Better Make Sure
"I hab hearn folks say, "Hope I has "ligion, but I doan know"; but I neber hearn a man say, "I hope"s I has money, but I doan know." Dat sorter "ligion dat yer hopes ye"s got, but doan know, ain"t gwine to do no mo" good dan der money what yer hopes ye"s got but doan know."
Some Things Quite Plain
An English army officer in India who had been living an impure life went round one evening to argue religion with the chaplain. During their talk the officer said:
"Religion is all very well, but you must admit that there are difficulties--about the miracles, for instance."
The chaplain knew the man and his besetting sin, and quietly looking him in the face, answered:
"Yes; there are some things in the Bible not very plain, I admit; but the seventh commandment is very plain."
Your Own Picture There
The Bible is like an alb.u.m. I go into a man"s house, and while waiting for him, I take up an alb.u.m and open it. I look at a picture. "Why, that looks like a man I know." I turn over and look at another. "Well, I know that man." I keep turning over the leaves. "Well, there is a man who lives in the same street as myself--he is my next-door neighbor." And then I come upon another, and see myself.
My friends, if you read your Bibles you will find your own pictures there. It just describes you. You may be a Pharisee; if so, turn to the third chapter of John, and see what Christ said to the Pharisee: "Except a man be born again he cannot enter the kingdom of G.o.d." But you may say: "I am not a Pharisee; I am a poor miserable sinner, too bad to come to Him." Well, turn to the woman of Samaria, and see what Christ said to her.
"That"s Me!"
While we were in London, Mr. Spurgeon one day in his orphanage told about the boys--that some of them had aunts and some cousins, and that nearly every boy had some friend that took an interest in him, and came to see him and gave him a little pocket money. One day, he said, while he stood there, a little boy came up to him and said:
"Mr. Spurgeon, let me speak to you."
The boy sat down between Mr. Spurgeon and the elder who was with him, and said:
"Mr. Spurgeon, suppose your father and mother were dead, and you didn"t have any cousins, or aunts, or uncles or friends to come and give you pocket money, and give you presents, don"t you think you would feel bad? Because that"s me!"
Said Mr. Spurgeon: "The minute he said that, I put my right hand down into my pocket and took out some money for him."
Queer Ideas of Repentance
The unconverted have a false idea about repentance; they think G.o.d is going to make them repent. I was once talking with a man on this subject, and he summed up his whole argument by saying:
"Moody, it has never struck me yet."
I said: "What has never struck you."
"Well," he replied: "Some people it strikes, and some it doesn"t.
There was a good deal of interest in our town a few years ago, and some of my neighbors were converted, but it didn"t strike me."
That man thought that repentance was coming down some day to strike him like lightning. Another man said he expected some sensation, like cold chills down his back.
Repentance isn"t feeling. It is turning from sin to G.o.d. One of the best definitions was given by a soldier. Some one asked him how he was converted. He said:
"The Lord said to me, _Halt! Attention! Right about face! March!_ and that was all there was in it."
A Good Ill.u.s.tration
A little child gives a good ill.u.s.tration of faith. Let the wind blow her hat into the river, and she does not worry; she knows her mother will get her another. She lives by faith.
"Come! Come! Come!"
A man in one of our meetings had been brought there against his will; he had come through some personal influence brought to bear upon him.
When he got to the meeting, they were singing the chorus of a hymn:
Come! oh, come to Me!
Come! oh, come to Me!
Weary, heavy-laden, Come! oh, come to Me!
He said afterward he thought he never saw so many fools together in his life before. The idea of a number of men standing there singing, "Come! come! come!"
When he started home he could not get this little word out of his head; it kept coming back all the time. He went into a saloon, and ordered some whisky, thinking to drown it. But he could not; it still kept coming back. He went into another saloon, and drank some more whisky; but the words kept ringing in his ears: "Come! come! come!" He said to himself, "What a fool I am for allowing myself to be troubled in this way!" He went to a third saloon, had another gla.s.s, and finally got home.
He went off to bed, but could not sleep; it seemed as if the very pillow kept whispering the word, "Come! Come!" He began to be angry with himself: "What a fool I was for ever going to that meeting at all!" When he got up he took the little hymn book, found the hymn, and read it over.
"What nonsense!" he said to himself; "the idea of a rational man being disturbed by that hymn."
He set fire to the hymn book, but he could not burn up the little word "Come!"
He declared he would never go to another of the meetings; but the next night he came again. When he got there, strange to say, they were singing the same hymn.
"There is that miserable old hymn again," he said; "what a fool I am for coming!" When the Spirit of G.o.d lays hold of a man, he does a good many things he did not intend to do.
To make a long story short, that man rose in a meeting of young converts, and told the story that I have now told you. Pulling out the little hymn-book--for he had bought another copy--and opening it at this hymn, he said:
"I think this hymn is the sweetest and the best in the English language. G.o.d blessed it to the saving of my soul. And yet this was the very hymn that I despised."
Don"t Scold
"He that winneth souls is wise." Do you want to win men? Do not drive or scold them. Do not try to tear down their prejudices before you begin to lead them to the truth. Some people think they have to tear down the scaffolding before they begin on the building. An old minister once invited a young brother to preach for him. The latter scolded the people, and when he got home, asked the old minister how he had done. He said he had an old cow, and when he wanted a good supply of milk, he fed the cow; he did not scold her.
A Long Time to Reap
A man died in the Columbus penitentiary some years ago who had spent over thirty years in his cell. He was one of the millionaires of Ohio.
Fifty years ago when they were trying to get a trunk road from Chicago to New York, they wanted to lay the line through his farm near Cleveland. He did not want his farm divided by the railroad, so the case went into court, where commissioners were appointed to pay the damages and to allow the road to be built.