"NOW AND TO-MORROW."
You have all sinned and come short of the glory of G.o.d, but G.o.d comes, and says, "I will pardon you. Come now, and let us reason together."
"Now" is one of the words of the Bible the devil is afraid of. He says, "Do not be in a hurry; there is plenty of time; do not be saved now." He knows the influence of that word "now." "To-morrow" is the devil"s word. The Lord"s word is "now." G.o.d says, "Come now, and let us reason together: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Scarlet and crimson are two fast colours; you cannot get the colour out without destroying the garment. G.o.d says, "Though your sins be as scarlet and crimson, I will make them as wool and snow. I will do it." That is the way G.o.d reasons. He puts the pardon in the face of the sinner the first thing. That is a queer way of reasoning, but G.o.d"s thoughts are not our thoughts; and so, my friends, if you want to be saved, the Lord says He will pardon you.
THE GOVERNOR IN THE CONDEMNED CELL.
A few years ago, when Pennsylvania had a Christian governor, there was a young man down in one of the counties who was arrested for murder.
He was brought before the court, tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death. His friends thought there would be no trouble in getting a reprieve or pardon. Because the governor was a Christian man, they thought he would not sign the death-warrant. But he signed it. They called on the governor, and begged of him to pardon the young man. But the governor said, "No, the law must take its course, and the man must die." I think the mother of the young man called on the governor and pleaded with him, but the governor stood firm, and said, "No, the man must die." A few days before the man was executed, the governor took the train to the county where the man was imprisoned. He went to the sheriff of the county, and said to him, "I wish you to take me to that man"s cell, and leave me alone with him a little while, and do not tell him who I am till I am gone." The governor went to the prison, and talked to the young man about his soul, and told him that although he was condemned by man to be executed, G.o.d would have mercy upon him and save him, if he would accept pardon from G.o.d. He preached Christ, and told him how Christ came to seek and to save sinners; and having explained as he best knew how the plan of salvation, he got down and prayed, and after praying he shook hands with him and bade him farewell. Some time after the sheriff pa.s.sed by the condemned man"s cell, and he called him to the door of the cell, and said, "Who was that man that talked and prayed with me so kindly?" The sheriff said, "That was Governor Pollock." The man turned deathly pale, and he threw up both his hands, and said, "Was that Governor Pollock? was that kind-hearted man the governor? Oh, sheriff, why did you not tell me?
If I had known that was the governor, I would have fallen at his feet and asked for pardon; I would have pleaded for pardon and for my life.
Oh, sir, the governor has been here, and I did not know it."
RECONCILIATION.
Sinner, I have got good news to tell you. There is one greater than the governor here to-night, and He wants to pardon every one. He does not want you to go away condemned. He wants to bring you from under condemnation; to pardon every soul. Will you have the pardon, or will you despise the gift of G.o.d? Will you despise the mercy of G.o.d? Oh, this night, while G.o.d is beseeching you to be reconciled, let me join with your praying mother, with your praying father, with your G.o.dly minister, with your Sabbath-school teacher, and all your praying friends; let me join my voice with theirs to plead with you to-night to be reconciled. Make up your mind now, while I am speaking, that you will not cross your threshold until you are reconciled, and there will be joy in heaven to-night over your decision. Oh, may G.o.d bring hundreds to a decision to-night!
An Englishman told me some time ago a little story of reconciliation, which ill.u.s.trates this truth. We want to preach the gospel of reconciliation; the good news that G.o.d is reconciled. G.o.d does not say He can do, but that He has done it. You must accept what He has done.
The story is this: There was an Englishman who had an only son; and only sons are often petted, and humoured, and ruined. This boy became very headstrong, and very often he and his father had trouble. One day they had a quarrel, and the father was very angry, and so was the son; and the father said he wished the boy would leave home and never come back. The boy said he would go, and would not come into his father"s house again till he sent for him. The father said he would never send for him. Well, away went the boy. But when a father gives up a boy, a mother does not. You mothers will understand that, but the fathers may not. You know there is no love on earth so strong as a mother"s love.
A great many things may separate a man and his wife; a great many things may separate a father from a son; but there is nothing in the wide world that can ever separate a true mother from her child. To be sure, there are some mothers that have drunk so much liquor that they have drunk up all their affection. But I am talking about a true mother; and she would not cast off her boy.
A MOTHER"S AFFECTION.
Well, this mother began to write and plead to the boy to write to his father first, and his father would forgive him; but the boy said, "I will never go home till father asks me." She pleaded with the father, but the father said, "No, I will never ask him."
At last the mother was brought down to her sickbed, broken-hearted, and when she was given up by the physicians to die, the husband, anxious to gratify her last wish, wanted to know if there was not anything he could do for her before she died. The mother gave him a look; he well knew what it meant. Then she said, "Yes, there is one thing you can do, you can send for my boy. That is the only wish on earth you can gratify. If you do not pity him and love him when I am dead and gone, who will?" "Well," said the father, "I will send word to him that you want to see him." "No," she says, "you know he will not come for me. If ever I see him you must send for him." At last the father went to his office and wrote a despatch in his own name, asking the boy to come home. As soon as he got the invitation from his father, he started off to see his dying mother. When he opened the door to go in he found his mother dying and his father by the bedside.
The father heard the door open, and saw the boy, but instead of going to meet him he went to another part of the room, and refused to speak to him. His mother seized his hand--how she had longed to press it!
She kissed him, and then said, "Now, my son, just speak to your father. You speak first, and it will all be over." But the boy said, "No, mother, I will not speak to him until he speaks to me." She took her husband"s hand in one hand and the boy"s in the other, and spent her dying moments and strength in trying to bring about a reconciliation. Just as she was expiring she could not speak, so she put the hand of the wayward boy into the hand of the father, and pa.s.sed away. The boy looked at the mother, and the father at the wife; and at last the father"s heart broke, and he opened his arms, and took that boy to his bosom, and by that body they were reconciled. Sinner, that is only a faint type, a poor ill.u.s.tration, because G.o.d is not angry with you. G.o.d gives you Christ, and I bring you to-night to the dead body of Christ. I ask you to look at the wounds in His hands and feet, and the wound in His side. My friends, gaze upon His five wounds. And I ask you, "Will you not be reconciled?" When He left heaven, He went clear down to the manger that He might get hold of the vilest sinner, and put the hand of the wayward prodigal into that of the Father, and He died that you and I might be reconciled. If you take my advice, you will not go out of this hall to-night until you are reconciled. "Be ye reconciled." Oh, this gospel of reconciliation!
My friends, come home to-night. Your Father wants you to come. Say as the prodigal did of old, "I will arise and go to my father," and there will be joy in heaven.
THE WAY OF SALVATION
Read Acts xvi. 23, 40
I shall not preach a sermon; I have just one thought, and that is, to tell every anxious soul what they must do "to be saved." That is the first question of every one who is honestly and really inquiring "the way of salvation," and, G.o.d helping me, I will try to-night to make it plain to all.
BELIEVING.
If I say to you, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ," you will reply, "Oh, believe! I have heard that word till I am sick and tired of it.
Scarcely a week but I hear it in the church, or at a prayer-meeting, or at some drawing-room meeting." You have all heard it over and over again; I don"t suppose there is a child here over five years of age but can repeat that text. What you want is, to know how to believe--what it is to believe.
Some of you say, "We all believe that Christ came into the world to seek and to save the lost; and that he that believeth shall be saved."
But the devils believe, and are not saved. Ay, they believe and tremble! You must believe _on_ the Lord Jesus Christ, and not merely _about_ Him, and then you will know what _salvation_ is.
RECEIVING.
Well, we"ll take another word which means the same thing; perhaps you"ll get hold of it better. "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as _received_ Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of G.o.d, even to them that believe on His name."
Bear in mind, "received _Him_." That"s it; not receiving a doctrine or a belief, but receiving _Him_. It is a person we must receive.
Now, my experience of the last few years is, that we all want to have the _power_ before we receive Christ. That is, we want to _feel_ we are in Christ before we will receive Him. But we cannot love G.o.d and feel His presence until we have received Him into our hearts. It is just like a boy with a ball; he throws it to you. Well, you must catch it before you throw it back again. That is the real meaning of "believe"--it is "receive"--receive Christ as yours. I don"t know any verse in the Bible that G.o.d has blessed to more souls than John i. 12: "To as many as received Him, to them gave He power."
I don"t know any better ill.u.s.tration I could have than matrimony; for every other one doesn"t hold good in some points; but I think this is one of the best I could use. Some of you smile at this ill.u.s.tration, but the Bible uses it, and if G.o.d uses it in His word, why should not I?
In the Old Testament He uses it--"I am married unto you" (Jer. iii.
14). Jesus Himself uses it, when He speaks of the bride in John iii.
29. Paul uses it in his epistles, as in Romans vii. 4, as an ill.u.s.tration of the union between Christ and His church.
Now, it is an ill.u.s.tration you can all understand; there is no one here but knows what it means. When a man offers himself, the woman must do either of two things--either receive or reject him. So every soul in this hall must do one of these two things--"receive" or "reject" Christ. Well, if you receive Him, that is all you have to do, He has promised power.
THE RICH HUSBAND.
There was a shop-girl in Chicago, a few years ago; one day she could not have bought a pound"s worth of anything; the next day she could go and buy a thousand pounds" worth of whatever she wanted. What made the difference? Why, she had married a rich husband; that was all. She had received him, and of course all he had became hers. And so we can have power, if you only receive Christ. Remember, you can have no power without Him; you will fail, fail constantly, until you receive Him into your heart; and I have Scripture authority to say that Christ will receive every soul that will only come to Him.
SEEKING A WIFE.
You know that Abraham sent his servant Eliezer a long journey to get a wife for his son Isaac. When Eliezer had got Rebekah, he wanted to be up and off with the young bride; but her mother and brother said, "No, she shall wait awhile." When Eliezer was determined to go, they said, "We will inquire of the damsel." And when Rebekah appeared, they said to her, "Wilt thou go with this man?" That was a crisis in her life.
She could not have said "No." Undoubtedly it cost her an effort; it would, of course, be a struggle. She had to give up her parents, home, companions, all that she loved, and go with this stranger. But look at her reply; she said, "I will go."
I have come to-night to get a bride for my Master. "Wilt thou go with this man?" I can tell you one thing that Eliezer could not tell Rebekah; he could not say, "Isaac loves you." Isaac had never seen his bride. But I can say, "My Master loves you!"
HE GAVE HIMSELF FOR YOU.
Ah, that is love! But bear in mind, my friends, that the moment Rebekah made up her mind to accept Isaac he became everything to her, so that she did not feel she was giving up anything for him. Ah, what a mistake some people make! They say, "I"d like to become a Christian if I hadn"t to give up so much." Just turn round and look at the other side. You don"t have to give up anything--you have simply to receive; and when you have received Christ, everything else vanishes away pretty quick. Christ fills you, so that you don"t feel these things to be worth a thought.
When a bride marries a man, it is generally love that prompts her. If any one is here that really loves a man, is she thinking of how much she will have to give up? No; that wouldn"t be love. Love doesn"t feed upon itself, it feeds upon the person who is loved. So, my friends, it is not by looking at what you will have to give up, but by looking at what you will receive, that you will be enabled to accept the Saviour.
WHAT IS CHRIST TO YOU?
What is He willing to be to you, if you will have Him? Won"t you be made heirs of heaven, joint-heirs with Christ--to reign with Him for ever and ever--to be His--to be with Him where He is--to be what He is? Think, then, of what He is, and of what He gives. You don"t need to trouble yourselves at present about what you have to give up.
Receive Him, and all these things will appear utterly insignificant.
I used to think of what I would have to give up. I dearly loved many of the pleasures of this earth; but now I"d as soon go out into your streets and eat the dirt as do those things. G.o.d doesn"t say, "Give up this and that." He says, "Here is the Son of my bosom--receive Him."
When you do receive Him, everything else goes. Stop that talk about giving up; let Christ save you, and all these things will go for nothing.
Mark the words, "To as many as received Him, to them gave He power."
Now, my friends, will you go with this man? You have often heard about Christ; you know as much about Him as any one on this platform perhaps; but did you ever know a man or woman who regretted receiving Him?
No man ever regretted receiving Christ; but I have heard of thousands who have been followers of the devil, and have regretted it bitterly.
And I notice that it is always the most faithful followers of the devil who are regretting it most.
TAKE JESUS.
My friends, accept my advice, and take Jesus with you when you leave this hall. Remember, He is the gift of G.o.d offered to _whosoever_. You belong to that cla.s.s, don"t you? Just take _Him_; that"s the first thing you have to do. When you go to cut down a tree, you don"t take the axe and commence to hew down the branches. No, you begin right down at the root. So here, you must take Christ, and then you will get power to resist the world, the flesh, and the devil.
RUTH AND ORPAH.
Now, another case--Ruth and Orpah. Many are like these two young widows. A crisis had come in their lives; they had lost their husbands, and had been living up there in the mountains of Moab. Often had they visited the graves of their dear ones, and perhaps planted a few flowers there, and watered them with their tears. Now, Naomi is about to return to her native land, and they think they will go a bit of the road with her. It is a sad parting; but now the crisis comes.
Down in the valley they embrace each other, and give the parting kiss.
Then they both say they will go with Naomi, but she warns them of the difficulties and the trials which might await them. So Orpah says, "I will go back to my people"; but Ruth cannot leave her mother, and says she will go with her.