280. A Poor Investment
A Poor Investment
Isa_52:3 : ’93Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.’94
The Lord’92s people had gone headlong into sin, and as a punishment they had been carried captive to Babylon. They found that iniquity did not pay. Cyrus seized Babylon, and felt so sorry for these poor captives that, without a dollar of compensation, he let them go home. So that, literally, my text was fulfilled: ’93Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.’94
There is enough Gospel in this text for fifty sermons. There are persons here who have, like the people of the text, sold out. You do not seem to belong either to yourselves or to God. The title-deeds have been passed over to the ’93world, the flesh, and the devil,’94 but the purchaser never paid up. ’93Ye have sold yourselves for nought.’94
When a man passes himself over to the world he expects to get some adequate compensation. He has heard the great things that the world does for a man, and he believes it. He wants two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That will be horses and houses and a summer resort and jolly companionship. To get it he parts with his physical health by overwork. He parts with his conscience. He parts with much domestic enjoyment. He parts with opportunities for literary culture. He parts with his soul. And so he makes over his entire nature to the world. He does it in four instalments. He pays down the first instalment, and one-fourth of his nature is gone. He pays down the second instalment, and one-half of his nature is gone. He pays down the third instalment, and three-quarters of his nature are gone; and after many years have gone by he pays down the fourth instalment, and lo! his entire nature is gone. Then he comes up to the world and says: ’93Good-morning, I have delivered to you the goods. I have passed over to you my body, my mind and my soul, and I have come now to collect the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.’94 ’93Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?’94 says the world. ’93What do you mean?’94 ’93Well,’94 you say, ’93I come to collect the money you owe me, and I expect you to fulfill your part of the contract.’94 ’93But,’94 says the world, ’93I have failed. I am bankrupt. I cannot possibly pay that debt. I have not for a long while expected to pay it.’94 ’93Well,’94 you then say, ’93Give me back the goods.’94 ’93Oh, no,’94 says the world, ’93they are all gone. I cannot give them back to you.’94 And there you stand on the confines of eternity, your spiritual character gone, staggering under the consideration that ’93you have sold yourself for nought.’94
I tell you the world is a liar; it does not keep its promises. It is a cheat, and it fleeces everything it can put its hands on. It is a bogus world. It is a six-thousand-year-old swindle. Even if it pays the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for which you contracted, it pays them in bonds that will not be worth anything in a little while. Just as a man may pay down ten thousand dollars in hard cash and get for it worthless scrip’97so the world passes over to you the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in that shape which will not be worth a farthing to you a thousandth part of a second after you are dead. ’93Oh,’94 you say, ’93it will help to bury me anyhow.’94 Oh, my brother! you need not worry about that. The world will bury you soon enough from sanitary considerations.
Post-mortem emoluments are of no use to you. The treasures of this world will not pass current in the future world; and if all the wealth of the Bank of England were put in the pocket of your shroud, and you in the midst of the Jordan of death were asked to pay three cents for your ferriage, you could not do it. There comes a moment in your existence beyond which all earthly values fail; and many a man has wakened up in such a time to find that he has sold out for eternity, and has nothing to show for it. I should as soon think of going to a street peddler to buy silk pocket-handkerchiefs with no cotton in them, as to go to this world expecting to find any permanent happiness. It has deceived and deluded every man who has ever put his trust in it.
History tells us of one who resolved that he would have all his senses gratified at one and the same time, and he expended thousands of dollars on each sense. He entered a room, and there were the first musicians of the land pleasing his ear, and there were fine pictures fascinating his eye, and there were costly aromatics regaling his nostril, and there were the richest meats and wines and fruits and confections pleasing the appetite, and there was a soft couch of sinful indulgence on which he reclined; and the man declared afterward that he would give ten times what he had given if he could have one week of such enjoyment, even though he lost his soul by it! Ah! that was the rub! He did lose his soul by it! Cyrus the Conqueror thought for a little while that he was making a fine thing out of this world, and yet before he came to his grave he wrote out this pitiful epitaph for his monument: ’93I am Cyrus. I occupied the Persian Empire. I was king over Asia. Begrudge me not this monument.’94 But the world in after years plowed up his sepulcher.
The world clapped its hands and stamped its feet in honor of Charles Lamb; but what does he say? ’93I walk up and down, thinking I am happy, but feeling I am not.’94 Call the roll, and be quick about it. Samuel Johnson, the learned! Happy? ’93No. I am afraid I shall some day get crazy.’94 William Hazlitt, the great essayist! Happy? ’93No. I have been for two hours and a half going up and down Paternoster Row with a volcano in my breast.’94 Smollet, the witty author! Happy? ’93No. I am sick of praise and blame, and I wish to God that I had such circumstances round me that I could throw my pen into oblivion.’94 Buchanan, the world-renowned writer, exiled from his own country, appealing to Henry VIII, for protection! Happy? ’93No. Over mountains covered with snow, and through valleys flooded with rain, I come a fugitive.’94 Moli’e8re, the popular dramatic author! Happy? ’93No. That wretch of an actor just now recited four of my lines without the proper accent and gesture. To have the children of my brain so hung, drawn and quartered tortures me like a condemned spirit.’94
I went to see a worldling die. As I went into the hall I saw its floor was tessellated, and its wall was a picture-gallery. I found his death-chamber adorned with tapestry until it seemed as if the clouds of the setting sun had settled in the room. The man had given forty years to the world’97his wit, his time, his genius, his talent, his soul. Did the world come in to stand by his death-bed, and clearing off the vials of bitter medicine, put down any compensation? Oh, no! The world does not like sick and dying people, and leaves them in the lurch. It ruined this man, and then left him. He had a magnificent funeral. All the ministers wore scarfs, and there were forty-three carriages in a row; but the departed man appreciated not the obsequies.
I want to persuade you that this world is a poor investment; that it does not pay ninety per cent. of satisfaction, nor eighty per cent., nor twenty per cent., nor two per cent., nor one; that it gives no solace when a dead babe lies on your lap; that it gives no peace when conscience rings its alarm; that it gives no explanation in the day of dire trouble; and at the time of your decease it takes hold of the pillow-case, and shakes out the feathers, and then jolts down in the place thereof sighs and groans and execrations, and then makes you put your head on it. Oh, ye who have tried this world, is it a satisfactory portion? Would you advise your friends to make the investment? No. ’93Ye have sold yourselves for nought.’94 Your conscience went. Your hope went. Your Bible went. Your heaven went. Your God went. When a sheriff under a writ from the courts sells a man out, the officer generally leaves a few chairs and a bed, and a few cups and knives; but in this awful vendue in which you have been engaged the auctioneer’92s mallet has come down upon body, mind and soul: Going! Gone! ’93Ye have sold yourselves for nought.’94
How could you do so? Did you think that your soul was a mere trinket which for a few pennies you could buy in a toy shop? Did you think that your soul, if once lost, might be found again if you went out with torches and lanterns? Did you think that your soul was short-lived, and that, panting, it would soon lie down for extinction? Or had you no idea what your soul was worth? Did you ever put your forefingers on its eternal pulses? Have you not felt the quiver of its peerless wing? Have you not known that, after leaving the body, the first step of your soul reaches to the stars, and the next step to the farthest outposts of God’92s universe, and that it will not die until the day when the everlasting Jehovah expires? Oh, my brother, what possessed you that you should part with your soul so cheap? ’93Ye have sold yourselves for nought.’94
But I have some good news to tell you. I want to engage in a litigation for the recovery of that soul of yours. I want to show that you have been cheated out of it. I want to prove, as I will, that you were crazy on that subject, and that the world, under such circumstances, had no right to take the title-deed from you; and if you will join me I shall get a decree from the High Chancery Court of Heaven reinstating you into the possession of your soul. ’93Oh,’94 you say, ’93I am afraid of lawsuits; they are so expensive, and I cannot pay the cost.’94 Then have you forgotten the last half of my text? ’93Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.’94
Money is good for a great many things, but it cannot do anything in this matter of the soul. You cannot buy your way through. Dollars and pounds sterling mean nothing at the gate of mercy. If you could buy your salvation, heaven would be a great speculation, an extension of Wall street. Bad men would go up and buy out the place, and leave us to shift for ourselves. But as money is not a lawful tender, what is? I will answer: Blood! Whose? Are we to go through the slaughter? Oh, no; it wants richer blood than ours. It wants a king’92s blood. It must be poured from royal arteries. It must be a sinless torrent. But where is the king? I see a great many thrones and a great many occupants, yet none seem to be coming down to the rescue. But after a while the clock of night in Bethlehem strikes twelve, and the silver pendulum of a star swings across the sky, and I see the King of Heaven rising up, and he descends, and steps from cloud to cloud, lower and lower, until he touches the sheep-covered hills, and then on to another hill, this last skull-shaped, and there, at the sharp stroke of persecution, a rill incarnadined trickles down, and we who could not be redeemed by money are redeemed by precious and imperial blood.
We have in this day professing Christians who are so rarefied and etherealized that they do not want a religion of blood. What do you want? You seem to want a religion of brains. The Bible says: ’93In the blood is the life.’94 No atonement without blood. Ought not the apostle to know? What did he say? ’93Ye are redeemed not with corruptible things, such as silver and gold, but by the precious blood of Christ.’94 You put your lancet into the arm of our holy religion and withdraw the blood, and you leave it a mere corpse, fit only for the grave. Why did God command the priests of old to strike the knife into the kid and the goat and the pigeon and the bullock and the lamb? It was so that when the blood rushed out from these animals on the floor of the ancient tabernacle the people would be compelled to think of the coming carnage of the Son of God. No blood, no atonement.
’93Oh,’94 says some one, ’93the thought of blood sickens me!’94 Good. God intended it to sicken you with your sin. Do not act as though you had nothing to do with the Calvarean massacre. You had. Your sins were the implements of torture. Those implements were not made of steel and iron and wood, so much as out of our sins. Guilty of this homicide and this regicide and this deicide, confess your guilt today. Ten thousand voices of heaven bring in the verdict against you of guilty, guilty. Prepare to die, or believe in that blood. Stretch yourself out for the sacrifice or accept the Saviour’92s sacrifice. Do not fling away your one chance.
