497. Arousing Considerations

Arousing Considerations

1Co_15:34 : ’93Awake to righteousness.’94

Starting out on a considerable journey, you turn not to the right, nor to the left, nor stop, but hasten on, mile after mile until you come to the top of the hill. Then you rein in your horse; the horse smokes with the length of the way. We throw the reins on his neck. You take your feet out of the stirrups; you look back over the road you have traveled’97the hill, the valleys, the streams, the bridges; you take out your watch and see how long you have been taking a journey, and then make a calculation of how long it will be before you reach your destination. So it is with us now. No horseman ever spurred on a steed more rapidly than you and I are going up the steeps of life and down its declivities, on and on. But coming to-night upon this mountain-top of privilege, we stop a moment and look back and look forward, and backward upon the way we have traveled, considering what losses we have suffered, what emoluments we have gained, what temptations we have conquered, what sins we have committed, what grace we have received; and then looking forward, we make some estimate of what will probably be the end of our journey before we reach our Father’92s house on high. I put my finger on the pulse of this moment, and I feel that it beats high with stupendous issues. We have started in an existence which will continue after the sun has grown cold in death, and the wrecked and foundered world shall have strewn its timbers on the coast of eternal desolation. How solemn is the question, Where will you and I be after time has passed and the judgment has gone by, and as many years have rolled away as there are stars in the sky, as there are leaves in the forest? Where? where?

A Roman citizen, having saved the life of another Roman citizen, had honors bestowed upon him. He was allowed to sit in the Senate simply because he had saved the life of a man. He was allowed to walk in great processions. When he entered a room it was customary for all the people to rise in his presence because he had saved a man, saved physical life, and nothing but physical life. Would God that you and I might have aspiration after higher honors of saving an immortal soul. God help us, and may the same power which shook the Philippian dungeon shake the foundations of our souls while we come to consider the great thoughts of God and eternity and the dead and the Judgment.

In order that we may awake to righteousness I propose, so far as God may help me, to offer you three or four arousing considerations; and the first arousing consideration is the obstacles in the way of our salvation. Now you all know that is not a wise general who begins by telling his troops they have but little to do, and by depreciating the enemy, and by saying their fortresses are easily overcome, and they are all cowards on the other side. That would be a very foolish general. A wise general tells his troops: ’93There is hard work to be done, there are mighty enemies to be overthrown, there are almost impregnable fortresses to be taken, and I depend upon your heroism. You must do this work. Look at the old flag now, and march on.’94 Well, I will not underrate the obstacles in the way of your salvation. When a man starts out for heaven it is one against a hundred, it is one against a thousand obstacles, it is one against ten thousand. Ay, the obstacles are so great, and the hosts opposing are so numerous, there is no chance at all unless God Almighty help a man. He is sure to be worsted in the conflict unless God shall come to the rescue. Ay, it would be a very foolish thing for me to come here and tell you that the march to heaven is an easy march. Every Christian man in this household of faith would be ready to rise up and testify that I was misrepresenting the matter. Paul said something appropriate when he represented the Christian life as a struggle, war with the world, war with the flesh, war with the devil; and if a man would get away from his sins and start for heaven, he wants divine help, he wants divine rescue. You men know very well what are the ties of worldliness bearing one away from God. You rise in the morning early, you breakfast rapidly, you take the car or the carriage, you come to the ferry; the boat is shoving off; you are in Haste, you leap the chasm; you get on the other end of the boat, you stand outside of the chain, and before the boat has reached the opposite pier you have reached the shore. And so it is with business. Business all the time. Hurry, hurry! You go to the store, you open your letters, you set the machinery of the store in motion, you have some conversation with the customers, you look over the money market. There are a score of practical questions for you to discuss. You go from duty to duty, from annoyance to annoyance, from gain to gain, from loss to loss, and excepting the few moments you spend at the restaurant for the noonday’92s repast, it is business all the time’97business for this life, and you do not have time to stop and think: ’93I am immortal, and these feet shuffling on the street will soon stop in the march. This great procession going through Broad Street, through Wall Street, through Fulton Street, through all the streets, marching up and down, will halt at the encampment, at the grave’97I am immortal.’94 And that goes on day after day, week after week, year after year; and you know as well as I, you know better than I, that there is a tide of worldliness that has a tendency to bear you away from God and heaven. You are struggling with it every day. Sometimes when you are at the counter with a customer there comes in a thought of a future world’97it just flits in and is gone. As summer swallows come in and whirl two or three times about a room and are gone, so these thoughts of a future life make a few circuits in your soul and vanish.

