520. The Glorious Gospel

The Glorious Gospel

1Ti_1:11 : ’93According to the glorious Gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.’94

The greatest novelty of our time is the Gospel. It is so old that it is new. As potters and artists are now attempting to fashion pitchers and cups and curious ware like those of nineteen hundred years ago recently brought up from buried Pompeii, and such cups and pitchers and curious ware are universally admired, so anyone who can disinter the real Gospel from the mountains of stuff under which it has been buried, will be able to present something that will attract the gaze and admiration and acceptance of all the people. It is amazing what substitutes have been presented for what my text calls ’93The glorious Gospel.’94 There has been an hemispheric apostasy. There are many people who have no more idea of what the Gospel really is than they have of what is contained in the fourteenth chapter of Zend-Avesta, the Bible of the Parsees, the Fire Worshipers, a copy of which’97the first I ever saw’97I purchased in Calcutta, India, during my visit to that country a few years ago. The old Gospel is fifty feet under, and the work has been done by the shovels of those who have been trying to construct the Philosophy of Religion. There is no philosophy about it. It is a revelation to be accepted as a plain matter of Bible statement and of childlike faith. Some of the theological seminaries have been hotbeds of infidelity, because they have tried to teach the Philosophy of Religion. By the time that the young theological student gets half through his Preparatory Course, he is liable to be so filled with doubts about Plenary Inspiration, and the Divinity of Christ, and the questions of eternal Destiny, that he is more fit for the lowest bench in the infant class of a Sunday-school than to become a teacher and leader of the people. The most useful theological professor is a Christian mother, who, out of her own experience, can tell the four-year-old how beautiful Christ was on earth, and how beautiful he now is in heaven, and how dearly he loves little folks, and then she kneels down and puts one arm around the boy, and with her somewhat faded cheek against the roseate cheek of the little one, consecrates him for time and eternity to him who said: ’93Suffer them to come unto me.’94 What havoc Paul made with the D.D.’92s and the LL.D.’92s and the F.R.S.’92s when he cleared the decks of the old Gospel ship by saying: ’93Not many wise men, not many noble, are called, but God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty’94!

There sits the dear old theologian, with his table piled up with all the great books on Inspiration and Exegesis and Apologetics for the Almighty, and writing out his own elaborate work on the Philosophy of Religion, and his little grandchild coming up to him for a good-night kiss, he accidentally knocks off the biggest book from the table and it falls on the head of the child, of whom Christ himself said: ’93Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise.’94 The Bible wants no apologetics. The Throne of the Last Judgment wants no apologetics. Eternity wants no apologetics. Scientists may tell us that natural light is the ’93propagation of undulations in an elastic medium, and thus set in vibratory motion by the action of luminous bodies’94; but no one knows what Gospel Light is until his own blind eyes by the touch of the Divine Spirit have opened to see the noonday of pardon and peace. Scientists may tell us that natural sound is ’93the effect of an impression made on the organs of hearing by an impulse of the air, caused by a collision of bodies or by other means’94; but those only know what the Gospel sound is who have heard the voice of Christ directly, saying: ’93Thy sins are forgiven thee; go in peace.’94 The theological dude unrolls upon the plush of the exquisitely carved pulpit a learned discourse, showing that the Garden of Eden was an allegory, and Solomon’92s Song a rather indelicate love ditty, and the Book of Job a drama in which Satan was the star actor, and that Renan was three-quarters right about the miracles of Jesus, and that the Bible was gradually evoluted, and that it is the best thought of the different ages, Moses and David and Paul doing the best they could under the circumstances, and therefore to be encouraged. Lord of Heaven and Earth, get us out of the London fog of Higher Criticism!

The night is dark and the way is rough, and we have a Lantern which God has put in our hands, but instead of employing that Lantern to find for ourselves and others the right way, we are discussing lanterns, their shape, their size, their material, and which is the better light’97kerosene, lamp oil, or candle; and while we discuss it, we stand all around the Lantern, so that we shut out the light from the multitudes who are stumbling on the dark mountains of sin and death. Twelve hundred dead birds were found one morning around Bartholdi’92s Statue in New York Harbor. They had dashed their life out against the lighthouse the night before. Poor things! And the great Lighthouse of the Gospel’97how many high-soaring thinkers have beaten all their religious life out against it, while it was intended for only one thing, and that to show all nations the way into the harbor of God’92s mercy, and to the crystalline wharves of the Heavenly City, where the immortals are waiting for new arrivals. Dead skylarks, when they might have been flying seraphs.

Here also come, covering up the old Gospel, some who think they can by law and exposure of crime save the world, and from Portland, Maine, across to San Francisco, and back again to New Orleans and Savannah, many of the ministers have gone into the detective business. Worldly reform, by all means; but unless it be also Gospel reform, it will be dead failure. In New York its chief work has been to give us a change of bosses. Politics will save the cities the same day that Satan evangelizes perdition.