It seems to me as if all heaven were trying to bid in your soul. The first bid it makes is the tears of Christ at the tomb of Lazarus; but that is not a high enough price. The next bid heaven makes is the sweat of Gethsemane; but it is too cheap a price. The next bid heaven makes seems to be the whipped back of Pilate’92s Hall; but it is not a high enough price. Can it be possible that heaven cannot buy you in? Heaven tries once more. It says: ’93I bid this time for that man’92s soul the tortures of Christ’92s martyrdom, the blood on his temple, the blood on his cheek, the blood on his chin, the blood on his hand, the blood on his side, the blood on his knee, the blood on his foot’97the blood in drops, the blood in rills, the blood in pools coagulated beneath the cross; the blood that wet the tip of the soldier’92s spear, the blood that plashed warm in the faces of his enemies.’94 Glory to God, that bid wins it! The highest price that was ever paid for anything was paid for your soul. Nothing could buy it but blood! The estranged property is brought back. Take it. ’93You have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.’94 Oh, atoning blood, cleansing blood, life-giving blood, sanctifying blood, glorifying blood of Jesus! Why not burst into tears at the thought that for thee he shed it’97for thee the hard-hearted, for thee the lost?
’93No,’94 says some one; ’93I will have nothing to do with it except that, like the enemies of Christ, I put both my hands into that carnage and scoop up both palms full, and throw it on my head and cry: ’91His blood be on us and on our children!’92’93 Can you do such a shocking thing as that! Just rub your handkerchief across your brow and look at it. It is the blood of the Son of God whom you have despised and driven back all these years. Oh, do not do that any longer! Come out boldly and frankly and honestly, and tell Christ you are sorry. You cannot afford to so ungratefully treat him upon whom everything depends.
I do not know how you will get away from this subject. You see that you are sold out, and that Christ wants to buy you back. There are three persons who come after you today: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. They unite their three omnipotences in one movement for your salvation. You will not take up arms against the Triune God, will you? Is there enough muscle in your arm for such a combat? By the highest throne in heaven, and by the deepest chasm in hell, I beg you look out. Unless you allow Christ to carry away your sins, they will carry you away. Unless you allow Christ to lift you up, they will drag you down. There is only one hope for you, and that is the blood. Christ, the sin-offering, bearing your transgressions. Christ, the surety, paying your debts. Christ, the divine Cyrus, loosening your Babylonish captivity.
Would you not like to be free? Here is the price of your liberation’97not money, but blood. I tremble from head to foot, not because I fear your presence, but because I fear that you will miss your chance for immortal rescue. This is the alternative divinely put: ’93He that believeth on the Son shall have everlasting life; and he that believeth not on the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.’94 In the last day, if you now reject Christ, every drop of that sacrificial blood, instead of pleading for your release as it would have pleaded if you had repented, will plead against you.
O Lord God of the judgment day! avert that calamity! Let us see the quick flash of the simitar that slays the sin but saves the sinner. Strike, omnipotent God, for the soul’92s deliverance! Beat, O eternal sea! with all thy waves again the barren beach of that rocky soul, and make it tremble. Oh, the oppressiveness of the hour, the minute, the second, on which the, soul’92s destiny quivers, and this is that hour, that minute, that second!
Some years ago there came down a fierce storm on the seacoast, and a vessel got in the breakers and was going to pieces. They threw up some signal of distress, and the people on shore saw them. They put out in a lifeboat. They came on, and they saw the poor sailors, almost exhausted, clinging to a raft; and so afraid were the boatmen that the men would give up before they got to them, they gave them three rounds of cheers, and cried: ’93Hold on, there! hold on! We’92ll save you!’94 After a while the boat came up. One man was saved by having the boat-hook put in the collar of his coat; and some in one way and some in another; but they all got into the boat. ’93Now,’94 says the captain, ’93for the shore. Pull away now, pull!’94 The people on the land were afraid the lifeboat had gone down. They said: ’93How long the boat stays. Why, it must have been swamped and they have all perished together. And there were men and women on the pier-heads and on the beach wringing their hands; and while they waited and watched, they saw something looming up through the mist, and it turned out to be the lifeboat. As soon as it came within speaking distance the people on the shore cried out: ’93Did you save any of them? Did you save any of them?’94 And as the boat swept through the boiling surf and came to the pier-head, the captain waved his hand over the exhausted sailors that lay flat on the bottom of the boat, and cried: ’93All saved! Thank God! All saved!’94 So may it be today. The waves of your sin run high, the storm is on you, but I cheer you with this Gospel hope. God grant that within the next ten minutes we may row with you into the harbor of God’92s mercy. And when these Christian men gather around to see the result of this service, and the glorified gathering on the pier-heads of heaven to watch and listen, may we be able to report all saved! Young and old, good and bad! All saved! Saved for time. Saved for eternity. ’93And so it came to pass that they all escaped safe to land.’94
Autor: T. De Witt Talmage