matur- ity and range of his Christian fruitfulness and grace. First and foremost amongst the fruits of the spirit which adorned his life was the primary and fontal grace of faith. He was above all things else a man of faith. He Hved with God. He hved for God. He lived by God's power and grace. He had been weaned from self-dependence by divine lessons, which had burnt into his very soul the great truths that none but God is really needed, and that all spiritual results are secured, "not by might nor by an army, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord." His faith blos- somed into a faithfulness which made his Christian service in any sphere memorable and influential. He could not be sHpshod or negligent, because he was serving the great God, in whom he believed with every atom of his being, with the full assent of every power of his nature. His faith developed into a courage which makes it possible to say of him, as was said at the funeral of John Knox: "There lies one who never feared the face of man." He feared God too much to fear anybody or anything else. The fear of God delivered him from the tyranny of all slavish and unworthy fears. No braver man than he has preached the gos- pel and the law of God in our day and generation. But the com- panion and mate of his faith was his love — his Christian love, the product of Christ's Spirit, working in him the strong sense of brotherhood and of the unity of behevers in Christ Jesus. His heart had in it something of the breadth of the gospel upon which he lived ; had in it some suggestion of the infinite, saviourly heart into which he had fled for refuge as a lost sinner. And yet his love had in it no element of weakness or sentimentaHsm. He hated meanness with a perfect hatred, and when the occasion called for it, no man could denounce evil in more caustic and bhs- tering terms. God's wrath at sin had its transcript and echo in his abhorrence of that evil which antagonizes and defames God, which rejects and outrages His grace, and which disfigures and despoils God's fair creation. The weak character which does not despise iniquity cannot be possessed by a great and fervid love of righteousness. His love bore the additional fruit of a genial and tender sympathy with men in their suffe^'ings and struggles with sin. No heart ever opened more readily to let in the knocker 70 LIFE SKETCH who came applying for help or counsel or the balm of an unques- tioning brotherliness. It was good to sit with him in the simple exchanges of fellowship or of a wise and comprehending brother- hood. And to friends and brethren whom custom and trial had proven true there was a warmth Uke that of the tropics in the affection which he lavished upon them. His love became sym- pathy and his love became helpfulness, too, whenever need arose, for the practical dominated him, and to give benedictions alone, where dollars or clothes or medicine were needed, was not his method of interpreting the gospel or the heart of God. His faith and love were not alone, but were united with a hope which had its base set deep in liis faith in God and his abounding conviction that the Infinite Triune God was able successfully to handle all the problems which sin and salvation, which providence and grace, impose upon Him. The final triumph of the kingdom of God was not to him an open question. The power of the pure word of God was not debatable. The efficacy of the Holy Spir- it's operation was not to him doubtful or disputed. Hence a triumphant hope marked his attitude toward God's world and God's kingdom and toward the eternal future and home of God's children in the great beyond. All the fruits of the Spirit were found in beautiful combination in him, viz: love, joy, peace, long- suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. I have not overdrawn the picture of the splendid Christian maturity of this real and devoted saint of God, but I have drawn him as I knew him best, near the crown of his long and arduous life of growth and gradual attainment. Years and years ago, in a period of temporary discouragement, he had found the secret of Jehovah, he had discovered that God was sufficient, that no one else really counted, and he had entered into covenant with God, writing it down in black and white in the back of his Bible, where his own eye would often see it and where he could not for- get it, and solemnly consecrating himself, body, soul and spirit, to the service of God, engaging to belong altogether and wholly and forever to the Lord. And his beloved wife, who was his true companion and helpmeet, his divinely given helper for so many years, signed it with him, and a period of spiritual power came to him, and larger consecration descended upon him, and LIFE SKETCH 71 he became the Christian and the saint we all knew him to be, and what more can I say than to call upon you to glorify God in liim, to magnify the grace which wrought such triumphs in him, and to hear the call which summons you to a like consecration, in order to your growth into similar Christian maturity and power. When ill health forbade his continued public ministry, he car- ried the same evangelistic spirit into his teaching work, and in two of our theological seminaries he served, if I may coin the phrase, as Bible and teacher evangehst. I take pleasure in tes- tifying here to-day to the splendid service he has rendered in the all too brief two years in the Columbia Theological Seminary, teaching the Enghsh Bible and evangehsm to our students, show- ing our young men that the Bible is evangehstic through and through, and that only the evangehstic spirit uses it as it ought to be used. It may well be when the final assize determines the value of all our service, that those last two years shall be found the most useful of aU his eminently useful Hfe, giving an impress to numbers of young ministers which shall color all their future mmistry, and giving a bent to one of our great theological semi- naries which will make it at once more bibhcal and evangehstic than it has ever been. For all of us the lesson of such a hfe is plain. We may all say, I envy him the completeness of his consecration, the fullness of his surrender to his God, and, moved by his example and aided by the grace of God, I will enter into covenant with my Lord, that He shall have His rights in me, and that I shall, body and soul and spirit, be only and altogether for Bim.— Presbyterian Standard. SOWING AND REAPING. Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for ivhoAsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Deception is a very common sin and many people practice it. Children deceive their parents; men deceive their wives, and neigh- bors their neighbors. But let it be to you all an assurance most solemn that you cannot deceive God about anything, and especially is it true that you cannot deceive God about this great question of sowing and reaping. Life is solemn from any viewpoint whatso- ever, but there is none from which it is more solemn than that of sowing and reaping. We are all sowing and w^e are all going to reap, and I want this audience for a little while tonight to look this question square in the face: ''Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap." May God's Holy Spirit help me to speak by the authority of God, and help you to hear as for the judgment day. Now on this question of sow^ing and reaping there are just three propositions growing nat- urally and logically out of the text. The first proposition is this: The reaping is as certain 74 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS as the sowing. The text says: ''Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man sow^eth, that shall he also reap." There is the idea of certainty. The second proposition is that the reaping is of the quality of the sowing. Hear what the text says: ''Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap." There is the idea of quality. Third, the reaping is in excess of the sowing. Hear again w^hat the text says: "Be not deceived; God is not m.ocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.''' We all know by common observation that in material things the reaping is in excess of the sowing. Just so in moral things the harvest will exceed the sow^ing. Now, let us take up these three propositions one at a time and look at them not in the light of speculation and theory, but in the light of God's word and of common sense and eternity. First, then, the reaping is as certain as the sowing. Did you notice that word "shall"? "For whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap." He may not want to reap it; he may not be ready to reap it; he may not be pre- SOWING AND REAPING 75 pared to reap it; it may be death, remorse and hell to reap it; but that is neither here nor there. The edict of Almighty God is he shall do it. It is one of God's omnipotent decrees and all the powers in heaven and hell and earth cannot prevent it from being carried out. Dear dying man, let it sink into the depths of your soul, what you sow, you shall reap. But I hold that this proposition is true in several particulars. First, it is true regardless of the person of the sower. That is, it matters not who you are, what you believe or what you do not believe; in the church or out of the church is neither here nor there. So certain as you sow, so certain you shall reap. Hear what God says in Acts 10:34. We have these words from Peter by the Holy Ghost: 'T perceive that God is no respecter of persons." We all stand upon a common level in the sight of Almighty God. In God's government there is no ex parte legislation; we are all His creatures; we are all amenable to the moral law. *'He that believes and is baptized shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be damned." There is no exception. Now, as these lawyers would say, let us go 76 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS to God's word and see if we can find a pre- cedent to illustrate and enforce the principle here laid down. I will take two or three texts, fair and representative ones. We will begin with the first man, the representative man, the head of our race. We see Adam in the garden commit a sin ; in other words, sow some seed. Did God say to him after it was done, ''Adam, inasmuch as you are the first man, and this is your first sin, I will make an exception in your case and will not require you to reap what you have sown?" Nay, verily. God required that Adam should reap what Adam had sown, and I submit that God will make no exception in the case of you and me, His less illustrious sons and daughters. Let us take another case, the case of that remarkable man Moses. We see him at Kadesh. When God told him to speak to the rock he smote it; not only once but twice, and gave not God the glory. Did God say to him, ''Well, Moses, inasmuch as you are a great law-giver, the great type of my Son Jesus Christ, I will make an exception in your case?" Nay, verily. Moses also reaped as he had sown. SOWING AND REAPING 77 Another remarkable case I will cite. That of David, who committed murder and adul- tery. David, though the royal blood was in his veins; though he was a type of Christ, especially as the king, God required of him that he should reap what he had sown. Now, my brethren, if a principle laid down in God's word, and precedent to confirm that principle, can settle anything, the question is settled that we reap regardless of our person- ality. Will you hear that, you godless liber- tine? Will you hear it, you scoffers, who reject God's holy word? Will you hear it, you men who reject the Son of God and trample his blood under your feet? Will you hear it, you who profane God's holy day, and constantly grieve his Holy Spirit? Will you hear it, you cold rationalists? Let the profane swearer, the drunkard, the gambler, the devo- tee of fashion, and all sinners hear it. It matters not who you are, what you are, what you believe, what you like and what you do not like, so certain as God lives, and so certain as you sow, so certain will also your reaping be. Again, I hold in the second place that this proposition is true, regardless of the knowledge 78 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS of the sower. That means that whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap, whether he knows what he is doing or not ; whether he knows anything about the consequences or not. In Acts 3:17, Peter speaking by the Holy Ghost to the^^ews about the crucifixion of Christ, uses these words: ''And now, breth- ren, I wot that through] ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers." Here is a plain fact laid down in the Bible. The Jews and their rulers were ignorant of the divinity of Jesus Christ. It is also a fact that they crucified Christ. It is also a fact that God made them reap that which^they^had sown. There is the principle and it cannot be gainsaid unless you reject God's word. Now, those Jews could have known that Jesus was the Christ; they should have known it, but they did not know it; and God made them reap that which they had sown. But, says some shrew^d skeptic, ''It looks to me as if in dealing thus, God takes advan- tage of man's ignorance." Nay, verily; the Judge of all the earth w411 do right. This same principle holds in the natural world and also in the jurisprudence of the civilized world, as well as in God's moral world. SOWING AND REAPING 79 Suppose a man In this audience is taken suddenly ill. He goes to the drug-store and says to the clerk, '*I am very sick. I feel that I am going to have a chill. Give me some quinine." And the clerk, who is drunk, or sleepy, or in any event careless, reaches to the shelf and gets strychnine instead of quinine. The man puts it in his pocket, goes home and takes it, believing it to be quinine. Will it not kill him just as dead, though taken in ignorance, as if he knew exactly what he was taking? Did God take advantage of that man's ignorance? Not at all. He might have known, and his life paid the forfeit of his ignorance. Let us see if the same principle hold true in jurisprudence. There is a man out in the mountains who has what is called a wild cat distillery. He is making illicit whiskey. The United States Revenue officer finds it out. arrests him, takes him to the Federal Court, witnesses are brought in and it is clearly proven that the man is making illicit whiskey. The jury bring in a verdict of guilty, and the judge, before pronouncing sentence, asks if he has anything to say why he should not be sentenced. ''Yes, Mr. Judge, I have this to 80 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS say: I did not know that a man in this old sovereign State could not own his own land, plant his own corn, make his own money, buy his own still, make his own whiskey and do what he pleased with it." In reply the judge says: "Whether you know it or not, you cannot do it. It is a violation of the statutes of the United States of America, and I shall send you to jail." Is that law, is it equity, is it the Constitution of the United States? Yes. Is the United States taking advantage of a man's ignorance? Certainly not; he could and should have known it, and he must reap what he has sown. Here is God's sacred statute book; many of you are living in wilful and even boasted ignorance of its divine pre- cepts. You may live that way, and you may die that way, but God says He will judge you by that book, and you shall reap what you sow, whether you know what you are doing or not. Dear dying man, I beg you to study God's word, to know what it requires and then obey its teachings. But I hold this proposition is true in the third place, regardless of the forgiveness of the sower. ''What is that?" asks somebody. There is no more solemn thought connected SOWING AND REAPING 81 with life. God may forgive the sowing, but you reap the consequences nevertheless. *'I don't believe that," replies the objector. Dear friend, it is not a question of what you believe, nor of what I believe; it is a question of what the Almighty God says. But to the law and the testimony. II Samuel, 12 :13, we have a case exactly in point. David had committed the sin of murder and adultery. God sent Nathan to reprove David and now hear what David said: ''And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die." His sin was forgiven. Now read the context in that chapter. "The child shall surely die; I will take thy wives before thy eyes, and give them to thy neighbor. The sword shall never depart from thy house." Now, my friends, there is the principle laid down. David had committed sin. God had forgiven the sin. Nevertheless, David to his dying day reaped the consequences of that sin. One of the most solemn things in life and the most awful things of our sin is that you must reap the consequences, even though forgiven. 82 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS Some one asks, "What then is the difference between a saint and a sinner?" So far as the law is concerned, there is no difference, when God is deaHng with them as amenable to His moral law. So far as heaven and hell are concerned, the saint does all his sad reaping here, and none of it hereafter. The sinner may do some of his reaping here, and the remainder in eternity. Allow me to give you a very practical illustration. Suppose in the morning you^'go to your front gate and drive some nails in the gate-post. After you have driven the nails in, you take a claw-hammer and pull them out. Yes, but you cannot pull the nail holes out. Dear friend, here are som.e of you with the sledge-hammer of sin driving the spikes of iniquity deep into the door-post of your soul; some of them spikes of profanity, adultery, drunkenness. God in sovereign grace may some day come down and extract these nails of iniquity from the door- post of your soul, but the scars are there, the consequences are there, and so certain as God lives, you will reap those. You are a man of family, sitting around your own table in the presence of your children. You may jeer at God's word, talk SOWING AND REAPING 83 lightly of Holy things, slightingly of ministers and churches, destro3ang faith in the Bible. What are you doing but sapping the very foundations of your boy's moral character? Later you may see that boy a drunken wretch, or in the penitentiary for defrauding an em- plo3^er. Why? Because you have stamped falsely and with evil his ideas of moral recti- tude. You may see him a wreck, moral, physical, social and an eternal wreck. You may repent of your sin and by God's grace be forgiven for your neglect and false teaching, but if you should be, you have a harvest that you will reap until your dying day. There is, there can be no help for it. I come now to my second proposition: The reaping is of the quality of the sowing. Hear the text: "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." That, not something else. Not something like it but that shall he also reap. This proposition is true in nature. In Gen. 1:11 we find these words: ''The fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind." Here is a great principle laid down the morning of creation by God himself, that like, in the material w^orld, shall produce like; that the 84 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS fruit tree shall bear fruit after his kind. In other words what is sown, that same thing shall be reaped. From the day that God made the first grain of wheat down to the present day, w^heat has never produced any- thing except wheat. And so with rye, and oats and barley; they have never produced anything else. I challenge the skeptic to show an exception in the material world. There has never been an instance where one species produced another species. There may be changes, varieties, improvements, but it is wheat and you cannot make wheat produce any other kind of grain than wheat. Just so in the whole material universe. There is that fundamental principle as old as creation and running through the world, like produces like. In the second place, I hold that this propo- sition is equally true in grace. Read Gal. 6:8: "For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life ever- lasting." That is the principle that like produces like; holds good in the moral world. From the day that Adam fell down to this day, there has not been an exception in the moral SOWING AND REAPING 85 and spiritual world to that principle. Now, we have two great fundamental, parallel principles running through and through the material and moral universe of God. Like produces like in the natural world; like pro- duces like in the moral world. If I may use the figure, these two are the Jachin and Boaz in God's great temple of truth, and the word of God. Now, when you talk about there being no hell, no future punishment, no eternal death, you talk as illogically, as unscientifically, as unscripturally, as the man that says acorns produce walnuts and wheat produces barley. Heaven and hell rest on this great fundamental basis, and you will have to over-turn the moral universe of God in order to prevent like from producing like in either the material or the spiritual world. Brethren, when you can show one case where this principle in the natural world is not true, then, and not till then, you can call in question the great doc- trine of an eternal hell and an eternal heaven. Friends, there is no uncertainty here; it is law; it is government; it is principle; it is God; it is eternity. 86 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS I hold in the third place that this is true in all history, both sacred and profane. In Gen. 27:22 we have an historical case. You remember the history of Isaac ^ and Jacob and Esau, when Isaac sent Esau out to kill the venison and to make savory meat for him. Then following you remember how Rebecca sent Jacob to kill a kid and sent him to his father Isaac, who said to him, ''The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau." Thus Jacob practices deception and obtains the blessing by fraud. He sowed the seed of deception. Now, follow Jacob's his- tory ever afterwards. Of all men about whom I have ever read, he was duped, deceived and defrauded to the day of his death. He makes a contract for Rachel, serves seven years for her, is duped by Laban and marries Leah instead of Rachel. He makes the stipulated contract about his wages, and ten times is duped. After his sons are grow^n, they deceive him, dipping Joseph's coat of many colors in the blood of a kid, telling the father that Joseph is dead, and holding up before him this blood stained coat. What does all this mean? It means ''Be not deceived; God is not SOWING AND REAPING 87 mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Take a case from profane history. Carlyle in his French Revloution tells the story of a certain politician, who while discussing a grave question and advocating a certain theory, was addressed by somicone in the crowd, saying, ''What about the common people?" He replied, ''Let the common people eat grass." The great French Revolution came and Carlyle tells us that that man's head was cut from his shoulders, put on a pike and paraded through the streets with a wisp of grass in his mouth. "Be not deceived, God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." We now come to the third proposition, that the reaping is in excess of the sowing. In Mark 4:28, we read: "First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." When the grain of wheat is sown from that springs fifteen or twenty stalks, each with a head, each head with many grains; a very large excess from the sowing. A man tells one lie, and he must tell a dozen to cover that up, then perhaps swear a half dozen to cover that dozen, and in the end perhaps kill a witness 88 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS to get him out of the wa^^ One sin — God only knows what the end will be. The reap- ing is in excess of the sowing. Read as a warning in Hosea 8:7: "For they have sown the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind." Then there is the promise in Psalms 126:6: "He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." The principle is the same; it has a sad side to it of awful warning; it has a glorious side to it of precious encouragement. Men are sometimes heard to say "I don't see any justice or equity in God's shutting a man up in hell and making him reap an eternal harvest for a temporary sowing." What is your difficulty? It is this: You assume that the punishment you receive is in proportion to the time it takes to commit the sin, but this assumption will not stand the test of common sense, or law, or God's word. Sup- pose two men out on the street get into a difficulty. One of them drawls a pistol, shoots the other to death. You arrest him, take him to court, he is tried and sentenced to the penitentiary for the balance of his natural life. For what? Just shutting one SOWING AND REAPING 89 eye, touching with one finger the hair trigger and the whole thing is done in a flash. Is it equity to send a man to the penitentiary for life for killing a man, when it took only one second to do it? Your law says it is right; it is equity. Just so precisely: how long did it take you to do your sowing? Five, ten, fifteen, forty-five years. How long does it take to do your reaping? All eternity. As the man is sent to the penitentiary for the rest of his natural life for the sin committed in one second, you are sent to the penitentiary of the moral universe for the balance of your immortal life for the sins you committed in the few years on earth. Your punishment is in accordance with the moral turpitude of your sin, and not according to the time it re- quired to commit it. Dear dying sinner, I ask you in God's name, are you willing for the poor, paltry, temporal pleasures that you have in sinning for a few years, to reap a har- vest of eternal anguish and punishment? Will you sell your birthright for such a mess of pottage? Will you sow to the flesh and reap death? Now, just one word to Christians: It is blessed to look at the other side of this ques- 90 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS tion. It is sowing a little while and then being with God forever. God has given to me a few seed to sow, and I sow them some- times in tears and pain; sometimes in sorrow. But the sowing will soon be over. After a few years my little basket of seed will all be sown and the Master will say ''That is enough, come up higher. Your w^ork is done." I will thank God for the eternity of glory, of happiness and of joy at His right hand for those who sow unto the Spirit, and reap everlasting life. PREPARATION TO MEET GOD. January 23, 1889, 8 P. M. "Therefore thus will I do unto thee, Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, Israel— Amos 4-l^- I want to call your attention especially to the words, ''Prepare to meet thy God," and I want to talk to you on that subject, Pre- paration to Meet God. The Jewish government was a theocracy, and therefore a violation either of the civil or of the ecclesiastical law was treason against Almighty God; and of all the sins of Israel there was none that was higher treason against God than was the sin of idolatry and conformity to the nations by whom they were surrounded. Now, they had gone off after these strange gods, they had mixed and mingled and commingled with these surround- ing nations; they had thus violated God's law and been disobedient to His holy com- mand. Then God says: 'Thus will I do unto you; I am going to call you as a nation to judgment; I am going to call you face to face with Me, and, as your Ruler, as your Judge, 92 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS I am going to bring you to a strict account for your moral treason against Me, your moral Governor. And therefore, Israel, because I, your King, am going to bring you face to face with Me in a great settlement, you are to pre- pare to meet your God." My friends, how exceedingly apposite is this text to us, whether we are Jew or Gentile, whether we were under the old theocracy or not; it matters not. We are under the moral government of God, and amenable to that government, and to God as the head of that government. Now, you and I, as individ- uals, are going to be brought face to face with God in the settlement for our stewardship, for the way in which we have lived, for the way in which we have served Almighty God; we are going to be brought face to face with Him and be rewarded for the deeds done in the body. Therefore, since our bodies are going to become dust, and since our spirits are going to God, Who gave them, to be judged by Him, to be rewarded by Him, according to the deeds done in the body, how exceed- ingly important it is that you and I prepare to meet our God. PREPARATION TO MEET GOD 93 Now, without any further preHminary, there are just three little short questions that I want to ask, and then let God's word an- swer them, and let God's word answer every point that is made in this sermon tonight. The first question is: Why should I prepare to meet God? The second is: How should I prepare to meet God? And the third question is: When should I prepare to meet God? The first question then, is. Why? Give us a reason for the thing. If you are to prepare to meet God, or if it is your duty to prepare, there are some reasons that are very evident why you should do it. Then, why prepare to meet God? I answer first because it is God that you are to meet. Hear the text, Amos 4:12: * 'Pre- pare to meet" — what? Not the President of the United States; not the Emperor of Ger- many; not the Czar of all the Russias; not the death angel in Egypt; not Michael, nor Gabriel — no. But ''Prepare to meet God," and not only God but, mark it, "thy God." Not the God of the heathen, but'thy God; the God that made you, fashioned your body, cre- ated your soul and preserved your being; the God upon Whose bounty you have lived all your 94 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS days ; the God Who sent His Son to die for you ; the God Who gave you a revelation of His will ; the God Who sent His spirit to convince and enlighten you concerning your sin and Jesus Christ your Saviour. That is God, yes, thy God, the omnipotent God, the omniscient God ; the God that knows your secret thoughts, and the intents of your heart; the God Who knows your secret sins, every wicked word you ever uttered, every wicked thought that ever flitted through your mind, every wicked act you ever performed, and those dark deeds in the dead hour of the night. That is the God you are to meet. Who know^s all about your condition, your life and your character; the omniscient, omnipresent, and the holy God; the God that cannot look upon sin with any degree of allowance; the God of love and of mercy; the God Whose love you have spurned and Whose mercy you have rejected; the God Whose spirit you have resisted. That is the God that you are to meet, your soul stripped of these clods of clay and your spirit naked right there before the divine scrutiny, in the presence of Almighty God. O men, when you had that earthquake down in this country and didn't know but PREPARATION TO MEET GOD 95 that the next shock would bring you right into the presence of God, when you didn't know but that the next time the shake came there would be an ascent of your spirit right face to face w^th God, how did you feel? My friends, there is an earthquake coming that will shake this old world from center to cir- cumference; there is a great cataclysm coming, when the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and as a vesture shall they be folded up and laid aside, and your spirit shall go into the presence of Almighty God. Ah, thoughtless, careless, indifferent, unconcerned humanity, will you stop tonight and face the awful question that you are going to meet God? The next reason why you should prepare to meet God is that you are unprepared, many of you, and you are the special ones that I am preaching to. What constitutes preparation to meet God? Perhaps there might be a great deal of difference of opinion about that. Let us go to the book. I want to read you now Rev. 20:11 to 15: ''And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled aw^ay; and there w^as found no place for them. 96 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them ; and they were judged every man accord- ing to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." You may say what you please, but from that Scripture this question is settled: No man is prepared to meet God whose name is not in the book of life. It matters not about your other books, about what other books are opened; it matters not anything about who he is, or what he claims to be; in the church or out of the church; a moral man or an immoral man; the great, vital question is: Is his name in the Lamb's book of life? They are judged by their work, then, and according to their work they are to be rewarded or they are to be punished. PREPARATION TO MEET GOD 97 What about their destiny? What about whether or not their souls are going to heaven to enjoy its rewards, or going to hell to suffer its punishments? What is the crucial question there? Turn over and examine the book of life ; if his name is not there he is not prepared to meet God. Now, dear dying man, who are always talking about your morality and honesty and good deeds and sobriety and how much better you are than some church mem- ber here who leads a very inconsistent life, don't you see that that is neither here nor there? All that cuts no figure in this question. It is not how moral you are, how good or how bad you are. Is your name on the Lamb's book of life? You might well ask that ques- tion, ''Jesus, my Saviour, is my name written there?" That is the great vital question. Sinners, your name is not there. You profane, wicked, guilty, condemned, Christ- rejecting, God-defying sinners, you know your name is not there. Then, you are not pre- pared to meet God. I beg you, as God's ambassador, this night that you will accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour and pass from death unto life and be born of God, and 98 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS then have your name written on the Lamb's book of life. Another reason why you should prepare to meet God is because that meeting is inevitable, 2 Cor. 5:10: ''For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ." We, you and I, descendants of Adam; we all, saint and sinner, good, bad and indifferent; we all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ. You may not be ready to meet God; that is neither here nor there; you will meet Him. You may not want to meet God, but you will meet Him. You may call upon the rocks and the mountains and the hills to fall upon you and hide you from His face. They won't do it. The edict of Almighty God has gone forth, you shall meet Him. It may be death and eternal hell for you to meet Him; that is neither here nor there, you must meet Him. Dying man, since it is a fact, and the fiat of Almighty God that you are going to meet Him, I ask you, will you rush into His presence unprepared? Will you slight all the warnings that God gives you, live as you live, and die unprepared, and go into God's presence with- out any preparation at all? Why, you wouldn't go to meet the President of the PREPARATION TO MEET GOD 99 United States without making some prepar- ation; you wouldn't go into the presence of Gabriel without some preparation. Dying man, will you live in sin and serve the devil, and with all your sins and iniquity and tatter- ed, filthy garments of sin and corruption, will you go right into the presence of the great God unwashed, unregenerate, unpardoned, unsaved? Dear dying man, what are you thinking about? Every day performs a fun- eral march down to the grave and up to God, and you are absolutely unprepared. Another reason why you should prepare to meet God is because of the supreme import- ance of that meeting. Hear the words of God, Matt. 16:26: 'Tor what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Let us have a little common sense along with our religion, and also along with our business. It is a very important matter for you lawyers to attend to your clients; I grant that; but it is a great deal more important matter that you lawyers first prepare to meet your God. It is very import- ant that you doctors look after your patients, and you merchants after your merchandise, and you farmers after your farms, and your 100 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS crops; but it is a thousand times more import- ant that you prepare to meet your God. Dear, dying man, these other questions are absolutely important; but as much higher as heaven is than earth, so much higher is the great importance of preparing to meet your God than all these other things. Is it not perfectly strange that a man will make a great deal of preparation to look after his client and his patients and his merchandise and his farm and his temporal and financial affairs, and then make no preparation for the future, no prepar- ation for ''that country from whose bourne no traveler e'er returns," no preparation for that meeting on which hinges heaven and hell, eternal glory and eternal despair? Dear dying man, may God's Holy Spirit help you to see these things in the light of eternity and in the light of God's truth. Go on as you are going, neglect your God, reject Christ, choke the Scripture, take all of your time for earthly things and earthly treasures, and after a while that unsaved spirit of yours will start up to meet its God, and as you look at the eternal city and see the glories of it, and then look back at this poor, little old world for which you lost your soul and then lost it, too, as PREPARATION TO MEET GOD 101 you are poised on wings between heaven and earth you will exclaim, like Satan of old, *'Ah me; which way shall I fly? Infinite wrath, or infinite despair?" Prepare to meet your God this night. But again, I would urge you to prepare to meet God because of the results that hang on that meeting between you and your God. Let me read you a passage over here from God's word, Matt. 22:10 to 13: ''So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good; and the wedding was furnished with guests. And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment. And he said unto him. Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants. Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." There is a man who went to a marriage supper unprepared, and what was the result? The first result was that he was speechless. Dear dying man, when you stand before God unprepared to be there, you will be speechless. 102 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS I remember a man that was tried for his life in Wilmington while I was there last spring, and before the sentence was pro- nounced upon him the judge said: ''Prisoner at the bar, what have you to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced against you?" He had nothing to say; he was speech- less. Dying man, that is the way with you; what will you offer as a vindication for your not being prepared? What excuse will you have to give in that awful day? There you will stand speechless, a guilty soul before the God that made it. What else? Not only ''speechless," but "bind him hand and foot." What else? "Take him away." What else? "Cast him out into outer darkness." What else? "There shall be weeping." And what else? "There shall be gnashing of teeth." How long? Through the eternal years. Said Jesus Christ, "These shall go away into ever- lasting punishment." And now why? Because they would not prepare to meet Almighty God. We now come to the second question, How should I prepare to meet God? Let us let the Bible do its own preaching. God knows men are not prepared to meet Him, and God shows PREPARATION TO MEET GOD 103 US how we may prepare. I remark first we should prepare to meet God by forsaking our sins, Isa. 55:7: ''Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." Are you willing to forsake it? You men that get drunk, are you willing to quit? You men that cheat; you men that live lascivious lives; are you willing to quit? There is the question face to face with you. You are to prepare to meet God by for- saking your sin. Are you willing to do it? Dear dying man, don't entertain the thought that you are prepared to meet God unless you are willing to forsake those sins. If you don't forsake them, they will sink you down to hell and death, and therefore may God help you tonight to get the consent of your mind that you will forsake them. May I give you an illustration of how your sins will sink you unless you forsake them? Several years ago I was in Evansville, Ind., and I was the guest of Mr. Nesbit, one of the wealthy men of that place, who went to Cal- ifornia with the Forty-niners, during the great 104 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS gold-digging excitement. He said : *'We dug our gold, and when we started to come back to this part of the country there was a man on the boat who had all of his gold in a belt around his body. Many of us had our gold on us. We were on a steamer on the Gulf of Mexico, and this man who had all the gold belted around him was walking along on the edge of the vessel. The water was very rough, and as the vessel careened one way the man careened over the other way, lost his balance, and over he went. Before they could get the life-boats there to him, the poor man went dow^n, sunk by the weight of his belt of gold. O Mr. Pearson, the expression of that face, that despair, the awful look of anguish, as he held up both hands and went right down in the water to the bottom of the Gulf before we could get the lifeboat to him!" Dear sinners, that is about the case with you. Some of these days you will go over the edge of the boat, and you will go down in the great sea of death, and how will you go? You are here tonight, some of you with a belt of iniquity around you, some with a belt of profanity, some with a belt of covetousness, and the various other kinds of belts. Those PREPARATION TO MEET GOD 105 belts of Iniquity will sink your soul down to hell and eternal death. Now, I beg you tonight, in God's name, just unbuckle that belt of profanity, or of lewdness, or of covet- ousness, and throw it away. Forsake your sin and turn to God, and God's word for it, He will abundantly pardon. Will you do it? Another way for you to prepare to meet your God is by repenting of your sins. Hear what God says. Acts 8 :22 : ''Repent therefore of this thy wickedness." Thy wickedness — your sin, dear man; repent of it, and that is the way to prepare to meet God. Let us go a step further: You are also to prepare to meet your God by faith in Jesus Christ. In John 6:29 Jesus says: 'This is the work of God, that ye believe in him whom he hath sent." What do you believe? Not simply that he was the Son of God, not simply that he was the Saviour of the world, not simply that he died for sinners; but you are to believe that he died for you, that he loved you, that he is willing to save you, that he is your Saviour, and that you will commit your soul into his hands and into his keeping right away and right now. Man, will you do that? Will you do that tonight? Will you forsake 106 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS your sins tonight? Will you repent of those sins tonight, and will you say, Here, Lord Jesus, I believe that you are the Son of God, I believe you are my Saviour, I believe you died for me, I commit my soul into your hands? Will you do it? If you will, God will save you right here and right now. The next question is: You must prepare to meet your God by making restitution to your fellowmen. I am now going to make a point that is not often made in preaching, not as often as it ought to be, a very solemn, vital point. You are to prepare to meet your God by making restitution to your fellowmen whom you have wronged, injured or defrauded in any way whatsoever. Now, hear what God says, Ex. 22:12: ''And if it be stolen from him, he shall make restitution unto the owner thereof.*' The word stolen there means obtained unlawfully, or without giving value received. There is God's principle laid down, that when you have gotten anything that does not belong to you, you shall make restitution for it. "But," says somebody, "that is in the Old Testament Scriptures." Yes, it is; but it is God's word just the same. I want to read over here from the 19th chapter of Luke, PREPARATION TO MEET GOD 107 the first nine verses: "And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the pubHcans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. And he ran before and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him; for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste and come down; for today I must abide at thy house. And he made haste and came down, and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying: That he was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner. And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord: Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold. And Jesus said unto him: This day is salvation, come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham." The idea of the word ''restore" is "make restitution."^ I don't make the point from that that this man Zacchaeus was saved because he made restitution, but I do make the point that if he 108 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS had refused to make restitution in view of the Scripture back here in Ex. 22:12, he would not have been saved. Here we have a vital, fundamental principle: You cannot be just with God and unjust with your fellowman; you cannot be God's child and wrongly defraud your fellowman. In other words, you can't be truly pious and not be truly honest. Now, I am going to do some plain talking, and I hope nobody will think it is malice, for I can't help it. This idea that a man can be a saint, a child of God, an elder, a deacon, a steward in God's church and walk around here with some other man's money away down in his pocket, hold- ing it tight as he can, and refusing to pay his just debts, is a grand mistake. That man that has another man's money in his pockets, and sits up high in God's house of Sundays, and puts his hand over his mouth and says "AMEN," and then don't pay his honest debts, is a pious old fraud, so-called. Talk to me about being a man of God and not honest with your fellowman! Do you claim to be a child of God? Yes. Do you pay your grocery bill? Do you pay your doctor bills? Do you pay your lawyer bills? Do you pay your PREPARATION TO MEET GOD 109 store accounts? Do you pay all of your honest debts? ''No, I don't pay them all." Take down your sign for being a child of God; no such thing as that on it. A man that won't pay his honest debts is a dishonest man. He is robbing his fellowman and refusing to make restitution therefor. But I hear some man say: ''Look here, Pearson, you are very tight on us." Yes, I am. I hear another man say: "Look here, Pearson, I have got a little debt on hand I can't pay." Now if you can't — be certain you can't — if you can't, go to that man to whom you owe that debt, and make an honest, plain, straightforward, frank statement, and say, "I will pay you along as I can," and, in the meantime, don't put on so much style. Pay your debts, whether you put on any style or not. But I imagine I hear somebody else say: "Look here, here is an old debt con- tracted back yonder before the war. I can't pay that." You had better pay it, or you had better make a fair, honest effort and make restitution as far as it is possible for you to go. I wouldn't hold up my personal experience for any man to go by, but I want to speak of one little thing that I thank God for and no EVANGELISTIC SERMONS appreciate very highly. My father was a Southern man and owned slaves, and just before the war broke out he bought quite a number. He then went into the Confederate army, and fought in the war. When he came back his slaves were all gone and he was a poor man. Some of his neighbors said : ' 'Plead the bankrupt law, Pearson, in paying off the old negro debt," and he said: ''No, I won't do it; it is an honest debt, contracted in good faith, and I will pay it," and he worked hard and he did pay it, and though he left his children with no property, thank God, he left them with a clean record ; the heritage of an honest name to a lot of poor children is worth a great deal more than if he had left them a fortune of millions with the abominable taint upon his character that he did not pay his debts. Again, have you wronged some man? Have you fleeced him in a trade? Have you taken advantage of him? Have you gotten his money without giving value received? Have you cheated him in any kind of trade? Dear man, as you value your soul and heaven, you will go and make restitution for that. PREPARATION TO MEET GOD 111 I want to tell you just two incidents that occurred under my own immediate obser- vation on this matter of paying old debts. Several years ago I was in Marshall, Tex., holding a meeting, and there was a man in that town who had been a deacon in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church for 25 years and he had never been converted either, but he was converted during the meeting. There was a man in that town to whom he owed debts way back yonder before the war, and the morning after he was converted he went around to that man down at the Court House, and said: ''Here, I owe you a debt. You know I can plead the statute of limitations on you, and you know that I took the bankrupt law after the war; you know that you cannot by law collect a bit of this money. But, sir, here is a deed to the best corner lot I have got in this town, and the house upon it. It is yours, I have made it out to you. Now, go up in the Court House and have it recorded." That is what I call getting down to business, if I may use such an expression. That is what I call genuine, earnest, honest godliness. There was also in that same town a young man converted there one night. He was a 112 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS poor young man, and he owed another man in that town about $100, and the next morning he went down to that man and said: ''Look here, I was converted last night. God forgave my sins. I want to say to you that I owe you $100, and all I have in this world is one very ordinary little horse, and these hands of mine to work for me. You go down there to that livery stable, put that halter on that horse, bring him out on the corner and sell him to the highest bidder, put the money in your pocket, and when I have the balance I'll pay you that." That is what I call godliness in earnest and genuine Christianity. If you have not got religion enough to make you an honest man, you are a pious old fraud. If you have not got religion enough to make you pay your debts and make restitution to your fellowman, dear dying sinners, you are in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity. I find out as I mix and mingle with men and travel up and down this land, that there is nothing in the world that makes sceptics and scoffers and sneerers and infidels faster than a lot of men belonging to God's church and saying they are God's saints, who won't PREPARATION TO MEET GOD 113 pay their honest debts. There is not a greater drawback to Christianity today than this very thing. That is the way to prepare to meet God, forsake your sins, repent of your sins, put your faith in Jesus Christ, and pay your debts, make restitution and be an honest man. We now come to the last question, and very briefly on that: When shall I do all these things? When shall I prepare to meet God? Hear the book, Isa. 55: "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near." Then the time to prepare to meet God is when God may be found ready to pardon, forgive and save your soul. That is the time to prepare. You should prepare during the particular time that God has appointed. Hence Luke 19:41, 42: ''And when he was come near he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, if thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace. But now^ they are hid from thine eyes.'* That is, the things which pertained to Jer- usalem's peace were disregarded at the time that God appointed, when they should have been regarded. It was then hid from their 114 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS eyes, and their house was left desolate. Dear sinner, tonight is the time God has appointed for you ; now is the time God has appointed for this matter; and I beg you, in God's name, attend to it now, while you may. If not, soon it shall be said of you: These things are hid from your eyes. Another reason is that you should prepare while the means are near. Luke 13:34: ''O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the pro- phets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not." No; there was the means afforded Israel; the prophets were sent, and then other prophets were sent, and then Jesus Christ was sent, and this Testament was sent ; but all of these means were utterly disregarded, and the day passed by, and the Jews must meet their God unpre- pared. So it was with you, friends; you have the means tonight, God's word, God's spirit, God's church, the preached gospel; all these means God offers you tonight. Will you use them while you may? You will not always have them. PREPARATION TO MEET GOD 115 Another time that you should prepare is while the evils may be averted. Hence we read in Prov. 22:3: ''A prudent man fore- seeth the evil and hideth himself; but the simple pass on, and are punished." Here are two men walking down that railroad track; they see that monstrous, heavy mogul engine rolling down towards them. The prudent man will get off the track and out of the way. He would be a very foolish and silly man that would walk along on the track and let the ponderous engine run over him and crush the life out of him. Dying sinner, can't you see the consequences? Remorse, despair, damna- ation, guilt, eternal wrath, eternal death, bound hand and foot, speechless, cast away into outer darkness, there to endure the wrath of God forever? Don't you see those things staring you in the face? Lastly, you should prepare when the reward may be secured. Rev. 22:12: ''And, behold I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be." Then, dear dying man, here is an opportunity tonight; here is the time when you can secure the rewards that God gives you; here is the glorious reward of His blessed gospel; here is 116 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS pardon, peace, eternal life, salvation, an inheri- tance at God's right hand; here is a crown of glory which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give at that day to all those who love and fear Him in the Lord Jesus Christ. You can secure those rewards tonight; you can secure that inheritance tonight. Will you do it? That is the time to prepare to meet your God. EXCUSES January 21, 1889, 8 P. M. "And they all with one consent began to make excuse.'' — John 14:18. Here was a man who prepared a great supper, and he sent out his servants, and he bade the guests; but one man made one excuse, another man made another excuse, and still a third man a third excuse, etc. Then the man said that none of those who were bidden should taste of his supper. How exceedingly applicable are these things to us. God has provided the great, glorious gospel feast, and to that he says: 'Whoso- ever will, let him come and take the water of life freely," and while hundreds and thousands have come, yet tonight there are a great many who are holding off and hesitating and making their various excuses for not becoming Chris- tians. So tonight I want to talk to the unsaved people of this audience about the excuses that they are in the habit of making for not becom- ing Christians. Now, let it be distinctly under- stood, God is not going to coerce you into the 118 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS kingdom of heaven. Let it also be understood that as God's ambassador I am not here for any quarrel with you whatever about this matter. It is your prerogative to be a Chris- tian, or not to be one; it is your prerogative to accept God's invitation, or to reject it. What I want to do tonight is not to fall out with you for making excuses, but to take those excuses that you do make and hold them up to your judgment, your conscience, your understanding, in the light of God's word and the judgment day and of the great eternity, and to show you how flimsy and how un- reasonable and how fallacious they are; then to leave you alone with your conscience and with your God, and if you are not willing to give up that flimsy excuse, nothing more can be said, or done. If you are willing to give it up, we will thank God for it. Now, of course in one sermon I can't notice all the excuses that men make for not becoming Christians ; I shall therefore not try to do it; but I am going to pick about one dozen, and they are as good a dozen, if any of them can be called good, as can be found in the entire list; and I am going to expose those in the light of EXCUSES 119 God's word and of common sense, and from the dozen you may judge all the rest. Now, without any further preliminary, the first excuse I wish to notice is this. I hear some man say **I don't believe in Christ. That is the reason that I'm not a Christian." You say you don't? ''No, I don't believe the Bible." Let us see what God says about this matter. John 12:48: ''He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him; the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." Now, there is your position laid down by Jesus Christ, that you are going to be judged by this Bible. That is God's word, and that is God's authority, and what you may be pleased to think about this Bible, pro or con, good, bad or indifferent, cuts no figure as to the truth of the Bible. It cuts no figure as to the determination of Almighty God that your soul is going to be judged by it. None whatever. You infidels and free-thinkers and God-defy- ing and Christ-rejecting sinners, God is going to judge you by that Bible you deny just the same as he judges the saints of God. Some men have the theory in their heads that if they don't believe the Bible, therefore 120 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS the Bible is a lie. It is a delusion of hell that you are entertaining, dear dying man. You don't believe the Bible? *'No." What is your opinion worth? You don't know any- thing about the Bible. I don't care what you say or what you believe. I have met a great many infidels in my day, and I have had a great many of them to tell me that they know a great deal about the Bible, and I have to meet the first one yet who can stand to be catechized five minutes about the Bible with- out showing his consummate ignorance. You don't know anything about it. You may be a very profound and intelligent lawyer, or a very skillful and intelligent doctor, or a very successful banker, or a fine civil engineer, a profoundly intelligent man about many things, but I tell you, sir, and you know it is true, you don't know anything about that Bible. You have never studied it, you have never prayed over it, you have never examined it, you have never conscientiously and thoroughly investi- gated it, and you don't know anything about it. I know you don't and you know you don't. Let us see what your opinion is worth. Suppose a legal ignoramus should walk around on the street here tomorrow and meet EXCUSES 121 five or six of the best lawyers and judges in this town or county or state and say: ''All those principles of evidence as laid down by Story and all the principles of jurisprudence as elucidated by Blackstone and Kent are non- sense. Those men didn't have any legal sense, and I reject it all as legal bosh." Suppose he has never studied them. What would an intelligent lawyer give for his opinion? He has no right to have an opinion on that subject, and he knows nothing about it. He is just venting his ignorance, that is all. A young man meets four or five of the most intelligent physicians in the town, and turns loose a tirade on the medical works and the whole medical fraternity. ''Have you ever taken a course of medical study?" "No." What do you think your opinion will be worth on a medical subject? Suppose a young man meets a civil engineer on the street and begins to ridicule the whole business of civil engineer- ing, it is all bosh, that he and all the rest of the civil engineers have no sense; that it is a kind of conjuring, etc., what would his opinion be worth? Just so precisely, here is a consummate scriptural ignoramus — that is the right word 122 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS — he knows no more about God Almighty's word than that ignoramus knows about Black- stone or this other ignoramus knows about medicine and the other ignoramus about civil engineering; and yet here he is setting himself up as a judge, and parading his little infidelity around in the street, that the Bible is a lie, and he doesn't believe it. I have no more respect for your little cheap infidelity than your lawyers or these doctors or the civil engineer for the other men. You are not entitled to any more. I am talking plainly, because I know what I am talking about, and you know it. Some of you think, ''Mr. Pearson, you are putting that a little strong." No, I am not. I have met a great many of these infidels, and I have got one standing question that I have always asked them, and I have never failed to knock the feet from under them with it. To give you one case out of fifty, I remember up here in St. Louis I met a man very intelligent about a great many things. I said to him: ''Are you a Christian?" "No, sir." "Do you believe the Bible?" "No, sir, I reject and repudiate the whole thing, and I have gone through the Bible, investigated it, and know all about EXCUSES 123 it." "You do," said I. ''I want to ask you just one question: Will you please tell me who wrote the book of Samson?" 'The book of Samson? — the book of Samson? I forget just now who wrote the book of Samson." And now you can imagine just how blank the poor fellow did look when I said: *'My poor, dying man, there is not such a book as that in God's word." And there is not an infidel in Greenville who could have told who wrote the book of Samson before I told that. Now, I want to ask you two or three pointed questions. You don't believe the Bible? *'No." Is it because you have got more brains than all the other godly, eminent men who have lived and died? Is it because you are a more profound and erudite scholar than all the men living or dead who have believed it? You would not say that. Are you more honest or conscientious? You would not say that. Why don't you believe the Bible? I'll tell you why. You are living in some one or more known sin or sins, which sins you know the Bible condemns, for which sins you know a man will be damned and go to hell if he lives and dies in them. Now, you are not willing to quit those sins, and in order 124 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS to ease off your conscience just a little you say that the Bible is a lie, and therefore there is no hell, and consequently I can indulge myself with impunity. Now, sir, that is the bottom of your little cheap one-horse infi- delity. And I will prove it by the word of Jesus Christ. John 3:19: ''This is the con- demnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." You reject the light of inspiration because your deeds are evil; and if you turn the light of truth upon those deeds, that is at the bottom of your not believing the Bible. I shall stop to make no defence of the Bible, no more than I will defend the sun in the noonday sky. God's word has stood the storm of all the sceptics, and not one solitary sentence in that grand old ancient document has ever been shown to be other than what it claims to be. But says another man: ''The reason I am not a Christian is that I don't understand all that is in the Bible, I don't understand all about Christianity, and now for me to accept something that I don't understand would be to stultify my intellect, and therefore I am not going to be a Christian until I understand EXCUSES 125 all that is in the Bible and Christianity." Now, that sounds very intellectual and fine; but, ah, dear man, it is a sophism of hell, put into your head by the devil. Let us see what God says about it. Isa. 35:8: ''And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein." Now, from that Scripture it isclear that the highway of salvation is so plain, so simple, and so easily found that an ordinary fool cannot mistake it. Now, what about this Bible? There are a great many things in it, and some of these things are very plain and simple and easily understood, those things that pertain to salvation. ''Repent, or ye perish." That is very plain. "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." That is very plain. "He that believeth not shall be damned." That is very plain, and that covers the whole ground of Christ's salvation and eternal perdition. There are of sheer necessity some things in. the Bible that cannot be understood. God is in the Bible, and as I showed you last night the finite cannot comprehend the infinite. There- 126 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS fore there will always be in heaven, in the Bible, in eternity some things that you and I and the tall archangels of God will never understand. We can't understand them. I want to talk to you just a little more; I like to find a man who is consistent with himself and with God's word. You are going to reject this Bible because you don't understand what is in it, and you don't intend to stultify your- self. Grant for an argument that everything about salvation can't be understood. I want to illustrate your inconsistency, and the sophistry of your position. Do you do that way about everything else? Do you reject everything outside of the Bible that you don't understand, for fear of stultifying yourself? No, sir, you don't, and I will prove it for you. Did you eat your dinner today? **Yes." What did you eat? ''Some potatoes and some turkey and bread and butter and milk and celery and some cake and some coffee." Do you understand how your diges- tive organs took that dinner and converted it first into chyme, and then into chyle, and then into blood, and some of it into bone, and some into muscle, and some into nerve, and some into fibre, and some into EXCUSES 127 marrow, and some into hair, and some into one part of the body and some another? Do you understand that? No, sir; not a man in this house understands it; not one on the face of the earth thoroughly understands it. Now, according to your position you stultified your- self when you ate your dinner today. I would be consistent. I wouldn't eat my dinner or my supper unless I could understand it; and you stick to your theory about your food and it will put you in the grave; and you stick to your theory about the Bible and it will put you in hell on the same line. Again, because I want to knock the bottom out of his nonsense about your stultifying yourself, I will say: There is a beautiful lawn out there, and a flock of geese on it, and a herd of cattle, and a drove of sheep. When the sheep eat the grass it makes wool. Do you understand how the grass makes wool? No, sir, you can't understand it to save your life. Is that any argument against wearing a good heavy woolen overcoat one of these cold days? No, sir, but you stultify yourself every time you do it, according to your theory. When the cow eats the grass it makes hair instead of wool. Do you understand that? No, sir. 128 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS Is that any argument against your eating a good beefsteak? But every time you eat it you stultify yourself, according to your theory. When the geese eat grass it makes feathers. Do you understand that? No, sir. Is that any reason against sleeping on a warm feather bed on a cold freezing night? No, sir, but you stultify yourself every time you do it. You are not consistent out of the Bible, neither are you consistent in the Bible, and therefore, if I were you, I should lay aside that foolish, sophistical theory of yours that you would not accept it until you understand it, because if you did you would stultify yourself. God does not propose to save you by under- standing, but by grace through faith. I hear another man say: ''The reason I am not a Christian is that it is a very difficult thing to keep the commandments, to love God and follow the example of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the reason that I am not a Christian." Let us see what God says about it. I will turn over here to Matt. 11 :30 and the Lord Jesus says this: "For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Therefore you are wrong. He says of the way of the transgressor that that is hard. Therefore you EXCUSES 129 are incorrect when you say that it is a diffi- cult thing to be a Christian, a difficult thing to follow Christ and bear his burdens. But I want to ask you a question or two. Where did you get that idea that it is a difficult thing to be a Christian and to serve God? You didn't get it in that Bible. Where did you get it? I'll tell you where you got it; you got it from some of these old church members that have never been converted, trying to get to heaven with a cross under one arm and a barrel of whiskey under the other. Now, Til tell you that is a hard thing to do. It is as difficult a thing to do as trying to get to heaven with a prayer-book in one hand and a deck of cards in the other. That is a hard thing to do. Some of these people that want to crowd all their religion into forty days and do as they choose for the rest of the 365, instead of going in the narrow path will be walking or riding with the devil's saints down the broad way to perdition. Christ says: ''Ye cannot serve God and mam- mon." You can't serve two masters. That is a hard thing to do, and that is where you got your idea of its being a hard thing. But again, be consistent now. Do you do 130 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS that way about everything else that is diffi- cult? You don't, and I'll prove it to you. Here is a man, I'll say he is named Jones, and he has a wife and five or six children. You meet him on the street tomorrow morning, and you say ''Hello, Jones; what is this I hear about you?" ''What did you hear?" "I heard that you had sent your children to the poorhouse and that you had sent your wife down town here to take in washing, and that you were going to be a first-class tramp." "Yes, it is so. I'll tell you why it is so. I have been living here in South Carolina a long time, and I find it is a very difficult thing in this country for a man to support a wife and five or six children, pay all of his debts, and taxes, educate the children, and clothe them and feed them, and pay house rent, and rear up a decent and respectable family, and it was such a difficult thing to do I concluded I would let my children go to the poorhouse, and my wife take in washing for a living, and I would become a first-class tramp." But he is a philosopher beside of that poor dying sinner out yonder who is going to reject heaven and eternal life and salvation, and go down to God Almighty's EXCUSES 131 poorhouse and spend eternity there as a pauper, because, forsooth — for argument's sake we will say — it is difficult to be a Chris- tian. Dear, dying man, never make that excuse again. But I hear another man say: "The reason that I am not a Christian is, sir, there are so many hypocrites in the church." Yes, I knew you were going to say that, you are always talking about those hypocrites. By their very existence they prove the truth of Christianity. Christ says he sows the wheat, the devil sows the tares, and the wheat and the tares are to grow together until the end. So, when you go boasting around here that there are some hypocrites in the church, you are simply proving the truth of the gospel. In Rom. 14:12 we read: ''So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God." Dear dying sinner, you had better be settling your account and preparing to meet your God; you had better set your house in order, and let these hypocrites take care of them- selves. God will deal with them. What kind of an account are you going to give? But this is a very common excuse. How many of these church members are hypo- 132 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS crites? I don't believe that there are that many, but I will say for the sake of an argu- ment that nine-tenths are hypocrites. That is fair; you know it is. Now, you are going to reject heaven, because nine-tenths of the church are hypocrites. Do you think that way about anything else, about the ordinary affairs of life? No, sir. Let us see. Suppose I owe you $100 and you have my note for that amount. I meet you on the street in the morning and I say: ''Here, Jones, I want to pay you that $100 and take up the note," and I pull out ten $10 bills, and you turn them up in counting them, and lo and behold one of them is a counterfeit; would you just turn around and tear that note all to pieces, and throw them away and say: ''I don't propose to have any more notes, or to take any more money; I never intend to stick another greenback bill into my pocket while I live, while there is counterfeit money in vogue. I am never going to take any green- backs as long as there is any counterfeit currency?" Would you do that? You know you wouldn't. You would just make me take back that counterfeit bill and give you ten $10 bills that were good, regardless of the EXCUSES 133 counterfeit; and you would pay no attention to the counterfeit currency. Now, that would be common sense and business, and why don't you act on common sense principles? Here you are going to hell because some old hypocrite is going to hell. Again, you are very much afraid of the church and Christianity because there are hypocrites in it; but I am going to stick to the Bible and the church and Christianity, without regard to the hypocrites, and if the devil were to join the church, I am going to stay there. Let us see which way is the best. You won't be a Christian because there are hypocrites in the church. Now, what will be the end of the whole matter? Where will the hypocrites go? All go to hell. Where will you go if you don't become a Christian? You will go to hell too. If I am an earnest, true child of God I will go to heaven, thank God, where there is not a single, solitary hypocrite; I will spend ten, fifteen, thirty or forty years in the church, where there are a great many hypocrites, and then I will die and go to heaven, where I will never see another. But you won't have anything to do with the church for ten, twenty or forty years because 134 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS there are hypocrites in it, and then you will go to hell and spend eternity with the hypo- crites, all of them, from Judas Iscariot down through all the ages of the world. I'll take the hypocrites here. But, again, you don't seem to see the shrewdness of the devil in this matter. Sev- eral years ago I read an article in Scribner's Magazine about how men killed wild geese in the far west, and when I went evangelizing out there I inquired and found out it was done just in this way: A man w^ill go out in the plains in California or Colorado and he will take along with him a decoy goose, which looks exactly like a goose, and you couldn't tell to save your life whether or not it was a goose if you looked at it from a short distance, and he will go in a wheat field and stick that decoy goose about here; then he will go about 40 steps and dig a hole in the ground, and he gets in that hole with a good breech-loader and plenty of shells, loaded, and the flocks of geese come sailing along over him, and gazing down they see the decoy goose. So they drop down around him, and he seems to be a queer looking goose, and their whole atten- tion is rivetted on the decoy, and while they EXCUSES 135 are taking in the decoy, the man in the hole with the shotgun is taking them in; he bags the geese, and they never see the point till they are dead. That is just exactly the way the devil hunts souls. The Bible says he goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. What does he do? Here is one of the favorite schemes of the devil, and he w^orks it for all he is worth. He likes to go into a church or community or city and get some poor, old, broken-down decoy of a Christian, that never was anything but an old hypocritical church member, just one of the old decoys, or an old, broken-down Sunday-school superinten- dent, if he can, and run him up there con- spicuous in the community and the church, and get the eyes of the poor sinners in the community to looking at that old decoy church member, and they are gazing at him, and talking and soliloquizing about him and pooh-poohing Christianity and the church and all that kind of thing and the poor, deluded simpletons, while their time is occupied with the decoy church member, the devil is getting in his work, and after a while he gets his trap set and down into hell's dead-fall he ^oes. 136 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS Can't you see the game that the devil is playing with you? I can hear another man say: ''The reason I don't become a Christian is that there are too many churches. Here is the Methodist and the Baptist and the Presbyterian and the Cumberland Presbyterian and the Episco- palian and the Catholic and the Lutheran and the Associate Reformed, and so many others, and one says 'we are right' and the other, 'we are right,' and," says the man, "until they can settle among themselves which is right, how am I going to settle it? And if they can't settle who is right among themselves, I reckon an outsider had better have nothing to do with it. Hear what God says, I Tim. 2 :5 : "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." What is the mistake you are making? You are looking to this church, that church, or the other church as the mediator between you and God. Jesus Christ is the mediator between you and God. Then don't put your faith in this church, that church, or any other church, but put your faith in Jesus Christ, the son of God and the Saviour of the world. There is not as much difference between these EXCUSES 137 churches as you think there is. We have our different notions about the modes of baptism, and about the ordinances, rites and ceremon- ies, and church poHcy, etc., but what is that? The fact is that we all believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the only Saviour of the lost world ; we will shake hands on that proposition and we will lock our shields around the cross on that great central, fundamental truth. Now, I want to illustrate the utter folly there is in your always looking to these different churches instead of looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. Suppose that that hotel down yonder is on fire; it is three stories high. Here are five or six hook and ladder companies, one using red ladders, another white, another black, and another barber pole ladders, and so on, a great variety. They are all ladders and all good ladders, but differ a little in the way they are painted. But there is right sharp competition between the ladder companies. There is a man sleeping in the third story of the hotel. Now, in the dead of night the fire breaks out and burns the lower floor and the second floor and the stairway; the fire-bell rings and each company 138 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS runs up its ladders, one here, another there, and so on. And about that time the chief of each one of the companies goes out yonder and begins to halloo: ''Fire, fire! Here man, down 'this ladder." "Here," "Here," "Down this ladder." And about that time the man, half frightened and half asleep, wakes up and sticks his head out of the window and says: "Which one is the best ladder-company?" Now, the thing that man needs is not a ladder- company. It is a ladder. All the ladder- companies in town can't save him; he needs a ladder. And they don't say: "Come to this ladder-company," or "come to that ladder- company." They say: "Come to this lad- der," or "Come to that ladder." Just so, here you are, sinner, as the Bible says, right over hell, and the flames of hell rise to meet you. Here are the Methodist hallooing fire, and the Baptists and the Pres- byterians and the Episcopalians, all hallooing fire. Here is a poor, dying, guilty, lost sinner, who wakes up and says: "Which one of these churches is the most orthodox?" It is not orthodoxy you need. You may go to hell and be orthodox. It is not a church you need; it is a Saviour, the Son of God. Then, EXCUSES 139 you come to Christ, accept him and be saved; then go and join any church you choose. Any of them is good enough for you to go to heaven in. Any of them you can go to hell in. You must be born again, or you cannot see the kingdom of God, in the church or out of the church. I hear another man say: 'That is not my trouble. The reason I can't become a Chris- tian is that God foreknows my destiny. He knew when I was born whether I was going to heaven or to hell. If He knows I am going to hell, I have got to go to hell, and there is no use to be in any hurry about it. If He knows I am going to heaven I will sit down and wait God's good time." I don't care to be metaphysical or theological, but I want to take the broad-axe of good, hard common sense and cut that knot in the middle. It is nothing but a metaphysical puzzle that the devil has got up to get souls befogged by, and lead them into the labyrinth of unbelief, and lead them down to hell. II Cor. 6:2: "Now is the day of salvation." Isa. 55:7: ''Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy 140 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS upon him; and to our God, for he will abun- dantly pardon." Now, you see, that pardon is based on whether or not you come to God; but you are basing it on whether God knows 3^ou are going to come or not. God knows whether you are going to come, or not. He wouldn't be a God if He didn't. God knows everything; but because He knows it does not follow that His knowledge or that His fore- knowledge makes you go to heaven or makes you go to hell. I know the sun is going to rise in the morning, but my knowledge has nothing to do with it. God knows whether I am going to hell or to heaven, but that does not make me go. If I receive His Son I will go to heaven; if I reject His Son I will go to hell. I want to give you an illustration, and then you will get it. I will make the illustration as plain and clear as I can, for this is a very metaphysical, theological, puzzling affair. Suppose that four or five miles down this Reedy River here there lived a man who has five or six sons. He has a splendid farm, is a first-rate farmer, has five or six good horses and mxules, and four or five or six boys large enough to plough. Now, didn't God know the first day of Jan., 1888, EXCUSES 141 just how much corn, how many grains and bushels and barrels that man was going to make? O, yes, certainly God knew that. Tomorrow this man, whom we will call Jones, comes to town. I meet him on the street, and he has got a very long face. ''Mr. Jones, what is the matter with you?" ''I am in great trouble. I have got no bread in my house, and no corn. I am out." ''Why, are you not a farmer down here?" "Yes, sir." "And you have got a good plantation?" "Yes." "And you have got four or five boys large enough to plough?" "Yes." "And you have got four or five good horses and mules?" "Yes." "Didn't you have a tolerable good season?" "Yes." "Why didn't you make any corn?" "Well, you see God knew the first day of Jan., 1888, just how much corn I was going to make, and because God knew how much I was going to make I had nothing to do with it. Consequently, I turned the mules out, and let the boys go fishing, and I came to town and didn't plant anything, and I haven't got anything." Whose fault is it? Whose fault is it that Jones has not got any corn? Is it because God knew how much he was going to make? No, sir; it is because 142 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS Jones was too abominably lazy to plant his own corn, and yet here he w^as blowing around town that because God knew how much corn he was going to make, therefore he hasn't got any corn. It is a libel on God and on divine providence, and he is trying to palm off his indolence on God and on God's fore- knowledge. Just so, dying sinner, God knew when you were born whether you were going to hell or to heaven. But God says: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." Now, you go marching around here and say God knows whether you are going to heaven or hell, and you have got nothing to do with it, and you will go to hell. I know it and God know^s it, and as to that metaphysical puzzle, that is all there is in it and all there is of it. I hear another man say: "I would be a Christian, but my reason revolts against faith." Ah, dying man, you are mistaken. It is not your reason that is revolting against faith; you haven't got enough of it. Hear what God says, Ps. 14:1: 'The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." He never said it in his head; no, it was in his heart. It EXCUSES 143 is not your head that is the matter with you so much; it is your wicked, guilty, depraved, deceitful heart, which God says is deceitful and desperately wicked. Your wicked, de- praved heart revolts against God and faith and God's plan of salvation. And now the devil comes in and flatters your self-conceit and makes you think it is through your superabundance of intellect that you are rejecting God. That is a great mistake, as sure as you live. Talk about reason. Here is a poor biped that can only see back to its cradle and forward to its grave, and its life on earth a mere span, talking about his reason revolting against faith and God, while yonder are the tall archangels around the throne, perfectly subordinated to Almighty God, and this little biped, poor little clod of clay, tumbling into the grave, talking about his reason revolting against God's plan of salvation. But I hear another man say: ''The reason that I don't become a Christian is I have not any feeling on the subject. I don't feel like it, and therefore it would be hypocritical in me to try to become a Christian, if I don't feel like it." Will you hear what God says? 144 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS First, however, let me say a word about feeling. The word feeling occurs but twice in the Bible, and neither time is it on the subject of salvation. One time it is describ- ing Christ, who can be touched by the feeling of our infirmities, and the other time it is describing that sinner who has gone so far across the boundary line that he is past all feeling — you exactly. Hear what God says, Eph. 4:17, 18, 19: 'This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding dark- ened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness." You say you don't become a Christian because you have not any feeling. What is the reason you have not? You have resisted God's spirit and God's word; you have slighted God's invitation, until, dying man, you are past feeling and given over to the service of the devil ''with greediness." Now, there is a man out yonder physically freezing to death, and when he gets so cold EXCUSES 145 he can't feel, what kind of a condition Is he in? He is very near to death, is what is the matter; the circulation is about to stop; feehng has ceased. Just so, dying sinner, If you can sit under the preaching of God's word, and have these solemn truths from God's word thrown into your conscience without feeling It, I am afraid you never will feel until your soul wakes up in hell. May God help you. Get up a moral circulation before it Is eternally too late. But I hear some other man say: ''I would become a Christian, but I am afraid I w^ould be ridiculed; somebody might laugh at me." Hear what God says, Mark 8:38: ''Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation ; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." Today, now, here, you may be ashamed to have that poor, silly, foolish man over there ridicule you; you may be ashamed of that. But w^hen you see the Son of God coming in the clouds, with a rainbow about him, and the armies of heaven on the white horses, as they follow, praising him as King of kings and Lord of lords, the 146 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS Prince of Peace, and the faithful Son of God, who will care then for the sneers and the scorn and the ridicule of these poor clods of clay, sinking down into their graves. Let them ridicule; who cares? It amounts to no more than the croaking of a frog out there in the yard. I would pay no attention to that. Here is a man who says : "I would become a Christian, but I am afraid it would injure my business." Hear what God says, Matt. 16:26: "For what is a man profited if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul." Now, then there is one thing that is more important than your business, and that thing is the salvation of your immortal soul. God is first and business next. But let us look at that a little. If your business is right in the sight of God and beneficial to mankind, pure religion w^ill not interfere with it; if it is wrong it ought to be interfered with, and pure religion will interfere with it. For instance if you are a member of God's church, and rent your houses to men to sell whiskey in, I will tell you a case of pure, good, old-fashioned Holy Ghost religion would interfere with your busi- ness right sharply. If you are renting some EXCUSES 147 little shanties around town here to fallen women to run houses of infamy, and calling yourself a saint, religion will interfere w^ith your business right smart. If you are a gambler, making your living by getting money without giving value received, religion will interfere with your business right smart. And if you are a whiskey man, selling it by the drink or the barrel, it matters not, it will interfere right sharp with your business. Dear friends, if the business is right, Christianity will not interfere with it; if it is not right, it ought to be interfered with. I hear some man say: "I want to become a Christian, but it is not a convenient time, and in a convenient time I will." Acts 24:25: ''And as he reasoned of righteousness, tem- perance and judgment to come, Felix trembled and answ^ered: Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season I will call for thee." The convenient time never came, and so far as the record shows, Felix went out from the preaching of Paul confirmed in his sins, and w^as forever lost. Dear man, you will never have a more convenient time than it is tonight. But I hear some thoughtless young person 148 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS up yonder say: ''Well, Mr. Pearson, I would become a Christian, but I can't give up danc- ing." I shall not stop to go into an argument about dancing; all I have to say is this: If there is nothing in you that is worth improving and cultivating except what little is in your heels, just go on. I don't suppose you are worth counting; you'll slip into heaven any- how. I hear some men saying: ''I am going to become a Christian, but I will wait till death, when I am on my dying bed. Then I am going to give my heart to God and repent." We read in Luke 23 :39 to 43 inclusive about two thieves that were crucified with Christ. One of those thieves died reviling Jesus Christ and saying: ''If thou be the Son of God save thyself and us." The other one said: "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." I would like to know what guar- anty you have by which you reach the con- clusion that when you come to die you will be like that believing thief any more than like that unbelieving thief. Observation and his- tory prove that men die as they live. While I would not hurt anybody's feelings, I am go- ing to tell you the truth: In God's book EXCUSES 149 there is but one case on record where a man was saved in the dying hour. Now, I don't mean to say that there was but one man saved that way; but there is only one on record in God's word. That proves that while it is possible for a man to be saved in the dying hour, it is exceedingly improbable that he will be, and that stands to common sense. Man, if you for twenty, twenty-five, thirty or forty years, in your cool, calm mo- ments and deliberate judgment have rejected God's word and God's Son, resisted God's spirit and the overtures of God's messengers, when you come to die it is reasonable and logical that you will reject it still. Further- more, it is a fact that any doctor will tell you, that the majority of the human race who die natural deaths die in an unconscious state. How do you know that you are not going to die in an unconscious state? Again, my friend, there is a want of principle about this whole thing. I believe in a man's being what he is from principle, and I look at the principle rather than the want of it. Here is a man serving the devil, as long as he can, and living in sin as long as he can, and rolling iniquity under his tongue as a 150 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS sweet morsel as long as he can; he has spent the prime and vigor of his manhood in prostitution to the devil and iniquity, and when he comes to die, with that poor, old, worm-eaten heart, and that poor old hollow soul that might be compared to a squeezed lemon, with all that is any account squeezed out, he brings the old stuff up and offers it to the God that made him and redeemicd him and preserved him and asks God to take that and save him. I conclude with this remark: Lay your hand on your heart and listen to the words of God, and ask yourself this question: ''Is my excuse such an excuse as satisfies my judgment and my heart, and with which I am willing to go to the judgment of the Almighty God at the great day?" If you can say "Yes," I have no more to say. I leave you in the hands of Almighty God. If you say that it is not, then as one who loves you, I beg you in God's name stay here to this inquiry meeting tonight and let some Chris- tian read to you out of God's word, and give up that excuse, and accept Christ and confess him this night before God and men. Will you do it? God grant that you may. RECEIVING SINNERS, Jan. 18, 1889, 8 P. M. "This man receiveth sinners." Luke 15:2. That is, this man Jesus, the Son of God, the Judge of quick and dead, the world's Redeemer, the only name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved; this man Jesus Christ, what does he do? He receives, he accepts, he pardons, he forgives, he saves, whom? Sinners, lost sinners, guilty sinners, condemned sinners, hell-going and hell-deserving sinners, such sinners as you and I. Thank God, Jesus Christ receiveth such. So I want to talk to you about Christ re- ceiving sinners, and that is the best news that you ever heard. There would be a jubilee in hell if this text could be announced to them. Dear dying man, this man Jesus Christ re- ceiveth sinners. And now there are just three thoughts that I want specially to impress upon you, and the first is this: That class of sinners that Jesus Christ does not receive, and the second thought is: That class of sinners that Jesus 152 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS Christ does receive, and the third thought is: The way in which he receives those who come to him. Now, for the first thought: That class of sinners that Jesus Christ does not receive, does not accept, does not forgive, does not save. ''What is that?" says somebody; "I thought you said that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners?" So he did. *'I thought you said that Jesus Christ loved sin- ners?" and so he does. 'T thought you said Jesus Christ died for sinners?" God says so. 'T thought you said by the grace of God he tasted death for all men?" God said he did. "And now, how do you propose to make one point in your sermon about those sinners that Jesus Christ does not receive, pardon, accept and save?" Yes, I propose to do just that very thing. Says some man: ''That is news to me." If it is, it is because you did not read the word of God, for it will tell you so, and it is a very clean-cut case from God's word that there are certain kinds of sinners that Jesus Christ never has saved, does not offer to save, and will not save, and, I say it with all reverence, cannot save. Says some- RECEIVING SINNERS 153 body: "I would like to know who they are/* Well, you'll soon know. And why am I going to thrust this forward? Because there are some sinners to whom I am speaking, men and women, who belong to these very classes that Jesus Christ does not save. I want to hold God's looking-glass right up to your conscience, judgment and heart and let you see yourselves as God sees you; let you see yourselves as you are, and let you see what class you are in, and then, dear dying man "to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, it is sin;" and know- ing that you are in the class that Jesus Christ does not receive, if you remain in that after you know about it, then, so to speak, you double your trouble and add one hundred fold to your condemnation and to your eternal perdition. And now, to the law and the testimony. I am going to the Bible; I am going to let the Bible make every point that I make in this sermon. Now, let God point out the classes that Christ says he cannot save. I turn to John 5 :40 and I have these words of the Lord Jesus: "And ye will not come to me that ye might have life." From that 154 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS Scripture I make the point that Jesus Christ does not receive, accept, pardon, forgive, nor save any unwilHng sinner; not one. Is there a sinner here who is unwilHng to forsake his sin? Is there a sinner here who is unwilHng to square, plumb and regulate his life by the ten commandments and the sermon on the mount? Is there a man here who is unwilling to take the Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour, his Lord, his Master, whom he is willing to follow and willing to obey, and into whose hands he is willing to commit his soul? I say, if there is such an one here, man or woman, I say to you. Stand aside; I have no gospel for you; I have no Christ for you; I have no salvation for you; I have no heaven for you; no hope this side of the grave, and no hope the other side of the grave. Why? Hear what God says, Josh. 24:15: *'And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve." Hence God makes it a matter of choice with you, as to whether or not you will take God for your God, and as to whether or not you will take the Lord Jesus Christ for your Saviour. Hence God says, *'I have set life and death before you; choose ye." There it is, you are RECEIVING SINNERS 155 to make a choice, and that choice involves your will. God consults your agency, and He also says, "My people shall be a willing people in the day of my power." God is sovereign, God is supreme, God is glorious and complete in Himself. He is no pensioner upon your praise to add anything to His glory. If you were blotted out of existence, it would not detract anything from God's glory. God makes it a matter of choice with you whether you will glorify Him by taking Him as your God and your Saviour. If you are not willing to have God for your God, God is unwilling to have you for His child, unwilling to have you for His subject. God wants no slaves; He wants servants, and willing servants, hence He consults your agency. Hence the statement :*'Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life." Sinners, thank God, the gates of heaven stand ajar, and overhead is written in letters of light: * 'Who- soever will." There is the point, there is the rub, there is the idea. "Whosoever will let him come and take the water of life freely." But the gates of hell also stand ajar, and for those who will not enter heaven's gate, there is no other gate to enter. Hence the 156 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS Scripture: ''He that believeth not, shall be damned." Which way will you go tonight? Settle this question now, for your own self. Examine your own heart very carefully. Are you unwilling to give up your pleasure and your fun and your ideas of the way you want to live? unwilling to submit your will to God's will? Then, dear dying man, you belong to that class that Jesus Christ never has saved. He never has saved an unwilling sinner, he does not propose to save an unwilling sinner, and he never will save them. Now, there are just one or two things: You must change your will on that question, you must get out of that class, or you will die in your sins, and you will go down to death and eternal perdition. Do you know what God says about "after a while?" There is a time coming when you will want to be saved; then shall they call upon me, but I will not listen; they wall seek me early, but I will not be found. Now God wants you to be saved, God wishes your salvation. He says He desires not the death of any, wills not the death of any, but that all men shall come and be saved. But you say: "I w^on't do it, I won't take Jesus Christ, I am going RECEIVING SINNERS 157 to do as I please, I am going to live as I lived. I won't do it." God leaves you to your doom, and after a while when God's high sheriff lays his hand on your throat and says: "Come to the judgment," then you will begin to cry and to pray: *'Ah, God, save me. O God, have mercy on my soul." God says: *'I will not hear you." You had better heed that book when it says, Isa. 55:6: ''Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near." Then, unwilling one, I leave you standing outside of the pale of the gospel, and w^e go on to the next class. John 8 :24 we have these words of the Lord Jesus: ''I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins." From that Scripture I make the point that Jesus Christ does not save any unbelieving sinner. Did you hear that? Say what you please about it, God's plan is faith and sal- vation, unbelief and damnation. Now, is there a man here who says: '*I do not believe in hell, in the Bible, in a future state, in immortality?" That is neither here nor there, a very small matter what you believe, or 158 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS what I believe. What does God say? He says: If you do not beHeve you will be damn- ed; God says: If you do not believe you will die in your sins. Wherefore, if you do not believe, dear man, you can stand aside; there is no gospel for you, no salvation for you, no heaven, no eternal life, for you. I hear some man say: "Look here, Pearson, do you mean to say that if I don't have faith in Jesus Christ that I am to go to hell right along with that cut-throat, and that murderer, and that seducer, and that man guilty of perjury, and that other man guilty of arson?" Yes, I mean just exactly that. That unbelief that rejects Jesus Christ will land you in hell just the same as murder, perjury, seduction, arson, or any of those sins. ''Well," says the man, ''that don't look to me like justice. It seems to me that there is no comparison under heaven between unbelief and perjury, murder, seduction or arson." And why is it that you don't see that? You have never gone to the root of the business, and never looked at it in its true light. This unbelief is an unseen thing, a sin way down here in the heart, whereas murder, arson, perjury, seduction are visible sins, you can see those; RECEIVING SINNERS 159 you can take them in in their terrible magni- tude, and consequently they make a great impression upon you, while unbelief makes none at all. And yet unbelief is at the very bottom of the business, at the very bottom of all these things we are talking about. May I give you a very practical illustration, so practical that there is not a colored man in that gallery, nor a white man, so ignorant that he cannot see the point? See that woodman, as he cuts down that willow tree on the branch down yonder. Next spring you will see a great many sprouts coming up around that old stump, and run- ning about it. You will see the sprouts, and that makes a great impression on you, but you don't see what produces them. It is the old tap-root of the willow, that is way down in the sand, that was not cut up nor down either. What are the sprouts that are out-cropping, uprising, springing up from the old tap-root that is out of sight? What are murder, perjury, arson, seduction, all of those things? They are simply the outcroppings, the uprisings, the sprouts from this old tap- root of unbelief that lurks down deep in the human heart. Now, you see these things, 160 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS you don't see unbelief; hence you think that they are greater things than unbeHef, whereas unbeHef is greater than the whole of them, because it is at the very bottom of them. It is the tap-root, as I said, of the whole busi- ness. And now to prove that this theory and this illustration are strictly correct I will ask w^hy didn't Christ say he that commits mur- der shall be damned, or he that commits perjury shall be damned? But Christ, the great Teacher, who came from God and who goes to the centre and the bottom of things, said he that believeth not shall be damned. He probed the centre, and that is the bottom and the centre of all of them. Now, this abominable tap-root of unbelief is in all of you. You are boasting around here that you are not a murderer. How much would it take to make you one? Just a sufficient provocation. You are boasting around here that you have not done this, that and the other. What is the reason? Perhaps the pressure has not been heavy enough. The cause is there, the old tap-root is there, and you produce the necessary occa- sion, and these sprouts will come every time. RECEIVING SINNERS 161 But you have not taken in the turpitude of this sin of unbeHef. What is it? Now, we don't want any theological technicalities. I despise technicalities. Sometimes I call in a doctor when I am sick and I ask him what is the matter with m,e and he springs out a long string of technicalities as long as my arm. I despise that. We don't want any theological technicalities either. So let us come down to plain, common sense facts, that you can all take in. What is this sin of unbelief? It is like a man standing out here on this platform and saying: ''O God, if there be a God, your Bible is a lie. Your Son is a fraud, your Christianity is a farce. Your heaven is a chimera, Your hell is a dream, the whole thing is a fiction. I repudiate the whole business." Dear dying man, that is unbelief, and that is giving God the lie to His face. Hence God says: ''If we believe not the record" — and here it is — ''that God gave of His Son, we make God a liar." Dear dying clods of clay, let me say to you as God's ambassador, you give God the lie with your unbelief, and He will shut you up in hell, and He w411 keep you there. The sin of unbelief is the horrible, deadly upas-tree that 162 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS towers high in the dark forest of perdition. There is no greater sinner on God's earth than the man who by his unbeHef says that God is a He, the Bible is a fiction and God's Son is a fraud. Talk about your going to heaven in that fix or with that spirit. Talk about your going to heaven entertaining such a feeling as that; talk about your not deserv- ing to go to hell with that murderer and cut- throat. Hence the word of God: ''He that believeth not shall be damned." Do you belong to that class? I will leave you, outside the pale of the gospel, and go on to another. Luke 13:3 we have these words of the Lord Jesus: ''I tell you nay; but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." From that Scripture I make the point that Christ does not receive, or save, any impenitent sinner. Not one. I am not going to discuss repent- ance. I will do that in a sermon one night next week. I want to talk to you just a little about impenitence, the opposite of repentance. You think repentance is an old, exploded theory, but it is not. Impenitence is some- thing like unbelief; it is like a man stepping out here and saying: ''O, God, I believe you exist. I have violated every command in the RECEIVING SINNERS 163 decalogue; I have desecrated the Sabbath; I have rejected Your Son; I have trampled his blood under my feet ; I have spurned Your love, resisted Your Spirit, rebelled against Your government, slighted Your authority; and now, great God, I don't care if I have." That is what impenitence is; it is trampling God's Son under your feet, and telling God you don't care if you do; profaning God's name, and telling Him you don't care if you do; desecrating His Sabbath, and saying: '*I don't care if I do." It is adding insult to injury. Now, talk about a man going to heaven, and being pardoned and being saved, who has added insult to injury, who is insult- ing God and then having the audacity to tell Him he does not care if he does; who is spurning His love, and then saying: '*I don't care if I do." Talk about that man going to heaven; your very common sense forbids it, as well as God Almighty's word. Jesus Christ puts it right: 'T tell you nay; except you repent, except you get out of that frame of mind, since you are in that frame of mind that you have sinned and don't care if you do sin, you will perish." Repentance is not an exploded theory; it is a very philoso- 164 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS phical, psychological fact, that lies at the very basis of this whole business. You must repent or be eternally lost. Then, you men that profane God's name, and don't care if you do, stand aside; you men that get drunk, and don't care if you do, stand aside; you devotees of fashion and pleasure and your own amusement and your own sweet will and your own gratification, who don't care if you do, stand aside. There is no salvation for you; Christ received no such. I Kings 18:21 : ''How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." You see, the argument why you should serve God is based upon what God is; if God be God, He ought to be served; how long halt ye about whether or not He is God? How long halt ye about whether or not He ought to be served? From that Scripture I make the point that Jesus Christ does not receive, accept, or save any of these halting, double- minded, vacillating sinners, not one. Some of you men in this audience and some of you women, have about this idea: One time you come to church, and there is something in RECEIVING SINNERS 165 the sermon gets hold of you, and you say: ''Well, I believe I will become a Christian;" and you go out, and some other influence is brought to bear on you and you say, ''No, I don't believe I will." And perhaps you come to church next time, and you take one step in the right direction, and then you go into the street, and some poor simpleton, that never had a first-class thought in his life, will perhaps poke a little jest at you, and you will go off and feel "I don't believe I will have anything to do with it." Dear dying man, I would look this question square in the face like a man, and I would settle this question: "Is it right to serve the Lord that saved me, redeemed me, and is going to judge me? If it is, I ought to become a Christian, and by God's grace I will begin it here tonight, or I will decide it the other way. It is not worth my time or my attention to serve God. I will set Him aside and I will live as I live and go to hell at last." Do one or the other; look the question square in the face and settle it now, but don't be forever hesitating and halting and vacillating. That will never do you any good. God will never save you in that class. 166 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS Let me give you another illustration of the utter nonsense and the utter uselessness of this everlasting vacillation, a plain, simple illus- tration. Suppose there is a man tomorrow wants to go to Washington City. The train comes along here at the hour, whatever it is, and he is down there at the depot. The train stops just a few minutes, and I imagine I see him go there and step up on the platform of the car. 'T believe I'll go to Washington City — no, I believe I won't," and then he turns around and steps down. He fools around a little — ''Well, yes, I believe I will go to Washington City," and up he steps on the platform again. ''No, I don't believe I will," and down he gets off the platform. Now, is there any sense in that? If he can't decide whether or not he wants to go to Washington City, the schedule will decide it, and it will not be long before the conductor will halloo: "All aboard," and the poor, vacillating, up and down man, will be left. Just the same way with you — "Yes, I believe I will — no, I believe I won't," and there you have been, some of you, for the last 25 years, just in that frame of mind, vacillating and vacillating. If you can't decide RECEIVING SINNERS 167 this question, dear dying man, God's schedule will decide it, and one of these days God will say: ''Thy soul is required of thee,'" and then your poor, vacillating soul will be eternally lost. Now, if you belong to any one of these classes, I will leave you outside the pale of the gospel in the hands of Almighty God. If you belong to it, get out of it, for God will never save you while you are in it. We now come to the second thought, What kind of a sinner does Christ receive? Let us look at the book. Matt. 5:6: "Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after right- eousness; for they shall be filled." From that Scripture I make the point that Christ receives those sinners who come to him hungering and thirsting for salvation, eternal life, and the water of life; Christ says you shall be filled. What is the peculiarity about a man who is not thirsty? He cavils a great deal; the water must be exactly right, and the dipper or the cup, as the case may be, must be exactly right and everything must just suit his fas- tidious taste. What is the peculiarity about a man when he is exceedingly thirsty? He is very specific, urgent, direct; he is not disposed to cavil about side issues, but goes 168 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS right straight to the main point. You all know how true that is about natural water; it is just as true about the water of life, and it is just as true about spiritual things. May I give you a practical illustration from the actual that you may know it in the spiritual? Several years ago I was out here in Colorado and I went up to Manitou Springs, and I made the ascent of Pike's Peak on the 27th of July. It was intensely hot along in the middle of the day, climbing that mountain way up at the timber line, and I was almost famished for water. Presently I reached a point where I saw some indications of water, and I climbed up on a large rock, and there over the rock, just a little lower than I could reach was the cold, pure, fresh water; and there by the water, within reach, lay an old sardine box, bent and crumbled and mashed into every sort of shape. I could reach the sardine box, and with it I could reach the water. I didn't stop to cavil about the appear- ance of the box, or to say: *'I wonder who left this box here; I wonder where he was going;" I didn't stop to think where it came from, or how the box got mashed. Those were side issues with me, questions that I RECEIVING SINNERS 169 neither knew nor cared to solve; I could get the water without settling those questions; I was close to the water, I was in earnest about it, and I was thirsty. Now, when a sinner starts to Jesus Christ, begins to seek his soul's salvation, whenever I hear him begin to quibble and to quirk, and he wants to know this and that, and where Cain got his wife, and how Samson caught the 300 foxes, and five hundred other ques- tions that don't pertain to his salvation, you may know he is not very hungry or thirsty. But when he lays all those side-issues aside and comes this way: ''Lord Jesus, receive my soul; O God, for Christ's sake forgive my sins; and. Dear Lord, receive me now," comes earnest, straight to Christ, parleying for noth- ing, asking no questions, but he knows God's will and with all his heart yearns for the Lord Jesus as an earnest, anxious, penitent soul, he will come over, I care not though his sins roll as high as that Blue Ridge and as deep as the Pacific Ocean. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin, and that sinner who will come to the Lord Jesus Christ will be received, he will have pardon, he will be saved, he will have eternal life. 170 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS Dear dying man, are you in that class tonight? If you are, don't let the devil tell you you are too old, or too bad, or anything. Come right along, pleading God's promises, and Jesus will save your soul this night. I turn to Luke 18:13, and I have these words: ''God be merciful to me a sinner." From that Scripture I make the point that Jesus Christ receives that class of sinners who come to him sorry for their sins, confessing their sins, and casting themselves upon God's mercy. The publican, you know, went up with the Pharisee to the temple to pray; the Pharisee stood and thanked God about a great many things, that he wasn't like other people, and wasn't like this poor publican; but the publi- can stood there and smote upon his breast, not so much as lifting his eyes unto heaven, and hear what he says: ''God be merciful to me, a sinner." As much as to say: "Lord, I am a sinner, guilty, wicked, lost, helpless, ruined. O God, I ask not for justice; I plead no merit, no righteousness; O Lord, I cast myself upon thy mercy. God have mercy upon me, a sinner." Now, what? That man RECEIVING SINNERS 171 went down to his house justified, we are told, rather than the other. Sinner, are you ready to do that? Are you w^iUing to come to the Lord Jesus and say from the depths of an honest heart, Lord Jesus, have mercy upon me, a sinner? Are you wilHng to confess your sins, to cast your- self on God's mercy, and plead His merit and His promise? If you are, come, and Jesus Christ's word for it, you shall never, in any case, be cast out. Come, and hear the Master saying, I will give you rest. That is the kind of a sinner Jesus receives. But if you are like that Pharisee, proud, self-righteous, conceited, self-important, self- sufficient, you will go down like that Pharisee, not justified. I will go a step further on this point. Isa. 55:7 we have these words: ''Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." From that Scripture I make this point: Jesus Christ receives those sinners who come to him, not only sorry for their sins and con- fessing them, but who are willing to forsake 172 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS them. There's the rub; there's the tug of war. Let the wicked forsake his way. Sinners, I know you want to go to heaven, but the trouble with some of you is that you want to Hve in sin also. Christ did not come to save people in sin, but he came to save people from their sin. You men that curse, that profane God's holy name, are you willing to forsake it? You men that get drunk, are you willing to forsake it? You men that gamble, are you willing to forsake it? You men that tell lies — some of you do — are you willing to quit it? You men that cheat your neigh- bors, are you willing to quit it? You men that buy cotton futures and wheat futures, and lottery tickets, are you willing to quit it? You men that desecrate God's holy day, are you willing to quit it? Sinners, one and all, are you willing to forsake your sins? If you are, it matters not how great and deep and nu- merous they are; God will pardon and abun- dantly pardon if you will forsake them and come to Him. I hear some men and women say: ''I am willing to forsake the bulk of them, but there is just one I am not willing to forsake." Dear friends, you need not forsake a solitary one RECEIVING SINNERS 173 unless you forsake every one. Let me give you an illustration, an actual case that occurred under my own immediate observation, of a man who was willing to give up a part of his sins for a while, and never was saved until he was willing to give them all up. Several years ago I was holding a meeting out here at Sherman, Texas, and God was present in great power, and a great many men were being saved, and there was a man in that town by the name of Mord Bridgers. He was a jeweler by trade, and a gambler by profession. He played for the money; never got drunk, too sharp for that; had a cold gray eye, and he meant business. But, somehow, or other, he got to coming to that meeting, and he got more and more interested. One night he staid to the inquiry meeting, and I approached him and said: ''Mr. Bridgers, do you want to be a Christian?" ''Yes, I do," he said. ''I would like to be a Christian." "Well, Mr. Bridgers, are you willing to give up all of your sins?" He looked me right square in the face — "Do you want me to tell you the truth?" "Certainly I do," I replied, "I am telling you the truth, and I want you to tell me the truth." "There is just one sin I am 174 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS not willing to give up." I didn't ask him what it was, for I knew it was gambling, and I didn't want to offend the man, so I said: "There is just this about it, God says: Let the wicked forsake his way, and if you are not willing to forsake it, there is no pardon for you. There is no use for me to waste time and breath on you. You must fight that battle and gain the victory and settle that question for yourself," and I quoted Isa. 55:7 and left him. The next night my man Bridgers was back in the same seat; I went to him and said: *'How is it?" 'T never will give up that sin." "Very well. I repeat what I said last night," and I went on. The next night he was there again; I w^ent to him and said: "How is it tonight?" "Can't give up that sin," and he sighed way down in his soul; "No, sir, I can't give it up." "Very well; I've nothing more to say; you'll have to give it up or be lost." The next night I w^ent around to my man Bridgers, and just as I got up to him he squared himself around on the seat and as the keen gray eyes filled with tears he reached out that firm right hand and grasped mine, saying: "Thank God, Mr. Pearson, it is all RECEIVING SINNERS 175 settled. I have given it up, and I am saved." Then he told me how it was: ''I went home last night and my wife was sitting there and I fell upon my knees by her side and said: Tray God that I may get my consent to give up gambling right here and now before I get off my knees.' And," he said, ''I did give it up, and God saved me on the spot, right then and there." About six months after- wards I was at Sherman, Texas, and stopped at the Digby Hotel, and my man Bridgers was the first man that met me, and he took me by the hand and said: 'Thank God, it has been only six months since I have been converted, and they are worth all the balance of my life. I never was a true man and never knew what happiness was before." He joined the Methodist Church and was elected super- intendent of the Sunday School. And the waters of sorrow rolled over his soul ; for about a year and a half after that, his little boy, not more than six or seven years old, was skating on the ice, and it broke through and he was drowned. The dear man wrote me a letter, in which he said: ''Mr. Pearson, my darling little one is gone, and I can't bring him back; but I am praying God to sustain 176 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS me and keep me in this way, and by God's grace I will meet him and you in heaven." Friends, that is what Jesus Christ did for a Texas gambler. Men, that is what Jesus Christ will do for you. Dear dying sinner, it is a glorious gospel that we preach; it is a glorious Saviour, the Son of God. He will save you from all your sins, if you come to him willing to forsake those sins, and may God bless you and help you to do it. We now come to the last question, and just one point on that: What is the way, or rather, in what w^ay does Christ receive those who come to him? Hear the book, Rom. 10:9, we have these words: ''That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." From that Scripture I make the point that Christ receives those sinners who come to him by way of saving faith. Now, I hear some man say: ''Brother Pearson, there's my trouble. I don't know whether my faith is the right sort of faith, or not." Don't you be analyzing that faith. There is just one RECEIVING SINNERS 177 kind of faith; it is either faith, or it is no faith at all. You might as well be discussing the question: Is that electricity that is shining there on the street the right sort of electricity? There is but one sort of electricity; it is either electricity, or it is something else. Just so, saving faith is saving faith, and if it is not saving faith, it is no faith at all. Don't be trying so much to analyze yourself; look away from yourself and from your faith, and look at Jesus. Get your eyes fixed on Jesus and quit analyzing yourself so much. Remem- ber what the Saviour says: ' 'Faith as a grain of mustard seed." If you have that much, put that in Jesus; but don't be trying to analyze it. But I hear another man say: ''Brother Pearson, that is not exactly my trouble. My trouble is that I am afraid my faith is not quite strong enough. If my faith was just a little stronger, I think I would be saved." Dear man, you are not to be saved by the strength of your faith, but by the strength of your Saviour. You put a mustard seed faith in an omnipotent Saviour, and you are saved. Then, don't put your faith in your faith, but put your faith in Christ; it is not the 178 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS strength of your faith, but the strength of your Saviour. Now may I give you two illustrations, one from God's word and the other from actual life to show that it is not the strength of the faith but the Saviour that does the saving? You read in the word of God that when Jesus was here on earth on a certain occasion there w^as a great throng around him, and in that throng there was one poor, frail, emaciated woman; I have always thought that she was a consumptive, and she elbowed her way through the crowd, and at last she got close enough to the Saviour to stretch out that bony, emaciated hand, and to touch him; and I imagine I see those long, thin fingers reach just as far as she could, and she could just touch the hem of his garment. That is all. But, friends, it was not the strength of the touch, it was the strength of him the hem of whose garment she did touch; and as that poor weak soul touched the body of Jesus, the virtue went from Jesus, and the woman was healed. Poor, emaciated, weak, consumptive soul, will you tonight stretch out that hand, and will you but touch the RECEIVING SINNERS 179 Lord Jesus Christ? If you do, God will save your soul. Now, for the illustration from actual life. Do you remember several years ago when we had the great World's Exposition down here in New Orleans, how that mighty machin- ery was all set in position, and then the wires were all laid, the wire to Washington City and the special wire out to the White House? How was that great ponderous machinery started? There in President Arthur's own private rooms was a table, on which was a little round button, and that was connected with the special wire, and that with the other wires, and they with the machinery. Then when the time came. President Arthur didn't get up on the table with both feet and both hands; he didn't put forth his great muscular strength; nor was it necessary. Just simply one little finger on that button, and one little touch, and that turned on the elec- tricity, and that flashed over the wires, and the great ponderous machinery at New Orleans was set in motion. It was not the strength of the touch that did it; it was the strength of the electricity that it turned on. 180 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS Here you are, poor, lost, guilty, ruined soul and you come and touch with the finger of faith the Lord Jesus Christ, and when you do that the divine light flashes from the batteries at God's right hand, and down to your soul, and the great machinery of your soul will be set in motion, to the tune of eternal life and everlasting redemption. Dear dying sinner, put your faith in Christ, and God is ready to save your soul. Will you trust him? Will you believe in him? Will you believe in him now? "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thine heart that God raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved." I thank God for that verse; it puts a handle on salvation that you can get hold of. Just one thing: Do you believe that God raised Christ from the dead? That covers the whole ground. If that is what God says, it settles the question that He was satisfied with Christ's atonement and death; and that set- tles the question of the divinity of Christ. So the whole thing hinges on the resurrection. Hence said the apostle: If Christ be not risen, then our preaching is vain. What are you to believe? Not a long set RECEIVING SINNERS 181 of abstractions; you are to believe in your heart from God's word that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead, and if you believe that God's word for it, you shall be saved. THE PASCHAL LAMB. Jan. 16th, 1889, 8 P. M. "And when I see the blood I will pass over you." Ex. 12:13. There was a famine in the land of Canaan, and the Israelites went down to Egypt, and they sojourned there about 400 years. In the meantime Joseph died and Pharoah died, and there arose a Pharoah that knew not Joseph, and he began to oppress these Israel- ites with a most cruel, galling and oppressive bondage. These Israelites in their great grief appealed unto the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and God, ever mindful of His promises and ever willing to hear the prayers of His people, resolved in His own infinite wis- dom that He would teach Pharoah a lesson, that He would teach His own people a great truth, and that He would also add unto it the glorious gospel of the Son of God; and in His w^isdom He determined to send the death angel all over Egypt to slay the first-born on the night of the fourteenth day. He told Moses and the elders of Israel to get up their paschal lambs, kill them, and sprinkle their blood on THE PASCHAL LAMB 183 the doorposts, and that is the blood to which allusion is made in the text when God said: "When I see the blood I will pass over you." From the call of Abraham to the birth of Jesus Christ there is not in God's word a more interesting, significant and profoundly instructive incident than the selection, killing and eating of the paschal lamb. Now, the question arises: What is it that gives to this paschal lamb this depth of meaning? The answer is found in the fact that the paschal lamb was a type of Jesus Christ. There can be no doubt upon this question, for God's word settles it very clearly, and now I will quote it. When Jesus was on earth John, pointing to him, said: "Behold the lamb" — not only the lamb, but "the lamb of God," in contra- distinction to those paschal lambs, "behold the lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." Again John in his apocalyptic vision, point- ing to that Heavenly Host, says: "These are they that came up through great tribu- lation, and washed their robes in the blood" — what blood? "The blood of the lamb," — the blood of the lamb? What lamb? That 184 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Again Paul is equally explicit and says: 'The Lord,"— that is, the Lord Jesus— '* the Lord, our passover, is sacrificed for us." There- fore I have Scriptural authority for saying that the paschal lamb was a type of Jesus Christ. Let me make just this remark about types: No man has a right to say that anything in God's word is a type of something else in God's word, unless he can find authority for it in God's word. Now, we wish to speak of this paschal lamb as a type of Christ, and there are just three thoughts that I wish to impress upon your minds about this paschal lamb. The first thought is: Its blood; and the second thought|is: Its shed blood; and the third thought is: Its applied blood. Now, let us take up each one of those thoughts and look at it in the light of God's blessed word. First, then, the blood of the paschal lamb. I want to call your attention to this general statement: It was the blood of the paschal lamb that effected the deliverance of the Israelites. From what did they need to be THE PASCHAL LAMB 185 delivered? From the stroke of the death angel, who on the night of the fourteenth day was going to pass over Egypt; from the iron grip of Pharaoh; from the galling, oppressive bondage of Egypt. The proposition is that it was the blood of the paschal lamb that effected their deliver- ance. Mark it, it was not the fleece of that lamb, it was not the flesh, it was not the spotlessness; but it was the blood. Hear what the text says: When I see the blood I will pass over you. And, mark you, it was not the blood of something else, nor was it something else than blood; it was blood, specific blood, the blood of the paschal lamb. What do we learn about the gospel from all that? Let us make a little substitution, which w^e have got a right to make, since we saw that this paschal lamb was a type of Christ, and we learn this about the gospel: That it is the blood of Jesus Christ that secures the deliverance of the soul. From what does the soul need to be delivered? From the stroke of the death angel. Hear what God says: ''The devil goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." It needs to be delivered from the guilt of sin. 186 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS Hear what God says: "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." It needs to be delivered from the condemnation of God's holy law. Hear what Jesus says: ''He that believeth not on the Son is condemned already." It needs to be delivered from the cruel, galling, oppressive bondage of sin. Hear what God says: ''Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are." And there is no service that is such galling bondage as is the service of sin and of Satan. Again, your soul needs to be delivered from the future and the eternal consequences of sin. What are those consequences? Hear what God says : "These shall go away into everlasting punishment." Now, those are some of the dangers to which your soul is exposed. The proposition is that it is the blood of the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world that is to effect the deliverance of your soul from these dan- gers. Let us go to the law and the testimony, Lev. 17:11: "It is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." What blood? The blood of the Son of God that taketh away the sin of the world. That is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul, and that THE PASCHAL LAMB 187 is the only thing in God's universe that does or can make an atonement for the soul. Now, my friends, you have sinned, and you know it, and God's word affirms it. What are you going to do about it? There are just one or two things to be done. You are to accept this atoning blood, which God has received as satisfying the demands of His law; upon that you are to ask God for Christ's sake to forgive your sins, and on account of that blood have those sins pardoned, or you are to die in those sins and be eternally damned. There is no question of it. That is what faces you tonight. It is to accept the atoning blood of Christ and be saved from your sin, or to reject the atoning blood of Christ and die in your sin. A step further. 1 John 1:7 we have these words: ''The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." That is what God says about it. Dear man, what does God say about your heart? He says it is comparable to a cage of unclean birds; He says it is deceit- ful and desperately wicked; He says that out of it proceed *'evil thoughts, adulteries, forni- cations, murders, thefts," and so on. That soul of yours is therefore sin-stained, sin- 188 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS polluted and sin-defiled. No soul in such a state as that can enter God's heaven. How are you going to cleanse it? It is the blood that cleanses it and alone can cleanse it from all sin. Therefore, you are to accept this blood of Christ and have your sin washed away in that blood and your soul cleansed by that blood, or you are to die in your guilt, and where God and His Christ are you can never be. Like Lady Macbeth you may dip your hand in the water, and you may rub and you may rub, but, dying man, water will not put out the crimson stain of guilt. There is only one thing in God's universe that will wash out the crimson stain of guilt from your soul, and that is the blood of Jesus Christ. Therefore, you are by faith to accept the Son of God and be cleansed by his blood, or die in your sin and be eternally damned. Oh, dying man, how can you think about that? But again in Rom. 5:8, 9, we have these words: "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." Now, the blood THE PASCHAL LAMB 189 of Jesus Christ is the basis upon which God can be just and the justifier of the guilty sinner. You are guilty; you know it and I know it and God's word affirms it. What are you going to do about it? You are either on the basis of the shed blood of Jesus Christ and you are accepting that blood to be justi- fied by Almighty God, i. e., cleared and acquitted from your sin, or you are to die in that guilt and condemnation in which you are tonight existing and be eternally lost. That is God's word and there is no alterna- tive; one or the other of these things must occur. But I will go a step further, Rom. 3:25: ''A propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness, for the remission of sins that are past." Those men that lived before Christ died looked forward to the cross just as we who lived since Christ died look backward to the cross; but in either case it was the blood, and faith in the blood that secured the remission of our sins. Now, you have sinned; you have been sinning for the last fifteen, twenty, thirty, or forty years. There stands the long, dark catalogue of your past sins recorded against you. What are 190 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS you going to do about them? Are you going into eternity with them? If you do you are damned. What are you going to do about it? I hear some man say: ''I will turn over a new leaf." I expect it needs turning over; God knows it is soiled enough and dirty enough. '*I am going to reform." I expect you need reform; God knows your life has been disgraceful and wicked enough. But that is not the gist of the business; a reformation will not wipe out that long, dark catalogue of sins; turning over a new leaf will not wipe out the filth that is on the old dirty leaf you turned over; that reformation will not wash away past sins, and your ideas of going to heaven simply on the strength of that reformation will not stand the test of common sense or common honesty or God's word. Why so? I will suppose a case. Here is a man in town, a grocery merchant by the name of Jones. There is another man in town by the name of Smith that for the last ten years has been buying groceries from Jones. He is attending the meetings, and his conscience is getting a little scared up; and Smith goes down to Jones' family grocery store THE PASCHAL LAMB 191 and says: "Look here, I am going to turn over a new leaf from this day, and as long as I trade with you when I buy groceries from you I am going to plank the cash down right on the counter." And I reckon Jones would say: ''I am very glad you are going to do that, but what about those groceries you and your wife and your children have been eating up for the last ten years? I want you to pay for them too." Now, I submit it as a question of common honesty and common sense, for Smith to pay Jones the cash down for the groceries he eats from now on, will that liqui- date the debt for the groceries he owes Jones for in the past? Nay, verily. Now, then, on a parallel reasoning precisely, here is a long dark catalogue of sins standing against you on God's high docket. You come into court and propose a reformation. Dear dying man, the reformation is all right, but it don't wipe out the past. How are you going to get it wiped out? God says here: ''A propitiation through faith in his blood, for the remission of sins that are past." Accept Christ as your Saviour, and just as God for- gives your present sins on the basis of Christ's blood, He will forgive your past sins, and He 192 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS will cancel them all with the red ink of the cross. That is the only way to get rid of the sins that you have committed. Heb. 12:24 I have these words: ''But ye have come to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." That does not mean Abel's blood which Cain shed, but it means the blood of Abel's sacrifice that Abel offered. It speaks, but what does this blood of Christ speak? As it trickles down from that sacred heart of the Lord Jesus as he hangs there on the cross it speaks God ward and man ward, heavenward and earthward. Heavenward it says: ''O, right- eous God, here is atonement, here is a basis upon which Thou canst be just and justify the guilty sinner. Here is satisfaction of Thy violated law; here is the removal of all the legal barriers, and now, great and holy God, Thou canst be just and the justifier of the guilty sinner who accepts Thy sacrifice." That blood which trickles down from that cross speaks to you and to me and it says: ''Dear guilty man, here is pardon; poor lost sinner, here is a home; poor condemned man, here is justification; poor unsaved sinner, here is salvation, here is eternal life, here is forgive- THE PASCHAL LAMB 193 ness, here is remission of all your sins that are past, here is communion with God, here is fellowship with Christ, and here is heaven and a glorious and blessed immortality." Dying sinner, that is what the blood of Jesus Christ says to you, and God forbid that it should speak to you in vain. I go a step further and find in Rev. 5 :9 the words which that heavenly, redeemed host up yonder sung: ''They sung a new song, saying: Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof, for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people and nation." And what does that blood do? In heaven it tunes the voices of the redeemed ones, and it tunes their voices down here, and we all love to sing that precious, glorious old gospel song, and I expect to sing it in heaven, that precious old hymn: "There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Immanuel's veins. And sinners plunged beneath that flood Lose all their guilty stains. The dying thief rejoiced to see That fountain in his day 194 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS And there may I" — ^thank God, and there may you, thank God, ''though vile as he Wash all my sins away. Ere since by faith I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply, Redeeming love has been my theme, And shall be till I die." And when this poor, lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave, then, yes, thank God, then in a nobler, sweeter song I'll sing thy power to save. O, the blood, the precious blood, the glorious blood, the atoning blood, the sin-cleansing blood of the Son of God, I could preach all the sermon about the blood. But we must pass on. now to the second point, and that is, it is the shed blood. It was the shed blood that effected their deliver- ance; not simply the blood of the paschal lamb, but it was the shed blood. Mark it, it was not the living blood in the living lamb ; not the fleece, not the spotlessness, but it was the shed blood that was the basis upon which God proposed to pass over. He said emphati- cally: "Kill the lamb." Now, what do you learn about the gospel THE PASCHAL LAMB 195 from all that? I learn exactly this: That it is the shed blood of Jesus Christ, shed on the cross as an atonement for our sins, that is the basis upon which God proposes to for- give our sins. Now, get this fact clear: It was not the miracles of Christ, not the preach- ing of Christ, not the parables of Christ, not the life of Christ, but, my friends, it was the shedding of the blood of Christ that made an atonement for our souls and lies at the very basis of this great matter of salvation. Hear how Paul puts it in Gal. 6:14: ''God forbid that I should glory, save in" — the doctrines? No. The parables? No. The preaching? No. ''God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." Why in the cross, Paul? Because it was on the cross that he died for me, on the cross that he bore my sin. Hence the statement, Heb. 9:22: "And without shed- ding of blood is no remission." That settles the question, dear friends. Without the shed- ding of Christ's blood on the cross there will be no remission of our sins. Hence the state- ment, Luke 24:46, 47: "Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day. And that 196 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." Now, then, having settled by God's word that the shed blood of Jesus Christ is the basis upon which God saves man, it cuts up by the roots, totally, tee-totally, and absolute- ly this doctrine of salvation by reformation, by works, by sacramentarianism, by anything other than the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Now, understand this: I believe in works, and if works do not accompany faith, the faith is no account. But works must come as the result of salvation, not as the basis of salvation. Your good works are very good in their place; they are all right and absolutely indispensable in their place, but their place is not the place of the blood of Jesus Christ, and they are the result of being saved instead of being the basis of salvation. Hence the statement, Eph. 2:8, 9, 10: ''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. For we are his workmanship, created in Jesus Christ unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." THE PASCHAL LAMB 197 You see, the shed blood of Jesus Christ is the basis of salvation, and hence the per- versity of the sinner who wants to make his works the basis of his salvation. But, to illustrate, I will suppose a case down there in Egypt. I will suppose the death angel came along down the street. He goes to the door of a man's house yonder, and the man looks at him and says: "You are the death angel, are you?" "Yes." "And you are looking for the blood on the door post?" "Yes." "Hold on; let me tell you about it. I don't believe in your blood much, and I don't accept this theory very much, and I want to tell you furthermore that I am a very good man, very kind, very hospitable, very patriotic, and I am very philanthropic; I help take care of the poor people and I look after the w4dow and the orphans; I tell you the truth; I pay my debts; I am a first rate sort of a man, and there is my little placard that I put there on the door: GOOD WORKS. Do you see it?" "Yes," says the death angel; "I see it, but I am not hunting for that. God didn't tell me to hunt for a placard of good works, but to hunt blood. Your good works are very good in their place, but they can't take the 198 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS place of the blood of the paschal lamb ; because God says: 'When I see the blood I will pass over you,' and you have rejected that blood and set it aside, and stuck up your little 'good works' in the place of it, and I cannot and will not pass over you." You see that, oh, Pharisaic man, who are going to heaven on your good work and good deeds? You are doing what? You are setting aside the blood of Jesus Christ, and saying that your good deeds are more efficacious in getting to heaven than the blood of God Almighty's Son; and you will be damned as certain as God lives if you reject this blood and try to get to heaven on good works, because God emphatically says that our righteousness in His sight is as filthy rags. Again, see the death angel coming down to another man's door: ''You are the death angel, are you, and you are looking for the blood?" "Yes." "Well, just hold on, let me tell you about it. I heard that you were coming, and I hurried round and got Moses and his men to open the door of the church and take me in, and I told them I wanted to be baptized, and they sprinkled a little water on my head, and I didn't know if that was THE PASCHAL LAMB 199 just right, so I got them to pour some on, and I wanted to be sure to get it right, and I got them to take me to the Nile and put me clear under, and I had them to write my name on the church book, and I took the sacrament that they gave me, and see my little placard up there on the door, ECCLESIASTICISM, SACRAMENTARIANISM?" "Yes," says the death angel, **I see that, and that is a very good thing in its place, but it does not take the place of the blood. God told me when I saw the blood I was to pass over. I don't see the blood here, and your ecclesiastic- ism and sacramentarianism is worth nothing at all when substituted for blood. I can't pass over here." You people, then, that have got the idea into your heads that all that is necessary to get to heaven is some day when you feel good and feel like it to go up here and join some of these churches and be baptized and taken in in whatever way you wish and then sit down in a pew and call yourself a saint and then go to heaven on account of that; it won't keep you out of hell. Nay, verily, it is the blood of Jesus Christ, and when you substitute sacramentarianism and ritualism 200 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS and rites and ceremonies, good in themselves, in the place of the blood, you dishonor God's Son, and you say God's Son died in vain. He did not die in vain. You must rely on that blood. There are some men laying the flattering unction to their souls that there is nothing in the whole business and they repudiate it altogether. Let me say a word to you. Sup- pose the death angel comes along the street and a man says to him: "You are the death angel, are you?" ''Yes, and I am looking for the blood." 'Well, hold on, let me tell you about it. I am a free-thinker myself. I don't believe in heaven nor hell nor God. I don't believe in any such business, and consequently I didn't put any blood on the doorpost. See my little placard there? FREE- THINKER." Says the death angel: "What does that amount to? You are a free thinker, are you?" "Yes." Says the death angel: 'T kill free-thinkers just as dead as any other sort. Free-thinkers are no more to me than any other sort of thinker. What do I care for your free-thinking? God told me what to do, and I am God's messenger, and I am the death angel, and your free-thinking don't amount THE PASCHAL LAMB 201 to anything at all, and I will do my work just the same as if you were no free-thinker." Just so. You don't believe the gospel? No. You don't believe in hell? No. In future punishment? No. In God's word? No. What does that amount to? He that believeth not shall be damned, and you will go along to hell with your infidelity and unbelief and repudiation. Dear dying man, your not believ- ing the Bible does not affect the question; your not believing in hell does not annihilate a hell; it does not affect it one way or the other. I tell you God exists, and the heavens and the earth shall pass aw^ay, but the word of our God abideth forever. It is God's truth, and no man can do anything against that truth. We now come to this third point, viz., the applied blood. Mark it. It must not only be the blood of the paschal lamb; it must not only be shed, but it must also be applied. Ex. 12:22. They were to put that blood on the door post, and says God: 'When I see the blood on the door post, I will pass over you." Now, suppose the death angel comes along, and a man says to him: ''You are the death angel looking for the blood on 202 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS the door post here, are you?" ''Yes." ''Hold on, I got up my lamb this evening and killed it, and I got a goblet and caught all the blood in the goblet, and here I have got it in the goblet back yonder in the corner, and there it is, come see it." "That is the blood?" "Yes." "The blood of the paschal lamb?" "Yes." "But God told you to put it on the door post." "Oh," says the man, "my opinion was it was just as well put up over there in the goblet. To put it on the door post, I don't see what good that would do." Says the death angel: "It is not a question of what you saw or thought; your opinion cuts no figure in the case. God told you this, and you did not do it, and you will pay the forfeit of your disobedience, and I can't pass over here." That blood has to be applied or it need not be shed at all. What do you learn about the gospel from that? I learn first that this doctrine of univer- salism is a heresy from hell. Though Christ died for all men, though the blood of Christ was shed for all men, though the book says that he by the grace of God tasted death for every man, yet what is the fact? God says: He that believeth not shall be damned. He THE PASCHAL LAMB 203 that does not through faith in the blood have that blood applied to his soul is damned as effectually as if the blood had never been shed at all. Dear dying sinner, it must be applied. When it is, you are saved; when it is not, you are condemned. Hear what God says in John 3:16: 'Tor God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son" — now, notice the individuality — "that whosoever" — here is your individual, personal acceptance — ''whosoever believe th in him should not perish." There is your individual, personal application, and individual, personal salvation. What else? "He that believe th not" — there is your individual, personal rejection — "shall be damned." That is said for the one as much as for the other. Applied by faith, not applied by unbelief. Dear dying man, it must be applied, you must accept Christ, you must receive Christ, you must believe Christ or Christ will do you no good. But since it ought to be applied, what was a proper application? I answer that it con- sisted of three things: First, to be applied where God said; second, as God said; and, third, when God said. Where did God say 204 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS apply the blood? He said apply it to the two door posts and the lintel, that is, the cross- piece over the door post. Now, suppose the death angel comes along and a man says to him: ''You are the death angel and you are looking for the blood on the door post, are you? Well, hold on, let me show you where it is. Look up there on the ceiHng; I put it up there, and I put it on the wall outside, and outside on the gable end, and I put some on the roof. Look around there and see it.'* *'Yes," said the death angel, "I see it there on the ceiling and on the wall and on the gable and roof, but God did not tell you to put it there; He told you to put it on the door post." ''But my opinion was that it would do just as well to put it there as on the door post." "What right did you have to go by your opinion? What right did you have to sub- stitute your opinion for the plain, explicit command of Almighty God?" Your opinion cuts no figure in the case. God's word is law, God's word is authority, and you set that aside for your opinion? Says the death angel: "I can't pass over here." Now, I might just as well stop and make a point I want to make right here as anywhere THE PASCHAL LAMB ' 205 else. That man in that case lost his first born son because he went by his opinion instead of God's word, and that is the way that many a man and woman are going to hell in our day. You form opinions about so and so, and you form an opinion that there is no hell; you form an opinion that so and so in the Bible is not true; you form an opinion about these things, and then what do you do? You go by your opinion instead of going by God's word, and I tell you, sir, you will be damned as certain as you do it. It is God's word, and not our opinion. Oh, this matter of opinion, I get so sick of it. Somebody takes a heresy, or an ism or a schism, into their head, and they go by their opinion instead of going by God's holy word. Here is some poor, old blatherskite, sitting around on the corner of the street, about half-full of w^hiskey all the time, tobacco-juice running down the corner of his mouth, and his eyes red, and he gathers the boys around him and says: ''My opinion is that the Bible is a lie. My opinion is that there is not any hell." Poor, old soul, unfit to live, unprepared to die. What is his opinion worth on these things? Setting his poor, old, besotted, befoul- 206 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS ed, besmirched opinion up against the oracles of the omnipotent God. There often goes around in this country a young man; he has been off to college just once or twice, and he has read one or two volumes of the North American Review, and he has read one or two chapters in Buckley, Mill or Spencer, and one or two chapters in Huxley, or Darwin, or some of those men, and he comes now strutting around: ''The Bible is a lie, and my opinion is that there is nothing in it. My opinion is that it is all an old exploded theory, all fanaticism, that there isn't anything in it." Poor, little, ignorant, contemptible, conceited fellow; got about sense enough to grease a gimlet, setting his poor, little conceited opinion up beside the word of Almighty God, talking about what he believes. Dear, dying, conceited young man, if you are here before me, let me tell you, your opinion cuts no figure in this case whatever. God says: ''He that believe th and is baptized shall be saved ; and he that believeth not shall be damned." Whenever a man went by his opinion and not by God's word he got into trouble. Where did the blood have to be? On the door post. Where ought you to have THE PASCHAL LAMB 207 it, dear man? Where have you got it? Have you got it on your hand, or on your head? The Jews said: ''Let it be on our heads," and God knows it has been there. I will tell you where you unsaved men and women have got it, under the bottoms of your feet. Hear what the apostle says, Heb. 10:29: ''Of how much sorer punishment suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God." "Counted the blood of the covenant an unholy thing." Where ought you to have that blood? You ought to have it on the door posts of your soul. Hear what Christ says: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Dear dying man, have you got the blood on the door posts of your soul? If you have, I bid you godspeed; if you have not, you are tonight exposed to the death angel, and with- out God in the world. But again, how was it to be applied? Here in Exodus, it was to be applied on a bunch of hyssop. God said take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and sprinkle it on the door posts. Why did God say hyssop? I don't know; that is none 208 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS of my business. He said hyssop, and that is sufficient. What do you learn about the gospel from that? That this blood of Jesus Christ is to be applied the way God said apply it. How- did God say? He said apply it by faith, a propitiation through faith in His blood. Brains are good for some things, but they are not worth anything when it comes to applying the blood of Christ; science is good for some things, but science cannot apply the blood of Christ; philosophy is good for somethings, but philosophy cannot apply the blood of Christ. According to God's plan of salvation, faith is the only instrumentality that does and can apply the blood of Jesus Christ. Hence the statement: He that believeth not shall be damned. But when was a proper application? I answer it was to put the blood on there when God said so. He said on the night of the 14th day. I will suppose a case. The death angel comes to the door and the man says: "You are the death angel looking for the blood?" **Yes." ''Hold on; I have had a very great amount of business to attend to, have had quite a run; I got home about night, the sheep THE PASCHAL LAMB 209 were away off in the pasture, and I didn't get up the paschal lamb; but I am going to get it up tomorrow and kill it tomorrow, and tomorrow night I am going to put it there. And you come back tomorrow night and you will see it there." *'0h," said the death angel, "God told you to put it there this night, the night of the fourteenth day, and this is the fourteenth day, and I am here, and I cannot pass over, and it need never get there at all now. It is too late." Dear sinners, that is just the way it is with some of you when you are called to Christ. God says now; you say tomorrow. God says tonight; you say tomorrow night. Now, I beg you, in God's name, before the death angel lays his hand on your throat come now. Which one of you will apply the blood of Jesus to your heart and soul and conscience even this night? God grant that you all may do it. Now, I can't conclude this sermon without making just one brief remark about the results of applying that blood. Sinners, I want you tonight to take your stand by faith upon that promise and put your faith in it, and when you do it God will save your souls. Let me give you an illustration of the result. 210 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS Here is a man and his wife and his family, and there is the Httle first-born son over there in the cradle, and the wife says: "Husband, oh, listen, do you hear that shriek down the street there? Hear that mother as she wails for her children. Oh, husband, listen to the cries at that other house. The death angel is there doing his work." And I hear the wife say: "Husband, do you reckon it is safe? Do you feel all right? Hadn't you better go and bar that door? Hadn't you better go and do something else in addition to that blood?" And I imagine I hear the husband say: "Wife, it is not a question of feeling, or of our sufficiency; it is not a question as to whether or not we can cope with that death angel, but only a question of whether God will do what He said He would do. Now, the blood is on the door post, and if God can- not keep the death angel out by means of the blood, what is the use to bar the door? If God can do it, we need do no more. If God can prevent that death angel coming in here as He said He would, we are saved. It is not a question of barring the door, but of doing what God said." And here comes the death angel about that time. "Are you the THE PASCHAL LAMB in death angel and are you looking for the blood?" "Yes." 'There it is on the door post." And I see that man as he goes and takes that little darling first-born boy, and holds him in his arms. ''You have come here to kill this boy, death angel?" "Yes." "God said when you saw that blood on the door post He wouldn't suffer you to come, and you can't come." "No," said the death angel, "I can't. Lay your darling back in his cradle. I wouldn't cross that threshold if I could, and I couldn't if I would, and Almighty God stands on the threshold of your door, and He is your defence, and your faith is well-founded, and I leave you in security, safe behind the blood." Just the blood, nothing else, just the blood and faith in the blood that did the whole work, nothing else. Now, that is my idea of the gospel. We are all a lot of poor sinners; we can't save ourselves, but here is the blood of Jesus Christ, and God says it cleanses from all sin, and God says through faith in the blood our sins are to be forgiven. I come and put my faith in the blood and take my stand behind the cross of Christ. I have no right to go to heaven, I have no strength to cope 212 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS with the devil, I have no merit at all. My faith is just simply this that Jesus Christ is God's Son and died for me, and God's word says if I believe in him I have eternal life and shall be saved, and there I stand, and there I can cope with the devil and there I can point to him and say this: **I know that my Redeemer liveth. As an old lion you can go about seeking whom you may devour, but, Satan, I am behind the blood. I have put my faith in the blood, I am holding on to Jesus and I am clinging to the cross. Satan, you cannot put me in." Thank God for it. Dear dying sinner, will you take your stand there, with the blood, have faith in the blood, and that will secure your salvation. Let me read Heb. 13:20, 21: *'Now, the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen." Dear friends, that is the glorious gospel of the Son of God. THE BRAZEN SERPENT Jan. 25, 1889, 8 P. M. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, hut have eternal life" John 3:14, 15. Tonight I want to call your attention to the brazen serpent. Let me say that the words of this text constitute one of the pro- foundest thoughts in God's blessed word, because it sweeps the entire field of human ruin and redemption. It covers the entire ground of the fall of man and the redemption of man by Jesus Christ. But while that is so, when explained in the light, of God's word it is one of the simplest, plainest and most easil}^ understood texts that there is in God's blessed book. But I hear some man back yonder say: "But it doesn't seem so plain, simple and easy to me." If it does not, my friend, it is because you are not very familiar with God's holy word. Christ was talking to Nicodemus, who was not only a Jew, but a ruler of the Jews, and one well-versed in the Old Testament Scriptures; and Christ said to him: ''As 214 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,'* and that allusion was sufficient for Nicodemus because he was familiar with the Old Testa- ment Scriptures. But as you, perhaps, are not as familiar with them as Nicodemus was, I want to turn back to the 21st chapter of Numbers, begin with the fifth verse and read five or six verses. "And the people spake against God and against Moses: Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water, and our soul loatheth this light bread. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses and said : We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord that He take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said unto Moses: Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole, and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, w^hen he looketh upon it shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld THE BRAZEN SERPENT 215 the serpent of brass, he Hved." Now, that is the Scripture to which Christ alludes over here in the next text when He says: ''As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so shall the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." I want to preach to penitent souls tonight, and I want to preach the gospel just as simply as I know how to make it, so simply and plainly that if there is an unfortunate man here tonight who never heard a gospel sermon before in his life and should never hear another one, that he could learn enough about God's word and God's Son and God's plan of salvation this night to know how to be saved. Now, without any further preliminary remarks I want to take the Scripture that I read in Numbers in connection with this text, and from the passage from Numbers I gather three facts and from the text in John I have exactly three parallel facts. The three facts from Numbers, second chapter, are these: First, the Israelites were bitten by those fiery serpents; second, the brazen serpent erected on the pole was the remedy for the bite of 216 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS those fiery serpents; third, a look at the brazen serpent was the condition of a cure on the part of those bitten IsraeHtes. The three parallel thoughts are these: First, we all as a race are devil-bitten, sin-cursed, sin- sick; the second parallel fact is that Jesus Christ crucified on the cross is God's remedy for our sin-sick souls; the third parallel fact is that faith in Jesus Christ is the condition upon which God will save guilty, sin-sick souls. And now to the law and the testimony. The first fact is that those Israelites were bit- ten. Num. 22:6: ''And the Lord sent fiery ser- pents among the people, and they bit the people, and much people of Israel died." Now, that is the fact. It is a fact stated in God's word that those serpents bit the people, and there is no way to get around that fact unless you repudiate God's word. If you repudiate God's word, then I have no message for you. I am here to tell you what God says; I am here to deliver you God's word; God's word lays it down as a fact that those Israelites were bitten and to those that were there on the ground especially it was a very self-evident fact. It was not long after the serpents had bitten them until the flesh would begin to THE BRAZEN SERPENT 217 swell, and their cheeks would flush, and their muscles would begin to get rigid and their eyes blood-shot, and presently the cold, clam- my sweat would stand on their brows, and their eyes were glazed in death. It was a fact, a painful and a self-evident fact to those Israelites there in the camp that they were bitten by those fiery serpents. Then it is equally true that the first parallel fact is correct, viz., that you and I and all of Adam's race are sin-sick, are devil-bitten, are sin-cursed. In Gen. 3 :13 we have these words of the woman, when God accosted her as to her crime and disobedience: 'The serpent beguiled me and I did eat." What serpent? Not simply the literal snake that was there in tlie garden, but that serpent which in Rev. 12:9 is called the dragon, the old serpent, the devil and Satan. That old serpent, the devil, was in the literal snake and spoke through that unto the woman, and beguiled her, and her husband took part in the transaction with her, and thus was the venom of hell infused into him, and through him into her, and there is where the great trouble of the sin-sick soul began, and there is where the great poisoned bite of the great serpent was first inflicted. 218 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS Now, the question is: Was that venom imparted to Adam and Eve's progeny by ordinary generation? Let us see what God says about the ante-deluvians, Gen. 6:5 : *'God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil contin- ually." How came those thoughts evil and only evil and evil continually? Because the venom of the old serpent was imparted to Cain and Abel and Adam and Eve's progeny, and it was so great that God Almighty wiped them off the face of the earth with a terrible deluge. Now, the question is: Was that same poison of the old serpent communicated through Noah and his descendants on down to the rest of mankind after the flood? Let us see what God says, Isa. 1:5, 6: "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds and bruises and putrifying sores." That is not simply a description of Israel, but it is also a description morally of all mankind. Again, Isa. 53:6 we have these words: **A11 w^e like sheep have gone astray; we have THE BRAZEN SERPENT 219 turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." Again, Jer. 17:9, we have these words: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and des- perately wicked: who can know it?" Such is God's statement about the human heart. But I hear some man say: ''O yes, but those are all from the Old Testament." I know they are from the Old Testament, but the Old Testament was endorsed by Jesus Christ, and is just as much the word of God as the New Testament. But we have got something from the New Testament also, Matt. 15:19: 'Tor out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, mur- ders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false wit- ness, blasphemies." That is what Jesus Christ says comes out of the human heart, and it corresponds exactly with what Jeremiah, in- spired by the Holy Ghost, said: 'The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." May I read you one other passage, Gal. 5:19, 20, 21. Will you hear the descrip- tion of human nature, of mankind in this our day? If you will read any first class daily paper, you will find in that column of mis- deeds, mishaps, and crimes, a counterpart of just what I am going to read you from God's 220 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS blessed word. ''Now, the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idol- atry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of the w^hich I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the King- dom of God." Now, my friends, if the case is not made out, if the fact is not established beyond successful contradiction, that humanity is sin-sick, sin-cursed, devil-bitten and depraved, then no fact can be established by God's word, and God's book is wiped out as a testi- mony to any proposition. But is it not as self-evident to us that we are devil-bitten as it was to those Israelites that they were serpent-bitten? As we look around today don't we see the counterpart of what I just read to you there? Don't we see drunkenness and murder? Don't we hear of adultery, perjury, arson, seduction, lying, theft and all kinds of abominable wickedness? Do we not see it on our streets? Do we not read it in our daily papers? Do w^e not meet THE BRAZEN SERPENT 221 it in our civil and criminal courts? Dear dying friends, the fact is undeniably correct that we are diseased and devil-bitten. So much for the first fact and its parallel. We now come to the second fact, was that brazen serpent there on that pole a remedy for the bite of those fiery serpents? Is that a fact? Let us see what God says about it, Num. 21:8: "And the Lord said unto Moses, make thee a fiery serpent and set it upon a pole, and it shall come to pass that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it shall live." There is no denying that fact. There was a serpent of brass made by God's express order, and erected upon that pole there in the camp of the Israelites, and that brazen serpent of itself, by itself, without any sup- plements, without any help whatsoever, of itself exclusively, was God's appointed remedy, was the ample, complete and all sufficient remedy, for each individual case, for every case there was in the camp of Israel. What did a man in that camp have to do? He didn't have to go into the snake busi- ness; he didn't have to cure himself; he didn't have to provide a remedy. He had simply to receive and accept the remedy that 222 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS God had provided. That was the whole of it. I want you to get that point clearly. He didn't have to add anything to it; he didn't have to make the remedy any better, nor himself any better; he didn't have to supple- ment the remedy in any way whatsoever; but simply to receive that remedy in and of and by itself. How simple, how plain, how easy that all was. Now, the gospel is just that plain, that simple, and that easy. And that brings me to the second parallel fact, viz., that Jesus Christ crucified on the cross is God's remedy for our poor, sin-sick, lost, condemned souls. Jesus by himself, Jesus without any human addition, Jesus without any human supplement, Jesus with- out any additional human merit, Jesus of himself, by himself, Jesus and Jesus only, is God's remedy for sin. All the sinner has to do is to accept God's remedy, accept God's Son, commit himself into the hands of Jesus Christ. Dear dying man, what you are trying to do is you are trying to help Jesus save you; he doesn't need your help. All that you have to do is to accept the Saviour, and he does the saving, and he does it of himself, I THE BRAZEN SERPENT 223 by himself, without any of your assistance at all. But says some man: "Preacher, is that a fact? Is it a fact that I don't have to help the Saviour? Is it a fact that that Saviour of himself and by himself is the all-sufficient remedy, prepared by Almighty God?" Yes. Now, to the law and the testimony. Hear the book. John 3:14, 19, inclusive, we have .'^ these words: "And as Moses lifted up the ser- pent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever be- lieveth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned al- ready, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." From that Scripture is it not clear that Jesus, Jesus only, Jesus, the Son of God, is the Saviour of a lost world, and God's remedy for sin? 224 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS But again in Acts 4:12 we have the words, "Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." 1 Cor. 3:11: "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." That settles the fact that Christ, and Christ only, is God's remedy, ample, com- plete and all-sufficient, for every soul on the face of the earth. How does that simplify the whole business. Hear what God says: "As many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God." Then, what has a man got to do to become a son of God ? He has to receive God's Son, just simply accept God's Son and commit his soul into the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. The trouble with you, dying man, is that you are speculating about theology, and about creeds and about dogmas and about church polity, and about a great many other questions. Let all of those things alone, you don't have to swallow a Catechism to be saved. You don't have to receive a theology, nor accept a dogma, nor an abstraction. What do you have to do to be saved? Accept God's remedy, pure and simple, of himself and by himself, the THE BRAZEN SERPENT 225 Lord Jesus Christ. Will you do that tonight? Dear man, will you take Christ as your Saviour tonight? If you do, God will save you. Now, we come to the third fact, which is that a look on the part of that bitten Israe- lite at that brazen serpent was the condition of a cure. The brazen serpent itself was the remedy; but, sinner, it was not a remedy that saved without conditions. It w^as a remedy that became efficacious upon a certain condition that the sick, bitten Israelite w^ould look, just simply look, at that brazen serpent. Hear the word of God, Num. 21:9: *'And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived." Let us put it all together. There is the brazen serpent on the pole; there is the poor, sin-bitten Israelite lying right down there. That is the remedy and he is a sick man. What is the con- dition upon which he is to get well? It is not that he understands a brass snake, nor how brass is made, nor how brass snakes are made. It is not that he catches hold of that brass snake; it is that he simply looks at it, 226 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS just that, all of that, and no more than that. How exceedingly easy and simple, and wouldn't you have thought that every man in the camp would have complied with that condition and accepted that remedy? But yet we are told that many of them died, rather than accept that plain, simple condition of mere looking at that brazen serpent. Now, we come to the third parallel fact, which is this, that faith in Jesus Christ is the condition upon which God promises to save your soul. Faith in Jesus, not feeling, not understanding, not speculating, not self- improvement, not making your heart any better. But the condition upon which God proposes to save you is simply faith, nothing more, nothing less, than simple faith on Jesus Christ. Of course, the pre-requisite of salvation, repentance and forsaking your sins, goes before, but that is the one final point upon which the whole thing hinges, and if it is not accomplished, nothing else can succeed. But hear what God says on this point, that faith, simple faith in Jesus Christ, is God's condition of a cure. Gal. 3:26 we have the words: "For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." THE BRAZEN SERPENT 111 John 1:12: ''But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." Again in Acts 16:31: ''BeUeveon the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Again in Acts 13:38, 39, ''Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgive- ness of sins. And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." Hence the statement in Rom. 4:5: "But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justi- fied the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." Hence the statement of the Lord Jesus Christ, John 5:24: "Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into con- demnation, but is passed from death unto life." Hence the grand statement in Rom. 5:1: "Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." Hence the statement in Eph. 2:8: "For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God." It is only "through faith" that 228 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS you are to receive the pardon of your sins, and the salvation of your soul. Now, let us pin all of this together. Here you are, a poor, guilty, lost, condemned, unsaved sinner, here is the Lord Jesus Christ crucified on the cross, God's Son, the Messiah, the Saviour of a lost world, God's remedy for sin-cursed humanity. Now, upon what conditions will that glorious Saviour save this lost soul? Upon the condition that sinner will trust him, upon the condition that sinner will put his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Dear man, how simple all that is. You are the sinner, Christ is the Saviour, God says believe in that Saviour and you shall be saved. Will you do that? God grant that you may. Just as I said a while ago it was so strange that anybody there in that camp would actually die. Is it not equally strange that anybody under such a gospel as this, so plain, so simple, so easy, will speculate, and philoso- phise, and theorise, and finally die instead of accepting the Lord Jesus Christ by faith? Now, I want to bring out and illustrate and enforce several things, so let us draw near that camp of Israel a little. THE BRAZEN SERPENT 229 Here are the tents scattered all round, and yonder is the brazen serpent up on a pole, and I imagine I see Moses walking around in the camp of Israel, and he comes up here and finds a man there sick. Moses says, ''What is the matter with you, friend?" ''O Moses, I am sick, I am very sick, Moses. A snake bit me and I am deathly sick. What shall I do?" I imagine I hear Moses say: ''Yonder is a brazen serpent; that is the rem- edy; and the way that that brazen serpent will cure you, you are just to turn over and look at it." Says the man: "Tut, tut; talk to me about a brass snake curing the bite of a living snake. Talk to me about there being any connection between a living snake and a dead snake; talk to me about my getting cured by looking. I don't see any science or philosophy in that; I don't see any common sense in it." I imagine I hear Moses say: "Look here, man, it is not a question of whether you see the connection or not. There is connection. It is not a question of whether you understand it, or not, it is not a question of whether it strikes you as scientific, or not, or philosophic, or not. Here is a fact, the fact is you are snake- 230 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS bitten; here is another fact, that that brazen serpent is the only cure for the bite of these snakes, and here is another fact, that every one that looks at it is cured; and another fact, that every one that does not, dies. Then what is the use of lying here and quib- bling and finding fault with this, that and the other?" You must accept the facts and act upon God's directions, or you are lost world without end. Perhaps it is just that way. Some man in the audience says, ''How can one man die for all the world, that the world can be saved through him?" It matters not whether you can see it, or not. Thank God it is so. It matters not whether you can understand it or not, thank God it is so; it matters not whether it strikes you as scientific or philosophic, or not; thank God it is grace, and thank God it is gospel, and thank God it saves every one that so accepts it, and the fact of the business is that every one that does not dies in his sin and is damned. Hence Jesus Christ said, *'If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins." But I imagine Moses goes along there a little further and finds another sick man. THE BRAZEN SERPENT 231 Says Moses, I imagine, "Why don't you look at that brazen serpent up yonder?" *'0 no, Moses, I am not going to look at that brazen serpent until somebody explains to me what God made snakes for." I Imagine Moses says, ''It is none of your business what God made them for, the fact of the business Is he made them, and one bit you, and if you don't accept the remedies offered to you, you will die pretty soon." And a great many men just so will hear the gospel; they won't hear anything the minister has got to say until the minister explains how the devil came into existence, and a great many other questions. Dear man. It is none of your business about the devil's coming into existence, or the introduction of sin, the fact is there is the devil, and he is into you, and the fact is he is dragging you down to hell, and the fact Is if you don't accept God's remedy that He provided for your salvation that devil will drag you down. That Is all there is about it. May God help you to accept His Gospel on its plain, simple and easy terms tonight. Why did another man die there in the camp of Israel after the serpent was put 232 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS on the pole? Not because a snake bit him, but because after he was snake-bit he re- jected a remedy that would have cured a snakebite. You don't go to hell for what the devil did, or for what Adam did. No man ever goes to hell because he was born with a sinful nature, or because he is a sinner, he goes to hell because being a sinner he rejects Jesus Christ, the only Saviour that can keep sinners out of hell. Hence the word of the Lord Jesus: "He that believeth not on the Son is condemned already, because he hath not believed on the only begotten Son of God." You don't go to hell then because you are a poor, fallen, guilty sinner, but because you reject God's Son, the only Saviour of lost sinners. Again, I see Moses as he goes down that camp a little further, and he sees another man, and he notices that he is right sick, but there is quite a commotion around there, and he goes up close to the tent, and looks around and there is a little kettle on the fire, and the little son is sitting over there skin- ning some bark off a branch of some sort that he has got in the wilderness somewhere, and his wife is stirring up a little meal or THE BRAZEN SERPENT 233 something. "What are you all going to do?** asks Moses. Says the man, '*I am snake-bit, and I am going to have a poultice made, and I am going to put the poultice on the place where the snake bit me." ''Why, what good do you think it will do?" "I think with the help of the poultice and the brazen serpent I will be cured." ''What do you want to go into the poultice business for? If the brazen serpent, God's remedy, is not sufficient the poultice would not make it sufficient, but if the remedy is sufficient, your poultice is not necessary. God's con- dition was not a poultice, it was a look. Now, quit the poultice business and look." That is the way it is today. Here are a great many dying, sin-sick souls not accepting Jesus just because instead of trusting him for their salvation they have gone into the poultice business. "I have got to make my heart a little better, I have got to improve myself and lop off a few things here and a few things yonder, and I want to make myself a little better, and when I become fit," that is a big word with them — "then I want to come to Christ and be saved." Dear dying man, all of that is unnecessary. Jesus can 234 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS save you a poor, lost, guilty soul, easily if you will trust him; and if Jesus can't save you then all of this thing that you are doing won't amount to anything, and if Jesus Christ can save you your efforts at purifying and making yourself better are altogether unnecessary. Don't go into the poultice business, it doesn't amount to anything. God says we are not saved through works, but by grace through faith. Jesus is the Saviour, accept him and be saved. Don't try to make yourself better, you can't do it. God does not tell any man to make himself better, he says, repent, forsake, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. Do that. God grant that you may. I see Moses go down the camp a little further, and there is quite a commotion about that tent door, there are several parties inside and several men standing there, and about the time Moses gets there the man's wife meets him at the door, and says ''Moses, go very slowly. My husband is snake-bit, and my husband is a very peculiar kind of a man, and if you don't approach him just right he won't let you give a thing to him.*' "There is nothing peculiar about your hus- THE BRAZEN SERPENT 235 band, except he is snake-bit, that is all." There are a great many people that way. I have had some of them here at this meeting to say: *'Bro. Pearson, I wish you would please talk to my husband, or to my son," as the case might be. *'Just everybody can't talk to him, his is a very peculiar case." Now, my dear friend, let me tell you. There is nothing peculiar about your husband, or any man, except he is a poor, lost, guilty, sin-sick soul, going down to death and hell. That is all. Don't you talk about your peculiarities. Come to the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. Again I see Moses goes down the camp again a little further, and he finds another man down there, and Moses says: ''Why don't you look at that brazen serpent?" "Well, Moses, I am going to look, but I will put it off till 2 o'clock. I am going to look about 2." He comes back about 2 o'clock, and sees the man still suffering: "You have not looked at that serpent yet?" "No. I am going to look about 4." About 4 Moses returns: "You haven't looked at that serpent yet?" "No, Moses." "You are getting sicker, and still blinder, and still weaker.'* 236 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS ''Yes, but I am going to look about 6 o'clock." And about 6 Moses comes back, and the poor man's eyes are glazed in death, and though he turns those glazed, set eyes towards the pole, he can't see. He is too far gone. Looking was the condition, he has postponed it until he ca7i't see the serpent, and now death is inevitable. There are perhaps fifty men in this audience tonight just exactly on that line. You said twenty-five, thirty, forty years ago you were going to be a Christian. You put it off from two till four and from four till six, and it has got so that some of you are tonight sinking with the film of death settling over your mortal vision and the cataract of unbelief settling over your moral eyes, till you can scarcely see, and you are going down in darkness and death. God help you to turn and look and live while you may. I see Moses go down there in that camp further, and he strikes another very remark- able case. He finds a great stalwart man lying stretched out on the ground very sick, and there is the man's dear, good wife begging him to look at that serpent. No, he won't do it. There is the man's son perhaps begging him to look at the serpent: "No, I won't do THE BRAZEN SERPENT 237 It." And I imagine I see Moses as he goes over to the poor fellow and takes his head and turns his face right around to that serpent, and the man shuts both eyes. Won't look, he won't see, he won't take in that serpent; and what is the result? He dies and there is nobody to blame but his own self. Dear friends, there are men and women in this audience tonight that are doing just that thing. Your good husband turns your face toward the cross, but you shut your eyes. These faithful pastors for a number of years have been turn- ing your eyes towards the cross as the serpent, and God knows, as you know during the last two weeks, to the best of my feeble strength, I have been turning your face toward that cross, and some of you are closing your eyes. You have got them shut close tonight. If you will die, no one can help you. If you will not be saved, there is nobody to blame but yourself. I beg you in God's name tonight that you open those eyes, look to Christ, trust in him, and trust him now, and God will save your soul. But I see Moses go down the camp again and he comes to another man. He is sitting up; I imagine he has got his foot up on a 238 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS rock; a snake bit him there in the foot. Moses comes to him and says: "What are you doing?" "O Moses, I am looking there where the snake bit me. O Moses, look how it is swelling, look how that limb is enlarging, look how red it is getting." "Man, you are looking at the wrong place, at the wrong thing. God didn't tell you to look where the snake bit you, that won't do you any good. God told you to look at the brazen serpent after the snake had bitten you. You have been looking there long enough, don't look there any longer. Look up yonder at that brazen serpent." Now, as long as the man keeps his eyes on his foot he can't see the brazen serpent, but just as soon as he takes his eyes off that and looks at the brazen serpent he is cured. Penitent friend, perhaps you are making just that mistake, and looking in your heart at all those oaths, and lewdness and drunkenness and evil deeds, and you are looking at that sin-sick heart of yours, and you are saying: "O, I am such a sinner; I am so guilty and vile," and you are looking at yourself all the time. You have looked there long enough. That won't do you any good. Hear what God says: ^'Look unto me all ye ends of the earth, THE BRAZEN SERPENT 239 and be ye saved." Then look away from that guilty heart, from that sin-cursed soul, from that wicked conscience ; look to the Lord Jesus Christ and that will do you good. I see Moses as he finds another one down there. Moses says: 'Why don't you look?" "Moses, I am so sick right now, but Moses, I have had my wife to make me a little gruel, and I am going to drink that, and I am going to prop myself up against this tree, and then I am going to take some water, and after a while I'll try and see if I can't feel a little better; and, Moses, just as soon as I feel a little better, I am going to look at that brazen serpent." Moses says: 'What are you trying to do that for? The way to get better is to look at the serpent. This won't make you any better. Don't try that any longer. Look at the serpent and you will be cured here and now." Just so, dear dying sinner. Don't try to make yourself any better any longer; you can't do it. Just look here to Jesus; that is the way to get relief and peace and joy and comfort and salvation. Then there is one other case, and I imagine I see Moses go down there a little further, and he comes to a sick, poor, frail man; he 240 EVANGELISTIC SERMONS is nearly gone, so helpless he can scarcely turn himself over, and he is lying with his face from the serpent, and Moses says: ''Why don't you look?" "Well," says the man, "I am not able to walk to that post. I am not able to climb it if I was there, and I can't get up there and get hold of that serpent." ''But," says Moses, "you don't have to go to that pole and climb it and get hold of that serpent. You just simply have to look." Says the man: "Is that all?" "Yes, just simply look." "If I were to look do you reckon I would be cured right here and now?" "Yes, right here on the spot." "I am so helpless, Moses, I can't turn over, I am so sick." I imagine I see Moses as he puts his arm down to that poor fellow and turns him over and places him on his side, and I imagine I see that poor, sick man, as he stays himself on his elbow, with his hand on his head, and he gets his face steady and he turns his eyes on that brazen serpent, and no sooner does he fix that gaze upon it than he straightens right up and says: "Moses, thank God, I am cured; Moses, I am all right, I am sound, I am well, I am cured." Isn't that wonderful? God could cure him in a second. It w^as not THE BRAZEN SERPENT 241 the brazen serpent that cured him ; it was God who was behind the brazen serpent, who was the real remedy. Just so, my friends; here you are tonight, so sinful, so sad, so sorry, so grieved. Will you to- night just put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Will you trust him right here and right now? If you do, God will save you. Hear what He says, John 6:47: ''Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believe th on me hath everlasting life." Now, my dear, penitent friend, that is just as simple and as plain as I know how to make it. That is the gospel as simple as I know how to preach it. Here is the Son, here are you a sinner; put your faith in him and believe he will do what he says and claim his promises, and God's word for it, you shall be saved right here and right now. Every poor, guilty soul in this house tonight that will accept God's remedy on God's condition shall and will be saved, right here and right now. oi,C3 o«- 3-^S>