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COMMENTARYTHE PROVIDENCE OF GODby B.H. CarrollMaking the Words of the Wise Available to all ¾InexpensivelyAGES Software© 2003

THE PROVIDENCE OF GODTHE PROVIDENCE OF GODComprising Heart-Searching Sermons on Vital ThemesConcerning God and His OverrulingProvidence Among MenBYB. H. CARROLL, D.D., LL.D.For more than Thirty Years Pastor of First Baptist Church,Waco, Texas, and Founder and First President ofSouthwestern Baptist Theological Seminaryat Fort Worth, TexasCOMPILED BYJ. W. CROWDER, A.B., D.D.EDITED BYJ. B. CRANFILL, M.D., LL.D.TOFRED F. FLORENCEThe Sagacious Business Executive, the PatrioticCitizen, the Generous Philanthropist andthe Faithful, Unselfish Friend,This Book Is LovinglyDedicated bythe EditorFOREWORDThe present volume is the twenty-eighth book of B. H. Carroll which I have editedand published or caused to be published. It carries a unique distinction in the fact thatthe publication of the book was sponsored by a noble Jewish friend of mine, Mr.Fred F. Florence, President of the Republic National Bank of Dallas. This is the thirdCarroll book this good friend has sponsored for me, and I make gratefulacknowledgment of his generous help as I send this book out upon its mission oflove and blessing.When Fred F. Florence first came to Dallas as cashier of the Republic NationalBank, I invited him to join my Bible Class. He has a winsome personality and I lovedhim from the first. Smilingly he voiced his appreciation of the invitation and added:“Dr. Cranfill, I am a member of Temple Emanuel here, hence cannot welljoin a Bible Class in another fellowship. I want you to know, however, that I

think most kindly of you and of the good you are doing and certainly wishyou well in your Bible Class work.”Up to that time I didn’t know that he was Jewish, but the fact that he was a Jew didnot, in my thinking, detract in any wise from his kind-hearted winsomeness or hiswide sweep of usefulness even in that early period of his life. Step by step he waspromoted as the bank enlarged, and on the death of Mr. W. O. Connor, thepresident, who was one of the dearest friends I ever had, Mr. Florence was electedpresident of the institution, which position he has since held.There is not to my knowledge in Christian history any incident quite comparable tothe helpfulness of Mr. Fred F. Florence in my ministry in giving to the world thebooks of B. H. Carroll. In all the tides of time since apostolic days, there has beenno man who held in his heart and brain a more intimate knowledge or a morepenetrating understanding of the Bible than was possessed by B. H. Carroll. Iquoted in a foreword to a former volume the verdict of a Georgia Baptist preacher,who wrote me that “Dr. Carroll can dig deeper to find God’s truth and climb higherto reveal it than any man that ever lived.”So now we have this twenty-eighth volume. I wish every reader of this forewordcould have seen the glowing face of Fred F. Florence as he undertook thesponsorship of this volume. He has been so gracious, so courteous, so generous thathis attitude seems to me something quite apart from the traditional indifference toreligion so regnant in some realms of the business world.The first book of B. H. Carroll’s sermons that appeared bore the title, Sermons, andwas published by the American Baptist Publication Society in 1895. Later therefollowed Carroll’s Interpretation of the English Bible, a thirteen volume set, andthousands of these volumes have been circulated. Then, in addition to this, therecame from the press Baptists and Their Doctrines, Evangelistic Sermons, TheRiver of Life, Inspiration of the Bible, Jesus the Christ, The Day of the Lord,Revival Messages, The Holy Spirit, Ambitious Dreams of Youth, The Faith ThatSaves and Christ and His Church.Due acknowledgment is herein made of the valuable help of Professor J. W.Crowder, A.B., D.D., of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He compiledthe present volume and through the long years has been vitally interested in thepreservation of B. H. Carroll’s manuscripts. I gladly record my indebtedness toProfessor Crowder for his longtime assistance in this task.I call the reader’s especial attention to the two chapters in the present volume onJob. There is nothing quite like Dr. Carroll’s interpretation and elucidation of thevitalities of Job, the oldest book in the world. Really all of Carroll’s sermons areimmortal. In some he reaches loftier altitudes than in others, but I never heard himsay a dull word, nor did I ever know him to write a dull sentence. Everything he didwas invested with the glowing verities of immortality.Some have asked me how I became possessed of the Carroll material. I am happyto answer this query by saying that on March 1, 1892, joined by M. V. Smith, thenpastor of the First Baptist Church at Belton, I began the publication of the BaptistStandard. At that time I was living in Waco, and whereas the Western Baptist, whichM. V. Smith and I bought and the name of which we changed to the BaptistStandard, had hitherto been published in Dallas, we soon moved it to Waco andthereafter I published a stenographic report of one of B. H. Carroll’s sermons everyweek.When I presented the matter of publishing these sermons to the great preacher, hewas somewhat hesitant, but after prayerful consideration he undertook the task of

going over the shorthand report of each sermon I handed him. The shorthandreporter that did this work was J. A. Lord, one of the greatest shorthand writers ofthat or any other age. During the more than twelve years of my editorship of theBaptist Standard I published more than 600 of these stenographic reports ofCarroll’s sermons.It is also true that there have appeared in the various Carroll books I have editedoccasional sermons that he wrote with his own hand and delivered upon specialoccasions. There are, however, not many of these.And now this twenty-eighth Carroll book I have edited goes forth upon its mission oflove and blessing. It will help and gladden every soul that reads it. I hope it will havea great welcome among our Baptist people as well as among those of other folds.J. B. CRANFILLDallas, TexasTABLE OF CONTENTSFOREWORD1. THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD2. MAN’S CREATION, FALL AND REDEMPTION3. WALKING WITH GOD4. REASONS FOR BEING BAPTIZED5. THE HEAVENLY JERUSALEM6. GOD AND HIS MINISTERS7. THE BLESSING OF HOPE8. A THANKSGIVING SERMON9. THE CASE OF JOB10. LESSONS FROM THE CASE OF JOB11. THE CONSTRAINING LOVE OF CHRIST12. THE BIBLE DOCTRINE OF SANCTIFICATION13. THE HIGH CLAIMS OF JESUS

1. THE PROVIDENCE OF GODTEXT: If the foundations be destroyed what can the righteous do?- <191103>Psalm 11:3.I do not understand this question to imply that the foundations can be destroyed,except in the fears of the righteous. But whenever, in the mind of a righteous personthere is a distrust as to the stability of the foundation of his hope, then he may wellsay, “What can I do?” Just to the extent of our distrust of the foundations is thedespondency with which we look upon the tangled and conflicting affairs of this life.All our heartiness in work, boldness in enterprise, endurance of affliction, persistencein effort, and courage in danger is measured by the degree of our faith in the stabilityof the foundations upon which the Christian religion stands.If the issues of life are determined by fate or chance, there are no foundations. In theone case we become the effortless children of apathy upon whom no responsibilitydevolves, our only consolation being the Oriental proverb, “Kismet.” In the othercase we become the devotees of ephemeral pleasure with no higher watchwordthan, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”Hence my theme today: The Providence of God is the Christian’s foundation. Underthese three - Fate, Chance and Divine Providence may be grouped all the theoriesand philosophies of life. There is no room for another classification.“Providence,” then, being the theme, certain inquiries naturally suggest themselves:

1. What antecedents does the doctrine of Providence imply?2. What is Providence?3. Who is Providence?4. What is the relation of prayer to Providence?Finally, what is the effect of simple faith in God’s Providence?Now under these heads I wish to briefly discuss this question, for I certainly regardthe Providence of God as a foundation, and “if the foundations be destroyed, whatcan the righteous do?”Objectively, this foundation will be considered in this sermon as impregnable andindestructible. But subjectively, that is in the minds of God’s people, the foundationmay oftentimes seem to shake. It is not affirmed that this timorous apprehension isthe habitual state of mind of even the weakest of God’s people, but that even withthe strongest and bravest, in exceptional emergencies, there may be temporarydistrust. This distrust again is more in practice than in theory. Oftentimes the lipspronounce an orthodox reliance on God’s oversight of this world, when the heart issinking and the life is drifting.Following the outline suggested, let us first answer the inquiry -1. What does the doctrine of Providence imply? It implies the being of God, thatthere is a God. It implies that this God possesses all of the requisite attributes ofDeity; that is, omniscience, knowing all things; omnipotence, having all power;omnipresence, being everywhere; and holiness and love. It implies that such a God,having the attributes of omniscience and omnipotence and omnipresence and holinessand love, created the universe, brought into being everything that you see - what isabove us, what is below us, ourselves. It implies that this intelligent and powerful andbenevolent being brought into existence everything that is. In other words, that Godcreated this universe with all its creatures.This implication denies atheism by assuming the being of God. It denies polytheism,for but one being can possess the divine attributes. It denies materialism andpantheism by assuming God’s existence before matter and His creation of it. Somuch at least being implied, we may proceed to the second inquiry:2. What is Providence? The importance of having a clear conception in our minds asto the meaning of this term is self-evident. All books on systematic theologyemphasize the importance of a clear definition just here. I shall not cumber thisdiscussion with quotations, but will freely use without other acknowledgment,anything in these books that best expresses my own views.Briefly, then, Providence is God’s continual oversight or government of the universeHe created. To enlarge somewhat, the term, Providence, expresses the divineagency in the direction, control and issue of all the events in the physical and moraluniverse. All of them? Yes. Does He direct every event in the physical world? Everyone.How sublime the doctrine as set forth in the 38th, 39th, 40th and 41st chapters ofJob! The rain, the dew, the frost, the seasons, are always directly under His control:“Hath the rain a father? Or who hath begotten the drops of dew? Out ofwhose womb came the ice? And the hoary frost of heaven, who hathgendered it? The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep isfrozen. Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bandsof Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thouguide Arcturus with his sons?” (<183828>Job 38:28-32.)He directs every event in the physical world. I do not refer simply to the events thatrelate to the spheres in their magnitude and in their movements. I refer to the most

infinitesimal detail, minutia, that takes place in the whole physical world.He has just that kind of direction in the moral world, as it relates to human beingsand angelic intelligences; that it is not only direction but control; that it is not onlycontrol, but that it governs the issue, the direction, the control, the issue or outcomeof all events in the physical and in the moral universe.In other words, having created the universe, He governs the universe. He did notmake the world and wind it up like a clock and go to sleep and let it run itself. Imean that His direction and control and government of the issue applies to all forcesthat are in operation in the physical world, otherwise called laws of nature. They arenothing more than the expressions of the divine will.Or, take this definition: Providence is that continuous, effective, all-comprehensiveagency of God by which He makes all the events of the moral and physical universeto fulfill the design with which He created the universe.Let us consider that definition a moment. It is expressed in somewhat different termsfrom the other, but the idea is the same - that having made a world, He governs it,superintends it, not by an intermittent agency, but by a continuous agency; not by aslight agency, but by an effective agency; not by a partial agency, but by an allcomprehensiveagency. I mean that the agency is just as comprehensive as theuniverse is.To get still nearer to what I mean by all-comprehensiveness, that it is not only anagency over classes, but equally over the individuals in the classes; that it is notmerely an agency over the whole of a world, but over all of its parts; that it is notmerely a general Providence, but that it is a particular Providence; that it takescognizance of everything; that it is just as essential to the idea of Providence tobelieve that the very hairs of your heads are numbered, and that it is just as essentialto believe that not a sparrow can fall to the ground without our heavenly Fatherknowing it, as to believe that not a world could be blotted out.I mean that it is a continuous, effective, all-comprehensive, divine agency. That it isso in the sense of administering a kingdom; a kingdom implying a personal king; akingdom implying jurisdiction, implying government; that the kingdom of God issupreme, that it is over all other kingdoms; that all other kingdoms must besubordinated to the kingdom of God; that the issue will be just what this definitionexpresses: That it is the continuous, effective, all-comprehensive, divine agencywhich makes all events in the physical and moral universe fulfill the original designwith which He created that universe.To advance a little in the thought of this definition: Once settle your mind on the ideaof Providence and there is no such thing as chance, there is no such thing as luck,there is no such thing as fate. That this Providence “is not simply foreseeing butforseeing,” not simply looking ahead beforehand, but looking ahead for, or in orderto, the accomplishment of its purposes and desires, “forseeing as well as foreseeing.”An agent is a doer, or actor, not an influence; it is the personal supervision of anindividual.With that definition clear before us, we may enlarge on one thought: All that isinvolved in the definition that has been given is applicable to moral creatures withoutinterfering (how, I do not know, but yet without interfering) with their freedom ofaction and responsibility. Of course you may say the two propositions cannot coexist.Your own consciousness replies to you bearing testimony within you not onlyto the superintending providence of God over your life, but also the freedom of yourown individual actions.Here let us squarely face the main difficulty ¾how about sinful actions? Now, while

I will be brief on this point, I want to be very clear, endeavoring to show just howGod’s providence, as defined, touches, bears upon the evil actions of men. I think Ican make myself understood, and I will use certain terms suggested by Dr. Strong,of Rochester, in order to make it clear that God’s providence touches evil actionsand the doers of them.Let Bible events illustrate: Abimelech took Abraham’s wife. There were no humanbarriers to oppose his will or restrain his desires. Yet was he hindered fromcommitting a great sin. How hindered? God’s Spirit touched his spirit in a dream:“Thou art but a dead man for the woman thou hast taken I withheld thee from sinningagainst me.”Anyone who thoughtfully examines the events of his past life can call up some casewhere there had been a desire to do a wrong thing, and where there had beenopportunity to do a wrong thing, and where, arguing from his past feelings upon suchsubjects, he would have said that as a human proposition, given that desire and thatopportunity, the sin would have been committed, and yet he knows thatnotwithstanding a conjunction of both desire and opportunity, the evil was not done.How does he explain it? “Something kept me from doing it.”So when Laban pursued after Jacob. He had followed Jacob all the way fromMesopotamia to the brook Jabbok, about half way down the eastern border ofPalestine, and now was within sight of Jacob, with an overpowering force.Jacob is just as helpless in the hands of Laban as a timid dove is under the claws andbeak of a hawk. Laban followed him to smite him and despoil him. Why didn’t he doit? Let him explain:“It is in the power of my hand to do you hurt; but the God of your fathersspake unto me yesternight, saying, take thou heed that thou speak not toJacob either good or bad.” (<013129>Genesis 31:29.)Here was a restraining and preventive force that came by night upon that man ofviolence more efficacious in staying the execution of his fell and persistent purposethan any available human intervention.To precisely that feature of Providence David refers in his prayer, “Keep back thyservant from presumptuous sin.” That is, “O Lord, when in a moment of weakness Iam going astray, and when my powers of resistance to evil have been underminedand I am about to commit an awful offense, O God, prevent it! Keep me back. Insome way keep me back from presumptuous sin.”The thought is expressed in one of the prophets where God himself explains why Hispeople had not committed certain heinous offenses: “Because I built up a hedge ofthorns between you and that sin.” Now that hedge of thorns that God builds upbetween the one who desires to commit an offense prevents the sin.A writer of a modern romance avails himself of this well known subjection of thehuman mind to the influence of providential interference in presenting a patheticinstance where one, cruel by nature, cruel by habit, full of hatred toward a certainobject, had fully determined to strike when the opportunity came, and yet in the veryhour of opportunity was prevented from saying one hostile word by what seemed tobe a pure accident, and that is, that somebody had left a baby’s shoe on her table. Itwas not there when she went out of the room and she comes back and finds her ownlong-buried little baby’s shoe on her table. Instantly memory leaps back to her onechild. Instantly she hears the lisping prattle of that long silent tongue; she hears thesound of well-known pattering footsteps; she remembers the one and only time thatshe put this very little shoe upon that baby’s foot and her hard heart broke andmelted, long dried-up fountains of tears overflowed and so the memory of that dead

and buried baby expelled the purpose of malice from the heart. Now that illustratesthe preventive providence of God.Consider another term: The permissive providence of God. The permissiveprovidence of God is simply God’s not putting forth His preventive force; that is all.We sometimes see that God permits a man to sin who has been hindered a week, ayear, two years, five years. He has tried hard hitherto to do this mean, devilish thingand God has withheld opportunity. God has brought in somebody or something tointerrupt him.Some force visible or occult has stayed his hand. But he incorrigibly followed afterthat sin until at last God said, “Now I will just remove my prevention, I will not incitehim, but I will break down my hedge of thorns.”God never tempts to sin. That is what is called “letting a man alone,” “leaving him tohis own devices.” God says to His Spirit, “Let him alone. You have been preventing.You have been guarding. You have been hedging. And he fights against the restraintand bruises himself against the hedge, and manifests an incorrigible spirit to go onand commit this offense. Now, if he will, let him go his way. I will call him no more. Iwill visit him neither by day nor by night. So far as that providence is concernedwhich has hovered over him and kept him back from presumptuous sin, I will take itaway. Now, sinner, commit thy sin.” That is permissive providence.The case of a good man, Hezekiah, is an example. He had grown unmindful ofGod’s care for him and got to thinking that he was holding himself up until it becamenecessary to teach him a lesson. The Scriptures tell us, in the 32nd chapter of 2Chronicles, how this man, who it seemed could not make a mistake, that went alongaccomplishing everything he wished, until he really thought that he was infallible andinvincible, all at once stumbled and fell, as much to his own surprise as to the wonderof others.God explains it to him. He had let him alone for a little season to show him that hishelp was in the Lord. It needed to be done. It was a part of God’s discipline.So dealt the Lord with David, another good man. David knew his fundamentalprinciples of divine government, that as power rested in God it made no differenceabout numbers; that the Lord could work with a few people; that one could chase athousand and two could put ten thousand to flight. But David got into his mind a vainconceit that frequently misleads modern Christians ¾pride in numbers: “I have alarge people now, let us count them and glory in their multitude.”Seeing David’s bent, the Lord took away the hedge and let him do what he pleased.One scripture expresses it, “The Lord moved David to number Israel,” whileanother, referring to the same event, says, “Satan moved David to number Israel.”And the question is, “How can both be true?” The answer is this: Satan had beentrying to move him to do that for a long while and Satan could not make him do itbecause this intervening providence of God had kept him from it. Now when Godjust gets out of the way, Satan gets in and you may say the Lord moved, or the Lordpermitted it to be done. Satan moved him. He would have moved him sooner if Godhad permitted.The providence of God is not only preventive and permissive of evil but is alsodirective. What do I mean by directive? I mean that God so directs evil actions as todisappoint the purpose and expectation of the sinner and his tempter.Let us get that very clear. Two scriptures will serve to show that God’s providenceis directive with reference to the actions of evil men when it so operates that this evilaction shall miss its issue, shall come to another issue neither intended nor desired bythe perpetrator.

The first scripture is from the book of Genesis. The wicked brothers of Joseph, whohad sold him into Egypt, are now in trouble in that very land. Their consciencesaccuse them:“And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother,in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us and we wouldnot hear; therefore is this distress come upon us. And Reuben answeredthem, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; andye would not hear? Therefore, behold, also his blood is required.”(<014221>Genesis 42:21, 22.)This was the human side.On the other hand, hear Joseph: “I am Joseph, your brother, whom ye sold intoEgypt. Now, therefore, be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that ye sold mehither; for God did send me before you to preserve life *** to preserve you aposterity in the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now, it wasnot you that sent me hither, but God.” That is, you meant evil. God directed thataction so as to change it into an issue that was not foreseen nor purposed by you.The other scripture is from the fourth chapter of Acts. These two will answer for athousand. They equal in importance any in the Bible:“And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with oneaccord, and said, Lord, Thou art God, which hast made heaven and earth,and the sea, and all that in them is: Who by the mouth of Thy servant Davidhast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? Thekings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against theLord, and against His Christ. For of a truth against Thy holy child Jesus,whom Thou has anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles,and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever Thyhand and Thy counsel determined before to be done.” (<440424>Acts 4:24-28.)Now here was an entirely independent purpose and expectation on the part ofHerod, on the part of Pilate, on the part of the Jews. They meant death and ruin andyet God’s providence governed their very malice to an issue neither foreseen,desired nor purposed by them, in that it accomplished not only His ownpredetermined purpose, working not for the ruin but for the salvation of the world.Yet another term may be employed to show how the providence of God touches evilactions, to-wit, determinative. Terminus means a boundary, a limit, and todeterminate is to set a boundary. The providence of God then touches evil actions byputting a limit upon them. An illustrative case or two may be rapidly stated.The devil wanted to get hold of Job, to worry and destroy him. He asked the Lordfor an opportunity. God, having purposes of His own to accomplish concerning Joband others, gave the permission but set a limit at Job’s life: “You may take his cows;you may take his camels; you may take his children so far as their earthly health andexistence is concerned; you may touch Job himself and cover his body withloathsome ulcers, but the life of Job, the soul of Job, the spiritual standing of Job inthe sight of God, oh, devil, you cannot touch.” There God puts an impassablebarrier.In the same direction are the words of the Psalmist:“If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say: If ithad not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us,then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled againstus: then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul;then the proud waters had gone over our soul; blessed be the Lord, who

hath not given us as a prey to their teeth. Our soul is escaped as a bird out ofthe snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we are escaped.”(<19C401>Psalm 124:1-7.)That is oftentimes true. If you leave God out, wickedness could put to death everyChristian in Waco in a week. Leave out the determinative providence of God, thatfeature of God’s providence that sets a limit to the wrath of evil men and the devil,and the foundation would be removed, and then what could the righteous do?We may well apply these words to the present state of our missionary work in‘Texas. God’s determinative providence has set a limit to the relentless obstructersof His holy cause. In our impatience it may seem a long way off. But it will come,and when the Almighty’s barrier is reached, we shall have peace and prosperity inour afflicted Zion.Satan was permitted to sift Peter as wheat, but Jesus insured that his faith should notfail. A messenger of Satan was permitted to buffet Paul and become an almostunbearable thorn in his flesh. But God’s almighty grace was sufficient for him.Our next inquiry is: Who is Providence? This is an important question to Christians.How shall it be answered? I appeal to prophecy:“Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.” (<190206>Psalm 2:6.)“The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thineenemies thy footstool.” (<19B001>Psalm 110:1.)“Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever; the sceptre of thy kingdom is aright sceptre. Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness; thereforeGod, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.”(<194506>Psalm 45:6, 7.)“And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying,Behold the man whose name is the Branch and He shall grow up out of Hisplace, and He shall build the temple of the Lord. Even He shall build thetemple of the Lord; and He shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule uponHis throne; and He shall be a priest upon His throne; and the counsel ofpeace shall be between them both.” (<380612>Zechariah 6:12, 13.)Who is this King, this priest on the throne? Of whom speak the prophets thesethings? Let the New Testament answer. Paul thus prayed:“That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give untoyou the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. The eyes ofyour understanding be enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of Hiscalling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, andwhat is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe,according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christwhen He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in theheavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, anddominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also inthat which is to come, and hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him tobe the head over all things to the church.” (<490117>Ephesians 1:17-22.)Who is Providence? Let Paul answer again: “Who, being in the form of God, thoughtit not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation and tookupon Him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of man, and beingfound in fashion as a man, He humbled himself and became obedient unto death,even the death of the cross. Wherefore God hath also highly exalted Him and givenHim a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shouldbow, of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth, and that every

tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”Consider, moreover, the passages in the book of Hebrews, which cite the Psalmsfrom which we have quoted. They find their fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Hear himselfspeak: “All power in heaven and on earth is given unto me.”Who is it that sits on the throne of the judgment? Jesus Christ, your Savior. Beforewhom shall stand all the dead, small and great? Jesus. And according to what shallthey be judged? The laws of Jesus. Who shall assess the penalty for the violation ofthese laws? Jesus. At whose bidding today is every wind and wave and element andforce and star and atom? Under whose control and jurisdiction is every power in thisuniverse? Under the control of Jesus.He is Providence, and with an effective, continuous, all-comprehensive, divineagency He touches every event in the physical and in the moral world. To what end?That to them that love God all things shall work together for good.Who is Providence? Oh, ye doubting ones! A little storm darkens your horizon for awhile - an ephemeral thing. You forget He is riding it; that on the neck of that courserof the skies lie the reins and that those reins are in the hands of Jesus Christ, and thatall things shall work together for good to them that love God.For whom is the royal diadem? Who is to be the crowned? That One who haswritten on His thigh, “King of kings and Lord of lords.” That One who came to theAncient of Days and received a kingdom which is an everlasting kingdom; that Onewho shall reign until all His enemies are put under His feet, and the last enemy thatshall be destroyed is death. Why should the heathen rage and the people imaginevain things? Who shall say the foundations are destroyed? On what reasonableground quakes your cowardly heart? Why is your right arm nerveless? Why haveyou permitted the devil to come and pluck courage and faith and hope out of yourheart when the Lord God omnipotent reigneth and reigneth today and reigneth overeverything?Let us next ascertain the relation of faith to Providence. How manifest and selfevidentis this relation? Inquire of your own heart: Does your faith rest in a dead Godor a living one? A God who sleeps or who is awake? Do you believe in a Godmanifest in Christ or without a manifestation?If a little boy could lie down on the deck of a ship, saying, “My father’s captain,”how much more can a Christian say, “Let the devil bark. Let puny earthquakesshake this globe. Let the wicked fight and howl and shout. When the enemy comesupon thee like a flood, then the Lord lifteth up the standard.”Have you faith in the providences of God? The Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Letus see now if you have faith in Providence. Test it, my brethren. Are you like Davidonce when his heart failed him? Hear his doleful confession, Psalm 73:“Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart. But as forme, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. For I wasenvious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” (Verses 1-3.)“Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase inriches. Verily, I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands ininnocency.” (Verses 12, 13.)“When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; until I went into thesanctuary of God; then understood I their end. Surely thou didst set them inslippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction. How are theybrought into desolation, as in a moment! They are utterly consumed withterrors.” (Verses 16-19.)

“Nevertheless I am continually with thee; thou hast holden me by my righthand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me toglory.” (Verses 23, 24.)Ah, brother, have you worried over the prosperity of the wicked? Have you been afool and brutish, like David? Have you stumbled at such thoughts? Then enter thesanctuary. Stand next to God; get behind the curtain; see the reach of God’sforesight and the sweep of His sword of justice, see the threads of all events in Hishands, see how He is drawing them to a consummation absolutely at His disposal;then understand.Yes, little bird, when even you fell, O sparrow, your Father knew that. And everyhair on my head is numbered and my God knoweth all my needs and my God is ableto supply all my wants; and my God is able to care for me in any emergency thatmay arise.Jesus, forgive me, if for one treacherous moment I ever allow a shadow of doubt asto divine providence to come into my heart.Very briefly, in conclusion, what is the relation of prayer to Providence? Let a singlescripture express it:“Seeing then that we have a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens,Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not anHigh Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; butwas in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us thereforecome boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and findgrace to help in time of need.” (<580414>Hebrews 4:14-16.)Providence there, prayer here. Because there is a Providence, pray. Because thatProvidence is a person; that person is Jesus Christ, and that throne of power is alsoa throne of grace, a throne for prayer to reach, therefore come to the throne ofgrace.But what good will it do? “Shall not God avenge His own, they that cry unto Himday and night?” What good? Behold that picture in Revelation: “I saw an angel andhe had in his hand a smoking censer.”And that censer contained the prayers of the saints of God, and he carried thoseprayers to the golden altar and he waved those prayers before the throne of God,and as that censer waved and smoked, what followed? All of those wonderful thingsthat are mentioned in the book of Revelation. The elements leaped to the foot of thethrone and said, “The prayer has touched us.” Disease came and said, “Prayer hastouched me.” Pestilence came, with her loathsome form, and grimvisaged, redhandedwar, and conflagration with her torch; these all came, and as ministers inanswer to prayer said unto God, “Send us,” and thus God says, “Avenge mypeople.”Now in conclusion, such being Providence, and you having faith in that Providence,and all the time praying to that Providence, what is the result? This is the climax. Iwill read it, from the 26th chapter of Isaiah. It has oftentimes been a great comfort tome. Not always but many times I have said in my heart just what it says: “In that dayshall this song be sung.” Now, what is it? “We have a strong city. Salvation will Godappoint for its walls and bulwarks. Open ye the gates that the righteous nations thatkeepeth truth may enter in. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind isstayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee.”Many of God’s saints, in the stormiest and darkest periods of their lives, have hadthat peace, perfect peace, without anxiety in view of trouble or difficulty. “Lord, Itrust thee. My song is this: That I have faith in God, faith in the Providence of God;

and while wolves may howl around my dwelling, they cannot enter in, and while nightmay bring her curtains of darkness and wrap the world about, there is a light inside.While winter may come with its cold and chilling blasts and bind in iron the earthoutside, it is warm in here. My heart is full of peace because stayed on God. Mytrust is in thee.”Now, brethren, I ask you, when you seriously reflect on what Providence implies, onwhat Providence is and who Providence is, the relation of faith to Providence andthe relation of prayer to Providence, ought not your hearts at once to accept thisproposition expressed so often in the scriptures? What is it? “The Lord Godomnipotent reigneth forever. Let the earth rejoice. Let it rejoice.” Let the world beglad that God reigneth. Trust it. Lean your head on it and your heart on it. Put yoursoul’s most perfect love upon Jesus.But you say, “Oh, this man and that man!” Well, now, do you call that a foundation?No man is a foundation. It is only a Romanist that would make Peter a foundation.“On this Rock I build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”And that Rock is Christ. Therefore“On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;All other ground is sinking sand.”2. MAN’S CREATION, FALL AND REDEMPTIONWithout the formality of a text to talk to you about, I will speak to you about thebook of Genesis, or a part of it.Whoever can stand a well conducted examination on the book of Genesis is atheologian. It is the root, and all the rest of the books of the Bible are the fruits. It is abook of both origins and developments, more of developments than of the origins.It outlines itself by a formula repeated ten times: “These are the generations.” In thisformula, the word “generations” does not mean origins; it means the developments,or histories. For instance, when it says, “These are the generations of Noah,” it doesnot tell how Noah commenced, but it tells of the family of Noah. And when it says,“These are the generations of the heavens and the earth,” it does not tell the origin,but the development of the heavens and the earth. Ten times that formula is used,commencing with the second chapter, and all of the first chapter up to the third verseof the second can be divided into two capital heads peculiar to that section.The first verse stands solitary, a section within itself: “In the beginning God createdthe heavens and the earth,” that is, the matter of the universe, and how long ago wedo not know. All of the rest of the first chapter down to the third verse of the secondchapter is devoted to the formation, not the creation, of the earth.And this leads us to consider some characteristics of this book. There is a constantdescent from the general to the particular: “In the beginning God created the heavensand the earth.” Now from that general statement of the creation of matter, heproceeds to discuss the formation of the earth, which is a descent to a particular, andthroughout the whole book that characteristic is marked.Another characteristic is to eliminate as rapidly as possible every other considerationor matter irrelevant to the main purpose of the book. For instance, when youconsider the generations of Cain, they are soon side-tracked. The generations ofIshmael, of Esau, always commencing with the line not of God’s selection, a detailedstatement made about them, and then they are put in parentheses, and the book goeson according to its purpose to give us the developments of the line through whomChrist came.The style of the book corresponds to its matter. The first chapter is abrupt,sententious, and every sentence is ponderous and sublime. The second chapter,

which would give us the details of some statements made in the first chapter, is moregliding and flowing. Pope in his essay on style says,“When Ajax strives some rock’s vast weight to throw,The line, too, labors and the words move slow.”So it is with the style of the first chapter of this book.Notice the different names of God employed. There is a general name for God,“Elohim.” When you speak of the Deity, that name is employed. When you speak ofrevelation and covenant-revelation, “Jehovah” is always employed. And these twowords for God may occur in the same sentence. For instance, when Elijah says, “IfJehovah be Elohim, follow Him.”And these two explanations with reference to style and the use of the names of Godfairly answer five thousand volumes of higher criticism.We come in this book to look at the first stupendous fact in the history of man. If aminister is being examined for ordination, it is almost sufficient to put one question.His answer to that question will determine where he stands on everything else. Thequestion is, “What do you believe about the fall of man? Is this account here inGenesis his starting? Is it an allegory? Is it poetry?”Our Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles and all the prophets subsequent to Mosestreat it as history pure and simple. If it be not history, there is no beginning to theworld’s history and there is no explanation of all the subsequent movements ofDivine Providence and of the history of man.This book tells us of a race trial in Adam. He falls. Then of a second race trial inAdam under a grace-covenant, and that culminates with the sin of the marriage of thesons of God with the daughters of men, and the flood in consequence. The third racetrial is under a new covenant with Noah. That culminates in the centralization -attempts of Nimrod, which were followed by the confounding of tongues and thedispersion of nations. The fourth trial is in the selection of a man, or rather of anation, to be derived from a man and making that nation the depository of theoracles of God, not on account of partiality to that man and to that people, but tomake that man and that nation the means of preserving and conserving the revelationof God and then diffusing that revelation for the salvation of all men. All of this isbrought out in the book of Genesis.Coming back to this fall that is presented, you would not do well to get yourtheology from Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” and you would not do half so well if you gotit from his “Paradise Regained.” Milton makes the occasion of the sin of the angels tobe God’s introduction of His Son to the heavenly conclave and the commanding ofthe angels to worship Him, whereupon the devil through pride revolts.But Milton misinterprets a passage in Hebrews that does not refer at all to any matterincident to the creation of the world, but refers rather to the resurrection of JesusChrist when God commanded all the angels to worship the risen Son.It is inferable fairly from Scripture that the occasion of the sin of the angels was theannouncement of the divine purpose that He was going to create a race of beings, atfirst, lower than the angels, but afterwards to be above the angels. Upon theannouncement that the race to be created was to be inferior to the angels, yet to behigher, Satan’s pride revolted and hence his animosity to the human race. He fellthrough pride; and when the race was brought into being, you see his effort todestroy it and thwart the will of God, and that race made a little lower than the angelsshall one day be exalted above him.In making the man, the first chapter tells us that He made male and female, and givesno details. The second chapter tells us that He made the man first, revealed himself

to that man, gave His law to that man, and afterwards from the man He created andfashioned the woman, so that woman derived all of her nature by traduction fromAdam. She is not a direct creation, but her soul and body are both derived fromAdam.Not only so, but all her knowledge of this law of God, this prohibition concerning thetree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil, her opinion concerning thatwas secondhand. God did not tell her; she got that from Adam.Now here is a pair. The first one is the head of the race, the first one is theresponsible party; in the first one the race is to stand or fall. But the second one isbone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, and has derived knowledge of this prohibition.Now Satan, wishing to accomplish the fall of man, naturally approaches the one whohad no direct information of God’s prohibition. He comes to the woman; and howdoes he come? It is quite possible for spirit not only to have direct impact uponspirit, but upon matter and upon inanimate life of every kind, and animate, whethervegetable or animal. As God could make Balaam’s ass speak, Satan could conferthe power of speech upon the instrument selected for approaching the woman.But the record says that on account of the participation of that instrument he wasdoomed thereafter to crawl and to eat dust. That means, if it means anything, thatbefore this he did not crawl, and that he did not eat dust. Several places in thescriptures tell us of flying serpents, and I am sure science teaches that there wereflying dragons.The instrument selected, therefore, was a flying serpent, and this serpent, in order togain credence in the temptation, must be accredited. Some credentials must befurnished. The credentials were the power of speech. Eve knew the animals. Sheknew the animals could not talk. And now there comes to her this gorgeouslybeautiful serpent, and accredited to her by the miracle of the power of speech. Hecomes as an angel of light, that is to say, it was necessary to produce the impressionupon the mind of this woman that this messenger was God’s angel and spoke God’smind.Hence this serpent raises a question: “Is it a fact that a certain tree is a forbiddenfruit; is that a fact?” Well, Eve never heard God say so. She got her knowledge of itsecondhand from Adam, and her notion that God said that was not accredited byany miracle. Now here comes an angel of light fresh from God, duly accredited withthe power of speech, and tells her that God had not prohibited the eating of that fruit.And she believed, honestly, verily, that she was doing God’s will. The woman wasdeceived, utterly so.There never was a greater mistake made than attributing death and the downfall ofthe human race to the woman. She was not the responsible head of the race. TheBible five times over in one chapter, with every positive form of emphasis, showsthat the offense that brought condemnation on the earth was not the offense ofwoman, that it was the offense of the man. By one man’s offense death came into theworld. By the trespass of the one man, by the one trespass of the one man.If ever on this earth there was a case of genuine deception, a delusion of mindsuperinduced by apparent light and truth, we have that case here. It is the moreremarkable from the fact that her husband was standing by her.Now Milton says that the devil approached Eve when she was off by herself, and allyour Sunday School literature will tell you the same thing; but the Bible tells you thatAdam was standing right there when that whole transaction took place. Eve did nothave to go off to hunt him up. “She gave,” says the record, “to her husband who waswith her.” That is what it says. He stood there and witnessed this temptation, and the

