How many men fold their arms and say:
"If I am one of the elect, I will be saved, and if I ain"t, I won"t.
No use of your bothering about it."
Why don"t some of these merchants say: "If G.o.d is going to make me a successful merchant in Chicago, I will be one whether I like it or not, and if He isn"t I won"t."
If you are sick, and a doctor prescribes for you, don"t take the medicine--throw it out the door. It does not matter, for if G.o.d has decreed you are going to die, you will; if He hasn"t, you will get better. If you use that argument you may as well not walk home from this tabernacle. If G.o.d has said you"ll get home, you"ll get home--you"ll fly through the air.
I have an idea that the Lord Jesus saw how men were going to stumble over this doctrine, so after He had been thirty or forty years in heaven He came down and spoke to John. One Lord"s day in Patmos, He said to him:
"Write these things to the churches."
John kept on writing. His pen flew very fast. And then the Lord, when it was nearly finished, said, "John, before you close the book, put in one more invitation. "The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst, come. And WHOSOEVER WILL, let him take the water of life freely.""
The Mysteries of the Bible
Dr. Talmage tells the story that one day while he was bothering his theological professor with questions about the mysteries of the Bible, the latter turned on him and said:
"Mr. Talmage, you will have to let G.o.d know some things you don"t."
The Little Lone One
I sometimes think if an angel were to wing its way to heaven, and tell them that there was one little child here on earth--it might be a shoeless, coatless street Arab--with no one to lead it to the cross of Christ, and if G.o.d were to call the angels round His throne and ask them to go and spend--aye, fifty years, in teaching that child, there would not be an angel in heaven but would respond gladly to the appeal. We should see even Gabriel saying, "Let me go and win that soul to Christ." We should see Paul buckling on his old armor again, and saying, "Let me go back again to earth, that I may have the joy of leading that little one to his Saviour."
Ah! we need rousing; there is too much apathy amongst professing Christians. Let us pray G.o.d that He may send His Holy Spirit to inspire us with fresh energy and zeal to do His work.
Doubting Castle
It is the privilege of every child of G.o.d to know that he is saved, and yet I find ever so many people living in Doubting Castle. Why, it is _salvation by doubts_ nowadays, instead of _by faith;_ there are so few that dare to say, "I know that my Redeemer liveth; I know in whom I have believed." We find most Christians nowadays shivering and trembling from head to foot--they do not know whether they are saved or not.
Faith
Bishop Ryle has very well likened faith to a root whose flower is a.s.surance. To have the latter, he says, it is necessary that there must first be the hidden source of faith.
Faith is the simplest and most universal experience in the world. Call it by whatever name you may, confidence, trust, or belief, it is inseparable from the human race. The first sign of a dawning intelligence in the mind is the exercise of the infant"s faith toward those it knows, and its fear toward those it does not know. We cannot even remember when we first began to have faith.
Confessing Christ at Home
I was preaching in Chicago to a hall full of women one Sunday afternoon, and after the meeting was over a lady came to me and said she wanted to talk to me. She said she would accept Christ, and after some conversation she went home. I looked for her for a whole week, but didn"t see her until the following Sunday afternoon. She came and sat down right in front of me, and her face had such a sad expression.
She seemed to have entered into the misery, instead of the joy, of the Lord.
After the meeting was over I went to her and asked her what the trouble was.
She said, "Oh, Mr. Moody, this has been the most miserable week of my life."
I asked her if there was any one with whom she had had trouble and whom she could not forgive.
She said, "No, not that I know of."
"Well, did you tell your friends about having found the Saviour?"
"Indeed I didn"t. I have been all the week trying to keep it from them."
"Well," I said, "that is the reason why you have no peace."
She wanted to take the crown, but did not want the cross. My friends, you must go by the way of Calvary. If you ever get peace and joy you must get it at the foot of the cross.
"Why," she said, "if I should go home and tell my infidel husband that I had found Christ, I don"t know what he would do. I think he would turn me out."
"Well," I said, "go out."
She went away, promising that she would tell him, timid and pale, but she did not want another wretched week. She was bound to have peace.
The next night I gave a lecture to men only, and in the hall there were eight thousand men and one solitary woman. When I got through and went into the inquiry meeting I found this lady with her husband. She introduced him to me (he was a doctor and a very influential man), and said:
"He wants to become a Christian."
I took my Bible and told him all about Christ, and he accepted Him. I said to her after it was all over:
"It turned out quite differently from what you expected, didn"t it?"
"Yes," she replied; "I was never so scared in my life. I expected he would do something dreadful, but it has turned out so well."
She took G.o.d"s way, and got the joy and peace she sought.
How to Settle the Theater Question
A lady came to me once and said, "Mr. Moody, I wish you would tell me how I can become a Christian." The tears were rolling down her cheeks, and she was in a very favorable mood. "But," she said, "I don"t want to be one of your kind."
"Well," I asked, "have I got any peculiar kind? What is the matter with my Christianity?"
"Well," she said, "my father was a doctor, and had a large practice, and he used to get so tired that he used to take us to the theater.
There was a large family of girls, and we had tickets for the theaters three or four times a week. I suppose we were there a good deal oftener than we were in church. I am married to a lawyer, and he has a large practice. He gets so tired that he takes us out to the theater,"
and she said, "I am far better acquainted with the theater and theater people than with the church and church people, and I don"t want to give up the theater."
"Well," I said, "did you ever hear me say anything about theaters?
There have been reporters here every day for all the different papers, and they are giving my sermons verbatim in one paper. Have you ever seen anything in the sermons against the theaters?"
She said, "No."
"Well," I said, "I have seen you in the audience every afternoon for several weeks, and have you heard me say anything against theaters?"
No, she hadn"t.