Here comes another class of people who, in pulpit and outside of it, cover up the Gospel with the theory that it makes no final difference what you believe or how you act, you are bound for heaven anyhow. There they sit, side by side, in heaven’97Garfield, and Guiteau, who shot him; Lincoln, and John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated him; Washington, and Thomas Paine, who slandered him; Nana Sahib, and the missionaries, whom he clubbed to death at Cawnpore; Herod, and the children whom he massacred; Paul, and Nero, who beheaded him. As a result of the promulgation of such a mongrel and conglomerate heaven, there are millions of people in Christendom who expect to go straight to heaven from their seraglios, and their inebriation, and their suicides, when among the loudest thunders that break over the basaltic island to which St. John was expatriated, was the one in which God announced that ’93the abominable and the murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars shall have their place in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.’94

I correct what I said when I declared the Gospel was buried fifty feet deep; it is buried a thousand feet deep. Had the glorious Gospel been given full opportunity, I think, before this the world would have had no need of pulpit or sermon or prayer or church, but thanksgiving and hosannas would have resounded in the temple to which the mountains would have been pillars, and the blue skies the dome, and the rivers the baptistery, and all nations the worshipers in the auditorium of the outspread world. But so far from that, as I remarked in my opening sentence, the greatest novelty of our time is the Gospel. And let me say to the hundreds and thousands of educated and talented young men about to enter the Gospel ministry from the theological seminaries of all denominations on this and the other side of the seas, that there is no drawing power like the glorious Gospel. ’93Him hath God lifted up to draw all men unto him.’94 Get your souls charged and surcharged with this Gospel, and you will have large audiences, and will not have to announce, in order to assemble such audiences, a Sunday night sacred concert, with a brief address by the pastor; or the presence of ’93Black Pattis’94 or Creole Minstrels or some new exposure of Tammany or a sermon accompanied by a magic lantern or stereopticon views. The glorious Gospel of the blessed God as spoken of in my text will have more drawing power, and when that Gospel gets full swing it will have a momentum and a power mightier than that of the Atlantic Ocean when under the force of the September equinox it strikes the Highlands of the Navesink.

The meaning of the word ’93Gospel’94 is ’93good news,’94 and my text says it is glorious good news, and we must tell it in our churches and over our dry-goods counters and in our factories and over our threshing machines and behind our ploughs, and on our ships’92 decks, and in our parlors, our nurseries and kitchens, as though it were glorious good news, and not with a dismal drawl in our voice and a dismal look on our faces, as though religion were a rheumatic twinge, or a dyspeptic pang, or a malarial chill, or an attack of nervous prostration. With nine ’93blesseds’94 or ’93happys’94 Christ began his sermon on the Mount: Blessed the poor, blessed the mourner, blessed the meek, blessed the hungry, blessed the merciful, blessed the pure, blessed the peace-makers, blessed the persecuted, blessed the reviled; blessed, blessed, blessed; happy, happy, happy. Glorious good news for the young, as through Christ they may have their coming years ennobled, and for a lifetime all the angels of God their coadjutors and all the armies of heaven their allies. Glorious good news for the middle-aged, as through Christ they may have their perplexities disentangled, and their courage rallied, and their victory over all obstacles and hindrances made forever sure. Glorious good news for the aged, as they may have the sympathy of him of whom St. John wrote: ’93His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow,’94 and the defense of the everlasting arms. Glorious good news for the dying, as they may have ministering spirits to escort them and opening gates to receive them and a sweep of eternal glories to encircle them and the welcome of a loving God to embosom them.

My text is right when it speaks of the glorious Gospel. It is an invitation from the most radiant being that ever trod the earth or ascended the heavens to you and me to come and be made happy, and then take after that a royal castle for everlasting residence, the angels of God our cupbearers. The price paid for all of this on the cliff of limestone about seven minutes’92 walk from the wall of Jerusalem, where with an agony that with one hand tore down the rocks, and with the other drew a midnight blackness over the heavens, our Lord set us forever free. Making no apology for any one of the sins of our life, but confessing all of them, we can point to that cliff of limestone and say, ’93There was paid our indebtedness, and God never collects a bill twice.’94 Glad am I that all the Christian poets have exerted their pens in extolling the matchless One of this Gospel. Isaac Watts, how do you feel concerning him? And he writes, ’93I am not ashamed to own my Lord.’94 Newton, what do you think of this Gospel? And he writes, ’93Amazing grace, how sweet the sound!’94 Cowper, what do you think of it? And the answer comes, ’93There is a fountain filled with blood.’94 Charles Wesley, what do you think of him? And he answers, ’93Jesus, lover of my soul.’94 Horatius Bonar, what do you think of him? And he responds, ’93I lay my sins on Jesus.’94 Ray Palmer, what do you think of him? And he writes, ’93My faith looks up to thee.’94 Fannie Crosby, what do you think of him? And she writes, ’93Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.’94 But I take higher testimony: Solomon, what do you think of him? And the answer is ’93Lily of the valley.’94 Ezekiel, what do you think of him? And the answer is, ’93Plant of renown.’94 David, what do you think of him? And the answer is, ’93My Shepherd.’94 St. John, what do you think of him? And the answer is, ’93Bright and morning star.’94 St. Paul, what do you think of him? And the answer comes, ’93Christ is all in all.’94 Do you think as well of him, O man, O woman of the blood-bought immortal spirit?

Yes, Paul was right when he styled it ’93The glorious Gospel.’94 And then, as a druggist, while you are waiting for him to make up the doctor’92s prescription, puts into a bottle so many grains of this and so many grains of that, and so many drops of this and so many drops of that, and the intermixture taken, though sour or bitter, restores to health: so Christ, the Divine Physician, prepares this trouble of our lifetime, and that disappointment and this persecution, and that hardship and that tear, and we must take the intermixture; yet, though it be a bitter draught, under the divine prescription it administers to our restoration and spiritual health, all things working together for good. Glorious Gospel!

And then the royal castle into which we step out of this life, without so much as soiling our foot with the upturned earth of the grave. ’93They shall reign forever and ever.’94 Does not that mean that you are, if saved, to be kings and queens, and do not kings and queens have castles? But the one that you are offered was for thirty-three years an abandoned castle, though now gloriously inhabited. There is an abandoned royal castle at Amber, India. More than one hundred and seventy years ago a king moved out of it never to return. But the castle still stands, an indescribable grandeur; and you go through brazen doorway after brazen doorway, and carved room after carved room, and under embellished ceiling after embellished ceiling, and through halls precious-stoned into wider halls precious-stoned, and on that hill are pavilions deeply dyed and tasseled and arched, the fire of colored gardens cooled by the snow of white architecture; birds in arabesque so natural to life that while you cannot hear their voices you imagine you see the flutter of their wings while you are passing; walls, pictured with triumphal procession; rooms that were called ’93Alcove of Light,’94 and ’93Hall of Victory’94; marble, white and black, like a mixture of morn and night; alabaster and mother-of-pearl and lacquer-work. Standing before it, the eye climbs from step to latticed balcony, and from latticed balcony to oriel, and from oriel to arch, and from arch to roof, and then descends on ladder of all colors, and by stairs of perfect lines to tropical gardens of pomegranate and pineapple. Seven stories of resplendent architecture! But the royal castle provided for you, if you will only take it on the prescribed terms, is grander than all that, and though an abandoned castle while Christ was here achieving your redemption, is again occupied by the ’93Chief among ten thousand,’94 and some of your own kindred who have gone up, and, waiting for you, are leaning from the balcony. The windows of that castle look off on the king’92s gardens where immortals walk linked in eternal friendship; and the supper is the marriage supper of the Lamb; and there are fountains into which no tear ever fell, and there is music, and there is the kiss of those reunited after long separation. More nerve will we have there than now, or we would swoon away under the raptures. Stronger vision will we have there than now, or our eyesight would be blinded by the brilliance. Stronger ear will we have there than now, or under the roll of that minstrelsy and the clapping of that acclamation and the boom of that hallelujah we would be deafened. Glorious Gospel! You thought religion was a straight-jacket, that it put you on the limits, that thereafter you must go cowed down. No, no, no! It is to be castellated. By the cleansing power of the shed blood of Golgotha set your faces toward the shining pinnacles.

Oh, it does not matter much what becomes of us here’97for at the longest our stay is short’97if we can only land there. You see there are so many I do want to meet there. Joshua, my favorite hero; and John, among the evangelists; and Paul, among the apostles; and Wycliffe, among the reformers; and Bourdaloue, among the preachers; and Dante, among the poets; and Havelock, among the heroes; and our loved ones whom we have so much missed since they left us, so many darlings of the heart, their absence sometimes almost unbearable; and, mentioned in this sentence last of all because I want the thought climateric, our blessed Lord, without whom we could never reach the old castle at all. He took our place. He purchased our ransom. He wept our woes. He suffered our stripes. He died our death. He assured our resurrection. Blessed be his glorious name forever! Surging to his ear be all the anthems! Facing him be all the thrones!

Oh, I want to see it, and I will see it’97the day of his coronation. On a throne already, methinks the day will come when in some great hall of eternity all the nations of earth whom he has conquered by his grace will assemble again to crown him. Wide and high and immense and upholstered as with the sunrises and sunsets of a thousand years, great audience room of heaven. Like the leaves of an Adirondack forest the ransomed multitudes, and Christ standing on a high place surrounded by worshipers and subjects. They shall come out of the farthest past led on by the Prophets; they shall come out of the early Gospel days led on by the Apostles; they shall come out of the centuries still ahead of us, led on by champions of the truth, heroes and heroines yet to be born. And then, from that vastest audience ever assembled in all the universe, there will go up the shout, ’93Crown him! Crown him! Crown him!’94 and the Father who long ago promised this his only-begotten Son, ’93I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession,’94 shall set the crown upon the forehead yet scarred with Crucifixion bramble, and all the hosts of heaven, down on the levels, and up in the galleries, will drop on their knees, crying, ’93Hail, king of earth! King of heaven! King of saints! King of seraphs! Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and to thy dominions there shall be no end! Amen and Amen! Amen and Amen!’94

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage