When a boy, I often wondered how it was that when a person broke one of the Commandments he was guilty of breaking the whole law. I could not understand it. Now, I desire to ill.u.s.trate this truth to you to-day.
Suppose that I were suspended over the edge of a great rock by this chain. If the chain should break, I would be plunged headlong, hundreds of feet down a very great embankment, upon rocks at the bottom of the chasm, and lose my life. You will readily see that it would not be necessary to break every link in this chain before I would begin to fall. In order to break this chain, it is only necessary to break a single link. The moment one link breaks, the entire continuity of the chain is broken.
I think you will see that it is just the same way with the law of G.o.d.
If you break one of these Commandments, you have broken the law. If you fail to "remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," or if you disobey your parents, and thus break the Commandment which says, "honor thy father and thy mother," or any other of the Commandments--if you break a single one, you have broken the entire chain of the Ten Commandments.
Now, there are a great many laws in this land of ours. There are laws against murder, and there are laws against stealing, and there are laws against getting drunk, and thousands of other laws. If a man simply steals and should be caught in the act and brought before the judge, he would be convicted of the crime and be sent to prison. It is not necessary that a man should be a murderer and a thief and a robber, and should be guilty of breaking all the laws of this land, before he is cast in prison. It is simply enough that he should have violated one law. By breaking only one law he becomes a criminal, and therefore he is cast into prison. The man who has committed but one murder has his entire liberty taken from him. The man who has been caught in the act of stealing but a single time is adjudged a thief, and all his liberty is taken from him.
So I think you will see that, in order to become a criminal, it is not necessary that we should break all the laws of the land, but if we break a single law we become criminals. So it is with the law of G.o.d; if we break only one of the Ten Commandments we are criminals before G.o.d, we are guilty of all.
Now the laws which men make in this and every other country are human laws. They are not absolutely perfect. They are changed and improved from time to time. But the Psalmist tells us, and we all know it to be true, that "The law of the Lord is perfect," and G.o.d requires us to keep His law. He says, "My son forget not my law, but let thine heart keep my commandments; for length of days and long life and peace, shall they add to thee." (Prov. iii:1.) If you and I are faithful in the keeping of G.o.d"s law, then we can say like David, "I shall not be ashamed when I have respect unto all of thy commandments." (Psalm cxix:6.)
Now, if I take this chain, and attempt to break it, I find that G.o.d has not given me sufficient strength. Samson could have snapped it in a moment, but I am not strong enough. G.o.d has given to some men much more strength than to others.
If I were to pull very hard on this chain so as to break it, where do you suppose it would break first? Why the weakest link in the entire chain would be the first to break. No chain is stronger than its weakest link. So it is with you and with me, our greatest goodness is no greater than our greatest weakness. When men want to think how good they are, they think of the best things they have ever done. But the fact is that no man is better than the worst things he has ever done. A man who has committed murder is a murderer. He might have done hundreds of good things, but the law does not estimate him by the best things he has done. The law estimates that man by the worst thing he has done, and by that worst thing he is judged and condemned. And so it is with you and me before G.o.d. The worst things which we have ever done will be the things which will condemn us in the sight of the Judge of all the world.
While I am not able to break this metal chain, yet G.o.d has made it possible for every person to break the chain of the moral law. G.o.d has given human freedom to all men; He has told us what we should do, but He has left us free to obey or to disobey.
Now, when we examine into the requirements of the Ten Commandments, we find that everybody has violated some one or more of them at some time.
There is not a man or woman or child any where who is not guilty of having broken G.o.d"s law. And when I turn to the Scriptures, I find in Galatians the third chapter, 10th verse, that G.o.d says, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." I see then by G.o.d"s Word that we are all sinners, that we are all guilty before G.o.d, because we have violated His law, and next Sunday I will tell you what is to be done in view of the fact that we are all guilty before G.o.d.
QUESTIONS.--What are the different parts of a chain called? How many links must be broken in order to break the chain? What did G.o.d give to Moses on Mount Sinai? How many commandments are there? Who makes the laws for the nation, the state and the city? Are laws perfect which are made by men? Do human laws change? Is G.o.d"s law perfect? Do moral laws ever change? Was there ever a time or a place where it was right to lie, or steal or murder? Will there ever be such a time or place? How many murders must a man commit before he is a murderer? How often must he steal before he is a thief? Are men put into prison for breaking a single law? Is the entirety of G.o.d"s law violated if we break only one commandment?
[Ill.u.s.tration]
LOOKING-GLa.s.s.
SEEING OURSELVES IN G.o.d"S LAW.
SUGGESTION:--The object used is a looking-gla.s.s of any desired size.
MY DEAR BOYS AND GIRLS: In my sermon last Sunday, I showed you that G.o.d had made the law perfect, but that none of us has perfectly kept the law, that we have all broken the law, and G.o.d has said, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." (Gal. iii:10.)
If the law is perfect, and no one has ever kept it perfectly, but all have broken the law in some one way or another, and on that account all are guilty before G.o.d, you may ask, what is the purpose of the law? Why did G.o.d make the law? Now, I desire to explain that to you to-day.
I have here a looking-gla.s.s. Now the Bible compares the law to a looking-gla.s.s. In the epistle or letter of James, in the first chapter, we are told, "If any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a gla.s.s; for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." (James i:23-25.)
[Ill.u.s.tration: Seeing Ourselves in the Looking-Gla.s.s of G.o.d"s Law]
In other words, the Bible means to say that the law of G.o.d is like a looking-gla.s.s. When we read the law of G.o.d, we see just what G.o.d requires that we should both be and do. He enables us to see what He requires of us. It shows us also how imperfect we are. It shows us our sins. It reveals to us the importance of doing something in order to get rid of our sins.
It is just like a man whose face is all dirty. When he goes to the looking-gla.s.s and looks into it he sees the dirt upon his face. If he did not look into the gla.s.s, other people might see that his face was dirty, but he would not see it himself. But when he looks into the gla.s.s, he sees for himself that his face is all black and dirty.
Now, when the man finds that his face is all dirty, he does not take the looking-gla.s.s with which to wash his face. The looking-gla.s.s was not made to wash our faces with. It was only made to show us that our faces needed to be washed. And then, instead of using the looking-gla.s.s to wash our faces, we go and use soap and water.
Now, the looking-gla.s.s did not make the man"s face black, neither will it wash his face. It simply shows him that his face is dirty.
So it is with the law of G.o.d. The law of G.o.d does not make us sinful. We are sinful, whether there be any law or not. The law is simply designed to show us that we are sinners, and that we are wicked, and that we need a Saviour. And when this law reveals to us our sin, and shows us our need of a Saviour, it purposes, as we are told in the Scriptures, to lead us to Christ (Galatians iii:24.) No man can cleanse or wash away his sins by the aid of the law. But the law plainly shows him his sins, and then leads him to Christ--to the fountain which has been opened for sin and uncleanness. It is all very beautifully expressed in that hymn which, I trust, you all know:
"There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Immanuel"s veins; And sinners plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains."
Now, I want to tell you the effect of coming to this fountain and washing. When we come to Christ our sins and guilt are washed away, and we become more like Christ. And then we grow up into His likeness and into His image. (Eph. iv: 13.) We become more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ from day to day. This change which takes place in our hearts and in our lives is very wonderful. We cannot understand it, but we cease to be intentionally wicked. More and more we become holy. It is this wonderful change which is referred to in Second Corinthians, third chapter and the 18th verse, where it says, "But we all, with open face beholding as in a gla.s.s the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."
I think now, you will understand why we have the law. It is not to make us wicked, for we are wicked already. But it is to show us our wickedness, it is to reveal to us the fact that we are sinners, and that we are lost and undone without a Saviour. And then it reveals the Lord Jesus Christ to us, and we come to Him, the same as men with blackened faces go to the fountain to wash. So we come with our sins and our guilt "to the fountain which has been opened for sin and uncleanness," and we wash all our sins and guilt away; and then we are changed into His image and into His likeness, from glory to glory, until at last, in the world on high, we awake in the likeness of Jesus.
QUESTIONS.--To what does the Bible compare the law of G.o.d? For what purpose do people use a looking-gla.s.s? What does a man whose face is dirty see in the gla.s.s? What does it show that his face needs? Does it suggest that he should wash his face with the looking-gla.s.s? What does he use with which to wash his face? What does G.o.d"s law show us? Does the law make us sinful? Can the law remove the effects of sin? Who is the fountain for the cleansing of our sin? Are we saved by the law, or by the grace of G.o.d?
RAIN.
G.o.d"S WISDOM AND POWER.
SUGGESTION:--A bottle partly filled with dust from the roadway will help to ill.u.s.trate the condition which would quite universally prevail if the earth were not refreshed with frequent rains.
MY DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS: In view of the fact that the weather is so very warm, the earth so dried and parched and we have had no rain for a period of weeks, I thought it might be useful to-day to consider what would be the result if G.o.d should withhold the rain altogether, and then to tell you how, or in what manner G.o.d brings us the rain and refreshes the earth and makes it fruitful.
In order that you might see something of the present condition of the earth, I have brought in this bottle some dust, taken from the centre of the road. As I turn the bottle around, you see how dry it is and how it floats in the air, leaving the inside of this bottle all powdered with dust. The dust in this bottle is only a sample of what all the earth would soon become, if G.o.d did not send rain at frequent intervals throughout the year. I suppose you could all tell me of a number of instances in the Old Testament where we have accounts of drouths that extended throughout a period of years, and of the hunger and famine and death which followed.
When you are out of doors and look about you, you cannot but be impressed with how dry and dusty the trees and gra.s.s and everything about you is. If this dry weather were to continue long you could understand that soon everything would wither and die, and if it were to continue for a few years, men and beasts would not only die of thirst, but even the air itself would suck out from our bodies the moisture that is in our blood, and death would speedily follow. But if you were to remove all the moisture from the air, the earth would not only become barren, but it would become intensely cold. It is due to the moisture which is in the atmosphere that the warmth which comes to the earth from the sun is retained near the earth after the sun has gone down. If it were not so, even in a summer"s night after the sun has gone down, the coldness which exists above the clouds would quickly come in contact with the earth, and the cold would become so intense that every person and every living thing would be in danger of being frozen to death in a single night.
You will remember that the great Sahara Desert is a vast tract of thousands of square miles where no rain falls, and where the heat is intense. There is, however, much moisture in the air that floats over the plains, but the reason that no rain falls is because there are no mountains in that portion of the globe for thousands of miles.
Now suppose that there were to be no rain at all, and people should undertake to water the earth by bringing the water from the rivers. On an average of about thirty-three inches of rain fall upon the surface of the entire earth each year, in some places more, in others less. The weight of this water in one single square mile would be nearly two and one-half millions of tons, and if this water which falls upon one single square mile had to be drawn in cars, it would require 100,000 carloads of water to keep this one single mile as wet as G.o.d usually keeps it throughout the year by the rain from heaven. I think you will see, from what I have said, that all the cars in the entire United States, and there are hundreds of thousands of them, would not be sufficient to haul water from the rivers for any considerable distance to keep more than ten miles square of earth watered. But you can also see that if all these cars were to be run on a piece of ground only ten miles square, that entire piece of ground would be almost completely covered with railroad tracks, and we would scarcely be able to raise anything on it in the way of grain or vegetables or food of any kind. But even if we could successfully water ten miles square of land, what would that be compared with the absolute necessity of watering the entire continent and all the continents of the globe in order to make life possible upon the earth. Now the question arises, how does G.o.d accomplish this great result?
[Ill.u.s.tration: Train of Cars.]
I suppose you have all noticed the teakettle when it is upon the stove and the steam is coming out of the spout, and around the lid. You have there had a practical demonstration of how G.o.d can cause the water, which is 800 times heavier than the atmosphere or the air, to rise and float, for you know that any substance heavier than air will always fall to the earth. In the instance of the teakettle you will see how heat causes the water to become steam and thus to rise in the air and float away, rising to the height of the clouds which float two, three and four and sometimes more miles high above the earth.
Now, just in this same way G.o.d makes the heat from the rays of the sun to cause that from every river and lake and all the expanse of the ocean, as well as from the surface of the earth, there shall constantly arise a very fine vapor, which, although it is somewhat like steam, is still so much finer that you and I cannot see it with our unaided eyes.
It is by means of this vapor that G.o.d raises the moisture from the oceans and all bodies of water and from the earth, to fall again in gentle showers.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Steam Rising from Teakettle.]
But when this vapor has been lifted up from the ocean, you will see readily that if it were to descend again in rain upon the very places from which it had been lifted it would accomplish no good. It is necessary that instead of falling back into the ocean and into the lakes and rivers, it must be carried over the land. So you see that we might aptly compare the vapor to a great pump, by means of which G.o.d lifts millions of gallons of water every hour from the sea into the atmosphere.
Now just the same as men load grain and fruit and other things into the cars to ship them to some distant place, so G.o.d loads these vapors into the atmosphere or into the clouds. When the clouds are all loaded with vapor, or that which is to descend upon the earth in the form of rain, G.o.d sends the winds, and these winds blow the clouds from over the ocean far inward over the land until they come to the place where G.o.d wants to pour them out in showers and rain, and in snow and blessing.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Clouds and Rain.]
But now, you will see that there is another difficulty. When all this vast quant.i.ty of water is held in the clouds, a mile or two above the earth, if it were to be poured out, it would come with such force upon the earth that it would destroy every living thing. Now, as G.o.d used the warmth from the sun as His agent to lift the water into the clouds, so also, when He desires to unload the clouds, to pour the rain upon the earth, He causes the warm air which carries the water to be blown upon by the colder air which floats above it, and as the heat lifted the water, so the cold causes it to descend; and immediately it begins to form as clouds, one particle or atom of moisture touches another, and the two form the larger atom, and these again unite with others, until finally a drop is formed, and it begins to descend and comes down in gentle showers upon the earth as though it were sifted through a very fine sieve. These small drops fall upon the earth so gently as not even to bruise the leaf of the tenderest flower or the tenderest insect that walks upon the earth.
Possibly some children may not fully understand, but the older ones will get some idea of the vast quant.i.ty of water which G.o.d pours upon the earth, when they are reminded that all the water that flows in the rivers has been let down from the clouds. G.o.d is daily pumping up from the ocean and other bodies of water rivers as vast as the combined waters of the Mississippi, Missouri, Susquehanna, the Hudson, and every creek and streamlet and river that flows, not only on this continent, but in all the world. And G.o.d is doing this constantly by His own infinite wisdom and infinite might. The machinery with which men pump the water from the river for the supply of a single city wears out; but these great engines with which G.o.d is constantly keeping the earth supplied with water for man and beast, for tree and flower, for garden and field, never wear out. Truly with the prophet we may exclaim: "He that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out on the face of the land: the Lord is His name." (Amos v: 8.)