record says that he was not deceived. He knew that was not an angel of light; heknew that God had said, “Thou shalt not eat of the fruit of this tree.”He knew the evil consequences of disobedience. There was no film over his eyes.Open-eyed, unveiled, with eyes wide open to the consequences of his acts, withdeliberation and decision, with pure mind, that man deliberately sinned against God,and by that man’s sin death came into the world - not that woman’s sin, but thatman’s trespass.I was in a meeting in a town in Texas, and there happened to be in the audience aUnited States Senator. After hearing me preach, he asked me home with him. Hesays:“If you will make one point clear to me, I am ready to accept the Christianreligion.”“Well,” I said, “what point is it?”“I can’t see the propriety of Jesus Christ dying for me - this idea ofsubstitution, of the innocent suffering for the guilty. I know what the Biblesays about it, but somehow or other my mind revolts at that. I do notunderstand the propriety of it.”I told him if he would come to hear me I would preach a sermon on that. He said:“If you make it plain, that very minute I will accept Jesus Christ as my Saviorimmediately as I remain in my seat.”I told him that God made angels first, each angel full grown with mature intelligence,without father or mother, without posterity, without brothers or sisters; hence, therebeing no hereditary bias or room for any other being, nothing concerning posterity todeflect the mind, the angel that sinned could not possibly be restored. It would beimproper to introduce a substitute for a sinning angel. But if God made a race in one,the race standing in that progenitor, subject to all the laws of heredity and to beswayed by the action of the ancestor, and if you and I yet unborn died in Adam,there is a propriety that a way of redemption for us should be provided in a SecondAdam, a propriety that does not exist at all in the case of an angel, and, as in thecase of that first Adam, all died by his one offense, so we are to be saved by thesecond transaction, through the Second Adam. When I got through, the Senatorcame up and offered himself for membership. (I refer to Senator Sam Bell Maxey.)He has ever since been a faithful member of the church of Jesus Christ.It is exceedingly important that we get at the root of things right off, for where thereis an error, that error will appear in the flower and in the fruit, and indeed in all thetree, and we ought to understand this first transaction here, that it was not by thewoman but by the man.The question is then, why did that man, knowing what he knew, standing by, remainsilent and see his wife beguiled by subtlety into sin? Why did he do it?There is no categorical answer to that in the Bible, but there is an inferential answerto it that comes with force, and that is that the man, hearing of the effect of the eatingof this fruit, that it was calculated to make one wise, that it gave one a knowledge ofgood and evil that is not a theoretical knowledge but a practical knowledge, anexperimental one, desired to be wise. While she parleyed, he carried on in his ownsoul the great battle of the world, and lost it; and when the fruit was handed to him,he took it and ate of it.When I was an infidel, the first jar that my infidelity ever received came from readingTom Paine’s “Age of Reason.” He makes a statement in that book that jostled myinfidelity. If it had appeared only in the first part of it, which he wrote in a Frenchprison and with no Bible before him, it would not have made such an impression on

my mind; but when he takes the pains to repeat it verbatim in his second volume withthe Bible before him, then it jostled me.And here is his statement: “If this Genesis account of the creation of the earth, andthe Garden of Eden, and the talking serpent, and the fall of man, and the flood, if thiseven may be considered as history, why is it that all the other books of the OldTestament do not so much as make allusion to it?”Well, when I read that, I began to distrust infidelity, for, while myself an infidel, I wasquite familiar with the Bible, and I knew that I could find four hundred references inthe Old Testament that he said did not even make a remote allusion to it. And ifPaine, who wrote “The Rights of Man,” the masterpiece which made his pen theequal with the sword of Washington in the attainment of our independence, found itnecessary to resort to such a statement as that in order to establish a premise for hisinfidelity, that left me to question the whole thing.In that garden two well-known rivers headed, the Tigris and the Euphrates. It waswatered by a river system of four heads. Within a few miles of each other fourmighty rivers rise. The Tigris and Euphrates after a while come together. Anotherflows into the Caspian Sea, and yet another into the Black Sea.That river system all rises in one park, and that park is today the most beautiful parkin nature. It is today like a paradise, notwithstanding Ezekiel tells us that Goddestroyed this garden so that no man could find it. That means that God destroyed itas to its heavenly beauty; but there at that place was the location of it.I am not like our Methodist brother, Bishop Keener, who says it is located atCharleston, S. C.; not like some others who locate it at the North Pole and count theAurora Borealis as the reflection of the sheen of the glory of Paradise.Now the man has fallen. Listen here to the close of that history in the third chapter ofGenesis. This is a standing or falling verse, a verse behind which the revelationstands or falls. It is the last verse of the third chapter. In reading this, I am going tofollow the rendering of those great Hebraists, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown,changing it very slightly: “So He drove out the man; and He dwelt between thecherubim at the East of the Garden of Eden, as a shekinah of fire to keep open theway to the tree of life.”Now in my youth, (and I have seen the pictures of it and a picture is a greatargument,) I had seen the picture of an angel standing there with a drawn sword, asword of fire, the object of the angel being to keep the people out of Paradise.It expresses exactly the opposite thought. It means that when God suspended thepenalty of man’s sin, He said to the woman, who was not so guilty as the man, “Theseed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head” - not the seed of the man. Theman had sinned openly, wilfully, and redemption could not come that way; but Hesaid, “The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.” That suspended thedeath penalty.That inaugurated the scheme of grace, and now God establishes a throne of grace;that is, God placed at the East of the garden a cherubim to keep open the way to thetree of life, that there might not be eternal banishment.In the very next chapter we see Cain and Abel coming up to that very place whereGod dwelt between the cherubim, coming in the appointed way and offeringsacrifice, Abel offering the sacrifice of the substitute, the vicarious expiation, thespotless lamb, forecasting the great Redeemer, and all the time God was herekeeping open the way to the tree of life.As man fell in the first Adam, he is to be restored in the second. As we died inAdam, we are to be made alive in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, the seed of the

woman.When the time came, the fullness of time which the age anticipated, the age whichevoked from every Jewish mother’s heart the hope of the maternity of the Son ofGod - when the time came, an angel came to a Jewish maiden and said, “Hail, Mary!Highly favored, the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee, and, therefore, thatholy thing that is born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”Man is not in it; woman is. He is the seed of woman. The paternity is divine, nothuman. “The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.”Now these are the first three chapters of Genesis. Take the last two chapters in theBible, and they tell us of Paradise regained. The first three tell us of Paradise lost.The last two chapters of the Bible say, or show us, that the Garden of Eden was inthe park where the Euphrates and the Tigris and the Araxes flow out from springs.John says, “He showed me a pure river of the water of life proceeding out of thethrone of God and of the Lamb;… and on either side of the river was the tree oflife,” and the redeemed going up to that tree. They came up through the SecondAdam. They came up through the one vicarious offering of the Second Adam, andnone are left on the outside except those who refuse to look at the propriety ofsalvation by a substitute.How important it is when we are studying this book on which all the other books ofthe Bible depend, that we should teach in the Sunday Schools the right thing aboutthat woman; teach them the right thing about that man.A deacon of mine said to me, “If Adam was made full-grown and had no heredity inhis particular case, how do you account for his salvation?” I said, “How do youknow that he was saved?” There is not a sentence in the Bible that tells us that Adamwas saved. When you read the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, in calling the roll of theheroes of faith, it does not mention Adam. It says, “By faith Abel” and goes on fromAbel to Moses.In the tenth chapter of Hebrews it says,“For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth,there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful lookingforward for judgment. He that despised Moses’ law died without mercyunder two or three witnesses. Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye,shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God,and hath counted the blood of the covenant an unholy thing?”“He hath trampled under foot the Son of God.” There is the sin against the Father.“He hath counted the blood of the everlasting covenant an unholy thing.” That is thesin against the Son. “He hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace.” That is the sinagainst the Holy Ghost. I certainly have no authority to preach Adam into Heaven.I have authority to preach Eve and Abel and Enoch and Noah, and then a thousandtimes ten thousand others; but if Adam was saved, we are yet to find it out. It maybe so, but the record is silent.Brother pastor, it seemed to me when I had charge of a church, that the matter oftranscendent importance was to look into the things that were taught to the children.There is a sentence - why do we forget it? Why is it not written in letters of fire in thetablets of every human heart? Why is it not placarded on the skies? That is, whenour Lord sent out His first preachers (and He would not send them until He hadinstructed them, and He gave them no authority to vary a hair’s breadth from theinstruction), when they returned they reported what they had done and what theyhad taught.Now our missionaries report what they do: Miles traveled, sermons preached,

Sunday Schools organized, prayer meetings attended, but, oh, if we just had a reportof what they taught!Now while you are out, what do you preach? While you are in the Sunday Schoolroom, what do you teach? When the young, pliant mind, at your mercy, comesbefore you, almost helpless as a buttercup that opens itself to receive the falling dew,what do you put into that mind?It is said that the young of blue-birds, if anything shakes the bush where their nest is,they will throw their mouths open and anybody or anything can come along and dropinto the open mouth a clod of dirt, or a spider, a silver moth, or anything. Oh, whenthe blue-bird’s mouth is open and the mind receptive, take heed what you teach!3. WALKING WITH GODTEXT: And Enoch walked with God and he was not, for God took him. -<010524>Genesis 5:24.I think it is quite probable that to supply the ellipsis this should read, “and he was notfound, for God took him.” To show the reasonableness of thus supplying the ellipsis,we have only to read the collateral passage describing the translation of Elijah in <120205>2Kings 2:5-18. Now, applying that narrative, I will read over again: “And Enochwalked with God, and he was not, (i.e., he was not found) for God took him tohimself.”The subject which I have selected tonight is one to me of very great interest.“Walking” in the sense used in this text never applies to doctrine; it applies toconduct, to life; as when it is said of Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, that heand his wife, Elizabeth, walked in the commandments of God. In both the Old andthe New Testament the word has that signification. For instance, when God said toSolomon, “If thou wilt walk in my ways as thy father David didst walk in my ways,”evidently referring to the life, to the conduct.Before one’s life can be such as is expressed by this text, there is something implied,something pre-supposed. The prophet Amos asks a question in the 3rd chapter and3rd verse of the book attributed to him: “How can two walk together except they beagreed?” So that if it be affirmed that two walk together, it is implied that the two areat agreement. And it also follows from the nature of the case that one of the two hadbeen at enmity with the other, and that there has been a reconciliation. So that whenwe say of any man that he walks with God, it implies that he has been reconciled toGod.It does not mean that God has conformed to him, but that he has conformed to God.It does not mean that the Lord has lowered His standard to suit the man, but that theman’s way has been subordinated to God’s way, and his life to God’s rules. It neverimplies any kind of a change on the part of God, but always upon the part of man.So that when it is affirmed of Enoch that he walked with God, it implied that therehad been a time when Enoch and God had not been at agreement, but thatsomething had occurred to put them at agreement, and that after this agreement theythen walked together.This brings up the question, “Does the Bible show anywhere when this agreementtook place between God and Enoch?” I think so. A careful study of the passageshows that Enoch commenced to walk with God when he was sixty five years old. Itis affirmed that he lived three hundred and sixty-five years, and it is affirmed thatthree hundred years he walked with God. Then he commenced to walk with Godwhen he was sixty-five years old.The mind becomes a little curious to know what it was that brought about thisagreement between God and Enoch; what occasion brought the two together. I think

the Bible tells us what the occasion was. It evidently connects the subject with thebirth of Enoch’s son, the birth of his baby boy. Up to the time that Methuselah wasborn, Enoch did not walk with God, but a child is born unto him, and from the daythat child is born, as long as he lived upon the earth, he walked with God. So we findthe occasion in the birth of this boy - the first born child.I do not know why it is so - one may speculate a great deal upon - it but the fact willnot be questioned that with children there comes a change in this world to theparents. There is something in paternity and maternity that casts a differentatmosphere about all the things of this life. The medium of vision is entirely different.The coloring is all changed.A boy has his ambitious dreams, his selfish thoughts of distinction, his ideas ofsuccess to which everything must bend, and it is an astonishing thing to him, the castof mind evidently manifested by his father and mother. He cannot understand it. Butafter a while he grows up himself and marries, and still after he marries it is a gooddeal like the prolongation of his youth.But a child comes to that family, and with the first wail of that voice, with the firstuplifting of the eyes of that newborn soul, there has come a radical and fundamentalchange in that house. Life will never be the same again. The world will never appearto be the same any more. Here has come a responsibility that could not ever beconceived of before. Here has come a joy that, without the experience of it, the heartcould not even take hold of it. The objects of life are instantly changed. With his firstborn child instantly the whole course of the father’s life is changed.He says, “I stand by myself and for myself no more. I am not now living for myself. Imust live for this child. I must live so that this pledge of God’s affection, this beingwhich is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh shall be properly reared, shall takehis proper place in the world.” So much in general.But you ask me why I ever fell upon the thought that this change in Enoch’s attitudetoward God was brought about by the birth of this child? I do not know all thatoccurred. I cannot even conceive of it. It is conjectural, but I gather that somethingoccurred in his communion with God at this point, and that, too, by a revelation - arevelation that made the birth of that child the most important thing to him in his life.And what was it? With the coming of that child was this announcement from heaven:“Do you see that baby? The world will last as long as he lives, and no longer. Whenthat child dies, the judgment of God is coming upon the earth. The windows ofheaven are going to be opened. The foundations of the great deep are going to bebroken up. That chaos will return as described in the second verse of the firstchapter of Genesis.” “When the earth was first made, it was empty and void, a wasteof water. In the process of His divine work, God separated the waters below fromthe waters above. The expanse of the heaven was spread out. There was aseparation of the waters above and below. Then a separation of the waters below,the dry land from the water.”Now God says, “When this child dies, I will restore the world to its chaotic state asit was before the expanse was created that separates the waters above and below. Iwill open the windows of heaven. That is, I will remove the expanse. I will put myfinger upon the law which keeps the waters above in the clouds, and restore it towhat it was. And if I do that, the waters that are up yonder will come down. Andthen I will take this earth that is now dry land and sea, and will break up thefoundations of the great deep, so that it shall be water and water only again.”That probably is what He said to this father. You ask me why I suppose this, sincethe record is silent. To me the record does not seem to be altogether silent. The

record itself, and that alone, suggests the thought. Consider the name given to thechild, Methuselah. That name signifies that with his departure comes this flood. In allprobability a divine revelation is memorialized in the name.Now then, let us look for a moment upon the methods by which such greatrevelation of God operated upon the mind of Enoch to bring about a radical changein him. It makes no difference how careless you are tonight about religious matters; itmakes no difference how absorbed you may be in the things of this world, you mayrealize the cause of the change in Enoch. Suppose that it should be made known toyou, and in a way that you could not question the veracity of God, that this worldwould last only as long as the life of some little child now in your house.Maybe there is a little girl at your house. What if it could be credibly conveyed toyou that this world would last just as long as that little girl would live, and no longer?Perhaps you have a little boy at your house and the message comes to you, “Thatchild’s life is the life of the world. When that child dies, the world comes to an end.”Now, as you could have no knowledge of how long or how short that life might be,there would instantly come before you the possibility of a cessation of the existenceof the earth at any time. It might be tomorrow; it might be next week; it might be nextyear; but always staring you in the face, every time you look upon the baby, or uponthe boy, upon the girl running around; every time you look; every time that child is alittle sick; every time fever comes or a slight chill, or any eruption on the skin, or anyapparent decline in health, it would seem to you as the shadow of the doom of theworld. That being so, if you believed it; if it had been made credible to you, youwould begin to say within yourself, “If this is the last of it; if the world can only last aslong as this child lives; how ought it to live?”Now, to show you how naturally and rationally that thought would come into yourmind, let me read to you again the passage of scripture which prefaced this sermon,the use of which you did not then probably anticipate. Peter says, “In the last daysthere shall come scoffers walking after their own lusts, and saying, where is thepromise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as theywere from the beginning of the creation.” “But the Lord is not slack concerning Hispromise as some men count slackness; but is long suffering to usward, not willing thatany should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lordwill come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens shall pass away with a greatnoise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works thatare therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved,what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and Godliness.Looking for and hastening unto the day of the coming of God, wherein the heavensbeing on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.”You see the practical effect of faith in that scripture, that if men believed that the dayof God is near at hand, the time of judgment, the hour when we are to stand beforeHim and answer for the deeds done in the body, and how things that engage ourattention here and absorb our minds and call out our energies, that these things areevanescent; that not only is “passing away” written upon them, but the day of theirdeparture is fixed already in the mind of God.I say with this conviction in the heart, that there is to be such a speedy termination ofthis world’s existence, as a natural, indeed, an inevitable consequence, there isforced upon the man’s mind that believeth, this thought, “What ought my life to be?”It is furthermore manifest from the fact that all men whose lives are irregular andcontinue to be irregular, are the men who by some method have closed their eyes tothe thought of a day of trial, of a wind-up of the affairs of this world. The judgment of

God and the speed with which it is coming have become inoperative in wholesomeeffects upon their minds, from the fact that they do not believe. The conviction doesnot seize upon them.But our next test supposes that this conviction did seize upon the mind of Enoch; thatit seized upon him in such a manner that he named his child in reference to it, andfrom the birth of that child he walked with God. He walked with Him as a familiarfriend and lived with reference to a speedy responsibility.A careful study of this passage shows that from the birth of that child theattractiveness of this world had lost all its power over the mind and heart of Enoch.The things which men covet most; the honors which they esteem to be the highest,and the glories that are most entrancing to their views, were in his esteem after thisrevelation from God - after this conviction took possession of his heart - were as ifthey did not exist.The two were no longer polarized. I mean that there was no conductor of influence.They did not come in touch. The earth-magnet no longer moved Enoch. He had seenan end of it. God had taken him up high enough to look over it and see how nearwas the end of all earthly things. Seeing that and knowing how little worth there wasin it, he then began to say, “As I find within myself the stirrings of immortality; as I amconscious of a deathless spirit; as I feel myself related to eternity; therefore, as thisworld, upon which I have my temporary home, is to pass away so speedily, whatshould be my preparation for the other world to which I hasten, and how shall I solive that when I pass from this world, I may go to one whose skies are never fleckedwith clouds, and whose stability is such that neither floods nor fires shall interrupt thecontinuity of their being?”It was in this way probably that his mind acted. As a proof of it, and it is one of themost notable things in history, account for it in any way you like, whenever andwherever in any age of the world any number of persons have become possessedwith a conviction of the sublunary nature of things here and of the speedy approachof their dissolution; of the nearness of their contact with the hitherto invisible things ofeternity; that as that conviction at any period of the world has touched one man ortwo or a thousand; to the extent of the touch, to that extent you find revivals ofreligion; you find men realizing in their hearts that they want something more than thisworld; that they want something more enduring than it can offer. They wantsomething to satisfy the cravings of the aroused and immortal spirit. They are nolonger willing simply to live and toil for bread and clothing, but rather that the spiritmay be fed, and that the spirit may be clothed and made happy forever.Another thought: This man, having had such a revelation of the speedy dissolution ofthe world in which he lived, what must, I ask you, have been the workings of hismind as he studied the health of that child? Looking back, the oldest man living wasnot yet dead. Adam was yet alive. He was over seven hundred years old. Some menhad died. Some had died early. Some had not lived to be one hundred. And after awhile Adam died, and here was the limit of his life. And Enoch would look at himand say, “What are the probabilities concerning this child of mine, Methuselah?”Is it not a curious and suggestive thing that the man whose life was to terminate withthe world itself, was permitted to live longer than anybody else ever did live? Is it notan exhibition of God’s mercy? As this is the child who is to live until the time comesfor the world to be swept away by a flood, and as during this interval the Word ofGod is to be preached to lead men to salvation, shall not the mercy of God prolongthat day? Shall he not live longer than any other man ever did live? Shall he not livelonger than any other man will live? Shall not his age be unique, standing out from the

age of any other, because of that from the hour of his birth the decree had goneforth, “When the breath leaves his body the throes of dissolution shall commence?”When he departs, the clouds gather and the earth sickens and the seas are uprootedin their foundations. Let him live and live and live, that space may be given for men torepent.But long before this man died, whose life was to be co-equal to the world’sexistence, the one to whom the announcement was made had left the earth, and thereis something about that worth consideration. He was a notable character. In all of themythologies of the heathen nations they have preserved some kind of a tradition withregard to him. The most of these traditions, of course, are far-fetched. But it showsthat the impress of this strange man was never effaced from the world.To him has been attributed the first acquaintance with astronomy. To this man hasbeen given the name and fame of originating a written language. With all of whichtraditions I have nothing to do and care but little about. I merely introduce thesethoughts to show that he impressed his age and subsequent ages and that he so livedwhile here upon earth that he caused men to think about him and talk about him andconjecture about him thousands of years after he had been translated.Now, his taking off was the marvelous thing, inasmuch as so much attention hadbeen attracted to him. Let us imagine ourselves living in that time when people shouldcommence to say, “Where is Enoch? Has anybody seen Enoch today?” Andinquiries are made at his home: “Where is your father?” “I do not know.” Perhapsyou ask the wife, “Where is your husband?” “I do not know; he has gone.” “Whereis Enoch?” And a search is instituted. The places he frequented are all carefullysearched and at last, as the investigators return, the question is passed back andforth, “Where is he?” And he was not found. He was gone. When had anyone evergone so before? Never.Here was a mysterious disappearance. Here was something that fixed the attentionof that age more than a thunder clap ten thousand times louder than an ordinary peal- the disappearance of Enoch. Did he die? No. Was he sick? No.Well, when other people died, we buried them. Here are their graves. We cannotbury him, for we cannot find him. Where is his body? What has become of his body?And how that thought would flash upon the people - what has become of the bodyof Enoch? He has disappeared. He cannot be found. Up to a certain time theobservers saw him. One would say, “I saw him here last week.” Another: “I saw himthere the day after, but where is he now?” Was it witchcraft?Compare the scene recorded in the second book of Kings, where fifty sons of theprophets, unto whom God had made the revelation that Elijah would be called upaway from the earth without dying, determined to witness his departure, and theywatched Elijah and Elisha. And they say to Elisha, “Do you know that today Elijah isgoing to be taken away from you?” “Yes, I know it.” And those two walk offtogether. And Elijah says to Elisha: “You stop here.” And they go to another place.“Then stop here.” “I will not stop. As my soul liveth, I am going to hold on to you. Iwant to know where you are going. I want to know how you go. There is the recordof a man’s disappearing once before and where he went and how he went, no onecan tell. This time I will see.”And Elijah says to him, “What would you ask of me?” “Give me thy spirit. Let adouble portion of thy spirit, the equivalent of it, let that come upon me. That is, whenyou leave, let an equal power of the spirit now on you be upon me, that the worldshall not be deprived of the like of your example.”Ah, if some one had thought of that in Enoch’s time, if some one had clung to him

and said, “As I live and as the Lord liveth, I will cling to thee and follow thee, andwhen you leave, let an equivalent of your spirit be given unto me.” Nobody thoughtof it.But now, mark you, Elijah said, “If you can see me when I go, then you shall have anequivalent of the spiritual power that is on me.” That test is not an arbitrary one; it isrequired by the nature of the case, that no man could have the spirit of power thatrested on Elijah unless his faith was so sublimated and etherealized that he could lookthrough the grossness of earth and see the outshinings of heaven and a higher andpurer spiritual life. Hence he says, “If you can see me, it will be so.” And Elisha sawhim, and as he went up he shouted, “My father, my father, the chariot of God andthe horsemen thereof!” And he picked up the prophet’s falling mantle and smote withit the waters of Jordan as Elijah had done, and called upon the name of the God ofElijah to see if the spirit rested upon him that rested upon his master, and the waterswere divided. The disappearance in this case was located. Here was one witness; hesaw it.These were adumbrations - they threw long shadows ahead. They point to what willtake place when Jesus comes. What is it? Paul says, “Brethren, I will show you amystery. We shall not all die. There will be a large number of them living when Jesuscomes, and all the Christians living when He comes shall be changed in a moment, inthe twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. There shall occur a spiritual sanctification.There shall occur a bodily glorification. Mortality shall put on immortality withoutpassing through the throes of death, and corruption shall put on incorruption withoutdecay or dissolution, without being laid down in the loathsome charnel house.”Many - perhaps thousands and tens of thousands - will be alive when Jesus comes.In the twinkling of an eye they shall be translated and glorified and caught up toheaven, soul and body.Paul says that Enoch was not (i.e., was not found), for God translated him. This is anold Latin word, an irregular verb, and it simply means carried over or carried across.God carried him across. Across what? Across death. Death is the river that dividesthis world from the world to come, and here was a man that never did go through theriver at all. When he got there, God carried him across. God transferred him,translated him; God picked him up and carried him over and put him on the othershore. And walking along here in time and talking in time and communing with Godby faith, in one instant he was communing with God by sight in another world.Faith - oh, precious faith! Faith has turned to sight and hope to fruition in a singlemoment. Enoch was translated. God took him. And it made an impression on thatday, on this day, and on every day. There are only those two instances.Now, I want to make, in conclusion, an application of this subject. What, undercircumstances detailed in the narrative of the life of Enoch, and of the statementsmade by the Apostle Peter - what are the things that keep people from soberlyreflecting? What are the things that stand in the way of preparation? What are thethings which, if removed, thousands would be convicted in an instant?It is unbelief with reference to spiritual things; with reference to the coming of the Sonof God; with reference to the fact that the world in which we live is the threshold onlyof the grand building of the world to come.Now, when you sit down by any one of your acquaintances and try to engage him inserious conversation, what obstacles do you encounter? The power of this world,the pride of life, the lust of the flesh. The whole vision is filled. And you try to edge inor to wedge in a word about personal responsibility to God. “Oh, there will be nojudgment; things are moving on today like they did last year, a hundred years ago.

They will move on that way another thousand years.”Will they move that way to you a thousand years? Will it last that long to you? Will itlast a hundred years to you? Will it last fifty for you? Are you right sure that it will lasttwenty-five for you? Even if the world should last another thousand years, what isthat to the individual? You will not last that long.Your death fifty years hence will be a more momentous thing than God’sannouncement to Enoch that “when this child dies the end will come,” because thatchild lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years. With all that tremendous effect uponthe mind of Enoch, it was nearly one thousand years off.But is yours that far off? Is it not nearer to each one of us here than it was to him? Isit not by many hundreds of years nearer to us than it was to him? Now, why cannotwe be induced as he was induced, to think about walking with God?Seeing that these things are to be dissolved, so far as we are concerned, in a veryshort time, what manner of persons ought we to be? What if you die in one year?What if the places on earth that know you now shall know you no more forever afterone year? What if your friends come and ask about you and say, “Where is he? Cananybody tell me where he is gone?” He is gone from the world, never to come back.“Gone where? Where and to what?”Oh, if I could by the Spirit’s power tonight bring down upon your hearts someconviction resulting from the manifest brevity of your life! It is not only short, but itsthread is brittle and may snap in a moment. Shall not Enoch’s case profit you at all?Fix your mind on it. He looks out - nine hundred and sixty-nine years into the future,and sees the end of the world. He stands and looks at it-nine hundred and sixty-nineyears off, but it is the end of the world. How does it affect him? How does he applythe knowledge? “Henceforward, I will walk with God.”Now, here you are. How far is it to the world’s end with you? How much do yousay? None of you will say one hundred years; perhaps fifty; perhaps twenty-five;perhaps ten; perhaps one. Maybe only one month. Why, then, can’t you feel it likehe felt it; why does not the conviction come to you as it came to him?It is because “the God of this world hath blinded the eyes of them which believenot.” He has put a bandage, impenetrable and inscrutable, upon the eyes of thepeople, that they cannot see the nearness and the certainty of the approach of deathand of being ushered out of this world forever.Now, that is why I took this subject tonight, January, eighteen hundred and ninetyfour.In all human probability, one-fifth of us here in this house tonight will never seenineteen hundred. That is only six years off. Some of you certainly will never see that.Oh, believe it! The crape will be hanging on some of your door-knobs beforeeighteen hundred and ninety-five. Some homes now happy will be desolate beforesummer comes. There will be empty cradles and vacant chairs.I speak of probabilities, judging from what is occurring all along. And yet, howstrange! We carelessly move along and say, “Where is the promise of His coming?”No preparations to meet God; no living with reference to eternity! God help youtonight to see that and feel that.Is it wrong? Is it contrary to what you think is best? Is it inexpedient? Feeling aboutthis as I do feel about it, do you think it would be best for me to stop right here andmake no effort to lead some soul here now to the thought of preparation for God?Who can tell? It may be that God, in His infinite mercy, may have made this night theoccasion of the turning point of salvation to some mortal spirit, as He made the birthof that child the turning point in the life of Enoch. Some of you have children. Theirresponsibility is on you. They catch their cue from you. They walk the way you walk.

They imbibe your spirit; your shadow is on your boy, on your girl, on your home. Ofather, mother, when you think of your child, had you not better prepare to meetGod?What is life to young people? What know they of its anguish; what of itsresponsibilities? They hear the song of the siren; their eye is dimmed with the glare ofearth’s tinsel; they are swept away on the tidal wave of youth’s buoyant feeling. Butoh, grown men and women, fathers and mothers, to whom God has committedchildren, how can you put your hand upon the face of a sleeping child one night andnot prepare to meet God?Sometimes, even in the thoughtlessness of youth, through a rift in the clouds, thedivine benediction falls like a halo of light, and some little Samuel hears the voice ofGod, and says, “Lord, here am I.” Some Timothy, reading the Scriptures andhearing his mother or his grandmother expound them, says, “Lord, here am I.”Young man, will you not turn tonight? Oh, see the line of demarcation. Who crossesnext? Maiden, is it you? Shall we very soon sadly inquire: “Where is she?” “She isnot.” “Not found.” “In that grave. There, the coffin holds its ashes. Her soul is notthere.” “Where is she?”O, eternity, eternity, eternity! I beg you now, right now, take a step in the directionof heaven. I plead with you in view of the brittle thread of life; in view of its brevity,in view of the judgment, in view of the eternity of being, which must come when wepass out of this state of existence, I entreat you, begin now to walk with God.Who walks not with Him here shall never walk with Him yonder in white. Bereconciled to Him tonight, that you may begin to walk with Him tomorrow. Who isnot reconciled here is irreconciled forever. Be a child - a spiritual child of God,learning to walk on the King’s highway-stepping heavenward. O, take a step tonight,thou fearful, trembling one! God holds out His hands. Walk into His arms of love.4. REASONS FOR BEING BAPTIZEDTEXT: Why baptizest thou then? - <430125>John 1:25.The occasion is so solemn and suggestive, that though scarcely able to stand or talk,yet, as your pastor, I feel constrained to impress upon your minds something of thenature and obligations of the religious duty you are now about to perform.I see you appareled for baptism. The tones of the church bell have called us toattend a burial service. The carriages are waiting at the door to conduct you to awatery grave. You yourselves have declared that you are dead - dead to the world;and the dead should be buried. You have publicly and solemnly abjured the world,the things of the world and all its fleshly lusts; and have now come to set forth in avisible ordinance your everlasting separation from it - from its follies, its madness andits crimes.When men die a natural death, “the places that knew them on earth know them nomore forever.” (<180710>Job 7:10.) The name is stricken from the visiting list and fadesfrom the memory of old associates. So when men are spiritually dead to the worldand alive to Christ, when “their lives are hid with Christ in God,” then all the oldhaunts of folly and all the old scenes of infidelity and rebellion are never to befrequented any more. After your burial from that world, you “rise to walk in newnessof life.”A remarkable feature of this burial service consists in the absence of any indicationsof mourning. Though so many of the young, beautiful and gifted are to be buriedtoday, there are no tears here! The burial is figurative, and suggestive of hope andlife.Dear young brethren and sisters, the step that you are now about to take calls for a

rational explanation. This ordinance is so peculiar that every inquiring mind, yea, andyour own consciences, require a reason for its observance. And since it is no part ofreligion to perform an irrational, meaningless act, it is due to your intelligence that youknow why you are baptized.A reason is due to a curious world, who have, “from the days of John the Baptistuntil now,” thronged the river-side to witness the performance of this ordinance.Your present religious attitude is every way favorable to a full and clearunderstanding of this question. In fact, never before were you prepared to study andappreciate the import of the ordinance of baptism. According to your profession,you have just found Jesus precious to your souls in the forgiveness of your sins.Having surrendered yourselves, body, soul and spirit, to the service of theRedeemer, it is presumed that you are sufficiently docile to receive any of His laws,and sufficiently faithful to obey them.You will bear witness that during the late meeting none of the ministers pressed thissubject upon your minds. They did not believe that its solemnity, its import, itsphilosophy and obligations could be anticipated by impenitent and unbelieving hearts.But now the great question confronts you. It lies just in your path. You may notevade it. You dare not neglect it. For yourselves, in the fear of God, you must studyit - must understand it - must decide upon it - must act upon its requirements.I have therefore selected as an appropriate text the query propounded by the priestsand Levites to the first great baptizer, “Why baptizest thou then?” (<430125>John 1:25.)This question is a trenchant one and probes for the reason of the thing. Why, whybaptizest thou? In order that you may feel the full force, the penetrating power of thisinquiry, it will be changed so as to apply directly to you as individuals - ”Why artthou baptized?” Angels and devils, no doubt, stand in the same questioning attitude.The world which you have left reiterates the solemn interrogation. Let your ownconscience take up and repeat to your soul, “Why, oh, why am I baptized?” I warnyou before God this day to be able to give a reasonable answer to this question.In order that you may be able to give a reason, a reason sufficient to satisfy God,angels, men and your enlightened consciences, I invite your prayerful attention, first,to a discussion of the question negatively and then to a consideration of someScripture references that in my judgment disclose the philosophy of this solemninstitution.In the first place then, bear in mind that you are not baptized “to cleanse you fromoriginal sin.” There is no intrinsic virtue in water to secure the object and no extrinsicvirtue is given to it by authority of God.No priestly mummery can impart this holy efficacy to water.There is no holy water.“The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin” - original sin, and every other kindof sin.Nor are you baptized that you may obtain the “pardon of your actual sins.” TheWord of God declares that “Whosoever believeth in Jesus shall receive the remissionof sins.” (<441043>Acts 10:43, 13:39 and 26:18.)Whatever may be your present religious condition, if your sins are not blotted outnow, they will not be blotted out when you are baptized. And if you are not nowdead to sin and free from its claims, you have no right to be baptized. It wouldconstitute the claim of burying a live man.You are not baptized “to regenerate you.” For “Whosoever loveth is born of God.”(<620407>1 John 4:7.) And “Whosoever that believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born ofGod.” (<620501>1 John 5:1.)

