011. Come

Come

Gen_7:1 : ’93Come.’94

Rev_22:17 : ’93Come.’94

Imperial, tender and all-persuasive is this word ’93Come.’94 Six hundred and seventy-eight times is it found in the Scriptures. It stands at the front gate of the Bible as in my first text, inviting antediluvians into Noah’92s ark, and it stands at the other gate of the Bible as in my second text, inviting the postdiluvians of all later ages into the ark of a Saviour’92s mercy. ’93Come’94 is only a word of four letters, but it is the queen of words, and nearly the entire nation of English vocabulary bows to its sceptre. It is an ocean into which empty ten thousand rivers of meaning. Other words drive, but this beckons. All moods of feeling hath that word ’93Come.’94 Sometimes it weeps and sometimes it laughs. Sometimes it prays, sometimes it tempts, and sometimes it destroys. It sounds from the door of the church and from the seraglios of sin, from the gates of heaven and the gates of hell. It is confluent and accrescent of all power. It is the heiress of most of the past and the almoner of most of the future. ’93Come!’94 You may pronounce it so that all the heavens will be heard in its cadences, or pronounce it so that all the woes of time and eternity shall reverberate in its one syllable. It is on the lip of saint and profligate. It is the mightiest of all solicitants, either for good or bad.

To-day I weigh anchor and haul in the planks and set sail on that great word, although I am sure I will not be able to reach the farther shore. I will let down the fathoming line into this sea and try to measure its depths, and, though I tie together all the cables and cordage I have on board, I will not be able to touch bottom. All the power of the Christian religion is in that word, ’93Come.’94 The dictatorial and commandatory in religion is of no avail. The imperative mood is not the appropriate mood when we would have people savingly impressed. They may be coaxed, but they cannot be driven. Our hearts are like our homes’97at a friendly knock the door will be opened, but an attempt to force open our door would land the assailant in prison. Our theological seminaries, which keep young men three years at their curriculum before launching them into the ministry, will do well if in so short a time they can teach the candidates for the holy office how to say with right emphasis and intonation and power that one word, ’93Come!’94 That man who has such efficiency in Christian work, and that woman who has such power to persuade people to quit the wrong and begin the right, went through a series of losses, bereavements, persecutions, and the trials of twenty or thirty years before they could make it a triumph of grace every time they uttered the word ’93Come.’94

You must remember that in many cases our ’93Come’94 has a mightier ’93Come’94 to conquer before it has any effect at all. Just give me the accurate census, the statistics, of how many are down in fraud, in drunkenness, in gambling, in impurity, or in vice of any sort, and I will give you the accurate census or statistics of how many have been slain by the word ’93Come.’94 ’93Come and click wine-glasses with me at this ivory bar.’94 ’93Come and see what we can win at this gaming table.’94 ’93Come, enter with me this doubtful speculation.’94 ’93Come with me and read those infidel tracts on Christianity.’94 ’93Come with me to a place of bad amusement.’94 ’93Come with me in a gay bout through underground New York.’94 If in this city there are twenty thousand who are down in moral character, then twenty thousand fell under the power of the word ’93Come.’94 I was reading of a wife whose husband had been overthrown by strong drink, and she went to the saloon where he was ruined, and she said: ’93Give me back my husband.’94 And the bartender, pointing to a maudlin and battered man drowsing in the corner of the barroom, said: ’93There he is; Jim, wake up; here’92s your wife come for you.’94 And the woman said: ’93Do you call that my husband? What have you been doing with him? Is that the manly brow? Is that the clear eye? Is that the noble heart that I married? What vile drug have you given him that has turned him into a fiend? Take your tiger claws off of him. Uncoil those serpent folds of evil habit that are crushing him. Give me back my husband, the one with whom I stood at the altar ten years ago. Give him back to me.’94 Victim was he, as millions of others have been, of the word ’93Come!’94

Now, we want, all the world over, to harness this word for good, as others have harnessed it for evil; and it will draw the five continents and the seas between them’97yea, it will draw the whole earth back to the God from whom it has wandered. It is that wooing and persuasive word that will lead men to give up their sins. Was skepticism ever brought into love of the truth by an ebullition of hot words against infidelity? Was ever the blasphemer stopped in his oaths by denunciation of blasphemy? Was ever a drunkard weaned from his cups by the temperance lecturer’92s mimicry of staggering step and hiccough? No. It was: ’93Come with me to church today and hear our singing;’94 ’93Come and let me introduce you to a Christian man whom you will be sure to admire;’94 ’93Come with me into associations that are cheerful and good and inspiring;’94 ’93Come with me into joy such as you never before experienced.’94

With that word which has done so much for others I approach you today. Are you all right with God? ’93No,’94 you say, ’93I think not; I am sometimes frightened when I think of him; I fear I will not be ready to meet him in the last day; my heart is not right with God.’94 Come, then, and have it made right. Through the Christ who died to save you, come! What is the use in delaying? The longer you wait the farther off you are and the deeper you are down. Strike out for heaven! You remember that a few years ago a steamer called the Princess Alice, with a crowd of excursionists aboard, sank in the Thames, and there was a terrible loss of life. A boatman from the shore put out for the rescue, and he had a big boat, and he got it so full it would not hold another person, and as he laid hold of the oars to pull for the shore, leaving hundreds helpless and drowning, he cried out: ’93Oh, that I had a bigger boat!’94 Thank God I am not thus limited, and that I can promise room for all in this Gospel boat. Get in; get in! And yet there is room. Room in the heart of a pardoning God. Room in heaven.

