Jacob, Tending Flocks of Laban.—From the Painting by Gustave Dore.
Jacob, Tending Flocks of Laban.—From the Painting by Gustave Dore.
Moses, Breaking The Tables of The LawFrom the Painting by Gustave Dore.
Moses, Breaking The Tables of The Law
From the Painting by Gustave Dore.
But Christ snapped the fetters of his soul, and set him at liberty; Satan lost his prey. “The Lion of the tribe of Judah” conquered the lion of hell.
You know that in the British colonies, before the day of Wilberforce, there used to be a great many slaves; but that good man began to agitate the question of setting them free; and all the slaves in the colonies, when they heard of it, were very anxious to hear how he was getting along. They knew the bill was before Parliament, and with them it was a question next to that of life itself.
But in those days there were no telegraphs and no steamships. The mails went by the slow sailing vessels. They would be from six to eight months in making the voyage to some of the more distant of the colonies. The slaves used to watch for the white sails of British ships, hoping to hear good reports, and also fearing they might hear bad ones.
There was a ship that had sailed immediately after the Emancipation Act had been passed and signed by the king; and when she came within hailing distance of the boats that had put off from the shore at the port of her destination, the captain could not wait to deliver the message officially, and have it duly promulgated by the government; but, seeing the anxious men standing up in their boats, eager for the news, he placed his trumpet to his mouth, and shouted with all his might:
“Free! Free!”
Just so the angels shouted when this poor bondman of Satan’s, almost in the jaws of the pit, was taken in hand by the Savior Himself; delivered from the bondageof darkness into the liberty of His dear Son! Free—free from sin—free from the curse of the law—free, too, in a short time, from the bonds of the flesh.
What a contrast! In the morning he is led out a condemned criminal; in the evening he is saved from his sins. In the morning he is cursing; in the evening he is singing hallelujahs with a choir of angels. In the morning he is condemned by men as not fit to live on Earth; in the evening he is reckoned good enough for Heaven.
Christ was not ashamed to walk arm-in-arm with him along the golden pavements of the Eternal City.
He had heard the Savior’s cry: “It is finished.” He had seen the spear thrust into His side. Jesus had died before his very eyes, and hastened before him to get a place ready for this first soul brought from the world after He had died.
You have heard of the child that did not like to die and go to Heaven, because he did not know anybody there. But the thief had one acquaintance—even the Master of the place. He calls to Gabriel, and says:
“Prepare a chariot; make haste! There is a friend of Mine hanging upon that cross. They are breaking his legs; he soon will be ready to come. Make haste and bring him to Me.”
And the angel in the chariot sweeps down the sky, takes up the soul of the poor penitent thief, and hastens back again to glory; while the gates of the city swing wide open, and the angels shout their welcome to this poor sinner—“washed in the blood of the Lamb.”
And that, my friends, is just what Christ wants to do for every sinner. He wants to save you. That is thebusiness on which He came down from Heaven. That is why He died; and if He gives such great and swift salvation to this poor thief on the cross, surely He will give you the same deliverance, if, like the penitent thief, you will repent, confess and trust in the Savior.
Somebody says that this man “was saved at the eleventh hour.” I do not know about that. Perhaps it was the first hour. It might have been the first hour with him, I think. Perhaps he never knew Christ until he was led out to die beside Him. This may have been the very first time he had ever learned the way of faith in the Son of God.
But how many of you gave your hearts to Christ the very first time He asked them of you? Are you not farther along in the day than even that poor thief?
A little while ago, in one of the mining districts of England, a young man attended one of our meetings, and refused to go from the place till he had found peace in the Savior. The next day he went down into the pit, and the coal fell in upon him; and when they took him out he was broken and mangled, and had only about two or three minutes of life left in him. His friends gathered about him, saw his lips moving, and, bending down their ears to catch his words, this was what they heard him say: “It was a good thing I settled it last night.”
Begin now to confess your sins, and to pray the Lord to remember you when He cometh into His kingdom.
In this first parable we are told that men ought to pray always and everywhere; that prayer should not be left to a few in the churches, but all men ought to pray.
Jesus gives us a picture, so that we may understand in what spirit we ought to pray.
Two men went up to the Temple—one to pray to himself and the other to pray to God.
I think it will be safe to divide the audience into two bodies, and put them under these two heads. However, whether we divide the audience or not, we come under these two heads—those who have the spirit of the publican and those who have the spirit of the Pharisee.
You can find that the entire community may be correctly divided into these two classes. The spirit of the prodigal and the spirit of an elder brother are still in the world; the spirits of Cain and Abel are still in the world, and these two are representative men.
One of them trusted in his own righteousness and the other did not have any trust in it, and I say I think all men will come under these two heads. They have either given up all their self-righteousness—renounced it all and turned their backs upon it—or else they are clinging to their own righteousness; and you will find that these self-righteous men that are ever clinging to their own righteousness are continually measuring themselves by their neighbors.
“I thank God that I am not as other men are.”
This was the spirit of that Pharisee, and this is thespirit today of one class in this community, and the other class comes under the head of this other man.
Let us look at the man Christ pictured first.
It is evident that he was full of egotism—full of conceit—full of pride; and I believe, as I have said before on this platform, that is one of the greatest enemies the Son of God has today, and I believe it keeps more men from the kingdom of God than any thing else.
Pride can grow on any soil, in any climate. No place is too hot for it, and no place is too cold for its growth. How much misery it has caused in this world! How many men here are kept from salvation by pride!
Why, it sprung up into Heaven, and for it Lucifer was cast out; by pride Nebuchadnezzar lost his throne. As he walked through Babylon he cried: “Is not this a great Babylon which I have built?” And he was hurled from his throne.
How many men that have become drunkards, who are all broken up—will gone, health gone—and yet are just as full of pride as the sun is of light! It will not let them come to Christ and be saved.
A great many live like this Pharisee—only in the form of religion; they do not want the wheat—only the husk; they do not want the kernel—only the shell.
How many men are today just living on empty form! They say their prayers, but they do not mean any thing.
Why, this Pharisee said plenty of prayers, but how did he pray? He prayed to himself. He might as well have prayed to a post. He did not pray to God, who knew his heart a thousand times better than he himself did. He thought he knew himself; he forgot that hewas a sepulcher, full of dead men’s bones; forgot that his heart was rotten, corrupt and vile; and he comes and spreads out his hands and looks up to Heaven.
Why, the very angels in Heaven veil their faces before God as they cry: “Holy, holy, holy!”
But this Pharisee comes into the Temple and spreads out his hands, and says:
“Lord, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are. I fast twice a week.”
He set before God what he had done in comparison with other men, and was striking a balance and making out God to be his debtor, as thousands are doing today; and then he says: “I give one-tenth of all I possess.”
I suppose if he was living in Chicago now, and we had gone to him and asked him for a donation to help put up this Tabernacle, he would have said:
“Well, I think it will do good; yes, I think it will. It may reach the vagabonds and outcasts—I do not need it, of course—but if it will reach that class it will do good. I will give $50, especially if you can get it in the morning papers—if you can have it announced: ‘John Jones gave $50 to build the Tabernacle.’”
That is the way some of the people give donations to God’s cause; they give in a patronizing way. But in this manner God will not accept it. If your heart does not go with your gift, God will not accept it.
This Pharisee says: “I give one-tenth of all that I have; I keep up the services in the Temple; I fast twice a week.”
He fasted twice a week, although once was only called for, and he thought because of this he was farabove other men. A great many people nowadays think because they do not eat meat on Fridays, but only fish, they deserve great credit, although they go on sinning all the week.
Look at this prayer! There is no confession there. He had got so bad, and the devil had so covered up his sins, that he was above confession.
The first thing we have to do when we come to God is to confess. If there is any sin clustering around the heart, bear in mind we can have no communion with God. It is because we have sin about our hearts that our prayers do not go any higher than our head. We can not get God’s favor if we have any iniquity in our hearts.
People, like the Pharisee, have only been educated to pray. If they did not pray every night their consciences would trouble them, and they would get out of bed and say their prayers; but the moment they get off their knees, perhaps, you may hear them swearing.
A man may just as well get a string of beads and pray to them. It would do him as much good.
This Pharisee’s prayer showed no spirit of contrition; there was no petition; he did not ask any thing from God. This is a queer kind of prayer:
“Lord, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are—extortionate, unjust, adulterous—or even as the poor publican.”
Not a petition in his prayer. It was a prayerless prayer—it was downright mockery. But how many men have just got into that cradle and been rocked to sleep by the devil!
A short time ago I put this question to a man:
“Are you a Christian?”
“Of course I am; I say my prayers every night.”
“But do you ever pray?”
“Didn’t I tell you I prayed?”
“But do you ever pray?”
“Why, of course I do; haven’t I said so?”
I found that he prayed, but he only went through the form, and, after a little, I found that he had been in the habit of swearing.
“How is this?” I asked. “Swearing and praying! Do your prayers ever go any higher than your head?”
“Well, I have sometimes thought that they did not.”
My friends, if you are not in communion with God your prayers are but forms; you are living in formalism, and your prayers will go no higher than your head.
How many people just go through the form! They can not rest unless they say their prayers. How many are there with whom it is only a matter of education?
But this Pharisee trusted in his own righteousness; he ignored the mercy of God and the love of Jesus. He was measuring himself by his own rule. Now, if you want to measure yourself, do it by God’s law—by God’s requirements.
A great many people have a rule of their own, by which they measure themselves, and by that rule they are perfectly ready and willing to forgive themselves.
So it was with this Pharisee. The idea of coming to God and asking His forgiveness never enters his mind.
While talking to a man—one of those Pharisees—some time ago, about God and the need of Christ, he said to me:
“I can do without Christ; I do not want Him. I am ready to stand before God any time.”
That man was trusting in his own righteousness.
Now, take a good look at this Pharisee. You know, I have an idea that the Bible is like an album. I go into a man’s house, and, while waiting for him, I take up an album from a table 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.”
By-and-by, I come upon another.
“Why, that man looks like my brother.”
I am getting pretty near home. I keep turning over the leaves.
“Well, I declare! Here is a man who lives in the same street I do. Why, he is my next-door neighbor.”
Then I come upon another, and I see—myself.
My friends, if you read your Bibles, you will find your own pictures there. It will just describe you.
Now, it may be there is some Pharisee here tonight. If there is, let him turn to the third chapter of John, and see what Christ said to the Pharisee:
“Except a man be born again, he can not enter the kingdom of God.”
Nicodemus, no doubt, was one of the fairest specimens of a man in Jerusalem in those days, yet he had to be born again, else he could not enter into the kingdom of God.
“But,” you may say, “I am not a Pharisee. I am a poor and miserable sinner—too bad to come to Him.”Well, turn to the woman of Samaria, and see what He said to her.
See what a difference there was between that publican and that Pharisee. There was as great a distance between them as between the Sun and the Moon.
One was in the very highest station, and the other occupied the very worst station. One had only himself and his sins to bring to God, and the other was trying to bring in his position and his aristocracy.
I tell you, when a man gets a true sight of himself, all his position and station and excellences drop.
See this prayer:
“I thank God.”
“I am not.”
“I fast.”
“I give.”
“I possess.”
Why, if he had delivered a long prayer, and the copy had been put into the printers’ hands, they would have had to send out for some “I’s.”
“I thank God,” “I,” “I,” “I.”
When a man prays—not with himself, but to God—he does not exalt himself; he does not pass a eulogy on himself. He falls flat down in the dust before God. In that prayer you do not find him thanking God for what He had done for him. It was a heartless and prayerless prayer—merely a form.
I hope the day will come when formal prayer will be a thing of the past. I think the reason why we can not get more people out to the meetings is because we have too many formal prayers in the churches. These formalChristians get up, like this Pharisee, and thank God that they are better than other men; but when a man gets a look at himself he comes in the spirit of the publican.
You see this Pharisee standing and praying with himself, but God could not give him any thing. He was too full of egotism—too full of himself. There was no religion in it. God could not bless him.
Now, for a moment, take a look at that poor publican. Just give his prayer your attention.
There was no capital “I” there—no exalting of himself. “God be merciful to this Pharisee; God be merciful to the other people who have injured me; God be merciful to the church members who have not been true to their belief.”