No, it is an absurd fallacy to make the water our mother as God is our Father.“Jerusalem which is above, is the mother of us all.” (<480426>Galatians 4:26.)Nor are you baptized that “a mark may be put upon you, that will keep the devilfrom devouring you.” The Christian religion is not a system of magic and jugglery.We need no charms, no amulets, no consecrated wood or stone or metal. These arethings of grossest superstition and idolatry.Furthermore you are not baptized “to engraft you into Christ.” Baptism never put aman into Christ, only figuratively, formally.The Apostle declares that it is “By faith we enter into this grace wherein we stand.”(<450502>Romans 5:2.) If you be not now in Christ Jesus, your baptism will be a solemnmockery, an unmeaning farce.Nor yet are you baptized that you may be sealed unto God. Nowhere in the inspiredrecord is baptism called a seal. There is no safe ground for inference even that thisordinance is to be so regarded. If indeed you are a child of God, “the Holy Spiritseals you unto the day of redemption.” (<490113>Ephesians 1:13.)There are good and divine purposes subserved by submission to this ordinance, butit does not cleanse us from original sin, nor secure pardon for actual transgression,nor engraft into Christ, nor regenerate, nor is it a mark that saves us from Satanicmalice, nor seals us, nor becomes our spiritual mother, and finally, it is not aprerequisite to “the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Bear in mind that you are not baptizedthat you may receive the Holy Ghost.The discussion of this question negatively might be extended to indefinite limits, butas these are, according to our conception, some of the most frequent and prominenterrors with regard to the ordinance, let us now consider positively and affirmativelysome of the scriptural reasons that induce obedience to this commandment. Thequestion then recurs, “Why art thou baptized?”My first reason is, Because my Savior commands it. (<402819>Matthew 28:19.)This is my grand reason. I have promised to obey all His known commandments.The simple fact that a father commands is an all-sufficient reason to a dutiful child. Ibelieve that I love Jesus, and He says, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”(<431415>John 14:15.) Like the Psalmist of old, “I will have respect to all Hiscommandments.” (<19B906>Psalm 119:6.)And if it was my Savior’s “meat and drink to do His Father’s will,” then to obey Hiswill shall be “more to me than my necessary food.” Yes, this shall be my chiefreason. He commands it, and He is the Christ of God.My second reply to the question is, I am baptized to complete righteousness.(<400315>Matthew 3:15.) If the Son of God, high and holy as He was, thus fulfilledrighteousness, in obedience to a purpose and revelation of God, I shall perform arighteous act in submitting myself to His law.My third reason is, “Baptism is becoming.” I know that some declare the hatedimmersion to be indelicate to the refined mind, immoral to the soul, and unhealthy tothe body, but the Master, in submitting to it, said, “Thus it becometh us.”(<400315>Matthew 3:15.) If His immaculate purity was not shocked at it, no false delicacyin me, a guilty sinner, need apprehend pollution. If while His body was dripping, fromthe sacred submersion, the infinitely Holy Spirit rested in approbation upon Him,surely my imitation of His submission will not be unbecoming. If the glory of Godflashed upon the disturbed and divided waters, and the Father’s voice was heardsaying, “I am well pleased,” surely a worm of the dust ought not to be displeased atany supposed indecency in this holy ordinance.Yes, I believe that it is becoming, not only where there is much water, but in the land

of drouth and in the frozen zone. For the omniscient Savior contemplated everydesert and every ice-bound coast when He said, “Go teach all nations, baptizingthem.” (<402818>Matthew 28:18.)My fourth reason is my desire “To follow Jesus.” In all things commanded orpermissible, I wish to follow Jesus. My soul hears His voice echoing through thecenturies, “If any man would be my disciple, let him deny himself, and take up hiscross daily, and follow me.” (<420923>Luke 9:23.) And ever on the King’s highway mysong shall be:“His track I see, and I’ll pursueThe narrow way till Him I view.”It is of sublime importance to me to know how Jesus was baptized. And thoughthere should be a thousand ways admissible, I prefer to follow Jesus.My fifth reason is that in being baptized I “publicly profess Christ.” (<480327>Galatians3:27.) Paul says, “As many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put onChrist.”I know that in the sight of the holy heavens, of the damning law, of the malice of hell,of the contradiction of sinners, the Savior professed His love for me. In the mostconspicuous place on earth, in a central blaze of light, in the presence of threeworlds, He stood out and confessed His love for me, a vile and guilty rebel.And shall I be ashamed of the Son of God before a sinful generation? How solemnto my heart is that fearful declaration,“Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I also confessbefore my Father in heaven. And whosoever shall deny me before man, himwill I also deny before my Father in heaven.” (<401032>Matthew 10:32, 33.)My sixth reason is that I voluntarily and deliberately choose to be baptized. That is, Iam not baptized because another wills it. I am not coerced. I am not baptizedbecause my father or mother or priest forces me to submit to the ordinance. Mine isan individual, conscious act, whose sole responsibility belongs to myself. I have noproxy, no sponsor. The knowledge of my baptism is not derived from parentaltestimony, nor parish records. I desire that my own baptism in this particular shallconform to Biblical example, where it is stated, “Then cometh Jesus to the Jordan tobe baptized of him,” and “then went the people to John to be baptized of him.”My seventh reason is that by being baptized I recognize the three manifestations ofthe Godhead and thereby express my belief in the Holy Trinity, Father, Son andSpirit. Being, by command of Jesus, baptized into the joint names of these gloriouspersonages, I thereby declare that I love God the Father, believe in God the Son andhave felt God the Holy Spirit. If there be force in this reason, it follows that not onlyis baptism inadmissible to an infidel or atheist, but also to one who has not from theheart believed in the Son of God as a personal Savior and yet again to one who hasnot experienced the life-giving breath of the Spirit of God. (<402819>Matthew 28:19.)My eighth reason is that by being baptized, I formally, figuratively, declaratively washaway my sins. Having been really cleansed from all sin by the blood of Christ, andhaving been justified from all things by the faith in Jesus, by baptism this remission isset forth in a figure. The baptism is a public declaration of a previously existing fact.Hence Ananias said to Paul, “And now why tarriest thou, arise and be baptized andwash away thy sins.” (<442216>Acts 22:16.) Paul had not any power really to wash awayhis sins and water was not the real element of spiritual cleansing.My ninth reason is that I have repented of my sins. It is recorded that John theBaptist preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. And Peter, onthe day of Pentecost, said to the convicted Jews, “Repent and be baptized.”

(<440238>Acts 2:38.) Inasmuch then as I have repented toward God, I desire to bebaptized in the name of God. It is idle, vain and impious mockery to baptize a maninto the name of God before his mind is changed toward God.My tenth reason is that I have believed in Jesus as my Savior.This reason harmonizes with the record, “He that believeth and is baptized.”(<411616>Mark 16:16.) Since I trust the Son of God as my Redeemer, it is lawful for me tobe baptized, for Philip said to the inquiring Eunuch, “If thou believest with all thyheart, thou mayest.” (<440827>Acts 8:27.) And when also the Samaritans believed thisevangelist, preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, “They werebaptized both men and women.” (<440812>Acts 8:12.) Likewise it is stated that “many ofthe Corinthians hearing, believed and were baptized.” (<441808>Acts 18:8.)My eleventh reason is that baptism is essential to church membership. Paul declares,“For by (in) one Spirit are we all baptized into one body.” (<461213>1 Corinthians 12:13.)I am not content to love Jesus secretly, like Joseph of Arimathea (<431938>John 19:38).But wishing to be a member of His visible kingdom and to bear a part in theresponsibility, joys and toils and rewards of His church, therefore I am baptized. I donot believe that I can be as good a Christian out of the church as in it. I wish to workin the Master’s vineyard as a recognized and appointed laborer.My twelfth reason is that by being baptized I may approach the table of my Lordand in the Holy Communion show forth His death.I believe that the Word of God clearly shows that no unbaptized man, howeverpious, has a right to commune. According to the Savior’s appointment we must “eatand drink at His table, in His kingdom.” (<422230>Luke 22:30.) We learn also that it wasonly when the Pentecostal converts were baptized that “they continued steadfastly inthe Apostles’ doctrine, etc., and in the breaking of bread.” Other Scriptures alsoplainly show that it was only baptized Christians, assembled in church capacity, whocelebrated the communion. (<442007>Acts 20:7-11 and <461016>1 Corinthians 10:16 and 11:18-34.)My thirteenth reason is that baptism is the monument attesting the burial andresurrection of Jesus. That is a proof and pledge of my own resurrection at the lastday. (<450604>Romans 6:4; <510212>Colossians 2:12; <461529>1 Corinthians 15:29; <600321>1 Peter 3:21.)A fourteenth reason, one that justifies my exclusive attachment to immersion as theonly baptism, is that it is the only conspicuous monument. A monument is erected tobe seen. It must be striking. It should have the power, by its grandeur or peculiarity,to attract attention and draw crowds to look upon it. It should have the power tosuggest and impress. Now for the accomplishment of these varied purposes,immersion is pre-eminently fitting. The infinite wisdom of God discarded a monumentof brass, iron or stone, for that would not only be local, but subject to the crumblingtouch of time and the ravages of man. He selected a monument that could be seen bymultitudes that no house could accommodate. He selected a monument that coulddraw these crowds of people together, chain their attention and solemnly impresstheir minds.In fact, this ordinance is so peculiar, so striking, that when John the Baptist firstadministered it, there went out to him “Jerusalem and all Judea and all the regionround about the Jordan.” (<400305>Matthew 3:5.) The gathering of the multitudes was likethe assembling of the people at the great national festivals: Pharisees, Sadducees,Essenes, publicans and harlots. Our Savior remarked upon this strange influencewhen He said,“What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind?But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment?”

(<401107>Matthew 11:7, 8.)Since that time in every generation, the administration of this ordinance by theBaptists has been eagerly witnessed by vast crowds of people.As a fifteenth reason, it justifies God. (<420720>Luke 7:20): “And all the people that heard,and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John.”When we despise a message, messenger or ordinance of God, we reflect upon Hiswisdom and goodness. But when we implicitly yield ourselves to any of Hisrequirements and thereby profit ourselves, we not only honor God, but we justify Hiswisdom and goodness in making such a provision. We exhibit by the beneficial resultthat there pre-existed a necessity for His requirement, and thus in the eyes of menexculpate the divine wisdom from the charge of foolish and unnecessary legislation.As a sixteenth and final reason, I am baptized because it is the counsel of God.(<420730>Luke 7:30): “But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God againstthemselves, being not baptized of John.” Profoundly grateful to the Father of merciesfor His tenderness and love for me, I desire to be guided and controlled by Hiscounsel. Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do?Then when by any intelligence the question is propounded to me, “Why art thoubaptized?” my answer is ready. I am prepared to give a reason for my faith to anyinquirer. I am not baptized to be sealed, to be regenerated, to seek a spiritual motherin the water. I am not baptized to obtain the gift of the Holy Spirit, to be engraftedinto Christ, nor to receive a magical mark of deliverance from Satanic malice. But Iam baptized because my Savior commanded it, to fulfill righteousness, and to followJesus. I am baptized because I have repented toward God and have believed in theLord Jesus Christ. I am baptized to secure membership in the church, the visiblekingdom of God, and to be permitted to show forth the Lord’s death in the HolyCommunion. I am baptized so that I can publicly declare my allegiance to Christ andexpress my faith in the Holy Trinity. I am baptized because it is becoming, because Ican thereby figuratively wash away my sins, and because it is the counsel of God. Iam baptized, not because I am coerced by parental, priestly or national authority,nor to secure a Christian burial, nor to be eligible to office, but because I, myself,voluntarily and deliberately choose to obey my Savior. I am baptized to justify Godand to show forth the burial and resurrection of my adorable Redeemer, and tosecure a pledge of my own future victory over death and the spirit world.I am baptized to declare to that grim monster, death, who has made this oldgraveyard of a world populous with the buried victims of six thousand years, thatrisen millions will one day sing, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thyvictory?”5. THE HEAVENLY JERUSALEMTEXT: Let Jerusalem come into your mind. - <245150>Jeremiah 51:50.I wish first to give a brief historical introduction to the text. The prophet Jeremiahcommenced to prophesy in the eleventh year of the reign of Josiah, king of Judah,and he continued to prophesy until in King Zedekiah’s time Judah was led intocaptivity by the Babylonians, bringing about the very calamities which have beencited in the latter passage of scripture read.After he had announced this very captivity that would come upon Judah, he alsoannounced in the context that after seventy years God would restore them to theirland and their temple should be rebuilt, and that this restoration would be introducedby the destruction of Babylon, which had led them into captivity. God commandedhim to write out the precise doom of Babylon, telling exactly how it would come andtelling how long it would last, that is, forever, and commanded him to take that

statement of the doom that was coming upon Babylon as a lion comes up from theswelling of the Euphrates (and that is the way it came), announcing that when it camethat great city should become the abode of wild beasts forever, and that not even anArabian should pitch his tent there, and commanded the prophet to tie that prophecyto a rock and sink it in the Euphrates, through which, by being turned aside out of itschannel, a way should be opened into that city.In the midst of the announcement of the gathering storm-cloud of invasion fromPersia and Medea under the direction of Cyrus, in the midst of the proclamation thatthe then greatest city in the world should be demolished and that its very site shouldbecome a quagmire and the abode of owls and bats and scorpions and serpents andlions, in the very midst of the downfall of the great oppressor who had led them intocaptivity, our text says, “Let Jerusalem come into your mind.”What did it mean in that connection? In Jerusalem was once the temple, the center ofunity, which held the symbol of the divine presence. The worship of God constitutedthe cord which held the people together, the cohering principle of the nation, and asby departure from God they had been scattered, so now, as the oppressor is aboutto fall, he says, “Let Jerusalem come into your mind.” Remember Jerusalem with itstemple; it shall be again.A number of these people in the seventy years of their captivity had becomenaturalized as Babylonians, and hey had forgotten Jerusalem. Now he says to thesepeople who are about to make their permanent home in this land of the enemy, “LetJerusalem come into your mind.” Don’t stay here. Don’t think of remaining in thiscountry. Your enemy is falling. The restorer is at hand. “Let Jerusalem come intoyour mind.”In the next place these men had been carried into captivity on account of their sins,and they were desolate on account of unforgiven iniquity. The way of approach toGod had been closed up and now it was about to be re-opened. To these men,bowed down with their sins, and finding no rest and peace in that strange land, thetext says, “Let Jerusalem come into your mind.”There, when that temple is restored, will be made plain the way of approach to God.Again, by sacrifices offered according to the law; again, through the administration ofyour own high priest, shall an atonement be made for sin, and you shall be pardonedand all your past offenses blotted out.A great many of those people were heart-broken. Their sorrows have been referredto in some of the scriptures read. They are described as being unlike all othersorrows, calamities deeper than any others, gloom more impervious than any others.And now, to those people who have fed upon the bread of bitterness, watered withthe tears of affliction, the text says, “Let Jerusalem come into your mind.” If you letJerusalem come into your mind, the entrance of that thought will come like light in thenight of your sorrow. It will show you that there is consolation for any affliction whichmay come upon you.These are but some of the many thoughts suggested by this text in its primary andnatural connection.Now Jerusalem was a type, and all these words are typical, and they throw forwarda signification to our time. Everything that is written in the Old Testament scriptures isfor our admonition, and it becomes us, therefore, to see from this lesson which hasbeen given of typical Jerusalem and its typical sanctuary, what lessons are thrownforward to us in this antitypical state.I have some scriptures to read to you that will introduce the other two thoughts ofthe sermon, and I want you to hear these scriptures. I want to show you what the

first antitype of Jerusalem was. I read from the fourth chapter of the letter to theGalatians: “Which things are an allegory (that is, about Hagar and Sarah), for theseare the two covenants; the one from Mount Sinai, which is Hagar. For this Hagar isMount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondagewith her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.For it is written, Rejoice thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry thou thattravailest not; for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath ahusband.”It is evident from this scripture that one of the antitypes of Jerusalem under the OldTestament dispensation is the New Testament, the new covenant. I say that theantitype of Jerusalem is the new covenant and that covenant is presented to us underthe image of a woman, Sarah, the wife of Abraham, and that covenant is called amother. Jerusalem which is above is free, and is the mother of us all. This newcovenant, presented as a woman and presented as a mother, is represented ashaving more children than the old covenant. The new heritage shall be transcendentlygreater than the old.Now when I preach to you today, “Let Jerusalem come into your mind,” I mean,first, let Jerusalem which is the mother of us all come into your mind. Let the newcovenant come into your mind. And in order that you may get this still more clearlybefore you, I read two or three more scriptures. The first is from the second chapterof Isaiah and the second verse:“And it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord’shouse shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exaltedabove the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall goand say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the houseof the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk inHis paths, for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the Word of God fromJerusalem.”Now that scripture distinctly says that a mountain of the Lord’s house shall beestablished, and it is called Mount Zion, and it is called Jerusalem, and it is the newcovenant dispensation. When we turn to the New Testament we find this scripturewhich two prophets give, both Micah and Isaiah. We find this scripture cited by theapostles as having fulfillment in the preaching of the gospel of the new covenant; andwhen it is said that the law of the Lord goeth forth from Mount Zion, and when it issaid that the nations of the earth shall go up to Mount Zion, to Jerusalem, it does notrefer to any local Jerusalem. It does not refer to that Jerusalem which held the templeas a type. But it refers to Jerusalem, the new covenant, that Jerusalem which has nowall of partition between the nations; that Jerusalem which welcomes the Gentile intoits courts as well as the Jew, and breaks down all the barriers between the people,and that this Jerusalem shall become very fruitful.Let me read one other scripture on that. I want to get that scripture clearly beforeyou. The eighty-seventh Psalm refers to the same thing: “The Lord loveth the gates ofZion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.” Now, he is not talking about Zion - localZion. “And of Zion it shall be said, this and that man was born in her; and the Highesthimself shall establish her. The Lord shall count when He writeth up the people thatthis man was born there.”Now here is a city of Zion that is represented as giving birth to many children. This isSarah. This is the new covenant under the imagery of Sarah, being abundantlyblessed with children, the mother of us all.Now before I get to the climax thought of this subject, I want to impress for a short

time this second thought of the text, “Let Jerusalem come into your mind.” I knowthat your minds are much preoccupied with other things. I know that ten thousandother things are clamoring for your attention. I know that each one of you will claimthat you have just as many things as you can think about, as many things as you canattend to. And yet, though the door to your heart is crowded with applicants seekingadmission, seeking an audience, seeking an interview, seeking some attention at yourhands, I raise my voice above the crowds that press upon your attention, and I say,“Let Jerusalem come into your mind.” Let the new covenant of God have yourattention.Oh, do not defer the interview which God’s cause asks of you. Do not give otherthings precedence. Do not make this covenant of God, which is the hope of theworld, wait in the antechamber until the thousand other visitors have been heard andtreated civilly, and the matters that they present for attention carefully examined byyou. Before any of them, as worthier than any of them, as dearer to you than any ofthem, I say to you, “Let Jerusalem come into your mind.”I will suppose that you are sitting down in your office, and that you are thoughtfullygoing over your business affairs. You ought to do this, if you do not. You are castingup your accounts and balancing your books, and you are determining this question,“What shall I do with my money? Where shall I place my investments? How much ofit shall I give to pleasure? How much of it shall I give to society? How much of itshall I give to the food and clothing of the body?”Now I would like to say a word right there: While you are counting the money, whileyou are mentally apportioning your income, while you are deciding just what you aregoing to do with the proceeds that are in hand, brother, sister, “Let Jerusalem comeinto your mind.”Oh, do not thrust aside the cause of God and make it last, and give it the leastconsideration when you determine what you will do with your money! I stand beforeyour conscience and argue, and I interrogate and cross-question, with a view to elicitthe true facts in the case. How much do you give of your money for pleasure in ayear? How much do you give merely to maintain your social position in a year?Now, is not this cause of God, this new covenant, which contains the life and hopeof the world, of paramount importance? Does it not deserve prime consideration?Are not its claims greater than the claims of any other appeal that is made to yourpurse, and have you not, in the year which has gone - have you not disposed of yourmoney without letting a solitary thought of Jerusalem come into your mind? Did youturn a deaf ear when that call knocked at your door? Did you turn away your eyefrom Jerusalem, the mother of us all? Who would refuse to hear a mother? Whowould steel his heart against her pleadings? Who would bring shame and scorn uponher gray head? What son is so flinty-hearted, so forgetful of benedictions andministrations, so forgetful of the love with which she has wrapped him as a mantlefrom the hour of his birth to the present time, as to say “no” to his mother?Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all, God being the Father; that covenant thatcontains the light and hope of the world, O man, did you let it come into your mind?Is it true that the cause of God is not at all in your thought? Is it true that you haveallowed your mind in its thoughts and fancies and imaginations and reasonings, in itsplans and provisions, to take hold of anything and everything with which it came incontact, and yet the highest and holiest and grandest of all the things upon this earth,have you refused to think about that?Let us take it in another form. Your mind is very much engaged in progress, theenlargement of Waco, the securing of new railroads, the erection of a Cotton Palace,

the gathering together of political parties. All is fish that comes to your net, and youwelcome any crowd from anywhere that will come here, that will help to build up thefinancial prosperity of this city, that will increase the city limits, that will make thevacant spaces fill up, that will enlarge your population, and all the time the slogan is“Progress! Forward! Movement!”Ah, man, let Jerusalem come into your mind. Let the outward reach of the power ofthe gospel, as it touches the heart of the sinner, come into your mind.I want to ask you if you have rightly divided your thoughts, if you have apportionedyour thoughts among the various subjects entitled to attention, and according to thejust weight of each and the lawful claim of each.Jerusalem represents the salvation of sinners in this town. Have you let that come intoyour mind? Have you given as much thought to the erection of a tabernacle whichshall be used for the leading of souls to Christ as to the erection of a Cotton Palacewhich shall add to your commercial prosperity? Now answer fairly.I confess that one of the sorest trials that I have had in persuading myself from astern sense of duty, to ask you to release me for a short time to help the generalgood - I say the sorest trial is that I will not be here to press what I conceive to be amatter of greater moment than any material progress that this city can make, and thatis ample and suitable provision for sinners to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and tobe converted to God. I trust that every sermon that is preached in this pulpit in myabsence will lay stress and emphasis upon that peculiar mission of the church ofJesus Christ, to carry the gospel to lost souls here in Waco.I think of it whenever I see two men quarreling, two brethren. I feel like going up andsaying, “Let Jerusalem come into your mind. Behold how good and pleasant it is forbrethren to dwell together in unity.” Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Let her interestsoverride any selfish thought, anything which touches you as a man, anything whichtouches your individual concern. Above all the ranklings and strifes, above all theambitions and prejudices, above all the confusing tumults and contests that areengendered by spite, or brought about by other causes, high over them all, as a voicethat can bring peace to a troubled sea, should this text come, “Let Jerusalem comeinto your mind.” For the sake of the cause of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ,that sinners may be saved, that nations may come up to the cross of God, that soulsmay be converted, that mourners may be comforted, that sad hearts may becheered, that weak and struggling people may be helped, that the unfortunate whosenames are Marah, daughters of bitterness, may be called Beulah, oh, God, help thypeople to let Jerusalem come into their minds!I now come to the last thought of this text, a much higher and grander thought,because it is the second antitype and the great antitype. I read from the twelfthchapter of Hebrews:“But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, theheavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the generalassembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and toGod, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and toJesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling thatspeaketh better things than that of Abel.”In the same connection I read from the eleventh chapter, bearing upon the samesubject: “For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and makeris God. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seenthem afar off, and were persuaded of them and embraced them, and confessed thatthey were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare

plainly that they seek a country. And truly if they had been mindful of that countryfrom whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. Butnow they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly. Wherefore God is not ashamedto be called their God, for He hath prepared for them a city.”I read from the third chapter of the book of Revelation and the twelfth verse:“Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and heshall go no more out; and I will write upon him the name of my God, and thename of the city of my God, which is the new Jerusalem, which comethdown out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.”I read as the last passage presenting this antitypical thought from the twenty-firstchapter of Revelation:“And I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God outof heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard agreat voice out of heaven saying, Behold the tabernacle of God is with men,and He will dwell with them and they shall be His people, and God himselfshall be with them and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears fromtheir eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying;neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away.”Now then, with that presentation of Jerusalem, I repeat the words of my text, “LetJerusalem come into your mind.” I refer to no earthly place. I do not refer in thisconnection to the church militant; I do not refer to the conflict which is being wagednow by the powers of light and the powers of darkness, when I say “Let Jerusalemcome into your mind,” but I refer to that glorious and eternal fulfillment of God’spromises when the battle has ended, when all the dust of conflict has floated away,when the last echo of its war trumpets has lingeringly sunk into silence. Oh, brother,“Let Jerusalem come into your mind!”And why should it come into your mind? Why should heaven come into yourthoughts? It is important that you answer this question to your own soul. While youare here on earth, while you are absorbed in the things of time that press upon you,things which you allow to take precedence of everything else, why should you stopto think of Jerusalem, the city of God, that temple which is God’s own glorifiedpeople, that condition which is without sickness and pain and sorrow and death?Why should you think of that?I am going to ask you to think about it, and the first thing I am going to ask you tothink about it is this: Will I be there? I have had a place in the church of the livingGod here upon the earth. My name has been upon the church roll. So far as externaldemonstration went I was reckoned among the people of God, but“When thou, my righteous judge, shall comeTo take thy ransomed people home,Shall I among them stand?Shall such a worthless worm as I,Who sometimes am afraid to die,Be found at thy right hand?“I love to meet among them now,Before thy gracious feet to bow,Though vilest of them all;But can I bear the piercing thought -What if my name should be left out,When thou for them shalt call?”Brother, is your name written in heaven? Are you a citizen of that kingdom? Will youhave a place in that sun-bright clime? Will you be of the number that shall pluck the

fruit of the tree of life that stands by the sparkling stream of the water of life? Willyou be of the number that shall cast their crowns at the nail-pierced feet of theRedeemer and say, “Not unto us, oh, Lord, but unto thy name be honor and gloryand power and dominion forever?” It is a question of supreme moment as to whetheryou will enter heaven, and the question gathers intense emphasis and significance bythis connected thought, that if not there, then where? Where? There are but twoplaces. You will be up there or down yonder.And you, so dainty here upon earth, so careful to guard against pain, so ready to runto a physician with any little ill that causes you suffering; you, that have built upbarriers against the approach of any kind of trouble to you here upon the earth, howcan you dwell with everlasting burning? Sinner, “Let Jerusalem come into yourmind.” Mourner, “Let Jerusalem come into your mind.” Stricken one, slandered one,weak and staggering one, heavy laden and burdened one, “Let Jerusalem come intothy mind.”“Oh, land of rest, for thee I sighWhen will the moment comeThat I shall lay my armor by.And rest with Christ at home?”We do not think enough about heaven. I would not turn away your attention toomuch from earth, but I would not bar the thought of heaven from finding an entranceinto your heart. It would be the same as if you refused to consider conclusions whenyou were dealing with causes. It would be the same as if you refused to take intoconsideration consequences when you were dealing with antecedents. It would bethe same as if you were refusing to consider the port to which your vessel headed itsway when you left this shore. It would be to say that you had embarked upon a shipbound nowhere and out on a shoreless ocean, without having a destination beforeyou. “Let Jerusalem come into your mind.”Ten thousand thoughts, like startled birds in the reeds of a lake when the splash ofthe stranger’s oar has smitten the waters, spring up when we begin to ask thisquestion, when we begin to press the thought of the rightfulness of Jerusalem, whichis heaven, to a good share of our attention here upon this earth.Now I am going to leave you to unravel the thoughts that are merely suggested toyou. You take them and draw them out and see how long they are and make theapplication to your own soul.But I do want to say this: The older I become, the more I reflect upon thevicissitudes of this life, the more I see the emptiness and worthlessness of its honors,the more I consider the disappointments and chagrin and mortification that form thecommon lot of man here, the more is my heart filled with the conviction that theremust be held up before men’s minds some shore that shall not be eaten away by theencroaching waves of the ocean of trouble.There must be some ground where storms do not desolate. There must be somecountry where volcanic eruptions do not blast. There must be some country wheresickness and pestilence and sorrow do not march their invading armies and leave atrail of disaster behind them, as they stalk through the land.The mind of man sinks under disappointment. It needs hope, and hope must havesomething to which it can look. There must be a goal which shall catch the eye by thesunlight upon its pinnacle. There must be a consummation that shall rise up inmagnitude and preciousness sufficient to furnish an incentive to human action. Theremust be spread out in prospect, at least, before the human mind something of acharacter sufficiently alluring to cause him to bear patiently the burdens of life, and to

endure without murmurings the heavy and awful trials which are placed upon himhere.And above all things it is necessary that in a country whose king is Death, who loveseach shining mark, whose cold hand sunders the most loving, who hangs his crepeupon the door of the greatest and the mightiest, who comes and introduces thecypress and the weeping willow for the laurel and the bay tree - in such a country asthis it is needful that broken hearts should be pointed to heaven.Oh, “Let Jerusalem come into your mind,” that you may be strengthened, that youmay be consoled, that you may be lifted up above the baptism of suffering whosebillows beat over you and overwhelm you.You now see the line of thought to which I have directed your attention. I have onlyone other thing to say. It is this: Whenever Jerusalem comes into my mind, and itcomes often, often comes Jerusalem the militant, the church fighting here upon earthand carrying out the provisions of God’s plan of salvation, I know that I can say, “Ilove thy kingdom, Lord.” I know that I can say, “I love thy church, oh, God.”And these thoughts take possession of my mind and heart above all other thoughtsexcept this, the thought of Jerusalem, the highest and most glorious home of God’speople; and when that thought comes into my mind, here is what accompanies itevery time: Who will be with me there if God should permit me to enter those goldengates? And here upon this earth is there anything that I can do to swell the number ofher inhabitants? Oh, is there anything that I can do in time to add a single name tothat glorious register, and how long shall I be permitted to make such efforts? Whatis the measure of my days? How many months, how many years are yet left?Now I want to extend an invitation; it is an intensely earnest one; it comes from asincere heart. There are some in this house whose backs are toward the heavenlycity, whose faces are toward that antipodal hell. To that man going down to aneternal home, I would come today with all respect and love and tenderness and say,“Sinner, let Jerusalem come into thy mind.”Oh, man, do not look down, look up. See that city there with Him. See its peace.See its joy. I will press that thought on you, and if you and I were together when youwere lifting up your foot to place it down for the last time on earth, if your hand wason the door-knob of the portal which, when opened, ushered you into hell, if yourfoot was pressing in the crumbling edge of the last opportunity, if the shadow of thedark and awful cloud of God’s wrath was resting on your brow, even there at hell’sgate and with hell’s greetings; I would say, “Let Jerusalem come into your mind.” Letit come into your mind.God yet can save, even when the flames have leapt up and scorched the brand and itis about to kindle into everlasting burning. Oh, if you will let Jerusalem come intoyour mind, that fire can be quenched in the blood of Jesus and you can be exhibitedtriumphantly to the devil with this question, “Is not this a brand plucked from theburning?”If you never thought of it before in your life, if you have shut it out of your mind, Iknock at every door, front door, back door; I tap at every window of your soul; Icry from the alley and the street, “Let Jerusalem come into thy mind.”6. GOD AND HIS MINISTERSTEXT: The Epistle of Paul to the Philippians.Every sermon has a history. In all the working of the human mind there is nothingmore wonderful and incomprehensible than the association of ideas. The subtle cordswhich connect one with a thousand others are too delicate for vision and tooimpalpable for the grasp of reason.

The fragrance of one violet may awaken the remembrances of half a lifetime. Onesoft note of long-forgotten music, like the resurrection power of the archangel’strumpet, will raise up the sheeted dead and people the memory with the sweet facesthat have passed away.By just such an incomprehensible law, my mind went out with inconceivable rapidityto all I shall say tonight, from contemplating this title: “The Epistle of Paul the Apostleto the Philippians.”The printed form faded away and the original parchment, written by Paul’s manacledhand, is present to the imagination. Rome and Philippi, Epaphroditus and Paul, asthey were more than eighteen hundred years ago, live in the mind.Paul, the founder of the Philippian church, is a prisoner in Rome, and destitute. Thefaithful church which had, once and again, relieved his necessities at Thessalonica,now hurries to him a bountiful supply by her chosen messenger. At the peril of hisown life, Epaphroditus lays down at the apostle’s feet that contribution which is an“odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable and well-pleasing to God.” As onerisen from the grave, Epaphroditus, who has been sick “nigh unto death,” greetsagain his anxious church at Philippi and gladdens their hearts with the double joy ofhis safe return and a letter from Paul.From this, the immediate history of the letter, the mind went out to that more remote,until every instant of the distant past, bearing directly or indirectly, upon theconnection between the bound apostle and this appreciative church, groupedthemselves into unity about this grand, central thought:GOD’S SOVEREIGN AND ABSOLUTE CONTROL OF HIS GOSPELBy this history of a letter it is now purposed to show, step by step, the progress ofthe Almighty in managing His gospel to draw out, link by link, the lengthened chain ofHis providence, until by the Scriptures the divine prescience is demonstrated, anduntil it is manifest that omniscience is never startled by events, nor unprepared forearthly developments. God will be seen as knowing the end from the beginning andglorified by the imparted knowledge of His eternal counsels, and by the inevitableconsummation of His marvelous plans. He will be recognized as touching everyspring of action and controlling every movement of the universe-causing “all things towork together for good to them that love God.”The first point made is that -I. The founder of the Philippian church and the writer of this letter, was calledand sent of God. The divine call to the ministry rests upon these great andacknowledged principles:The kingdom is Christ’s. He has been “exalted to the right hand of the Majesty onhigh,” invested with the government of the universe, and “made the head over allthings to the church.” His sway is absolute. To Him alone, then, it unquestionablybelongs to appoint His ambassadors and commission His servants. The poweremployed in propagating the gospel is His. “All power in heaven and on earth isgiven to Him.” Therefore it is His privilege, indisputable by men or angels, to “choosethe foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and to choose the weak thingsof the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world,and things which are despised, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naughtthings that are.”It is His privilege to send out men “in weakness and in fear and in much trembling,whose speech is not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration ofthe Spirit and of power.” No intelligence can rightfully find fault, if He put His“treasure in vessels so earthen,” that the universe shall know that “the excellency of

the power is of God.”The message is His. An angel from heaven stands accursed who brings tidingsdifferent from that God has sent. And if any man bring another gospel, none may bidhim Godspeed. That message may be a burden of woe so terrific that it affrights thesoul of him who delivers it; or it may be glad tidings of such great joy, it makesbeautiful even the feet of him who publishes it.But whether it be the king’s peremptory order to cut down the cumbering, fruitlesstree and cast it into the fire, or the sweet words of pardon to the condemned andprisoned soul, it is yet God’s message. He has sovereign and self-evident right toappoint the messenger who bears His message.The harvest is His. All the souls garnered in heaven are His possession. And when“the fields are white for the harvest,” who dare deny that it is the prerogative of theLord of the harvest alone to send out laborers into the field? “How then shall theycall on Him, in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe on Him ofwhom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And howshall they preach except they be sent?”The glory is His, and His alone, therefore the right to employ such agencies “that noflesh may glory in His presence.”His the right to arrange it so that every “Son of Consolation,” every “Boanerges,”even though they outshine “the stars of heaven forever,” shall be compelled to casttheir crowns at His feet and cry: “Not unto us-not unto us, but unto thy name beglory and honor forever, for thou only art worthy to receive blessing and power anddominion, but we are all unprofitable servants.”Because of these great self-evident propositions, “no man taketh this honor untohimself.” All the analogies in nature referred to in the scriptures harmonize with theseprinciples. The owner of sheep appoints his under-shepherds and herdsmen to tendhis flocks, and a stranger meddleth not with his business. The husbandman employshis laborers without dictation from others, and directs them when and where andhow to till his fields. Kings appoint their officers, and direct the movements of theirarmies. They say unto “this man go, and he goeth. To another man, stay, and hestayeth. To another still, do this, and he doeth it.”The successful management of all great enterprises requires that the wheels beorganization, order and system. There must be one governing mind. There must beauthority somewhere, and subordination everywhere else.But what other enterprise is comparable to this? A lost world to redeem, generationby generation. Battles, with eternal interests involved, to be fought on every mountaintop, in every valley and along every shore. How grand the commission: “Disciple allnations. Preach the gospel to every creature.”But the glorious gospel of the Son of God is not preached by accident, nor left to thewhims and caprices of self-appointed men. The winds of heaven do not scatterGod’s messages of mercy at random among the nations, nor do the unstable wavesof the deep strand them by chance among the islands of the sea. By sovereignelection, men are called out from the multitude and commissioned to do this work.The special case of the Apostle Paul is in accord with these principles. Long beforehe had studied with Gamaliel or had imbibed the prejudices of the Pharisees, Godhad commissioned him. Before his hands were red with martyr blood, the Almightyhad signed it. Paul himself afterwards testifies “that it pleased God to set him apartfrom his mother’s womb to preach Christ among the heathen.” (<480115>Galatians 1:15.)And when Ananias dreaded to meet Paul, the persecutor, the “chief of sinners,” Godsaid to him, “Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me.”

Prostrated before the resplendent glory and blazing majesty of the enthronedRedeemer, Paul had heard a voice like thunder:“I am Jesus - rise, and stand upon thy feet; for I have appeared unto thee forthis purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness, both of these things thouhast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee.” (<442616>Acts26:16.)That voice was of such imperious authority that he said of it: “Necessity is laid uponme.” And under impressions that glowed like the burnings of unquenchable fire, hecried out: “Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel.” And yet again in old age hegratefully adds: “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that Hecounted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, who was before a blasphemer and apersecutor, and injurious.”II. To preserve order in His kingdom, God moves some church to recognize, byordination, the minister whom He has called. As viewed from a human standpoint,this is the most difficult and complicated part of God’s management of the gospel.Just here it is all-important that we humbly seek to understand what God has written,for on this debatable ground is deposited the seeds of great controversies. How shallconfusion be prevented? How shall a conflict between the preachers and thechurches be avoided?Suppose a man feels himself called of God to preach, and the churches fail to agreewith him as to the evidences of his call? What then? Which judgment shall prevail -that of the church or the preacher’s? By the standard made up of these three greatprinciples, the difficulty may be authoritatively settled:1. God gave the preachers to the churches, and not the churches to the preachers(<461228>1 Corinthians 12:28; <490411>Ephesians 4:11-13). The preachers are responsible tothe churches, and not the churches to the preachers. The churches, and not thepreachers, are made the final judges of sound doctrine, and the conservators of apure discipline (Galatians 1:8, 9; <630110>2 John 1:10, 11).2. No impression, however deep, no vision, however vivid, no dream, however lifelike,is to be regarded as authoritative, unless in harmony with what is written.3. God duplicates His calls. When a man is really called to preach, some worthychurch will be called to recognize the preacher’s call. The same Holy Spirit thatcalled Paul to preach moved the Antioch church to his ordination:“Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets andteachers, and as they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghostsaid: Separate me Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereunto I have calledthem. And when they had fasted, and prayed, and laid their hands on them,they sent them away. So they, being sent forth of the Holy Ghost, departed.”(<441301>Acts 13:1-4.)In the order of His gospel, God calls no man to preach, officially, independent ofchurch recognition. There would else be interminable confusion and schism. Alleffective organization and system, all unity of doctrine, and all purity of ordinancesand discipline turn on this pivot. The disciplined army of the living God becomes adisorganized mob whenever we abandon that one of the six first principles of theoracles of God, “The laying on of hands.”If we then be asked to explain certain world-wide facts which stare us in the face, asapparently in contradistinction to this theory, we answer: To us they are inexplicable.When we look at them, we begin to sink, as did Peter when he looked upon thetroubled waters. Let us rather look steadfastly to Christ and His Word, and alignourselves upon the side of law and order, leaving the adjustment of all such questions

to the “Judge of all the earth who will do right.” No people can have a definite creedand fixed organization that consult the complications of the religious world, instead ofthe “Word of God only.”And as we have said that the hope of the world rests upon a called ministry, so nowwe say with emphasis: The preservation and perpetuity of the churches aredependent upon a regularly ordained ministry. The divine management of the gospelis further manifested in this:III. God specified the kind of work each servant must perform. “He gave some,apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors andteachers; for the perfection of the saints, for the work of the ministry, and for theedifying of the body of Christ;” and “unto every one of us is given grace according tothe measure of the gift of Christ.”The kind of work is not left to ministerial preference, to family convenience, nor tothe foolish partialities of congregations. The wisdom of God has not left the successof the gospel to be jeopardized by the selfish decisions of preachers, families or ofcongregations. The King in Israel, with all authority, says to one man, Do this; toanother man, Do that. To one preacher He says, “I appoint you as an evangelist,Take up the first part of my commission. Go from place to place discipling thenations, baptizing them.”While to another, “I appoint you a pastor; take up the second part of mycommission. Stay and teach the discipled all things whatsoever I have commandedthem. Feed the flock of Christ over which the Holy Ghost has made you overseer.Build up the converts in their holy faith, teaching them to grow in grace and in theknowledge of Christ until they are no longer babes drinking the milk of the gospel,but men and women in Christ feeding upon strong meat until their senses areexercised to discern both good and evil.”The true pastor will fail as an evangelist, being not a pioneer but a builder. And if thatevangelist for whom, at the close of his short labors, the people are ready to pluckout their eyes, were to settle among them as pastor, there would soon be “none sopoor to do him reverence.”As to Paul, leaving out his apostleship, with accompanying authority (for churchesdid not ordain men to this office), he was pre-eminently an evangelist. Rapidlypassing from city to city, he girdled the civilized world, setting it on fire and turning itupside down. The amount of his missionary labors has been a marvel for overeighteen hundred years. In each place where he laid foundations, God called and thechurches ordained pastors to unify, instruct and build the churches. Furthermore, inthe control of His gospel -IV. God directs His ministers where to labor. The heavenly husbandman has not leftit to His employees to arbitrarily select their field of labor. The preacher must gounquestionably just where God sends him. The world is vast and varied, and Godonly knows how to adapt the instrumentality to the necessity of the field.Paul says on this point: “For He that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship ofthe circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles.” (<480208>Galatians 2:8.)The same sovereign election that fixed upon the preacher, prescribed also his field oflabor: “He is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before Gentiles and kings.”(<440915>Acts 9:15.) As Paul himself repeats the words of Christ, in his memorabledefense before Agrippa: “I send thee to the Gentiles, to open their eyes, and to turnthem from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God,” etc. (Acts.26:18.)What sad mistakes are made just here. Ministers of power have failed because they

have gone where they were not sent. Do you suppose the apostles during Christ’slifetime would have been blessed in their labors, had they gone out of Jewry afterJesus had said:“Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritansenter ye not; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”?(<401006>Matthew 10:6, 7.)Could Peter, if he had turned away from the circumcision, his appointed field, haveequaled Paul at Rome, at Ephesus, at Philippi, at Corinth, at Thessalonica, orColosse?What a grand failure he made at Antioch, where Paul withstood him to his face forhis dissimulation before the Gentiles! And did not Paul signally fail at Jerusalem? TheSpirit of God drove him away from that field, according to his own testimony:“And it came to pass, that when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while Iprayed in the temple, I was in a trance; and saw Him saying unto me, Makehaste and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thytestimony concerning me.” And when Paul expostulated, trying to assignsome earthly reason, God said peremptorily, “Depart, for I will send thee farhence unto the Gentiles.” (<442217>Acts 22:17-21.)It was with him one unceasing struggle between affection and duty. Paul’s Hebrewheart turned to Jerusalem as the needle points to the pole. He writes in an agony:“I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness inthe Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, mykinsmen according to the flesh.” (<450901>Romans 9:1-3.)And again: “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that theymight be saved.”So intent was this exile’s desire to labor in his fatherland, that on his last visit toJerusalem he went point blank against two solemn warnings of the Spirit of God, aswell as the forebodings of his own mind. When he left the weeping elders of Ephesusat Miletus, he said: “Ye shall see my face no more.” (<442038>Acts 20:38.) And when theyreached Tyre, and tarried there for the unlading of the vessel, certain disciples “saidto Paul, through the Spirit, that he should not go up to Jerusalem.” (<442104>Acts 21:4.)And again, when they reached Caesarea, and were at the house of Philip, theevangelist, Agabus, a certain prophet from Judea, took Paul’s girdle, and bound hisown hands and feet, and said: “Thus saith the Holy Ghost, so shall the Jews atJerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands ofthe Gentiles.”But he shut his eyes to duty and followed the promptings of his heart. Therefore,notwithstanding many years have elapsed, the hate of his enemies still survived, andnotwithstanding the precautions he adopted, at the suggestion of James, andnotwithstanding he brought large sums of money and gifts to his suffering brethren inJudea, his mission in Jerusalem was a sad failure. Scarcely seven days he remained inall, and left the city surrounded by a Roman guard, and followed by a howling packof human wolves ravening for his life.Doubtless the home-sick heart of the foreign missionary has felt the agony of thisconflict between affection and duty, as, setting out for distant Burma or China, hesings:“Yes, my native land, I love thee;All thy scenes, I love them well;Friends, connections, happy country,

Can I bid you all farewell?Can I leave you,Far in heathen lands to dwell?”God, in His management of the gospel, not only designates the general field of labor,but from time to time -V. He prescribes the special locality. Taking up the continuation of the historyconnecting Paul with the church at Philippi, we read: “Now when they had gonethrough Phrygia and the regions of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost topreach the word in Asia, after they were come to Mysia, they essayed to go intoBythinia; but the Spirit suffered them not. And they, passing by Mysia, came downto Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; there stood a man ofMacedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia and help us. Andafter that he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia,assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel unto them.Therefore, loosing from Troas, we came with a straight course to Samothracia, andthe next day to Neapolis, and from thence to Philippi, which is the chief city of thatpart of Macedonia.”Mark the singular providences that hedge up Paul’s way on one hand, and open it upon another side. He might have said: “Lord, my commission is to Gentiles, and herein Asia are lost Gentile souls. I will go to them.”“Let that part of the field alone,” says the Spirit of God.“Well, here is Bythinia, it too is a Gentile land - let me go there.”“Do not work there,” replies the Master.“Then, Lord, where shall I go? My way is hedged up.”(Oh! how many preachers have prayed that prayer!)Then God, who had told him where not to go, directs him by vision to Philippi, towhose people he afterwards wrote the letter whose caption is my text.As illustrative of the power of the impression made upon his mind by sight of thatMacedonian standing by his bedside at night, and by that pleading cry, “Come overand help us,” we recall the words of Eliphaz, the friend of Job:“Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and my ear received a littlethereof. In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep fallethupon man, fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones toshake. Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up. Itstood still, but I could not discern its form. An image was before mine eyes -there was silence - and I heard a voice, saying, Shall mortal man be morejust than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?”We find in the life of Judson, the great foreign missionary of modern times, a parallelto the providences which led Paul to Philippi. He essayed to go into India. God ledhim to Burma.To every pastorless church, and to every churchless pastor, let it be said, “Useindustriously all rightful means for making a suitable arrangement, but especially pray,pray, pray to the God of churches, and to the God of preachers.”VI. God fixes the period of the preacher’s stay in any given field. There was set anopportune time for Paul to go to Philippi; and a time when God, by audible voice, orunmistakable Providence, said to him: “Get thee hence, and bear my name intoanother city.” The same law governs alike the pastor and the evangelist. Thecessation of ministerial labor in any particular field is, beyond all question, a matterfor God to decide. When this fact is disregarded, incalculable injury is done to bothpreacher and people. Some men and some churches can sever the pastoral relations

as if it were a trifling matter.There is a juncture in every good pastor’s history similar to that noted problem ofgeometry called by collegiates the “Pons Asinorum.” When the novelty and eclat ofhis first coming have passed away; when, after preaching all his prepared sermons,expectations have been excited that cannot habitually be realized; when he has beencompelled to offend some, and cross the path of others; and when some new man ofanother denomination, perhaps, begins to take away from his congregation the fickleand light-minded, or when some visiting brother of his own denomination, by a fewbrilliant efforts, has captivated the minds of his congregation - how fearful is thetemptation to go somewhere else, where he, too, is fresh and acceptable, and whereresponsibilities and hard every-day work are hidden under the glamour and rosecolor of the first espousals!Let Paul serve again for an example: He was at Corinth; and being pressed in spirit,testified to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. But when they opposed themselvesand blasphemed, he became afraid and discouraged, and saying, “Your blood beupon you, I am clean,” would have gone away had not God said to him by vision atnight: “Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace: for I am with thee, and noman shall set on thee to hurt thee; for I have much people in this city.” And hecontinued there a year and six months (<441806>Acts 18:6-11).Again, he was at Ephesus hemmed all around with adversaries. Malice, money-ringsand mobs howled round him like a pack of ravening wolves. Just at this terriblejuncture, he got a call back to Corinth. Oh! how restful it would be to go back tothat dear, peaceful, organized church, and escape the difficulties at Ephesus! I thinkthe sublimest sentence he ever wrote was when under this terrible pressure, themoral hero wrote back calmly to Corinth:“I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost, for a great door and effectual isopened unto me and there are many adversaries.” (1 Corinthians 13:8, 9.)Luther, at the Diet of Worms, was not so sublime. Nor does God’s management ofthe gospel cease here.VII. Jesus holds the preacher in His right hand, opens all locked doors, givesconvicting power to the word preached. John, from his exile in Patmos, testifies: “Iwas in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of atrumpet, saying: I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last. And I turned to seethe voice that spake with me.“And being turned, I saw one like unto the Son of Man, clothed with agarment down to the feet, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. Hishead and his hair were white like wool - as white as snow; and His eyeswere as a flame of fire; His feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in afurnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters. And He had in His righthand seven stars; and out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword; andHis countenance was as the sun shining in His strength. And when I sawHim, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying, Fearnot; I am the first and the last; I am He that liveth and was dead; and beholdI am alive forever more, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. I amHe that hath the key of David - He that openeth and no man shutteth; andshutteth and no man openeth.” (<660110>Revelation 1:10-18, 3:7.)Blessed be God, we are in the hand of Jesus, and with His key of David He can lockthe foul mouth of aspersion as He chained the lions’ mouths for Daniel. But toappreciate this part of God’s control of the gospel, let us consider for a momentwhat things are shut that Christ alone can open.

There is a veil over men’s eyes. The god of this world has blinded them. Paul says ofthe Jews:“But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same veiluntaken away in the reading of the Old Testament: but even unto this day,when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it shallturn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.” (<470314>2 Corinthians 3:14.)Well might David pray: “Open thou mine eyes that I may understand wonderfulthings out of thy law.” (Psalms 119.) Well might Paul pray for the Ephesians: “Thatthe eyes of their understanding might be enlightened.” (<490118>Ephesians 1:18.) So Christsaid to the poor, blind church at Laodicea: “I counsel thee to anoint thine eyes witheye-salve that thou mayest see.” “Behold also their ear is uncircumcised that itcannot hear,” and they “pull away the shoulder that they may not hear.”The heart is shut. “The Lord opened the heart of Lydia, that she might attend to thethings spoken by Paul.” She was Paul’s first convert in Philippi.The preacher’s door of utterance is sometimes shut. Paul begged the Ephesians andColossians to pray God to open to him a door of utterance. (<490619>Ephesians 6:19;<510403>Colossians 4:3.) This divine afflatus, which loosed the preacher’s tongue, is whatold-fashioned Baptists called “Liberty.” It is our Pegasus.Sometimes an appropriate theme or message is locked up, and the Bible containing itis “the sealed book which none but the Lamb is worthy to open.” Though I incur thehazard of being called a Hardshell, I will say it: God gives to the industrious andpraying preacher his very text and theme. Like Isaiah’s prophetic impersonation ofJohn the Baptist; when the voice said, “Cry,” his praying heart telegraphed back toheaven, “What shall I cry?”So when God commanded Ezekiel to prophesy over the valley of dry bones, Healso furnished the message: “Oh, ye dry bones, thus saith the Lord: Behold, I willcause breath to enter into you and ye shall live.” And when he prophesied to thewind the message was furnished: “Thus saith the Lord God - Come from the fourwinds, O Breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live.” (Ezekiel 37.)Without the power of Jesus, the very word preached is bound up. As powerless asSaladin’s scimitar when the Saracen is dead, is the Word, God’s sword, whenunwielded by the Holy Spirit. If it be quick and powerful, if it discern the thoughtsand intents of the heart, if it pierce to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit and ofthe joints and marrow - if like the rain which cometh down, and the snow fromheaven, it returns not until it accomplishes that whereto it is sent, it is solely because itis blessed of God. “Paul may plant, Apollos may water, but God giveth theincrease.”VIII. God controls His gospel by over-ruling afflictions and persecutions, so thatthey contribute to its progress. For years, the Philippian church might have beencomposed of only quiet women like Lydia, had not the incarceration, the binding instocks, the cruel scourgings inflicted by malice upon Paul and Silas, afforded God anopportunity to make known His power. That midnight prayer - and - praise meetingin the dark dungeon, that earthquake’s shock, that loosening of the prisoners andthat jailer’s conversion and baptism by torch-light, advertised the gospel more than ifPaul’s announcements had been placarded on every wall in Philippi: “So He makeththe wrath of man to praise Him.”Finally, God controls the gospel -IX. By using every church established for carrying the gospel to the regions beyond.This model church at Philippi supported Paul in the mission field at Thessalonica andRome. And so Paul lays down the principles in his second letter to the Corinthians:

“We are come as far to you also in preaching the gospel of Christ, havinghope, when your faith is increased, that we shall be enlarged by you,according to our rule abundantly, to preach the gospel to the regions beyondyou.”May this Convention realize that Jesus has ordained a Treasury Department in Hiskingdom, and as Lord of the Treasury He exercises sleepless supervision over it all;that He knows every man’s ability, reads his motives, measures and registers hiscontributions. Brethren, from the realm of glory and throne of power that burning eyeis on our Convention.The measure of the power of an earthly government is very nearly the power of itsmonetary resources. The treasury must have perfect organization. Its moving wheelsare order and system. Its great reservoir must be fed by unfailing fountains. Itssprings must be such as drouth cannot dry up, nor panics, famine and commotiondisturb. All earthly enterprises are dependent for greatness, continuance and ultimatesuccess upon the abundance and order of the fund that supports them. The mostprofound wisdom and the clearest common sense are requisite in creating andmaintaining a treasury.Why in the Franco-Prussian war was the chivalry of France so bitterly humbled?Because Napoleon had not counted the cost, “whether with ten thousand he couldmeet the king coming against him with twenty thousand.” His treasury, his munitionsof war, his commissariat, were not only inadequate, but cursed with mismanagement.The worthlessness of the old continental money paralyzed the arm of Washington,and deferred for years America’s independence. A depreciated currency sapped thefoundations of Confederate success in the Civil War. The truth must be recognizedand appreciated, that in earthly matters “money answereth all things.” It is the sinewof strength and the backbone of endurance.And how shall the Franco-Prussian war, the days of ‘76, our own unfortunatestruggle, compare with the grandness of Christian warfare? A lost world to redeem -generation by generation. Battles, with eternal interests involved, to be fought onevery mountain top, in every valley, along every shore, and upon every ocean wave.How grand the commission: “Disciple all nations. Preach the gospel to everycreature!” In order to accomplish this mammoth undertaking, the hand of God’sauthority and ownership must be laid upon commerce, agriculture, science andliterature, making them tribute. Universities and colleges must be endowed; millionsof Bibles printed and translated into a thousand tongues; myriads of churches bebuilt, and an innumerable company of laborers be maintained as they toil in a harvestfield whose boundaries are the confines of the earth.Oh, how vast, how vast the work! And what shall constitute the fulness of a treasuryadequate for this enterprise? Upon what eternal principles of power must it befounded, and where are the springs of its perpetuity?Jesus marveled on earth. And if Omniscience can wonder in heaven, He must oftenmarvel at the profound folly, nay, the very hallucination of the devil, that characterizesour monetary plans. In the name of heaven’s King, I reaffirm this night that “the cattleupon a thousand hills are His;” “the silver and gold are His,” and earth’s wealth andearth’s business talent must be consecrated to His service, before the “kingdoms ofthis world shall become the kingdom of our God and His Christ.”What, then, let us inquire, are the foundation principles of the Lord’s treasuryprinciplesthat have power enough to insure its fulness and continuance?1. Contribution, with the disposition that prompts it, is a grace.2. Contribution is worship.

3. It is honorably associated with faith and other Christian graces, and withprayer and praise as elements of worship.Having now ascertained its foundation principles, let us ask, what are thedepartments of the treasury? These may be classified as follows:1. Ministerial support.2. Church building.3. Missions.4. Contributions in great calamities.5. Alms.The obligation for ministerial support rests upon the positive law of God:“The Lord hath ordained that they which preach the gospel shall live by thegospel.” (<460914>1 Corinthians 9:14.)Our respect for any power, and our allegiance to it, are manifested by implicitobedience to its ordinances. An ordinance is for the perpetuity of order and themaintenance of right. In the Christian’s mind it should be invested with solemnmajesty. The Christian must be a law-abiding man. We are even commanded to“submit ourselves to the ordinances of men for the Lord’s sake.” (<600213>1 Peter 2:13.)How much more binding is the obligation to respect and obey the ordinances ofGod.As a denomination we have prided ourselves upon our fidelity to Christ’sordinances, both in the letter and the spirit. We have thought ourselves entitled to thecommendation of Paul, “Now I praise you brethren that you keep the ordinances asI delivered them to you.” (<461102>1 Corinthians 11:2.) Brethren, we have no right to exaltone ordinance and abase another; no right to discriminate between things that theLaw-giver has made equal.Our history points an exultant finger to martyr fires kindled on account of devotion toChrist’s ordinances of baptism and communion. But where are our martyrs to theordinances of God with regard to ministerial support? Martyrs there have been,indeed, to a false delicacy and criminal neglect of duty, which have starved ourclergy and beggared our churches, in all spiritual things.The ordinance of this text is, “That they that preach the gospel shall live of thegospel.” It specifically provides for ministerial support. It provides a living. “Theyshall live of the gospel.”Brethren, let the question be solved and put at rest forever: Is a minister of God apauper, a cringing, mean-visaged beggar, living upon the doled-out charities of hisbrethren, or is he a “laborer worthy of his hire?”A Christian minister should be the embodiment of honor, truth, justice and mercy. Heshould never lose his self-respect. He should be a gentleman. But if the pay of aminister is simply the doled-out pittance of a charity whose contempt is but halfconcealed,then no gentleman, no man of self-respect, no lover of truth, justice andmercy would ever enter the ministry.Consequently the most honorable and responsible position on earth would be filledwith the most degraded, irresponsible men - men destitute of every noble principleand utterly unworthy to teach morals to your children or to expound the laws of theeternal God; men, by nature and practice disqualified from counseling the wife, themother, the daughter, and utterly unfit for the consolation of a dying bed; men whowould never dare to rebuke the proud and combat the wrong fortified in positions ofwealth and influence.No, my brethren. They would be sycophants, flatterers, parasites. Yea, more; theywould be slaves, spiritless slaves, bought and paid for by their masters who fed them

and kicked them. The pulpit of God, filled by such men, would become the contemptof common sense. The law of God, expounded by such minds, would lose itsterrors. The hoarse intonations of its wrathful thunders would be muffled, and thefierce glare of its lightnings dimmed. The love of God, transmitted through suchchannels, would seem robbed of its divine efficacy and soiled by contact with themean spirit of its publisher.The minister should be a man whose self-respect would protest against pauperism,and whose hands would burn by the retention of a single dollar which he did notearn.Brethren, you pay your grocer, merchant, mechanic, lawyer and doctor. You do wellto pay them. It would be a sin not to do it. They are entitled to a just compensationfor their property or labor, whichever you receive. But there is no lawyer at the bar,no doctor who sits by the bedside of the suffering and administers his healingremedies, no grocer or merchant that furnishes your table or dress, no sun-brownedmechanic whose sounding hammer rings in your house, no blacksmith whose hardyhand beats out the glittering sparks from your implements of agriculture - none ofthese are more entitled to compensation for labor rendered, or who would bejustified sooner in resenting an alms offering, than the faithful minister of God.To carry out this very principle, we have assembled from Virginia to Texas. It isGod’s plan that we should devise schemes and raise funds to sustain our missionariesin China, in Africa, in Rome, and among the Indians of the West. In view of the greattruths which demonstrate God’s sovereign and absolute control of His gospel, let usbe encouraged. Let the spirit of prayer brood over every heart and the mind ofChrist be in every soul. Let Faith lift up her eyes and testify:“I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of Days did sit,whose garment was as white as snow, and the hair of His head like purewool. His throne was like the fiery flame, and His wheels as burning fire. Afiery stream issued and came forth from before Him; thousand thousandsministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him.I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man came with theclouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Himnear before Him. And there was given Him dominion and glory and akingdom, that all the people, nations and languages should serve Him. Hisdominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall notbe destroyed.” (<270709>Daniel 7:9-14.)Let this Convention say: “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever: the sceptre of thykingdom is a right sceptre.” (<194506>Psalm 45:6.) Let this Convention pray: “Thykingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. For thine is the kingdom,and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.”7. THE BLESSING OF HOPETEXT: Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, inorder that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. -<451513>Romans 15:13.The first doctrine of this text makes God the source of hope: “Now the God ofhope.” No man can express in words the value of hope. It has been correctlydefined as consisting of at least two elements, expectation and desire. You mayexpect that which is undesirable. The evidence may be sufficient to convince you thata certain thing yet in the future will come, and the more you expect it, if you do notdesire it, the more unpleasant will the prospect be to you. You cannot hope for it. Atthe same time you may intensely desire a certain thing and yet have no just grounds

for expecting it. Unless there is expectation as well as desire, you cannot hope for it.So that when we say that words cannot express the value to men of hope, we meanby hope that which we both desire and expect.The very meaning of these words confines the whole realm of hope to the future, andhence the Apostle says, in the eighth chapter of this same letter, as bearing upon theresurrection of the body, “We are saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope,for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not,then do we with patience wait for it.” It is clear from this scripture that hope is thedesire and expectation of receiving something that we cannot now see, and that thisdesire and expectation induce us to wait patiently for it.According to the strength of the hope is the degree of the patience in our waiting. Ifthe object desired is of sufficient value and the expectation of obtaining it is groundedupon solid reasoning, then patience in waiting murmurs not at the length of time toelapse before the coming of hope’s object.Take away from the human family this power of the consolation of hope, and thewhole earth would be filled with its opposite, despair.The surroundings of the present are never satisfactory. But the assured prospect of abetter future enables us to endure all present ills. Once establish the conviction in anyheart that throughout all the cycles of eternity it will be just as bad as it is, and maybe worse, that heart succumbs to despair and relaxes effort. Hence the Apostlethought it to be a thing greatly to be desired that the Christian should abound in hope,that he should take hold of the future with confidence.There are things in the future so desirable as to attract every thought and feeling ofthe soul. And there are such solid reasons for expecting ultimately to attain thesedesirable things that the Christian should have an abundance of this enlivening andcheering faculty which enables him to bear things that are very heavy right now.I venture to say that here today are some who have on them just about as much asthey can well support. Their hearts are sad; the perplexities of life put them to theirwits’ end and the apprehension of greater evil to come causes them to say, “Whatgood is it for me to live?” The removal of hope from such burdened ones preparesthe way for mental and moral and spiritual wreck.Here is the peculiar province of religion. Beecher once said (I quote from memory)that it was utterly impossible for any kind of material or scientific reasoning to everdestroy religion, because its realm extended beyond matter and time and that thisrealm was accessible by faith, imagination and hope. Now faith takes hold of theinvisible and constantly points to something which is better than what is nowpossessed; religion’s chief realm is in the things to come. This life, not all; this body,not all; these riches, not all; these pursuits, not the best; something better, somethingmore enduring, something so far superior to anything which we can now take holdof; there is the essential office of religion. As Paul says, “Our light affliction, which isbut for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”It is evident then that just to the extent that Christian hope abounds in the humanheart, to that extent will its sorrow and unrest be dissipated. Hence the logic of thetext: “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.”If I were asked today to state wherein the faith of the present generation may bemost rationally discounted, I would say in its lack of joy and in its lack of peace. Andthis lack of joy and peace is because of the small degree of our hope which takeshold of the future. “Now the God of hope fill you with joy and peace in believing,that ye may abound in hope.”A cross-examination of the average Christian will elicit three facts: That he has faith;

that he is not entirely without it; he believes Jesus Christ not merely divine, the Son ofGod and the Savior of the world, but he believes Him to be his Savior, and there isreliance upon Him for salvation.Yet a fair investigation of the average church member would reveal not only the factthat he has some faith, but demonstrates a second fact, that he has very little joy inbelieving. He is glad about it some, but he is not glad about it much. If at times he isglad much, the times are short and infrequent. If the gladness of believing wouldremain at its maximum, it would habitually cover his face as the sun covers amountaintop with light. It would wreathe it with smiles; it would make his eyesparkle.All of his bearing in mixing with his fellow men would show that he is no child ofmelancholy and despondency, no spiritual hypochondriac. He is a joyful son of God.The spirit of song is on him. There is melody in his heart. He is glad inside. Thesprings of joy are continually bubbling up and spontaneously overflowing and goingout and communicating gladness to those with whom he comes in contact. Let it berepeated that the second fact elicited by catechizing the average church memberwould be that he has not much joy in his faith, not much.The third fact would be, he has not much peace in his faith. Peace may refer either toreconciliation with God or deliverance from unrest arising from distrust of Hisprovidence. A man may feel in his heart that he and God are reconciled; he maybelieve that through the atonement which has been made by our Lord Jesus Christthe question of his present and ultimate salvation is so settled that he may notseriously doubt that proposition.But yet from other causes there may be a vast deal of unrest in his mind. Like a seain a storm, whose waters are stirred up until the mire and silt at the bottom of thewater is brought up to the top, so is the unrest of his mind. You can see thattranquillity is not his. He is not placid and he knows that he is not. The unrest keepshim from sleep at night. It disturbs his serenity by day. He lacks peace and he lacksjoy.If he possessed the maximum of peace, joy and hope, no present conjunction ofadverse affairs, no threat of future woe would disturb his self-poise. His undisturbedserenity of soul would be like a sleeping ocean, or a cloudless sky. What matters itto this man that here and there in the world disturbances may arise, that some thingsmay be out of joint in his external surroundings, that pestilence may walk abroad,that foul aspersions and misrepresentation may traduce his good name? There is sucha confidence, such an assurance in his own mind as to the wisdom and justice andpower of the government of God, and such a confident reliance upon his part thatwhat is best for him will be brought out of the disorder and confusion around him,such a supreme and trustful leaning upon the undergirding arm of a lovingOmnipotence, that the man is at rest.Hence the Apostle says, “May the God of all hope fill your soul with joy in believingand with peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope.” The abounding in hopemay refer either to quality or quantity. Your hope perhaps takes hold of manyobjects but with feeble grasp on any. That relates to quality. Or however strong, yetlimits its grasp to few. The future is full of things; no man can enumerate them. Theytouch us at all points of contact, and to abound in hope is to have a desire, an intenselonging for all good things that lie out of sight, that are best for us; to have anexpectation of their reception that never swerves a hair’s breadth, that is neverstartled or jostled. With a grasp that nothing can shake loose, it takes hold of theworld to come and says, “It is coming. I am waiting for it. I know that it is nearer

today than it was yesterday. I wait patiently on the God in whom I trust.”The fullness of the thought, connecting back with everything as yet presented, lies inthe last point of the text. Let us see what that is: “Now the God of hope fill you withall joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope through the power of theHoly Ghost.”We now reach the consideration of the power and means by which a Christian,however imperfect as yet, however slow the process of his development, mayperfect his joy, peace and hope. Yes, provision is made for converting little faith intogreat faith, for transmuting feeble joy into exultation, for enlarging the trickling rill ofpeace into peace like a river, for giving to hope that crawls like a worm the wings ofan eagle. What is that? It is the power of the Holy Ghost.I feel utterly incapable of ever setting forth all that I feel and all that I think wheneverI come to discuss the Holy Spirit or His power, but you will let me call your attentionto a few points very clearly set forth in the Scriptures.First, all power is Spirit power. I mean to say that there is no original power of life inthe clinging moss that cushions the rock. No such power in the ivy to climb thecrumbling wall and fix its roots in the crevices riven by a sinking foundation, no suchpower in a bulb placed down in a cellar to open its own heart and send out a feelertoward a little crack through which light is shining, to creep towards and feel afterand climb up to that light, until at last it reaches the opening and looks out through itswindow upon the world of sunshine all around. There is no such power to exquisitelytinge the white cheek of the rose or flush the downy cheek of the ripening peach. Nosuch power in any material thing.Natural powers are but figures of speech. All of it is not only derivative in origin, butits continued exercise is a result of the direction and force of its author, the eternalSpirit. Let the materialist veil his ignorance or impiety in idle terms, yet the teaching ofGod’s Word is harmonious with all just reasoning upon the facts within the range ofhuman observation, that the physical and material power of this world is power onlyas it comes from the Holy Ghost.Glance back at creation when the earth was without form and void, darkness was onthe face of the deep; when no plant existed, when no vegetable, no animal life hadbeing, and hear the Word of God: “And the Spirit of God was brooding over theface of the waters.” From the brooding of that Omnific Spirit the divine energy wascommunicated to inert matter and that Spirit brought vegetable life into being, andanimal life into being.He who laid the foundation of the earth and shut up the issuing seas with doors, nowcommands each morning, begets the drops of dew and is a father of the rain. FromHim comes ice and hoary frost. By the ordinances of heaven He annually andalternatively binds the sweet influence of the Pleiades and looses the bands of Orion.All creatures wait upon Him for their meat in due season. “That thou givest them,they gather. Thou openest thine hand, and they are filled with good. Thou hidest thyface, they are troubled. Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to dust.Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created; and thou renewest the face of theearth.”Consider attentively two facts: The conception of a Son by a virgin, and therevivification of that Son’s dead body. “Then said Mary unto the angel, How shallthis be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, TheHoly Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadowthee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Sonof God.”

By the energy of the Omnific Spirit there was created in her a body to be thetabernacle of Divinity. Later, that very body that had been created by the HolyGhost was put to death. He was put to death in the flesh. Man and devil came in andmarred the work which the Holy Spirit had created. Now it says, “He that was putto death in the flesh was quickened (that is, made alive) by the Spirit.”Analyze that thought: The same Holy Spirit that brought into being, by miraculousinterposition, the body of Jesus Christ originally, sought it out when lying so cold andpulseless in the sealed up tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. In the light of a full moonthat Spirit was invisible. The guard at the mouth of the sepulchre might feel Hispresence, but saw Him not. That Spirit of God who brooded over original chaos,that same Spirit who originally created this body, now passed through the heavystone, impenetrable to material substances, and touching the body of Jesus Christ,made it alive. He was quickened by the Spirit.But what has that to do with our subject? Let me show you what it has to do. Whatconstitutes the chief sorrow of this world? Death as sin’s penalty. It comes with itssting and its strength. Its horrors of separation are exceeded by its horrors ofintroduction. We sicken, we die - shall we live again? What consolation does hopeafford? What does it desire? What may it expect? The grave seems to be the goal ofman. It says to man, “No matter how high you uplift your thoughts, into this pit youfall. No matter how vaulting your ambition, to this complexion must you come at last.No matter how unfinished the plans which have engrossed your attention, or hownecessary that you should live just a little longer to put a finishing touch upon yourcherished work, death, without apology, thrusts himself between you and things thatyou so ardently desired to complete, and without a moment’s notice, drags youdown into his own dark cell.”Now I say, what has hope to do with this? Let us turn back to a chapter of this letterwhich precedes our text and see: “The creation was made subject to vanity, notwillingly, but by reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope that the creationitself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption unto the glorious libertyof the children of God: for we know that the whole creation groaneth and travailethin pain together until now; and not only they but ourselves also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for theadoption, to-wit, the redemption of our bodies. For we are saved by hope, but hopethat is seen is not hope, for what a man seeth why doth he yet hope for? But if wehope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.”What a marvelous picture is this! How vast is the scene over which the eye isdirected to cast its vision! A whole creation! What kind of a creation? A creationgroaning and travailing in pain because of what? Because of the corruption thatcomes through death. How subjected? Subjected in hope. What is the hope?Deliverance from corruption. How comes the deliverance? By the redemption of ourbodies. What is this redemption? Salvation by the resurrection. How comes thisresurrection? He who made alive the dead body of Jesus shall quicken our mortalbodies. How do we take hold of this salvation? We are saved by hope.Matter had no power. No physical force could intervene. The philosophy of thematerial world can only say, “This is an eternal sleep.” But the Spirit of God, whoentered into that dark cavern of death and breathed into the nostrils of that pulselessbody of Jesus the breath of life and made it a living soul, and caused the Son of Manto come out from the tomb, that Spirit will quicken our mortal bodies.Now let us read the text again, to see the connection of the thought: “The God ofhope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope through

the power of the Holy Ghost.” Hence my answer, when anyone says, “What is theground of your confidence that the world will be better than it is? Do you desire it?”“Yes.” “Do you expect it?” “I do.” “Do you expect the time will come when men willbe unselfish, loving their neighbors as themselves?” “I do.” “Do you expect the timeto come when there will be no fraud in politics?” “I do.”Why, I would be very sad if I did not. There would not be much joy in my believing,and there would not be much peace in my believing, if I did not see a brightening ofthe skies in the future.“Well, then, I ask,” says an objector, “what reasonable ground have you to expectsuch a thing?” “What reasonable ground? The power of the Spirit of God and noother.”An ancient philosopher said, “Give me where to place my foot and I will move theworld. Give me a fulcrum for my lever, something to rest it on, and I will move theworld.”Now, all you need to start you in the direction of right thinking on this subject is awell ascertained fact, even if it is but one. Is it a fact that any one man of the humanrace, through the power of the Holy Ghost, believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, andhaving joy and peace in believing in Jesus Christ, has been delivered from thebondage of mammon?Is there one case where a man, in the midst of general wickedness and fraud inpolitics, by the power of the Christian religion preserved himself free from thecontaminating circumstances which defiled his fellow men? One case will be enoughfor the argument.I will give you two. I have but to mention the names of George Washington andRobert E. Lee. People of superficial knowledge know but little of these illustriousmen. But one who has carefully read Bancroft’s “Colonial History,” and “Formationof the American Constitution,” or the “Madison Papers,” with other original sourcesof information bearing upon the Revolutionary War and the formation of theConstitution, will rise up from the study of history with this thought: GeorgeWashington is ten thousand times a greater man than I ever supposed him to be, anda better man than I ever supposed him to be. The power and purity of the man camefrom his simple faith in God and his hope through the Lord Jesus Christ. A similarimpression irresistibly follows an unbiased study of the life of Lee.I mention an additional fact, bearing upon this theme. There came a time in theconvention which formulated the Constitution of the United States, when every manseemed to regard the whole thing as a failure. They could not agree. Washingtonoccupied the chair. Almost alone, he still had faith that God would finish His work.Substantially he often said: “I have studied the history of these Colonies up to thepresent time. I would be blind if I did not see that a divine hand has beensuperintending and bringing about the events which have taken place so far. There isa God who governs and I do not believe that in this dark hour He will let it all cometo naught.”Among the men present during that darkest hour of the Convention was BenjaminFranklin. You know what a mocking skeptic he was in all his youth. How hefraternized with Voltaire, putting his arms around him and kissing him. How hefraternized with the atheism of France. And yet, in this very dark hour that I tell youof, when it was, it seemed, utterly impossible to take another step; whenMassachusetts and Virginia and Connecticut and South Carolina could not agree,and in the dead stillness that seemed to precede and forecast an announcement, “Wewill adjourn ‘sine die’ and go back to disunion and disorder,” Ben Franklin, the

skeptic, arose and solemnly proposed to open every morning’s session with prayer.How thrilling the words by which he supported his motion:“The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see that God governs the affairs ofmen. I firmly believe that ‘except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain thatbuild it.’ Without His concurring aid we shall be divided by our little local interests,succeed no better than the builders of the tower at Babel, and become a reproachand byword to future ages. What is worse, mankind may hereafter, from thisunfortunate instance, despair of establishing government by human wisdom and leaveit to chance and war.”Oh, it was sublime testimony to the power of the truth over a false philosophy whichhad poisoned a great man’s life. What a solemn appeal by human helplessness! God,all-wise, all-powerful God, we do not see. That which we see we do not hope for.We are saved by hope. God, with power to touch in ways that cannot be explained,the hearts of the authors of these jarring conflicts, whose local prejudices and whosepersonal selfishness stand in the way of crowning the glorious work of the past - oh,God, brush away these difficulties!And God brushed them away. They never had another time of despair. Of course,everybody will say, “I desire good things,” but when you ask me why I expect them,I say, “Through the power of the Holy Ghost.” We may perhaps illustrate by someone in this house today, a Christian - and let us admit he is a Christian, but a sourChristian, a sore-headed Christian, an objecting Christian, a kicking Christian,gnarled and knotted - what on earth can be gotten out of him? Well, I expect to seemuch. On what do you base your expectation? How can you stand before such acase as that and say, “I hope to see that man a pillar in the church?” My answer is,“Through the power of the Holy Ghost.” Only let the Spirit of God touch him andmelt his hard heart. One breath of that Spirit can sweep away, as cobwebs areswept by the force of the storm, all of the obstructiveness and antagonism with whichhe has blocked the pathway of God’s cause and with which he has clogged thewheels of progress. Only let the revival spirit touch him and there will be tears in hiseyes, there will be a tremor in his voice, there will be humility in his bearing, there willbe sweetness in his tone. And you will see that very man standing up so full of thereligion which comes through the Holy Ghost that his very look outpreaches anysermon in the world.Do you expect such a thing as the millennium? I do. You both desire it and expect it?Yes, I hope it; that is, I desire it and expect it, and hoping for that, I can wait; hopingfor that, I will not despair in any present complication; hoping for that, I will not be apessimist; hoping for that, I will not put my wrists in the manacle of despair and bemarched off by that old giant into the dungeon of Doubting Castle.My hope is in God, and that is exactly the process by which David recovered himselffrom his despondency. He says, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why artthou disquieted within me?” Now, if it is cast down, it is sad. If it is disquieted it hasnot peace. And how shall there be joy in believing and peace in believing in thatsoul? “Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me?Hope thou in God.” That is better. Hope takes hold of the power of God who is ourstrength and the health of our countenance.Exactly the same way when you would marshal a church for mission work, for theacquisition of new territory, for the pushing out of the boundaries of the kingdom, forthe enlargement of Christian influence, a doubter says, “I know that you desire thatChina may be Christianized. I can understand that; but do you expect it?” I do; Iboth desire it and expect it; that is, I hope for it.

Well, what is the ground of your hope? The power of the Holy Ghost. Well, whatdoes the Scripture say about it? It says, “Those that have not known me shall see.Those that have not heard of me shall understand.” And the Apostle Paul, in this veryconnection, referring to that very fact, says that he had preached the gospel whereJesus Christ had not been named, and that he had preached it upon the basis of thatprophecy, that those who had not known Him should see and those that had neverheard of Him should understand. And he said that in preaching it where there wasnot even a foundation upon which to build, that he did it through the demonstration ofthe Spirit and the power of the Holy Ghost. Then certainly today I can join heartily inhis prayer: “May the God of all hope fill your soul with joy and peace in believing,that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.”Surely I can pray: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” in unhappy and afflictedTexas as in heaven.8. A THANKSGIVING SERMONTEXT: Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comethdown from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neithershadow of turning. - <590117>James 1:17.For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, thatwhosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. -<430316>John 3:16.Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift. - 2 Corinthians. 9:15.On last Thanksgiving Day, in this house and measurably before the same audience, Igave you the history of public Thanksgiving services, showing you a connectedhistory of the Jewish Thanksgiving and then historically the origin of modernThanksgiving services on the occasion of the deliverance of the city of Leyden inHolland from the hosts of Roman Catholic Spain; that on that deliverance theyappointed a public thanksgiving and laid the foundation of a great university.Coming over into America I gave you the history of the New England Thanksgivingservices, as confined to communities and provinces in Colonial days, and to theStates after the Republic was established; and then showed you that nationalThanksgiving proclamations were only occasionally issued until the Civil War, andthat with Abraham Lincoln, the presidents of the United States commenced regularlyto issue them.I traced in that sermon the history of the attitude of the Southern people at large andof their governors, with reference to these Thanksgiving proclamations, and theslowness with which the idea obtained in the South and the reasons therefor. I thenexamined upon what principles and to what extent governments may rightfully adoptany measures with reference to such a subject, and showing that the President’sThanksgiving was in no sense mandatory, except in the particular that it gave a legalholiday to the overworked employees of the government; that for other people it wasentirely voluntary; that it was left wholly to each congregation after their own fashionand according to the dictates of their own best judgment, to meet in their own houseand observe the day in the manner that seemed best to them, and that there was asuitableness in its rapidly being recognized by our Southern people. I have thoughtproper to recapitulate so much of last year’s Thanksgiving service as an explanationwhy I do not today at length go over that same ground.Now then, to our text. The first part of the text gives us the origin of all good; that itcomes from God. Everything that is good, everything that is perfect, comes from ourFather above. And with Him there is no variableness. He was always good that way.And with Him is no shadow of turning; He will always be good that way. And any

view which any man has entertained, or any presentation of the character of God,which any man has offered to the public, that does not present Him in His essentialcharacter of love and goodness and mercy, is a caricature and not a truerepresentation.The second thought of the text is an obligation upon the part of the creature torecognize whatever good comes from God’s hands. Our eyes should not be blindedwhen we consider the mercies of God; when we consider either His temporal or Hisspiritual favors to His creatures. They ought to be wide open to see these gifts intheir multitude, in their magnitude and in the preciousness of their character.And in the third place, that having recognized this goodness of God, we should bevery prompt to express the gratitude of our hearts therefor, as beneficiaries of Hisbounty, as creatures dependent upon His will, as even deriving the breath of ournostrils from Him, the preservation of our being, the continuance of our well being,and all of the future good which shall come to us. All this, properly recognized andproperly appreciated, will insure in the heart of a man a spontaneously flowingfountain of gratitude that will sing in its flow as waters sing, and as birds makemelody in the trees, and as the zephyrs, blowing over fruitful valleys and fragrantflowers, make music to the glory of God.In expressing our gratitude there ought at the same time to arise in every heart thequestion, “What shall I render unto the Lord for all of His benefits toward me? Whatresponse shall I make to His goodness? Shall I be merely appreciative and contentmyself with verbal expressions of gratitude, or shall I, deriving light and warmth andlife and well-being from the radiated love of God to me - shall I, basking in thesunlight of His favor, be conformed to Him in moral likeness and live in my life suchan illustration of the principles which govern Him in His conduct toward me as shallshow that I am His child?”For particular benefits during the year which has passed, let each soul give suitableexpression. Your heart must be very cold; it must be very hard; its moral perceptionsmust be very much blunted, not to recognize and to feel and to be grateful for somespecial good which has been rendered to you during the past twelve months.Surely as a congregation we ought to be more grateful than at any period in ourhistory as a church, in that but recently the Lord God has rendered to us a benefitwhich in height and depth and fullness surpasses any ever known in the history of thischurch. He has put such high honors upon us as a congregation. He has given sovisibly and so sensibly the endorsement of His Spirit’s presence and power to ourwork as a congregation, that we ought to reckon ourselves indeed as dead, if ourhearts do not warm today and glow with the memory of the great good that the LordGod has bestowed upon us as a people.And while this is true of the congregation at large, it is certainly true of the individualmembers of the church. So many of them can say, “As for me, I was brought low,even unto the gates of death; my portion was sorrow and trouble. The pangs of hellgat hold upon me; my feet were in the miry clay; I was sinking down and I cried untothe Lord in my trouble, and He heard me, and He delivered my soul, and today I ama monument of His mercy, and my heart shall sing with praise to Him as long as Ilive. I will take the cup of salvation, and I will call upon His righteousness in the midstof the congregation, and I will pay my vows to Him, and all the rest of my life shallbe a demonstration of my appreciation of God’s loving kindness to me.”There ought to be upon the part of some members of this congregation excessivethankfulness for this: That you, while not in the state of a lost sinner, were in a stateof backsliding of such a fearful character that you questioned God’s mercy to you.

You had no pleasure in religious duties, but by the recent power and favors of Godyou have had the joys of salvation restored to you, and a renewal of the divine favor,and today you are as happy in the thought of your relation to God as you were thefirst day that God, for Christ’s sake, forgave your sins.We might look around for another special object of gratitude, when we consider thatdepartment of Christian work entrusted to us as a denomination, in the upbuilding ofBaylor University. Its life has been a troubled one from the days of the Republic. Itwas a child of sacrifice, and storms rocked its cradle. Clouds of darkness were itscovering. Archers in ambush shot at it when it was a little child. It grew up wrestlingwith enemies at home and abroad. It lived, but it so lived; but now and recently theclouds which gathered over it and obscured its entire horizon, have been rifted, andthrough the rift the smiles of God have fallen upon its tears and illumined them so thattheir sparkle of reflected glory mingles with the sheen of the stars above them, andpromises a future that eclipses the conception of those who laid its foundation. Itseems to me that we ought to be thankful and glad today on account of that. Somuch for generalities.Now I want to call your attention very specifically to the thought expressed in the lastpart of our text, “Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift,” the gift of JesusChrist, and as for months past, day by day and night by night, the spiritual benefit ofthis gift has been presented to this congregation, I shall not today discuss that part ofit with such particularity, but there are certain features in connection with God’s giftof Jesus Christ to the world that render it to us an unspeakable gift - an unspeakablegift to the world.And now I am going to call your attention to those features. They are very clear inmy mind. I think I can make them clear to you. They strike me as exceedinglysuggestive and important features of His manifestation to me, and I believe that I canmake you see them in the same light.First, when Jesus Christ as the gift of God came to this world, there then prevailed,and I am sad to say has since prevailed, a very hurtful idea of this kind: That to bereligious you must be an ascetic; you must abjure bodily comforts; your meat mustbe merely locusts and wild honey and crusts of bread and a drink of water; that noman should be regarded as a religious man that was not that kind of a man.But when the gift of God in the person of Jesus Christ came into this world, it is saidof Him that He came eating and drinking. He saw not the least harm in sitting downto a good table, honestly provided, and moderately and prudently satisfying thedemands of the physical nature with the food which God had provided and whichought to be received with thanks.I want to show you how much more this means than is ordinarily thought, becauseevery now and then the old idea crops out that in order to be religious, in order to belike Jesus Christ, you must put yourself upon such a narrow regimen of physical dietas practically separates you from the world in which you live. The thought thatunderlies this and that makes it important is that our spiritual nature rests on and isconditioned by our physical nature. The least degree of observation on this subjectwill convince any man that it cannot be against piety to have a sound body; that itmust conduce to piety to have a healthy body; that there is no sin in being well; that itis no particular token of God’s special spiritual favor that you should be pale,emaciated and approximating a skeleton in the starvation of your body.Healthfully, naturally, as a man among men, the Lord Jesus Christ moved among thepeople, eating with them, drinking with them, and reaching them on the plane thatthey moved on. By doing this He established a wonderful and far-reaching principle,

which is this: That it carried religion to the tables of the people, and it said to thepeople who had the most religion, as you find recorded in the second chapter of theActs, “Eat your meals with gladness and singleness of heart,” as you are expected todo when you go home today to a Thanksgiving dinner. Go home and sit down toyour table, knowing that God smiles on it, knowing that if Jesus were here He wouldbe with you, and that He would share the joy of it. And while you are sitting at thetable, hear Him announce the law that carries religion to the table: “Whether you eator drink, whatsoever you do, do it to the glory of God.”It seems to me that that was a tremendous advance to make in the world’s ideasupon such a subject as that, but there is a grander one back of it and in connectionwith it; that while this notion of asceticism as the only basis of piety prevailed in theworld, there was one more hurtful still back of it, and that was, if you want to bereligious, if you want to be pure, you must withdraw yourself from the world, youmust separate yourself from mankind, you must retire from the world and be ahermit, dwelling solitary in some cave of the earth, with a sheep-skin for yourclothing and the same to be your bed, and you must live on pulse and herbs. And,following that out, if you want to live a religious life, you must be a monk and retirefrom all social life, from all thought of marriage, away from the sound of the laughterof children and of the domesticities of home, and you must shut yourself up in somecell, for just as sure as you come out of that cell you lose your religion!Oh, the monasteries and the nunneries, and the caves of the hermits, that haveoverturned the simplicity of the gift of God in the person of Jesus Christ, and thathave been an untold curse to those who sought them and those that have beenaffected by them, and who believe if you want to be a Christian you must be soseparate; you must not touch the world at any point!I deny it. The Lord Jesus Christ distinctly said to His disciples, “I pray not that yoube taken out of the world.” “That is just where I want you to be. I want you in theworld. I want you in contact with the world. I want your religion to reach the world.I do not desire that conscience should be banished from the sphere of business, norfrom the sphere of politics, nor from the sphere of social life, but I want conscienceto reign there. I pray the Father to keep you in the world. That is just where I wantyou to be.”Now, you take the contrary supposition: If you are going to be a Christian you willhave to give up business. If you are going to be a Christian you cannot be a lawyer.If you are going to be a Christian you cannot be a politician. If you are going to be aChristian you cannot farm and you cannot merchandise; which is to say that whenGod gave Jesus Christ to the world, He did not give a practical gift; He did not givea sanctifying gift; He did not give a gift that could come into the home and hallow it,and go into business and sanctify it, and bring about ultimately, as I believe beforeGod it will do, pure politics, pure business, and the religion of Jesus Christ will reignfrom shore to shore and all the kingdoms of this world shall become His. But Ipledge you my word it won’t become that by Christians retiring from the world andbecoming monks and nuns.Now I want to give you some practical exemplifications of it. When John the Baptistcame to preach the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of this new King that was thegift of God, what startled the people was that he preached principles of practicalapplication in the ordinary avocations of life. A clap of thunder from a cloudless sky,an earthquake without a premonition, darkness at midday, would not have surprisedthe world as much as this principle of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. And sowhen John began to preach that the tree that did not bear good fruit was to be cut

down and cast into the fire, and that repentance, to be genuine, must enter into aman’s life and into his every day life, I want to show you that he pushed this religionas a principle into those very vocations of life which, under the theories being nowcontroverted, were said to be absolutely impenetrable by religion.There came up to him some publicans. Who were the publicans? They were the taxgatherers. And they were tax gatherers of a foreign and dominant government. Hesaid to these tax gatherers, when they asked him, “What shall we do now? Is itpossible that I can be a tax gatherer and a Christian? You tell me to repent. Nowunder your ideas of repentance I have got to carry this into my life.” “Yes, youhave.” “Well, what am I to do?” “Exact no more than the law allows, and by yourconformity to the principle of the law, by not making your position a standpoint fromwhich you can rob and oppress, and by being honest and faithful, show that you area true Christian.”“Well, that may do in civil government, but you certainly would not say that you canpush religion into a military establishment.” That is exactly what I say. The soldierscame up to Him, the Roman soldiers, the men that were under an iron and rigidsystem of discipline, and they said: “Do you mean that we can be soldiers and beChristians?” “You can and you must be a Christian as a soldier.” “How?” “Well, becareful not to oppress the people; be content with your wages; keep your fingers offof plunder; lay no hand on spoils; show that, though a soldier, you love God and fearHim in your life.”That was a new religion. I tell you it was a religion that startled the world, and that isthe kind of religion we want now. It is a mistake that we make when we pervert andturn aside from its original intent that unspeakable gift of God to the world, His Son,Jesus Christ, who came and mingled among men as a man, sitting down at theirtables, and who brought them a religion that would hallow their homes, and showedthem how to be honest and faithful in their every day avocations.I want to carry the thought a little beyond this. An objection comes up here. Doesn’tthe Bible say that “the kingdom of heaven is not meat and drink, but righteousnessand joy and peace in the Holy Ghost?” It does and that is the higher part of it. That isall true, but because it is not meat and drink, and is joy and peace and righteousnessin the Holy Ghost, do you mean to distort that scripture and take it out of its trueconnection? That was intended to teach a truth the very opposite of the one to whichyou are applying it. Now you read more attentively the fourteenth chapter of theletter to the Romans, and see what a perversion of it you are making. And I amgoing to prove it to you by great fundamental principles which touch every part of thegovernment of Jesus Christ.The prophecies which spoke of Christ, spoke of Him as coming in mercy andtenderness to the bodies of men as well as to their souls. The lame man was to leapas the hart, the blind man was to see, the sick man was to be healed, the poor manwas to be fed. That was the prophecy of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, andwhen He did come, what is said of Him?Now, in <401532>Matthew 15:32, I am going to quote it to you: “And He had compassionon the multitude, because they had nothing to eat.” That is just exactly what it means.He had compassion on the multitude because they had nothing to eat. That referrednot to spiritual food, but to bread and fish, for they had been there three days withHim attending to their spiritual wants. But now their bodily wants cried loudly forgratification, and when He looked upon the hungry people, He had compassion upontheir hunger and spread His feast and fed five thousand himself.I ask you to remember one of the passages that I read as an introduction to this

service: “If a brother or a sister be naked or cold or hungry, and you say, ‘Be warm,be clothed, be filled,’ and do not give them the things they need, will that profit?”Will they not reach this conclusion in a moment, that your claim about spiritual thingsis false? Will they not say that your spiritual faith is dead, because it is so unlike theSpirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, who touched the body as well as the soul?I appeal to the scenes of the judgment: “Take your place, ye blessed of my Fatherupon my right hand.” Why? “I was sick and ye visited me. I was hungry and ye fedme. I was naked and ye clothed me.” “Lord, when did we do this?” “Whenever youdid it to the least of my disciples you did it to me.” I take the definition of James:“Pure religion and undefiled before God is to visit the fatherless and the widows inaffliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”There is no question but that our Lord Jesus Christ combined the two ideas of ahigher spiritual nature conditioned upon a lower physical nature, and that Hedetermined to redeem both by the grace of God. He said, “The poor ye have withyou always,” and the apostles so understood Him, for when the question came upabout circumcision, they said: “No, no, do not put that burden on the people.” Buthere is something you must remember - remember the poor, and Paul says “that weare very forward to do.”But it is objected just here: Isn’t the world to come the main life? True, but thisunspeakable gift of God demonstrated that the world to come is but the fruitage ofthe world that is - that nature has no leap. We do not leap into a world that iswithout relation to this, but that life is the continuation of this. A man goes right onthrough this life, one unbroken and continuous line of action, and he crosses deathjust like you would cross the imaginary boundary between states, and there is nomore change wrought in him by death per se, than there is in crossing one of thoseimaginary state boundaries. When he gets across that line he is the same man.If he dies unjust he is raised unjust. If he is a bad man here, he will be a bad manyonder. This world is but the threshold of the world to come, and here is where wemake preparation for that.That is the thought presented by the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christdetermined to redeem this world. He determined to redeem this earth: “The wholecreation groaneth and travaileth in pain, waiting for the redemption of our bodies.”And out of that spiritual redemption upon which men fix their mind’s eye there willcome the physical redemption of this whole earth as well. There will be a newheaven and a new earth, in which dwelleth righteousness.But it is objected here: “Will you not interfere with the state? Doesn’t the Bible say,‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that areGod’s?’ “True, it does, but as has been so well shown by that great modern writer,Josiah Strong, not only in his first book, “Our Country,” but in his new book, the“New Era, or the Coming Kingdom,” in both of which some of these very thoughtsare discussed with more ability than I claim.There is a confusion of ideas here that prevents us from a proper conception of theidea of the truth, and that confusion of ideas is making field and function mean thesame thing. Thus, the field of the Christian religion is the world. It is not the functionof the Christian religion to administer civil government. The influence of the Christianreligion must be all pervasive. Its authority must be confined to those who aremembers of each individual organization. But it must push conscience out into all thefunctions of government. It must take this position: No evil is irremediable. No sinmust acquire permanent possession by lapse of contest of title. The evil of the worldmust be met, not by abstract generalization, but by fighting and conquering evils as

we find them.The Lord Jesus Christ lifted His voice against evil in the State; evil in theadministration of government; evil in private life. And John the Baptist shook hisfinger in the face of Herod on the question of marriage. And so the religion of JesusChrist must lift its voice of protest, if it follows the Lord Jesus Christ, against everyform of evil: against the saloon; against gambling; against the corruption of the ballotbox; against wickedness in high places. And it must bring the thunders of the divinelaw to bear upon the individual consciences of men. But it must not put chains onanybody. It must not erect any gallows. It must not establish any inquisition. It mustnot assume the functions of the state.Now another feature of this wonderful gift is presented in this: That when He beganto organize those who accepted these principles, He dug up from the very foundationall ideas of hierarchy and sacerdotalism, all castes, all distinctions among His people.The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over their people; it shall not be so withyou. You are brethren. These Pharisees bow to rabbis. Be ye not called rabbis; youare brethren. Your position in the church is by the suffrage of your peers. It is for aspecific purpose.You cannot draw from it an unhallowed inference that you can put the heel oftyranny upon the neck of the poorest member of the church. They are fellow-citizensof the house of God, free as you are, and entitled to every spiritual privilege whichyou have. You must mingle with them, taking the oversight of them, not by constraintnor for filthy lucre, but as an example to the flock and as a servant to the flock, andbe one of them.Well, that takes the white cravat off of the clergy. That strips them utterly of all thatpeculiar kind of clothing that separates a man by the kind of vestments that he putson when he ministers at the altar, and puts up a man of the people, differing from thepeople only in the functions of office to which he is promoted, and coming downamong the people as a brother, as Christ moved among them to do them good, andnot to put himself away up yonder on a plane on which they never walk, and in lineof thought which they never can reach.It was a tremendous truth, oh, it was a tremendous truth, when this unspeakable giftof God to man came and touched the masses! And I say to you today, I have writtendown in the back of my Bible the sentence, “Whoever despises the masses is indanger, not so much from the masses as from God who made and loved them.”Their cry cometh up to the Lord of Hosts, and it was a characteristic of this gift ofGod in the person of Jesus Christ, it was an essential proof of His Messiahship,which was to convince the doubting mind of John in the prison, that the poor had thegospel preached to them - the poor!He touched humanity as no other man ever touched humanity. And out of that comesthe closing thought of this unspeakable gift, that when He laid the axe at the root ofthe tree of hierarchy, sacerdotalism and priestcraft, He established a universalkingship and priesthood among His people. What does He say? “You are all kingsand priests unto God.”Every one of you is a priest. Any one of you can come before God. The veil of thetemple is rent in twain from top to bottom, and that rending demonstrates that fromthe day of it until the world shall end, the shadow of no priest shall darken theinterpretation of the book to any individual man, nor shall he assume jurisdiction overthe individual conscience, but each converted soul is God’s priest and God’s king,and himself offers sacrifices to God.That is the grand thought, and the application of it is just this: That in sending out that

kind of gospel He knew He could reach the world. Why? Because the basal thoughtof submission to Him is this: I give myself to Him because He first gave himself tome. I venture to say that if Christ had remained invisible and had never becomeincarnate, and from the cloud-covered heavens had sent down a book of theories ofsalvation here upon this earth, they would have fallen as a leaf falls in autumn, andhave remained as uncared for as a jelly-fish lying upon the shore where the oceantides had left it.But when He said, “I will give myself; I will come down in person; I will take thepeople by the hand; I will sit down at the table with them; I will eat their crust withthem; I will drink of what they have of fare upon their homely table; I will be one ofthem; I will give myself” - I say when He did that He laid the foundation of theconquest of the world in that.Every true Christian first gives himself to God. He says, “I consider not my dutydischarged by simply helping to provide for the preacher; by helping to build thechurch, by giving so much money; but, blessed be God, I will personally take a partin the world’s evangelization. I will show men the truth. I will mingle with the peopleof the earth. I, too, am a king and a priest unto the most high God, and I haveauthority and commission to lead souls to life and salvation.” There is the thought ofit. And it is the grandest thought the world ever had.Now in view of the spiritual redemption which He purchased with His blood, in viewof His making the book of revelation harmonize with the book of nature, of Hismaking the world to come simply a development of the world that is, by His bringingdivinity in touch with humanity, that He might elevate humanity to divinity in the greatand fundamental principles, He is the unspeakable gift. “Thanks be unto God for theunspeakable gift.”And now, brethren, each year on our Thanksgiving celebration, we take steps fororganized and systematic help for the poor. I confess I do not feel like going hometoday and just saying, “Lord, I am thankful that you have been good to me,” andshut my eyes to the sight of another sufferer, and close my ear to the plaintive criesfor help that come. In the olden time He rebuked the ritualist when he says, “Awaywith your corban; away with your traditions that make void the commands of God.”The spiritual command is to send a portion of what you have to the poor. Help thepoor! Help them!And now, after prayer, we are going to ask every member of this church presenttoday to state what amount per month (for it is to go through the whole year), whatamount per month you will pay for the relief of the necessitous poor, the dispositionof this fund being in the hands of the deacons of the church, who are charged withthe investigation of each special application for the benefit of that fund, that it be notunworthily bestowed.For instance, suppose that tomorrow you come up with a case and you are verybusy; you say to that man, “Here, you go to the treasurer of the church. If the case isworthy there are officers of the church appointed to investigate. We all systematicallycontribute to the fund, and upon proof of worthiness you can be helped out of it.”That is the plan.Now I want us all to unite in a prayer of thanksgiving, and then a prayer that God byHis Spirit may help each one of us to consecrate himself to a life of service for theLord Jesus Christ while we are on the earth.9. THE CASE OF JOBTEXT: Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of theLord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. - <590511>James 5:11.

James asked the men of his day to consider the case of Job. I wish to ask you toconsider it. In order to do so, let us first have a word about the book. You mayaccept the book of Job as an inspired book, because its place in the canon ofScripture has never been questioned. That book is never left out of any collection ofthe books of the Old Testament. You may accept it as a part of the Word of God,because all the books of the Old Testament, from Ruth to Malachi, make use of it. Itwould take me hours to cite all the passages from Ruth to Malachi, showing the usethat other Old Testament books make of this book. You may count it as an inspiredbook, because of the New Testament quotations and endorsements.In the 24th chapter of Matthew our Savior quotes from it when He says,“Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.” And theApostle Paul quotes from it twice. You had a part of that in your lesson today. Thefifth chapter of Job, in which was your Sunday school lesson, is quoted and appliedby the Apostle Paul both in the 12th chapter of the letter to the Hebrews and in thethird chapter of the first letter to the Corinthians. You may count this book asinspired, because of the internal evidence of its inspiration.The second thought about the book is that it is not only the oldest book in the world,but it is one of the two Gentile books of the Old Testament. I mean to say that Jobwas not a Jew. While Jonah was a Jew, his book was written for the Gentiles. It isthe book of foreign missions. The book of Job and the book of Jonah occupy aunique place in the Old Testament Scriptures.The third thought is this: Job was an historical personage. I would have you to rejectpromptly and decisively every intimation, coming from any source whatsoever, thatthis book is merely a parable-that there was no such man as Job. First, the openingchapter is history, not poetry: “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name wasJob.” The closing chapters of the book are history, not poetry. The next argument is,that in the poetical part of the book the statements of job, while given in poeticalform, are expressions of deep and varied experiences. They are not fancies.I do not believe that any right-thinking man living can read the 19th, the 29th and30th, the 31st and the 32nd chapters of Job and say that it is a parable.The next reason to show that he was an historical personage is the classification ofEzekiel. In the 14th chapter of Ezekiel, and in the 14th verse, the Lord God says,“Though Noah, Job and Daniel stood before me.” That expression is repeated in the17th verse.Now if God classes Job with Noah and with Daniel, that is a demonstration that hewas a real personage. You would not use such an expression as this: “If Ivanhoe andWashington and Don Quixote stood before me.” You would not blend the creationsof fiction with the names of historical personages. In the 15th chapter of Jeremiah,and in the first verse, you have a similar classification: “Though Moses and Samuelstood before me.”The next argument is the use of the case that is made by our text. James says to theChristians of his day,“Take, my brethren, the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord,for an example of suffering affliction and of patience. Behold, we count themhappy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job and have seenthe end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.”(<590510>James 5:10,11.)That inspired man would not ask you to take the case of a mere creation of fiction.He would not ask you to consider as an example an imaginary person in a parable.The fourth question which we wish to answer relates to the time. About what time

did Job live? About what time was this book written, and who probably wrote it?The first thought is that all of the circumstances in the history indicate the patriarchalage. I mean the age between Abraham and Moses, before the calling out of thechildren of Israel from Egypt and before the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. Thereis not in the whole of the book of Job any reference to the law that was given onMount Sinai.There is not a reference to any Jewish institution recorded in the other books of thePentateuch, nor to any institution of a subsequent age. The sacrifices referred to inthe book of job are just like the sacrifices in the days of Abraham, when no priestoffered them, but when the father of the family offered the sacrifices. There is noallusion in the book to any historical fact whatever mentioned in the Old Testamentsubsequent to what is stated in the records of Genesis.And Job refers to his creation. He says, “Thou hast made me out of clay and wiltthou return me to the clay?” - referring to the fact recorded in Genesis, the secondchapter, as to the manner of the formation of man’s body. Job refers to Adam. Hesays, “If I have covered my sin as Adam,” when he hid from God and endeavored todeny the sin which he had committed. Job refers, in the plainest language, to thedeluge. In the 22nd chapter of this book, he refers to the calamity which had comeupon the wicked world by a flood. But there is no reference in job to any bookwhatever that was then in existence. He complains that the Lord had not revealedhimself in a book: “Oh, that mine adversary had written a book.”The Satan mentioned in the book of Job answers to the description of the Satan inthe book of Genesis. The book of Job nowhere refers to the worship of images. Heonly refers to that earliest form of idolatry, the worship of the sun and the moon. Hesays, “If I have kissed my hand to the queen of heaven, the moon in the skies.” Theonly revelation of God to men mentioned in the book of Job is by dreams. In thefourth chapter of the book, Eliphaz refers to a dream that he had, in which Godcame to him as a Spirit by night and caused the hair on his head to stand up inaffright, and Job himself says in a subsequent place that God appears to men indreams by night, and all of the revelations of the divine will continuously kept upbetween God and man were by dreams.But the book does clearly show that there is handed down by tradition a clearrecognition of the appointment by God of sacrifices as exhibited by Abel after theexpulsion from the garden of Eden and by Abraham and Jacob. But we must notconclude that Job had only a very little light when you remember that Enoch, theseventh from Adam, clearly foresaw the second coming of the Son of God, when hecomes with ten thousand of His saints to take ultimate and final judgment upon thewicked.The fact of sin, the necessity of an atonement for sin, the presenting of offerings andthe symbolizing of a deeper and richer atonement in the future by the blood of theLamb, was just as clear to Job’s mind as it was to the mind of Abraham.The date of the book is further manifested by the reference to the manner of writing.He says, “Oh, that my words were printed in a book.” And then he tells how theymade a book. They would take a sharp instrument, and on a rock, a smooth stone,would grave, by hard work the words they wanted, and then they would pour hotlead in the trenches they had cut for the letters, and when the lead got cold, theywould take the lead out and that would be their book. That indicates the very ancienttime in which he lived.Notice that this book must have preceded every other book in the Bible. Certainlyall but the Pentateuch draw from it. I could, as stated a while ago, consume hours in

giving you citations from Ruth, from Samuel, from the Psalms, from Solomon, fromIsaiah, from Jeremiah, from Hosea, from Amos and others, as well as from thebooks of the New Testament, showing that these others all drew supplies from thisbook already in existence.My opinion is that it was written by Moses; that it was written while he was inMidian, before he went to deliver the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage. Ihaven’t time to tell you why I think this, but to my mind the reasons are absolutelyoverwhelming. It seems to me clear that whoever edited this book wrote the book ofGenesis.And now, as to the object of the book: Before I enter on my own views, I wish toread you what two men have said. I could read you what a thousand have said, forthe literature upon the book of Job would fill this house up to the ceiling and all theway around. As to the object of the book, I introduce first a lecture by LymanAbbott:“Let me illustrate what I mean by the study of individual books. The scholarhas read verses and chapters from the book of Job. He has heard repeatedlyquoted, ‘Oh, that mine adversary had written a book.’ He has no idea whatit means, for the quotation (as he has heard it) is always semi-jocular. Hetakes up the book of Job to study it. What is it - a poem, a parable, a story?Whether fiction founded on fact, or fiction without any fact foundation, is notvery material. It is certainly as true as the parable of the Prodigal Son, andthat is true enough. Who was Job? A man who lived in the world’s twilight.No sun of righteousness had risen on him. He never refers to law, or priest,or prophet, or dream, or divine revelation of any kind. He was a worshiperof a true but wholly unknown God. He was a Hebrew Socrates. His religionwas the religion of nature. If it be said that he possessed in addition thatknowledge of God which had trickled down through tradition from thepatriarchal age, it may be replied that every devout heathen has possessedthe same knowledge. He lived in the faith of the aphorism, ‘Be virtuous andyou will be happy.’ So long as he was prosperous his religion of naturestood him in good stead. But adversity came. His property was swept away,his children were killed, disease laid hold on him, nothing was left but hiswife, and she was almost the direst misfortune of all. He was utterlyoverwhelmed, was in hopeless perplexity. The very foundations of his faithwere broken up. His three friends insisted on it that all this was a punishmentfor his sins. He was too good a man to play at mock humility, and indignantlydenied it. He maintained his virtue, and yet could not give up his faith in God.So his perplexity embittered his grief. Out of it comes the cry for just thatwhich the divine revelation gives to us in our sorrow. ‘Oh, for a Daysman!’Oh, for a divine disclosure of the unknown! Oh, that this, mine enemy, whohas suffered blow on blow to fall upon me, had written a book to explain hisways and reveal his will! Natural religion fails in great sorrow. The soulwants a Savior, a visible Savior. The soul wants a Bible. When the studenthas gotten this general view of the book of Job as a parabolic poem,touching the need of a supernatural Christianity, all in the book, every cry ofJob, every supercilious consolation offered by his three miscalled friends,become significant. No man can understand a part that does not understandthe whole. He that would interpret aright a single flower in the tapestry mustfirst stand off a little and get a view of the whole pattern.”I now wish to read from Dr. Conant, who has translated the book of Job and given

us the best translation of it in existence. He was one of the most profound scholars ofany age:“The subject of the book of Job seems to me to be the mystery of God’sprovidential government over man. In the treatment of it the sacred writershows:“1. The difficulties which it presents to the finite mind, and the conflictingviews and false conclusions of the human spirit in its attempts to reconcilethem.“2. The true position of man in reference to the Eternal and Infinite.“The important lessons of the book are expressed in the followingpropositions:“1. The apparently arbitrary distribution of the good and evil of this life is notthe result of chance or caprice. God, the Creator and Judge of all, presidesover and controls the affairs of earth. His providential care extends to all Hiscreatures. He has the power to restrain or chastise wrong and avengesuffering innocence, and this power He uses when and how He will.“2. The government of the world belongs of right to Him who created it;whose infinite justice can do no wrong; whose perfect wisdom and lovedevise only what is best; whose omniscience cannot err in the choice ofmeans; who is infinite in power and does all His pleasure.“3. To know this is enough for man, and more than this he cannot know.God can impart to him no more, since omniscience alone can comprehendthe purposes and plans of the infinite.“4. Man’s true position is implicit trust in the infinitely wise, just and good,and submission to His will. Here alone the finite comes into harmony with theInfinite and finds true peace. For if it refuses to trust until it can comprehend,it must be in eternal discord with God and with itself. Such are the grand andimposing teachings of this book. They have never been set aside orsuperseded. The ages have not advanced a step beyond them, nor is theobligation or the necessity less now than then for this implicit trust of the finitein the Infinite.”I have given to you, to be judged by you, these two statements concerning the objectof the book of Job. Let us analyze the book and form some conclusion for ourselves.All the facts upon which the thought of the book is based are contained in the briefintroduction. Look at the facts. Here is a man concerning whom the historian saysthat he was very rich, very great, very much honored and very good - the strangeand startling phenomenon of a rich man, great man, honored man, and not spoiled byriches or greatness or honor, but who was good in all that he did.You have the statement of the Almighty himself that he was a good and perfect man,and feared God and eschewed evil, and that the like of him did not exist in the world.I want to read you Job’s statement of it. That is God’s statement and the historian’sstatement. Now look at his statement of his condition“In months past God preserved me; His candle shined on my head. By Hislight I walked through the darkness. The secret of God was upon mytabernacle. The Almighty was with me and my children were about me. Iwashed my steps with butter and the rock poured me out rivers of oil. WhenI went out to the gate through the city, when I prepared my seat in the street,the young men saw me and hid themselves, and the aged arose and stoodup. The princes refrained talking when they saw me coming and held theirhands on their mouths. The nobles held their peace and their tongue cleaved

to the roof of their mouth. When the ear heard me, then it blessed me. Whenthe eye saw me, it gave witness to me, because I delivered the poor thatcried and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The blessing ofhim that was ready to perish came upon me and I caused the widow’s heartto sing for joy. I put on righteousness and it clothed me; my judgment was arobe and a diadem. I was eyes to the blind and feet was I to the lame. I wasa father to the poor; and the cause which I knew not I searched out. I brakethe jaws of the wicked and plucked the spoil out of his teeth. Then I said, Ishall die in my nest and I shall multiply my days as the sand. My root wasspread out by the waters and the dew lay all night upon my branch. My glorywas fresh in me and my bow was renewed in my hand. Unto me men gaveear and after my words they spake not again. My speech dropped uponthem and they waited for me as for the rain, and they opened their mouthwide as for the latter rain. If I laughed on them they believed it not; and thelight of my countenance they cast not down. I chose out their way, and satchief, and dwelt as a king in the midst of his army, and dwelt as a comforteramong the mourners.”Now you have the case. That is the man and those are his circumstances. Now thequestion comes up, What brought about that? The people out in the world looked athim and said, Job is great and rich and honored because he is good. The devillooked at him and said, Job is good because he is great and rich and honored. Justthe opposite. The judgment of the world was that all these things had come upon himas a blessing for his goodness, and the judgment of the devil was that all of thisgoodness was the result of the blessings.In other words, stating it in his own proposition: “Doth Job fear God for naught?” Asif he said to God: “You are bragging about this case of Job, about his being such agood man. Does Job fear God for naught? Haven’t you been a hedge around him? Iknow I have been trying to get him. I couldn’t do it. There was your hedge. It keptme away. Haven’t you blessed his business? I suggest that if you would take awayfrom Job these blessings that you have conferred upon him, you would take awaypiety from him.”In other words, the proposition of the devil was, any man can be a saint on $25,000a year; that all piety in this world is a refined form of selfishness; that when a man isgood, he is good because it pays, and if you take away the pay, he won’t be good.That is the proposition.Now that is the key to the book. That is the challenge that brought about all thecalamities that came upon Job, the judgment of the devil that righteousness in men isrighteousness for pay. There now needs to be a test upon that question and the Lordpermits the test. He says to Satan: “He is in your hands. Don’t you touch his life.You say that man is a good man because I have made him rich, and because I havemade him great, and because I have conferred honors upon him, and because I haveblessed him with a happy family, a loving wife, sweet and obedient children. Justsweep them away and when you sweep them away, sweep them away as if I did it,without a sign or reason why. There must be no apparent reason. You just sweepthem away all at once, and let it seem that every blow came directly from God, andfrom a silent God.”Well, here come the messengers, four of them. One of them rushes up to Job oneday, in the very midday of splendor and health, not a fleck of a cloud on his sky, nota premonition of coming woe; one day while he was saying, “I shall live to a goodold age and die in my nest, and I am looking for good” - there rushes right into his

presence a messenger that says “The Sabeans fell upon your herd and swept awayevery one of them, and killed your servants; I alone am left to bring you news.”While that man is talking, a second steps up and says: “Your five hundred yoke ofoxen were plowing in the place where they ought to be in the field, without anycarelessness upon the part of your servants; there wasn’t any neglect of wisdomupon your part or theirs, but they were plowing in the place where they ought to be,and the asses grazing by them where they ought to be, when suddenly the Chaldeanscame and swept every one of them away and killed every one of the servants butme.”And there comes a third while that one is talking, for he doesn’t get through beforethe third messenger rushes up and says: “Your seven thousand sheep that you hadwere out yonder in the place where they ought to be, and under all the care thatwisdom had provided for their protection, when suddenly there came a storm and itgot right over them, and it seemed to be a storm with nothing on earth but lightning init; fire fell from heaven and killed every one of the servants but me.”While that one is talking, and before he gets through, the fourth messenger rushesinto his presence and says: “All of your children were gathered together in the houseof the eldest brother, and while they were feasting, suddenly there came a cyclonethat struck every corner of the house at the same time. It just wrapped all around itand twisted it and tore it up from its foundations and killed every child you have.”Now what about the effect? “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessedbe the name of the Lord.” “I did not start with anything. I came into this worldnaked. When I go out of it I won’t take anything. I will go out naked. Surely I canstand in the middle of my life as I commenced it and as I must end it.”That is the answer. It astonished the devil. It is one of the sublimest utterances thatever fell from man’s lips: “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed bethe name of the Lord.” Whether He comes in sunshine or cyclone; whether Hecomes in robber bands or in lightnings, or in the sweetest, gentlest blessings, it is theLord; blessed, blessed be His name.But the devil would not give it up. He says: “I would like to test him again. He ispious because he is well. That man has good health and you cannot make a man feelbad that is in good health. Now you touch his body, his skin, his bones, his marrow,and he will curse you.” The Lord said, “Do with him as you will, but do not touch hislife.”Instantly there fell upon Job, through the malice and ingenuity of Satan, a loathsomeand painful disease, which has in all past ages been accounted as coming from God,just as leprosy was said to be the special messenger of God. So this disease wasalways reckoned as coming especially from God, and Job understood it so; not fromthe devil. He understood it came from God. And from the top of his head to the soleof his foot there was not one place on which you could put the point of a needlewhere there was not a sore boil, and red with fire and inflammation, until his skincracked; until the putrid matter oozed out of him and ran from him; until wormsfastened themselves in his festering body; until his own wife could not stand to benear him; until every servant left him, and he was held in supreme contempt byeverybody that looked on him.His wife came up and said: “This doesn’t pay. This God you worship doesn’t pay. Irecommend that you curse Him and die.” What is the answer? “Thou speakest asone of the foolish women. Shall we receive good at the hands of the Lord and notreceive evil?” There is the test and that test is ended, so far as the devil’s part of it isconcerned.

And he made this mistake - I do wish you would remember it: Whoever can standprosperity can stand anything. Whoever can stand being rich and being great andbeing honored, and still remain true to God, why, he has already stood the crucialtest.I consider Job’s integrity and purity and character when rich and prosperous andgreat, as far more phenomenal, far more wonderful, than his endurance of thesufferings that came upon him, and the preservation of his integrity in his sufferings.And the devil has quit lately repeating that blunder. He used to burn people, kindlefires around them, until the “blood of the martyr became the seed of the church.”Men maintained their religion, their love for God, in poverty and in affliction, anddied shouting for God.But he learned that a grander test was not to do that. Don’t burn them; make themrich. Give them power. Give them opportunity. I tell you when they stand that theywill stand anything, because it is far easier to be a saint on $250 a year than on$25,000 a year. “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom ofheaven.”Now my time is up and by far the most important part of the sermon is to come. Ifthe book had ended right there, when Job had answered the devil’s question, “DothJob fear God for naught?” - when he had demonstrated that he was not good justbecause it paid; that he did love God; that he did fear God, independent of anytemporal favors that were conferred upon him - I say if the book had stopped there,there would have been some very important things upon which no light could bethrown, and one of the things is this: What Job thought about that case.Now, a good man like that, brought suddenly, without any sort of explanation, andby the hand of the Almighty, into such sweeping desolation of poverty and personalsufferings, and alienation of friends - the perplexity of that man’s mind! What onearth does this mean? “I know God is just. Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.But I do not understand it. I cannot understand it. I wish I did.”Well, now that is to be considered yet. Then another thing is to be considered: Whatabout the men from the outside that looked on that calamity - the men that had stoodoff a while ago and said, “Job is good, and because he is good, God hath made himrich and great and honored.” That class of men, just as soon as the riches andgreatness and honors had passed away, instantly changed their verdict, and said,“Job is bad; for if he were not bad, how could these things happen to a good man?”Now, those two phases I want to consider in the sermon tonight, and they are thephases that are presented in the poetical portion of the book of Job, and it will beshown what it was that Job needed. It will be shown why it was of profit to him tobe brought into that condition. It will be shown how that it was of profit to the wholeworld that God should bring him into that position. It will be shown that the judgmentof the world, that first made honors and riches the reward of his private goodness,and afterwards made the calamities the punishment of his sins, that that whole theoryis at war with every truth of God in nature and in revelation. Those are the things tobe shown in the sermon tonight.10. LESSONS FROM THE CASE OF JOBTEXT: Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of theLord; that the Lord is pitiful, and of tender mercy. - <590511>James 5:11.Very briefly I wish to review the sermon of last Sunday. It was stated that the bookof Job is an inspired book, and the reasons therefor assigned, that the book is uniquein its relation to Gentile people; that Job himself was an historical personage, andproof submitted; that he lived in the patriarchal times between Abraham and Moses;

that he lived in Idumaea, scriptural proofs of which are overwhelming; that mostprobably the author of the book was Moses.As to the object of the book, there was read in your hearing the supposition ofLyman Abbott and the theory of Thomas J. Conant, the great Baptist Hebraist,whose translation and exegesis of the book are the best extant.There was then given a partial analysis of the historical facts upon which the poeticalpart of the book is founded. The case presented was that of an exceedingly rich,great and powerful man, a case of unexampled prosperity. This case of prosperitysuggested two theories. The men of the world said, “Job is rich and great andpowerful because Job is good. For if a man is good he will be rich, he will be great,he will be powerful.” The devil’s theory was just the opposite that Job was goodbecause he was rich and great and powerful. That is to say, any man can be a sainton $25,000 a year, and that if God would take away this prosperity, Job would bebad.These theories, by the permission of God, were tested, and the prosperity was takenaway from the man with the following results, which I will restate in Job’s ownlanguage - as sublime utterances as have ever fallen from the lips of man: “The Lordgave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” “Shall wereceive good at the hands of the Lord, and shall we not receive evil?” “Though Heslay me, yet will I trust in Him.” “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and though aftermy skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” “I know that afterI am tried I shall come forth as gold from the fire.”Such was the result of the test, demonstrating that the devil’s theory of the case wasat fault. The sermon closed with showing the blunder that the devil made, which isthat you can destroy piety quicker by adversity than by prosperity. The sermonshowed that a man who could stand wealth and power and opportunity, and retainhis integrity, had stood a much more crucial test than if he had been subjected toadversity.And now we come to the next sermon upon the subject. The first sermon wasconcerning a case of prosperity. This one is concerning a case of calamity. Beforeus, in the other sermon, stood a man exceptionally great, rich, powerful and happy.In this sermon is presented to us a man exceptionally poor, wretched and miserableevery way. As the prosperity called forth theories, so the calamity calls forththeories. As there were two theories about the prosperity, so there are two about thecalamity.In this case the devil is eliminated. Job’s friends come and survey the extent of hiscalamity and they pronounce this judgment: “This man must be an awful sinner, andwhat has come upon him has come upon him as a penalty for the secret sins of whichhe has been guilty.”Job’s theory of the case was mixed. He emphatically denied that what had comeupon him had come upon him as a penalty for his sins. But he had this theory aboutit: That God created wicked men and good men just alike; that calamities came uponone just exactly as they came upon another; and that they had no signification otherthan it was the unexplained will of God.Let us look at the first theory. That theory is supported by these two arguments: Thatin this world there is an exact and continuous correlation between virtue andhappiness and between vice and unhappiness and that this relation, or correlation, isso exact and so continuous that whenever you see an unhappy man you may knowthat he is not a virtuous man, and that whenever you see a prosperous man, you mayknow that he is a good man; and that whenever anything occurs in this life of any

adverse character to any man, it is God’s judgment upon him penally.The reply to this might be that the Lord himself, in speaking of this case, hadproclaimed the exceptional integrity of Job’s character and the righteousness of hislife. But Job didn’t know it. It was hidden from his sight, that council that was held inthe heavens. It was inscrutable to him that up there the Lord had stated beforehand:“This is a good man; this is an exceptionally good man; there is not his like in theearth, and upon this exceptionally good man shall come calamities and reverses thathave not their like in the earth.”The theory was opposed by the consciousness of Job; his experience. He knew itwasn’t true. He knew in himself that he had not been a hypocrite; that he had notobtained his property by fraud; that he had not gloried in it when it was obtained;that he had not used it for selfish purposes; that he had not prided himself upon hispower and oppressed the people that were under him. He knew that he had beeneyes to the blind. He knew that his property had not been taken away from himbecause of his abuse of it, and his experience and his consciousness stood upirreconcilably against the theory that what had happened to him was a judgment onhim because of his sins.And not only Job’s experience opposed it, but his observation. He puts the questionto them: “How often is it that the light of the wicked is put out?” Now, you say, if aman is wicked his light will be put out. But how often does this happen? I want toask you if the investments they make in live stock do not pay as well as yourinvestment? I want to ask you if even the tabernacles of robbers do not sometimesprosper? I want to ask you if it is not evident, as coming under the observation ofany man that looks out upon human affairs, that the punishments for sin are notcoincident with the sin here in this life? And he continues: “I will die before I willconfess that this comes upon me on account of my sins. I will maintain my integrity! Iwill die with that on my lips.”Look at this rule: Not without exceptions, but as a rule, it is true that there is arelation between virtue and happiness even in this life. It is true that even in this life,as a rule, “honesty is the best policy,” so far as business interests are concerned. It istrue, even in this life, that Godliness is gain; that it has the promise of the life that nowis as well as of the life to come. All this is true. It is also true consequently that just asthere is a correlation between industry and success and between sloth and poverty,that the same principle obtains in the moral and spiritual world.But you must not judge by fragments. Job’s life as a whole proves that rule. Look atthe end of his life. It harmonizes with the general law that governs such matters. ButJob’s life taken as a fragment does not prove it. While this is true as a rule, yet otherthings must be considered as modifications of this rule, and which if you lose sight of,you become perplexed with facts that smite you in the face every day of your life.Why?This world is not all; it is only a part of the universe. It is a part of a system.Moreover, this life is not all. All of this life is a fragment and all of this life does notexhibit every time its full significance.Sometimes it is true, as Paul says in his letter to Timothy, that some men’s sins areopen, going beforehand unto judgment. But he says sometimes they come after.Likewise he says it is true that a man’s good works go before unto judgment, butsometimes they come after. And he is calling Timothy’s attention to this very fact, inview of selecting a preacher whom he would ordain to the work of the gospelministry: That he must not judge by a fragment; that he must not judge by mereexternal seeming; that while it is true that sometimes a man’s character is perfectly

manifest, at other times it is not perfectly manifest that you may induct a man into theministry upon a superficial judgment of his righteousness and purity and goodness ofmotive; after a while you will find that you have never been acquainted with thesecret springs of that man’s life. It is seldom safe to pass a judgment upon any humanlife with only a fragment of it before you.Nor must you forget that the life here is a school of discipline, and no man can judgeof what occurs in a school as if it were a judicial tribunal, dealing out the final justiceof God. In disciplining one you sometimes hurt, you sometimes temporarilyimpoverish; like the great general of ancient times, who kicked the pillow of snowfrom under the head of his boy, and said, “That is too easy for you; endure hardness,toughen yourself,” as the eagle scatters the twigs upon which her eaglets rest, andpushes them off as though she would push them upon the rocks, in order to makethem exert themselves.So this whole life is a discipline, and particularly is it so with God’s people. And Hemay and does oftentimes send afflictions upon His people without the slightestreference whatever to any sin that they have committed. He may send them toprevent a sin. He may send them as a discipline and preparation against what Heforesees is a coming temptation. And it is a slander upon God to affirm that everytime what is called an accident happens, that it is God casting His punitivethunderbolts.You remember how such a presentation of this subject affected the boy who readthe case of Elisha and the two she-bears. He read that here were some boys whomade a mock of the old prophet and said, “Go up, thou baldheaded.” Now thetheory taught to this boy was, if bears came out and destroyed those boys, they willeat you up for a similar provocation. He doubted it: “And if I speak to an old manand say, ‘Go up, thou bald-head;’ will the bears come out and eat me?” And hedetermined to try it. So stepping out into the streets as a venerable old man waspassing along, he cried out, “Go up, thou bald-head!” Then folding his arms hedefiantly said, “Now, trot out your bears!”Take the case of Ananias. Here was a man that told a palpable lie, a lie against theHoly Ghost, and he dropped dead in a moment. But do you mean to say that it is therule of God in this world that every time a man tells a lie, he will drop dead? I tellyou, if the Ananias case was a rule of God, there would be such a slaughter as hasnot been known in the records of time.Perhaps you say to a Sunday School boy, “If you go fishing on Sunday a snake willbite you.” I say you do misrepresent God’s government when you tell him that. Yousay to a boy, “If you go out on the lake rowing on Sunday, a wind will come andupset your boat, and you will drown.” I say you have belied the government of Godand prepared the way for that lad to become an infidel, because he will see casesthat he knows are like that, and the first time he sees it, he will begin to look for thejudgment, and he will say, “Now, it will come! Now, let me watch Ananias; I justwant to see him drop dead. Now, let me watch and see the bears come out of thewoods.”But he doesn’t see them, and he turns Around and he says, “Who is the Almighty,that I should fear Him; and what profit shall I have if I pray unto Him?” The theory isfundamentally erroneous. It is directly contrary to all of the teachings of God.The Pharisee says: “Look at this man. He was born blind. Now, somebody musthave committed an awful sin. Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was bornblind?” Jesus said, “Neither this man nor his parents.” That blindness did not happenas a punitive judgment of God; that blindness happened for the glory of God, as will

be illustrated in the use that is made of it. And I do not hesitate to say that there is avast deal of what is called Sunday School literature upon this subject that certainlydoes make practical infidels wherever it is read and believed. It is bound to do it.I said this life is a school, a discipline. God takes one of His children and begins topurify him. He will come as a refiner of silver, and in order to purify that silver Heputs it in the crucible, heaps the fires around it, keeps them hot, until the blazes wrapthemselves about it, and the coals glow under it, until the solid becomes a liquid, untilit melts.And now, what if that liquid cries out: “Oh, do not burn me up! Why are these hotfires burning around me? What sin have I committed that I should he put into thisflame? Why should I be singled out to be burned after this fashion?” And the Fathersays: “This is not a punishment at all, not at all - no more than when the surgeonpains you with the knife in making an amputation to save your life. There is not anatom of punishment in it; it is discipline. It is for your good; it is to make you better. Itis to give you strength of character.”Will the unshaken oak take root? Will it take deep root unless storms come andblow it this way, blow it that way, and force it by rough usage to sturdiness andstrength?Now the next reason why this rule is not true (and I wish to make this so emphatictoday that you will never forget it), let me impress it on your mind, is that thejudgment day is not in this world - not in this world at all.True, a sinner’s conscience says to him every time a trouble comes on him, “This ispunishment for my sins.” But that is not God punishing the sinner. I mean to say thatwhen the Lord takes up that case and visits penalty sure enough, he will find itsomething very different. I will admit that even a Christian will feel disposed toconstrue this way whatever calamity occurs; he in his conscience will connect it withsome sin that he committed, and it may be true, so far as it is corrective, but that thecalamity is a penalty, either to the sinner or the Christian, I emphatically deny,because the judgment has not yet been set.Now that is what Job says. Job says, “You tell me that this is what happens to asinner. I tell you that the wicked are reserved unto wrath until the last day.” That iswhen they will be judged. It is the hardest thing in the world to get people to see thissimple truth, that the judgment day is not here now.That used to perplex David very much. He had the prevalent idea that if prosperitycomes to a man, it is proof that he is good; that if adversity comes to a man, it isproof that he is bad; otherwise where is God, where is God? And he says,“My feet had well nigh slipped when I saw the prosperity of the wicked;when I saw their eyes stand out with fatness; when I saw the afflictions of therighteous; when I saw that I had washed my hands in innocency in vain, andhere I was suffering, and there that fellow was having a good time, and myfeet had well nigh slipped.” What cured him? He says, “When I went into thesanctuary and got up high enough to see far enough and saw the end of thewicked, then I understood.”And now I want to take Job’s case and show you why afflictions come upon a goodman, and why, if you are good, and afflictions come upon you, you need not wasteany time trying to find out which one of your particular sins this is God’s penalty for.You have committed them, doubtless, and this affliction will have a good effect uponyou if it makes you look into them. But if you take them to be God’s penalty uponyour offenses, then you have utterly misunderstood them.Now let us see. The Lord said that Job was a perfect man, and one that feared God

and eschewed evil. But the Lord didn’t mean perfect as some modern-day peoplemean perfect. I have seen some of these perfections. I have seen some who claimedsinlessness of life and character, and on the face of it, without any argument, I alwaysregard with pity that one, be he man or woman, preacher or member of thecongregation. I do not hesitate one moment to say he is egregiously deceived, or elsehe is a hypocrite.Job would say, “I am a good man. I make the right use of all of my money. There isnot a sin in me and therefore I do not need any of this. Why should such a good manas I am have to suffer all this pain?” Well, I will tell you. Job needed it. Yes, evenJob needed it, though he had not his like in the earth. Job needed it that it mightdiscover to Job some things in him that he did not know. And when the lesson wastaught him he says, “I put my hand on my mouth, and behold, I am vile; I abhormyself and repent in dust and ashes.”I do wish these people who go around quoting the saying that Job was a perfectman, and one that feared God and eschewed evil, and construe it to mean what Goddid not mean by it - I wish they would read the rest of the book and see the Lord’sconstruction upon it himself, and the revelation that was brought out by the disciplineto which He subjected Job.In the next place this discipline showed conclusively that Job’s affections were likelyto become too much fixed upon his prosperity, upon his power, upon the number ofhis friends, upon the servility of those that came about him, for when the lesson cameon him and they were taken away, now listen to him.You say there was no danger that that might happen, and he didn’t need anydiscipline to prevent such a thing. Now listen to him:“Oh, that I were as in months past! I do wish I had that time back. I can seemyself then, with everybody taking their hats off as I passed along! I can seemyself then as my servants bowed obsequiously before me; I can see myselfthen sitting as a chief. But oh, who now has any regard for me in this fix? O,that I were as in months past!”And there is not a man upon the earth that is free from danger who is prosperousand great and powerful and has opportunity. There is not a man upon earth butneeds the restraining and preventing chastisement of God to keep that from workingharm to him.Take the next point. Job thought that when affliction came upon a man, and suchaffliction, that therefore his birthday ought to be blotted out: “Let that day in which Iwas born be accursed. Let it be taken from the calendar.” Now, don’t you see thatis a fragmentary judgment. That judgment was passed upon what had happened upto that time. Suppose after all this discipline was over, when Job a hundred yearsafter this was richer than he ever was, and had more friends than he used to have,and his children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, were gathered abouthim, and the smiles of God were brighter than the light of the sun or the sparkle ofthe stars, suppose Job from that standpoint had looked up. Would he say,“Accursed is the day that such a man was born?” Then you wait before you passjudgment on a birthday.Then let us see how else he needed it. He needed it in this: He thought if such a manas he was had fallen into such a calamity as this was, therefore it was cruel in Godnot to let him die. “I want to die out of it. Why just look at me. I am loathsome.Nobody respects me. I am a burden. Oh, Lord, this one thing I ask, that I may die.”Who made it man’s prerogative that he should say when he should die? So thoughtElijah when God had proposed that he never should die; that he should be the one

that was to go up into heaven in a chariot of fire, without ever having tasted death. Itis quite easy indeed, quite cowardly, when afflictions come upon us in such shapethat they make us repulsive to others and rob us of our former splendor and power,to say, “Now, my judgment of this case is that it is better for this man to die.”Better to die! How do you know? Who made you a judge? You must not judge oflife by such a fragment as that. You cannot tell what God has in reserve for that verylife.Let us see again. Job took this position: That if as good a man as he was had allthese calamities come upon him, that God had made himself an adversary. To provethis now I will give you Job’s own words, his figures of speech, and you can tell howhe regarded the Lord’s treatment of him. He says, “The Lord has set me up as atarget and then just stood off and shot me full of arrows.” That is his figure. He says,“The Lord has tied me hard and fast, and then He is roaring at me like a lion and Icannot get away.” He says, and I give you his figure, “The Lord has taken me by thenape of the neck and with His omnipotent hand He has shaken me until every bone isloosened.” That is his representation of it.What does our text say? That the Lord is pitiful. That God is never an adversary toone of His children. And Job needed that lesson very much. Job did not know of thetest the devil was to make. Job did not see the council that took place. There was acloud between him and that. He took no cognizance of the fact that there was an eviland malicious spirit that goes about over this world as a roaring lion, and who doesmake targets of men. It was malice, but it was Satanic malice, that assailed him.Permissively God let it happen.But there is a kind of discipline for children that is not good if you put sugar with itevery time. While you are out of sight of the child, yet you see him and you are readyto intervene if the case gets too bad, but let him get out there and feel that there isnothing on earth between him and that dog that is barking at him; let him get out thereand feel that the adverse elements of this world are shutting in on him, and it willdevelop a watchfulness and strength of character that will never be developed if youhold your arm about his neck.Now, the Lord did let a lion roar at Job, but the lion was the devil. The Lord did letan archer shoot his fiery shafts into him, but that archer was the devil. It did look as ifthere was anger somewhere and there was anger, but it wasn’t the Lord’s; it was thedevil’s. And God permitted it in order to teach Job some things.Now, I will give you an analogous case. Jesus says, “Simon, Satan has made arequest of me.” Just the same as Satan did in Job’s case. “His request is that hemight be permitted to sift you apostles. He wants to see what there is in you. Yousay that you never will deny me. You say that if the whole world abandons me youwill stand by me. Now, Satan wants to sift you a little on that, and I have concluded,for wise purposes, to let him try it. But I haven’t turned the case loose. I am going topray for you. I am going to see to it that your faith doesn’t fail, but I am going to letyou feel that you stand out there by yourself, and that the devil has picked you up,with the other apostles, and put you in a sieve, and let him shake you up a while andsee how much chaff there is.” And when the devil shook it, he shook Judas clear out,and he gave Peter a shaking that he never forgot as long as he lived. And Peterneeded it, and Job needed it.Moreover, Job complained that the Lord wouldn’t hear him. He prayed to God andsaid, “Lord, am I brass? Can my flesh stand this forever? I pray you take this off ofme. I cannot stand it; take it off.” But God didn’t take it off. Then he says. “I prayedunto Him and He heard me not.” But the Lord did hear him.