Then, in addition to all this business which harasses us, and keeps us away from God, there are satanic influences abroad, evil spirits filling the air. They come down to. us, they try to stop us on the march to heaven, they try to take the backbone out of every good resolution, they meet us at the cross-roads and direct us the wrong way, they come down a great line of darkness, and they try to overcome the line of our good resolutions. They try to unhorse every good motive, they try to shatter our faith, and send us into rout and ruin and everlasting disaster. Who has not felt this satanic assault?

Now, my friends, if between us and heaven there are so many obstacles, we should get ready to overcome them. If there is a battle to be fought, let us have it now, and it will not be with one hand, but it will be with both hands, if we are to gain the victory. If we get to heaven it will not be by accident; if we get to heaven it will not be a gliding in, contrary to our own selection. If we get to heaven it will be because we are desirous by God’92s grace to go there, and it will be with the strain of the eye, the sweat of great earnestness on the forehead, and with every passion of our soul exhausting all the heights and depths of our nature, and it will be going up with a blood-red, fire-tipped, heaven-compelling groan: ’93God be merciful to me a sinner.’94

Since there are obstacles in the way, it seems to me that if you and I are wise men we will make the assault at once and start for the kingdom of heaven. These obstacles are a thousand. After a while they will be ten thousand. If we want to strike for heaven, to-night is the time to strike.

But I find another arousing consideration in the value of the soul involved. Theodoric was told by his subjects that they would like to debase some of the national coin. ’93No,’94 said Theodoric, ’93I will not have my face on debased coin.’94 Yet, alas! the image of the Lord Jesus Christ in our souls has sometimes been associated with that which seems to be debased and counterfeit. Oh, this soul, this immortal soul! People talk about vast inheritance. Men will sometimes take you out and show you hundreds of acres. Ah! my friends, you have just to fold your arms this way and you cover a vast estate’97a soul deeper than the Ganges, deeper than the Ohio, deeper than the Mississippi, deeper than the ocean depth. The depths of this soul beat up in beauty and strength higher than the Atlantic wave against the Eddystone lighthouse. The soul a living soul, a great power like a monster in a cage, racing up and down the cage panting to get free, looking through the bars of the cage, and after a while it will with one stroke overcome the shackles, and with another stroke it will break down the cage, and with one leap it will reach the eternal hills. Oh, the soul! Death cannot kill it, the grave cannot hide it, eternity cannot exhaust it. The soul! How shall I represent its value? Shall I compare it to a mine of gold and silver? Oh, no! The gold and silver are limited; they will be worth nothing; they will be worth nothing more in the last fire than the scoria spit out from Cotopaxi. But these treasures of the soul will last as long as heaven has vases to hold them. Oh, the soul! Let us weigh it; let us lift the balance of the sanctuary; let these scales be well adjusted, the two sides just even, and then on one side of that scale we put a soul, nothing but a soul, an immortal soul. On the other side we put the world with all its honors and emoluments; we put the entire universe on that side. But that side rises and the other side comes down with a jerk of a thousand ton weight; the soul heavier than them all.

What is the thing of greatest price

The whole creation round?

That which was lost in Paradise,

That which in Christ is found.

Another arousing consideration is in the brevity of time afforded us. How long did it take the Brooklyn bridge to be built? It took over thirteen years. No one expects to lift such a structure as that in a year. For vast work you want vast time. How many years was St. Paul’92s in London in building? how many years were the great cathedrals of the world in building? how many years was the Vatican in building? Now here is an immortal nature, here is the temple of truth and righteousness to be constructed. It is a vast edifice. How long will you allow us in this world for the building of this temple of righteousness? A thousand years? Oh, that would seem too short; but we will not have half that, nor four hundred years, nor three hundred, nor one hundred. The average of human life is less than forty years. Oh, the vastness of the work, and yet the brevity of the time in which we are to accomplish it! Like the weaver’92s shuttle; as the eagle hasteth to his prey; a vapor which appeareth for a little time and then vanishes away.

My brother in China said that after the revolution there were a great many lives of the insurgents taken, and he described the machine that was invented and put into the work by which, as quick as that (beating his hand), the lives of the insurgents perished stroke after stroke. Yet how much more rapidly men go into the eternal world! While I speak another, another, another, another’97great waves of humanity dashing up on the ocean beach of eternity. Every beat of the heart says Be quick. Every cough, every pain says Be quick. ’93What thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might.’94

Eternity! how near it rolls;

Count the vast value of your souls;

Beware, and count the awful cost,

What they have gained whose souls are lost.

Another arousing consideration is the glory to be won. You have noticed, I suppose, how often Paul was drawing comparisons from the ancient games’97from the race, for instance; and he seemed to set forth the idea that in proportion as the prize was large the race was swift. Let two horses go into the race. If the prize be very large, the riders will urge on the horses to unwonted speed. If two steamers start from New York to Liverpool, and it is known that the one that goes the quicker shall have the job of carrying the United States mail, how swift is the passage of those steamers! The prize is so great! Now look at the prize which Christ holds for us in the Gospel. Ought we not to spur on with all velocity? ought we not to accelerate our speed toward the prize to be won? I cannot out of the rubbish of poor human language make a wreath that will give you any idea of the glory that remains for God’92s dear children. How is that passage: ’93They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall lead them to living fountains of water, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.’94 What a rest for tired people! What eternal health for all sick people! What a palace for those who in the world were abandoned! Oh, heaven, sweet heaven, beautiful heaven, glorious heaven’97heaven where our friends are, heaven where Christ is, heaven where we expect to be!

Behold the saints, beloved of God!

Washed are their robes in Jesus’92 blood;

Brighter than angels, lo, they shine,

Their glories splendid and sublime.

My soul anticipates the day,

Would stretch her wings and soar away

To aid the song, the palm to bear,

And bow, the chief of sinners, there.

But I find another arousing consideration in the fact that so many have made shipwreck who had the same chance we have. We feel thoughtful about the things of eternity; so did they. We read the Bible; so did they. We sing the songs of Zion; so did they. We are in the house of God to-night; they were here sitting or standing where you sit or stand. And yet somehow they never took the decisive step, and they missed heaven. Now we say a minister of the Gospel takes a great responsibility who says in regard to any one that he loses his soul; because we know not what in the last hour may happen between that soul and Christ. I was at East Hampden, Long Island, just after a vessel’97I think the General Martin’97drove on the rocks and all the crew perished; and in the pocket of one of the crew there was a beautiful letter written by the mother of the lad, in which she said: ’93My dear son, I am praying for you day by day; I wish you would become a Christian. Attend to this matter now.’94 And there were other kind of Christian counsels in the letter. After the lad was washed ashore they found the letter and read it. Now I da not know but that may have been a prodigal son, and that he may have neglected the things of religion until the vessel struck; but I would not dare to take the responsibility of saying, that between the moment when the prow struck the rock and the moment when his soul was launched into eternity, I would not dare to take the responsibility of saying there was not a cry uttered that brought the mercy of God. God is so good and so loving! In the last moment, and in the flash of an instant, I believe his soul may have been saved; but while we cannot say in regard to this or that man; he failed of heaven, I do say when a man lives without God, and makes no profession of faith to Jesus Christ, but goes out of this world seemingly indifferent, you and I do not want to take the same risk. And yet there are many who had the same Gospel advantages that we have, and came as near being saved as some of us are to being saved, and yet failed of the grace of God; and that arouses me up, and ought to arouse up your souls, that some, who had the same advantages as we, have made eternal shipwreck.

The Gospel does not come to destroy; it comes to save. You may have heard of Pertinax, a prominent man in Rome, who one night heard a loud rapping at his door, and supposing that assassins had come to take his life, with great courage he opened the door, and said: ’93I suppose you have come to take my life? ’93No,’94 said the men who rapped at the door, ’93just now the king died of paralysis, and we have come to offer you the throne.’94 He went out and he took the throne and the sceptre. What a surprise it was to him! Now I have to tell you the Gospel does not come to cast down, it does not come to bemean, it does not come to cut to pieces; it comes to enthrone, to empalace your immortal soul; and the only question is whether the people will accept the enthronement and the elevation. There is nothing that ennobles one’92s character like the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hear it, young man, hear it. Christ this night does not propose to cast you down; he proposes to lift you up. Will you accept this Gospel? I have preached it to you a good many years, and still the people come to hear it, and I have said to myself: ’93It is not because I smooth over the truth; it is because the people want to be saved.’94 The Holy Spirit is brooding over our souls. The cross is lifted, the banquet spread, and everything ready; and all you have to do is to come in and sit down at it. Ho, every one that thirsteth, take the chalice of God’92s mercy. O ye prodigals, come up from the swine-feeding! Have on your hand to-night the ring of Divine affection. Take the robe of Christ’92s righteousness. Sit down and let there be joy on earth and joy in heaven, because the dead are alive again, and because the lost are found.

’93Oh,’94 says some one, ’93you do not know where I came from; you do not know what my history has been; you do not know where I was last night; you do not know how I have gone through the whole catalogue of iniquity.’94 Well, brother, I do not give you a cautious invitation. You see I do not measure my words in this connection. I say, whosoever, whosoever. I swing the gate wide open from wall to wall, so that the whole audience may go en masse. If you only understood the tenderness of my God! If you only knew what a soft pillow the Divine promises make for a weary head! If you only knew what beauty there is in this Gospel! There would not a man go out of the house unblessed. It does not make any difference whether you came in here to criticise the preacher or to spend an hour which was heavy on your hands. It does not make any difference why you came, if you only accept the Lord Jesus Christ now, once and forever.

In that gallery yonder there was a young man who had the plague of sin upon him. He came in one Sunday night. I swung the censer of the Gospel that night, and its fragrance reached his soul, and he yielded himself to God there and then, and he went home and he said to his father, ’93Father, I have become a Christian.’94 And he said to his sister the next day, ’93I have become a Christian.’94 He went down to the bank in Wall Street, and he said to those that were engaged in the same service in the bank, ’93I have become a Christian,’94 and he marched right up from one Christian attainment to another. He had been, I think, only twelve months serving God in this world when the Lord took him. He only breathed hard twice, and then he entered upon the joys of eternity. That young man had the world bright before him. He knew what its hilarities were; he had gone through all kinds of merriment and yet lived long enough to testify to the young men of this church that there is no joy like the joy of serving God. And it is my ambition to-night to have this great host of young men to take Christ for their eternal portion.

Young men, the world does not understand your trials, and when you go astray they do not offer you any sympathy. While others get solace, you go on with no one to comfort you; and I am the man to comfort you, to tell you of the Lord Jesus, who himself was a young man, and died while he was a young man that he might win the heart of every young man. At the battle of Manassas a man fell wounded, and he could not speak, for the bullet had pierced his tongue; and so he beckoned to a comrade to come. He motioned for a piece of paper. The paper was brought to him in his dying moments. He then took his finger, for he had no pen, and put it to the blood on his tongue, and wrote out on the paper, ’93Dear father, meet me in heaven’94; and then he tried to sign his name, but his strength failed, and he was gone. I do not know whether that father ever received the message. I do know that if he did receive the message it must have been an overpowering message from a dying child. And I have to tell you of a more tender and overwhelming message for your soul to-night, written in blood. The Son of God, dipping his own finger in the blood of his own heart, the blood of his own foot, the blood of his own brow, the blood of his own life wrote out this invitation, ’93Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’94 Who is there that does not want rest? To whom is life not a struggle? Who always has it easy? Who here has never wept? Where is the heart that has never been broken? ’93I will give you rest.’94 Oh, take that rest now. Get both your feet on the Rock of Ages, and let the waves dash. All is well. They who are in Christ shall never be put to confusion. You have often heard how the preachers in their sermons sometimes close with a grand peroration, piling comparison upon comparison, and simile upon simile, until it is grand and majestic. The peroration of my sermon to-night is five words’97five words chosen out of the one hundred and fourteen thousand words of our language, as words most impressive and stupendous. Five words! Who can measure the height of them? Who can plummet the depth of them? Five, all-suggestive words. God’97Christ’97Heaven’97Hell’97Judgment.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage