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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Men of the Bible, by Dwight Moody
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Men of the Bible
+
+Author: Dwight Moody
+
+Release Date: December 22, 2009 [EBook #30740]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEN OF THE BIBLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Keith G. Richardson from pdf file kindly
+provided at www.archive.org
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MEN OF THE BIBLE
+
+
+BY
+
+
+D. L. Moody.
+
+
+Chicago: New York: Toronto
+
+Fleming H. Revell Company
+
+Publishers of Evangelical Literature
+
+
+
+_Copyright, 1898, by The Bible Institute Colportage Association._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+I. ABRAHAM'S FOUR SURRENDERS
+
+II. THE CALL OF MOSES
+
+III. NAAMAN THE SYRIAN
+
+IV. THE PROPHET NEHEMIAH
+
+V. HEROD AND JOHN THE BAPTIST
+
+VI. THE MAN BORN BLIND AND JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA
+
+VII. THE PENITENT THIEF
+
+
+
+Men of the Bible
+
+
+ABRAHAM'S FOUR SURRENDERS
+
+
+A great many people are afraid of the will of God, and yet I believe
+that one of the sweetest lessons that we can learn in the school of
+Christ is the surrender of our wills to God, letting Him plan for us
+and rule our lives. If I know my own mind, if an angel should come
+from the throne of God and tell me that I could have my will done
+the rest of my days on earth, and that everything I wished should be
+carried out, or that I might refer it back to God, and let God's
+will be done in me and through me, I think in an instant I would
+say:
+
+"Let the will of God be done."
+
+I cannot look into the future. I do not know what is going to happen
+to-morrow; in fact, I do not know what may happen before night; so I
+cannot choose for myself as well as God can choose for me, and it is
+much better to surrender my will to God's will. Abraham found this
+out, and I want to call your attention to four surrenders that he
+was called to make. I think that they give us a pretty good key to
+his life.
+
+
+I
+
+
+In the first place, Abraham was called to give up _his kindred and
+his native country_, and to go out, not knowing whither he went.
+
+While men were busy building up Babylon, God called this man out of
+that nation of the Chaldeans. He lived down near the mouth of the
+Euphrates, perhaps three hundred miles south of Babylon, when he was
+called to go into a land that he perhaps had never heard of before,
+and to possess that land.
+
+In the twelfth chapter of Genesis, the first four verses, we read:
+
+"Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and
+from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I
+will shew thee." Now notice the promise: "And I will make of thee a
+great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and
+thou shalt be a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, and
+curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the
+earth be blessed. So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto
+him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy five years old and
+when he departed out of Haran."
+
+It was several years before this that God first told him to leave Ur
+of the Chaldees. Then he came to Haran, which is about half-way
+between the valley of the Euphrates and the valley of the Jordan.
+God had called him into the land of the Canaanite, and
+
+
+HE CAME HALF-WAY,
+
+and stayed there--we do not know just how long, but probably about
+five years.
+
+Now, I believe that there are a great many Christians who are what
+might be called _Haran Christians_. They go to Haran, and there they
+stay. They only half obey. They are not out-and-out. How was it that
+God got him out of Haran? His father died. The first call was to
+leave Ur of the Chaldees and go into Canaan, but instead of going
+all the way they stopped half-way, and it was affliction that drove
+Abram out of Haran. A great many of us bring afflictions on
+ourselves, because we are not out-and-out for the Lord. We do not
+obey Him fully. God had plans He wanted to work out through Abram,
+and He could not work them out as long as he was there at Haran.
+Affliction came, and then we find that he left Haran, and started
+for the Promised Land.
+
+There is just one word there about Lot--"and Lot went with Abram."
+That is the key, you might say, to Lot's life. He was a weaker
+character than Abram, and he followed his uncle.
+
+When they got into the land that God had promised to give him, Abram
+found it already inhabited by great and warlike nations--not by one
+nation, but by a number of nations. What could he do, a solitary
+man, in that land? Not only was his faith tested by finding the land
+preoccupied by other strong and hostile nations, but he had not been
+there a great while before a great famine came upon him. No doubt a
+great conflict was going on in his breast, and he said to himself:
+
+"What does this mean? Here I am, thirteen hundred miles away from my
+own land, and surrounded by a warlike people. And not only that, but
+a famine has come, and I must get out of this country."
+
+Now, I don't believe that God sent Abram down to Egypt. I think that
+He was only testing him, that he might in his darkness and in his
+trouble be
+
+
+DRAWN NEARER TO GOD.
+
+I believe that many a time trouble and sorrow are permitted to come
+to us that we may see the face of God, and be shut up to trust in
+Him alone. But Abram went down into Egypt, and there he got into
+trouble by denying his wife. That is the blackest spot on Abram's
+character. But when we get into Egypt we will always be getting into
+trouble.
+
+
+II
+
+
+Abram became rich; but we don't hear of any altar--in fact, we hear
+of no altar at Haran, and we hear of no altar in Egypt. When he came
+up with Lot out of Egypt, they had great possessions, and they
+increased in wealth, and their herds had multiplied, until there was
+a strife among their herdsmen.
+
+Now it is that Abram's character shines out again. He might have
+said that he had a right to the best of everything, because he was
+the older, and because Lot would probably not have been worth
+anything if it had not been for Abram's help. But instead of
+standing up for _his rights_, to choose the best of the land, he
+surrenders them, and says to the nephew:
+
+"Take your choice. If you go to the right hand, I will take the
+left; or if you prefer the left hand, then I will go to the right."
+
+Here is where Lot made his mistake. If there was a man under the sun
+that needed Abram's counsel, and Abram's prayers, and Abram's
+influence, and to have been surrounded by the friends of Abram, it
+was Lot. He was just one of those weak characters that
+
+
+NEEDED BOLSTERING UP.
+
+But his covetous eye looked upon the well-watered plains of the
+valley of the Jordan that reached out towards Sodom, and he chose
+them. He was influenced by what he saw, He walked by sight, instead
+of by faith. I think that is where a great many Christian people
+make their mistake--walking by sight, instead of by faith. If he had
+stopped to think, Lot might have known that it would be disastrous
+to him and his family to go anywhere near Sodom. Abram and Lot must
+both have known about the wickedness of those cities on the plains,
+and although they were rich, and there was chance of making money,
+it was better for Lot to keep his family out of that wicked city.
+But his eyes fell upon the well watered plains, and he pitched his
+tent towards Sodom, and separated from Abram.
+
+Now, notice that after Abram had let Lot have his choice, and Lot
+had gone off to the plains, for the first time God had Abram alone.
+His father had died at Haran, and he had left his brother there.
+Now, after his nephew had left him, he moved down to Hebron, and
+there built an altar. "Hebron" means _communion_. Here it is that
+God came to him and said:
+
+"Abram, look around as far as your eye can reach--it is all yours.
+Look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and
+eastward, and westward: for all the land which thou seest, to thee
+will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed
+as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of
+the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through
+the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will
+give it unto thee."
+
+"Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of
+Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the Lord."
+
+It is astonishing how far you can see in that country. God took
+Moses up on Pisgah and showed him the Promised Land. In Palestine, a
+few years ago, I found that on Mount Olivet I could look over and
+see the Mediterranean. I could look into the valley of the Jordan,
+and see the Dead Sea. And on the plains of Sharon I could look up to
+Mount Lebanon, and up at Mount Hermon, away beyond Nazareth. You can
+see with the naked eye almost the length and breadth of that
+country. So when God said to Abram that he might look to the north,
+and that as far as he could see he could have the land; and then
+look to the south, with its well-watered plains that Lot coveted,
+and to the east and the west, from the sea to the Euphrates--then
+God gave His friend Abram a clear title, no conditions whatever,
+saying:
+
+"I will give it all to you."
+
+Lot chose all he could get, but it was not much. Abram let God
+choose for him, and was given all the land. Lot had no security for
+his choice, and soon lost all. Abram's right was maintained
+undisputed by God the giver.
+
+Do you know that the children of Israel never had faith enough to
+take possession of all that land as far as the Euphrates? If they
+had, probably Nebuchadnezzar would never have come and taken them
+captives. But that was God's offer; He said to Abram, "Unto your
+seed I will give it forever, clear to the valley of the Euphrates."
+From that time on God enlarged Abram's tents. He enriched His
+promises, and gave him much more that He had promised down there in
+the valley of the Euphrates when He first called him out. It is very
+interesting to see how God kept
+
+
+ADDING TO THE PROMISE
+
+for the benefit of His friend Abram.
+
+Let us go back a moment to Lot, and see what Lot gained by making
+that choice. I believe that you can find five thousand Lots to one
+Abram to-day. People are constantly walking by sight, lured by the
+temptations of men and of the world. Men are very anxious to get
+their sons into lucrative positions, although it way be disastrous
+to their character; it may ruin them morally and religiously, and in
+every other way. The glitter of this world seems to attract them.
+Some one has said that Abram was a far-sighted man, and Lot was a
+short-sighted man; his eye fell on the land right around him. There
+is the one thing that we are quite sure of--he was so short-sighted
+that his possessions soon left him. And you will find that these
+people who are constantly building for time are disappointed.
+
+I have no doubt that the men of Sodom said that Lot was
+
+
+A MUCH SHREWDER MAN
+
+than his uncle Abram, and that if he lived twenty-five years he
+would be the richer of the two, and that by coming into Sodom he
+could sell his cattle and sheep and goats and whatever else he had
+for large sums, and could get a good deal better market than Abram
+could back there on the plains of Mamre.
+
+For awhile Lot did make money very fast, and became a very
+successful man. If you had gone into Sodom a little while before
+destruction came, you would have found that Lot owned some of the
+best corner lots in town, and that Mrs. Lot moved in what they
+called the _bon-ton_ society or upper ten; and you would have found
+that she was at the theatre two or three nights in the week. If they
+had progressive euchre, she could play as well as anybody; and her
+daughters could dance as well as any other Sodomites. We find Lot
+sitting in the gates, he was getting on amazingly well. He might
+have been one of the principal men in the city; Judge Lot, or the
+Honorable Lot of Sodom. If there had been a Congress in those days,
+they would have run him for a seat in Congress. They might have
+elected him
+
+
+MAYOR OF SODOM.
+
+He was getting on amazingly well; wonderfully prosperous.
+
+But by and by there comes a war. If you go into Sodom, you must take
+Sodom's judgment when it comes, for it is bound to come. The battle
+turned against those five cities of the plain and they took Lot and
+his wife and all that they had, and one man escaped and ran off to
+Hebron and told Abram what had taken place. Abram took his
+servants,--three hundred and eighteen of them,--went after these
+victorious kings, and soon returned with all the booty and all the
+prisoners.
+
+
+III
+
+
+On Abram's way back with the spoils one of the strangest scenes of
+history occurs. Whom should he meet but Melchizedek, who brought out
+bread and wine; and the priestly king blessed the Father of the
+Faithful. After the old king of peace had blest him, he met the King
+of Sodom, and the King of Sodom said, "You take the money, and I
+will take the people"; but Abram replied:
+
+"Not a thing will I take, not even the shoe-latchets, lest thou
+shouldst say, I have made Abram rich."
+
+There is another surrender. There was a temptation _to get rich at
+the hands of the King of Sodom_. But the King of Salem had blessed
+him, and this world did not tempt him. It tempted Lot, and no doubt
+Lot thought Abram made a great mistake when he refused to take this
+wealth; but Abram would not touch a thing; he spurned it and turned
+from it. He had the world under his feet; he was living for another
+world. He would not be enriched from such a source.
+
+Every one of us is met by the prince of this world and the Prince of
+Peace. The one tempts us with wealth, pleasure, ambition: but our
+Prince and Priest is ready to succor and strengthen us in the hour
+of temptation.
+
+A friend of mine told me some years ago that his wife was very fond
+of painting, but that for a long time he never could see any beauty
+in her paintings; they all looked like a daub to him. One day his
+eyes troubled him and he went to see an oculist. The man looked in
+amazement at him and said:
+
+"You have what we call a short eye and a long eye, and that makes
+everything a blur."
+
+He gave him some glasses that just fitted him, and then he could see
+clearly. Then, he said, he understood why it was that his wife was
+so carried away with art, and he built an art gallery, and filled it
+full of beautiful things; because everything looked so beautiful
+after he had had his eyes straightened out.
+
+Now there are lots of people that have
+
+
+A LONG EYE AND A SHORT EYE,
+
+and they make miserable work of their Christian life. They keep one
+eye on the eternal city and the other eye on the well-watered plains
+of Sodom. That was the way it was with Lot: he had a short eye and a
+long eye. It would be pretty hard work to believe that Lot was saved
+if it were not for the New Testament. But there we read that "Lot's
+righteous soul was vexed,"--so he had a righteous soul, but he had a
+stormy time. He didn't have peace and joy and victory like Abram.
+
+After Abram had given up the wealth of Sodom that was offered him,
+then God came and enlarged his borders again--enlarged the promise.
+God said:
+
+"I will be your exceeding great reward; I will protect you."
+
+Abram might have thought that these kings that he had defeated might
+get other kings and other armies to come, and he might have thought
+of himself as a solitary man, with only three hundred and eighteen
+men, so that he might have feared lest he be swept from the face of
+the earth. But the Lord came and said:
+
+"Abram, fear not."
+
+That is the first time those oft-repeated words, "fear not," occur
+in the Bible.
+
+"Fear not, for I will be your shield and your reward."
+
+I would rather have that promise than all the armies of earth and
+all the navies of the world to protect me--to have the God of heaven
+for my Protector! God was teaching Abram that He was to be his
+Friend and his Shield, if he would surrender himself wholly to His
+keeping, and trust in His goodness. That is what we want--to
+surrender ourselves up to God, fully and wholly.
+
+In Colorado the superintendent of some works told me of a miner that
+was promoted, who came to the superintendent, and said:
+
+"There is a man that has seven children, and I have only three, and
+he is having a hard struggle. Don't promote me, but promote him."
+
+I know of nothing that speaks louder for Christ and Christianity
+than to see a man or woman giving up what they call their rights for
+others, and "in honor preferring one another."
+
+We find that Abram was constantly surrendering his own selfish
+interests and trusting to God. What was the result? Of all the men
+that ever lived he is the most renowned. He never did anything the
+world would call great. The largest army he ever mustered was three
+hundred and eighteen men. How Alexander would have sneered at such
+an army as that! How Caesar would have looked down on such an army!
+How Napoleon would have curled his lip as he thought of Abram with
+an army of three hundred and eighteen! We are not told that he was a
+great astronomer; we are not told that he was a great scientist; we
+are not told that he was a great statesman, or anything the world
+calls great; but there was one thing he could do--he could live an
+unselfish life, and in honor could waive his rights, and in that way
+he became the friend of God; in that way he has become immortal.
+There is
+
+
+NO NAME IN HISTORY
+
+so well known as the name of Abram. Even Christ is not more widely
+known, for the Mohammedans, the Persians, and the Egyptians make a
+great deal of Abram. His name has been for centuries and centuries
+favorably known in Damascus. God promised him that great men, and
+warriors, and kings, and emperors, should spring from his loins. Was
+there ever a nation that has turned out such men? Think of Moses,
+and Joseph, and Joshua, and Caleb, and Samuel, and David, and
+Solomon, and Elisha. Think of Elijah, and Daniel, and Isaiah, and
+all the other wonderful Bible characters that have sprung from this
+man! Then think of Peter, of James, and John, and Paul, and John the
+Baptist, a mighty army. No man can number the multitude of wonderful
+men that have sprung from this one man called out of the land of the
+Chaldeans, unknown and an idolater, probably, when God called him;
+and yet how literally God has fulfiled His promise that through him
+He would bless all the nations of the earth. All because he
+surrendered himself fully and wholly to let God bless him.
+
+
+IV
+
+
+The last surrender is perhaps the most touching and the hardest of
+all to understand. Perhaps he could not have borne it until the
+evening of life. God had been taking him along, step by step, until
+now he had reached a place where he had learned to obey fully
+whatever God told him to do. I believe the world has yet to see what
+God will do with the man who is perfectly surrendered. Next to God's
+own Son, Abraham was perhaps the man who came nearest to this
+standard.
+
+
+FOR TWENTY-FIVE YEARS
+
+Abraham had been in the Promised Land without the promised heir. God
+had promised that He would bless all the nations of the earth
+through him, and yet He did not give him a son. Abraham's faith
+almost staggered a number of times. Ishmael was born, but God set
+aside the son of the bondwoman, for he was not to be the ancestor of
+the Son of God. God was setting Abram apart simply that He might
+prepare the way for His own Son, and now, at last, a messenger comes
+down from heaven to Hebron, and tells Abraham in his old age that he
+should have a son.
+
+It seemed too good to be true. He had hard work to believe it; but
+at the appointed time Isaac was born into that family. I don't
+believe there was ever a child born into the world that caused so
+much joy in the home as in Abraham's heart and home. How Abraham and
+that old mother, Sarah, must have doted on that child! How their
+eyes feasted on him!
+
+But just when the lad was growing up into manhood Abraham received
+another very strange command, and there was another surrender--_his
+only son_. Perhaps he was making an idol of that boy, and thought
+more of him than he did of the God that gave him. There must be no
+idol in the heart if we are going to do the will of God on earth.
+
+I can imagine that one night the old patriarch retired worn out and
+weary. The boy had gone fast to sleep, when suddenly a heavenly
+messenger came and told him that he must take that boy off on to a
+mountain that God was to show him, and offer him up as a sacrifice.
+No more sleep that night! If you had looked into that tent the next
+morning I can imagine that you would have seen the servants flying
+round and making preparations for the master's taking a long
+journey. He perhaps keeps the secret locked up in his heart, and he
+doesn't tell even Sarah or Isaac. He doesn't tell the servants, even
+the faithful servant Eliezer, what is to take place. About nine
+o'clock you might have seen those four men--Abraham, Isaac and the
+two young men with them--start off on the long journey. Once in a
+while Abraham turns his head aside and wipes away the tear. He
+doesn't want Isaac to see what a terrible struggle is going on
+within. It is a hard battle to give up his will and to surrender
+that boy, the idol of his life. Oh, how he loved him!
+
+I can imagine the first night. The boy soon falls asleep, tired and
+weary with the hot day's journey, but the old man doesn't sleep. I
+can see him look into the face of the innocent boy, and say:
+
+"Soon my boy will be gone, and I will be returning without him."
+
+Perhaps most of the night his voice could have been heard in prayer,
+as he cries to God to help him; and as God had helped him in the
+past so God was helping him that night.
+
+The next day they journeyed on, and again a terrible conflict goes
+on. Again he brushes away the tear. Perhaps Isaac sees it, and says:
+
+"Father is going away to meet his God, and the angels may come down
+and talk with him as at Hebron. That is what he is so agitated
+about."
+
+The second night comes, and the old man looks into that face every
+hour of the night. He sleeps a little, but not much, and the next
+morning at family worship he breaks down. He cannot finish his
+prayer.
+
+They journey on that day--it is a long day--and the old patriarch
+say: "This is the last day I am to have my boy with me. To-morrow I
+must offer him up; to-morrow I shall be without the son of my
+bosom."
+
+The third night comes, and what a night it must have been! I can
+imagine he didn't eat or sleep that night. Nothing is going to break
+his fast, and every hour of the night he goes to look into the face
+of that boy, and once in a while he bends over and kisses him, and
+he says:
+
+"O Isaac, how can I give thee up?"
+
+Morning breaks. What a morning it must have been for that father! He
+doesn't eat; he tries to pray, but his voice falters. After
+breakfast they start on their journey again. He has not gone a great
+way before he lifts up his eyes, and yonder is Mount Moriah. His
+heart begins to beat quickly. He says to the two young men:
+
+"You stay here, and I will go yonder with my son."
+
+Then, as father and son went up Mount Moriah, with the wood, and the
+fire, and the knife, the boy turns suddenly to the father, and says:
+
+"Father, where is the lamb? We haven't any offering, father."
+
+It was a common thing for Isaac to see his father offer up a victim,
+but there is no lamb now.
+
+Did you ever think
+
+
+HOW PROPHETIC THAT ANSWER WAS
+
+when Abraham turned and said to the son, "God will provide Himself a
+sacrifice?" I don't know that Abraham understood the full meaning of
+it, but a few hundred years after God did provide a sacrifice right
+there. Mount Moriah and Mount Calvary are close together, and God's
+Son was provided as a sacrifice for the world.
+
+On Mount Moriah this father and son begin to roll up the stones, and
+together they build the altar; then they lay on the wood and
+everything is ready for the victim. Isaac looks around to see where
+the lamb is and then the father can keep it from the son no longer,
+and he says:
+
+"My boy, sit down here close to the altar, and let me tell you
+something."
+
+Then perhaps that old, white-haired patriarch puts his arm around
+the lad, and tells how God came to him in the land of the Chaldeans,
+and the story of his whole life, and how, by one promise after
+another, God had kept enlarging the promised blessings, and that He
+would bless all the nations of the earth through him. Isaac was to
+be the heir. But he says:
+
+"My son, the last night I was at home God came to me in the hours of
+the night and told me to bring you here and offer you up as a
+sacrifice. I don't understand what it means, but I can tell you one
+thing: it is much harder for me to offer you up than it would be for
+me to be sacrificed myself."
+
+There was a time when I used to think more of the love of Jesus
+Christ than of God the Father. I used to think of God as a stern
+judge on the throne, from whose wrath Jesus Christ had saved me. It
+seems to me now I could not have
+
+
+A FALSER IDEA OF GOD
+
+than that. Since I have become a father I have made this discovery:
+that it takes more love and self-sacrifice for the father to give up
+the son than it does for the son to die. Is a father on earth a true
+father that would not rather suffer than to see his child suffer? Do
+you think that it did not cost God something to redeem this world?
+It cost God the most precious possession He ever had. When God gave
+His Son, He gave all, and yet He gave Him freely for you and me.
+
+I can imagine that Abraham talks to Isaac and tells him how hard it
+is to offer him up. "But God has commanded it," he says, "and I
+surrender my will to God's will. I don't understand it, but I
+believe that God will be able to raise you up, and maybe He will."
+
+They fell on their faces, and prayed together. After prayer I can
+see that old father take his boy to his bosom, and embrace him for
+the last time. He kisses and kisses him. Then he takes those hands
+that are so innocent, and binds them, and he binds the feet, and he
+ties him up, and lays him on the altar, and gives him a last kiss.
+Then he takes the knife, and raises his hand. No sooner is the hand
+lifted than a voice calls from heaven:
+
+"Abraham, Abraham, spare thy son!"
+
+You remember that Christ said, "Abraham saw my day, and was glad." I
+have an idea that God then and there just
+
+
+LIFTED THE CURTAIN OF TIME
+
+for Abraham. He looked down into the future, saw God's Son coming up
+Calvary, bearing his sins and the sins of all posterity. God gave
+him that secret, and told him how His Son was to come into the world
+and take away his sins.
+
+Now, my friends, notice: whenever God has been calling me to higher
+service, there has always been a conflict with my will. I have
+fought against it, but God's will has been done instead of mine.
+When I came to Jesus Christ, I had a terrible battle to surrender my
+will, and to take God's will. When I gave up business, I had another
+battle for three months; I fought against it. It was a terrible
+battle. But oh! how many times I have thanked God that I gave up my
+will and took God's will. Then there was another time when God was
+calling me into higher service, to go out and preach the gospel all
+over the land, instead of staying in Chicago. I fought against it
+for months; but the best thing I ever did was when I surrendered my
+will, and let the will of God be done in me. Because Abraham obeyed
+God and held back not even his only child, God enlarged his promises
+once again:
+
+"And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the
+second time, and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for
+because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son,
+thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in
+multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and
+as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess
+the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of
+the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice."
+
+If you take my advice, you will have no will other than God's will.
+Make a full and complete surrender, and the sweet messages of heaven
+will come to you. God will whisper into your soul
+
+
+THE SECRETS OF HEAVEN.
+
+After Abraham did what God told him, then it was that God told His
+friend all about His Son. If we make a full surrender, God will give
+us something better than we have ever known before. We will get a
+new vision of Jesus Christ, and will thank God not only in this life
+but in the life to come. May God help each and every one of us to
+make a full and complete and unconditional surrender to God, fully
+and wholly, now and forever.
+
+
+
+THE CALL OF MOSES
+
+
+There is a great deal more room given in Scripture to the _call_ of
+men to God's work than there is to their _end_. For instance, we
+don't know where Isaiah died, or how he died, but we know a great
+deal about the call God gave him, when he saw God on high and lifted
+up on His throne. I suppose that it is true to-day that hundreds of
+young men and women who are listening for a call and really want to
+know what their life's mission is, perhaps find it the greatest
+problem they ever had. Some don't know just what profession or work
+to take up, and so I should like to take the call of Moses, and see
+if we cannot draw some lessons from it.
+
+You remember when God met Moses at the burning bush and called him
+to do as great a work as any man has ever been called to in this
+world, that
+
+
+HE THOUGHT THE LORD HAD MADE A MISTAKE,
+
+that he was not the man. He said, "Who am I?" He was very small in
+his own estimation. Forty years before he had started out as a good
+many others have started. He thought he was pretty well equipped for
+service. He had been in the schools of the Egyptians, he had been in
+the palaces of Egypt, he had moved in the _bon ton_ society. He had
+had all the advantages any man could have when he started out,
+undoubtedly, without calling on the God of Abraham for wisdom and
+guidance, yet he broke down.
+
+How many men have started out in some profession and made a failure
+of it! They haven't heard the voice of God, they haven't waited upon
+God for instruction.
+
+I suppose Moses thought that the children of Israel would be greatly
+honored to know that a prince of the realm was going to take up
+their cause, but you remember how he lost his temper and killed the
+Egyptian, and next day, when he interfered in a quarrel between two
+Hebrews, they wanted to know who had made him judge and ruler over
+them, and he had to flee into the desert, and was there for forty
+years hidden away. He killed the Egyptian and lost his influence
+thereby. Murder for liberty; wrong for right; it was a poor way to
+reform abuses, and Moses needed training.
+
+It was a long time for God to keep him in His school, a long time
+for a man to wait in the prime of his life, from forty to eighty.
+Moses had been brought us with all the luxuries that Egypt could
+give him, and now he was a shepherd, and in the sight of the
+Egyptians a shepherd was an abomination. I have an idea that Moses
+started out with a great deal bigger head than heart. I believe that
+is the reason so many fail; they have
+
+
+BIG HEADS AND LITTLE HEARTS.
+
+If a man has a shriveled-up heart and a big head he is a monster.
+Perhaps Moses looked down on the Hebrews. There are many people who
+start out with the idea that they are great and other people are
+small, and they are going to bring them up on the high level with
+themselves. God never yet used a man of that stamp. Perhaps Moses
+was a slow scholar in God's school, and so He had to keep him there
+for forty years.
+
+But now he is ready; he is just the man God wants, and God calls
+him. Moses said, "Who am I?" He was very small in his own eyes--just
+small enough so that God could use him. If you had asked the
+Egyptians who he was, they would have said he was
+
+
+THE BIGGEST FOOL IN THE WORLD.
+
+"Why," they would say, "look at the opportunity that man had! He
+might have been commander of the Egyptian army, he might have been
+on the throne, swaying the sceptre over the whole world, if he
+hadn't identified himself with those poor, miserable Hebrews! Think
+what an opportunity he has lost, and what a privilege he has thrown
+away!"
+
+He had dropped out of the public mind for forty years, and they
+didn't know what had become of him, but God had His eye upon him. He
+was the very man of all others that God wanted, and when he met God
+with that question, "Who am I?" it didn't matter who he was but who
+his God was. When men learn the lesson that they are nothing and God
+is everything, then there is not a position in which God cannot use
+them. It was not Moses who accomplished that great work of
+redemption, for he was only the instrument in God's hand. God could
+have spoken to Pharaoh without Moses. He could have spoken in a
+voice of thunder, and broken the heart of Pharaoh with one speech,
+if He had wanted to, but He condescended to take up a human agent,
+and to use him. He could have sent Gabriel down, but he knew that
+Moses was the man wanted above all others, so He called him. God
+uses men to speak to men: He works through mediators. He could have
+accomplished the exodus of the children of Israel in a flash, but
+instead He chose to send a lonely and despised shepherd to work out
+His purpose through pain and disappointment. That was God's way in
+the Old Testament, and also in the New. He sent His own Son in the
+likeness of sinful flesh to be the mediator between God and man.
+
+Moses went on making excuses and said, "When I go down there, who
+shall I say has sent me?" I suppose he remembered how he went before
+he was sent that other time, and he was afraid of a failure again. A
+man who has made a failure once is always afraid he will make
+another. He loses confidence in himself. It is a good thing to lose
+confidence in ourselves so as to gain confidence in God.
+
+The Lord said, "Say unto them, 'I AM hath sent me.'"
+
+Some one has said that God gave him
+
+
+A BLANK CHECK,
+
+and all he had to do was to fill it out from that time on. When he
+wanted to bring water out of the rock, all he had to do was to fill
+out the check; when he wanted bread, all he had to do was to fill
+out the check and the bread came; he had a rich banker. God had
+taken him into partnership with Himself. God had made him His heir,
+and all he had to do was to look up to Him, and he got all he
+wanted.
+
+And yet he seemed to draw back, and began to make another excuse,
+and said:
+
+"They will not believe me."
+
+He was afraid of the Israelites as well as of Pharaoh: he knew how
+hard it is to get even your friends to believe in you.
+
+Now, if God has sent you and me with a message it is not for us to
+say whether others will believe it or not. _We_ cannot make men
+believe. If I have been sent by God to make men believe, He will
+give me power to make them believe. Jesus Christ didn't have that
+power; it is the work of the Holy Ghost; we cannot persuade men and
+overcome skepticism and infidelity unless we are baptised with the
+Holy Ghost and with power.
+
+God told Moses that they _would_ believe him, that he would succeed,
+and bring the children of Israel out of bondage. But Moses seemed to
+distrust even the God who had spoken to him.
+
+Then the Lord said, "What is that in thy hand?"
+
+He had a rod or staff, a sort of shepherd's crook, which he had cut
+haphazard when he had wanted something that would serve him in the
+desert.
+
+"It is only a rod."
+
+"With that you shall deliver the children of Israel; with that rod
+you shall make Israel believe that I am with you."
+
+When God Almighty linked Himself to that rod, it was worth more than
+all the armies the world had ever seen. Look and see how that rod
+did its work. It brought up the plagues of flies, and the thunder
+storm, and turned the water into blood. It was not Moses, however,
+nor Moses' rod that did the work, but it was the God of the rod, the
+God of Moses. As long as God was with him, he could not fail.
+
+Sometimes it looks as if God's servants fail. When Herod beheaded
+John the Baptist, it looked as if John's mission was a failure. But
+was it? The voice that rang through the valley of the Jordan rings
+through the whole world to-day. You can hear its echo upon the
+mountains and the valleys yet, "I must decrease, but He must
+increase." He held up Jesus Christ and introduced Him to the world,
+and Herod had not power to behead him until his life work had been
+accomplished. Stephen never preached but one sermon that we know of,
+and that was before the Sanhedrim; but how that sermon has been
+preached again and again all over the world! Out of his death
+probably came Paul, the greatest preacher the world has seen since
+Christ left this earth. If a man is sent by Jehovah, there is no
+such thing as failure. Was Christ's life a failure? See how His
+parables are going through the earth to-day. It looked as if the
+apostles had made a failure, but see how much has been accomplished.
+If you read the book of Acts, you will see that every seeming
+failure in Acts was turned into a great victory. Moses wasn't going
+to fail, although Pharaoh said with contempt, "Who is God that I
+should obey Him?" He found out who God was. He found out that there
+was a God.
+
+But Moses made another excuse, and said, "I am slow of speech, slow
+of tongue." He said he was
+
+
+NOT AN ORATOR.
+
+My friends, we have too many orators. I am tired and sick of your
+"silver-tongued orators." I used to mourn because I couldn't be an
+orator. I thought, Oh, if I could only have the gift of speech like
+some men! I have heard men with a smooth flow of language take the
+audience captive, but they came and they went, their voice was like
+the air, there wasn't any _power_ back of it; they trusted in their
+eloquence and their fine speeches. That is what Paul was thinking of
+when he wrote to the Corinthians:--"My speech and my preaching was
+not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the
+Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom
+of men, but in the power of God."
+
+Take a witness in court and let him try his oratorical powers in the
+witness-box, and see now quickly the judge will rule him out. It is
+the man who tells the plain, simple truth that has the most
+influence with the jury.
+
+Suppose that Moses had prepared a speech for Pharaoh, and had got
+his hair all smoothly brushed, and had stood before the looking
+-glass or had gone to an elocutionist to be taught how to make an
+oratorical speech and how to make gestures. Suppose that he had
+buttoned his coat, put one hand in his chest, had struck an attitude
+and begun:
+
+"The God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has
+commanded me to come into the presence of the noble King of Egypt."
+
+I think they would have taken his head right off! They had Egyptians
+who could be as eloquent as Moses. It was not eloquence they wanted.
+When you see a man in the pulpit trying to show off his eloquence he
+is making a fool of himself and trying to make a fool of the people.
+Moses was slow of speech, but he had a message, and what God wanted
+was to have him deliver the message. But he insisted upon having an
+excuse. He didn't want to go; instead of being eager to act as
+heaven's messenger, to be God's errand boy, he wanted to excuse
+himself. The Lord humored him and gave him an interpreter, gave him
+Aaron.
+
+Now, if there is a stupid thing in the world, it is to talk through
+an interpreter. I tried it once in Paris. I got up into a little box
+of a pulpit with the interpreter--there was hardly room enough for
+one. I said a sentence while he leaned away over to one side, and
+then I leaned over while he repeated it in French. Can you conceive
+of a more stupid thing than Moses going before Pharaoh and speaking
+through Aaron!
+
+But this slow-of-speech man became eloquent. Talk about Gladstone's
+power to speak! Here is a man one hundred and twenty years old, and
+he waxed eloquent, as we see in Deuteronomy xxxii:1-4:
+
+   Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak;
+   And hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
+   My doctrine shall drop as the rain,
+   My speech shall distil as the dew,
+   As the small rain upon the tender herb,
+   And as the showers upon the grass:
+   Because I will publish the name of the Lord:
+   Ascribe ye greatness unto our God.
+   He is the Rock, His work is perfect:
+   For all His ways are judgment:
+   A God of truth and without iniquity,
+   Just and right is He.
+
+He turned out to be one of the most eloquent men the world has ever
+seen. If God sends men and they deliver His message He will be with
+their mouth. If God has given you a message, go and give it to the
+people as God has given it to you. It is a stupid thing for a man to
+try to be eloquent. Make
+
+
+YOUR MESSAGE, AND NOT YOURSELF,
+
+the most prominent thing. Don't be self-conscious Set your heart on
+what God has given you to do, and don't be so foolish as to let your
+own difficulties or your own abilities stand in the way. It is said
+that people would go to hear Cicero and would come away and say,
+"Did you ever hear anything like it? wasn't it sublime? wasn't it
+grand?" But they would go and hear Demosthenes, and he would fire
+them so with the subject that they would want to go and fight at
+once. They forgot all about Demosthenes, but were stirred by his
+message; that was the difference between the two men.
+
+Next Moses said: "O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him
+whom thou wilt send."
+
+Did you ever stop to think what Moses would have lost if God had
+taken him at his word, and said:
+
+"Very well, Moses; you may stay here in the desert, and I will send
+Aaron, or Joshua, or Caleb!"
+
+Don't seek to be excused if God calls you to some service. What
+would the twelve disciples have lost if they had declined the call
+of Jesus! I have always pitied those other disciples of whom we read
+that they went back, and walked no more with Jesus. Think what Orpah
+missed and what Ruth gained by cleaving to Naomi's God! Her story
+has been
+
+
+TOLD THESE THREE THOUSAND YEARS.
+
+Father, mother, sisters, brothers, the grave of her husband--she
+turned her back on them all. Ruth, come back, and tell us if you
+regret your choice! No: her name shines one of the brightest among
+all the women that have ever lived. The Messiah was one of her
+descendants.
+
+Moses, you come back and tell us if you were afterwards sorry that
+God had called you? I think that when he stood in glorified body on
+the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus and Elijah, he did not
+regret it.
+
+My dear friends, God is not confined to any one messenger. We are
+told that He can raise up children out of stones. Some one has said
+that there are three classes of people, the "wills," the "won'ts,"
+and the "can'ts"; the first accomplish everything, the second oppose
+everything, and the third fail in everything. If God calls you,
+consider it a great honor. Consider it a great privilege to have
+partnership with Him in anything. Do it cheerfully, gladly. Do it
+with all your heart, and He will bless you. Don't let false modesty
+or insincerity, self-interest, or any personal consideration turn
+you aside from the path of duty and sacrifice. If we listen for
+God's voice, we shall hear the call; and if He calls and sends us,
+there will be no such thing as failure, but success all along the
+line. Moses had glorious success because he went forward and did
+what God called him to do.
+
+
+
+NAAMAN THE SYRIAN
+
+
+I wish to call your attention to one who was a great man in his own
+country, and very honorable; one whom the king delighted to honor.
+He stood high in position; he was captain of the host of the King of
+Syria; but he was a leper, and that threw a blight over his whole
+life. As Bishop Hall quaintly puts it, "The meanest slave in Syria
+would not have changed skins with him."
+
+Now you cannot have a better type of a sinner than Naaman was. I
+don't care who or what he is, or what position he holds--all men
+alike have sinned, and all have to bear the same burden of death.
+"All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." All men must
+stand in judgment before God. What a gloom that throws over our
+whole life!
+
+"_But he was a leper_." There was
+
+
+NO PHYSICIAN
+
+who could help him in Syria. None of the eminent doctors in Damascus
+could do him any good. If he was to get rid of the leprosy, the
+power must come from on high. It must be some one unknown to Naaman,
+for he did not know God.
+
+But I will tell you what they had in Syria--they had one of God's
+children there, and she was a little girl, a simple captive maid,
+who waited on Mrs. Naaman. Naaman knew nothing about this little
+Israelite, though she was one of his household.
+
+I can imagine that one day, as she was waiting on the general's
+wife, she noticed her weeping. Her heart was breaking because of the
+dark cloud that rested over her home. So she told her mistress that
+there was a prophet in her country that could cure her master of his
+leprosy. "Would to God," she said, "my lord were with the prophet in
+Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy."
+
+There's faith for you!
+
+She boasted of God that He would do more for this heathen than He
+had done for any in Israel; and
+
+
+GOD HONORED HER FAITH.
+
+"What do you say? A prophet in Israel that can cure leprosy?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why, did you ever know any one that was cured?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, then, what makes you think there is a prophet that can cure
+leprosy?"
+
+"Oh, that isn't anything to what Elisha can do. There was a little
+child that lived near us that died, and he raised him to life. He
+has done many wonderful things."
+
+She must have had a reputation for truthfulness. If she hadn't, her
+testimony would not have been taken.
+
+Some one told the general of it, and he made it known to the king.
+Now, Naaman stood high in the king's favor, for he had recently won
+a great victory. He stood near the throne. So the king said:
+
+"You had better go down to Samaria, and see if there is anything in
+it. I will give you letters of introduction to the King of Israel."
+
+Yes, he would give Naaman letters of introduction to the king.
+That's just man's idea. The notion was, that if anybody could help
+him it was the king, and that the king had power both with God and
+man. Oh, my friends, it is a good deal better to know a man that
+knows God! A man acquainted with God has more power than any earthly
+potentate. Gold can't do everything.
+
+Away goes Naaman down to Samaria with his kingly introduction. What
+a stir it must have made when the commander of the Syrian army drove
+up! He has brought with him a lot of gold and silver. That is man's
+idea again; he is going to pay for a great doctor, and he took about
+five hundred thousand dollars to pay for the doctor's bill. There
+are a good many men who would willingly pay that sum if with it they
+could buy the favor of God, and get rid of the curse of sin. Yes, if
+money could do it,
+
+
+HOW MANY WOULD BUY SALVATION!
+
+But, thank God, it is not in the market for sale. You must buy it at
+God's price, and that is "without money and without price." Naaman
+found that out.
+
+My dear friends, did you ever ask yourselves which is the worse--the
+leprosy of sin, or the leprosy of the body? For my own part, I would
+a thousand times sooner have the leprosy of the body eating into my
+eyes, and feet, and arms! I would rather be loathsome in the sight
+of my fellow-men than die with the leprosy of sin in my soul, and be
+banished from God forever! The leprosy of the body is bad, but the
+leprosy of sin is a thousand times worse. It has cast angels out of
+heaven. It has ruined the best and strongest men that ever lived in
+the world. Oh, how it has pulled men down! The leprosy of the body
+could not do that.
+
+There is one thing about Naaman that I like specially, and that is
+his earnestness of purpose. He was
+
+
+THOROUGHLY IN EARNEST.
+
+He was quite willing to go one hundred and fifty miles, and to take
+the advice of this little maid. A good many people say:
+
+"Oh, I don't like such and such a minister; I should like to know
+where he comes from, and what he has done, and whether any bishop
+has laid his hands on his head."
+
+My dear friends, never mind the minister; it is the message you
+want. If some one were to send me a telegraph message, and the news
+were important, I shouldn't stop to ask about the messenger who
+brought it. I should want to read the news. I should look at the
+message, and not at the boy who brought it.
+
+And so it is with God's message. The good news is everything, the
+minister nothing. The Syrians looked down with contempt on the
+Israelites, and yet this great man was willing to take the good news
+at the hands of this little maiden, and listened to the words that
+fell from her lips. If I got lost in New York, I should be willing
+to ask anybody which way to go, even if it were only a shoeblack;
+and, in point of fact, a boy's word in such a case is often better
+than a man's. It is the way I want, not the person who directs me.
+
+But there was one drawback in Naaman's case. Though he was willing
+to take the advice of the little girl, he was not willing to take
+the remedy. The stumbling-block of pride stood in his way. The
+remedy the prophet offered him was a terrible blow to his pride. I
+have no doubt he expected a grand reception from the King of Israel,
+to whom he brought letters of introduction. He had been victorious
+on many a field of battle, and held high rank in the army; perhaps
+we may call him Major-General Naaman of Syria, or he might have been
+higher in rank even than that; and bearing with him kingly
+credentials, he expected no doubt a distinguished reception. But
+instead of the king rushing out to meet him, he, when he heard of
+Naaman's arrival and his object, simply rent his mantle, and said:
+
+"Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man doth send unto
+me to recover a man of his leprosy? Wherefore consider, I pray you,
+and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me."
+
+Elisha heard of the king's trouble, and sent him a message, saying:
+
+"Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? Let him come now to me, and
+he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel."
+
+I can imagine Naaman's pride reasoning thus: "Surely, the prophet
+will feel very much exalted and flattered that I, the great Syrian
+general, should come and call upon him."
+
+And so, probably, full of those proud thoughts, he drives up to the
+prophet's humble dwelling with his chariot and his splendid retinue.
+Yes, Naaman drove up in grand style to the prophet's abode, and as
+nobody seemed to be coming out to greet him, he sent in his message:
+
+"Tell the prophet that Major-General Naaman of Syria has arrived,
+and wishes to see him."
+
+Elisha takes it very coolly. He does not come out to see him, but as
+soon as he learns his errand he sends his servant to tell him to dip
+seven times in the river Jordan, and he shall be clean.
+
+That was a terrible blow to his pride. I can imagine him saying to
+his servant:
+
+"What did you say? Did I understand you aright? Dip seven times in
+the Jordan! Why, we call the river Jordan a _ditch_ in our country."
+
+But the only answer he got was, "The prophet says, Go and dip seven
+times in the Jordan, and thy flesh shall become like the flesh of a
+little child."
+
+I can fancy Naaman's indignation as he asks, "Are not Abana and
+Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?
+May I not wash in them and be clean? Haven't I bathed myself
+hundreds of times, and has it helped me? Can water wash away
+leprosy?"
+
+So he turned and went away in a rage.
+
+It isn't a bad sign when a man gets mad if you tell him the truth.
+Some people are afraid of getting other people mad. I have known
+wives afraid to talk to their husbands, afraid of getting them mad.
+I have known mothers who were afraid to talk to their sons because
+they were
+
+
+AFRAID THEY WOULD GET MAD.
+
+Don't be afraid of getting them mad, if it is the truth that makes
+them mad. If it is our foolishness that makes them mad, then we have
+got reason to mourn over it. If it is the truth, God sent it, and it
+is a good deal better to have a man get mad than it is to have him
+go to sleep. I think the trouble with a great many nowadays is that
+they are sound asleep, and it is a good deal better to rouse them
+even if they do wake up mad.
+
+The fact was, the Jordan never had any great reputation as a river.
+It flowed into the Dead Sea, and that sea never had a harbor to it,
+and its banks were not half so beautiful as those of the rivers of
+Damascus. Damascus was one of the most beautiful cities in the
+world. It is said that when Mahomet beheld it he turned his head
+aside for fear it should divert his thoughts from heaven.
+
+Naaman turned away in a rage. "Ah," he said, "here am I, a great
+conqueror, a successful general on the battlefield, holding the very
+highest rank in the army, and yet this prophet does not even come
+out to meet me; he simply sends a message. Why, I thought he would
+surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the Lord
+his God, and strike his hand over the place and recover the leper."
+
+There it is. I hardly ever knew a man yet who, when talked to about
+his sins, didn't say:
+
+"Yes, but I _thought_ so and so."
+
+"Mr. Moody," they say, "I will tell you what _I think;_ I will tell
+you _my opinion_."
+
+In the 55th chapter of Isaiah it says that God's thoughts are not
+our thoughts, nor His ways our ways. And so it was with Naaman. In
+the first place, he thought a good big doctor's fee would do it all,
+and settle everything up. And besides that there was another thing
+he thought; he thought going to the king with his letters of
+introduction would do it. Yes, those were Naaman's first thoughts.
+_I thought_. Exactly so. He turned away in rage and disappointment.
+He thought the prophet would have come out to him very humble and
+very subservient, and
+
+
+BID HIM DO SOME GREAT THINGS.
+
+Instead of that, Elisha, who was perhaps busy writing, did not even
+come to the door or the window. He merely sent out the message:
+
+"Tell him to dip seven times in the Jordan."
+
+And away went Naaman, saying, _I thought, I thought, I thought_.
+
+I have heard that tale so often that I am tired of it. Give it up,
+and take God's words, God's thoughts, God's ways. I never yet knew a
+man converted just in the time and manner he expected to be. I have
+heard people say, "Well, if ever I am converted, it won't be in a
+Methodist church; you won't catch me there." I never knew a man say
+that but, at last, if converted at all, it was in a Methodist
+church.
+
+In Scotland a man was converted at one of our meetings--an employer.
+He was very anxious that all his employees should be reached, and he
+used to send them one by one to the meetings. But there was one man
+that wouldn't come. We are all more or less troubled with
+stubbornness; and the moment this man found that his employer wanted
+him to go to the meetings he made up his mind he wouldn't go. If he
+was going to be converted, he said, he was going to be converted by
+some ordained minister; he was not going to any meeting that was
+conducted by Americans that were not ordained. He believed in
+conversion, but he was going to be
+
+
+CONVERTED THE REGULAR WAY.
+
+He believed in the regular Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and that
+was the place for him to be converted.
+
+The employer tried every way he could to get him to attend the
+meetings, but he wouldn't come.
+
+After we left that town and went away up to Inverness, the employer
+had some business up there, and he sent this employee to attend to
+it in the hope that he would attend some of our meetings.
+
+One night as I was preaching on the banks of a river I happened to
+take this for my text: "I thought; I thought." I was trying to take
+men's thoughts up and to show the difference between their thoughts
+and God's thoughts. This man happened to be walking along the banks
+of the river. He saw a great crowd, and heard some one talking, and
+he wondered to himself what that man was talking about. He didn't
+know who was there, so he drew up to the crowd, and listened. He
+heard the sermon, and became convicted and converted right there.
+Then he inquired who was the preacher, and he found out it was the
+very man that he said he would not hear--the man he disliked. The
+very man he had been talking against was the very man God used to
+convert him.
+
+Whilst Naaman was thus wavering in his mind, and thinking on what
+was best to be done, one of his servants drew near and made a very
+sensible remark:
+
+"My lord, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest
+thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he saith to thee,
+Wash, and be clean?"
+
+There is a great deal of truth in that.
+
+If Elisha had told him to go back to Syria on his hands and knees,
+one hundred and fifty miles, he would have done it and thought it
+was all right. If he had told him to go into some cave and stay
+there a year or two, he would have done it and thought it was all
+right. If he had told him that it was necessary to have some
+surgical operation performed, and that he had to go through all the
+torture incident to it, that would have suited him. Men like to have
+something to do about their salvation; they don't like to give up
+the idea that they can't do anything; that God must do it all. If
+you tell them to take bitter herbs every morning and every night for
+the next five years, they think that's all right, and if he had told
+Naaman to do that he would have done it. But to tell him merely to
+dip in the river Jordan seven times, why, it seemed absurd on the
+face of it! But this servant suggested to him that he had better go
+down to the Jordan and try the remedy, as it was
+
+
+A VERY SIMPLE ONE.
+
+Now, don't you see yourselves there? How many men there are who are
+waiting for some great thing; waiting for some sudden feeling to
+come stealing over them; waiting for some shock to come upon them.
+That is not what the Lord wants. There is a man that I have talked
+to about his soul for a number of years, and the last time I had a
+talk with him, he said:
+
+"Well, the thing hasn't struck me yet."
+
+I said: "What?"
+
+"Well," says he, "the thing hasn't struck me yet."
+
+"Struck you; what do you mean?"
+
+"Well," said he, "I go to church, and I hear you preach, and I hear
+other men preach, but the thing hasn't struck me yet; it strikes
+some people, but it hasn't struck me yet."
+
+That was all that I could get out of him. There are a good many men
+who reason in that way. They have heard some young converts tell how
+light dawned upon them like the flash of a meteor; how they
+experienced a new sensation; and so they are waiting for something
+of the kind. But you can't find any place in Scripture where you are
+told to wait for anything of the kind. You are just to obey what God
+tells you to do, and let your feelings take care of themselves. I
+can't control my feelings. I can't make myself feel good and bad
+when I want to, but I can obey God. God gives me the power. He
+doesn't command me to do something and not give me the power to do
+it. With the command comes the power.
+
+Now, Naaman could do what the prophet told him; he could go down to
+the Jordan, and he could dip seven times; and that is what the Lord
+had for him to do; and if we are going to get into the kingdom of
+God, right at the threshold of that kingdom we have to learn this
+doctrine of obedience, to do whatsoever He tells us.
+
+I can fancy Naaman still reluctant to believe in it, saying, "Why,
+if there is such cleansing power in the waters of Jordan, would not
+every leper in Israel go down and dip in them, and be healed?"
+
+"Well, but you know," urges the servant, "now that you have come a
+hundred and fifty miles, don't you think you had better do what he
+tells you? After all, you can but try it. He sends word distinctly,
+my lord, that your flesh shall come again as that of a little
+child."
+
+Naaman accepts this word in season. His anger is cooling down. He
+has got over the first flush of his indignation. He says:
+
+"Well, I think I might as well try it."
+
+That was
+
+
+THE STARTING-POINT OF HIS FAITH,
+
+although still he thought it a foolish thing, and could not bring
+himself to believe that the result would be what the prophet had
+said.
+
+At last Naaman's will was conquered, and he surrendered. When
+General Grant was besieging a town which was a stronghold of the
+Southern Confederacy, some of the officers sent word that they would
+leave the city if he would let them go with their men. But General
+Grant sent word:
+
+"No, nothing but an unconditional surrender!"
+
+Then they sent word that they would go if he would let them take
+their flag with them. But the answer was: "No, an unconditional
+surrender."
+
+At last the beleagured walls were broken down, and the city entered,
+and then the enemy made a complete and unconditional surrender.
+Well, it was so with Naaman; he got to that point when he was
+willing to obey, and the Scripture tell us, "To obey is better than
+to sacrifice."
+
+God wants obedience. Naaman had to learn this lesson. There was no
+virtue, probably, in going down to the Jordan, any more than in
+obeying the voice of God. He had to obey the word, and
+
+
+IN THE VERY ACT OF OBEDIENCE
+
+he was blessed.
+
+Look at those ten New Testament lepers who came to Christ. He said
+to them: "Go show yourselves to the priests."
+
+"Well," they might have said, "what good is that going to do us?
+Here we are all full of leprosy, and if we go and show ourselves to
+the priests they will order us back again into exile. That is not
+going to help us."
+
+But those ten men started off, and did just what the Lord Jesus
+Christ told them to do, and in the very act of doing it they were
+blessed; their leprosy left them.
+
+He said to that man that had the palsy, whom they brought to Him
+upon a bed: "Take up thy bed and walk."
+
+The man might have said: "Lord, I have been trying for years to take
+that bed up, but I can't. I haven't got the power. I have been
+shaking with the palsy for the last ten years. Do you think that if
+I could have rolled up that bed that I would have been brought here
+and let down through the roof? I haven't the power."
+
+But when the Lord commanded him He gave the power. Power came with
+the command, and that man stood up, rolled up his bed, and started
+off home. He was blessed in the very act of obedience.
+
+My friends, if you want God to bless you, obey Him. Do whatsoever He
+calls upon you to do, and then see if He will not bless you.
+
+Christ went to a Pharisee's house one day while He was down here
+upon earth, to be entertained. They wanted to get Him to do
+something to break the law of Moses, that they might condemn Him to
+death, and so they put a man right opposite to Him at the table with
+a withered hand, to see if He would heal upon the Sabbath day. He
+said to the man:
+
+"Stretch out thy hand."
+
+Now, the man might have said, "Lord, that is a very strange command.
+I haven't got the power. That hand has been withered for the last
+twenty years. I haven't stretched it out for the last twenty years;
+and you say, 'Stretch it out.'"
+
+But when He told him to do it He gave him the power, and out went
+that old withered hand, and before it came out straight, right in
+the very act, it was made whole. He was blessed in the very act of
+obedience.
+
+Now, Naaman had to be taught the lesson that he had to obey; and so,
+finally, he went down to the Jordan just as he was told to do. And
+if you will do just what the Lord tells you the Lord will bless you
+as He did Naaman.
+
+You may ask, "What does He tell me?"
+
+"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved."
+
+The word of God to Naaman was to go and wash; and the word of God to
+every soul out of Christ is to believe on His Son. "Verily, verily,
+I say unto you, he that heareth My word and believeth on Him that
+sent Me _hath_ everlasting life, and shall not come into
+condemnation, but is passed from death unto life." If a man believes
+with all his heart on the Lord Jesus Christ, God will never bring
+him to judgment for sin; that is all passed--that is all gone. Take
+Him at His word; believe Him; believe what He says, and you shall
+enter into life eternal. "He came unto His own, and His own received
+Him not." HIM--mark you--not a dogma, not a creed,
+
+
+NOT A MYTH, BUT A PERSON.
+
+"He came to His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as
+received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons and daughters
+of God." That is the way you get the power.
+
+Naaman goes down to the river and takes the first dip. As he comes
+up I can imagine him looking at himself, and saying to his servant:
+
+"There! there I am, no better than I was when I went in! If one
+-seventh of the leprosy was gone, I should be content."
+
+The servant says: "The man of God told you to dip seven times. Do
+just as he told you. There is no discount on God's word."
+
+Well, down he goes a second time, and he comes up puffing and
+blowing, as much a leper as ever; and so he goes down again and
+again, the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth time, with the same
+result, as much a leper as ever. Some of the people standing on the
+banks of the river probably said, as they certainly would in our
+day:
+
+"Why, that man has gone clean out of his mind!"
+
+When he comes up the sixth time, he looks at himself, and says:
+
+"Ah, no better! What a fool I have made of myself! How they will all
+laugh at me! I wouldn't have the generals and aristocracy of
+Damascus know that I have been dipping in this way in Jordan for all
+the world. However, as I have gone so far, I'll make the seventh
+plunge."
+
+He has not altogether lost faith, and down he goes the seventh time,
+and comes up again. He looks at himself, and shouts aloud for joy.
+
+"Lo, I am well! My leprosy is all gone, all gone! My flesh has come
+again as that of a little child."
+
+If one speck of leprosy had remained, it would have been a
+reflection on God.
+
+Ask him now how he feels.
+
+"Feel? I feel that this is the happiest day of my life. I thought
+when I won a great victory upon the battlefield that that was the
+most joyful day of my life; I thought I should never be so happy
+again; but that wasn't anything; it didn't compare with this hour;
+my leprosy is all gone, I am whole, I am cleansed."
+
+First he lost his temper; then he lost his pride; then his leprosy.
+That is generally the order in which proud, rebellious sinners are
+converted.
+
+So he comes up out of Jordan and puts on his clothes, and goes back
+to the prophet. He was very mad with Elisha in the beginning, but
+when he was cleansed his anger was all gone too. He wants to pay
+him. That's just the old story; Naaman
+
+
+WANTS TO GIVE MONEY
+
+for his cure. How many people want to do the same nowadays. Why it
+would have spoiled the story of grace if the prophet had taken
+anything! You may give a thank-offering to God's cause, not to
+purchase salvation, but because you are saved. The Lord doesn't
+charge anything to save you. It is "without money and without
+price." The prophet Elisha refused to take anything, and I can
+imagine no one felt more rejoiced than he did.
+
+Naaman starts back to Damascus a very different man than he was when
+he left it. The dark cloud has gone from his mind; he is no longer a
+leper, in fear of dying from a loathsome disease. He lost the
+leprosy in Jordan when he did what the man of God told him; and if
+you obey the voice of God, even while I am speaking to you, the
+burden of your sins will fall from off you, and you shall be
+cleansed. It is all done through faith and obedience.
+
+Let us see what Naaman's faith led him to believe. "And he returned
+to the man of God, he and all his company, and came, and stood
+before him: and he said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in
+all the earth, but in Israel: now therefore, I pray thee, take a
+blessing of thy servant."
+
+What I want particularly to call your attention to is the words
+
+
+I KNOW.
+
+There is no hesitation about it, no qualifying the expression.
+Naaman doesn't now say, "I think"; no, he says, "_I know_ there is a
+God who has power to cleanse the leprosy."
+
+Then there is another thought. Naaman left only one thing in
+Samaria, and that was his leprosy; and the only thing God wishes you
+to leave with Him is your sin. And yet it is the only thing you seem
+not to care about giving up.
+
+"Oh," you say, "I love leprosy, it is so delightful, I can't give it
+up; I know God wants it, that He may make me clean. But I can't give
+it up."
+
+Why, what downright madness it is for you to love leprosy; and yet
+that is your condition.
+
+"Ah," says someone, "I don't believe in sudden conversions."
+
+Don't you? How long did it take Naaman to be cured? The seventh time
+he went down, away went the leprosy. Read the great conversions
+recorded in the Bible. Saul of Tarsus, Zacchaeus, and a host of
+others; how long did it take the Lord to bring them about? They were
+effected in a minute. We are born in iniquity, shapen in it, dead in
+trespasses and sins; but when spiritual life comes it comes in a
+moment, and we are free both from sin and death.
+
+You may be sure when he got home there was no small stir in Naaman's
+house. I can see his wife, Mrs. Naaman, when he gets back. She has
+been watching and looking out of the window for him with a great
+burden on her heart. And when she asks him, "Well, husband, how is
+it?" I can see the tears running down his cheeks as he says:
+
+"Thank God, I am well."
+
+They embrace each other, and pour out mutual expressions of
+rejoicing and gladness. The servants are just as glad as their
+master and mistress, as they have been waiting eagerly for the news.
+There never was a happier household than Naaman's, now that he has
+got rid of the leprosy. And so, my friends, it will be with your own
+households if you will only get rid of the leprosy of sin to-day.
+Not only will there be joy in your own hearts and at home, but there
+will also be
+
+
+JOY AMONG THE SAINTS IN HEAVEN.
+
+Once, as I was walking down the street, I heard some people laughing
+and talking aloud. One of them said:
+
+"Well, there will be no difference, it will be all the same a
+hundred years hence."
+
+The thought flashed across my mind, "Will there be no difference?
+Where will you be a hundred years hence?"
+
+Young man, just ask yourself the question, "Where shall I be?" Some
+of you who are getting on in years may be in eternity ten years
+hence. Where will you be, on the left or the right hand of God? I
+cannot tell your feelings, but I can my own. I ask you, "Where will
+you spend eternity? Where will you be a hundred years hence?"
+
+I heard once of a man who went to England from the Continent, and
+brought letters with him to eminent physicians from the Emperor. The
+letters said:
+
+"This man is a personal friend of mine, and we are afraid he is
+going to lose his reason. Do all you can for him."
+
+The doctor asked him if he had lost any dear friend in his own
+country, or any position of importance, or what it was that was
+weighing on his mind.
+
+The young man said, "No; but my father and grandfather and myself
+were brought up infidels, and for the last two or three years this
+thought has been haunting me, Where shall I spend eternity? And the
+thought of it follows me day and night."
+
+The doctor said, "You have come to
+
+
+THE WRONG PHYSICIAN,
+
+but I will tell you of one who can cure you"; and he told him of
+Christ, and read to him the 53d chapter of Isaiah, "With His stripes
+we are healed."
+
+The young man said, "Doctor, do you believe that?"
+
+The doctor told him he did, and prayed and wrestled with him, and at
+last the clear light of Calvary shone on his soul. He had settled
+the question in his own mind at last, where he would spend eternity.
+I ask you, sinner, to settle it now. It is for you to decide. Shall
+it be with the saints, and martyrs, and prophets, or in the dark
+caverns of hell, amidst blackness and darkness forever? Make haste
+to be wise; for "how shall we escape if we neglect so great
+salvation?"
+
+At our church in Chicago I was closing the meeting one day, when a
+young soldier got up and entreated the people to decide for Christ
+at once. He said he had just come from a dark scene. A comrade of
+his, who had enlisted with him, had a father who was always
+entreating him to become a Christian, and in reply he always said he
+would when the war was over. At last he was wounded, and was put
+into the hospital, but got worse and was gradually sinking. One day,
+a few hours before he died, a letter came from his sister, but he
+was too far gone to read it. Oh, it was such an earnest letter! The
+comrade read it to him, but he did not seem to understand it, he was
+so weak, till it came to the last sentence, which said:
+
+"Oh, my dear brother, when you get this letter, will you not accept
+your sister's Savior?"
+
+The dying man sprang up from his cot, and said, "What do you say?
+what do you say?" and then, falling back on his pillow, feebly
+exclaimed, "_It is too late! It is too late!_"
+
+My dear friends, thank God it is not _too late_ for you to-day. The
+Master is still calling you. Let every one of us, young and old,
+rich and poor, come to Christ at once, and He will put all our sins
+away. Don't wait any longer for feeling, but obey at once. You can
+believe, you can trust, you can lay hold on eternal life, if you
+will. Will you not do it now?
+
+
+
+THE PROPHET NEHEMIAH
+
+
+I should like to call your attention to the prophet Nehemiah. We may
+gain some help from that distinguished man who accomplished a great
+work. He was one of the last of the prophets, was supposed to be
+contemporary with Malachi, and perhaps his book was one of the last
+of the Old Testament books that was written. He might have known
+Daniel, for he was a young man in the declining years of that very
+eminent and godly statesman. We are sure of one thing at least--he
+was a man of sterling worth. Although he was brought up in the
+Persian court among idolaters, yet he had a character that has stood
+all these centuries.
+
+Notice his prayer in which he made confession of Israel's apostasy
+from God. There may be some confessions we need to make to be
+brought into close fellowship with God. I have no doubt that numbers
+of Christians are hungering and thirsting for a personal blessing,
+and have a great desire to get closer to God. If that is the desire
+of _your_ heart, keep in mind that if there is some obstacle in the
+way which you can remove, you will not get a blessing until you
+remove it. We must cooperate with God. If there is any sin in my
+heart that I am not willing to give up then I need not pray. You may
+take a bottle and cork it up tight, and put it under Niagara, and
+not a drop of that mighty volume of water will get into the bottle.
+If there is any sin in my heart that I am not willing to give up, I
+need not expect a blessing. The men who have had power with God in
+prayer have always begun by confessing their sins. Take the prayers
+of Jeremiah and Daniel. You find Daniel confessing his sin, when
+there isn't a single sin recorded against him; but he confesses his
+sin and the sins of the people. Notice how David confessed his sins
+and what power he had with God. So it is a good thing for us to
+begin as Nehemiah did.
+
+It seems that some men had come down from his country to the Persian
+court, perhaps to see the king on business. This man, who was in
+high favor with the king, met them, and finding that they had come
+from Jerusalem he began to inquire about his country. He not only
+loved his God, but he
+
+
+LOVED HIS COUNTRY.
+
+I like to see a patriotic man. He began to inquire about his people
+and about the city that was very near to his heart, Jerusalem. He
+had never seen the city. He had no relations back there in Jerusalem
+that he knew of. Nehemiah was not a Jewish prince, although it is
+supposed he had royal blood in his veins. He was born in captivity.
+It was about one hundred years after Jerusalem was taken that he
+appeared upon the horizon. He was in the court of Artaxerxes, a
+cupbearer to the king, and held a high position. Yet he longed to
+hear from his native land. When these men told him the condition of
+the city, that the people were in great want and distress and
+degradation, and that the walls of the city were still down, that
+the gates had been burned and never restored, his patriotic heart
+began to burn. We are told he fasted and prayed and wept, and not
+only did he pray for one week, or one month, but he kept on praying.
+He prayed "day and night." Having many duties to perform, of course
+he was not always on his knees, but in heart he was ever before the
+throne of grace. It was not hard for him to understand and obey the
+precept, "Pray without ceasing." He began the work in prayer,
+continued in prayer, and the last recorded words of Nehemiah are a
+prayer.
+
+It was in November or December when those men arrived at that court,
+and this man prayed on until March or April before he spoke to the
+king. If a blessing doesn't come to-night, pray harder to-morrow,
+and if it doesn't come to-morrow, pray harder, and then, if it
+doesn't come keep right on, and you will not be disappointed. God in
+heaven will hear your prayers, and will answer them. He has _never
+failed_, if a man has been honest in his petitions and honest in his
+confessions. Let your faith beget patience. God is never in a hurry,
+said St. Augustine, because He has all eternity to work.
+
+In the first chapter of Nehemiah is
+
+
+THE PRAYER
+
+of this wonderful man, his cry which has been on record all these
+years, and a great help to many people:
+
+"I beseech thee, O Lord God of heaven, the great and terrible God,
+that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe
+his commandments: let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes
+open, that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray
+before thee now, day and night, for the children of Israel thy
+servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we
+have sinned against thee: both I and my father's house have sinned.
+We have dealt very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the
+commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which thou
+commandedst thy servant Moses. Remember, I beseech thee, the word
+that thou commandedst thy servant Moses, saying, If ye transgress, I
+will scatter you abroad among the nations: but if ye turn unto me,
+and keep my commandments, and do them; though there were of you cast
+out unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them
+from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen
+to set my name there. Now these are thy servants and thy people,
+whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power, and by thy strong hand.
+O Lord, I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer
+of thy servant, and to the prayer of thy servants, who desire to
+fear thy name: and prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day, and
+grant him mercy in the sight of this man."
+
+When he began to pray I have no idea that he thought he was to be
+the instrument in God's hand of building the walls of Jerusalem. But
+when a man gets into sympathy and harmony with God, then God
+prepares him for the work He has for him. No doubt he thought the
+Persian king might send one of his great warriors and accomplish the
+work with a great army of men, but after he had been praying for
+months, it may be the thought flashed into his mind:
+
+"Why should not I go to Jerusalem myself and build those walls?"
+
+Prayer for the work will soon arouse your own sympathy and effort.
+
+Now mark, it meant a good deal for Nehemiah to give up the palace of
+Shushan and his high office, and identify himself with the despised
+and captive Jews. He was among the highest in the whole realm. Not
+only that, but he was a man of wealth, lived in ease and luxury, and
+had great influence at court. For him to go to Jerusalem and lose
+caste was like Moses turning his back on the palace of Pharaoh and
+identifying himself with the Hebrew slaves. Yet we might
+
+
+NEVER HAVE HEARD OF
+
+either of them if they had not done this. They stooped to conquer;
+and when you get ready to stoop God will bless you. Plato, Socrates,
+and other Greek philosophers lived in the same century as Nehemiah.
+How few have heard of them and read their words compared with the
+hundreds of thousands who have heard and read of Nehemiah during the
+last two thousand years!
+
+If you and I are to be blessed in this world, we must be willing to
+take any position into which God puts us. So, after Nehemiah had
+prayed a while, he began to pray God to send him, and that he might
+be the man to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
+
+After he had been praying some time, he was one day in the
+banqueting hall, and the king noticed that his countenance was sad.
+We might not have called the face sad; but much prayer and fasting
+
+
+CHANGE THE VERY COUNTENANCE
+
+of a man. I know some godly men and women, and they seem to have the
+stamp of heaven on them. The king noticed a strange look about this
+cupbearer, and he began to question him. Then the thought came to
+Nehemiah that he would tell the king what caused his sorrow,--how
+his own nation was degraded, and how his heart was going out for his
+own country. After he had told the king, the king said:
+
+"What is your request?"
+
+Now, some men tell us they don't have time to pray, but I tell you
+if any man has God's work lying deep in his heart he _will_ have
+time to pray. Nehemiah
+
+
+SHOT UP A PRAYER
+
+to heaven right there in the king's dining hall that the Lord would
+help him to make his request in the right way. He first looked
+beyond Artaxerxes to the King of Kings. You need not make a long
+prayer. A man who prays much in private will make short prayers in
+public. The Lord told Nehemiah what to ask for, that he might be
+sent to his own country, that some men might go with him, and that
+the king would give him letters to the governors through whose
+provinces he would pass so that he might have a profitable journey
+and be able to rebuild the walls of his city. God had been preparing
+the king, for the king at once granted the request, and before long
+this young prince was on his way to Jerusalem.
+
+When he reached the city he didn't have a lot of men go before him
+blowing trumpets and saying that the cupbearer of the great Persian
+king,
+
+
+THE CONVERTED CUPBEARER,
+
+had arrived from the Persian court, and was going to build the walls
+of Jerusalem. There are some men who are always telling what they
+are going to do. Man, let the work speak for itself. You needn't
+blow any horns; go and do the work, and it will advertise itself.
+Nehemiah didn't have any newspapers writing about him, or any
+placards. However, there was no small stir. No doubt every one in
+town was talking about it, saying that a very important personage
+had arrived from the Persian court; but he was there three days and
+three nights without telling anyone why he had come.
+
+One night he went out to survey the city. He couldn't ride around;
+even now you cannot ride a beast around the walls of Jerusalem. He
+tried to ride around, but he couldn't, so he walked. It was a
+difficult task which he had before him, but he was not discouraged.
+That is what makes character. Men who can go into a hard field and
+succeed, they are the men we want. Any quantity of men are looking
+for easy places, but the world will never hear of them. We want men
+who are looking for hard places, who are willing to go into the
+darkest corners of the earth, and make those dark places bloom like
+gardens. They can do it if the Lord is with them.
+
+Everything looked dark before Nehemiah. The walls were broken down.
+There was not a man of influence among the people, not a man of
+culture or a man of wealth. The nations all around were looking down
+upon these weak, feeble Jews. So it is in many churches today, the
+walls are down, and people say it is no use, and their hands drop
+down by their side. Everything seemed against Nehemiah, but he was a
+man who had the _fire of God_ in his soul; he had come to build the
+walls of Jerusalem. If you could have bored a hole into his head,
+you would have found "Jerusalem" stamped on his brain. If you could
+have looked into his heart you would have found "Jerusalem" there.
+He was a fanatic; he was terribly in earnest; he was an enthusiast.
+I like to see a man take up some one thing and say, "I will do it; I
+live for this thing; this one thing I am bound to do." We spread out
+so much, and try to do so many things, that
+
+
+WE SPREAD SO THIN
+
+the world never hears of us.
+
+After he had been in the city three days and nights, he called the
+elders of Israel together, and told them for what he had come. God
+had been preparing them, for the moment he told them they said:
+
+"Let us rise up and build."
+
+But there has not been a work undertaken for God since Adam fell
+which has not met with opposition. If Satan allows us to work
+unhindered, it is because our work is of no consequence. The first
+thing we read, after the decision had been made to rebuild the
+walls, is:
+
+"When Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite,
+and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they laughed us to scorn, and
+despised us, and said, What is this thing that ye do? will ye rebel
+against the king?"
+
+These men were very indignant. They didn't care for the welfare of
+Jerusalem. Who were they? A mixed multitude who had no portion nor
+right nor memorial in Jerusalem. They didn't like to see the
+restoration of the ruins, just as people nowadays do not like to see
+the cause of Christ prospering. The offence of the cross has not
+ceased.
+
+It doesn't take long to build the walls of a city if you can only
+get the whole of the people at it. If the Christians of this country
+would only rise up, we could evangelize America in twelve months.
+All the Jews had a hand in repairing the walls of Jerusalem. Each
+built over against his own house, priest and merchant, goldsmith and
+apothecary, and even the women. The men of Jericho and other cities
+came to help. The walls began to rise.
+
+This stirred up Nehemiah's enemies, and they began to ridicule.
+
+
+RIDICULE
+
+is a mighty weapon.
+
+"What do these feeble Jews?" said Sanballat. "Will they fortify
+themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they make an end in a day?
+Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which
+are burned?"
+
+"Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break
+down their stone wall," said Tobiah the Ammonite.
+
+But Nehemiah was wise. He paid no attention to them. He just looked
+to God for grace and comfort:
+
+"Hear, O our God; for we are despised: and turn their reproach upon
+their own head, and give them for a prey in the land of captivity:
+and cover not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out
+from before: for they have provoked thee to anger before the
+builders."
+
+Young man, if you wish to be successful in this world, don't mind
+Sanballat or Tobiah. Don't be kept out of the kingdom of God or out
+of active Christian work by the scorn and laughter and ridicule of
+your godless neighbors and companions.
+
+Next, these enemies conspired to come and fight against Jerusalem.
+
+Nehemiah was warned, and took steps to guard against them. Half of
+the people were on the watch, and the other half held a sword in one
+hand and a trowel in the other. There was
+
+
+NO EIGHT-HOUR WORKING DAY
+
+then; they were on duty from the rising of the morning till the
+stars appeared. They did not take off their clothes except to wash
+them. Fancy, this man who came from the Persian court with all its
+luxury, living and sleeping in his clothes for those fifty-two days!
+But he was in earnest. Ah, that is what we want! men who will set
+themselves to do one thing, and keep at it day and night.
+
+All the people were bidden to lodge within the city, so that they
+should always be on hand to work and fight. Would to God that we
+could get all who belong inside the church to come in and do their
+share. "Happy is the church," says one, "whose workers are well
+skilled in the use of the Scripture, so that while strenuously
+building the Gospel Wall, they can fight too, if occasion require
+it." We ought all be ready to use the Sword of the Spirit.
+
+By and by the men wrote a friendly letter, and wanted Nehemiah to go
+down on the plain of Ono and have a friendly discussion. It is
+
+
+A MASTERPIECE OF THE DEVIL
+
+to get men into friendly discussions. I don't know whether Nehemiah
+had a typewriter in those days or not; I don't know whether he had a
+printed form of letters, but he always sent back the same reply:
+
+"I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down."
+
+How many a church has turned aside for years to discuss "questions
+of the day," and has neglected the salvation of the world because
+they must go down to the "plain of Ono" and have a friendly
+discussion! Nehemiah struck a good keynote--"I am doing a great
+work, so that I cannot come down." If God has sent you to build the
+walls of Jerusalem, _you go and do it_.
+
+They sent him another letter, and again he sent word back, "I am
+doing a great work, so that I cannot come down." He did not believe
+in "coming down." They sent him another, and he sent back the same
+word. They sent him a fourth letter, with the same result. They
+could not get him down; they wanted to slay him on the way.
+
+I have seen many Christian men on the plain of Ono, men who were
+doing a splendid work but had been switched off. Think how much work
+has been neglected by temperance advocates in this country because
+they have gone into politics and into discussing woman's rights and
+woman's suffrage. How many times the Young Men's Christian
+Association has been switched off by discussing some other subject
+instead of holding up Christ before a lost world! If the church
+would only keep right on and build the walls of Jerusalem they would
+soon be built. Oh, it is a wily devil that we have to contend with!
+Do you know it? If he can only get the church to stop to discuss
+these questions, he has accomplished his desire.
+
+His enemies wrote him one more letter,
+
+
+AN OPEN LETTER,
+
+in which they said that they had heard he was going to set up a
+kingdom in opposition to the Persians, and that they were going to
+report him to the king. Treason has an ugly sound, but Nehemiah
+committed himself to the Lord, and went on building.
+
+Then his enemies hired a prophet, one of his friends. A hundred
+enemies outside are not half so hard to deal with as one inside--a
+false friend. When the devil gets possession of a child of God he
+will do the work better than the devil himself. Temptations are
+never so dangerous as when they come to us in a religious garb. So
+Tobiah and Sanballat bought up one of the prophets, and hired him to
+try to induce Nehemiah to go into the temple, that they might put
+him to death there.
+
+"Now, Nehemiah, there is a plan to kill you, come into the temple.
+Let's go in and stay for the night."
+
+He came near being deceived, but he said, "Shall I, such a man as I,
+be afraid of my life, and do that to save my life?"
+
+After he had refused their invitation he saw that this man was a
+false prophet; and so by his standing his ground he succeeded in
+fifty-two days in building the walls of Jerusalem. Then the gates
+were set up and the work was finished.
+
+Now during all these centuries that story has been told. If Nehemiah
+had remained at court, he might have died a millionaire, but he
+never would have been heard of twenty years after his death. Do you
+know the names of any of Nineveh's millionaires? This man stepped
+out of that high position and took a low position, one that the
+world looked down upon and frowned upon, and his name has been
+associated with the walls of Jerusalem all these centuries. Young
+man, if you want to be immortal, become identified with God's work,
+and pay no attention to what men outside say. Nehemiah and his
+associates began at sunrise and worked until it grew so dark they
+could not see. A man who will take up God's work, and work summer
+and winter right through the year, will have a harvest before the
+year is over, and the record of it will shine after he enters the
+other world.
+
+The next thing we learn of Nehemiah is that he got up a great
+
+
+OPEN-AIR MEETING
+
+for the reading of the law of Moses in the hearing of the people. A
+pulpit of wood, large enough to hold Ezra the Scribe and thirteen
+others, was built. The people wept when they heard the words of the
+law, but Nehemiah said:
+
+"Mourn not, nor weep. Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet,
+and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this
+day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the
+Lord is your strength."
+
+He did not forget the poor. Reading the Bible and remembering the
+poor--a combination of faith and works--will always bring joy.
+
+Nehemiah then began to govern the city, and correct the abuses he
+found existing. He gathered about fifty priests and scribes together
+and made them sign and seal a written covenant. There were five
+things in that covenant I want to call attention to.
+
+First, _they were not to give their daughters to the heathen_.
+
+They had been violating the law of God, and had been marrying their
+daughters to the ungodly. God had forbidden them to intermarry with
+the heathen nations in the land of Canaan; "for they will turn away
+thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will
+the anger of the Lord be kindled against you and _destroy thee
+suddenly_." I have known many a man who has lost his power by being
+identified with the ungodly. If you want to have the blessing of God
+rest upon you, you must be very careful about your alliances. The
+Jews always got into trouble when they married with the nations
+round about. The houses of Ahab and of Solomon lost their kingdom by
+that sin. That was the cause of the overthrow of David's kingdom.
+Families who marry for wealth, and marry the godly to the ungodly,
+always bring distress into the family.
+
+Then he made them sign a covenant that they would _keep the
+Sabbath_, that they would not buy upon the Sabbath.
+
+Think of a man going from a heathen court where they had no Sabbath,
+a man brought up in that atmosphere, coming up to Jerusalem and
+enforcing the law of Moses! It is recorded that they brought up
+fish, and he would not let them into the city on the Sabbath, and
+the fish spoiled. After they had tried that a few times, they gave
+it up. If you will take your stand for God, even if you stand alone,
+it will not be very long before you will get other men to stand with
+you. God stood with this man, and he carried everything before him.
+
+I don't believe we shall have the right atmosphere in this country
+until we can get men who have backbone enough to stand up against
+the thing they believe is wrong. If it is a custom rooted and
+grounded for a hundred years, never mind; you take your stand
+against it if you believe it is wrong. If you have gatherings, and
+it is fashionable to have wine and champagne, and you are a
+teetotaler; if they ask you anywhere and you know that they are to
+have drink, tell them you are not going. A man said to me some years
+ago:
+
+"Mr. Moody, now that I am converted, must I give up the world?"
+
+I said: "No, you haven't got to give up the world. If you give a
+good ringing testimony for the Son of God, the world will give you
+up pretty quick; they won't want you around."
+
+They were going to have a great celebration at the opening of a
+saloon and billiard hall in Chicago, in the northern part of the
+city, where I lived. It was to be a gateway to death and to hell,
+one of the worst places in Chicago. As a joke they sent me an
+invitation to go to the opening. I took the invitation and went down
+and saw the two men who had the saloon, and I said:
+
+"Is that a genuine invitation?"
+
+They said it was.
+
+"Thank you," I said, "I will be around; if there is anything here I
+don't like I may have something to say about it."
+
+They said: "You are not going to _preach_?"
+
+"I may."
+
+"We don't want you. We won't let you in."
+
+"How are you going to keep me out?" I asked; "there is the
+invitation."
+
+"We will put a policeman at the door."
+
+"What is the policeman going to do with that invitation?"
+
+"We won't let you in."
+
+"Well," I said, "I will be there."
+
+I gave them a good scare, and then I said, "I will compromise the
+matter; if you two men will get down here and let me pray with you,
+I will let you off."
+
+I got those two rumsellers down on their knees, one on one side of
+me, and the other on the other side, and I prayed God to save their
+souls and smite their business. One of them had a Christian mother,
+and he seemed to have some conscience left. After I had prayed, I
+said:
+
+"How can you do this business? How can you throw this place open to
+ruin young men of Chicago?"
+
+Within three months the whole thing smashed up, and one of them was
+converted some time after. I have never been invited to a saloon
+since.
+
+You won't have to give up the world, not by a good deal. If you go
+to reunions, and there is drinking, get up and go away. Don't you be
+party to it. That is the kind of men we want. When you find anything
+that is ruining your fellow men, fight it to its bitter end.
+
+Nehemiah said, "We will not have desecration of the Sabbath." Not
+sell the Sunday paper? Not buy a Sunday paper? How many read the
+Sunday newspapers?
+
+I suppose that if you had Nehemiah as mayor of New York, he would
+stop that sort of thing. Here we have boys who are kept away from
+the Sunday school to sell papers on the streets--trains running in
+order that the papers can be distributed. I don't believe a man is
+in a fit state to hear a sermon whose mind is full of such trash as
+the Sunday newspaper is filled with. Men break the Sabbath and
+wonder why it is they have not spiritual power. The trouble nowadays
+is that it doesn't mean anything to some people to be a Christian.
+What we must have is a higher type of Christianity in this country.
+We must have a Christianity that has in it the principle of self
+-denial. We must deny ourselves. If we want power, we must be
+separate.
+
+The next thing they were to do--(and bear in mind this was a thing
+they had to sign)--was to _give their land rest_.
+
+For four hundred and ninety years they had not let their land rest,
+so God took them away to Babylon for seventy years, and let the land
+rest. A man that works seven days in the week right along is cut off
+about five or ten years earlier. You cannot rob God. Why is it that
+so many railroad superintendents and physicians die early? It is
+because they work seven days in the week. So Nehemiah made them
+covenant to keep the law of Moses. If the nations of the earth had
+kept that law, the truth would have gone to the four corners of the
+earth before this time.
+
+Then he made them sign a covenant that _they would not charge
+usury_.
+
+They were just grinding the poor down. I believe that the reason we
+are in such a wretched state in this country to-day is on account of
+crowding the poor, and getting such a large amount of money for
+usury. People evade the law, and pay the interest, and then they
+give a few hundred dollars to negotiate the loan. There is a great
+amount of usury, and see where we are to-day! See what a wretched
+state of things we are having, not only in this country, but all
+over the world!
+
+The fifth thing he made them do was to _bring their first fruits to
+the sons of Levi_.
+
+They were to give God a tenth, the first and best. As long as Israel
+did that they prospered, and when they turned away from that law
+they did not prosper. You can look through history and look around
+you and see the same thing to-day. As long as men keep God's law and
+respect God's testimony, they are going to prosper, but when they
+turn aside, like Samson, they lose their strength; they have no
+power.
+
+If you take these five things and carry them out, you will have
+prosperity. Let us all do it personally. If it was good for those
+men it is good for us. The moment we begin to rob God of time or
+talents then darkness and misery and wretchedness will come.
+
+
+
+HEROD AND JOHN THE BAPTIST
+
+
+If some one had told me a few years ago that he thought Herod at one
+time came near the kingdom of God, I should have been inclined to
+doubt it. I would have said, "I do not believe that the bloodthirsty
+wretch who took the life of John the Baptist ever had a serious
+thought in his life about his soul's welfare." I held that opinion
+because there is one scene recorded in Herod's life that I had
+overlooked. But some years ago, when I was going through the gospel
+of Mark, making a careful study of the book, I found this verse:
+
+"Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and an holy, and
+observed him; and when he heard him, he did many things, and heard
+him gladly." (Mark vi, 20).
+
+This caused me to change my views about Herod. I saw that he was not
+only brought within the sound of John's voice, but under the power
+of the Spirit of God; his heart was touched and his conscience
+awakened. We are not told under what circumstances he heard John;
+but the narrative plainly states that he was brought under the
+influence of the Baptist's wonderful ministry.
+
+Let me first say a word or two about
+
+
+THE PREACHER.
+
+I contend that John the Baptist must have been one of the grandest
+preachers this world has ever had. Almost any man can get a hearing
+nowadays in a town or a city, where the people live close together;
+especially if he speaks in a fine building where there is a splendid
+choir, and if the meetings have been advertised and worked up for
+weeks or months beforehand. In such circumstances any man who has a
+gift for speaking will get a good audience. But it was very
+different with John. He drew the people out of the towns and cities
+away into the wilderness. There were no ministers to back him; no
+business men interested in Christ's cause to work with him; no
+newspaper reporters to take his sermons down and send them out. He
+was an unknown man, without any title to his name. He was not the
+Right-Rev. John the Baptist, D. D., or anything of the kind, but
+plain John the Baptist. When the people went to inquire of him if he
+were Elias or Jeremiah come back to life, he said he was not.
+
+"Who are you then?"
+
+"I am the Voice of one crying in the wilderness."
+
+He was nothing but a voice--to be heard and not seen; he was Mr.
+Nobody. He regarded himself as a messenger who had received his
+commission from the eternal world.
+
+How he began his ministry, and how he gathered the crowds together
+we are not informed. I can imagine that one day this strange man
+makes his appearance in the valley of the Jordan, where he finds a
+few shepherds tending their flocks. They bring together their
+scattered sheep, and the man begins to preach to these shepherds.
+The kingdom of heaven, he says, is about to be set up on the earth;
+and he urges them to set their houses in order--to repent and turn
+away from their sins. Having delivered his message, he tells them
+that he will come back the next day and speak again.
+
+When he had disappeared in the desert, I can suppose one of the
+shepherds saying to another:
+
+"Was he not a strange man? Did you ever hear a man speak like that?
+He did not talk as the rabbis or the Pharisees or the Sadducees do.
+I really think he must be one of the old prophets. Did you notice
+that his coat was made of camel's hair, and that he had a leathern
+girdle round his loins? Don't the Scriptures say that Elijah was
+clothed like that?"
+
+Says another: "You remember how Malachi says that before the great
+and dreadful day of the Lord, Elijah should come? I really believe
+this man is the old prophet of Carmel."
+
+What could stir the heart of the Jewish people more than the name of
+Elijah?
+
+The tidings of John's appearance spread up and down the valley of
+the Jordan, and when he returned the next day, there was great
+excitement and expectation as the people listened to the strange
+preacher. Perhaps till Christ came he had only that
+
+
+ONE TEXT:
+
+"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Day after day you
+could hear his voice ringing through the valley of the Jordan:
+
+"Repent! repent! repent! The King is at the door. I do not know the
+day or the hour, but He will be here very soon."
+
+By and by some of the people who flocked to hear him wanted to be
+baptized, and he took them to the Jordan and baptized them.
+
+The news spread to the surrounding villages and towns, and it was
+not long before it reached Jerusalem. Then the people of the city
+began to flock into the desert to hear this prince among preachers.
+His fame soon reached Galilee, and the people in the mountains began
+to flock down to hear him. Men left their fishing-smacks on the
+lake, that they might listen to this wonderful preacher. When he was
+in the zenith of his popularity, as many as twenty or thirty
+thousand people perhaps flocked to his ministry day after day.
+
+No doubt there were some old croakers who said it was
+
+
+ALL SENSATION.
+
+"Catch me there! No, sir; I never did like sensational preaching."
+
+Just as some people speak nowadays when any special effort is made
+to reach the people!
+
+"Great harm will be done," they say.
+
+I wish all these croakers had died out with that generation in
+Judea; but we have plenty of their descendants still. I venture to
+say you have met with them. Why, my dear friends, there is more
+excitement in your whisky shops and beer saloons in one night than
+in all the churches put together in twelve months. What a stir there
+must have been in Palestine under the preaching of John the Baptist,
+and of Christ! The whole country reeled and rocked with intense
+excitement. Don't be afraid of a little excitement in religious
+matters; it won't hurt.
+
+One might hear those old Pharisees and Scribes grumbling about John
+being such a sensational preacher. "It won't last." And when Herod
+had John the Baptist beheaded, they would say, "Didn't I tell you
+so?"
+
+Do not let us be in a hurry in passing judgment. John the Baptist
+lives to-day more than ever he did; his voice goes ringing through
+the world yet. He only preached a few months, but for more than
+eighteen hundred years his sermons have been repeated and
+multiplied, and the power of his words will never die as long as the
+world lasts.
+
+I can imagine that just when John was at the height of his
+popularity, as Herod sat in his palace in Jerusalem looking out
+towards the valley of the Jordan, he could see great crowds of
+people passing day by day. He began to make inquiries as to what it
+meant, and the news came to him about this strange and powerful
+preacher. Some one, perhaps, reported that John was preaching
+treason. He was telling of a king who was at hand, and who was going
+to set up his kingdom.
+
+"A king at hand! If Caesar were coming, I should have heard of it.
+There is no king but Caesar. I must look into the matter. I will go
+down to the Jordan, and hear this man for myself."
+
+So one day, as John stood preaching, with the eyes of the whole
+audience upon him, the people being swayed by his eloquence like
+tree-tops when the wind passes over them, all at once he lost their
+attention. All eyes were suddenly turned in the direction of the
+city. One cries:
+
+"Look, look! Herod is coming!"
+
+Soon the whole congregation knows it, and there is great excitement.
+
+"I believe he will stop this preaching," says one.
+
+And if they had in those days some of the compromising weak-kneed
+Christians we sometimes meet, they would have said to John:
+
+"Don't talk about a coming King; Herod won't stand it. Talk about
+repentance, but any talk about a coming King will be high treason in
+the ears of Herod."
+
+I think if any one had dared to give John such counsel, he would
+have replied: "I have received my message from heaven; what do I
+care for Herod or any one else?"
+
+As he stood thundering away and calling on the people to repent, I
+can see Herod, with his guard of soldiers around him, listening
+attentively to find anything in the preacher's words that he can lay
+hold of. At last John says:
+
+"The King is just at the door. He will set up His kingdom, and will
+separate the wheat from the chaff."
+
+I can imagine Herod then saying to himself: "I will have that man's
+head off inside of twenty-four hours. I would arrest him here and
+now if I dared. I will catch him to-morrow before the crowd
+gathers."
+
+By and by, as Herod listens, some of the people begin to press close
+up to the preacher, and to question him. Some soldiers are among
+them, and they ask John:
+
+"What shall we do?"
+
+John answers: "Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely;
+and be content with your wages."
+
+"That is pretty good advice," Herod thinks; "I have had a good deal
+of trouble with these men, but if they follow the preacher's advice,
+it will make them better soldiers."
+
+Then he hears the publicans ask John, as they come to be baptized:
+
+"What shall we do?"
+
+The answer is: "Exact no more than that which is appointed you."
+
+"Well," says Herod, "that is excellent advice. These publicans are
+all the time overtaxing the people. If they would do as the preacher
+tells them, the people would be more contented."
+
+Then the preacher addresses himself to the Pharisees and the
+Sadducees in the crowd, and cries:
+
+"O generation of vipers! Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath
+to come? Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance."
+
+Says Herod within himself: "I like that. I am glad he is giving it
+pretty strong to these men. I do not think I will have him arrested
+just yet."
+
+So he goes back to his palace. I can imagine he was
+
+
+NOT ABLE TO SLEEP MUCH
+
+that night; he kept thinking of what he had heard. When the Holy
+Ghost is dealing with a man's conscience, very often sleep departs
+from him. Herod cannot get this wilderness preacher and his message
+out of his mind. The truth had reached his soul; it echoed and re
+-echoed within him: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
+He says:
+
+"I went out to-day to hear for the Roman Government; I think I will
+go to-morrow and hear for myself."
+
+So he goes back again and again. My text says that he heard him
+gladly, that he observed him, and feared him, knowing that he was a
+just man and a holy. He must have known down in his heart that John
+was
+
+
+A HEAVEN-SENT MESSENGER.
+
+Had you gone into the palace in those days, you would have heard
+Herod talking of nobody but John the Baptist. He would say to his
+associates:
+
+"Have you been out into the desert to hear this strange preacher?"
+
+"No; have you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What! you, the Roman Governor, going to hear this unordained
+preacher?"
+
+"Yes, I have been quite often. I would rather hear him than any man
+I ever knew. He does not talk like the regular preachers. I never
+heard any one who had such influence over me."
+
+You would have thought that Herod was a very hopeful subject. "He
+did many things." Perhaps he stopped swearing. He may have stopped
+gambling and getting drunk. A wonderful change seemed to have passed
+over him. Perhaps he ceased from taking bribes for a time; we catch
+him at it afterwards, but just then he refrained from it. He became
+quite virtuous in certain directions. It really looked as if he were
+near the kingdom of heaven.
+
+I can imagine that one day, as John stands preaching, the truth is
+going home to the hearts and consciences of the people, and the
+powers of another world are falling upon them, one of John's
+disciples stands near Herod's chariot, and sees the tears in the
+eyes of the Roman Governor. At the close of the service he goes to
+John and says:
+
+"I stood close to Herod today, and no one seemed more impressed. I
+could see the tears coming, and he had to brush them away to keep
+them from falling."
+
+Have you ever seen a man in a religious meeting trying to keep the
+tears back? You noticed that his forehead seemed to itch, and he put
+up his hand; you may know what it means--he wants to conceal the
+fact that the tears are there. He thinks it is a weakness. It is no
+weakness to get drunk and abuse your family, but it is weakness to
+shed tears. So this disciple of John may have noticed that Herod put
+his hand to his brow a number of times; he did not wish his
+soldiers, or those standing near, to observe that he was weeping.
+The disciple says to John:
+
+"It looks as if he were coming near the kingdom. I believe you will
+have him as an inquirer very soon."
+
+When a man enjoys hearing such a preacher, it certainly seems a
+hopeful sign.
+
+Herod might have been present that day when Christ was baptized. Was
+there ever a man lifted so near to heaven as Herod must have been if
+he were present on that occasion? I see John standing surrounded by
+a great throng of people who are hanging on his words. The eyes of
+the preacher, that never had quailed before, suddenly began to look
+strange. He turned pale and seemed to draw back as though something
+wonderful had happened, and right in the middle of a sentence he
+ceased to speak. If I were suddenly to grow pale, and stop speaking,
+you would ask:
+
+"Has death crept onto the platform? Is the tongue of the speaker
+palsied?"
+
+There must have been quite a commotion among the audience when John
+stopped. The eyes of the Baptist were fixed upon a Stranger who
+pushed His way through the crowd, and coming up to the preacher,
+requested to be baptized. That was a common occurrence; it had
+happened day after day for weeks past. John listened to the
+Stranger's words, but instead of going at once to the Jordan and
+baptizing Him, he said:
+
+"I need to be baptized of Thee!"
+
+What a thrill of excitement must have shot through the audience! I
+can hear one whispering to another:
+
+"I believe that is the Messiah!"
+
+Yes, it was the long-looked-for One, for whose appearing the nation
+had been waiting these thousands of years. From the time God had
+made the promise to Adam, away back in Eden, every true Israelite
+had been looking for the Messiah; and there He was in their midst!
+
+He insisted that John should baptize Him, and the forerunner
+recognized His authority as Master, took Him to the Jordan, and
+baptized Him. As He came up from the water, lo! the heavens opened,
+and the Spirit of God in the form of a dove descended and rested on
+Him. When Noah sent forth the dove from the Ark, it could find no
+resting-place; but now the Son of God had come to do the will of
+God, and the dove found its resting-place upon Him. The Holy Ghost
+had found a home. Now God broke the silence of four thousand years.
+There came a voice from heaven, and Herod may have heard it if he
+was there that day:
+
+"This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
+
+Even if he had not witnessed this scene and heard the voice, he must
+have heard about it; for the thing was not done in a corner. There
+were thousands to witness it, and the news must have been taken to
+every corner of the land.
+
+Yet Herod, living in such times, and hearing such a preacher, missed
+the kingdom of heaven at last. He did many things because he feared
+John. Had he feared God he would have done everything. "He did many
+things"; but there was one thing he would not do--
+
+
+HE WOULD NOT GIVE UP ONE DARLING SIN.
+
+The longer I preach, the more I am convinced that that is what keeps
+men out of the kingdom of God. John knew about Herod's private life,
+and warned him plainly.
+
+If those compromising Christians of whom I have spoken had been near
+John, one of them would have said:
+
+"Look here, John, it is reported that Herod is very anxious about
+his soul, and is asking what he must do to be saved. Let me give you
+some advice; don't touch on Herod's secret sin. He is living with
+his brother's wife, but don't you say anything about it, for he
+won't stand it. He has the whole Roman Government behind him, and if
+you allude to that matter it will be more than your life is worth.
+You have a good chance with Herod; he is afraid of you. Only be
+careful, and don't go too far, or he will have your head off."
+
+There are those who are willing enough that you should preach about
+the sins of other people, so long as you do not come home to them.
+My wife was once teaching my little boy a Sabbath-school lesson; she
+was telling him to notice how sin grows till it becomes habit. The
+little fellow thought it was coming too close to him, so he colored
+up, and finally said:
+
+"Mamma, I think you are getting a good way from the subject."
+
+John was a preacher of this uncompromising kind, for he drove the
+message right home. I do not know when or how the two were brought
+together at that time, but John kept nothing back; he boldly said:
+
+"Herod, it is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife."
+
+The man was breaking the law of God, and living in the cursed sin of
+adultery. Thank God, John did not spare him! It cost the preacher
+his head, but the Lord had got his heart, and he did not care what
+became of his head. We read that Herod feared John, but John did not
+fear Herod.
+
+I want to say that I do not know of a quicker way to hell than by
+the way of adultery. Let no one flatter himself that he is going
+into the kingdom of God who does not repent of this sin in sackcloth
+and ashes. My friend, do you think God will never bring you into
+judgment? Does not the Bible say that no adulterer shall inherit the
+kingdom of God?
+
+Do you think John the Baptist would have been a true friend of Herod
+if he had spared him, and had covered up his sin? Was it not a true
+sign that John loved him when he warned him, and told him he must
+quit his sin? Herod had before done many things, and heard John
+gladly; but he did not like him then. It is one thing to hear a man
+preach down other people's sins. Men will say, "That is splendid,"
+and will want all their friends to go and hear the preacher. But let
+him touch on their individual sin as John did, and declare (as
+Nathan did to David), "Thou art the man," and they say, "I do not
+like that." The preacher has touched a sore place.
+
+When a man has broken his arm, the surgeon must find out the exact
+spot where the fracture is. He feels along and presses gently with
+his fingers.
+
+"Is it there?"
+
+"No"
+
+"Is it there?"
+
+"No."
+
+Presently, when the surgeon touches another spot, "Ouch!" says the
+man.
+
+He has found the broken part, and it hurts. John placed his finger
+on the diseased spot, and Herod winced under it. He put his hand
+right on it:
+
+"Herod, it is not lawful for thee to have thy brother Philip's
+wife!"
+
+Herod did not want to give up his sin.
+
+Many a man would be willing to enter into the kingdom of God, if he
+could do it without giving up sin. People sometimes wonder why Jesus
+Christ, who lived six hundred years before Mohammed, has got fewer
+disciples than Mohammed to-day. There is no difficulty in explaining
+that. A man may become a disciple of Mohammed, and continue to live
+in the foulest, blackest, deepest sin; but a man cannot be a
+disciple of Christ without giving up sin. If you are trying to make
+yourself believe that you can get into the kingdom of God without
+renouncing your sin, may God tear the mask from you! Can Satan
+persuade you that Herod will be found in the kingdom of God along
+with John the Baptist, with the sin of adultery and of murder on his
+soul?
+
+And now, let me say this to you. If your minister comes to you
+frankly, tells you of your sin, and warns you faithfully, thank God
+for him. He is your best friend; he is a heaven-sent man. But if a
+minister speaks smooth, oily words to you; tells you it is all
+right, when you know, and he knows, that it is all wrong, and that
+you are living in sin, you may be sure that he is a devil-sent man.
+I want to say I have a contempt for a preacher that will tone his
+message down to suit some one in his audience; some Senator, or big
+man whom he sees present. If the devil can get possession of such a
+minister and speak through him, he will do the work better than the
+devil himself. You might be horrified if you knew it was Satan
+deceiving you, but if a professed minister of Jesus Christ preaches
+this doctrine and says that God will make it all right in the end,
+that though you go on living in sin, it is just the same. Don't be
+deluded into believing such doctrine--it is as false as any lie that
+ever came from the pit of hell. All the priests and ministers of all
+the churches cannot save one soul that will not part with sin.
+
+There is an old saying that, "Every man has his price." Esau sold
+his birthright for a mess of pottage; pretty cheap, was it not? Ahab
+sold out for a garden of herbs. Judas sold out for thirty pieces of
+silver--less than $17 of our money. Pretty cheap, was it not? Herod
+sold out for adultery.
+
+
+WHAT IS THE PRICE
+
+that you put upon your soul? You say you do not know. I will tell
+you. _It is the sin that keeps you from God_. It may be whisky;
+there is many a man who will give up the hope of heaven and sell his
+soul for whisky. It may be adultery; you say:
+
+"Give me the harlot, and I will relinquish heaven with all its
+glories. I would rather be damned with my sin than saved without
+it."
+
+What are you selling out for, my friend? You know what it is.
+
+Do you not think it would have been a thousand times better for
+Herod to-day if he had taken the advice of John the Baptist instead
+of that vile, adulterous woman? There was Herodias pulling one way,
+John the other, and Herod was in the balance. It's the same old
+battle between right and wrong; heaven pulling one way, hell the
+other. Are you going to make the same mistake yourself? We have ten
+thousand-fold more light than Herod had. He lived on the other side
+of the cross. The glorious gospel had not shone out as it has done
+since. Think of the sermons you have heard, of the entreaties
+addressed to you to become a Christian. Some of you have had godly
+mothers who have prayed for you. Many of you have godly wives who
+have pleaded with you, and with God, on your behalf. You have been
+surrounded with holy influences from year to year, and how often you
+have been near the kingdom of God! Yet here you are to-day, further
+off than ever!
+
+It may be true of you, as it was of Herod, that you hear your
+preacher gladly. You attend church, you contribute liberally, you do
+many things. Remember that none of these avail to cleanse your soul
+from sin. They will not be accepted in the place of what God
+demands--repentance and the forsaking of every sin.
+
+A child was once playing with a vase, and put his hand in and could
+not draw it out again. His father tried to help him, but in vain. At
+last he said:
+
+"Now, make one more try. Open your fingers out straight, and let me
+pull your arm."
+
+"Oh, no, papa," said the son, "I'd drop the penny if I opened my
+fingers like that!"
+
+Of course he couldn't get his hand out when his fist was doubled. He
+didn't want to give up the penny. Just so with the sinner. He won't
+cut loose from his sins.
+
+Your path and mine will perhaps never cross again. But if I have any
+influence with you, I beseech and beg of you to break with sin now,
+let it cost you what it will. Herod might have been associated with
+Joseph of Arimathea, and with the twelve apostles of the Lamb, if he
+had taken the advice of John. There might have been a fragrance
+around his name all these centuries. But alas! when we speak of
+Herod, we see a sneer on the faces of those who hear us. If one had
+said to Herod in those days, "Do you know that you are going to
+silence that great preacher, and have him beheaded?" he would have
+replied, "Is thy servant a dog that he should do such a thing? I
+never would take the life of such a man." He would probably have
+thought he could never do it. Yet it was only a little while after
+that he had the servant of God beheaded.
+
+Do you know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ proves either a savor of
+life unto life, or of death unto death? You sometimes hear people
+say: "We will go and hear this man preach. If it does us no good, it
+will do us no harm." Don't you believe it, my friend! Every time you
+hear the Gospel and reject it, the hardening process goes on. The
+same sun that melts the ice hardens the clay. The sermon that would
+have moved you a few years ago would make no impression now. Do you
+not recall some night when you heard some sermon that shook the
+foundations of your skepticism and unbelief? But you are indifferent
+now.
+
+I believe Herod was seven times more a child of hell after his
+conviction had passed away than he was before. There is not a true
+minister of the Gospel who will not say that the hardest people to
+reach are those who have been impressed, and whose impressions have
+worn away. It is a good deal easier to commit a sin the second time
+than it was to commit it the first time, but it is a good deal
+harder to repent the second time than the first.
+
+If you are near the kingdom of God now, take the advice of a friend
+and step into it. Don't be satisfied with just getting near to it.
+Christ said to the young ruler, "Thou art not far from the kingdom,"
+but he failed to get there. Don't run any risks. Death may overtake
+you before you have time to carry out your best intentions, if you
+put off a decision.
+
+It is sad to think that men heard Jesus and Paul, and were moved
+under their preaching, but were not saved. Judas must many times
+have come near the kingdom, but he never entered in. I saw it in the
+army--men who had
+
+
+ALMOST DECIDED
+
+to become Christians cut down in battle without having taken the
+step that would have made them sure of eternal life. I confess there
+is something very sad about it.
+
+In one of the tenement houses in New York city, a doctor was sent
+for. He came, and found a young man very sick. When he got to the
+bedside the young man said:
+
+"Doctor, I don't want you to deceive me; I want to know the worst.
+Is this illness to prove serious?"
+
+After the doctor had made an examination, he said: "I am sorry to
+tell you you cannot live out the night."
+
+The young man looked up and said: "Well, then, I have missed it at
+last!"
+
+"Missed what?"
+
+"I have missed eternal life. I always intended to become a Christian
+some day, but I thought I had plenty of time, and put it off."
+
+The doctor, who was himself a Christian man, said: "It is not too
+late. Call on God for mercy."
+
+"No; I have always had a great contempt for a man who repents when
+he is dying; he is a miserable coward. If I were not sick I would
+not have a thought about my soul, and I am not going to insult God
+now."
+
+The doctor spent the day with him, read to him out of the Bible, and
+tried to get him to lay hold of the promises. The young man said he
+would not call on God, and in that state of mind he passed away.
+Just as he was dying the doctor saw his lips moving. He reached
+down, and all he could hear was the faint whisper:
+
+"_I have missed it at last!_"
+
+Dear friend, make sure that you do not miss eternal life at last.
+Will you go with Herod or with John? Bow your head now and say:
+
+"Son of God, come into this heart of mine. I yield myself to Thee,
+fully, wholly, unreservedly."
+
+He will come to you, and will not only save you, but will keep you
+to the end.
+
+
+
+THE MAN BORN BLIND AND JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA
+
+
+There were two extraordinary men living in the city of Jerusalem
+when Christ was on earth. One of them has come down through history
+nameless--we do not know who he was; the name of the other is given.
+One was not only a beggar, but blind from his birth; the other was
+one of the rich men of Jerusalem. Yet in the Gospel of John, there
+is more space given to this blind beggar than to any other
+character. The reason why so much has been recorded of this man is
+because he took his stand for Jesus Christ.
+
+Look at the account given in John ix., beginning at the fifth verse.
+In the previous chapter Christ had been telling them that He was the
+Light of the world, and that if any man would follow Him he should
+not walk in darkness, but should have the light of life. After
+making a statement of that kind, Christ often gave
+
+
+AN EVIDENCE OF THE TRUTH
+
+of what He said by performing some miracle. If He had said He was
+the Light of the world, He would show them in what way He was the
+Light of the world. If He had said He was the Life of the world, He
+would prove Himself to be such by quickening and raising the dead;
+just as He did, after telling them that He was the Resurrection and
+the Life, by going to the graveyard of Bethany and calling Lazarus
+forth. When Lazarus heard the voice of his friend saying, "Lazarus,
+come forth!" he came forth immediately.
+
+The Son of God does not ask men to believe Him without a reason for
+so doing. We need to keep this in mind. You might as well ask a man
+to see without light or eyes, as to believe without testimony.
+
+He gave them good reason for believing in Him, and proved His
+Messiahship and authority. He not only told them that He had the
+power, but He showed them that He had.
+
+These two men, then, were both at Jerusalem. One held as high a
+position, and the other as low a position, as any in the city. One
+was at the top of the social ladder, and the other at the bottom.
+And yet they both made a good confession; and one was as acceptable
+to Jesus as the other.
+
+
+I
+
+
+The man mentioned in this chapter was born blind. We find the Lord's
+disciples asking Him:
+
+"Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born
+blind?"
+
+Jesus answered, "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but
+that the works of God should be manifest in him."
+
+When He had thus spoken, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the
+spittle; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay,
+and said unto him:
+
+"Go wash in the pool of Siloam."
+
+The blind man went his way and washed, and his eyesight was
+restored.
+
+Observe what that man did. He did _just what Christ told him to do_.
+The Savior's command to him was to go to the pool of Siloam and
+wash; and "he went his way therefore, and came seeing." He was
+blessed in the very act of obedience.
+
+Another thought: God does not generally repeat Himself. Of all the
+blind men who were healed while Christ was on earth, no two were
+healed in exactly the same way. Jesus met blind Bartimeus near the
+gates of Jericho, and called him to Him and said:
+
+"What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?"
+
+The answer was: "Lord, that I might receive my sight."
+
+Now, see what He did. He did not send Bartimeus off to Jerusalem
+twenty miles away to the pool of Siloam to wash. He did not spit on
+the ground, and make clay, and anoint his eyes; but with a word He
+wrought the cure, saying:
+
+"Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole."
+
+Suppose Bartimeus had gone from Jericho and had met the other blind
+beggar at the gate of the city of Jerusalem, and asked him how it
+was he got his sight; suppose they began to compare notes--one
+telling his experience, and the other telling his. Imagine the first
+saying:
+
+"I do not believe that you have got your sight, because you did not
+get it in the same way that I got mine."
+
+Would the different ways the Lord Jesus had in healing them make
+their cases the less true? Yet there are some people who talk just
+that way now. Because God does not deal with some exactly as He does
+with others, people think that God is not dealing with them at all.
+God seldom repeats Himself. No two persons were ever converted
+exactly alike, so far as my experience goes. Each one must have an
+experience of his own. Let the Lord give sight in His own way.
+
+There are thousands of people who
+
+
+KEEP AWAY FROM CHRIST
+
+because they are looking for the experience of some dear friend or
+relative. They should not judge of their conversion by the
+experiences of others. They have heard some one tell how he was
+converted twenty years ago, and they expect to be converted in the
+same way. Persons should never count upon having an experience
+precisely similar to that of some one else of whom they have heard
+or read. They must go right to the Lord Himself, and do what He
+tells them to do. If He says, "Go to the pool of Siloam and wash,"
+then they must go. If He says, "Come just as you are," and promises
+to give sight, then they must come, and let Him do His own work in
+His own way, just as this blind man did. It was a peculiar way by
+which to give a man sight; but it was the Lord's way; and the man's
+sight was given him. We might think it was enough to make a man
+blind to fill his eyes with clay. True, he was now doubly blind; for
+if he had been able to see before, the clay would have deprived him
+of his sight. But the Lord wanted to show the people that they were
+not only spiritually blind by nature, but that they had also allowed
+themselves to be blinded by the clay of this world, which had been
+spread over their eyes. But God's ways are not our ways. If He is
+going to work, we must let Him act as He pleases.
+
+Shall we dictate to the Almighty? Shall the clay say to the potter,
+"Why hast thou made me thus?" Who art thou, O man, that repliest
+against God? Let God work in His own way; and when the Holy Ghost
+comes, let Him mark out a way for Himself. We must be willing to
+submit, and to do what the Lord tells us, without any questioning
+whatever.
+
+"He went his way, therefore, and washed, and came seeing. The
+neighbors, therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was
+blind, said, 'Is not this he that sat and begged?'"
+
+"Some said, 'This is he'; others said, 'He is like him.'"
+
+Now, if he had been like a good many at the present time, I am
+afraid he would have remained silent. He would have said:
+
+"Well, now I have got my sight, and I will just keep quiet about it.
+It is not necessary for me to confess it. Why should I say anything?
+There is a good deal of opposition to this man Jesus Christ. There
+are a great many bitter things said in Jerusalem against Him. He has
+a great many enemies. I think there will be trouble if I talk about
+Him; so I will say nothing."
+
+Some said, "This is he"; others said, "He is like him." But he said,
+"I am he." He not only got his eyes opened, but, thank God, he got
+his mouth open too!
+
+Surely, the next thing after we get our eyes opened is for us to
+open our lips and begin to testify for Him.
+
+The people asked him, "How were thine eyes opened?"
+
+He answered: "A man that is called Jesus made clay and anointed mine
+eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam and wash: and I
+went and washed, and I received sight."
+
+He told a straightforward story, just what the Lord had done for
+him. That is all. That is what a witness ought to do--tell what he
+knows, not what he does not know. He did not try to make a long
+speech. It is not the most flippant and fluent witness who has the
+most influence with a jury.
+
+This man's testimony is what I call "experience." One of the
+greatest hindrances to the progress of the Gospel to-day is that the
+narration of the experience of the Church is not encouraged. There
+are a great many men and women who come into the Church, and we
+never hear anything of their experiences, or of the Lord's dealings
+with them. If we could, it would be a great help to others. It would
+stimulate faith and encourage the more feeble of the flock.
+
+
+THE APOSTLE PAUL'S EXPERIENCE
+
+has been recorded three times. I have no doubt that he told it
+everywhere he went: how God had met him; how God had opened his eyes
+and his heart; and how God had blessed him. Depend upon it,
+experience has its place; the great mistake that is made now is in
+the other extreme. In some places and at some periods there has been
+too much of it--it has been all experience; and now we have let the
+pendulum swing too far the other way.
+
+I think it is not only right, but exceedingly useful, that we should
+give our experience. This man bore testimony to what the Lord had
+done for him.
+
+"And it was the Sabbath day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his
+eyes; Then again the Pharisees also asked him how he had received
+his sight. He said unto them, 'He put clay upon mine eyes; and I
+washed, and do see.' Therefore said some of the Pharisees, 'This man
+is not of God, because he keepeth not the Sabbath day.' Others said,
+'How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles?' And there was a
+division among them.
+
+They say unto the blind man again, 'What sayest thou of Him, that He
+hath opened thine eyes?'"
+
+What an opportunity he had for evading the questions! He might have
+said: "Why, I have never seen Him. When He met me I was blind; I
+could not see Him. When I came back I could not find Him; and I have
+not formed any opinion yet." He might have put them off in that way,
+but he said:
+
+"He is a prophet."
+
+He gave them his opinion. He was a man of backbone. He had moral
+courage. He stood right up among the enemies of Jesus Christ, the
+Pharisees, and told them what he thought of Him--
+
+"He is a prophet."
+
+If you can get young Christians to talk, not about themselves, but
+about Christ, their testimony will have power. Many converts talk
+altogether about their own experience--"I," "I," "I," "I." But this
+blind man got away to the Master, and said, "He is a prophet." He
+believed, and he told them what he believed.
+
+"But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been
+blind, and received his sight, until they called the parents of him
+that had received his sight. And they asked them, saying, 'Is this
+your son, who ye say was born blind? How then doth he now see?' His
+parents answered them, and said, 'We know that this is our son, and
+that he was born blind: but by what means he now seeth, we know not:
+or who hath opened his eyes, we know not: he is of age; ask him: he
+shall speak for himself.' These words spake his parents, because
+they feared the Jews; for the Jews had agreed already that if any
+man did confess that He was Christ, he should be put out of the
+synagogue. Therefore said his parents, 'He is of age; ask him.'"
+
+I have always had great contempt for those parents. They had a noble
+son, and their lack of moral courage then and there to confess what
+the Lord Jesus Christ had done for their son, makes them unworthy of
+him. They say, "We do not know how he got it," which looks as if
+they did not believe their own son. "He is of age; ask him."
+
+It is sorrowfully true to-day that we have hundreds and thousands of
+people who are professed disciples of Jesus Christ, but when the
+time comes that they ought to take their stand, and give a clear
+testimony for Him, they testify against Him. You can always tell
+those who are really converted to God. The new man always takes his
+stand for God; and the old man takes his stand against Him. These
+parents had an opportunity to confess the Lord Jesus Christ, and to
+do great things for Him; but they neglected their golden
+opportunity.
+
+If they had but stood up with their noble son, and said, "This is
+our son. We have tried all the physicians, and used all the means in
+our power, and were unable to do anything for him; but now, out of
+gratitude, we confess that he received his sight from the prophet of
+Galilee, Jesus of Nazareth," they might have led many to believe on
+Him. But, instead of that, they said, "We know that this is our son,
+and that he was born blind: but by what means he now seeth, we know
+not."
+
+Do you know why they did not want to tell how he got his sight?
+Simply because it would
+
+
+COST THEM TOO MUCH.
+
+They represent those Christians who do not want to serve Christ if
+it is going to cost them anything; if they have to give up society,
+position, or worldly pleasures. They do not want to come out. This
+is what keeps hundreds and thousands from becoming Christians.
+
+It was a serious thing to be put out of the synagogue in those days.
+It does not amount to much now. If a man is put out of one church,
+another may receive him; but when he went out of the synagogue there
+was no other to take him in. It was the State church: it was the
+only one they had. If he were cast out of that, he was cast out of
+society, position, and everything else; and his business suffered
+also.
+
+Then again the Jews called the man that was blind, "and said unto
+him, 'Give God the praise; we know that this man is a sinner.'"
+
+It looks now as if they were trying to prejudice him against Christ:
+but he "answered and said, 'Whether He be a sinner or no, I know
+not; one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see.'"
+
+There were no infidels or philosophers there who could persuade him
+out of that. There were not men enough in Jerusalem to make him
+believe that his eyes were not opened. Did he not _know_ that for
+over twenty years he had been feeling his way around Jerusalem; that
+he had been led by children and friends; and that during all those
+years he had not seen the sun in its glory, or any of the beauties
+of nature? Did he not know that he had been feeling his way through
+life up to that very day?
+
+And do we not know that we have been born of God, and that we have
+got the eyes of our souls opened? Do we not know that old things
+have passed away and all things have become new, and that the
+eternal light has dawned upon our souls? Do we not know that the
+chains that once bound us have snapped asunder, that the darkness is
+gone, and that the light has come? Have we not liberty where we once
+had bondage? Do we not know it? If so, then let us not hold our
+peace. Let us testify for the Son of God, and say, as the blind man
+did in Jerusalem, "ONE THING I KNOW, that whereas I was blind, now I
+see. I have a new power. I have a new light. I have a new love. I
+have a new nature. I have something that reaches out toward God. By
+the eye of faith I can see yonder heaven. I can see Christ standing
+at the right hand of God. By and by, when my journey is over, I am
+going to hear that voice saying, 'Come hither,' when I shall sit
+down in the kingdom of God."
+
+"Then said they to him again, 'What did He do to thee? how opened He
+thine eyes?' But he answered them, 'I have told you already, and ye
+did not hear; wherefore would ye hear it again? Will ye also be His
+disciples?'"
+
+This was a most extraordinary man. Here was a young convert in
+Jerusalem, not a day old,
+
+
+TRYING TO MAKE CONVERTS
+
+of these Pharisees--men who had been fighting Christ for nearly
+three years! He asked them if they would also become His disciples.
+He was ready to tell his experience to all who were willing to hear
+it. If he had covered it up at the first, and had not come out at
+once, he would not have had the privilege of testifying in that way,
+neither would he have been a winner of souls. This man was going to
+be a soul-winner.
+
+I venture to say he became one of the best workers in Jerusalem. I
+have no doubt he stood well to the front on the day of Pentecost,
+when Peter preached, and when the wounded were around him; he went
+to work and told how the Lord had blessed him, and how He would
+bless them. He was a _worker_, not an _idler_, and he kept his lips
+open.
+
+It is a very sad thing that so many of God's children are dumb; yet
+it is true. Parents would think it a great calamity to have their
+children born dumb; they would mourn over it, and weep; and well
+they might; but did you ever think of the many dumb children God
+has? The churches are full of them; they never speak for Christ.
+They can talk about politics, art, and science; they can speak well
+enough and fast enough about the fashions of the day; but they have
+
+
+NO VOICE FOR THE SON OF GOD.
+
+Dear friend, if He is your Savior, confess Him. Every follower of
+Jesus should bear testimony for Him. How many opportunities each one
+has in society and in business to speak a word for Jesus Christ! How
+many opportunities occur daily wherein every Christian might be
+"instant in season and out of season" in pleading for Jesus! In so
+doing we receive blessing for ourselves, and also become a means of
+blessing to others.
+
+This man wanted to make converts of those Pharisees, who only a
+little while before had their hands full of stones, ready to put the
+Son of God to death, and even now had murder in their hearts. They
+reviled him, saying, "Thou art His disciple, but we are Moses'
+disciples. We know that God spake unto Moses. As for this fellow, we
+know not from whence He is."
+
+Well, now the once blind man might have said, "There is a good deal
+of opposition, and I will say no more; I will keep quiet, and walk
+off and leave them." But, thank God, he stood right up with the
+courage of a Paul! He answered and said unto them:
+
+"Why, herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence He
+is, and yet He hath opened mine eyes! Now we know that God heareth
+not sinners; but if any man be a worshiper of God, and doeth His
+will, him He heareth."
+
+Now, I call that logic. If he had been through a theological
+seminary he could not have given a better answer. It is sound
+doctrine, and was a good sermon for those who were opposed to the
+work of Christ. "If this man were not of God He could do nothing."
+This is very strong proof of the man's conviction as to who the Lord
+Jesus was. It is as though he said: "I, a man born blind, and He can
+give me sight. He a _sinner!_" Why, it is unreasonable! If Jesus
+Christ were a man only, how could He give that man sight?
+
+Let philosophers, skeptics, and infidels answer the question,
+
+Neither had he to wear glasses. He received good sight, not short
+sight, or weak sight, but as good sight as any man in Jerusalem, and
+perhaps a little better. They could all look at him and see for
+themselves. His testimony was beyond dispute.
+
+After his splendid confession of the divinity and power of Christ,
+"they answered and said unto him, 'Thou wast altogether born in sin,
+and dost thou teach us?' And they cast him out." They could not meet
+his argument, and so they cast him out. So it is now. If we give a
+clear testimony for Christ, the world will cast us out. It is a good
+thing to give our testimony so clearly for Christ that the world
+dislikes it; it is a good thing when such testimony for Christ
+causes the world to cast us out.
+
+Let us see what happened when they cast him out. "Jesus heard," that
+is the next thing. No sooner did they cast him out than Jesus heard
+of it. No man was ever cast out by the world for the sake of Jesus
+Christ but He heard of it; indeed, He will be the first one to hear
+of it. "Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when He found
+him He said unto him, 'Dost thou believe in the Son of God?' He
+answered and said, 'Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him?'
+And Jesus said unto him, 'Thou hast both seen Him, and it is He that
+talketh with thee.' And he said, 'Lord, I believe!' And he worshiped
+Him."
+
+That was
+
+
+A GOOD PLACE TO LEAVE HIM
+
+--at the feet of Jesus. We shall meet him by and by in the kingdom
+of God.
+
+His testimony has been ringing down through the ages these last
+nineteen hundred years. It has been talked about wherever the Word
+of God has been known. It was a wonderful day's work that man did
+for the Son of God; doubtless there will be many in eternity who
+will thank God for his confession of Christ.
+
+By thus showing his gratitude in coming out and confessing Christ,
+he has left a record that has stirred the Church of God ever since.
+He is one of the characters that always stirs one up, imparting new
+life and fire, new boldness and courage when one reads about him.
+This is what we need to-day as much as ever--to stand up for the Son
+of God. Let the Pharisees rage against us; let the world go on
+mocking, and sneering, and scoffing; we will stand up courageously
+for the Son of God. If they cast us out, they will cast us right
+into His own bosom. He will take us to His own loving arms. It is a
+blessed thing to live so godly in Christ Jesus that the world will
+not want you--that they will cast you out.
+
+
+II
+
+
+Now we come to Joseph of Arimathea.
+
+I do not think he came out quite so nobly as this blind beggar did;
+but he did come out, and we will thank God for that. We read in John
+that for fear of the Jews he was kept back from confessing openly.
+
+"And after this, Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but
+secretly, _for fear of the Jews_, besought Pilate that he might take
+away the body of Jesus; and Pilate gave him leave. He came,
+therefore, and took the body of Jesus."
+
+Read the four accounts given in the four Gospels of Joseph of
+Arimathea. There is very seldom anything mentioned by all four of
+the Evangelists. If Matthew and Mark refer to an event it is often
+omitted by Luke and John; and, if it occur in the latter, it may not
+be contained in the former. John's Gospel is made up of that which
+is absent from the others in most instances--as in the case of the
+blind man alluded to. But all four record what Joseph did for
+Christ. All His disciples had forsaken Him. One had sold Him, and
+another had denied Him. He was left in gloom and darkness, when
+Joseph of Arimathea came out and confessed Him.
+
+It was the death of Jesus Christ that brought out Joseph of
+Arimathea. Probably he was one of the number that stood at the cross
+when the centurion smote his breast, and cried out, "Truly, this was
+the Son of God," and he was doubtless convinced at the same time. He
+was a disciple before, because we read that on the night of the
+trial he did not give his consent to the death of Christ. There must
+have been some surprise in the Council-chamber on that occasion,
+when Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man, stood up and said:
+
+"I will never give my consent to His death."
+
+There were seventy of those men, but we have very good reason to
+believe that there were two of them that, like Caleb and Joshua of
+old, had the courage to stand up for Jesus Christ--these were Joseph
+of Arimathea and Nicodemus: neither of them gave their consent to
+the death of Christ. But I am afraid Joseph did not come out and say
+that he was a disciple--for we do not find a word said about his
+being one until after the crucifixion.
+
+I am afraid there are
+
+
+MANY JOSEPHS TODAY,
+
+men of position, of whom it could be said they are secret disciples.
+Such would probably say to-day, "I do not need to take my stand on
+Christ's side. What more do _I_ need? I have everything." We read
+that he was a rich and honorable councillor, a just and a good man,
+and holding a high position in the government of the nation. He was
+also a benevolent man, and a devout man too. What more could he
+need? God wants something more than Joseph's good life and high
+position. A man may be all Joseph was and yet be without Christ.
+
+But a crisis came in his history. If he was to take his stand, now
+was the time for him to do it, I consider that this is one of the
+grandest, the noblest acts that any man ever did, to take his stand
+for Christ when there seemed nothing, humanly speaking, that Christ
+could give him. Joseph had no hope concerning the resurrection. It
+seems that none of our Lord's disciples understood that He was going
+to rise again even Peter, James, and John, as well as the rest,
+scarcely believed that He had risen when He appeared to them. They
+had anticipated that He would set up His kingdom, but He had no
+sceptre in His hand; and, so far as they could see, no kingdom in
+view. In fact, He was dead on the cross, with nails through His
+hands and feet. There He hung until His spirit took its flight; that
+which had made Him so grand, so glorious, and so noble, had now left
+the body.
+
+Joseph might have said, "It will be no use my taking a stand for Him
+now. If I come out and confess Him I shall probably lose my position
+in society and in the council, and my influence. I had better remain
+where I am."
+
+There was no earthly reward for him; there was nothing, humanly
+speaking, that could have induced him to come out; and yet we are
+told by Mark that he went boldly into Pilate's judgment-hall and
+begged the body of Jesus. I consider this was
+
+
+ONE OF THE SUBLIMEST, GRANDEST ACTS
+
+that any man ever did. In that darkness and gloom, His disciples
+having all forsaken Him; Judas having sold Him for thirty pieces of
+silver; the chief apostle Peter having denied Him with a curse,
+swearing that he never knew Him; the chief priests having found Him
+guilty of blasphemy; the Council having condemned him to death; and
+when there was a hiss going up to heaven over all Jerusalem, Joseph
+went right against the current, right against the influence of all
+his friends, and begged the body of Jesus.
+
+Blessed act! Doubtless he upbraided himself for not having been more
+bold in his defence of Christ when He was tried, and before He was
+condemned to be crucified. The Scripture says he was an honorable
+man, an honorable councillor, a rich man, and yet we have only the
+record of that one thing--the one act of begging the body of Jesus.
+But I tell you, that what he did for the Son of God, out of pure
+love for Him, will live for ever; that one act rises up above
+everything else that Joseph of Arimathea ever did. He might have
+given large sums of money to different institutions, he might have
+been very good to the poor, he might have been very kind to the
+needy in various ways; but that one act for Jesus Christ, on that
+memorable, that dark afternoon, was one of the noblest acts that a
+man ever did. He must have been a man of great influence, or Pilate
+would not have given him the body.
+
+And now you see another secret disciple, Nicodemus. Nicodemus and
+Joseph go to the cross. Joseph is there first, and while he is
+waiting for Nicodemus to come, he looks down the hill; and I can
+imagine his delight as he sees his friend coming with a hundred
+pounds of ointment. Although Jesus Christ had led such a lowly life,
+He was to have a kingly anointing and burial. God has touched the
+hearts of these two noble men and they drew out the nails, and took
+the body down, washed the blood away from the wounds that had been
+made on His back by the scourge, and on His head by the crown of
+thorns; then they took the lifeless form, washed it clean, and
+wrapped it in fine linen, and Joseph laid Him in his own sepulchre.
+
+When all was dark and gloomy, when His cause seemed to be lost, and
+the hope of the Church buried in that new tomb, Joseph took his
+stand for the One "despised and rejected of men." It was the
+greatest act of his life; and, my reader, if you want to stand with
+the Lord Jesus Christ in glory; if you want the power of God to be
+bestowed upon you for service down here, you must not hesitate to
+take your stand boldly and manfully for the most despised of all
+men--the Man Christ Jesus. His cause is unpopular. The ungodly sneer
+at His name. But if you want the blessings of heaven on your soul,
+and to hear the "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou
+into the joy of thy Lord," take your stand at once for Him; whatever
+your position may be, or however much your friends may be against
+you. Decide for Jesus Christ, the crucified but risen Savior. Go
+outside the camp and bear His reproach. Take up your cross and
+follow Him, and by and by you will lay it down and take the crown to
+wear it for ever.
+
+I remember some meetings being held in a locality where the tide did
+not rise very quickly, and bitter and reproachful things were being
+said about the work. But one day, one of the most prominent men in
+the place rose and said:
+
+"I want it to be known that I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, and if
+there is any odium to be cast on His cause, I am prepared to take my
+share of it."
+
+It went through the meeting like an electric current, and a blessing
+came at once to his own soul and to the souls of others.
+
+Depend upon it, there is
+
+
+NO CROWN WITHOUT A CROSS.
+
+We must take our proper position here, as Joseph did. It cost him
+something to take up his cross. I have no doubt they put him out of
+the council and out of the synagogue. He lost his standing, and
+perhaps his wealth: like other faithful followers of Christ, he
+became, henceforth, a despised and unpopular man.
+
+The blind man could not have done what Joseph did. Some men can do
+what others cannot. God will hold us responsible for our own
+influence. Let each of us do what we can. Even though the conduct of
+our Lord's professed followers was anything but helpful to those
+who, like Joseph, had but little courage to come out on the Lord's
+side, he was not deterred from taking his stand.
+
+Whatever it costs us, let us be true Christians, and take a firm
+stand. It is like the dust in the balance in comparison to what God
+has in store for us. We can afford to suffer with Him a little while
+if we are going to reign with Him for ever. We can afford to take up
+the cross and follow Him, to be despised and rejected by the world,
+with such a bright prospect in view. If the glories of heaven are
+real, it will be to His praise and to our advantage to share in His
+rejection now.
+
+May the Lord keep us from halting; and may we, when weighed in the
+balance, not be found wanting! May God help every reader to do all
+that the poor blind beggar did, and all that Joseph did!
+
+Let us confess Him at all times and in all places. Let us show our
+friends that we are out and out on His side. Every one has a circle
+that he can influence, and God will hold us responsible for the
+influence we possess. Joseph of Arimathea and the blind man had
+circles in which their influence was powerful. I can influence
+people that others cannot reach; and they, in their turn, can reach
+a class that I could not touch. It is only for a little while that
+we can confess Him and work for Him. It is only for a few months or
+years; and then the eternal ages will roll on, and great will be our
+reward in the crowning day that is coming. We shall then hear the
+Master say to us:
+
+"Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of
+thy Lord."
+
+God grant it may be so!
+
+
+
+THE PENITENT THIEF
+
+
+It should give us all a great deal of hope and comfort that Jesus
+saved such a man as the penitent thief just before He went back to
+heaven. Every one who is not a Christian ought to be interested in
+this case, to know how he was converted. Any one who does not
+believe in sudden conversions ought to look into it. If conversions
+are gradual, if it takes six months, or six weeks, or six days to
+convert a man, there was no chance for this thief. If a man who has
+lived a good, consistent life cannot be converted suddenly, how much
+less chance for him! Turn to the 23d chapter of Luke, and see how
+the Lord dealt with him. He was a thief, and the worst kind of a
+thief, or else they would not have punished him by crucifixion. Yet
+Christ not only saved him, but took him up with Himself into glory.
+
+Let us look at Christ hanging on the cross between the two thieves.
+The Scribes and Pharisees wagged their heads, and jeered at Him. His
+disciples had fled. Only His mother and one or two other women
+remained in sight to cheer Him with their presence among all the
+crowd of enemies. Hear those spiteful Pharisees mocking among
+themselves: "He saved others; Himself He cannot save." The account
+also says that the two thieves "cast the same in his teeth."
+
+
+REVILING.
+
+The first thing we read, then, of this man is that he was a reviler
+of Christ.
+
+You would think that he would be doing something else at such a time
+as that; but hanging there in the midst of torture, and certain to
+be dead in a few hours, instead of confessing his sins and preparing
+to meet that God whose law he had broken all his life, he is abusing
+God's only Son. Surely, he cannot sink any lower, until he sinks
+into hell!
+
+
+UNDER CONVICTION.
+
+The next time we hear of him, he appears to be under conviction:
+
+"And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on Him, saying,
+If thou be Christ, save Thyself and us. But the other answering
+rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the
+same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due
+reward of our deeds: but this Man hath done nothing amiss."
+
+What do you suppose made so great a change in this man in these few
+hours? Christ had not preached a sermon, had given him no
+exhortation. The darkness had not yet come on. The earth had not
+opened her mouth. The business of death was going on undisturbed.
+The crowd was still there, mocking and hissing and wagging the head.
+Yet this man, who in the morning was railing at Christ, is now
+confessing his sins and rebuking the other thief. "We indeed
+justly!" No miracle had been wrought before his eyes. No angel from
+heaven had come to place a glittering crown upon His head in place
+of the bloody crown of thorns.
+
+What was it wrought such a change in him?
+
+I will tell you what I think it was. I think it was the Savior's
+prayer:
+
+"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
+
+I seem to hear the thief
+
+
+TALKING TO HIMSELF
+
+in this way:
+
+"What a strange kind of man this must be! He claims to be king of
+the Jews, and the superscription over His cross says the same. But
+what sort of a throne is this! He says He is the Son of God. Why
+does not God send down His angels and destroy all these people who
+are torturing His Son to death? If He has all power now, as He used
+to have when He worked those miracles they talked about, why does He
+not bring out His vengeance, and sweep all these wretches into
+destruction? I would do it in a minute if I had the power. I
+wouldn't spare any of them. I would open the earth and swallow them
+up! But this man prays to God to forgive them! Strange, strange! He
+_must_ be different from us. I am sorry I said one word against Him
+when they first hung us up here.
+
+What a difference there is between Him and me! Here we are, hanging
+on two crosses, side by side; but all the rest of our lives we have
+been far enough apart. I have been robbing and murdering, and He has
+been feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and raising the dead. Now
+these people are railing at us both! I begin to believe He must be
+the Son of God; for surely no man could forgive his enemies like
+that."
+
+Yes, that prayer of Christ's did what the scourge could not do. This
+man had gone through his trial, he had been beaten, he had been
+nailed to the cross; but his heart had not been subdued, he had
+raised no cry to God, he was not sorry for his sins. Yet, when he
+heard the Savior praying for His murderers, that
+
+
+BROKE HIS HEART.
+
+It flashed into this thief's soul that Jesus was the Son of God, and
+that moment he rebuked his companion, saying:
+
+"Dost thou not fear God?"
+
+The fear of God fell upon him. There is not much hope of a man's
+being saved until the fear of God comes upon him. Solomon says, "The
+fear of God is the beginning of wisdom."
+
+We read in Acts that great fear fell upon the people; that was the
+fear of the Lord. That was the first sign that conviction had
+entered the soul of the thief. "Dost thou not fear God?" That was
+the first sign we have of life springing up.
+
+
+CONFESSING.
+
+Next, he confessed his sins: "We indeed justly." He took his place
+among sinners, not trying to justify himself.
+
+A man may be very sorry for his sins, but if he doesn't confess
+them, he has no promise of being forgiven. Cain felt badly enough
+over his sins, but he did not confess. Saul was greatly tormented in
+mind, but he went to the witch of Endor instead of to the Lord.
+Judas felt so bad over the betrayal of his Master that he went out
+and hanged himself; but he did not confess to God. True, he went and
+confessed to the priests, saying, "I have sinned in that I have
+betrayed innocent blood"; but it was of no use to confess to them
+--they could not forgive him.
+
+How different is the case of this penitent thief! He confessed his
+sins, and Christ had mercy on him there and then.
+
+The great trouble is, people are always trying to make out that they
+are not sinners, that they have nothing to confess. Therefore, there
+is no chance of reaching them with the Gospel. There is no hope for
+a man who folds his arms and says: "I don't think God will punish
+sin; I am going to take the risk." There is no hope for a man until
+he sees that he is under just condemnation for his sins and
+shortcomings. God never forgives a sinner until he confesses.
+
+
+JUSTIFYING CHRIST.
+
+The next thing, he justifies Christ: "This Man hath done nothing
+amiss."
+
+When men are talking against Christ, they are a great way from
+becoming Christians. Now he says, "He hath done nothing amiss."
+There was the world mocking him; but in the midst of it all, you can
+hear that thief crying out:
+
+"This Man hath done nothing amiss."
+
+
+FAITH.
+
+The next step is faith.
+
+Talk about faith! I think this is about the most extraordinary case
+of faith in the Bible. Abraham was the father of the faithful; but
+God had him in training for twenty-five years. Moses was a man of
+faith; but he saw the burning bush, and had other evidences of God.
+Elijah had faith; but see what good reason he had for it. God took
+care of him, and fed him in time of famine. But here was a man who
+perhaps had never seen a miracle; who had spent his life among
+criminals; whose friends were thieves and outlaws; who was now in
+his dying agonies in the presence of a crowd who were rejecting and
+reviling the Son of God. His disciples, who had heard His wonderful
+words, and witnessed His mighty works, had forsaken Him; and perhaps
+the thief knew this. Peter had denied Him with oaths and cursing;
+and perhaps this had been told the thief. Judas had betrayed Him. He
+saw no glittering crown upon His brow; only the crown of thorns. He
+could see no sign of His kingdom. Where were His subjects? And yet,
+nailed to the cross, racked with pain in every nerve, overwhelmed
+with horror, his wicked soul in a tempest of passion, this poor
+wretch managed to lay hold on Christ and trust Him for a swift
+salvation. The faith of this thief, how it flashes out amid the
+darkness of Calvary! It is one of the most astounding instances of
+faith in the Bible!
+
+When I was a boy I was a poor speller. One day there came a word to
+the boy at the head of the class which he couldn't spell, and none
+of the class could spell it. I spelled it; by good luck; and I went
+from the foot of the class to the head. So the thief on the cross
+passed by Abraham, Moses and Elijah, and went to the head of the
+class. He said unto Jesus:
+
+"Lord, remember me when thou comest into Thy kingdom."
+
+Thank God for such a faith! How refreshing it must have been to
+Christ to have one own Him as Lord, and believe in His kingdom, at
+that dark hour! How this thief's heart goes out to the Son of God!
+How glad he would be to fall on his knees at the foot of the cross,
+and pour out his prayer! But this he cannot do. His hands and feet
+are nailed fast to the wood, but they have not nailed his eyes and
+his tongue and his heart. He can at least turn his head and look
+upon the Son of God, and his breaking heart can go out in love to
+that One who was dying for him and dying for you and me, and he can
+say:
+
+"Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom."
+
+
+WHAT A CONFESSION
+
+of Christ that was! He called Him "Lord." A queer Lord! Nails
+through His hands and feet, fastened to the cross. A strange throne!
+Blood trickling down His face from the scars made by the crown of
+thorns. But He was all the more "Lord" because of this.
+
+Sinner, call Him "Lord" now. Take your place as a poor condemned
+rebel, and cry out:
+
+"Lord, remember me!"
+
+That isn't a very long prayer, but it will prevail. You don't have
+to add--"when Thou comest into Thy kingdom," because Christ is now
+at His Father's right hand. Three words; a chain of three golden
+links that will bind the sinner to his Lord.
+
+Some people think they must have a form of prayer, a prayer-book,
+perhaps, if they are going to address the Throne of Grace properly;
+but what could that poor fellow do with a prayer-book up there,
+hanging on the cross, with both hands nailed fast? Suppose it had
+been necessary for some priest or minister to pray for him, what
+could he do? Nobody is there to pray for him, and yet he is going to
+die in a few hours. He is out of reach of help from man, but God has
+laid help upon One who is mighty, and that One is close at hand. He
+prayed out of the heart. His prayer was short, but it brought the
+blessing. It came to the point: "Lord, remember me when Thou comest
+into Thy kingdom." He asked the Lord to give him, right there and
+then, what he wanted.
+
+
+THE ANSWERED PRAYER.
+
+Now consider the answer to his prayer. He got more than he asked,
+just as every one does who asks in faith. He only asked Christ to
+"remember" him; but Christ answered:
+
+"To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise!"
+
+Immediate blessing--promise of fellowship--eternal rest; this is the
+way Christ answered his prayer.
+
+
+DARKNESS.
+
+And now darkness falls upon the earth. The sun hides itself. Worse
+than all, the Father hides His face from His Son. What else is the
+meaning of that bitter cry:
+
+"My God! my God! Why hast Thou forsaken me?"
+
+Ah! It had been written, "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a
+tree." Jesus was made a curse for us. God cannot look upon sin: and
+so when even His own Son was bearing our sins in His body, God could
+not look upon Him.
+
+I think this is what bore heaviest upon the Savior's heart in the
+garden when He prayed:
+
+"If it be possible, let this cup pass from me."
+
+He could bear the unfaithfulness of His friends, the spite of His
+enemies, the pain of His crucifixion, and the shadow of death; He
+could bear all these; but when it came to the hiding of His Father's
+face, that seemed almost too much for even the Son of God to bear.
+But even this He endured for our sins; and now the face of God is
+turned back to us, whose sins had turned it away, and looking upon
+Jesus, the sinless One, He sees us in Him.
+
+In the midst of all His agony, how sweet it must have been to Christ
+to hear that poor thief confessing Him!
+
+He likes to have men confess Him. Don't you remember His asking
+Peter, "Whom do men say that I am?" and when Peter answered, "Some
+people say you are Moses, some people say you are Elias, and some
+people say you are one of the old Prophets," He asked again, "But,
+Peter, whom do _you_ say I am?" When Peter said, "Thou art the Son
+of God," Jesus blessed him for that confession. And now this thief
+confesses Him--confesses Him in the darkness. Perhaps it is so dark
+he cannot see Him any longer; but he feels that He is there beside
+him. Christ wants us to confess Him in the dark as well as in the
+light; when it is hard as well as when it is easy. For He was not
+ashamed of us, but bore our sins and carried our sorrows, even unto
+death.
+
+When a prominent man dies, we are anxious, to get his last words and
+acts.
+
+
+THE LAST ACT OF THE SON OF GOD
+
+was to save a sinner. That was a part of the glory of His death. He
+commenced His ministry by saving sinners, and ended it by saving
+this poor thief. "Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the
+lawful captive delivered? But thus saith the Lord: Even the captives
+of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible
+shall be delivered." He took this captive from the jaws of death. He
+was on the borders of hell, and Christ snatched him away.
+
+No doubt Satan was saying to himself: "I shall have the soul of that
+thief pretty soon. He belongs to me. He has been mine all these
+years."
+
+But in his last hours the poor wretch cried out to the Lord, and He
+snapped the fetters that bound his soul, and set him at liberty. He
+threw him a passport into heaven. I can imagine, as the soldier
+drove his spear into our Savior's side, there came flashing into the
+mind of the thief the words of the prophet Zechariah:
+
+"In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David,
+and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness."
+
+You see, in the conversion of this thief, that
+
+
+SALVATION IS DISTINCT AND SEPARATE FROM WORKS.
+
+Some people tell us we have to work to be saved. What has the man
+who believes that to say about the salvation of this thief? How
+could he work, when he was nailed to the cross?
+
+He took the Lord at His word, and believed. It is with the heart men
+believe, not with their hands or feet. All that is necessary for a
+man to be saved is to believe with his heart. This thief made a good
+confession. If he had been a Christian fifty years, he could not
+have done Christ more service there than he did. He confessed Him
+before the world; and for nineteen hundred years that confession has
+been told. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all recorded it. They felt
+it so important that they thought we should have it.
+
+See how
+
+
+SALVATION IS SEPARATE AND DISTINCT FROM ALL ORDINANCES
+
+--not but that ordinances are right in their place.
+
+Many people think it is impossible for any one to get into the
+kingdom of God if he is not baptized into it. I know people who were
+greatly exercised because little children died unbaptized. I have
+seen them carry the children through the streets because the pastor
+could not come. I don't want you to think I am talking against
+ordinances. Baptism is right in its place; but when you put it in
+the place of salvation, you put a snare in the way. You cannot
+baptize men into the kingdom of God. The last conversion before
+Christ perished on the cross ought to forever settle that question.
+If you tell me a man cannot get into Paradise without being
+baptized, I answer, This thief was not baptized. If he had wanted to
+be baptized, I don't believe he could have found a man to baptize
+him.
+
+I have known people who had sick relatives, and because they could
+not get a minister to come to their house and administer the
+sacrament, they were distressed and troubled. Now, I am not saying
+anything against the ordinance by which we commemorate the death of
+our Lord, and remember His return. God forbid! But let me say that
+it is not necessary for salvation. I might die and be lost before I
+could get to the Lord's table; but if I get to the Lord I am saved.
+Thank God, salvation is within my reach always, and I have to wait
+for no minister. This poor thief certainly never partook of the
+sacrament. Was there a man on that hill that would have had faith to
+believe he was saved? Would any church to-day have received him into
+membership? He had not to wait for this. The moment he asked life,
+our Savior gave it.
+
+Baptism is one thing; the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is another
+thing; and salvation through Christ is quite another thing. If we
+have been saved through Christ, let us confess Him by baptism, let
+us go to His table, and do whatever else He bids. But let us not
+make stumbling-blocks out of these things.
+
+That is what I call sudden conversion--men calling on God for
+salvation and getting it. You certainly won't get it unless you call
+for it, and unless you take it when He offers it to you. If you want
+Christ to remember you--to save you--call upon Him.
+
+
+TWO SIDES.
+
+The cross of Christ divides all mankind. There are only two sides,
+those for Christ, and those against Him. Think of the two thieves;
+from the side of Christ one went down to death cursing God, and the
+other went to glory.
+
+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. In the
+morning nailed to the cross; in the evening in the Paradise of God,
+crowned with a crown he should wear through all the ages. In the
+morning not an eye to pity; in the evening washed and made clean in
+the blood of the Lamb. In the morning in the society of thieves and
+outcasts; in the evening Christ is not ashamed to walk arm-in-arm
+with him down the golden pavements of the eternal city.
+
+The thief was
+
+
+THE FIRST MAN TO ENTER PARADISE
+
+after the veil of the Temple was rent. If we could look up yonder,
+and catch a glimpse of the throne, we would see the Father there,
+and Jesus Christ at His right hand; and hard by we would see that
+thief. He is there to-day. Nineteen hundred years he has been there,
+just because he cried in faith:
+
+"Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom."
+
+You know Christ died a little while before the thief. I can imagine
+that He wanted to hurry home to get a place ready for His new
+friend, the first soul brought from the world He was dying to
+redeem. The Lord loved him because he confessed Him in that dark
+hour. It was a dark hour for many who reviled the Savior. You have
+heard of the child who did not want to die and go to heaven because
+he didn't know anybody there. But the thief would have one
+acquaintance. I can imagine how his soul leaped within him when he
+saw the spear thrust into our Savior's side, and heard the cry:
+
+"It is finished!"
+
+He wanted to follow Christ. He was in a hurry to be gone, when they
+came to break his legs. I can hear the Lord calling:
+
+"Gabriel, prepare a chariot. Make haste. There is a friend of mine
+hanging on that cross. They are breaking his legs. He will soon be
+ready to come. Make haste, and bring him to me?"
+
+The angel in the chariot swept down from heaven, took the soul of
+that penitent thief, and hastened back to glory. The gates of the
+city swung wide open, and the angels shouted welcome to this poor
+sinner who had been washed white in the blood of the Lamb.
+
+And that, my friends, is just what Christ wants to do for you. That
+is the business on which He came down from heaven. That is why He
+died. And if He gave such a swift salvation to this poor thief on
+the cross, surely He will give you the same if, like the penitent
+thief, you repent, and confess, and trust in the Savior.
+
+Somebody says that this man "was saved at the eleventh hour." I
+don't know about that. It might have been the first hour with him.
+Perhaps he never knew of Christ until he was led out to die beside
+Him. This may have been the very first time he ever had a chance to
+know the Son of God.
+
+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?
+
+Some years 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. When they took him out
+he was broken and mangled, and had only two or three minutes of life
+left in him. His friends gathered about him, saw his lips moving,
+and, bending down to catch his words, heard him say:
+
+"It was a good thing I settled it last night."
+
+Settle it now, my friends, once for all. Begin now to confess your
+sins, and pray the Lord to remember you. He will make you an heir of
+His kingdom, if you will accept the gift of salvation. He is just
+the same Savior the thief had. Will you not cry to Him for mercy?
+
+ .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .
+
+   A cross,--and one who hangs thereon, in sight
+   Of heaven and earth.
+
+                         The cruel nails are fast
+   In trembling hands and feet, the face is white
+   And changed with agony, the failing head
+   Is drooping heavily; but still again,
+   And yet again, the weary eyes are raised
+   To seek the face of One who hangeth pale
+   Upon another cross. He hears no shrill
+   And taunting voices of the crowd beneath,
+   He marks no cruel looks of all that gaze
+   Upon the woeful sight. He sees alone
+   That face upon the cross. Oh, long, long look,
+   That searcheth there the deep and awful things
+   Which are of God!
+
+                        In his first agony
+   And horror he had joined with them that spake
+   Against the Lord, the Lamb, who gave Himself
+   That day for us. But when he met the look
+   Of those calm eyes,--he paused that instant; pale
+   And trembling, stricken to the heart, and faint
+   At sight of Him.
+      .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .
+
+                                    At length
+   The pale, glad lips have breathed the trembling prayer,
+   "_O Lord, remember me!_" The hosts of God
+   With wistful angel-faces, bending low
+   Above their dying King, were surely stirred
+   To wonder at the cry. Not one of all
+   The shining host had dared to speak to Him
+   In that dread hour of woe, when Heaven and Earth
+   Stood trembling and amazed. Yet, lo! the voice
+   Of one who speaks to Him, who dares to pray,
+   "_O Lord, remember me!_" A sinful man
+   May make his pitiful appeal to Christ,
+   The sinner's Friend, when angels dare not speak.
+   And sweetly from the dying lips that day
+   The answer came.
+
+                          Oh, strange and solemn joy
+   Which broke upon the fading face of him
+   Who there received the promise: "_Thou shalt be_
+   _In Paradise this night, this night, with Me_."
+
+      .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .
+
+                           O Christ, the King!
+   We also wander on the desert-hills,
+   Though haunted by Thy call, returning sweet
+   At morn and eve. We will not come to Thee
+   Till Thou hast nailed us to some bitter cross,
+   And _made_ us look on Thine, and driven at last
+   To call on Thee with trembling and with tears.--
+   Thou lookest down in love, upbraiding not,
+   And promising the kingdom!
+
+      .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .
+
+                          A throne,--and one
+   Who kneels before it, bending low in new
+   And speechless joy.
+
+                          It is the night on earth.
+   The shadows fall like dew upon the hills
+   Around the Holy City, but above,
+   Beyond the dark vale of the sky, beyond
+   The smiling of the stars, they meet once more
+   In peace and glory. Heaven is comforted,--
+   For that strange warfare is accomplished now,
+   Her King returned with joy: and one who watches
+   The far-off morning in a prison dim,
+   And hung at noonday on the bitter cross,
+   Is kneeling at His feet, and tasteth now
+   The sweet, sweet opening of an endless joy.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Men of the Bible, by Dwight Moody
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