One morning in the city of New York a man dashed down the street and past three men standing on the pier. They could not tell how old he was, nor how he was dressed, but they saw him jump upon the bulkhead near by, strip off his overcoat, coat and hat, and, before they could stir to save him, plunge off the end of the pier. There was a short rope lying near by, and seizing this a man ran with his companions to the point from which the man had jumped. They threw the rope toward the struggling figure that they could just make out below them. The rope fell a foot and a half too short. Then they ran back to the gas plant and got a longer rope. The ice was running so thick in the river that the man"s head and shoulders were still to be seen above the water when they returned. Taking careful aim they threw the rope squarely across the struggling form, shouting, "Catch it and we"ll pull you in." The unknown man, however, making a last effort, threw the rope aside and shouted back: "Oh, to h--- with it! I"m through!" Then he sank out of sight. That is a picture of the man who, having offered to him mercy and grace in Jesus Christ, spurns all that G.o.d offers, and is therefore hopeless.
Sin separates us from G.o.d.
Sin separates us from each other.
Sin pollutes us and we become impure.
Sin deceives us and we are in danger and know it not.
A friend of mine walking along the streets of Cincinnati early one morning saw a young girl standing upon the very edge of the roof of one of the highest office buildings. She was carefully balancing herself and every moment it seemed as if she would fall. The elevator was not running, but he made his way hurriedly to the roof of the building, walked carefully across it, seized her by the hand, drew her back and found that she had risen in her sleep and all unconsciously was standing on the very brink of eternity. This is what sin does for us, and it is a solemn thought that for all such the text is true, "The wicked shall not be unpunished."
II
I do not make my appeal, however, on the ground that the punishment is all for the future, for that is indeed sure. I ask you the question, Do you believe in heaven as a place of rewards? If so, the same argument will prove the existence of h.e.l.l. Do you reject h.e.l.l, because it seems to you to be inconceivable? Then the same argument will blot heaven out of existence. What it is that awaits the wicked, I am sure I do not know--only that it is to be away from G.o.d, with the door of hope shut forever, and the Bible tells me that there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, for the wicked shall not be unpunished.
I lift my voice against the punishment here, for sin is so sure in its deadly work, it is so insidious in its influence, that before you know it it is upon you; just one day of trifling and you are gone.
The people about Pittsburg will never forget the Cheswick mine horror in 1903, when one hundred and eighty-two dead men were taken from the mine. Under the direction of one of the mining engineers, a rescuing party started into the mine to see if there was any hope of saving the men who might be yet alive. The journey is described by one who volunteered to go with the engineer on his perilous journey. "When we got to the foot of the shaft, Mr. Taylor lighted a cigar. He blew out a great cloud of smoke and watched it drift into a pa.s.sage. "This way," he said, "The smoke will follow the pure air draught." So we went on, Mr. Taylor blowing clouds of smoke, and we following them.
Suddenly he wheeled and yelled; "The black damp is coming!" The cigar smoke had stopped as though it had come to a stone wall, and was now drifting over our heads. We ran with death at our heels, ran with our tongues dry and swelling and our eyes smarting like b.a.l.l.s of fire. It seemed only a minute until Mr. Taylor shrieked and fell forward on his face. He crawled along for a while on his hands and knees, and then fell again and lay still. I stopped for a second, with the idea of carrying him. Then I realized how hopeless that was. We were still a quarter of a mile from the mouth of the pit. He was a very heavy man, and I, as you see, am small and weak. Again I ran choking and beating my head with my hands. I fell, cut my face, called upon G.o.d, struggled to my feet and fell again. So I plunged on, falling and fighting forward. Black madness came upon me. The horrible, sickening after-damp was tearing my heart up through my dry throat. My brain was bursting through my temples. Then a stroke, as though by a sledge hammer, and I knew nothing more. They found me at ten minutes past one Tuesday morning. At first they thought I was dead. Then they saw my head rise and fall while I weakly pounded on a rock with a stick that I had caught in my delirium." This is to me a striking picture of what sin does for us. There is no one so strong but he may be overpowered by its awful influence. G.o.d save us from it, for "The wicked shall not be unpunished."
III
Oh, is there no hope? For it would seem from the message thus far as if nothing but despair was ahead of us. Two ways to escape from the power of sin have been suggested; one is man"s way, the other is G.o.d"s.
Let us consider them both.
1. Man suggests reformation. But how about the sins of the past? They are still untouched. Man tells the sinner to do his best; but how about the will which has been weakened by sinful practices, and which seems unable to act? Man tells the depraved man to change his surroundings; but how about the heart that is unclean? The fact is, man"s way will not reach us.
In January, 1904, the American Liner New York left Southampton and came into the New York harbor with a sad story to tell. A sailor was suspended over the side of the vessel making repairs when an enormous wave tore him away, and he was very soon under the forepart of the ship. The waves began to carry him away, and a life line was thrown to him with a buoy attached. The sailor, sometimes visible and then obscured by the rising of a swell, grasped the line, and a cheer went up. He took a half turn with the line around his waist, was rolling himself over into the bight of the line and it looked as if he would be saved. The sailors on deck were just about to haul in. The poor fellow"s hands and fingers must have been numb, for he suddenly rolled out of the half-formed bight, losing his grip upon the line.
None of the pa.s.sengers could help the man, none of the crew dared jump to his rescue, no boat could live in such a maelstrom. The sailor, who was struggling and being whirled around and bobbing like a cork, his oilskins partially spreading out and sustaining him, kept drifting further and further away.
Aroused by the commotion, the second officer came on deck just as the sailor lost his hold. Tossing aside his cap, overcoat and jacket, he bade the seamen take a bowline hitch around his body and lower him away. The volunteer life-saver was cheered by the pa.s.sengers as he went over. It was bitter cold, the sleet sharp and the swells ugly. A strong swim in the trough of the seas and over the crests and the officer might reach the seaman. It was his only chance.
He had no more than touched the spume before the waves hurled him against the side of the steamer again and again, bruising his ankle and knee, but he struck out bravely and gradually drew nearer the sailor.
For fifteen minutes the second officer struggled. During one of his brave spurts in the direction of the struggling man he looked up to the rail. The practiced eye of the seafaring man saw something that caused him suddenly to turn and breast his way back to the ship. The line was too short. The seaman holding the line attached to the officer had in his hands the mere end of it, and there was not another bit to pay out.
It was a sixty fathom line, "all gone," and the officer yet only half way to the drowning man. It was too late to splice another. Had it been thought of in time the man might have been saved. A longer struggle was useless, and the officer allowed himself to be hauled aboard, leaving the helpless man to go to his last account. That is always the difficulty with man"s effort to save the lost. It does not reach far enough and fails just when it ought to hold.
2. G.o.d"s way. "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin," that is G.o.d"s message. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our G.o.d, for he will abundantly pardon." This is G.o.d"s invitation. "I even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins."
This is G.o.d"s pledge, and he has never failed to keep it.
In the old days, when England and Scotland were at war, the English came up against Bruce. They drove him from his castle and as he fled away from them they let loose his own bloodhounds and set them upon his trail. His case seemed hopeless. He could hear the bay of the hounds in the distance, and those who were with him had just about given up in despair; but not so with Bruce. He came to a stream, flowing through the forest, he plunged in, waded three bow-shots up the stream and then out upon the other side. The hounds came up to the stream, stopped and sniffed; they had lost the track. They turned back defeated, and Bruce in time won the day. Is it not like this with our sins? Like a pack of hounds they are after me; wherever I flee they are close upon me.
"The wages of sin is death," I am told, but I have found the way of escape. Here flows a stream which runs red with the blood of Jesus Christ, and I plunge in and am free.
"There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Immanuel"s veins; And sinners plunged beneath that flood Lose all their guilty stains."
THE GRACE OF G.o.d
TEXT: "_I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins._"--Isaiah 43:25.
In looking over an old volume of Sermons preached by H. Grattan Guiness, forty-five years ago, I came across the message which he delivered with this text as a basis. So deep was the impression made upon me by my first reading of the sermon that I have taken Mr.
Guiness" outline and ask your careful attention to its development.
If one should enter a jewelry store and ask to see a diamond, or any other precious stone, the jeweler would first spread upon his show case a black cloth and then place the diamonds upon it, not only for protection but also in order that the black background might bring out distinctly the brilliancy and worth of the gems. So G.o.d gives this best of all his promises with the dark picture of sin clearly and thoughtfully portrayed. In verses twenty-second to the twenty-fourth we read, "But thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob; but thou hast been weary of me, O Israel. Thou hast not brought me the small cattle of thy burnt offerings; neither hast thou honored me with thy sacrifices.
I have not caused thee to serve with an offering, nor wearied thee with incense. Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices: but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities."
In these verses G.o.d says that his people have not called upon him in prayer, they have not presented their offerings, neither have they presented unto him themselves. He also affirms that they have wearied of him, and that they have also wearied him with their iniquities, and then he exclaims, "I have not caused thee to serve with an offering, nor wearied thee with incense," and with these clear statements he gives us the gracious statement of the text, "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins."
Mr. Guiness gives us four beautiful thoughts in this text concerning our sins.
First: They are blotted out from G.o.d"s Book.
Second: They are blotted out with G.o.d"s hand.
Third: They are blotted out for his sake.
Fourth: They are blotted from his memory.
A more admirable outline of a text of Scripture I do not know, a more cheering message to a child of G.o.d I have never found.
I
Not long ago, in Chicago, a young man was induced to confess to one whom he thought was his friend the killing of his father and mother.
As the confession was being made, as he supposed to but one person, it was all being taken down by those who were near enough to hear him speak, and when he appeared before the court his own confession was used against him and sent him to a life imprisonment in the penitentiary. What was true of this young man is true of us. Every sermon the minister preaches is recorded, every word an individual speaks is put down. It is a solemn thought to realize, that at the judgment we shall give account for even our idle words.
Science has proven that our acts, our words and even our thoughts make their indelible record.
Not long ago in our home we came across a long-unused phonograph. We started it going, placing upon it one of the cylinders which had been packed away with the phonograph, and were startled to hear the voice of one who had been dead for years. We heard the message he dictated, the song in which he joined and the laugh with which he closed it, and yet his voice has long been silent in death. There is not a sin of your youth which has not made its record, not a pa.s.sion of your mature years that does not stand somewhere against you, not an act, a feeling or an imagination that has not been indelibly written; not all the changes of time, not all the efforts of man, can wipe these things out.
In the British Museum there is a piece of stone not larger than the average Bible at least four thousand years old, and in the center of the stone there is a mark of a bird"s foot; four thousand years ago the track was made, and for four thousand years the record has stood. If these things are true of us--and they are, according to the Word of G.o.d--then what prospect is there for us but that of eternal punishment?
For when we stand at the judgment there shall appear before us the sins of omission and the sins of commission, the sins we have forgotten and the sins we have but recently committed against ourselves, against our fellow men, and against G.o.d.
It is indeed a black picture, and with whitened faces and rapidly beating hearts we ask, Is there any hope? I bring you G.o.d"s gracious answer to this important question: "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins."
Notice, it is the voice of G.o.d speaking. "I, even I," he exclaims, "will blot out your transgressions."
It is, first of all, a commercial term. We were in debt to G.o.d, hopelessly in debt, and our obligation has been canceled; over against our sin is placed the righteousness of the Son of G.o.d, and we are free.
"Jesus paid it all, All to him I owe; Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow."
It is also a chemical expression, for it is a picture of G.o.d applying the blood of Jesus Christ to every page of the written record. The sins of our youth long ago pa.s.sed out of mind; the sins of our manhood, which have taken up every part of our being, the sins of to-day--all have gone, for he himself has blotted them out. When we realize that we are forgiven of G.o.d it means more than if we were forgiven of men, for in the might of his forgiveness our past sins are gone, they shall not even be mentioned against us; the fear of judgment is taken away, for Jesus himself says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is pa.s.sed from death unto life" (John 5:24). It is the Pa.s.sover story over again, "When I see the blood, I will pa.s.s over you." Thus are our sins blotted out.
II