Now, compare that with Paul’s case: “I prayed thrice unto the Lord that He removethis thorn from my flesh, and the Lord says, ‘I won’t remove it. Let that stay. I put itthere; but I will give you grace sufficient to bear it.’ “But Job sought, as God himself says, to disannul God’s judgment; God put that teston Job and Job practically denied that there was any reason for it, and he demandedthat the Almighty should explain himself. He contended with the Almighty, and hesays, “Oh, if I knew where to find Him, I would go to Him, and I would go like aprince, too. I would go with my head up, and when I got to Him I would fill mymouth with arguments and I would know what He said to me and He would knowwhat I would say to Him.”And the Lord says, “Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct Him? Shallthe thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Who hathknown the mind of the Lord? Who can be the counselor to Omniscience”, Whatcreature can demand as a right an explanation of the province of the Creator.”One of the great objects of the book of Job is to impress, as Dr. Conant says, thattruth firmly and forever in the human mind, that a finite mind cannot bring God toaccount, and that whether you can understand it or not, that you should submit andsay, “It is the Lord. He knows; I do not. I am just like a little child. I do not knowwhether this is good for me or not. I do not know that it would be better for me forthis sickness to leave me. I do not know anything about it, but I do know that a kindand loving Father has my case in His hand, and I know that He is no tyrant and nolion and no archer. I know that He is no North American savage that has tied me toa stake and is sticking hot splinters into my flesh and burning my feet and trying totorture me. I know that He is no inquisitor, who has bound me down to the rack andstretched my bones and tried to make me suffer everything that I could suffer, just tohear me groan; not that, not that.”We come near our conclusion. John Bunyan was preaching the gospel, and he waspreaching effectively. He was right in the path of duty, and God permitted JohnBunyan to be arrested and put in prison and kept there twelve years. Did you everstay in jail one night? I never did. But just think of this case. Twelve years in jail fordoing right! Twelve years!And then to look out through the bars and see his blind girl begging bread on thestreets! Now, Lord, isn’t this cruel? Has this man ever deserved this? Is this afather?Yes, it was a father. And by putting John Bunyan in that prison there was broughtout of it a song that no man could have sung on the top of the mountains ofprosperity. Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” would never have yielded to any call of aprosperous mind, of a man luxuriously situated, of a man with his friends about him. Isay it took Bedford jail and fires burning around him to put that man in a condition towrite a book that would travel every thoroughfare of the earth.John Milton was a good man and he had great purposes in his mind about what hewas going to do, and just in the act of it he was made blind. “Blind! No light everenters into these sightless orbs, and I had just planned out what I would do. Lord, isthis good?” “Yes, that is good. Though you are blind, and because you are blind,and because thereby you lean like a little child upon me, I will enable you in thedarkness of that blindness to write ‘Paradise Lost,’ a song that shall fill the heart ofthe earth with its echo.”The sandalwood is not fragrant until the axe cuts into its odorous veins. Some vinesdispense not their perfume until they are bruised. Some souls never get to their trueand highest and holiest mission until they suffer. The Captain of our salvation was

made perfect through sufferings. We must have fellowship with the sufferings of JesusChrist. Rejoice, my brethren, when affliction comes upon you. Shout and be glad,because it is a demonstration of God’s love to you, and not of God’s anger and notof God’s wrath.I will tell you, if you had together today all of the books that have been written in thisworld by happy and prosperous men, you might burn them, every one of them, andthe world would not suffer much loss. But oh, don’t you burn the books that camefrom the souls in agony. Don’t you burn the books from a soul that was hemmed inand environed, that was submerged under a baptism of suffering; that book will be ofsome account.You, my brother, may be, as a great preacher once said to a younger preacher,“You may be a Boanerges, a Son of Thunder, without suffering, but you will neverbe a Barnabas, a Son of Consolation, unless you suffer. You don’t know anythingabout the power of consolation until you suffer.”Now, I have passed beyond my time. I hope if no other good has beenaccomplished, that it will efface from your mind the thought that the afflictions thatcome here in this life are punitive, that they are the penalties which God visits uponsins. You slander that true and holy and perfect justice of the Almighty, and youpeople your town with infidels if you talk that way, and if you teach Sunday Schoolsthat way.11. THE CONSTRAINING LOVE OF CHRISTTEXT: For the love of Christ constraineth us. - <460501>1 Corinthians 5:14.I have often had occasion to call your attention to the manner in which the Greeklanguage forcibly expresses different shades of thought that are almost impossible inthe English. Take the word “constrain” as it appears in our English version, and itmight be supposed that just one Greek word represented it in the New Testament inthe original, but it is very far from being the fact. In this connection the word,constrain, manifests its meaning by its usage.Let me cite to you some other instances of its use in the New Testament, that youmay get its true import, for, first of all, there ought to be a lucid exegesis of theScripture. You need to know what the Spirit says; you need to know what the Spiritmeans.In the eighth chapter of Luke and in the 45th verse the record says this: “Master, doyou see that the multitudes throng you.” Now that word “throng” in the English isrepresented in Greek by our word which is here translated constrain. It is equivalentto saying, “Master, do you not see that the multitudes shut you in, hem you in, in anarrow compass?”Again, in the 12th chapter of Luke and in the 50th verse our Savior, in view of theawful sufferings that were fast approaching and were then perfectly visible to Hissight, says, “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it beaccomplished.” Now that word “straitened” is the word which is here translated“constrain.” And in the 19th chapter of Luke and in the 43rd verse, our Savior inreferring to Jerusalem says, “The day will come when your enemies will dig a trenchabout you and compass you with a wall and keep you in on every side.” Now,“keep you in” is the word which in this connection is translated “constrain.” Again inthe 18th chapter of Acts, in the third verse, where the Apostle Paul was deeplyconcerned about the situation of a wicked city, it is said: “And Paul was pressed inthe spirit.” Now the word “pressed” is the same word that is here translated“constrain.”Again, in the letter to the Philippians, the Apostle Paul, representing himself as being

pulled by two opposing desires, one to be absent from the body and present with theLord, and the other to be present in the body in order to do good to men, says this:“I am in a strait betwixt two.” Here the entire phrase, “I am in a strait,” is expressedby the word which is here translated “constrain.”From this usage of the word we can get a clear idea of its meaning. When theApostle Paul says that the love of Christ constraineth us, we understand it to meanthe love of Christ shuts us up, and hems us in, and opens to us no other way to goexcept to do what we are doing.The only other thing necessary in the exegesis to explain is the phrase, “love ofChrist.” It is an ambiguous phrase. It may mean the love of Christ for us, or it maymean our love for Christ. The question arises then, which does it mean? What is theimport of it? What is the sense of it? In this connection it means unquestionably thelove of Christ for us. It isn’t my love for Christ that is constraining me, that shuts mein, but it is Christ’s love for me.Now the context shows in what particular manifestation of the love of Christ thisconstraining power is lodged. The verses which immediately follow the text tell usthat He died for us, not for us in the sense of in behalf of us, but He died for us in thesense that He took our place, that His death was vicarious. The love of Christ intaking my place under the law and in my place meeting the death penalty of the law,the love of Christ as manifested in dying as a sinner that constraineth me. Such is theexegesis of the text.The first observation which I wish to make upon the text is this: It is common andnatural for men of the world, carnal men, unacquainted with spiritual influences, tothink earnest, self-sacrificing, Christian people to be mad, to be crazy. From theirstandpoint it is impossible for them to comprehend the motives which impel aChristian to disregard selfish interests, to live not unto himself, but to live untoanother, and to so live unto that other that personal ease and pleasure and glory areall disregarded as fine dust in the balance.I say that this exhibition of earnest sacrifice and unselfish sacrifice on the part ofChristian people is an inexplicable thing to a man of the world, and when heconsiders such a case he says, “He is mad; he is crazy.” I take three examples:First, the family of Jesus. I mean the brothers of Jesus, and I give it to you as myopinion that it means the sons of Mary and Joseph that were born to them after Jesuswas born. The record appears in the 12th chapter of Matthew, the third chapter ofMark and the ninth chapter of Luke, and this is the substance of it: When the newscame to these brothers of Jesus that He so kept on in His benevolent work of healingthe sick and preaching the gospel and raising the dead, that He didn’t even have timeto eat, and that He was so thronged, constrained, shut in by the needy and anxiousand sorrowing people who crowded around Him that He couldn’t find rest, that Heseemed to be wearing His very life out, that a zeal was consuming Him as a fireconsumes a dead tree - I say, when the word about this was brought to thesebrothers of Jesus, they said, “He is beside himself; let us go and seize Him.” It meansjust what it would mean in our time, “let us get out a writ of lunacy.” That is exactlywhat it means.I say the family of Jesus proposed to get out a writ of lunacy and put Him underconfinement as non compos mentis, not of a right mind, needing a guardian, needingsomebody to take care of His affairs. And they came for that express purpose, as itis signified in these three gospels, and even His mother was with them. With herhigher spiritual conceptions of the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ, even she was ledaway by this importunity of His brothers to go with them to seize Jesus.

You remember once before He had to say to her, “Wist ye not that I must be aboutmy Father’s business?” And “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” On thisoccasion when this family came to arrest Jesus Christ upon the charge of lunacy, ofmental aberration, what did He reply: “Who is my mother? Who are my brethren?”And waving His hand to the great crowd that pressed in upon Him, He said,“Whosoever doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven; she is my mother; he ismy brother; she is my sister.”The second example which I wish to cite is recorded in the 26th chapter of Acts ofthe Apostles. On that occasion before a court, an earthly court, the Apostle Paulappeared to answer certain charges preferred against him, sent up from Jerusalemthrough an advocate, the lawyer, Tertullus. Now imagine a court of the present time,and you know how exceedingly practical an earthly court is. You know that on thedry plane of judicature no blossom of sentimentality can take root; that it is stern,practical, looking to worldly interest.Now, before that court Paul appeared to answer a charge preferred against him, andas he was setting forth the vision that he received on the way to Damascus, and howthe Lord Jesus Christ had converted him, and how Jesus Christ had commissionedhim, and how Jesus Christ had empowered him to turn the nations from darkness tolight, and from the power of Satan unto God, and to give them an inheritance withthe saints in light through faith in Jesus - as he was going on with this wonderful storyof his meeting with the risen Jesus, Festus - Festus, as cold as an icicle - pointed hisfinger at him and said, “Paul, you are beside yourself. Much learning hath made theemad.”Festus could not understand it. Think of such a speech as that in a courthouse, with acold, shrewd, analytic, calculating lawyer prosecuting - for him to get up there andlay his hand on his heart and talk about the open heaven, and the risen Jesus, and theresurrection from the dead and the world to come. It was very natural for Festus tosay, “That man is crazy. Now, he isn’t a bad man; he is simply crazy.” From aChristian standpoint Paul might well reply, “I am not mad, most noble Festus; Ispeak the words of truth and soberness.”Take another case, the first chapter of the first letter to the Corinthians. The ApostlePaul had carried this same gospel to the cultivated and refined and philosophy-lovingGreeks, the descendants and admirers of Socrates, and Plato, and Aristotle, andEpicurus, and Zeno - these men whose minds would divide a hair in metaphysicaldisquisitions, and whose representatives are here today. When Paul stood up beforethem and called them sinners and lost sinners, and sinners whose only hope ofsalvation was in the cross of Jesus Christ, the Greeks said: “Foolishness, madness.”Finally, consider the context which leads us up to our text. Even these Corinthians,who had heard him, who had believed him, who had been baptized upon aprofession of their faith, but who were yet babes in Christ, who were what you calllittle Christians, just starting, with not yet a grand view of the gospel of Jesus Christ,seeking only a star of promise here and there in the skies above them, and withcloudy conceptions of the relation of this world to the world to come and the glorythat was to be revealed - when Paul came before these Corinthian brethren andexhibited a zeal that was like an unquenchable fire, and stood and received stripes onhis body until the blood ran down his back, with chains on his hands and feet, andwas stoned and left for dead, and would rise up from the syncope and say, “Jesus,the Cross, Eternal Life,” they said, “This apostle is crazy.”Now, what does he reply to them? “Whether I be beside myself it is to God.” Youask an explanation of my conduct, why I unselfishly do the things I do; why I count

money nothing; why I count the laurel wreaths of fame and glory that you place uponthe brow of victors in your brutal games, as nothing; why I spurn under my feet theloftiest honors that this world can confer - you ask me to explain. You tell me I ambeside myself. My answer is (in the language of this text), ‘the love of Christconstraineth me.’ There is the answer; there is the motive. I have no other.”Now, do let me call your attention to a nice shade of thought in connection with itthat I am afraid you will forget; and just let me assure you that you need it - verymuch need it. Some of these brethren were Jews, and Paul was a Jew, and the mostastounding thing to them in the world was not that he was willing to make a sacrificefor a Jew, but his burning zeal for Gentile dogs; that is what they cannot understand.He says, “I know no man after the flesh,” showing that it was just exactly such a caseas led His kinsmen to count Jesus mad.Now, I can imagine the whole scene of those brothers of Jesus coming together in afamily council, for family consideration: “Our elder brother, Jesus, is disregarding thefamily interests. This is going to bring the family into trouble. He ought to consider thefamily. Now if He was making sacrifices for us to advance us in wealth, to advanceus in earthly honor, we could understand it, but to be led away by a zeal that causesHim to shut His eyes to the claims of the family, He is crazy.”As I want to make the matter plain to you, I invoke its application by the EternalSpirit. It is true that the gospel teaches that an obligation rests upon every man totake care of his family; and it is true that the gospel says that whosoever providethnot for his own has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel. And it is true that thegospel declares that one should not put his poor kinfolk off on other people to betaken care of if he is able to take care of them himself. All that is true, but it is aloftier truth, yea, it is a paramount truth, that no family claim can nullify the higher lawof God; that there is an obligation towards God resting upon every man unto God,which takes precedence of family obligations.Oh, how many have sheltered under that thin pretext when the cause of God, in itsbleeding necessities, appeals to him by day and by night. He says, “My family; Myfamily!” Henceforth, says Paul, I do not even know Jesus Christ himself after theflesh. I do not know Him as a Jew, as having descended from the line of Abraham.And as the Lord Jesus Christ says, “The family - the family - who are they?Whosoever doeth the will of God, she is my mother. Whosoever doeth the will ofGod, he is my brother. Whosoever, whether Jew or Gentile, near at hand or faraway, comes to God and gives his soul to God, that man is blood kin to me.”That is His thought. Let me ask you to distrust, with very grave distrust, thatcheapest of all proverbs, “I must take care of my family.” Do so. God’s law requiresyou to do so. But beware that under that you do not hide from your obligation to thecause of God.I tell you, I believe that if the hand that stole out from the clouds and became visiblein recording the Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin, upon the wall over Belshazzar’sguilty head, should be reached out today from the inscrutable curtains that hide thefuture from our sight, and should tear the veil from off the cowering men and womenthat are sheltering under that plea to keep from duty, it would be a vast as well as askulking crowd, unmasked.And now I want to analyze the motive: “The love of Christ constraineth us.” You,standing afar off, see the sail of a ship and you cannot comprehend what the creware doing on that ship. It seems to head north; then it heads west; then it heads northagain; then it heads south, zig-zagging. And you say, “Why go they so? What dothey mean? Is the commander of that ship crazy?”

But when you get down closer, you will hear the captain answer your question. Hesays, “I am in a strait here. This is a narrow channel. I must follow its windings. Icannot sail out there over the land and mountains. I am in a strait betwixt two banksand this strait-wind, and in that winding strait I am shut up to sailing in the direction Ido.”See that column of Frederick the Great in the great battle of Prague, marching acrosswhat seems to be a smooth, green meadow. And you ask what on earth induces thatfile leader, when the column is under the desolating fire of Austrian batteries - whatinduces him to march across that meadow in a zig-zag line, instead of chargingstraight across.I will tell you. Go nearer and you will see that yon seeming meadow is a quagmire;that there is only one little isthmus on which you can go and find a firm foundation foryour feet; and though death smites them for the delay and the circuitous route theytake, they are shut up to going that way. Now that is the meaning of constrain. I amin a strait betwixt two. Looking at the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, I am hemmed into do what I do.Well, what do you mean by saying that you get a motive, and such a motive, fromthe love of Christ? I admit that a powerful motive may come from an example. Thereis something in looking at an example of unselfishness. You read about it, and youfind as you read tears come in your eyes. Oh, that was grand! That was grand!What boy’s heart has not thrilled within him when he read of Arnold Winklereid’sassault upon the solid phalanx of the Austrian army, that with spears presented,seemed to be invincible by any charge the Switzers could make, and who, to open away, caught on his own breast as many of the spear points as he could, and brokethem off in his own heart, and left an opening through which the charging columns ofhis comrades could win victory. Well, it stirs a boy’s heart to read that.It stirs his heart when he reads of old General Stark at Bennington, when, like ablack cloud from the cold North, Burgoyne seemed to move with invincibledestruction upon the doomed colonies and it was necessary to stem the tide. At thehead of his militia, Stark saw the column of Baum coming to seize upon the propertyof his countrymen and to destroy their homes, and he says: “Boys, follow me! Wewill whip that column or Mollie Stark will be a widow.”The heroism of such cases incites in the human heart a desire to emulate. But Idisavow that as the secret of the constraining power of the love of Christ. Paul thusdescribes how it comes: “If one died for all, in the place of all, then, legally, all diedwith Him.” Representatively, every man died with Him. If He died in the place of all,then it follows that those who live in consequence of His expiatory death should(mark the obligation, not the example; mark the obligation), should live henceforthnot unto themselves, but unto Him who died for us. That is the thought.Now we get to the rationale of it. You ask me why I do a thing as a Christian thatto an outside man seems to be an act of madness; that doesn’t seem to be an act ofjustice to my family. You talk about obligations. I, too, talk about debt. Here is anobligation. I was lost, hopelessly lost, crushed and sinking under the waves ofdefiling, incriminating sin. And Jesus took my place and purchased me by His ownblood.Under the law, therefore, I belong to Him. I belong to Him by purchase. From thecrown of my head to the sole of my foot He owns me. If there is any part of me thatexpiating blood did not touch, let that part be free. But if there is any part of me thatclaims salvation through that expiating blood, that part is under obligation to thepurchaser.

Is it my body? Do I mean to say that I want my body, when it sinks in the dust, toremain dust forever? That is exactly what you say if you claim an exemption of yourbody from the service of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if indeed, when you look uponearth’s graveyards and yawning sepulchres, and when in vision you see your ownpulseless body lowered into that vault, and when in anticipation you hear the dullthud of the clod on your own coffin lid, if you look to a time when God will raise thatbody and glorify it forever, then certainly that body, by the glorious resurrection ofthe Lord Jesus Christ, is purchased by Him. This, I submit, is the whole case. Whydo you that, Paul? Because I belong to Him, every bit of me, now and forever, andHe said, “Go,” and I go.Some people that preach on the text: “If any man be in Christ he is a new creature,”absolutely shut their eyes to the context. They forget that Paul brings that verylanguage in as an illustration of what he is saying about “the love of Christconstraineth.” He means to say if a man does as you see him and you try to accountfor it, it is accounted for this way: “I am not the man I used to be; once I would nothave done this way. Once I was Saul of Tarsus; now I am Paul, the redeemed. I ama new creature now. I have not been patched up; I have been re-made from thestart. The creative power of the Eternal Spirit has been on me, and I am no longercarnal, sold unto sin, but spiritual, by the regenerating power of the Holy Ghost. Oldthings have passed away.”I used to look at life from a worldly standpoint, but old things have passed away; allthings have become new. The heavens are new to me now; and family glory is newto me now. I don’t know now that it would be best to leave my child a million ofdollars. I don’t know that it would be best if I should pamper my children and soendow them that when I am gone away they will simply live like a worm in the heartof an apple. I don’t think that now. I am a new creation. Old things have passedaway.Now, in passing, just let me clinch this thought: You sometimes hear men (and theyare curious men to me) - you sometimes hear men debating on whether one is aChristian, and trying to settle it by an intellectual perception of doctrines, by beingable to see things, by having clear mental conceptions of a truth.If you will excuse me, it is the merest stuff. Are you a new creature? Here is the test.I don’t know any better: Are you living unto Him that bought you? Is your life untoHim?Now you may talk about how clearly you see the plan of salvation just as much asyou please. You may talk about how glad you are and what wonderful feelings youhave, and you may talk about what dreams have come to you, but just as sure asyou are alive today, unless you are living unto Christ, you are on the road to hell.That is all there is in it.I do say that it is a slur upon the power of the Holy Ghost, upon the very meaning ofregeneration, that there should be a vine that bore no fruit, that there should be afountain that did not flow, that there should be a star that did not shine, that thereshould be a life that did not love.Now comes the application. More than in all my life hitherto have I becomeimpressed with the power of Christianity above every other power in the world, bythis recent campaign made for Christian education. Look at this, will you? How areyou to get people that live outside of a town, that have no investments in it, not onesolitary financial interest, to pay in the hardest times that the state has ever known,$65,000 cash towards one of your buildings which help build up your town? Howare you to get it?

I say to you that an angel from heaven couldn’t get it from business men, from menwho judge of it by worldly considerations. There was but one power that could do it;go to Christian men, men that love the Lord Jesus Christ, men who feel theconstraining love of Christ on them, and say to them, “Here is Christ’s cause.” “Is it?Then I will hear it gladly. I will aid it gladly. I will show you that I do it gladly.”Now, take the other view of it, presented here in your city, where the appeal is onlya business interest. Why, it is like shutting your eyes and butting your head up againsta brick wall. I ask my congregation for $10,000 from business motives. Hic labor,hoc opus est.I do not hesitate to say that the most indurating, hardening, petrifying force in thisworld is wealth. I say more, that it is the most blinding. It not only makes a man dimeyed,but ultimately makes him stone blind. True, men will give money for pleasures,however brutal. Instance a prize fight.You let Sullivan and Corbett have a fight and how quickly will one say, “I am willingto pay for the pleasure of witnessing that. I will give you $100 for a front seat; I willgive you $1,000 for a front seat.” Any sacrifice in that? I want something. It willplease me. I will give a thousand dollars just to gratify my brute nature, to sit in thefront seat and see two men pummel themselves until they drive from the human faceevery lineament of manhood. Certainly, certainly men will pay money for that.But I am talking about matters where there is both an earnestness and a sacrifice forthe cause of God, independent of earthly advantage. Now, when you come to that,nothing but Christianity will move men - nothing. And I repeat here what I said to theSouthern Baptist Convention, a remark made to me by my old grandmother. I hadheard about terrapins that were closed up in their shells and would not move unlessyou put a coal of fire on them. One day I brought her a terrapin, as I thought, andput a coal of fire on it, and it didn’t move, but when she looked at it, she said, “Thatterrapin is dead.” And it was dead. It was an empty shell. And let me tell you, whenyou put the fire of the Christian religion on a professor of religion and he doesn’tmove, “that terrapin is dead.” It is only a shell. That is all there is in it.Let me insist on the application. Here is a little group of Baptists, very poor, who pay$10,000 cash for the cause of Christian education, that are not nearly as muchfinancially interested in the outcome as hundreds who never consider the matter.Why is it? How do you explain it? Where is the motive? Is it not a sublime illustrationof the power of the Christian religion? It goes beyond any other power in the world.The love of Christ constraineth us - the love of Christ on the cross - that constrainethmen to do things that a worldly man will think is madness. But is it madness? Let ussee the end before we thus judge.Oh, if we could pull back the curtains and unveil the consummation, and bring sonear that they would impinge our shores, the borders of the world to come; oh, iffrom out the darkness which shuts it in, there could, through rifted clouds, appear theglory of that sun-bright clime, and we could today inhale the fragrance of its flowers,and could be entranced with the melody of its music, and could see the sheen of theapparel of its inhabitants, and feel our spirits bathed in the beatific glory of itsatmosphere and our souls moved by its happiness and light, who would not becrazy? I would to God there were more crazy men after this fashion.12. THE BIBLE DOCTRINE OF SANCTIFICATIONTEXT: Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvationready to be revealed in the last time. - <600105>1 Peter 1:5.Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end forthe grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as

obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts inyour ignorance: But as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in allmanner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy- <600113>1 Peter 1:13-16.But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by ChristJesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish,strengthen, settle you. - <600510>1 Peter 5:10.To me the most conspicuous and most painful of all human faults are, first, my own;second, those of my Baptist brethren. Like the stroke of a lash do these faults stingwith exquisite pain, and excite the blush of shame. When our people say, and do not;when we vaunt our missionary name, and manifest an anti-missionary spirit; when weexalt congregationalism by destroying comity, sacrificing the “Love of thebrotherhood” and co-operation on the altar of church sovereignty, thereby makinglocal church independence our shame instead of our glory; when we so magnifyindividualism at the cost of church authority and order as to promote anarchy; whenwe claim descent from the martyrs, and frequent saloons; when we proudly quote:“My kingdom is not of this world,” and practice all worldly-mindedness; when weperfunctorily pray: “Thy kingdom come,” and neglect the ordained means of itscoming; when we ecstatically sing: “Fly abroad, thou mighty gospel,” while shuttingour eyes to the contribution box; when we sing “Amazing Grace” and ignore whatthat grace teaches: “To live soberly, righteously and Godly in this present world” -these things provoke the prophetic exclamation, “Ah! Lord, our leanness! Ourleanness!”Truly who shuns Scylla should beware of Charybdis. But the deepest of allhumiliation is felt when we triumph over “instantaneous sanctification” by doubtfulassertion of its progressive character, while making no progress in practical holiness.Right willing am I, my brethren, to establish today by the Word of God, theprogressive nature of sanctification, culminating in glorification at the coming of ourLord, and the unscripturalness of instantaneous personal holiness in this life,provided: First, that you will receive it, not as proof against the frequent infilling of theHoly Spirit for joy, power and service. Second, nor in the spirit of glorying over apolemical adversary, but altogether that we ourselves may not only seek ever to befilled with power from the Holy One, but also move forward in practical, personalholiness.If we advocate progression, let us progress. If we modestly deprecate “that we havealready obtained, or have already been perfected,” let not our modesty hinder usfrom pursuing onward to lay hold of that for which Christ laid hold of us. And whilewe exultingly point forward and upward to the prize of the heavenly calling of God inChrist Jesus, let us not stand still like a signboard and only point, but “pursue ontoward the mark.”If, indeed, sanctification be from strength to strength, from faith to faith, from glory toglory, then let not our faith and strength and glory of today be only equal to the faithand strength and glory of yesterday. This is not the time, place, occasion or doctrineto say, “Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord,” lest God should say to us asunto Moses: “Wherefore criest thou unto me? Say unto the people that they goforward.”If, therefore, we be in accord as to the object of this sermon; if our purpose behonest to listen for ourselves and apply the lesson to our own lives, then are weready to consider this text:“A salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (<600105>1 Peter 1:5.)

“Wherefore girding up the loins of your mind and being sober, set your hopeperfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of JesusChrist; as children of obedience, not fashioning yourselves according to yourformer lusts in the time of your ignorance; but like the Holy One who calledyou, be ye yourselves also holy in all conduct; because it is written: Ye shallbe holy for I am holy.” (<600113>1 Peter 1:13-16.)“And the God of all grace, who called you to eternal glory in Christ, after yehave suffered a little while, will himself perfect, establish, strengthen, settleyou.” (<600510>1 Peter 5:10.)You will observe that I have conjoined the three passages from the first letter ofPeter: one from the beginning, one intermediate and one from the end. The collationis not arbitrary, for the three texts are correlatives, and being taken from theintroduction and body and conclusion of the letter, best express the connections andscope of the apostle’s argument.An analysis of the three passages gives us this outline: First, there is a salvation notyet attained or comprehended. Second, it will be brought unto us and manifested atthe coming of our Lord, in the last time. Third, our approach to it is through thediscipline of suffering. Fourth, its result is perfection, strength, establishment,settlement. Fifth, its standard is the holiness of God. Sixth, its method of gradualconformity to the standard is both negative and positive:(a) Negative in that we must not fashion ourselves (that is, gradually takeshape or form) according to the old lusts of our unregenerate state;(b) Positive in that we should fashion ourselves (that is, gradually andcontinually take shape and form) by watchful, sober obedience in thepractice of holiness, fixing our hope steadfastly and perfectly on nothinglower than the glorious consummation - perfect likeness to God.This outline, even in its nakedness, is very suggestive. As you behold intently, itspeaks. Hearken to its voices! Do you not hear it say: “Call nothing but this a fullsalvation. Call not the fulness of this future salvation a present salvation. Let notHope furl her wings to alight on any goal this side of our Lord’s coming. Count notyourself to have reached that goal till Faith has changed to Sight by overtaking Hopeon the loftiest summit of its upward flight-till Experience has feasted on the fruition ofDesire, and Realization rests on the fulfillment of Promise.Beware of shouting, Eureka! while hope shouts, Excelsior! “For hope that is seen isnot hope; for who hopeth for that which he seeth? But if we hope for that which wesee not, then do we with patience wait for it.”But the most ringing, peremptory, clarion-keyed, silvertoned of all the voices arethese: “Are you children - children of obedience? Then, gird your loins formovement. Are you sober? Then perfectly set your hope on yon sun-kissed pinnacleof the Second Advent. Are you ready? Then forward all along the line - down withthe easily besetting sin - down with the weights that burden - sever entanglingalliances - fix your eyes steadfastly on the Great Exemplar double quick - forward,march!” Looking at that outline, it would seem that even the dead might hear thesevoices.Let us now fix in our minds the meaning of sanctification. I refer not to that verycommon use of the word, meaning to set apart, to dedicate, to consecrate to holyuse. In this sense all Christians are saints (<460102>1 Corinthians 1:2) and to them all it maybe said, “Ye were sanctified.” (<460611>1 Corinthians 6:11).Sanctification, as a finally attained state of the soul, is the result of that continuousoperation of the Holy Spirit in us, by which the holy disposition imparted in

regeneration is maintained, strengthened and perfected, until all tendencies to evil aresubdued.As a finally attained state of the body, it is that result called redemption in <450823>Romans8:23, suggested by the transfiguration of Christ on the Mount (<401702>Matthew 17:2),accomplished in the translation of Enoch and Elijah, to be accomplished in all saintsliving when our Lord returns (<461551>1 Corinthians 15:51 and <520407>1 Thessalonians 4:7),and to be accomplished in all saints who have fallen asleep in Christ, by the power ofthe resurrection (<461553>1 Corinthians 15:53, 54) ; and called the manifestation of thesons of God (<450819>Romans 8:19) in the perfect likeness of our Lord (<620302>1 John 3:2 and<191715>Psalm 17:15).This is the result invoked on the Thessalonians by Paul, and no result less than thismeasures the full meaning of sanctification:“And the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit andsoul and body be preserved entire without blame, at the coming of our LordJesus Christ” (<520523>1 Thessalonians 5:23).And in other imagery this is also the result, which in all its ravishing and dazzlingbrilliance he portrayed before the Ephesians:“Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that He might sanctify it,having cleansed it by the washing of water with the Word, that He mightpresent the church to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle orany such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish” (<490525>Ephesians5:25-27).This definition implies that, although in regeneration the governing disposition of thesoul is made holy, there still remain tendencies to evil which are unsubdued; and thatthe existence in believers of these two opposing principles gives rise to a conflictwhich lasts through life: “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit againstthe flesh; for these are contrary the one to the other; that ye may not do the thingsthat ye would” (<480517>Galatians 5:17); but that in this conflict the Holy Spirit enables theChristian through increasing faith, more fully and consciously to appropriate Christ,and thus progressively to make conquest of the remaining sinfulness of his nature.For the benefit of these Sunday School children whose patient and attentivepresence at these long doctrinal sermons delights me, I will now shorten my definitionto one word: Sanctification means holiness - holiness of spirit and holiness of body. Itmeans that final and perfect and eternal holiness which appears faultless and spotlessand blameless, even when exposed to the supernal brightness of heaven and in thepresence of that Being before whom the sinless angels veil their faces as they cry:“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty!”It is not imputed righteousness like that which secured our justification, but personalrighteousness which makes us meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.Justification gives us our legal title; sanctification prepares us to enjoy the inheritancesecured thereby. It is that complete transformation of mind and body which not onlyimparts a perfect likeness of the image of our dear Savior, but such a fixed and finaldisposition and purity of heart as fits us to find in God only our portion and joy, andputs us in spiritual harmony with heavenly joys and employments.It is not only an eternal death to sin, in act and state - that is a mere negation; but it isbeing altogether alive to righteousness only - in act and state. It is not merely thecomplete putting off the old man in his deeds and nature; it is the complete putting onthe new man in deeds and nature.As we have borne the image of the earthly, so shall we bear the image of theheavenly. It is not merely a casting out of Satan, for that would leave only an empty

house; but it is being filled with the fulness of God. It is not regeneration, that greatcreative act which makes us alive and new, but it is to regeneration what the ripenedgrain ready for the harvest is to the quickened seed from which it sprang andmatured. In other words, not the initial act of being, but the highest development ofwell-being, As under whatever form we state the doctrine in relation to the soul, itinvolves character developed by growth.We advance to the second proposition: Sanctification is progressive. This inevitablyfollows from one generally conceded fact, to-wit: It begins, but does not end, inregeneration. Regeneration is an instantaneous, creative act of God. To makesanctification instantaneous, you must, like Zinzendorff, let it end with regeneration,or deny that it begins there. But as it is conceded both that it begins and does notend in regeneration, it is morally impossible for it to be instantaneous.Mr. Wesley says:“When does inward sanctification begin? In the moment a man is justified.(Yet sin remains in him, yea, the seed of all sin, till he is sanctifiedthroughout.) From that time a believer gradually dies to sin and grows ingrace.”My unduly zealous holiness friend, Mr. Armstrong, says on Page 14 of his pamphlet:“Dr. Carroll next assumes that sanctification begins in regeneration. To this Iconsent.”But I pass to greater theologians.Dr. Hovey, President of Newton Theological Institution, says,“Regeneration may be described as a change in the soul of a man, by whicha disposition to holy action is originated.” “Regeneration is the beginning ofsanctification.” - Pages 244, 273, Manual of Theology and Ethics.Dr. Dagg says,“Regeneration is the beginning of sanctification, but the work is notcompleted at the outset.” - Manual of Theology, Page 285.Dr. Boyce, late President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, says,“Sanctification is a growth from the seed planted in regeneration, which isconstantly bringing forth new leaves, and new fruit.” - Abstract of Theology,Page 414.Dr. E. G. Robinson, late President and Professor of Theology in the RochesterTheological Seminary, later President of Brown University and Professor of Ethics inthe University of Chicago, says,“In the two-fold and inseparable act of justification and regeneration there isimplanted in the soul the germ of a new life. Sanctification is the maturing ofthat germ into flowering and fruitage.” - Christian Theology, Page 340.Dr. Strong, President of Rochester Theological Seminary, says,“Not sin only, but holiness also is a germ whose nature is to grow. The newlove in the believer’s heart follows the law of all life, in developing andextending itself under God’s husbandry *** Regeneration is the crisis of adisease; sanctification is the progress of convalescence.” - SystematicTheology, Page 485.Referring to regeneration, Dr. Shedd, Professor of Theology in Union TheologicalSeminary, says,“In whom the principle of the new life has been implanted, sanctificationresults from the contribution of the agency of the Holy Spirit after the act ofregeneration.” Again, in referring to the use of means in leading theregenerate to sanctification, he says, “It is the office of a means or instrument

to excite or stimulate an already existing principle of life.” - DogmaticTheology, Vol. 2, pp. 493, 507, 554.Dr. Hodge, of Princeton, says,“Regeneration involves the implanting, or communication of a new principleor form of life *** Sanctification consists in the growth of the principle ofspiritual life until it controls the thoughts, feelings and acts, and brings the soulinto conformity to the image of Christ.” - Systematic Theology, Vol. 3, pp.220, 221.I have not cited these human authorities, which might be multiplied indefinitely, toseem pedantic, nor as decisive, but to show myself in alignment with the profoundesttheologians of evangelical christendom, in making the statement in a former sermonon sanctification, that “regeneration is the germ or principle of life of whichsanctification is the development.”My brethren, regeneration and sanctification are not two salvations differing in genusor species, but parts of one salvation. The continuation of this salvation in glory waspledged in and is the outgrowth of that initial grace, regeneration.I make my decisive appeal to the Word of God. (<410426>Mark 4:26)“So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed upon the earth, andshould sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring up and grow,he knoweth not how. The earth beareth fruit of herself; first the blade, thenthe ear, then the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is ripe, straightway heputteth forth the sickle, because the harvest has come.”Here is Bible evolution. Not grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles, but each seedbearing its own kind. And here in a vivid similitude is the whole process of salvation.The sprouting germ is regeneration - the only creative act - the rest all derivative.And here is sanctification in the growth, maturing in the ripened fruit. And here isdeath, the sickle, thrust in only when the grain is ready for the harvest.This parable distinctly teaches the inscrutable work of the Holy Spirit in bothregeneration and sanctification. You cannot know how the seed springs up, grows orripens. Equally does it show the connection between regeneration and sanctification,the former a germ of life, the latter the outgrowth of it. In other words, sanctificationis to regeneration as the ripe grain is to the seed from which it sprang.Just as distinctly does it teach the progressive nature of sanctification: “First theblade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.” And as the early rain conduces tothe one, so the latter rain to the other. Very clearly also does it manifest that both areof God. A man can no more sanctify himself than he can regenerate himself.Therefore the parable teaches that our anxieties should stop with our responsibilities.We may “sleep and rise, night and day,” but we can neither vitalize the seed norripen its fruits. Paul, indeed, may plant, and Apollos may water, but God giveth theincrease. Our work stops with planting and cultivating. The life in the seed, itsspringing and growth, and ripening, under sunshine and rain - all these are from God.Very familiar to God’s Word is the conception that spiritual life, like natural life, isfrom a seed: “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by theWord of God, which liveth and abideth forever” (<600123>1 Peter 1:23). “For his seedremaineth in him” (<620309>1 John 3:9). Let it remain, therefore, to an instantaneoussanctificationist who confounds Lord Monboddo with Darwin, to revile the germidea of regeneration, and to see no more relation between regeneration andsanctification than between a man and a monkey!That the two gracious works are but different stages of the one salvation isabundantly manifested also from <500106>Philippians 1:6: “Being confident of this very

thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of JesusChrist.” Here, evidently, Paul calls regeneration a good work, though not perfected,and sanctification the same work, though perfected. And very clearly does he showthat the perfection is a continuous process which culminates only at the coming of theLord.On the same line are all Scriptures of this kind:<440247>Acts 2:47: “Those that were being saved.”<460118>1 Corinthians 1:18: “Unto us who are being saved.”<470215>2 Corinthians 2:15: “In them that are being saved.”But as Mr. Wesley himself, and all his disciples following his lead, makesanctification to consist in an “entire renewal into the image of God,” I would bewilling to narrow the whole controversy down to a single point: the restoration to theDivine image. I submit the following propositions:1. Man was made in the image of God. (<010126>Genesis 1:26, 27.)2. This image was lost by the fall, as it appears from the predestination of God that,by His grace, we be conformed to it. (<450829>Romans 8:29.)3. This image is partially restored in regeneration, called a creation in righteousnessand true holiness, and fully restored in sanctification, which is the complete putting offof the old man and the complete putting on of the new man. (<490422>Ephesians 4:22-24;<510310>Colossians 3:10.)4. But the sanctification process of renewal or transformation is progressive and notinstantaneous.5. Full conformity of the soul to Christ’s image is at the death of the body; and fullconformity of the body is at the coming of our Lord.As the first three propositions will not be denied, I confine the proof to the last two.In Romans (<451202>Romans 12:2) it is enjoined on the regenerate: “Be not fashionedaccording to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Here itis evident that the “fashioning” prescribed and the transformation prescribed isgradual, a taking shape from habits of vice or righteousness.In the second letter to the Corinthians (<470416>2 Corinthians 4:16), Paul affirms: “Thoughour outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day.” Theprocess of decay and renewal corresponds in progress. Both are complete at thesame time. But a single passage is decisive: “But we all, with unveiled face, beholdingas in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from gloryto glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit” (<470318>2 Corinthians 3:18). In the light of thisscripture the doctrine of instantaneous sanctification becomes Jude’s “autumn treewithout fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots.” And so “every plant which myHeavenly Father plants not, shall be rooted up.”The change from “glory to glory” suggests a sculptor, his model and the block ofmarble to be fashioned into its likeness. Gazing intently on his model, he feels skillcreep into his fingers. But how shall that rough stone assume the angel shape? Howshall it take on the precise form, the glorious image? Is this a case for some rapidtrick of legerdemain?As in the “Arabian Nights,” shall a few hocus-pocus words of magic cause the blockof marble to spring at once into conformity with this model? Or does he with chiseland mallet commence to strike off here and there with blow and patient skill? As thework progresses you begin to see some rude likeness of outline, then more and morethe likeness grows under the master’s skillful touch, until the resemblance is perfect.Then comes joy to the artist. It is finished. “I have equaled my model.”The soul, through regeneration, “created in righteousness and true holiness,” is further

fashioned through sanctification into perfect holiness. God sanctifies, He conducts thework of conforming and metamorphosis until it is ready for examination, not in a dimearthly light, but in the supernal brightness of His own presence. Then when Jesus “isglorified in His saints and admired in all them that believe” (<530110>2 Thessalonians 1:10),He shall be satisfied because, seeing the travail of His soul (<235311>Isaiah 53:11), andthen I, like David, “shall behold the Lord in righteousness and shall be satisfied whenI awake in His likeness” (<191715>Psalm 17:15).To those holding this view of the teaching of God’s Word it not only excitesexcruciating pain, but horror as at blasphemy to hear one known to be imperfectflippantly say, “I am sanctified wholly, body, soul and spirit. I have not committed asin in 20 years. I am as holy as God is holy.”O Lord God, I want more than this sounding brass. I long to behold thy face inrighteousness. I can never be satisfied until I awake in thy likeness.And now, brethren, I comment briefly on several passages. <620302>1 John 3:2:“Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest whatwe shall be. We know that if He shall be manifested we shall be like Him, forwe shall see Him even as He is. And every one that hath this hope set on himpurifieth himself, even as He is pure.”How striking the correspondence of this passage with our text. Our text tells us of “asalvation ready to be revealed at the last time,” a “grace to be brought unto us,” andexhorts us to “set our hope perfectly” upon that grace and to “fashion ourselves”according to the new nature. This passage tells us also that, though children, it is notyet made manifest what we shall be, but we shall be like Him when He is manifested,and that this hope of being like Jesus leads us continually to purify ourselves to thestandard of holiness, Christ’s own purity.I next call your attention to Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians:“For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every family inheaven and on earth is named, that He would grant you, according to theriches of His glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through HisSpirit in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, tothe end that ye being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong toapprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height anddepth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye maybe filled unto all the fulness of God.” (<490314>Ephesians 3:14-19.)This prayer invokes two blessings as means to other blessings. The means prayed forare: First, power in the inward man, this power to be given by the Spirit. Second, thedwelling of Christ in the heart, this indwelling realized by continual faith. In otherwords, the internal power of the Spirit, and the indwelling Christ, the firstapprehended and the second appropriated by a living faith. And to what end thispower and this indwelling? That they might know the dimensions of the love of Christand be filled unto all the fulness of God.But now comes the main question, the precise point under discussion: Is this endinstantaneously attained? What is the process of attainment? “That ye, being rootedand grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend,” etc.Everyone familiar with planting and grafting recognizes the force of “rooted andgrounded in love”; that it is a gradual process. But more particularly note that thisrooting and grounding is itself a means to an end: “That ye may be strong toapprehend.” And this knowledge itself, is it instantaneous? Consider what is to beknown: “The breadth, and length, and height, and depth of the love of Christ, whichpasseth knowledge.”

Place another scripture alongside of it: “But grow in grace and in the knowledge ofour Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.” (<610318>2 Peter 3:18). Mark the “grow” andcompare the same apostle’s previous language: “As new-born babes, long for thespiritual milk which is without guile, that ye may grow thereby unto salvation” (<600202>1Peter 2:2). Here is the same salvation, the culmination of sanctification. And here isthe process of growth thereunto.Consider also Paul’s complaint of the Hebrews:“For when by reason of the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need againthat some one teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles ofGod; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of solid food. Foreveryone that partaketh of milk is without experience of the word ofrighteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food is for full-grown men, eventhose who by reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern good andevil.” (<580512>Hebrews 5:12-14.)Mark particularly a fundamental fact of both nature and grace, philosophy andreligion, to-wit: That discernment of good and evil comes from the use of the senses.Practice increases the discerning power of the perceptive faculties, as the skilledfingers of a Chinese weaver by long habit of training discern the color of cloth in thenight by mere touch. These assembled teachers will tell you that, from the veryconstitution of our being, knowledge must be progressive, from the lower to thehigher. A child, ignorant of the first principles of mathematics, could not be made tocomprehend at once the geometrical demonstration that the square described on thehypotenuse of a right-angle triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the othertwo sides. So Paul found it difficult to teach the unprogressive Hebrews the higherdoctrines of “salvation unto the uttermost” through the priestly offices of Christ,because of their meager attainments in the preceding principles of religion.It is axiomatic that until a moral being can discern between the good and evil, hecannot be developed into the good and away from the evil, and it is self-evident thatdiscernment is increased more and more by use of the senses by which we perceive.If then God deals with us as moral and sentient beings and not as soulless plants,there must ever remain an indissoluble bond between sanctification and knowledge.We grow in grace as we grow in knowledge. For this very thing Paul prayed “thatthey might be able to apprehend.” This relation of sanctification to knowledge isevident also from our Savior’s prayer: “Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy Word istruth” (<431717>John 17:17). Truth must be known and understood before it can benefit.This calls for earnest, persistent, prayerful study of the “Holy Scriptures which areable to make us wise unto salvation.” But acquaintance with God’s Word is not aninstantaneous thing.Take, for example, the promises alone, and hear the Apostle Peter:“Grace to you and peace be multiplied in the knowledge of God and ofJesus our Lord: seeing that His divine power hath granted unto us all thingsthat pertain unto life and Godliness through the knowledge of Him that calledus by His own glory and virtue, whereby He hath granted unto us Hisprecious and exceeding great promises; that through these ye may becomepartakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is inthe world by lust. Yea, and for this very cause adding on your part alldiligence, in your faith supply virtue; and in your virtue, knowledge; and inyour knowledge, temperance; and in your temperance, patience; and in yourpatience, Godliness; and in your Godliness, love of the brethren; and in yourlove of the brethren, love. For if these things are yours and abound, they

make you to be not idle nor unfruitful unto the knowledge of our Lord JesusChrist. For he that lacketh these things is blind, seeing only what is near,having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins. Wherefore, brethren, givethe more diligence to make your calling and election sure; for if ye do thesethings ye shall never stumble; for thus shall be richly supplied unto you theentrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”(<610102>2 Peter 1:2-11.)Here are unequivocally taught five things: First, the relation of knowledge tosanctification. Second, that we become partakers of the divine nature by ourappropriation of the promises. Third, that as moral beings we must diligently use themeans of growth and fruitfulness, “adding to faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge;and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience,Godliness; and to Godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.”Fourth, that this practical use of light and grace given produces discernment, and itsnon-usage produces dimness of wisdom: “he cannot see afar off.”It even affects the memory: “He hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.”Fifth, That love, which is the end of the commandment, is the pinnacle of a pyramid.You do not glide up to it by volition. You do not fly to it as an eagle to a mountainsummit. But you climb to it, step by step, from faith to faith, from glory to glory, theinward man being renewed day by day.How true, therefore, the wise man’s comparison:“The path of the just is like the light of the dawn, shining more and more untothe perfect day.” (<200418>Proverbs 4:18.)Consider another analogy of nature - the relation of food to growth: A man grows,not by the amount of food that he eats, but by the amount of food which heassimilates; not by that which his system casts off, but that which it receives into itselfand converts into tissue. It is by this that he lives and grows and develops.Now Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life. He is the spiritual food of the soul, and if youwant to know the continuity of this process of assimilation of food eaten, you haveonly to stand one time before a communion table, just one time, and look at acompany of God’s people celebrating the Lord’s Supper, and as you look you ask,“How is this? These people were baptized just one time.”Oh, yes, just one time. Why? Because baptism symbolizes regeneration. But youkeep on communing. You never do stop setting forth this table. What does it mean?It means that as baptism represents the beginning of life, the supper representssanctification or the continued nutrition by which that life is sustained.An additional thought will suffice on the progressive nature of sanctification. I refer tothe ministry of afflictions and tribulations as a means of sanctification, and cite thefitting proof-texts: “My son, regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faintwhen thou art reproved of Him; for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, andscourgeth every son whom He receiveth. It is for chastening that ye endure; Goddealeth with you as sons; for what son is there whom his father chasteneth not? But ifyou are without chastening, whereof all have been made partakers, then are yebastards and not sons. Furthermore, we have the fathers of our flesh to chasten us,and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Fatherof spirits and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us as seemed good tothem; but He (now notice why God chastens us), for our profit.” What profit? “Thatwe may be partakers of His holiness.”What is sanctification? Holiness. How are we made partakers of holiness? Throughaffliction. Can we then be sanctified instantaneously? In the 14th chapter of the Acts

of the Apostles Paul affirms that it is through much tribulation that we reach thekingdom of God, and in <660714>Revelation 7:14 John gives us a picture of those whohave reached it. He says: “These are they,” these white ones, that have no spot, noblemish, no wrinkle, and he wants to know how they got so white, “These are theywhich came out of great tribulation and have washed their robes and made themwhite in the blood of the Lamb.”Connect Paul’s discussion of the office of tribulation in its relation to sanctification. Iread from the fifth chapter of Romans: “And not only so, but let us also rejoice in ourtribulation; knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, probation; andprobation, hope; and hope putteth not to shame.” Such is the uniform teaching ofGod’s Word on the progressive nature of sanctification.The instantaneous sanctificationist is accustomed to meet the statement that the soulis perfected at death by the triumphant question: “Does death, the penalty of sin,purify us? That would be a grim savior.” The answer is very simple and obvious. Igive it in the language of Dr. Dagg:“We should not attribute to death the efficiency of our final deliverance fromsin. It is only an instrument which the Holy Spirit uses in His work, just as Hehas used the many afflictions which have preceded death, and of which deathis the termination. As this is the last suffering which the righteous shall endure,the last enemy which remains to be destroyed, it is appropriately used as thelast instrumentality which the Holy Spirit will employ in His work. And it is amost suitable instrumentality. Death introduces us into the full knowledge ofGod, which is necessary to the perfect love of Him. It opens to our view theunseen things of the eternal world, that they may have their full and properinfluence on our minds. It separates us forever from the things of earth towhich our affections have been so strongly inclined to cleave. The death of abeloved friend has often been blessed as a means of our sanctification; butwhen we die all our surviving friends die to us at once. The partial loss ofproperty at times has weaned us somewhat from the world; but at death welose all our earthly possessions at a single stroke. God may have burneddown our dwellings and consumed in the flame the coffers which containedour gold, when He graciously designed to direct our thoughts to the housenot made with hands and to the treasure which cannot be consumed. Whatthen, when the earth itself, which He has given for the habitation of men, andall therein which He has given them to enjoy, shall be burned up in the lastconflagration, or shall it be shown to us as prepared to be cast into thatfuneral fire? This is well adapted to eradicate from the heart the love of thethings that perish. This fit instrumentality the Spirit employs in completing Hiswork of sanctification. Yet, as in all our afflictions, the efficiency is not in themeans employed, but in the divine power which employs them to fulfill Hisgracious purpose.” Manual of Theology, Page 304.Our Father allows no enemy to smite His children except for their good, as Shimeiwas allowed to curse David, and Babylon to afflict Israel. While enemies arepermitted, we need them. But the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. OurFather does not discipline except to sanctify, and while discipline continues, oursanctification is not complete.But death is the last sad lesson in the school of discipline. It is commencement day;that day the soul graduates. The grain remains on the stalk until ready for the harvest,then comes the sharp reap-hook to cut it down, not for destruction, but for thegarner. Death is the reap-hook in the ripened grain.

You recall our first parable: “But when the fruit is ripe, straightway he putteth forththe sickle, because the harvest is come.” There was first the blade, then the ear, thenthe full corn in the ear. Now the harvest. Death does not sanctify; it is only the scythewhich mows down the ripe grain. Are you four score years of age, and is life aburden? That you remain alive is a demonstration that you are not fully sanctified.Bear up yet a while, brother; the Master knows when to put in the sickle.But why again do I say that at death comes the soul’s perfection? Because God hasshown by revelation the spirits of the just made perfect. Where do we see them, andin what company, and in what state? Let the Holy Book answer:“But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, theheavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels, to the generalassembly and church of the first-born who are enrolled in Heaven, and toGod the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and toJesus the Mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling thatspeaketh better than that of Abel.” (<581222>Hebrews 12:22-24, RevisedVersion.)Ah! That tells the story: “The spirits of just men made perfect!” Ah! That is the gainof death: “For me to die is gain.” To be present with Him is to see Him, “to beholdHis face in righteousness.” Only the pure in heart shall see God. Without holiness,perfect holiness, no man shall see the Lord. But these see Him, and therefore theyare the spirits of just men made perfect. They are there. And into that city “there shallin no wise enter anything that defileth.”Yes, brethren, here our outward man is decaying and our inward man is renewingday by day. Here are afflictions working out for us the eternal weight of glory. Wehave not that glory yet, but as saith the Scripture:“For we know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, wehave a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in theheavens. For verily in this we groan, longing to be clothed upon with ourhabitation which is from heaven; if so be that being clothed we shall not befound naked. For indeed we that are in this tabernacle do groan, beingburdened; not for that we would be unclothed, but that we would be clothedupon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life.” (<470501>2 Corinthians5:1-4, Revised Version.)I doubt not when we reach Mount Zion and see the countless angels and theirglistening sheen; when we see our Lord and hear His welcome; when our own robesare whiter than snow and our heads are crowned and our skilled fingers touch theharps of heaven, it will delight us and glorify our Lord to look back over the wholepath of our pilgrimage from the City of Destruction to the New Jerusalem and studywith ever increasing gratitude to God our own development as revealed in thatretrospect.We behold the seed of regeneration planted and springing up. We mark, in our owncase, how sanctification began in regeneration. We recall the conflict between thetwo natures - the flesh lusting against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. Wehear our own testimony as to that conflict: “For the good which I would, I do not;but the evil which I would not, that I practice.” We recognize our delight in the law ofGod, after the inward man; but see a different law in our members, warring againstthe law of our mind and bringing us into captivity, and catch the lingering echoes ofour former cry for help: “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me out of thebody of this death?” With the memory of that disputed personality, we recall a poemof time:

“Within my earthly temple there’s a crowd;There’s one of us that’s humble, one that’s proud;There’s one that’s broken-hearted for his sins,And one that unrepentant sits and grins;There’s one that loves his neighbor as himself,And one that cares for naught but fame and pelf;From much corroding care I would be freeIf once I could determine which is me.”We recall our surprise when we found that ours was no peculiar case; that kings onthe way to heaven had to share our experience. And how that little scrap of historyquoted by Hastings excites our fellow feeling:“When Bourdaloue was probing the conscience of Louis XIV, applying tohim the words of St. Paul and intending to paraphrase them: ‘For the goodthat I would, I do not; the evil that I would not, that I do. I find two men inme,’ the king interrupted the great preacher with the memorable exclamation:‘Ah, these two men, I know them well!’ Bourdaloue answered: ‘It is alreadysomething to know them, Sire; but it is not enough - one of them mustperish.’”In our retrospection of the progress of our sanctification, we see how the body wasgradually kept under and the soul on top. How, by God’s Word and the ministry ofaffliction, and by increase of faith and knowledge and love, the old man becameweaker and the new man stronger; how by the expulsive power of new affections theold-time dominant lusts are driven out of the City of Mansoul. And yet howoccasionally, in hours of weakness, or prayerlessness, or sloth, or spiritual sleep,these old lusts, like the remnants of the Canaanite nations left over at the conquest,rise up in rebellion and bring us to temporary shame and defeat.Finally, we come to the last lesson of earthly discipline, our conflict with death, andmark the effect of the downfall of the tabernacle of the body, and note the freespirit’s emergence into unclouded and eternal day, and hear the greeting of heaven aswe take our place among “the spirits of just men made perfect.” And is that theperfection of the spirit?Ask Lazarus, with his head reclining on the bosom of Abraham at the banquet ofbliss. On earth he vainly begged for crumbs, while the rich man, clad in purple, faredsumptuously every day. Now the one is tormented and the other comforted. Nowboth can remember that in yonder world “the rich man had his good things, likewiseLazarus evil things.” Yes, “son remember,” and so ends the retrospect.And now comes the prospect to the beatified spirit. For there, “where the wickedcease from troubling and the weary are at rest,” the soul patiently waits the summonsof the Lord to return to earth with Him at His second advent (<520414>1 Thessalonians4:14) for the glorified body; and there, poised in the clouds of heaven, actuallywitnesses the resurrection.I say the sanctified spirits whom God will bring with Him witness the ending of thegroaning and travailing in pain of the whole creation, which once, not willingly, yet inhope, was made subject to vanity, but is now delivered from the bondage ofcorruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.It is the hour of adoption, to-wit: The redemption of our bodies. They were sown incorruption; they are raised in incorruption. They were sown in dishonor; they areraised in glory. They were sown in weakness; they are raised in power. They weresown natural bodies; they are raised spiritual bodies. So when this corruptible shallhave put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be

brought to pass the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. Odeath, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”Then is salvation complete, the salvation of our text: “Ready to be revealed in the lasttime” - a grace to be brought to us. No definition of sanctification is complete thatleaves out the holiness of the body. It must include the whole man - body, soul andspirit. Hence the glorification of the body is classed by all sound theologians as a partof sanctification. And hence it is unquestionable that the Second Advent of Christ,which ushers in the resurrection, is the date of the completion of sanctification.I close the discussion with the citation of certain scriptures whose bearing upon thisdate are obvious and unanswerable:First,“That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and thefellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death; if by anymeans I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead. Not that I havealready obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on, if so be that Imay apprehend that for which I was also apprehended by Christ Jesus.Brethren, I count not myself yet to have apprehended; but one thing I do,forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the thingswhich are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high callingof God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thusminded; and if in anything ye are otherwise minded, even this shall Godreveal unto you; only whereunto we have already attained, by that same rulelet us walk.” (<500310>Philippians 3:10-16, Revised Version.)On this scripture I remark:(a) John Wesley refers this scripture to sanctification.(b) When Paul says: “Not that I have already obtained,” he refers not somuch to the fact of resurrection, for of course none need be told a thing soobvious, but to the state of perfection which the resurrection introduces, asall the context evidently shows.For Paul does not consider it as a thing to be questioned that he should be raised.He is speaking not of the mere fact of the resurrection, but the state into which theresurrection introduces.Hence, he says, and this proves it: “Not that I had already attained.” Of course hedoes not mean to say that he is not already raised from the dead, but, “I have notalready attained that into which the resurrection state introduces,” or “have alreadybeen perfected.” “But I pursue onward if I may lay hold on that for which I was laidhold of by Christ Jesus.” “Brethren, I do not count myself to have laid hold of it.”Well, what do you do, Paul? “Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching forthto the things that are before, I pursue onward toward the mark for the prize of theheavenly calling in Christ Jesus.”When I was a lost sinner, there was a gentle touch that took hold of me. I did notunderstand it. God did. He had a purpose when He laid hold of me. I only saw alittle of it at a time. He had a glorious purpose when He reached down from heavenand laid hold on me. He laid hold on me that I might be regenerated, that I might besanctified, that I might be glorified, that I might be fully conformed to the image ofHis Son. And yet, brethren, I have not yet laid hold of that for which I was laid holdof. I have not got it all yet. I do not count myself to have gotten it all, but I do this: Iforget what I have received; I turn my back upon the past. I do not stand still. I domove forward and ever reach up and say, “More, more! Higher, higher!” until at last,electrified with the complete transformation I shall look at Jesus and say: “Lord God,

I am satisfied. I am satisfied.”(c) You will have observed that the term, “perfect” (Greek teleios), is sometimesscripturally applied to spiritual conditions already attained, as in <460206>1 Corinthians2:6:“Howbeit we speak wisdom among the perfect,” or as the American revisers renderit: “Among them that are full grown.” Very fairly, in all such instances, the word canbe held to signify only a relative perfection, equivalent to sincere piety or maturity ofChristian judgment. The passage under consideration verifies this, for after statingthat he himself was not already made perfect, the apostle, as you will observe inverse 15, says, “Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded.” Mindedto what? To press on to the perfection ahead, as he had just described. The“perfect” men of the 15th verse had not obtained the “perfect” of the 12th verse.And the “perfect” of the 12th verse is the “perfect” of sanctification.Second, I read <520313>1 Thessalonians 3:13, Revised Version: “To the end He mayestablish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father at thecoming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints.” Here observe:(a) An “establishment” in an unblamable state of holiness and compare withthe latter part of our text: “The God of all grace *** shall himself establishyou.”(b) Then compare the phrase of our text: “After that ye have suffered a littlewhile,” with the date of its ending in the passage before us: “at the coming ofour Lord.”So we learn that “the little while” of Peter ends with the Second Advent, and at itsend comes the establishment in holiness, just as the “perfect” of <500312>Philippians 3:12corresponds with the “perfect” of <600510>1 Peter 5:10, and both find their date offulfillment in <520313>1 Thessalonians 3:13.Third, I read <520523>1 Thessalonians 5:23, Revised Version: “And the God of peacehimself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preservedentire without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This scripture needsonly to be compared with <500106>Philippians 1:6: “Being confident of this very thing, thatHe which began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ.”13. THE HIGH CLAIMS OF JESUSTEXT: That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him,and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us. - <441727>Acts 17:27.There are many in this world who are without God. I mean they have no definite,personal, satisfying knowledge of God. Some of these ignorant ones declare thatGod is unknowable and hence do not seek to know Him. To be consistent theyshould deny His existence, for whatever exists may be known in some way. For thisclass there is no hope, seeing they cut themselves off from all investigation bydeclaring knowledge impossible and refusing to seek Him. These are Agnostics.Others of them do not concede that God is unknowable and hence do seek to knowHim after a fashion. This seeking class is not all of a kind. Some of them are Deistswho claim that God, like any other workman, may be known by a study of Hisworks. But they limit His works to creation. They talk of nature as His one book.They heartily subscribe to the first part of the 19th Psalm:“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth Hishandiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showethknowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.”(<191901>Psalm 19:1-3.)And to Paul’s statements that “the invisible things of Him from the creation of the

world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even Hiseternal power and Godhead.” And perhaps they would also accept Paul’s otherstatement, embodying the doctrine of providence that God “left not himself withoutwitness, in that He did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons,filling our hearts with food and gladness,” or they would, at least, admit that in thebeginning He established “an order of nature” so that “while the earth remaineth,seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and nightshall not cease.”Therefore they say, that to know God one must study the book of nature. But theydeny that He has given us any other book, and insist that all our knowledge of Himmust come through the natural sciences alone. Law, with them, is the law of nature.The Deist is almost as hopeless a case as the Agnostic, since he arbitrarily anddogmatically decides that any other revelation of God than nature exhibits isimpossible. It remains pitiably true that men who know God only through the naturalsciences “do not glorify Him as God, neither are thankful,” and that such knowledgeis powerless even to define morality, much less to induce its practice.The seekers after God to whom I would speak today, constituting a large class, areneither Agnostics nor Deists. They concede the possibility of revelation. Theyrecognize the superiority of the Christians’ Bible over the Koran, the book ofMormon, the Hindoo Vedas and all speculative philosophies, ancient and modern.But prior to its personal acceptance, as an authoritative revelation from God, theydemand a kind and degree of proof for which in this busy world there is no time forthe apologist to introduce the evidence nor for the seeker to examine it whenintroduced. Life passes and death comes before the argument ends.I do not altogether depreciate books devoted to “The Evidences of Christianity.”They have some value for confirmation if not for conversion. My objection to themas a method of knowing God is five-fold: First, they are for scholars, and the massesare not scholars. Second, life is too short for the investigation. Third, men are notconverted by logic. Fourth, they suggest to the carnal mind as many doubts as theyremove. Fifth, and chiefly, they divert the seeker’s mind from God’s method.If the knowledge of God be valuable, it is valuable to live by. That it may avail to liveby, it must be knowable early enough in life to give it proper direction and shape. Toavail for all classes it must be knowable by the ignorant as well as the learned. Tosuit the exigencies of life, the method of knowing it must be short and very simple,that it may be within the reach of all and at all times. It must be practical and nottheoretical. All its tests must be in character and action. Its proofs must becontinuous and cumulative; that is, the verifying tests must lie all along the way withever fresh confirmations, the conviction of its certitude deepening as experienceenlarges. Indeed, to meet all exigencies of human frailty and ignorance, it must be away so plain, so well-defined that “wayfaring men, though fools, shall not errtherein.”Not a way accessible only to the soaring eagle, but a way over which a snail cancrawl. Not a way afar off, but near at hand. A way knowable and practicable bystable-boys, maidservants, Negroes and little children. It is that short, practical andpracticable method of knowing that I, this day, commend to the hearts andconsciences of all seekers after God.A few words just here about seekers. A seeker is in conscious need. One who hasall he desires seeks for nothing. Why should he? A seeker is dissatisfied with himselfand restless. One thoroughly satisfied with himself and in himself is at rest, seekingnobody - he is a god to himself. The seeker hungers for food he has not yet tasted.

He thirsts for drink which will not leave him more thirsty still. There are cravings inhim which burn like fire. There are longings which make him sad. There areaspirations which would mount on eagles’ wings and soar away, he knows notwhere. There are sorrows in him at times full of sobs and sighs and tears. There aredisappointments from hopes deferred which make the heart sick. There arequestionings which torture the soul as if it were a victim of the Inquisition - the mindis stretched on the rack - the conscience, scourged with the lash of penance or like ascorpion girt with fire, stings itself in suicidal madness. There are imaginings whichpeople the night with horrible phantoms, and apprehensions and forebodings whichanticipate the valley of the shadow of death.While these extreme forms of self-torment may be wanting in the very young, yeteven they, without God, are like a weaned child undergoing the pangs of orphanage,or wanting something, it knows not what, to fill an aching void. They grope in thedark, feeling after God or longing for some indefinable happiness which ever eludestheir grasp. Yes, even small children, if they were not ashamed to tell it or unable toexpress their feelings, do “seek after honor, glory and immortality.” Do I not know?Was I not once a strange, unhappy child?With so much premised, I select as a basis of thought certain stirring scenes in the lifeof our Lord as recorded by John alone. The context extends over two chapters, the7th and 8th of John’s Gospel. The place is Jerusalem. The occasion is the Feast ofthe Tabernacles. The state of the public mind is excitable, mixed and dangerous.With the rulers hostility has developed to the murderous point. The multitude isuncertain, wavering, divided, speaking in suppressed mutterings.The half-brothers of Jesus are impatient and unbelieving, Jesus himself calm,authoritative and incisive. His discourses, openly delivered in the Temple, arecontinually interrupted by rapid and bitter cross-questionings, portending tumult atany moment. His enemies would, but dare not, arrest Him. The officers themselves,with the warrant in their hands, are awed into silence and inaction by His lofty mienand unapproachable majesty. His life and character invest His words with sublimepower. In Him here is fulfilled the proverb: “His words are thunder whose life islightning.” “Never man spake like this man.”Gathering up from the two chapters what He said, let us group correlative sayings,so as to have before us, in order, only three things: First, what He says of himself;second, what He says of His character; third, what He says of how to know God.The last will be our theme tonight.These then, as He states them himself, are the high claims of Jesus: They aresuperlative.They stagger the mind with their highness and scope.No other man on this earth ever put forth such stupendous claims for himself.There is no dubiety of expression. The language is unmistakable in import.There is no incoherency, no mental intoxication, no indication of hallucination orinsanity. The words are cool, clear, coherent, convincing.If they be true, He is God manifest in the flesh.If they be false, He is bad through and through - a vile imposter, an outrageousblasphemer.There is left us no middle ground between these alternatives as broad as the edge ofa knife.If true, He knows it.If false, He knows it.But what are these high claims? Let me number them, stating each one distinctly, that

you may endeavor to grasp them:1. He claimed that He was the Son of God, and not a servant, like Moses orAbraham, or the highest angel.2. That as the Son of God, before He came to earth, He had eternal pre-existence.With awful majesty He speaks: “Before Abraham was, I AM.”3. In that pre-existence He had intimate association with, co-equal glory with andpersonal knowledge of the Father in heaven.4. That in His earthly mission He was divinely sent, divinely taught, divinely witnessedand divinely accompanied. “The Father sent me,” is His explanation of His earthlyvisit. His enemies ask: “How knoweth this man letters?” As if He needed to sit atGamaliel’s feet! He replies: “The Father taught me. My teaching is His that sent me.”When called on for confirmation of His testimony, He responds: “The Father thatsent me beareth witness of me.” In explanation of His independence of humansupport, He boldly avows: “He that sent me is with me, He hath not left me alone.”Thus claiming to be divinely sent, taught, witnessed and accompanied.5. He claimed that He was the only medium of heavenly knowledge, the onlyRevelator: “I am the light of the world.”6. That He was the only Liberator: “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be freeindeed.” No other freedom is true freedom.7. That He himself was the world’s only Object of Faith - the world, past, presentand future. As to the past, “Your father, Abraham, rejoiced to see my day; and hesaw it, and was glad.” As to the present, “Except ye believe that I am He, ye shalldie in your sins”; as to the future, “Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold;them also must I bring, and they shall hear my voice.”8. That His mission was vicarious, saving His people byHis own death: “When ye have lifted up the Son of Man,” and “I lay down my lifefor my sheep.”9. That after His passion He would return to His Father and resume His glory: “I goto Him that sent me.” “It is my Father that glorifieth me; of whom ye say, that He isyour God.”10. Faith in Him secures satisfaction of every spiritual craving: “If any man thirst lethim come unto me and drink”; secures knowledge of God: “He that followeth meshall not walk in the darkness”; secures forgiveness of sins: “Except ye believe that Iam He, ye shall die in your sins”; secures freedom from all bondage: “The truth shallmake you free”; secures eternal life: “He shall never see death”; secures all these forthe believer’s own benefit and confers on him unceasing life-giving power for others:“He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, from within him shall outflowrivers of living water. This spake He of the Spirit which they that believed on Himwere to receive.”This claim concerning faith necessarily demonstrates the reverse for unbelief in Him.Unbelief in Him insures eternal thirst, ignorance, bondage and death to theunbeliever’s own detriment, and invests him with a death-dealing influence on others.I have thus enumerated these stupendous claims. You may call them off on your tenfingers: Son of God, pre-existence, personal knowledge of the Father, divinely sent,taught, witnessed and accompanied - the only Revelator, the only Liberator, the onlyobject of past, present and future faith, salvation by His death, to return to HisFather after death, faith in Him secures all good things and unbelief in Him entails allevil things. Let the world be defied to introduce another whose claims are so lofty.Next let us consider what He said of His character. Three things are said. They, too,are matchless:

1. Not self-speaking.2. Not self-seeking.3. Sinless.No other man in this world’s history can claim these negations. Consider them. Thethird results from the other two. He himself so declares. They furnish a supreme testby which to express all human claims of sinlessness. Hear Him:“I speak not from myself.” Not even one word in a lifetime. “Every word that fallsfrom my lips my Father taught me to say. I do not add one of my own. I do notsubtract one from His. What He bids me to say, just that I say - no more, no less.”“I seek not my own glory, but the glory of Him that sent me.”Utter, supreme unselfishness. That is, “Whether I talk, or walk, or eat, or drink, orlive or die, I do all to the glory of God.” Very strong are His express words: “I doalways the things that are pleasing to Him.”O my soul, hear these words! And mark the connection between “not self-speakingand not self-seeking” on the one hand, and the “not sinning” on the other hand. Hearit in His own words: “He that speaketh from himself seeketh his own glory; but hethat seeketh the glory of Him that sent Him, the same is true, and unrighteousness inHim there is not.” Here the emphatic words in the Greek are: “Unrighteousness inHim.”Well might He press His question: “Which of you convicteth me of sin?” Well mightone apostle say: “He took upon himself our nature, yet without sin”; and again, “Whoknew no sin”; and another adds, “A Lamb without blemish and without spot ***Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.”Let us all this day be confounded and ashamed as we look on Him “who is holy,harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.”I blush when I even think of the immaculate Christ. I shudder when I hear a man say,“I, too, am sinless!” Let us rather with Isaiah cry: “Woe is me! for I am undone;because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of uncleanlips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”Lord, let me adopt Job’s words: “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; butnow mine eye seeth thee; wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.”Thus we have considered the high claims of Jesus. And it is this Jesus who tells ushow we may know God; how we may know whether the doctrine of salvation bygrace, by faith in Jesus, is of God; the short, simple, plain way of life; the way soplain that “wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.”Oh, to be able to know! Yes, assurance is the blessed privilege of every child ofGod, far from that privilege though many of us walk. Indeed, we may know. If wemay, let us lay hold of that knowledge.