I also apply the word of my text to those who would like practical comfort. If any ever escape the struggle of life, I have not found them. They are not certainly among the prosperous classes. In most cases it was a struggle all the way up till they reached the prosperity, and since they have reached these heights there have been perplexities, anxieties, and crises which were almost enough to shatter the nerves and turn the brain. It would be hard to tell which have the biggest fight in this world’97the prosperities or the adversities, the conspicuities or the obscurities. Just as soon as you have enough success to attract the attention of others, the envies and jealousies are let loose from their kennel. The greatest crime that you can commit in the estimation of some is to get on better than they do. They think your addition is their subtraction. Five hundred persons start for a certain goal of success; one reaches it and the other four hundred and ninety-nine are mad. It would take volumes to hold the story of the wrongs, outrages and defamations that have come upon you as a result of your success. The warm sun of prosperity brings into life a swampful of annoying insects. On the other hand, the unfortunate classes have their struggles for maintenance. To achieve a livelihood by one who had nothing to start with, and after a while for a family as well, and carry this on until children are reared and educated and fairly started in the world, and to do this amid all the rivalries of business and the uncertainty of crops and the fickleness of tariff legislation’97with an occasional labor strike and here and there a financial panic thrown in’97is a mighty thing to do, and there are hundreds and thousands of such heroes and heroines who live unsung and die unhonored. What we all need, whether up or down in life or half-way between, is the infinite solace of the Christian religion. And so we employ the word ’93Come!’94 It will take all eternity to find out the number of business men who have been strengthened by the promises of God, and the people who have been fed by the ravens when other resources gave out, and the men and women who, going into this battle armed only with needle or saw or ax or yardstick or pen or type or shovel or shoe-last have gained a victory that made the heavens resound. With all the resources of God promised for every exigency, no one need be left in the lurch.

I like the faith displayed years ago in Drury Lane, London, in an humble home where every particle of food had given out, and a kindly soul entered with tea and other table supplies, and found a kettle on the fire ready for the tea. The benevolent lady said: ’93How is it that you have the kettle ready for the tea when you had no tea in the house?’94 And the daughter in the home said: ’93Mother would have me put the kettle on the fire, and when I said, ’91What is the use of doing so, when we have nothing in the house?’92 she said: ’91My child, God will provide; thirty years he has already provided for me, through all my pain and helplessness, and he will not leave me to starve at last; he will send us help, though we do not yet see how.’92 We have been waiting all the day for something to come, but until we saw you we knew not how it was to come.’94 Such things the world may call coincidences, but I call them almighty deliverances, and, though you do not hear of them, they are occurring every hour of every day and in all parts of Christendom.

But the word ’93Come’94 applied to those who need solace will amount to nothing unless it be uttered by some one who has experienced that solace. That spreads the responsibility of giving this Gospel call among a great many. Those who have lost property and been consoled by religion in that trial are the ones to invite those who have failed in business. Those who have lost their health and been consoled by religion are the ones to invite those who are in poor health. Those who have had bereavements, and been consoled in those bereavements, are the ones to sympathize with those who have lost father or mother or companion or child or friend. What multitudes of us are alive today and in good health and buoyant in this journey of life who would have been broken down or dead long ago but for the sustaining and cheering help of our holy religion! So we say, ’93Come!’94 The well is not dry. The buckets are not empty. The supply is not exhausted. There is just as much mercy and condolence and soothing power in God as before the first grave was dug or the first tear started or the first heart broken or the first accident happened or the first fortune vanished. Those of us who have felt the consolatory power of religion have a right to speak out of our own experiences and say, ’93Come!’94

What dismal work of condolence the world makes when it attempts to condole! The plaster they spread does not stick. The broken bones under their bandage do not knit. A farmer was lost in the snowstorm on a prairie of the far West. Night coming on, and after he was almost frantic from not knowing which way to go, his sleigh struck the rut of another sleigh and he said: ’93I will follow this rut and it will take me out to safety.’94 He hastened on until he heard the bells of the preceding horses, but, coming up, he found that that man was also lost and, as is the tendency of those who are thus confused in the forest, or on the moors, they were both moving in a circle, and the runner of the one lost sleigh was following the runner of the other lost sleigh around and around. At last it occurred to them to look at the north star, which was peering through the night, and by the direction of that star they got home again. Those who follow the advice of this world in time of perplexity are in a fearful round, for it is one bewildered soul following another bewildered soul; and only those who have in such time got their eye on the morning star of our Christian faith can find their way out, or be strong enough to lead others with an all-persuasive invitation.

’93But,’94 says some one, ’93you Christian people keep telling us to ’91come,’92 yet you do not tell us how to come.’94 That charge shall not be true on this occasion. Come believing! Come repenting! Come praying! After all that God has been doing for six thousand years, sometimes through patriarchs and sometimes through prophets, and at last through the culmination of all tragedies on Golgotha, can any one think that God will not welcome your coming? Will a father at vast outlay construct a mansion for his son, and lay out parks white with statues and green with foliage and all a-sparkle with fountains and then not allow his son to live in the house or walk in the parks? Has God built this house of Gospel mercy, and will he then refuse entrance to his children? Will a government at great expense build life-saving stations all along the coast, and boats that can hover unhurt like a petrel over the wildest surge; and then when the lifeboat has reached the wreck of a ship in the offing not allow the drowning to seize the life-line or take the boat for the shore in safety? Shall God provide at the cost of his only Son’92s assassination escape for a sinking world, and then turn a deaf ear to the cry that comes up from the breakers?

’93But,’94 you say, ’93there are so many things I have to believe, and so many things in the shape of a creed that I have to adopt, that I am kept back.’94 No, no! You need believe but two things, namely, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and that you are one of them. ’93But,’94 you say, ’93I do believe both of those things.’94 Do you, really, believe them with all your heart? ’93Yes.’94 Why, then, you have passed from death into life. Why, then, you are a son or a daughter of the Lord Almighty. Why, then, if you are resolved to act on the belief and in Christ’92s strength renounce sin, you are an heir or an heiress of an inheritance that will declare dividends from now until long after the stars are dead. Hallelujah! Prince of God, why do you not come and take your coronet? Princess of the Lord Almighty, why do you not mount your throne? Pass up into the light. Your boat is anchored, why do you not go ashore? Just plant your feet hard down and you will feel under them the Rock of Ages. I challenge the universe for one instance in which a man in the right spirit appealed for the salvation of the Gospel and did not get it. Man alive! are you going to let all the years of your life go away without your having this great peace, this glorious hope, this bright expectancy? Are you going to let the pearl of great price lie in the dust at your feet because you are too indolent or too proud to stoop down and pick it up? Will you wear the chain of evil habit when near-by you is the hammer that could with one stroke snap the shackle? Will you stay in the prison of sin when here is a Gospel key that could unlock the door that perpetuates your incarceration? No, no!

As the one word, ’93Come,’94 has sometimes brought many souls to Christ, I will try the experiment of piling up into a mountain and then sending down in an avalanche of power many of these Gospel ’93Comes.’94 ’93Come thou and all thy house into the ark;’94 ’93Come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest;’94 ’93Come, for all things are now ready;’94 ’93Come with us and we will do you good;’94 ’93Come and see;’94 ’93The Spirit and the Bride say ’91Come,’92 and let him that heareth say ’91Come,’92 and let him that is athirst ’91Come.’92’93 The stroke of one bell in a tower may be sweet, but a score of bells well tuned and rightly lifted and skilfully swung in one great chime fill the heavens with music almost celestial. And no one who has heard the mighty chimes in the towers of Amsterdam or Ghent or Copenhagen can forget them. Now, it seems to me, that in this Sabbath hour all heaven is chiming, and the voices of departed friends and kindred ring down the sky, saying, ’93Come!’94 The angels who never fell, bending from sapphire thrones, are chanting ’93Come!’94 Yea, all the towers of heaven, tower of martyrs, tower of prophets, tower of apostles, tower of evangelists, tower of the temple of the Lord God and the Lamb, are chiming, ’93Come! Come!’94 Pardon for all and peace for all and heaven for all who will come.

When Russia was in one of her great wars, the suffering of the soldiers had been long and bitter, and they were waiting for the end of the strife. One day a messenger in great excitement ran among the tents of the army shouting, ’93Peace! Peace!’94 The sentinel on guard asked, ’93Who says ’91Peace’92?’94 And the sick soldier turned on his hospital mattress and asked, ’93Who says ’91Peace?’92’93 And all up and down the encampment of the Russians went the question, ’93Who says ’91Peace’92?’94 Then the messenger responded, ’93The Czar says ’91Peace.’92’93 That was enough. That meant going home. That meant the war was over. No more wounds and no more long marches. So today, as one of the Lord’92s messengers, I move through these great encampments of souls and cry, ’93Peace between earth and heaven! Peace between God and man! Peace between your repenting soul and a pardoning Lord!’94 If you ask me, ’93Who says ’91Peace’92?’94 I answer, ’93Christ our King declares it.’94 ’93My peace I give unto you!’94 ’93Peace of God that passeth all understanding!’94 Everlasting peace!

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage