Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 August 1889 — LEARN TO SWIM. [ARTICLE]

LEARN TO SWIM.

DR. TALMAGE ADVISES IT THAT YOU MAY NOT DROWN. The Present Is the Season For It Physically, and Also the Time to Accomplish It Spiritually—God Stretches Forth His Strong Arm To Aid You. - Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at Seattle, Wash. T., Sunday. Text, Isaiah XXV., 11. He said: At this season of the year multitudes of people wade into the ponds and lakes and rivers and seas. At first putting out cautiously from the shore, but having learned the right stroke of arm and foot, they let the waters roll over them, and in wild glee dive, or float or swim. So the text will be very suggestive; “He sfcall spread forth His.hand in the midst of them, as he that swimmeth spreadeth forth his hands to swim.” The fisherman seeks out unfrequentM nooks. You atand 4hathe bank of a river in the broiling sun, and fiing out your line and catch nothing, while the expert angler breaks through the jungle and goes by the shadow of the solitary rock, and, in a place where no fisherman has been sor 1 »n years, throws out his line and comes home at night, his face shining ind his basket full. I do not know why we ministers of the Gospel need ilways be fishing in the same stream,' ind preaching from the same text that )ther people preach from. I can not mderstand the policy of the minister who, in Blackfriars, London, England, svery week for thirty years, preached !rom the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is an exhilaration to me when I some across a theme which I.feel no >ne else has treated, and my text is )ne of that kind. There are paths in ioi’s \Vord that are well beaten by Christian feet. When men want to juotc Scripture, they quote the old passages that every one has heard. iVhen they want a chapter read, they •ead a chapter that all the other people have been reading, so that the Church to-day is ignorant of threeourths of the Bible. You go into the Louvre at Paris. You confine yourself » one corridor of that opulent gallery ►f paintings. As you come out your friend says to you: “Did you see that Rembrandt?” “No.” “Did you see that Rubens?” “No.” “Did you see that Titian?” “No.” “Did you see that Raphael?” “No.” “Well,” says your friend, “then you didn’t see the Louvre.” Now, my friends, I think are are too much apt to confine ourlelves to one of the great corridors of ;his Scripture truth, and so ‘ much so lhat there is not one person but of a million who has ever noticed the all mggestive and powerful picture in the words of my text. This text repre»ents‘G'bd as a strong swimmer, striking out to push down iniquity and »ave the souls of men. ‘ ‘He shall spread forth His hands in the midst of them, is he that swimmeth spreadeth forth Ms hands to swim.” The figure is »old and many sided. Most of you enow how to swim. Some of you learned it in the city school, where ;his art is tiught; some of you in boylood, in the river near your father’s iouse; some of you since you came to manhood or womanhood, while summering on the beach of the sea. You itep down in the wave, you throw four head back, you bring your elbows to the chest, you put the palms of your hands downward and the soles of your feet outward, and you push through the water as though you had been born l^^fS = Tt rsa grand thing"t6''TiHsvr ’ how to swim, not only for yourself L but because you will after a while perhaps have to help others. In order to understand the full force »f this figure you need to realize, first »f all, that our race is in a sinking Bonditior, You sometimes hear people talking of what they consider the most beautiful words in our language, One man says it is “home,” another man says it is the word “mother;” another says it is the word “Jesus,” but I will tell you the bitterest word in all our language, the word most angry and baleful, the word saturated with the most trouble, the word that accounts for all the loathsomeness and the pang, and the outrage, and the harrowing; and that word is “sin.” You spell with three letters, and yet those three letters describe the circumference and pierce the diameter of everything bad in the universe. Sin! it is a sibilant word. You can not pronounce it without giving the siss of the flame or the hiss of the serpent. Sin! And then if you add throe letters to that word it describes every one of as by nature—sinner. We have outraged t&e law of God, not occasionally or now and then, but prepetually. The Bible declares it. Hark! It thunders two claps: “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” “The soul that sinneth, it shall die,” What the Bible says bur own conscience affirms. After Judge Morgan had sentenced Lady Jane Gray to death hU conscience troubled him so much for the deed that he became insane, and all through his insanity he kept saying: “Take her away from me! Lady Jane Gray! Take her away! Lady Jane Gray.” It was the voice of his conscience. And no man never does anything wrong however grtht or small but his conscience brings that matter before him, and at every step of his misbehavior it says: “Wrong, wrong." §iq is a leprosy, sin is a paralysis, sin f£» consumption, sin is a pollution, sin is death. Give it a fair chance and it will swamp you, body, mind and soul forever, Ii this world it only rives a faint initiation of its virulence. You see a patient in the first singes of typhoid fever. The cheek is some-

what flushed, the hands somewhat hot, preceded by a slight chill. “Why," you say typhoid fever is not much of a disease.” But wait until the patient has been six weeks under it, and all his energies have been wrung out, and he is too weak to lift his little finger, and his intellect is gone, then you see the full havoc of the disease. Now, sin in this world is an ailment which fi only in its very first stages; but let it gdt under full way and it is an allconsuming typhoid. Oh. if we could see our unpardoned sins as God sees them our teeth would chatter, and otir knees would knock together, and our respiration would be chocked, and our heart would break. If your sins are unforgotton, they are breaking down on you,; and you are sinking—sinking away from happiness, sinking away from God, sinking away from everything that is good and blessed. You have noticed that when a swim taer goes out to rescue any one he puts off his heavy apparel. He must not have any such impediment about him if he is going to do this great deed. And when Christ stepped forth to save us He shook off the sandals of heaven, and his feet were free; and then He stepped down into the wave of our transgressions, and it came up over His wounded feet, and it came above the spear stab in His side—aye, it dashed to the lacerated temple, the high water-mark of His anguish. If you ever have watched a swimmer, you notice that his whole body is brought into play. The arms are fleshed, the hands drive the water back, the knees are active, the head is thrown back tb escape strangulation, the whole body is in propulsion. And when Christ sprang into the deep to save us, He threw His entire nature into it—all His Godhead, His omniscience, His goodness, His love, His omnipotence—head, heart, eyes, hands, feet. We were far out in the sea, and so deep down in the waves and so far out from the shore that nothing short of an entire God could save us.

Christ leaped out for our rescue, saying: “Lo! I come to do Thy will,” and all the surges of human and Satanic hate: heat against Him, and those who watched Him from the gates of heaven feared He would go down under the wave, and instead of saving others would Himself perish; but, putting His breast to the foam, and shaking the surf from nis locks, He came on and on, until He is now within the reach of every one here. Eye omniscient, heart infinite, arm omnipotent. Mighty to save, even unto the uttermost. Oh, it was not half a God that trampled down bellowing Gennesaret. [t was not a quarter of a God that mastered the demons of Gadara. It was not two-thirds of a God that lifted up Lazarus into the arms of the overjoyed sisters. It was not a fragment of a God who offered pardon and peace to all the race. No. This mighty swimmer threw His grandeur, His glory, His might, His wisdom, His omnipotence and His eternity into this one act. It took both hands of God to save us—both feet. How do I provo it? On the cross, Were not both hands nailod? On the cross, were not both feet nailed? His entire nature involved in our redemption! If you have lived much by the water you notice also that if any one is going out to the rescue of the drowning he must be independent, self-reliant, able to go alone. There may be a time when he must spring-out to save one, and he can not get a life-boat, and he goes out and has Qot strength enough to bear himself up, and bear another up, he will sink, and Instead of dragging one corpsfe out of the torrent you will have two to drag out." When Christ sprang out into the sea to deliver us He had no life-buoy. His Father did not help Him. Alone in the wine-press. Alone in the pang. Alone in the darkness. Alone in the mountain. Alone in the sea. Oh, if He saves us He shall have all the credit, for “there was none to help.” No oar. No wing. No ladder. When Nathaniel Lyon fell in the battle charge in front of His troops he had a whole army to cheer him. When Marshal Naj' sprang into the contest and plunged in the spurs till he horse’s flanks spurted blood, all France applauded him. But Jesus alone! “Of the people there was none to help,” “All forsook Him and fled.” O. it was not a flotilla that sailed down and saved us. It was not a cluster of gondolas that came ovor the wave. It was one person, independent and alone. Behold then to-day the spectacle of a drowning soul and Christ the swimmer. I believe it was in 1848, when there were six English soldiers of the Fifth Fußeliera who were hanging to the bottom of a capsized boat—a boat that had been upset by a squall three miles from shore. It w'as in the night, but one man swam mightily for the beach, guided by the dark mountains that lifted their tops through the night. He came to the beach. He found a shoreman who consented to go with him and save the other men, and they put out. It was some time before they could find the place where the mien were, but after awhile they heard their cry: “Help! help!” and they bore down to them, and they saved them, and brought them to shore. Oh, that t’. is moment our Cry might ho lifted long, loud and shrill, till Christ the swimmer come and take us lest we drop a thousand fathoms down. If you have been mueh by water you know very well that wliOn one is "in peril help must come very quickly, or it will be of no use. One minute may decide everything. Immediate help the man wants, or no help at all. Now, that, is just the kind of a relief wo want. The case is urgent, imminent, instantaneous. See that squl sinking! Son of God, lay hold of him. Be quick! be quick! Oh, I wish you all understood how urgent this Gospel is. I want to persuado you to lay hold of this strong swimmer. “No,” you •ay, “it la always disastrous fojf* drowning man to lay hold of a swim- ■ r> ■ ' y*:

mer.” There is not a river or lake but has a calamity resultant from the fact that when a strong swimmer went oub to save a sinking man, the drowning man clutched him,’ threw his arms ’ around him, pinioned his arms, and they both went down together. When you are saving a man in the water, you do not want to come up by his face; you want to come up by his back. You do not want him to take hold of you while you take hold of him. But, blessed be God, Jesus Christ is so strong a swimmer, He comes not to our back, but to our face, and He asks us to throw around Him the arms of our love, and then promises to take us to the beach, and He will do it; Do not trust that plank of good works; do not trust that shivered spar of your own righteousness. Christ only can give you transportation. Turn your face upon Him as the dying martyr did in olden days when he cried out: “None but Christ! none but Christ!” Jesus has taken millions to the land and He is willing to take you there. Oh, what hardness of heart to shove Him back when He has been swimming all the way from the throne of God to where you are now, and is re;uly to swim all the way back again, taking yohr redeemed spirit. I have sometimes thought what a spectacle the ocean bed will present when in the last day the water is all drawn off. It will he a line of wrecks from beach to beach. There is where the harpooners went down; there is where the line of battle ships went down; there is where the merchantmen went down; there is where the steamers went down, a long line of wrecks from beach to beach. What a spectacle in the last day when the water is drawn off! But, oh! how much more solemn if we had an eye to see the spiritual wrecks and the places where they foundered. You would find thousands along our roads and streets. Christ came down in their awful catastrophe, putting out for their souls, ‘ ‘spreading forth His hands as a swimmer spreadeth forth his hands to swim;” but they thrust Him in the sore heart, and they smote His fair cheek, and the storm and darkness swallowed them up. Task you to lay hold of this Christ, and lay hold oi Him now You will sink without Him. From horizon to horizon not one sail in sight. May the living Christ this hour put out for your safety, * ‘spreading forth His hands in the midst of you, as a swimmer spreadeth forth his hands to swim.”