194. Enemies Overthrown

Enemies Overthrown

Psa_68:1 : ’93Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered.’94

A procession was formed to carry the ark, or sacred box, which, though only three feet nine inches in length and four feet three inches in height and depth, was the symbol of God’92s presence. As the leaders of the procession lifted this ornamented and brilliant box by two golden poles run through four golden rings, and started for Mount Zion, all the people chanted the battle hymn of my text, ’93Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered.’94

The Cameronians of Scotland, outraged by James I, who forced upon them religious forms that were offensive, and by the terrible persecution of Drummond, Dalziel, and Turner, and by the oppressive laws of Charles I and Charles II, were driven to proclaim war against tyrants, and went forth to fight for religious liberty; and the mountain heather became red with carnage, and at Bothwell Bridge and Ayrsmoss and Drumclog the battle hymn and the battle shout of those glorious old Scotchmen was the text I have chosen: ’93Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered.’94

What a whirlwind of power was Oliver Cromwell, and how with his soldiers, named the ’93Ironsides,’94 he went from victory to victory! Opposing enemies melted as he looked at them. He dismissed Parliament as easily as a schoolmaster a school. He pointed his finger at Berkeley Castle, and it was taken. He ordered Sir Ralph Hopton, the general, to dismount, and he dismounted. See Cromwell marching on with his army, and hear the battle-cry of the ’93Ironsides,’94 loud as a storm and solemn as a death-knell, standards reeling before it, and cavalry horses going back on their haunches, and armies flying at Marston Moor, at Winceby Field, at Naseby, at Bridgewater and Dartmouth’97’94 Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered!’94

So you see my text is not like a complimentary and tasseled sword that you sometimes see hung up in a parlor, a sword that was never in battle, and only to be used on general training day, but more like some weapon carefully hung up in your home, telling its story of battles, for my text hangs in the Scripture armory, telling of the holy wars of three thousand years in which it has been carried, but still as keen and mighty as when David first unsheathed it. It seems to me that in the Church of God, and in all styles of reformatory work, what we most need now is a battle-cry. We raise our little standard, and put on it the name of some man who only a few years ago began to live and in a few years will cease to live. We go into contest against the armies of iniquity, depending too much on human agencies. We use for a battle-cry the name of some brave Christian reformer, but after a while that reformer dies, or gets old, or loses his courage, and then we take another battle-cry, and this time perhaps we put the name of some one who betrays the cause and sells out to the enemy. What we want for a battle-cry is the name of some leader who will never betray us, and will never surrender, and will never die.

All respect have I for brave men and women, but if we are to get the victory all along the line we must take the hint of the Gideonites, who wiped out the Bedouin Arabs, commonly called Midianites. These Gideonites had a glorious leader in Gideon, but what was the battle-cry with which they flung their enemies into the worst defeat into which any army was ever tumbled? It was, ’93The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.’94 Put God first, whoever you put second. If the army of the American Revolution is to free America, it must be ’93The sword of the Lord and of Washington.’94 If the Germans want to win the day at Sedan, it must be ’93The sword of the Lord and Von Moltke.’94 Waterloo was won for the English, because not only the armed men at the front, but the worshipers in the cathedrals at the rear, were crying, ’93The sword of the Lord and of Wellington.’94

The Methodists have gone in triumph across nation after nation with the cry, ’93The sword of the Lord and of Wesley.’94 The Presbyterians have gone from victory to victory with the cry, ’93The sword of the Lord and of John Knox.’94 The Baptists have conquered millions after millions for Christ with the cry, ’93The sword of the Lord and of Judson.’94 The American Episcopalians have won their mighty way with the cry, ’93The sword of the Lord and of Bishop M’92Ilvaine.’94 The victory is to those who put God first. But as we want a battle-cry suited to all sects of religionists, and to all lands, I nominate as the battle-cry of Christendom in the approaching Armageddon the words of my text, sounded before the ark as it was carried to Mount Zion: ’93Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered.’94

As far as our finite mind can judge, it seems about time for God to rise. Does it not seem to you that the abominations of this earth have gone far enough? Was there ever a time when sin was so defiant? Were there ever before so many fists lifted toward God telling him to come on if he dare? Look at the blasphemy abroad! What towering profanity! Would it be possible for any one to calculate the numbers of times that the name of the Almighty God and of Jesus Christ are every day taken irreverently on the lips? Profane swearing is as much forbidden by the law as theft or arson or murder, yet who executes it? Theft or arson or murder are attacks on humanity; profanity is an attack on God. This country is pre-eminent for blasphemy. A man traveling in Russia was supposed to be a clergyman. ’93Why do you take me to be a clergyman?’94 said the man. ’93Oh,’94 said the Russian, ’93all other Americans swear.’94 The crime is multiplying in intensity. God very often shows what he thinks of it, but for the most part the fatality is hushed up.

Years ago, in a Pittsburgh prison, two men were talking about the Bible and Christianity, and one of them, Thompson by name, applied to Jesus Christ a very low and villainous epithet, and, as he was uttering it, he fell. A physician was called, but no help could be given. After a day lying with distended pupils and palsied tongue, he passed out of this world. In a cemetery in Sullivan county, in New York State, are eight headstones in a line and all alike, and these are the facts: In 1861 diphtheria raged in the village, and a physician was remarkably successful in curing his patients. So confident did he become that he boasted that no case of diphtheria could stand before him, and finally defied Almighty God to produce a case of diphtheria that he could not cure. His youngest child soon after took the disease and died, and one child after another, until all the eight had died of diphtheria. The blasphemer challenged Almighty God, and God accepted the challenge. Do not think that because God has been silent in your case, O profane swearer! that he is dead. Is there nothing now in the peculiar feeling of your tongue, or nothing in the numbness of your brain, that indicates that God may come to avenge your blasphemies, or is already avenging them? But these cases I have noticed, I believe, are only a few cases where there are hundreds. Families keep them quiet to avoid the horrible conspicuity. Physicians suppress them through professional confidence. It is a very, very, very long roll that contains the names of those who died with blasphemies on their lips. Still the crime rolls on, up through parlors, up through chandeliers with lights all ablaze, and through the pictured corridors of club-rooms, out through busy exchanges where oath meets oath, and down through all the haunts of sin, mingling with the rattling dice and crackling billiard-balls, and the laughter of her who hath forsaken the covenant of her God; and ’91round the city, and ’91round the continent, and ’91round the earth a seething, boiling surge flings its hot spray into the face of a long-suffering God. And the ship-captain curses his crew and the master-builder his men and the hack-driver his horse; and the traveler the stone that bruises his foot or the mud that soils his shoes or the defective timepiece that gets him too late to the rail-train. I arraign profane swearing and blasphemy, two names for the same thing, as being one of the gigantic crimes of this land, and for its extirpation it does seem as if it were about time for God to arise.

Then look for a moment at the evil of drunkenness. Whether you live in Washington or New York or Chicago or Cincinnati or Savannah or Boston or in any of the cities of this land, count up the saloons on that street as compared with the saloons five years ago, and see they are growing far out of proportion to the increase of the population. You people who are so precise and particular lest there should be some imprudence and rashness in attacking the rum traffic will have your son some night pitched into your front door dead drunk, or your daughter will come home with her children because her husband has, by strong drink, been turned into a demoniac. The drink fiend has despoiled whole streets of good homes in all our cities. Fathers, brothers, sons on the funeral pyre of strong drink! Fasten tighter the victims! Stir up the flames! Pile on the corpses! More men, women, and children for the sacrifice! Let us have whole generations on fire of evil habit; and at the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer let all the people fall down and worship King Alcohol, or you shall be cast into the fiery furnace under some political platform! I indict this evil as the regicide, the fratricide, the patricide, the matricide, the uxoricide of the century. Yet under what innocent and delusive and mirthful names alcoholism deceives the people! It is a ’93cordial.’94 It is ’93bitters.’94 It is an ’93eye-opener.’94 It is an ’93appetizer.’94 It is a ’93digester.’94 It is an ’93invigorator.’94 It is a ’93settler.’94 It is a ’93nightcap.’94 Why don’92t they put on the right labels’97’94Essence of Perdition,’94 ’93Conscience Stupefier,’94 ’93Five Drachms of Heart-ache,’94 ’93Tears of Orphanage,’94 ’93Blood of Souls,’94 ’93Scabs of an Eternal Leprosy,’94 ’93Venom of the Worm that Never Dies?’94 Only once in a while is there anything in the title of liquors to even hint their atrocity, as in the case of ’93sour mash.’94 That I see advertised all over. It is an honest name, and any one can understand it. ’93Sour mash!’94 That is, it makes a man’92s disposition sour, and his associations sour, and his prospects sour; and then it is good to mash his body, and mash his soul, and mash his business, and mash his family. ’93Sour mash!’94 One honest name at last for an intoxicant! But through lying labels of many of the apothecaries’92 shops, good people, who are only a little under tone in health, and wanting some invigoration, have unwittingly got on their tongue the fangs of this cobra that stings to death so large a ratio of the human race.

Others are ruined by the common and all-destructive habit of treating customers. And it is a treat on their coming to town and a treat while the bargaining progresses and a treat when the purchase is made and a treat as he leaves town. Others, to drown their troubles, submerge themselves with this worse trouble. Oh, the world is battered and bruised and blasted with this growing evil! It is more and more intrenched and fortified. They have millions of dollars subscribed to marshal and advance the alcoholic forces. They nominate and elect and govern the vast majority of the office-holders of this country. On their side they have enlisted the mightiest political power of the centuries. And behind them stand all the myrmidons of the nether world, Satanic, Apollyonic and diabolic. It is beyond all human effort to overthrow this Bastile of decanters or capture this Gibraltar of rum jugs. And while I approve of all human agencies of reform, I would utterly despair if we had nothing else. But what cheers me is that our best troops are yet to come. Our chief artillery is in reserve. Our greatest commander has not yet fully taken the field. If all hell is on their side, all heaven is on our side. Now ’93Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered.’94

Then look at the impurities of these great cities. Ever and anon there are in the newspapers explosions of social life that make the story of Sodom quite respectable; ’93for such things,’94 Christ says, ’93were more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah’94 than for the Chorazins and Bethsaidas of greater light. It is no unusual thing in our cities to see men in high positions with two or three families, or refined ladies willing solemnly to marry the very swine of society, if they be wealthy. The Bible all aflame with denuncination against an impure life, but many of the American ministry uttering not one point-blank word against this iniquity lest some old libertine throw up his church pew. Machinery organized in all the cities of the United States and Canada by which to put yearly in the grinding-mill of this iniquity thousands of the unsuspecting of the country farmhouses, one procuress confessing in the courts that she had supplied the infernal market with one hundred and fifty victims in six months. Oh! for five hundred newspapers in America to swing open the door of this lazar-house of social corruption! Exposure must come before extirpation. While the city van carries the scum of this sin from the prison to the police court, morning by morning, it is full time, if we do not want high American life to become like that of the court of Louis XV, to put millionaire Lotharios and the Pompadours of your brownstone palaces into a van of popular indignation, and drive them out of respectable associations. What prospect of social purification can there be, as long as at summer watering-places it is usual to see a young woman of excellent rearing, stand and simper and giggle and roll up her eyes sideways before one of those first-class satyrs of fashionable life, and on the ballroom floor join him in the dance’97the maternal chaperon meanwhile beaming from the window on the scene? Matches are made in heaven, they say. Not such matches; for the brimstone indicates the opposite region.

The evil is overshadowing all our cities. By some these immoralities are called peccadilloes, gallantries, eccentricities, and are relegated to the realms of jocularity, and few efforts are being made against them. God bless the ’93White Cross’94 movement, as it is called’97an organization making a mighty assault on this evil! God forward the tracts on this subject distributed by the religious tract societies of the land! God help parents in the great work they are doing, in trying to start their children with pure principles! God help all legislators in their attempt to prohibit this crime!

But is this all? Then it is only a question of time when the last vestige of purity and home will vanish out of sight. Human arms, human pens, human voices, human talents are not sufficient. I begin to look up. I listen for artillery rumbling down the sapphire boulevards of heaven. I watch to see if in the morning light there be not the flash of descending scimitars. Oh, for God! Does it not seem time for his appearance? Is it not time for all lands to cry out: ’93Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered?’94

I got a letter asking me if I did not think that the earthquake in one of our cities was the Divine chastisement on that city for its sins. That letter I answered by saying that if all our American cities got all the punishment they deserve for their horrible impurities, the earth would long ago have cracked, opening crevices transcontinental, and taken down all our cities so far under that the tip of our church spires would be five hundred feet below the surface. It is of the Lord’92s mercies that we have not been consumed.

Not only are the affairs of this world so a-twist, a-jangle and racked, that there seems a need of the Divine appearance, but there is another reason. Have you not noticed that in the history of this planet God turns a leaf about every two thousand years? God turned a leaf, and this world was fitted for human residence. About two thousand more years passed along and God turned another leaf, and it was the Deluge. About two thousand more years passed on, and it was the Nativity. Almost two thousand more years passed by, and he will probably soon turn another leaf. What it shall be I cannot say. It may be the demolition of all these monstrosities of turpitude, and the establishment of righteousness in all the earth. He can do it, and he will do it. I am as confident as if it were already accomplished. How easily he can do it, my text suggests. It does not ask God to hurl a great thunderbolt of his power, but just to rise from the throne on which he sits. Only that will be necessary. ’93Let God arise!’94 It will be no exertion of omnipotence. It will be no bending or bracing for a mighty lift. It will be no sending down the sky of the white horse cavalry of heaven or rumbling war chariots. He will only rise. Now he is sitting in the majesty and patience of his reign. He is from his throne watching the mustering of all the forces of blasphemy and drunkenness and impurity and fraud and Sabbath-breaking, and when they have done their worst, and are most surely organized, he will bestir himself and say: ’93My enemies have denied me long enough, and their cup of iniquity is full. I have given them all opportunity for repentance. This dispensation of patience is ended, and the faith of the good shall be tried no longer.’94 And now God begins to rise, and what mountains give way under his right foot, I know not; but, standing in the full radiance and grandeur of his nature, he looks this way and that, and how his enemies are scattered! Blasphemers, white and dumb, reel down to their doom; and those who have trafficked in that which destroys the bodies and souls of men and families will fly with cut feet on the down grade of broken decanters; and the polluters of society, who did their bad work with large fortunes and high social sphere, will overtake in their descent the degraded rabble of underground city life, as they tumble over the eternal precipices; and the world shall be left clear and clean for the friends of humanity and the worshipers of Almighty God. The last thorn plucked off, the world will be left a blooming rose on the bosom of that Christ who came to gardenize it. The earth that stood snarling with its tigerish passion, thrusting out its raging claws, shall lie down a lamb at the feet of the Lamb of God, who took away the sins of the world.

And now the best thing I can wish for you, and the best thing I can wish for myself, is, that we may be found his warm and undisguised and enthusiastic friends in that hour when God shall rise and his enemies shall be scattered.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage