Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1888 — NONE LIKE JESUS. [ARTICLE]

NONE LIKE JESUS.

FAITH LIFTS US OUT OF THE PIT. And S«U Our Feet on th* Rock of A*»«Jtast As Wo Believe Will Be Our B<ward -Cfcrint Will Never Desert Va. The Rev. Dr. Talmage’s subject Sunday, was “None Like Jesus.” He took for 4>is text “Unto you therefore which believe He is precious.” I. Peter, chap8, verse 7. Following is the sermon: We had for many years in this Country commercial depression. What was the matter with the stores? With the harvests? With the people? 1-ack of faith. Money enough, goods enough, skillful brains chough, industrious enough, but no faith.. Now what damages the commercial damages the spiritual. Our great lack is faith. That is the hinge on which eternity turns. The Bible says we are saved by faith. “0,” save some one in the audience, “I have faith. I believe that Christ came down to save the world.” I reply that in worldly matters when you have faith you always act upon it. For instance, if I could show you a business operation by which you could mak<? SS,(XX) you woulcj jmmediatelv go into it. You would prove your faith in what I tell you by your prompt and immediate action. s»ow, if what you call faith in Chrtst has led you to surrender your entire nature to Jesus and to correspondihg action in life, it is Snuine faith, and if it has not, it is not ith at all. »

There are somethings which I believe with the head. Then there are other things which I believe with the heart. Awl then there are other things which I believe both with the head and heart. I believe, for instance, that Cromwell lived That is a matter of the head. Then there are other things which I believe with the heart and not with the head. That is, I have no especial reason for believing them, and yet I want to believe them, and the wish is the father to the expectation. But there is a very great difference between that which we believe about ourselves and that which we believe about others. For instance, you remember hot a great while ago there was a disaster in Pennsylvania amid the mines; there was an explosion amid the damps, and many lives were lost. In the morning you picked up your newspaper, and saw that there had been a great disaster in Pennsylvania. You said:,“Ah, what a sad thing it is; how many lives lost! O, what sorrow!” Then you read a little further on. There had been an almost miraculous effort to get those men out, and a few had been saved. “Oh,” you said,, “what a brave thing, what a grand thing that was! Howwell it was done!” Then you folded the paper up, and sat down to your morning repast. Your appetite had not been interfered with, and during that day, perhaps, you thought only two or three times of the disaster. But suppose you and I had been in the mihe, and the dying had been all around us, and we had heard the pickaxes jUSt above us as they were trying to work their way down, and after awhile we saw the light, and then the life-bucket let down through the shaffi and suffocated and half dead we Had' just strength enough to throw ourselves into it, and had been hauled out into the light. Then what an appreciation we would have had of the agonv and darkness beneath, and the joy of deliverance. That is the difference between believing a thing about others and believing it about ourselves.

We take up the Bible and read that Christ came to save the world. “That was beautiful,” you say; “afine specimen of self-denial. That was very grand indeed!” But suppose it is found that we ourselves were down in the mine of sin and in the darkness, and Christ stretched down His arm of mercy through the gloom and lifted us out of the pit, and set our feet on the Rock of Ages, and put a new song into our mouth. O, then it is a matter of hand-dapping; it is a matter of congratulation; it is a matter of deep emotions. What kind of' faith have you, my brother? It is faith that makes a Christian, and it is the proportion of faith that makes the difference between Christians. What was it that lifted Paul and Luther and Payson and Doddridge above the ordinary level of Christian character? It was the simplicity, the brilliancy, thepower, and the splendor of their faith. Oh! that we had more of it. God give us more faith to preach, and more faith to hear. First: I remark that Christ is precious to the believer, as a Savior trom sin. A man says: “To whom are you talking? lam one of the most respectable men in this neighborhood; do you call me a sinner? Yes’ “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” You say: “Howdovou know anything about my heart?’’ I know that about'it. for God announces it in His Word; and what God says is always right. When a man becomes a Christian, people say: “That man sets himself above us.’, ’O, no! Instead of setting himself up, he throws himself down. He cries out: “I was lost once, but now lam found. I was blind once, but now I see. I prostrate myself at the foot of the cross of the Savior’s mercy.’’ What a grand thing it is to feel that the bad words I have ever altered, and all the bad deeds I have ever done, and all the bad thoughts that have gone through my mind, are as though they had never’ been, for the sake of what Christ has done. You know there is a "difference in stains. Some can be washed out by water, but others require a chemical preparation. The sin of the heart is so black and indelible a mark that no human application can cleanse it, while the blood of 'Jesus can wash it out forever. Oh, the infinite, the omnipotent chemistry of the Gospel! Some man says: “I believe all that. I believe God hMs-fergiven the most of my sins, but there is one sin I cannot forget.” What is it? Ido not want to know what it is. but I take the responsibility of saving that God will forgive it as willingly as any other sin.

Again I remark that Christ is precious .to the believer as a friend. You have commercial friends and you have family friends. To theeominereiai friend you gtrwhen you have troubles. You can look back to some day—it may have been ten or twenty years ago—when,-it-vou had not had that friend, you would have been entirely over-thrown in business. But I want to tell you this morndng,o£ Jesus, the best—business friend-w man ever hadZ He can pull you out of the worst perplexities. There people in this audience who have got in the habit of putting down all their worldly troubles at the feet of Jesus. Why, Christ meets the business man on the street

and says: “Oh, business man. I know all thy troubles. .1 will be with thee. I will see thee through.” Look out how you try to corner or trample on a man who is backed up by the Lord God Almighty. Look out how you trample on him. O, there is a financier that many of our business men have not found out. Christ owns all the boards of trade, all the insurance companies and all the l*anking houses. They say that the Vanderbilts own the railroadsjbut Christ owns the Vanderbilts and the railroads, and all the plottings of stock gamblers shall be put to confusion, and God with His little finger shall wipe out their infamous projects. How often it has been that we have seen men gather up riches by fraud, in pyramid of strength and Ireauty, and the Lord came and blew on it and it was gone; while there are those here to-day who, if they could speak out in this assemblage, or dared to speak out, would say: “The best friend I had in 1857; the best friend I had at the opening of the war; the best friend I ever had has been the Lord Jesus Christ. I would rather give up all other friends than this one.”

But we have also family friends. They come in when we have sickness in the household. Perhaps they say nothing; but they sit down and they weep as the light goes out from the bright eyes, and the white petals of the lily are scattered in the blast of death. The watch through the long night by the dying couch, and then, when the spirit is gone, soothe vou with great comfort. They say: “Don’t cry, Jesus pities you. Aft is well. You will meet the lost one again.” , Then when your son went off, breaking your heart, did they not come and put the story in the very best shape, and prophesy the return of the prodigal? Were they.not in your house when the birth angel flapped iis wings over your dwelling? And they have been there at the baptisms and at "the weddings. Fam? ily friends! But I havfe to tell you that Christ is the best family friend. O, blessed is that cradle over which Jesus bends! Blessed is that nursery where Jesus walks! Blessed is that sick brow from which Jesus wipes the dampness! Blessed is that table where Jesus breaks the bread!; Blessed is that grave where Jesus Stands with His scarred feet on the upturned sod, saying: “I am the resurrection and the life; he that belieyeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live!” Have you a babe in the house? put it into t lie arms of the great Childover. Is there a sick one in the house? Think of Him who said: “Damsel, arise.” Are you afraid you will come to w ant? Think of Him who fed the five thousand. Is there a little one in your house that you are afraid will be blind, or deaf, or ame? Think of Him who touched the blinded eye and snatched back the boy from epileptic convulsion. Oh, he is the best friend.

Look over your family friends to-doy and find another that can be compared to him. When we want our friends thev are sometimes out of town. Christ is always in town. We find that some stick to us in prosperity who Will not in adversity. But Christ comes through "darkest night, and amid ghastliest sorrow, and across, roughest sea, to comfort you. There are men and women here who would, have been dead twenty years ago but for Jesus. They have gone through trial enough to exhaust ten times their physical strength. Their property.went, their health went, their families were scattered. God onlv knows what they suffered. They are an amazement to themselves that they have been able to stand it. They looked at their once happy home, surrounded by all comforts. Gone! They think of the time when they used to rise strong in the morning and walk vigorously down the street, and had experienced a health they thought inexhaustible. Everything gone but Jesus. • He has pitied them. His eye has watched them. His omnipotence has defended them. Y’es, He has been with them. They have gone through disaster, and He was a pillar of fire by night. They have gone across stormy Galilee, but ’ Christ had His foot on the neck of the storm. They felt the waves of trouble coming up around them gradually, and they began to climb into the strong rock of Gcal's defense, and then they sang, as they looked over the waters: “God is our ’ refuge and strength, an ever present help in time of trouble; therefore, we will not fear, though the earth be removed, though the mountains be carried into the midst of tire sea, though tne waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.”

I remark again: Christ is precious to the believer as a final deliverer. You and I must after awhile get out of the world. Here and there one perhaps may come on to eighty, to ninety years of age, but your common sense tells you that the next twenty-five yearsdvlH larid the majority of this audience in eternity. The next ten years will thin out a great, many of the family circles. This day may do the w’ork for some di us. Now why do I say this? To scare you? No; but just as I -ivould-stand in your office, if I were a business man and you were a businessman, and talk over risks. You do not,consider it cowardly to talk in your store over temporal risks. s it base in us this morning to talk a little while oyer the risks of the soul that are for eternity? In every congregation death has the last year been doing a great deal of work. Where is your father? Where is your mother? Your child? Your brother? Your sister? O, how cruel does death seem to be! Will he pluck every flower? Will he poison even- fountain? Will he put black on every door-knob?. Will he snap every heart-string? Can I keep nothing? Are thereno charmed weapons with which to go out and contend against him?-Give me some keen sword, sharpened in God’s ifrmory, with which I may stab him through. a Give me some battle-ax that I may clutch it and hew him from -helmet to sandal! Thank God! thank God! that he thatrideth on the pale horse hath more thana match in Him who rideth the white home. St. John heard the contest, the pawing of the steeds, the rush, the battle-cry, the onset, until the pale horse came down on his haunches and his rider bit the dust, while Christ, the conqueror, with uplifted voice declared it: ‘'< ffi. Drath, I will be thy plague; Oh, Grave, I will be thy de’struction.” —The scpukhei heft-lighted-castle outlie sh °re of heavenly seas, and sentinel I angels walk up and down at the door to guan I it. The dust and the dampness of -t.htL- grave are ~ only a spray <>f the white surt of celestial seas, and the long breathing_of the dying that you cal! his gaspmg.'iß oirly the Inhalation of the air of heaven. Oh, bless God, for what Christ is to the Christian soul, here and hereafter!

I heard a man say some time ago that they never laugh in heaven. I do not know where he got his authority for that. I think they do langliJn heaven. When victors come home, do we not laugh? When fortunes are won in a day, do not we laugh? After we have been ten or fifteen years away from our friends and we greet them again, do we not laugh? Yes, we will laugh in heaven. Not hollow laughter—not meaningless laughter, but a full, round, clear, deep, resonant outbreak of eternal gladness. Off! the glee of that moment when we first see Jesus. I think we will take the first two or three years in heaven to look at Jesus; and if, in ten thousand years,there should be a moment when the doxology paused ten thousand souls would cry out: “Sing! Sing!” and when the cry was: “What sbuall we sing?” the answer „ would be: “Jesus! Jesus!” Oh! you may have all the crowns in heaven; I do not care so much about them. You may have all the robes in heaven; I do not care so much about them. You may have all the scepters in heayen; I do not care so much about them. You may have all the thrones in heaven; I do not care so much about them. But give me Jesus -T-thaHtf’fenough heaven for me. Oht Jesus,. I long to see Thee.’ “chief among ten thousand, the, One altogether lovely.”

Lord Jesus, help that man. He site far back to-day. He does not like to come forward. He feels strange in a religious assemblage. He thinks perhaps we do not want him. O! Jesus, take that trembling hand! Put thine ear to that agitated heart and hear how it beats. O, lift the iron gate of that prison-house and let that man go free! Lord Jesus, help that woman. She is a wanderer. No tears can she weep. See. Lord Jesus, that polluted seul, see that blistered foot. No church for her. No good cheer for her. No hope for her. Lord Jesus, go to that soul. Thou wilt not stone her. Let the redhot chain, that burns to the bone till the ichor hisses in the heat, snap at Thy touch. O, have mercy on Mary Magdalene. Lord Jesus, help that young man. He took<®oney out of his employer’s till. Didst Thou see it? - The clerks were all. gone. The lights were down. The shutters were up. Didst Thou see it? 0, let him not fall into the pit. Rememherest Thou not his mother’s prayers? Bhe can pray for him no more. Lord Jesus, touch him on the shoulder. Touch him on the heart. Lord, save that young man. There arg many young men here. I got a letter from one of them, who is probably here to-day, and I shall have no . other opportunity of answering that letter. Y'ou say you believe in me. 0, do you believe in Jesus? I can not save you, my dear brother. Christ can. He wants and waits to save you, and He comes to-day. to save you. Will you have him? Ido not know what our young men do without Christ—how they get on amid all the temptations and trials to which they are subjected. 0, young men, come to Christ to-day, and put your soul and your interest for this life’ and the" next into His keeping. In_ olden times, you know, a cup-bearer would bring wine or water to the King, who would drink it, first tasting it himself, showing there Was no poison in it."then passing it to the King, who would drink it. The highest honor I ask is that I may be cup-bearer to-day to your soul. I bring you this water of everlasting life. I have been drinking of it. There is no poison in it. It has never done me any harm. 0, drink it, and live forever. And let that aged man put his head down on the staff, and let that poor widowed soul bury her worried face in her and these little children fold their hands in prayer, while we commend you to Him who w’as wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities; for to you which believe He is precious.