Was that his prayer?
Thank God, he got to himself. “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” It was very short. He had got his eye upon himself; he saw that his heart was vile; he could not lift his eyes to Heaven. But, thank God, he could lift his heart to Heaven.
There is not a poor publican in the audience tonight but can send up this prayer. No matter what your past life has been—no matter if it has been as black as hell—if you but send up the prayer it will be heard. He did not buy his own righteousness; and God heard his appeal.
Spurgeon, speaking of that publican, said he had the soundest theology of any man in England. He came before God, struck his hand on his heart, and cried: “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”
Think of that poor widow at Nain.
She is an old woman now; and her only son, who is the staff of her life, is sick.
How she watches him; sits up all night to see that he has his medicine at the right time; sits by his bedside all day, fanning him, keeping away the flies, moistening his parched lips with water!
Every thing he asks for she brings.
The very best doctor in Nain is sent for; and when he comes and feels the pulse of the young man and looks at his tongue, he shakes his head; and then the poor woman knows there is no hope for her boy.
What an awful thought!
“My son—my only son—must die! What will become of me then?”
Sure enough, the doctor is right; and in a little while the fever comes to its crisis, and the poor boy dies, with his head upon his mother’s bosom.
The people come in and try to comfort the bereaved mother; but it is of no use. Her heart is broken; and she wishes she were dead, too.
Some of you know what it is to look your last upon the faces of those you love. Some of you mothers have wept hot tears upon the cold faces of your sons.
Well, they make him ready for burial; and when the time comes, they celebrate the funeral service, and place him on a bier to carry him away to the grave.
What a sad procession!
Just as they come out of the city gates, they see alittle company of thirteen dusty-looking travelers, coming up the road.
There is One among them who is tall and far fairer than the sons of men.
Who can He be?
He is moved with compassion when He sees this little funeral procession; and it does not take Him long to find out that this woman who walks next the bier is a poor widow, whose only son she is following in sadness to the grave.
He tells the bearers to put down the bier; and while the mother wonders what is to be done, He bends tenderly over the dead man, and speaks to him in a low and sweet voice:
“Arise!”
And the dead man hears Him. His body begins to move; the man that was dead is struggling with his grave clothes; they unbind them, and now he sits up.
He leaps off the bier, catches sight of his mother, remembers that he was dead and is now alive again. He takes his mother in his arms, kisses her again and again, and then turns to look at the Stranger who has wrought this miracle upon him.
He is ready to do any thing for that Man—ready to follow Him to the death. But Jesus does not ask that of him. He knows his mother needs him; and so He does not take him away to be one of His disciples, but gives him back to his old mother.
I would have liked to see that young man re-entering the city of Nain, arm-in-arm with his mother. What do you suppose he said to the people, who looked at himwith wonder? Would he not confess that Jesus of Nazareth had raised him from the dead? Would he not go everywhere, declaring what the Lord had done for his dead body?
Oh, how I love to preach Christ, who can stand over all the graves, and say to all the dead bodies: “Arise!”
Rows of the letter X forming the shape of a Christian cross.
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,Let me hide myself in Thee!Let the water and the bloodFrom Thy riven side which flowedBe of sin the double cure—Cleanse from guilt and make me pure.In my hand no price I bring;Simply to Thy cross I cling.Naked—come to Thee for dress;Helpless—look to Thee for grace;Foul—I to Thy fountain fly;Cleanse me, Savior, or I die!Not the labors of my handsCan fulfill Thy law’s demands.Could my zeal no respite know—Could my tears for ever flow—All for sin could not atone;Thou must save, and Thou alone!While I draw this fleeting breath,When my eye-strings break in death,When I soar to worlds unknown,See Thee on Thy judgment throne—Rock of Ages, cleft for me,Let me hide myself in Thee!
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,Let me hide myself in Thee!Let the water and the bloodFrom Thy riven side which flowedBe of sin the double cure—Cleanse from guilt and make me pure.In my hand no price I bring;Simply to Thy cross I cling.Naked—come to Thee for dress;Helpless—look to Thee for grace;Foul—I to Thy fountain fly;Cleanse me, Savior, or I die!Not the labors of my handsCan fulfill Thy law’s demands.Could my zeal no respite know—Could my tears for ever flow—All for sin could not atone;Thou must save, and Thou alone!While I draw this fleeting breath,When my eye-strings break in death,When I soar to worlds unknown,See Thee on Thy judgment throne—Rock of Ages, cleft for me,Let me hide myself in Thee!
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,Let me hide myself in Thee!Let the water and the bloodFrom Thy riven side which flowedBe of sin the double cure—Cleanse from guilt and make me pure.
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee!
Let the water and the blood
From Thy riven side which flowed
Be of sin the double cure—
Cleanse from guilt and make me pure.
In my hand no price I bring;Simply to Thy cross I cling.Naked—come to Thee for dress;Helpless—look to Thee for grace;Foul—I to Thy fountain fly;Cleanse me, Savior, or I die!
In my hand no price I bring;
Simply to Thy cross I cling.
Naked—come to Thee for dress;
Helpless—look to Thee for grace;
Foul—I to Thy fountain fly;
Cleanse me, Savior, or I die!
Not the labors of my handsCan fulfill Thy law’s demands.Could my zeal no respite know—Could my tears for ever flow—All for sin could not atone;Thou must save, and Thou alone!
Not the labors of my hands
Can fulfill Thy law’s demands.
Could my zeal no respite know—
Could my tears for ever flow—
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save, and Thou alone!
While I draw this fleeting breath,When my eye-strings break in death,When I soar to worlds unknown,See Thee on Thy judgment throne—Rock of Ages, cleft for me,Let me hide myself in Thee!
While I draw this fleeting breath,
When my eye-strings break in death,
When I soar to worlds unknown,
See Thee on Thy judgment throne—
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee!
Sweet are the promises, kind is the word—Dearer far than any message man ever heard!Pure was the mind of Christ—sinless I see;He the great example is, and pattern for me.Where He leads I’ll follow—Follow all the way!Where He leads I’ll follow—Follow Jesus every day!Sweet is the tender love Jesus has shown—Sweeter far than any love that mortals have known!Kind to the erring one, faithful is He;He the great example is, and pattern for me!Where He leads I’ll follow—Follow all the way!Where He leads I’ll follow—Follow Jesus every day!List to His loving words: “Come unto Me.”Weary, heavy-laden, there is sweet rest for thee!Trust in His promises—faithful and sure;Lean upon the Savior, and thy soul is secure.Where He leads I’ll follow—Follow all the way!Where He leads I’ll follow—Follow Jesus every day!
Sweet are the promises, kind is the word—Dearer far than any message man ever heard!Pure was the mind of Christ—sinless I see;He the great example is, and pattern for me.Where He leads I’ll follow—Follow all the way!Where He leads I’ll follow—Follow Jesus every day!Sweet is the tender love Jesus has shown—Sweeter far than any love that mortals have known!Kind to the erring one, faithful is He;He the great example is, and pattern for me!Where He leads I’ll follow—Follow all the way!Where He leads I’ll follow—Follow Jesus every day!List to His loving words: “Come unto Me.”Weary, heavy-laden, there is sweet rest for thee!Trust in His promises—faithful and sure;Lean upon the Savior, and thy soul is secure.Where He leads I’ll follow—Follow all the way!Where He leads I’ll follow—Follow Jesus every day!
Sweet are the promises, kind is the word—Dearer far than any message man ever heard!Pure was the mind of Christ—sinless I see;He the great example is, and pattern for me.
Sweet are the promises, kind is the word—
Dearer far than any message man ever heard!
Pure was the mind of Christ—sinless I see;
He the great example is, and pattern for me.
Where He leads I’ll follow—Follow all the way!Where He leads I’ll follow—Follow Jesus every day!
Where He leads I’ll follow—
Follow all the way!
Where He leads I’ll follow—
Follow Jesus every day!
Sweet is the tender love Jesus has shown—Sweeter far than any love that mortals have known!Kind to the erring one, faithful is He;He the great example is, and pattern for me!
Sweet is the tender love Jesus has shown—
Sweeter far than any love that mortals have known!
Kind to the erring one, faithful is He;
He the great example is, and pattern for me!
Where He leads I’ll follow—Follow all the way!Where He leads I’ll follow—Follow Jesus every day!
Where He leads I’ll follow—
Follow all the way!
Where He leads I’ll follow—
Follow Jesus every day!
List to His loving words: “Come unto Me.”Weary, heavy-laden, there is sweet rest for thee!Trust in His promises—faithful and sure;Lean upon the Savior, and thy soul is secure.
List to His loving words: “Come unto Me.”
Weary, heavy-laden, there is sweet rest for thee!
Trust in His promises—faithful and sure;
Lean upon the Savior, and thy soul is secure.
Where He leads I’ll follow—Follow all the way!Where He leads I’ll follow—Follow Jesus every day!
Where He leads I’ll follow—
Follow all the way!
Where He leads I’ll follow—
Follow Jesus every day!
Grandmothers are more lenient with their children’s children than they were with their own.
At forty years of age, if discipline be necessary, chastisement is used; but at seventy, the grandmother, looking upon the misbehavior of the grandchild, is apologetic and disposed to substitute confectionery for whip.
There is nothing more beautiful than this mellowing of old age toward childhood. Grandmother takes out her pocket handkerchief and wipes her spectacles and puts them on, and looks down into the face of her mischievous and rebellious descendant, and says:
“I don’t think he meant to do it; let him off this time; I’ll be responsible for his behavior in the future.”
My mother, with the second generation around her—a boisterous crew—said one day: “I suppose they ought to be disciplined, but I can not do it. Grandmothers are not fit to bring up grandchildren.”
But here we have a grandmother of a different hue.
I have been at Jerusalem, where the occurrence that I shall describe took place, and the whole scene came vividly before me while I was going over the site of the ancient Temple and climbing the towers of the king’s palace.
Here is old Athaliah, the queenly murderess.
She ought to have been honorable. Her father was a king. Her husband was a king. Her son was a king. And yet we find her plotting for the extermination of the entire royal family, including her own grandchildren.
The executioner’s knives are sharpened; the palace is red with the blood of princes and princesses. On all sides are shrieks, and hands thrown up, and struggle and death groan. No mercy! Kill! Kill!
But while the ivory floors of the palace run with carnage and the whole land is under the shadow of a great horror, a fleet-footed woman—a clergyman’s wife, Jehosheba by name—stealthily approaches the imperial nursery, seizes upon the grandchild that had, somehow, as yet escaped massacre, wraps it up tenderly but in haste, snuggles it against her, flies down the palace stairs—her heart in her throat, lest she be discovered in this Christian abduction.
Get her out of the way as quickly as you can, for she carries a precious burden—even a young king.
With this youthful prize she presses into the room of the ancient Temple, the church of olden time, unwraps the young king and puts him down, sound asleep as he is, and unconscious of the peril that has been threatened; and there for six years he is kept secreted in that church apartment.
Meanwhile, old Athaliah smacks her lips with satisfaction and thinks that all the royal family are dead.
But the six years expire, and it is now time for the young Joash to come forth and take the throne, and to push back into disgrace and death old Athaliah.
The arrangements are all made for political revolution. The military come and take full possession of the Temple, swear loyalty to the boy Joash, and then stand around for his defense. See the sharpened swords and burnished shields! Every thing is ready.
Now Joash, half affrighted at the armed tramp of his defenders, scared at the vociferation of his admirers, is brought forth in full regalia. The scroll of authority is put into his hands, the coronet of government is put on his brow, and the glad people clap and wave, huzza and trumpet.
Athaliah is aroused, and asks:
“What is that? What is that sound over there in the Temple?”
She hurries out to see, and on the way they meet her and say:
“Why, haven’t you heard? You thought you had slain all the royal family, but Joash has come to light.”
Then the queenly murderess, frantic with rage, laid hold on her mantle and tore it to tatters, and cried out until she foamed at the mouth:
“You have no right to crown my grandson. You have no right to take the government from my shoulders. Treason! Treason!”
While she stood there, making this cry, the military started for her arrest, and she took a short cut througha back door of the Temple and ran through the royal stables; but the battle-axes of the military fell on her in the barn-yard, and for many a day, when the horses were being unloosed from the chariot after drawing out young Joash, the fiery steeds would snort and rear while passing the place, as they smelt the taint.
The first thought which I hand you from this subject is that the extermination of righteousness is an impossibility.
When a woman is good she is apt to be very good, and when she is bad she is apt to be very bad; and this Athaliah was one of the latter sort. She would exterminate the last scion of the house of David, through whom Jesus was to come. There was plenty of work for embalmers and undertakers. She would clear the land of all God-fearing and God-loving people. She would put an end to every thing that could in any wise interfere with her imperial criminality.
Athaliah folds her hands and says: “The work is done; it is completely done.”
Is it?
In the swaddling clothes of that church apartment are wrapped the cause of God and the cause of good government.
That is the scion of the house of David; it is Joash, the Christian reformer; it is Joash, the friend of God; it is Joash, the demolisher of Baalitish idolatry. Rock him tenderly; nurse him gently.
Athaliah, you may kill all the other children, but you can not kill him. Eternal defenses are thrown all around him, and this clergyman’s wife, Jehosheba, will snatchhim up from the palace nursery, and will run up and down with him into the house of the Lord, and there she will hide him for six years, and at the end of that time he will come forth for your dethronement and utter obliteration.
David, the shepherd boy, is watching his father’s sheep.
They are pasturing on the very hills where afterward a Lamb was born of which you have heard much—“the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
David, the shepherd boy, was beautiful, brave, musical and poetic. I think he often forgot the sheep in his reveries. There in the solitude he struck the harp-string that is thrilling through all ages. David the boy was at work gathering the material for David the poet and for David the man.
Like other boys, David was fond of using his knife among the saplings, and he had noticed the exuding of the juice of the tree; and when he became a man he said: “The trees of the Lord are full of sap.”
David the boy, like other boys, had been fond of hunting the birds’ nests, and he had driven the old stork off the nest to find how many eggs were under her; and when he became a man he said: “As for the stork, the fir trees are her house.”
In boyhood he had heard the terrific thunder storm that frightened the red deer into premature sickness; andwhen he became a man he said: “The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve.”
David the boy had lain upon his back, looking up at the stars and examining the sky, and to his boyish imagination the sky seemed like a piece of divine embroidery, the divine fingers working in the threads of light and the beads of stars; and when he grew up he wrote:
“When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers.”
When he became an old man, thinking of the goodness of God, he seemed to hear again the bleating of his father’s sheep across many years, and to think of the time when he tended them on the Bethlehem hills, and he cries out: “The Lord is my shepherd.”
There is one scene in the life of David that you may not have pondered.
You have seen him with a harp, playing the devil out of Saul; with a sling, smashing the skull of Goliath; with a sword, hacking to pieces the Philistines; with a scepter, ruling a vast realm; with a psalm, gathering all nations into doxology.
But now we have David playing the fool.
He has been anointed king, yet he is in exile and is passing incognito among the Gathites. They are beginning to suspect who he is, and they say:
“I wonder if this is not the warrior, King David? It looks like him. Is not this the man about whom they used to make poetry, and about whom they composed a dance, so that the maidens of the city, reeling now on one foot and now on the other, used to sing: ‘Saul has slain his thousands, but David has slain his tens of thousands’?Yes, he is very much like David; he must be David; he is David.”
David, to escape their hands, pretends to be demented; and he said within himself:
“If I act crazily, then these people will not injure me. No one would be so much of a coward as to assault a madman.”
So, one day, while these Gathites are watching King David with increased suspicion, they see him standing by the door, running his hands meaninglessly up and down the panels—scrabbling on the door as though he would climb up, his mouth wide open, drooling like an infant.
I suppose the boys of the streets threw missiles at him, but the sober people of the town said:
“This is not fair. Do you not see that he has lost his reason? Do not touch this madman. Hands off! Hands off!”
So David escaped. But what an exhibition he made of himself before all the ages!
There was a majesty in King Lear’s madness after Regan and Goneril, his daughters, had persuaded him to banish their sister, Cordelia, and all the friends of the drama have been thrilled with that spectacle.
The craziness of Meg Merrilies was weird and imposing, and formed the most telling passage in Sir Walter Scott’s “Guy Mannering.”
There was a fascination about the insanity of Alexander Cruden, who made the best concordance of the Bible that the world ever saw—made it between the mad houses.
But there was nothing grand, nothing weird, nothing majestic, nothing sublime about this simulation on the part of David. Instead of trusting in the Lord, as he had trusted on other occasions, he gathers before him a vast audience of all generations that were to come, and, standing on that conspicuous stage of history, in view of all the ages, he impersonates the slavering idiot.
Taking the behavior of David as a suggestion, I wish to show you how many of the wise, the brave and the regal sometimes play the fool. Those men as badly play the fool as did David who, in any crisis of life, take their case out of the hand of God.
David, in this case, acted as though there were no God to lift him out of the predicament. What a contrast between his behavior, when this brave little man stood up in front of the giant ten feet in height, looking into his face, and this time, when he debased himself and bedraggled his manhood by affecting insanity in order that he might escape from the grip of the Gathites! In the one case, he played the hero; in the other case, he played the fool.
There came a time when David fled from his pursuers. The world runs very fast when it is chasing a good man. The country is trying to catch David, and to slay him. David goes into the house of a priest, and asks him for a sword or spear with which to defend himself.
The priest, not being accustomed to use deadly weapons, tells David that he can not supply him; but suddenly the priest thinks of an old sword that had been carefully wrapped up and laid away—the very sword that Goliath formerly used. He takes down that sword,and while he is unwrapping the sharp, glittering and memorable blade it flashes upon David’s mind that this is the very sword that was used against himself when he was in the fight with Goliath, and David can hardly keep his hand off it until the priest has unwound it.
David stretches out his hand toward that old sword, and says: “There is none like it; give it me.” In other words: “I want in my own hand the sword that has been used against me, and against the cause of the Lord.” So it was given him.
Here passes through these streets, as in imagination I see him, a wonderful man. Can it be that I am in the very city where lived and reigned David—conqueror, king and poet? David—great for power and great for grief!
He was wrapped up in his boy, Absalom, who was a splendid boy, judged by the rules of worldly criticism. From the crown of his head to the sole of his foot there was not a single blemish. The Bible says that he had such a luxuriant shock of hair that, when once a year it was shorn, what was cut off weighed over three pounds.
But, notwithstanding all his brilliancy of appearance, he was a bad boy, and broke his father’s heart. He was plotting to get the throne of Israel. He had marshaled an army to overthrow his father’s government.
The day of battle had come; the conflict was begun. David, the father, sat between the gates of the palace, waiting for tidings of the conflict.
Oh, how rapidly his heart beat with emotion! Two great questions were to be decided—the safety of his boy and the continuance of the throne of Israel.
After a while a servant, standing on the top of thehouse, looks off, and he sees some one running. He is coming with great speed, and the man on top of the house announces the coming of the messenger.
David watches and waits, and as soon as the messenger from the field of battle comes within hailing distance the father cries out. Is it a question in regard to the establishment of his throne? Does he say: “Have the armies of Israel been victorious? Am I to continue in my imperial authority? Have I overthrown my enemies?” Oh, no.
There is one question that springs from his heart to his lip, and springs from the lip into the ear of the besweated and bedusted messenger flying from the battle field—the question:
“Is the young man—Absalom—safe?”
When it was told to King David that, although his army had been victorious, his son had been slain, the father turned his back upon the congratulations of the nation, and went up the stairs of his palace, his heart breaking as he went, wringing his hands sometimes, and then again pressing them against his temples, as though he would press them in, crying:
“O Absalom! My son! My son! Would to God I had died for thee, O Absalom! My son! My son!”
Stupendous grief of David, resounding through all succeeding ages!
A text of five words, and four of them one and the same, is found in the fifth chapter and twelfth verse of Judges: “Awake, awake, Deborah; awake, awake!”
It seems that the men of Israel had lost their courage. Trampled into the dust by their oppressors, the cowards had not spirit to rise.
Their vineyards destroyed, their women dishonored, their children slain, the land was dying for a leader worthy of the cause.
A holy woman by the name of Deborah saw the desolation, and, putting her trust in the Lord, sounded the battle-cry, and by the help of General Barak launched into the plain ten thousand armed men.
The Canaanites, of course, came out with a larger force. They came out against Israel with nine hundred iron chariots, each of these iron chariots having attached to the sides of it long and sharp scythes, so that when these engines of war were driven down to battle, each one of the nine hundred was ready to cut two great swaths of death.
But, when God gives a mission to a woman, He also gives her strength and grace to execute it.
The nine hundred iron chariots of the Canaanites could not save them. They fly! They fly—horse and horseman, chariot and charioteer, officers and troops—in one wild and terrific overthrow. Sisera, their leader, is so frightened in the conflict that he can not wait until his team turns around. He leaps from the chariot and starts, full run, for the mountains.
Then this epic of the text was composed to celebrate the grand womanly triumph: “Awake, awake, Deborah; awake, awake!”
Impressed as I am with the mosque at Joppa, the first I ever saw, and stirred as I am with the fact that this harbor once floated the great rafts of Lebanon cedar from which the Temple at Jerusalem was builded, Solomon’s oxen drawing the logs through this very town on the way to Jerusalem, nothing can make me forget that this Joppa was the birthplace of the sewing society that has blessed the poor of all succeeding ages in all lands.
The disasters to Joppa when Judas Maccabæus set it on fire and when Napoleon had five hundred prisoners massacred in this neighborhood can not make me forget that one of the most magnificent charities of the centuries was started in this seaport by Dorcas—a woman who with her needle embroidered her name ineffaceably into the beneficence of the world.
I see her sitting in the village home. In the door way and around about the building, and even in the room where she sits, are the pale faces of the poor.
She listens to their plaint.
She pities their woe.
She makes garments for them, and she adjusts the manufactured articles to suit the bent form of this invalid woman and to that cripple who comes crawling uponhis hands and knees. She gives a coat to this one and sandals to that one. With the gifts she mingles prayers and tears and Christian encouragement.
Then she goes out to be greeted on the street corners by those whom she has blessed, and all through the way of her walk the cry is heard: “Dorcas is coming!”
The sick look up gratefully in her face as she puts a hand on the burning brow, and the lost and the abandoned start up with hope as they hear her gentle voice, as though an angel had addressed them; and as she goes out the lane, eyes half put out with sin think they see a halo of light about her brow and a trail of glory in her pathway.
That night a half-paid shipwright climbs the hill and reaches home. There he sees his little boy well clad, and he asks: “Where did these clothes come from?” They tell him: “Dorcas has been here.”
In another place, a woman is trimming a lamp; Dorcas brought the oil.
In another place, a family that had not been at table for many a week are gathered now, for Dorcas brought them bread.
But there is a sudden pause in that woman’s ministry. They say: “Where is Dorcas? Why, we have not seen her for many a day. Where is Dorcas?”
Then one of these poor people goes up and knocks at the door, and finds the mystery solved. All through the haunts of wretchedness the news comes:
“Dorcas is sick!”
No bulletin flashing from the palace gate, telling the stages of a king’s disease, is more anxiously waited forthan the news from this sick benefactress. Alas for Joppa! There is weeping and wailing. That voice which has uttered so many cheerful words is now hushed; that hand which had made so many garments for the poor is cold and still; that star which had poured light into the midnight of wretchedness is dimmed by the blinding mists that go up from the river of death.
In every God-forsaken place in that town; wherever there is hunger and no bread; wherever there is guilt and no commiseration; wherever there is a broken heart and no comfort—there are despairing looks, streaming eyes and frantic gesticulations as they cry:
“Dorcas is dead!”
They send for the apostle, Peter. He edges his way through the crowd around the door, and stands in the presence of the dead. What expostulation and grief all about him!
Here stand some of the poor people, who show the garments which this good woman had made for them. Their grief can not be appeased.
Peter, the apostle, wants to perform a miracle. He will not perform it amid the excited crowd, so he kindly orders that the whole room be cleared. The door is shut against the populace.
The apostle stands now with the dead. Oh, it is a serious moment, you know, when you are alone with a lifeless body! The apostle gets down on his knees and prays, and then he comes to the lifeless form of this one all ready for the sepulcher, and in the strength of Him who is the resurrection he exclaims:
“Tabitha, arise!”
There is a stir in the fountains of life; the heart flutters; the nerves thrill; the cheek flushes; the eye opens; she sits up!
We see in this subject Dorcas the disciple, Dorcas the benefactress, Dorcas the lamented, Dorcas the resurrected.
If I had not seen that word disciple in my text, I yet would have known this woman was a Christian. Such music as that never came from a heart which is not both chorded and strung by Divine grace.
Before I show you the needle-work of this woman, I want to show you her regenerated heart—the source of a pure life and of all Christian charities.
I wish that the wives and mothers and daughters and sisters of this congregation would imitate Dorcas in her discipleship. Before you sit with the Sabbath class, before you cross the threshold of the hospital, before you carry a pack of tracts down the street, before you enter upon the temptations and trials of tomorrow, I charge you, in the name of God and by the turmoil and tumult of the Judgment Day, O women, that you attend to the first, last and greatest duty of your life—the seeking for God and being at peace with Him.
Now, by the courtesies of society, you are deferred to, and he were far less than a man who would not oblige you with kind attentions; but when the trumpet shall sound, there will be an uproar, and a wreck of mountain and continent, and no human arm can help you. Amidst the rising of the dead, and amidst the boiling of the seat and amidst the live, leaping thundersof the flying heavens, there will be no chance for these courtesies.
But, on that day, calm and placid will be every woman’s heart who has put her trust in Christ; calm, notwithstanding all the tumult, as though the fire in the heavens were only the gildings of an autumnal sunset—as though the peal of the trumpet were only the harmony of an orchestra—as though the awful voices of the sky were but a group of friends bursting through a gateway at eventime with laughter, and shouting: “Dorcas the disciple!”
Would to God that every Mary and every Martha would this day sit down at the feet of Jesus!
Further, we see Dorcas the benefactress.
History has told the story of the crown; the epic poet has sung of the sword; the pastoral poet, with his verses full of the redolence of clover-tops and arustle with the silk of the corn, has sung the praises of the plow. I tell you the praises of the needle.
From the fig-leaf robe prepared in the Garden of Eden to the last stitch taken last night on some garment for some church fair, the needle has wrought wonders of kindness, generosity and benefaction. It adorned the girdle of the high priest; it fashioned the curtains in the ancient Tabernacle; it cushioned the chariots of King Solomon; it provided the robes of Queen Elizabeth; and in high places and in low places, by the fire of the pioneer’s back-log and under the flash of the chandelier—everywhere, it has clothed nakedness, it has preached the Gospel, it has overcome hosts of penury and want with the war-cry of: “Stitch, stitch, stitch!” Theoperatives have found a livelihood by it, and through it the mansions of the employers have been constructed.
Amidst the greatest triumphs in all ages and lands, I set down the conquests of the needle.
I admit its crimes; I admit its cruelties. It has had more martyrs than the fire; it has butchered more souls than the Inquisition; it has punctured the eye; it has pierced the side; it has struck weakness into the lungs; it has sent madness into the brain; it has filled the potter’s field; it has pitched whole armies of the suffering into crime, wretchedness and woe.
But, now that I am talking of Dorcas and her ministries to the poor, I shall speak only of the charities of the needle.
This woman was a representative of all those women who make garments for the destitute, who knit socks for the barefooted, who prepare bandages for the lacerated, who fix up boxes of clothing for Western missionaries, who go into the asylums of the suffering and destitute bearing that Gospel which is sight for the blind and hearing for the deaf, and which makes the lame man leap like a hart, and brings the dead to life with immortal health bounding in their pulses.
What a contrast between the practical benevolence of this woman and a great deal of the charity of this day!
Dorcas did not spend her time planning how the poor of Joppa were to be relieved; she took her needle and relieved them. She was not like those persons who sympathize with imaginary sorrows, and go out in the street and laugh at the boy who has upset his basket of coldvictuals; nor was she like that charity which makes a rousing speech on the benevolent platform, and goes out to kick the beggar from the step, crying: “Hush your miserable howling!”
The sufferers of the world want not so much theory as practice; not so much tears as dollars; not so much kind wishes as loaves of bread; not so much smiles as shoes; not so much “God bless yous!” as jackets and frocks. I will put one earnest Christian man, who is a hard worker, against five thousand mere theorists on the subject of charity.
There are a great many who have fine ideas about church architecture who never in their lives helped to build a church. There are men who can give you the history of Buddhism and Mohammedanism who never sent a farthing for the evangelization of the adherents of those religions.
There are women who talk beautifully about the suffering in the world who never had the courage, like that of Dorcas, to take up the needle and assault it.
I am glad that there is not a page of the world’s history which is not a record of feminine benevolence. God says to all lands and peoples: “Come, now, and hear the widow’s mite rattle down into the poor-box.”
The Princess of Conti sold all her jewels, that she might help the famine-stricken. Queen Blanche, wife of Louis VIII. of France, hearing that there were some persons unjustly incarcerated in the prisons, went out and took a stick and struck the door, as a signal that all might strike it; and down went the prison door, and out came the prisoners. Queen Maud, the wife of Henry I.,went down amidst the poor and washed their sores, and administered to them cordials. Mrs. Retson, at Matagorda, appeared on the battle field while the missiles of death were flying around, and cared for the wounded.
But why go so far back? Why go so far away?
Is there a man or woman in this house who has forgotten the women of the sanitary and Christian Commissions? Has any one forgotten that, before the smoke had gone from Gettysburg and South Mountain, the women of the North met the women of the South on the battle field, forgetting all their animosities while they bound up the wounded and closed the eyes of the slain? Have you forgotten Dorcas, the benefactress?
I come now to speak of Dorcas the lamented. When death struck down that good woman, oh, how much sorrow there was in Joppa!
I suppose there were women living in Joppa possessing larger fortunes; women, perhaps, with more handsome faces; but there was no grief at their departure like this at the death of Dorcas. There was not more turmoil and upturning in the Mediterranean Sea, dashing against the wharves of that seaport, than there were surgings to and fro of grief in Joppa because Dorcas was dead.
There are a great many who go out of life and are unmissed. There may be a very large funeral; there may be a great many carriages and a plumed hearse; there may be high-sounding eulogiums; the bell may toll at the cemetery gate; there may be a very fine marble shaft reared over the resting place. But the whole thing may be a falsehood and a sham.
By this demise the Church of God has lost nothing; the world has lost nothing. It is only a nuisance abated; it is only a grumbler ceasing to find fault; it is only an idler stopped yawning; it is only a dissipated fashionable parted from his wine cellar—while, on the other hand, no useful Christian leaves this world without being missed. The Church of God cries out like the prophet: “Howl, fir tree, for the cedar has fallen.” Widowhood comes and shows the garments which the departed had made. Orphans are lifted up to look into the calm face of the sleeping benefactress. Reclaimed vagrancy comes and kisses the cold brow of her who charmed it away from sin, and all through the streets of Joppa there is mourning—mourning because Dorcas is dead.
I suppose you have read of the fact that when Josephine was carried out to her grave there were a great many men and women of pomp and pride and position that went out after her; but I am most affected by the story of history that on that day there were ten thousand of the poor of France who followed her coffin, weeping and wailing until the air rang again, because when they lost Josephine they lost their last earthly friend.
Oh, who would not rather have such obsequies than all the tears that were ever poured in the lachrymals that have been exhumed from ancient cities! There may be no mass for the dead; there may be no costly sarcophagus; there may be no elaborate mausoleum. But in the damp cellars of the city, and through the lonely huts of the mountain glen, there will be mourning—mourning because Dorcas is dead.
I speak to you of Dorcas the resurrected. The apostlecame to where she was, and said: “Arise!” And “she sat up.” In what a short compass the great writer put that: “She sat up!”
Oh, what a time there must have been when the apostle brought her out among her old friends! How the tears of joy must have started! What clapping of hands there must have been! What singing! What laughter! Sound it all through that lane! Shout it down that dark alley! Let all Joppa hear it! Dorcas is resurrected!
You and I have seen the same thing many a time—not a dead body resuscitated, but the deceased coming up again after death in the good accomplished. If a man labors up to fifty years of age, serving God, and then dies, we are apt to think that his earthly work is done. No! His influence on Earth will continue till the world ceases. Services rendered for Christ never stop.
Here is a Christian woman. She toils for the upbuilding of a church through many anxieties, through many self-denials, with prayers and tears, and then she dies. It is fifteen years since she went away. Now the Spirit of God descends upon that church; hundreds of souls stand up and confess the faith of Christ.
Has that Christian woman, who went away fifteen years ago, nothing to do with these things? I see the flowering out of her noble heart. I hear the echo of her footsteps in all these songs over sins forgiven—in all the prosperity of the church. The good that seemed to be buried has come up again. Dorcas is resurrected.
After a while all these womanly friends of Christ will put down their needles for ever. After making garments for others, some one will make a garment for them; thelast robe which we shall ever wear—the robe which is for the grave.
You will have heard the last cry of pain. You will have witnessed the last orphanage. You will have come in worn out from your last round of mercy. I do not know where you will sleep, nor what your epitaph will be; but there will be a lamp burning at that tomb and an angel of God guarding it, and through all the long night no rude foot will disturb the dust. Sleep on—sleep on! Soft bed, pleasant shadows, undisturbed repose! Sleep on!
Ehud was a ruler in Israel. He was left-handed, and, what was peculiar about the tribe of Benjamin, to which he belonged, there were in it seven hundred left-handed men; and yet, so dextrous had they all become in the use of the left hand, the Bible says they could sling stones at a hair’s breadth and not miss.
Well, there was a king by the name of Eglon, who was an oppressor of Israel. He imposed upon them an outrageous tax.
Ehud, the man of whom I first spoke, had a divine commission to destroy that oppressor. He came, pretending that he was going to pay the tax, and asked to see King Eglon. He was told the king was in the Summer house, the place to which his majesty retired when the heat was too great to sit in the palace. This Summer house was a place surrounded by flowers, springing fountains and trees—the latter filled with warbling birds.
Ehud entered the Summer house, and said to King Eglon that he had a secret errand with him. Immediately all the attendants were waved out of the royal presence. King Eglon rises up to receive the messenger. Ehud, the left-handed man, puts his left hand to his right side, pulls out a dagger, and thrusts Eglon through until the haft went in after the blade. Eglon falls.
Ehud comes forth to blow a trumpet of right amidst the mountains of Ephraim; and a great host is marshaled, and proud Moab submits to the conqueror, and Israel is free.
I learn first, from this subject, the power of left-handed men. There are men who, by physical organization, have as much strength in their left hand as in their right hand; but there is something in the writing of the fifteenth verse of the third chapter of Judges that implies Ehud had some defect in his right hand, which compelled him to use the left.
Oh, the power of left-handed men! Genius is often self-observant, careful of itself, not given to much toil, burning incense to its own aggrandizement; while many a man, with no natural endowments, actually defective in physical and mental organization, has an earnestness for the right, a patient industry, an all-consuming perseverance, which achieve marvels for the kingdom of the Lord. Though left-handed as Ehud, they can strike down a sin as imperial as Eglon.
But I do not suppose that Ehud, the first time he took a sling in his left hand, could throw a stone a hair’s breadth, and not miss. I suppose it was practice that gave him the wonderful dexterity.
Go forth to your spheres of duty, and do not be discouraged if, in your first attempts, you miss the mark. Ehud missed it.
Esau had the birthright given him.
In the olden times this meant not only temporal but spiritual blessing.
One day Esau took this birthright and traded it off for something to eat. Oh, the folly! But let us not be too severe upon him, for some of us have committed the same folly.
After Esau had thus parted with his birthright, he wanted to get it back. Just as though you, tomorrow morning, should take all your notes and bonds and government securities, and should go into a restaurant, and in a fit of restlessness and hunger throw all those securities on the counter and ask for a plate of food, making that exchange.
This was the exchange Esau made.
He sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, and he was very sorry about it afterward; but “he found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.”
There are sins which, though they may be pardoned, are in some respects irrevocable; and you can find no place for repentance, though you seek it carefully with tears. After wasting forty years, you can not get back the neglected advantages of boyhood and youth.