415. Kind Compulsion

Kind Compulsion

Luk_14:23 : ’93And compel them to come in.’94

The plainest people in our day have luxuries which the kings and queens of olden time never enjoyed. I walked up and down the stairs of Holyrood Palace’97a palace that was considered one of the wonders of the world’97and I said, ’93Can it be possible that this is all that there was of this reputed wonderful place?’94 And this is the case in many other instances. There are fruits in Westchester County and on Long Island farms far better than the pomegranates and apricots of Bible times.

Through all the ages there have been scenes of festivity. The wealthy man of my text plans a great entertainment, and invites his friends. If one builds a beautiful home, he wants his acquaintances to come and enjoy it. If one buys an exquisite picture, he wants his friends to come and appreciate it; and it was a laudable thing when the wealthy man of my text, happy himself, wanted to make other people happy. And so the invitations went out; but something went very much wrong. You can imagine the embarrassment of any one who has provided a grand feast when he finds out that the guests invited do not intend to come. There is nothing that so provokes the master of the feast as that.

Well, these people invited to this great banquet of the text made most frivolous excuses. The fact was, I suppose, that some of them were offended that this man had succeeded so much better in the world than they had. There are people in all occupations and professions who consider it a wrong to them that anybody else is advanced. I suppose these people invited to the feast said among themselves: ’93We are not going to administer to that man’92s vanity; he is proud enough now; we will not go; beside that, we could all give parties if we made our money the way that man makes his.’94

So, when the messengers went out with the invitations, there was a unanimous refusal. One man said: ’93Oh, I have bought a farm, and I must go and look at it!’94 He was a land speculator, and had no business to buy land until he knew about it. A frivolous excuse. Another man said: ’93I have bought five yoke of oxen.’94 The probability is he was a speculator in live-stock. He ought to have known about the oxen before he bought them. Beside that, if he had been very anxious to get to the feast, he could have hooked them up and driven them on the road there. Another frivolous excuse. Another man said: ’93Oh, I have married a wife, and cannot come;’94 when if he had said to his wife, ’93I have an invitation to a splendid dinner; it is highly complimentary to me; I should very much like to go; will you go along with me?’94 she would have said: ’93To be sure I will go.’94 Another frivolous excuse. The fact was that they did not want to go.

’93Now,’94 said the great man of the feast, ’93I will not be defeated in this matter; I have with an honest purpose provided a banquet, and there are scores of people who would like to come, if they were only invited. Here, my man, here, you go out, and when you find a blind man, give him your arm and fetch him in; and when you find a lame man, give him a crutch and fetch him in; and when you find a poor man, tell him that there is a plate for him in my mansion; and when you find some one who is so ragged and wretched that he has never been invited anywhere and does not consider himself fit to come, then, by the kindest tenderness and the most loving invitation any one ever had, compel him to come in.’94

Now, it requires no acuteness on my part, or on your part, to see in all this affair that religion is a banquet. The table was set in Palestine a good many years ago, and the disciples gathered around it, and they thought they would have a good time all by themselves; but while they sat by this table the leaves began to grow and spread, and one leaf went to the east and another leaf went to the west, until the whole earth was covered up with them, and the clusters from the heavenly vineyard were piled up on the board, and the trumpets and harps of eternity made up the orchestra; and as this wine of God is pressed to the lips of a sinning, bleeding, suffering, dying, groaning world, a voice breaks from the heavens, saying: ’93Drink, O friends; yea, drink, O beloved!’94 O blessed Lord Jesus, the best friend I ever had, the best friend any man ever had, was there ever such a table? Was there ever such a banquet?

From the Cross uplifted high,

Where the Saviour deigns to die,

What melodious sounds I hear

Bursting on the ravished ear!

Heaven’92s redeeming work is done,

Come, and welcome; sinner, come.

Religion is a joyous thing. I do not want to hear anybody talk about religion as though it were a funeral. I do not want anybody to whine in the prayer-meeting about the kingdom of God. I do not want any man to roll up his eyes, giving in that way evidence of his sanctity. The men and women of God whom I happen to know, for the most part find religion a great joy. It is exhilaration to the body; it is invigoration to the mind; it is rapture to the soul; it is balm for all wounds; it is light for all darkness; it is harbor from all storms; and though God knows that some of them have trouble enough now, they rejoice because they are on the way to congratulations eternal.

I stopped one nightfall, years ago, at Freyburg, Switzerland, to hear the organ of world-wide celebrity in that place. I went into the cathedral at nightfall. All the accessories were favorable. There was only one light in all the cathedral; and that, a faint taper on the altar. I looked up into the venerable arches, and saw the shadows of centuries; and when the organ awoke, the cathedral awoke, and all the arches seemed to lift and quiver as the music came under them. That instrument did not seem to be made out of wood and metal, but out of human hearts, so wonderfully did it pulsate with every emotion; now laughing like a child, now sobbing like a tempest. At one moment the music would die away until you could hear the cricket chirp outside the wall, and then it would roll up until it seemed as if the surge of the sea and the crash of an avalanche had struck the organ-pipes at the same moment. At one time that night it seemed as if a squadron of saddened spirits going up from earth had met a squadron of descending angels whose glory beat back the woe. Standing there and looking at the dim taper on the altar of the cathedral, I said: ’93How much like many a Christian’92s life! Shadows hover, and sometimes his hope is dim and faint and flickering, like a taper on the altar. But at what time God wills, the heavens break forth with music upon his soul, and the air becomes resonant as the angels of God beat it with their shining sceptres.’94

The Lord God has many fair and beautiful daughters; but the fairest of them all is she whose ways are pleasantness and whose paths are peace! I know some people look back on the family line, and they see they are descended from the Puritans or Huguenots, and they rejoice in that; but I look back on my family line, and I see there is such a mingling and mixture of the blood of all nationalities that I feel akin to all the world; and by the blood of the Son of God, who died for all people, I address you in the bonds of universal brotherhood. I come out as only a servant, bringing an invitation to a party, and I put it into your hand, saying: ’93Come, for all things are now ready,’94 and I urge it upon you and continue to urge it, and, before I get through, I hope, by the blessing of God, to compel you to come in.

We must take care how we give the invitation. I think sometimes we have just gone opposite to Christ’92s command, and we have compelled people to stay out. Sometimes our elaborated instructions have been the hindrance. We graduate from our theological seminaries on stilts, and it takes five or six years before we can come down and stand right beside the great masses of the people, learning their joys, sorrows, victories, defeats. We get our heads so brimful of theological wisdom that we have to stand very straight lest they spill over. Now, what do the great masses of the people care about the technicalities of religion? What do they care about the hypostatic union or the difference between sublapsarian and supralapsarian? When a man is drowning he does not want you to stand by the dock and describe the nature of the water into which he has fallen, and tell him there are two parts hydrogen gas and one of oxygen gas, with its maximum density at thirty-nine degrees F., turning to steam under a common atmospheric pressure of two hundred and twelve degrees. He does not want a chemical lecture on water; he wants a rope. The curse of God on the Church, it seems to me, in this day, is metaphysics. We speak in an unknown tongue in our Sabbath-schools and in our religious assemblages and in our pulpits; and how can people be saved unless they can understand us? We put on our official gowns, and we feel the two silk balloons flapping at the elbows of a preacher give him great sanctity. The river of God’92s truth flows down before us pure and clear as crystal; but we take our theological stick and stir it up and stir it up, until you cannot see the bottom. Oh, for the simplicity of Christ in all our instructions’97the simplicity he practised when standing among the people! He took a lily, and said: ’93There is a lesson of the manner I will clothe you;’94 and, pointing to a raven, said: ’93There is a lesson of the way I will feed you; consider the lilies’97behold the fowls.’94

I think we compel the people to stay out by our church architecture. People come in and they find things angular and cold and stiff, and they go away, never again to come; when the church ought to be a great home-circle, everybody having a hymn-book, giving half of it to the one next him, every one who has a hand to shake hands, shaking hands’97the church architecture and the church surroundings saying to the people: ’93Come in and be at home.’94 Let us all repent of our sins and begin on the other track, and by our heartiness of affection and warmth of manner and imploration of the Spirit of God, compel the people to come in. How shall we lead sinners to accept the Lord’92s invitation? I think we must certainly begin by a holy life. We must be better men, better women, before we can compel the people to come into the kingdom of Jesus Christ. There are fine essays being written in this day about science and religion. I can tell you the best argument in behalf of our holy Christianity: it is a good man, a good woman, a life all consecrated to Christ. No infidel can answer it. Let us by a holy example compel the people to come in! I read of a minister of the Gospel who was very fond of climbing among the Swiss mountains. One day he was climbing among very dangerous places, and thought himself all alone, when he heard a voice beneath him say: ’93Father, look out for the safe path; I am following,’94 and he looked back and he saw that he was climbing not only for himself, but climbing for his boy. Oh, let us be sure and take the safe path! Our children are following; our partners in business are following; our neighbors are following; a great multitude stepping right on in our steps. Exhibit a Christian example, and so by your godly walk compel the people to come in.

I think there is work also in the way of kindly admonition. I do not believe there is a person who, if approached in a kindly and brotherly manner, would refuse to listen. If you are rebuffed, it is because you lack in tact and common sense. But how much effective work there is in the way of kindly admonition! There are thousands of men all round about you who have never had one personal invitation to the cross. Give that one invitation, and you would be surprised at the alacrity with which they would accept it. I have a friend, a Christian physician, who one day became very anxious about the salvation of a brother physician, and so he left his office, went down to this man’92s office, and said: ’93Is the doctor in?’94 ’93No,’94 replied the young man waiting; ’93the doctor is not in.’94 ’93Well,’94 said this physician, ’93when he comes in tell him I called, and give him my Christian love.’94 This worldly doctor came home after a while, and the message was given to him, and he said within himself: ’93What does he mean by leaving his Christian love for me?’94 And he became very much awakened and stirred in spirit, and he said after a while: ’93Why, that man must mean my soul;’94 and he went into his back office, knelt down, and began to pray. Then he took his hat and went out to the office of this Christian physician, and said: ’93What can I do to be saved?’94 and the two doctors knelt in the office and commended their souls to God. All the means used in that case was only the voice of one good man, saying: ’93Give my Christian love to the doctor.’94 The voice of kindly admonition. Have you uttered it today? Will you utter it tomorrow? Will you utter it now? Compel them to come in.

I think there is a great work also to be done in the way of prayer. If we had faith enough today, we could go before God and ask for the salvation of all the people here assembled, and they would all be saved, here and now, without a single exception. There may be professional men here, political men here, worldly men here, men who have not heard the Gospel for twenty years, men who are prejudiced against the preacher, men who are prejudiced against the music, men who are prejudiced against the Church, men who are prejudiced against God’97but they might be brought in by fervent prayer; you could compel them to come in. People of God, lay hold of the horns of the altar now, and supplicate for the salvation of all those who sit in the same pew with you; yea, the redemption of all who now sit in this house. What a momentous hour! God help!

At the close of a religious service, and when the people had nearly all left the building, a pastor saw a little girl with her head bowed on the back of the pew, and, passing down the aisle, he said to himself: ’93The little child has fallen asleep.’94 So he tapped her on the shoulder and said: ’93The service is over.’94 She said: ’93I know it is over; I am praying, sir; I am praying.’94 ’93Well,’94 said the minister, ’93whatsoever ye ask of God, believing, ye will receive.’94 She said: ’93Is that in the Bible?’94 ’93Yes,’94 he said, ’93there is a promise of that kind in the Bible.’94 ’93Well,’94 she said, ’93let me see it.’94 So he turned over the Bible until he came to the promise, and she said: ’93That’92s so, is it? Now, O Lord, bring my father to this church tonight.’94 While she was praying her father passed through the door of the church, and came down by his child and said: ’93What do you want of me?’94 When that child had begun to pray one hour before for her father, he was three miles away; but by some strange impulse that he could not understand, he hastened to the church, and there the twain knelt, the father’92s arm around the child’92s neck, the child’92s arm around the father’92s neck, and there he entered on the road to heaven. ’93Whatsoever ye ask of God, believing, ye will receive.’94 That was an answer to the child’92s prayer. What did she do? She compelled him to come in.

I stand here and tell you, my hearers, of a great salvation. Do you understand what it is to have a Saviour? He took your place. He bore your sins. He wept your sorrows. He is here now to save your soul. A soldier, worn out in his country’92s service, took to the violin as a mode of earning his living. He was found in the streets of Vienna, playing his violin; but after a while his hand became feeble and tremulous, and he could no more make music. One day, while he sat there weeping, a man passed along and said: ’93My friend, you are too old and too feeble; give me your violin;’94 and he took the man’92s violin, and began to discourse most exquisite music, and the people gathered around in larger and larger numbers, and the aged man held his hat, and the coin poured in and poured in until the hat was full. ’93Now,’94 said the man who was playing the violin, ’93put that coin in your pockets.’94 The coin was put in the old man’92s pockets. Then he held his hat again, and the violinist played more sweetly than ever, and played until some of the people wept and some shouted. And again the hat was filled with coin. Then the violinist dropped the instrument and passed off, and the whisper went: ’93Who is it? Who is it?’94 and some one just entering the crowd said: ’93Why, that is Bucher, the great violinist, known all through the realm; yes, that is the great violinist.’94 The fact was, he had just taken that man’92s place and assumed his poverty and borne his burden and played his music and earned his livelihood and made sacrifice for the poor old man. So the Lord Jesus Christ comes down, and he finds us in our spiritual penury, and across the broken strings of his own heart he strikes a strain of infinite music, which wins the attention of earth and heaven. He takes our poverty; he plays our music; he weeps our sorrow; he dies our death. A sacrifice for you; a sacrifice for me. Will you accept it now? I do not go through the audience and single out this man and that man, and this woman and that woman; but I say all may come. The sacrifice is so great, all may be saved. Does it not seem to you as if heaven was very near? I can feel its breath on my cheek. God is near. Christ is near. The Holy Spirit is near. Ministering angels are near. Your glorified kindred near. Your Christian father near. Your glorified mother near. Your departed children near. Your redemption is near.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage