Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 May 1891 — INVITED TO A WEDDING. [ARTICLE]

INVITED TO A WEDDING.

The Lord Waitiiig for the Guests “ for the Feast. Waiting as a Mother Waits for Her Wayward Boy—Rev. Dr, Talmage's Sermon.

"* Seven thousand people heard Dr. Talmage’s sermon at the Brooklyn Tabernacle Sunday.. Subject. “Invitation to a Wedding.” Text: Luke, XIV, 17. The preacher referred to the influences under which the text was spoken and then said: Illustrating my text, I, in the first place say that the Lord Jesus Christ is ready. Cardinal Wolsey did not come into the banqueting hall until the second course of the feast, and when he entered, booted and spurred, all the guests arose and cheered him; but I have to tell you that our banqueter, the Lord Jesus Christ, comes in at the beginningof the feast. Aye, He has been waiting for His guests, waiting for some of them 1891 years, waiting with mangled feet, waiting with hand on the punctured side, waiting with hand on the lacerated temples, waiting, waiting! Wonder it is that the banqueter did not get tveary and say: “Shut the door and let the laggards stay out.” No, He has been waiting. How much He is in earnest! Shall I show you? I Sither up all the tears that flooded is cheek in sympathy, all the blood that channeled His brow and back, and hand and foot, to purchase our redemption. I gather up all the groans coming from midnight chill and mountain hunger and desert loneliness, and I put them into one bitter cry—l gather up all the pangs that shot from cross and spike and spear, into one groan—l take one drop of sweat on His brow, and I put It under the glass of the gospel, and It enlarges to lakes of sorrow, to oceans of agony. That Christ today, emaciated and worn and weary, some here, and with a pathos in which every word is a heartbreak and every sentence a martyrdom, He says to you and He says to me: “Come, eome, for all things are now ready.” Ahasuerus made a feast that lasted 180 clays. This lasts forever. Lords and Princes were invited to that. You and I are invited to this. Yes, He has been waiting, He is waiting now. Other Kings wrap themselves In robes of beauty and power before they come into a banquet. So does Christ. Oh, he is the fairest of the fair. In his hand is the omnipotent surgery that opened blind eyes and straightened crooked limbs and noisted the pillars of heaven, and Swung the twelve gates which are twelve pearls. Oh, what a Christ—a Christ of beauty, a Christ of powsr. There are not enough cups on earth to dip up this ocean of beauty. There are not ladders to scale these heights of Love. Oh, thou Flower jf eternity, thy breath is the perfume of heaven. Oh, thou Daybreak of the soul, let all nations clap their |iands in thy radiance. Chorus! Dome men and angels and cherubim and seraphim and archangel, all heights, all depths, all immensities. Chorus! Roll on through the heavens chariot of universal acclaim, over bridges of hosanna, unier arche# of coronation, by the town’s chiming with eternal jubilee. Chor is! Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and made us kings and priests unto God, to Him be the gloryA.h! there is one word of five letr ters that I would like to write; but I hrve no sheet fair enough to write it on, and no pencil good enough to inscribe it. Give me a sheet from the heavenly records, and some pencil used by an angel in describing a vic- - , and then with , hand struck with supernatural energy and with pencil dipped in everlasting morning and I will write it out in capitals of love, J-E-S-U-S, Jesus! It is this One that is waiting for you and for me, for we are on the same platform before God. How long he waited for nel How long he has waited for you! Waiting as a banqueter waits for his delay, I guests, the meats smoking, and the beakers brimming, and the minstrel with, his finger on the stiff string ready to strike at the first clash of the hoofs at the gateway, waiting as a mother waits for a boy that tei years ago went off dragging her bleeding he.art after him. Waiting. Oh, can .you not give me some comparison intense enough, importunate enough, high as heaven, deep as hell and vast as eternity? Not ex-

pecting that you can help me with such a comparison, I simply say, He is waiting as only an all-sympathetic Christ knows how to wait for a wandering soul. But I remark again, not only Christ is waiting, but the Holy Spirit is wait’ng. Why are some sermons a deed failure? Why are there songs that do not get their wings under the people? Why are there players that go no higher up than a hunter’s halloo?,, Because there is a missing link that only the Holy Spirit can supply. If that Spirit should come through this asremblage this morning there would be a power felt like that when Saul was unhorsed on the road to Damascus, like as wh?n Lydia’s heait was in her One store, likpas when 3,000 souls were lifted out of midnight into uidnoon at the Pentecost. Do you notice that sometimes that Spirit takes an insignificant agency to save a soul? I think' it is very often that at just one passage o' Scripture, just one word o* Scripting a soul is saved, because the Holy Spirit gives it supernatural power. Do you know what it was

that saved Martin father? It was that one verse. “The just shall live by faith.” __ Do you know what it was that brought Augifctine from bis horrible dissapations? It was that one verse: “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. ” Do you know what it was that saved Hedley Vicars, the celebrated soldier? It was the one passage: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Chnst and thou shalt be saved.” Do you know what it was that brought Jonathan Edwards to Christ? Itjwas the one passage: “Now untohim be glory forever and ever.” One Thanksiving morning in church I read rmy text: “O, give thanks unto the Lord,for he is good.” And a young man stood in the gallery and said to himself: “I have never rendered one acceptable offering of gratitude to God in all my life. Here,Lord, I am thine forever?' By that one passage of Scripture he was brought into the kingdom, and if I might tell my own experience ! might tell how one Sabbath afternoon I was brought to the peace of the Gospel by reading of the SyroPhoenician’s cry to Christ, where she said: “Even the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.” Philosophic sermons never saved anybody. Metaphysical sermons never saved anybody. An earnest plea going right out of the heart blessed of the Holy Ghost, that is what saves, that is what brings people into the kingdom of Christ. I suppose the world thought that Thomas Chalmers preached great sermon in his early ministry, but Thomas Chalmers says he never preached at all until years after he had occupied his pulpit he came out of his sick room, and weak and emaciated, he stood and told the story of Christ to the people. And in the great day of eternity it will be found that not so much the eloquent sermons brought men to Christ as the story told, perhaps, by those who were unknown on earth, the simple story of the Savior’s love and merry, sent by the power of the holy Ghost straight to the heart. Come, Holy Ghost. Ay, he is here this morning. He fills all the place. I tell you the Holy Ghost is ready. Then I go on and tell you the church is ready. There are those here who say: “No one cares for my soul.” We do care for it. You see a man bowing his head in prayer and you say: “That man is indifferent/’ That man bows his head in prayer that the truth may go to every heart. The air is full of prayers. They are going up this morning from this assembly. Hundreds of prayers straight to the throne of $ listening God. The air is full of prayers ascending noon by noon from Fulton street prayer meeting, Friday nght by Friday night all over this land, going up from praying circles. Yea, there is not a minute of an hour of any day there are not supplications ascending to the throne of mercy. The church is ready, and if you should this morning start for your Father’s house there would be hundreds and thousands in this assemblage who would say if they knew it: “Make room for that man; make room for him at the holy sacrament; bring the silver bowl for baptism; give him full right to all the privilleges of the church of Jesus

Christ.” Oh, I know there are those who say the church is a mass of hypoents, but they do not really think so. It is a glorious church. Christ built it. Christ swung all its gates. Christ curtained it with upholstery, crimson and crucifixion carriage. Come into it. Come into it. Ido not pick out this man or that man and say: “You may come.” I say all may come —whosoever will. “Come with us and we will do you good. The Lord hath promised good concerning Israel.”

Do not say you have never been invited. I invite you now to the King’s feast. One and all. All I All! But Igo further and tell you that the angels are ready. Some people think when we speak about angels wo are getting into the region of the fancy. They say it is very well for a man when he has just entered the ministry to preach about the angels of heaven, but after he has gone on further it is hardly worth while. My friends, there is not any more evidence in the Bible that there is a God than that there are angels. Did they not swarm around Jacob’s ladder? When Lazarus’ soul went up did they not escort it? Did not David say: “The chariots of God are 20,000, even thousands of angels?” Are they not represented as the chief harvesters of the judgment day? Did not the angel, in one night slay 180,000 of Sennacherib’s troops? Ob, yes, our wotld is in communication with two other worlds. All that communication is by angels. When a bad man is to die, a man who has despised God and rejected the Gospel, the bad spirits come on sulphurous wing and they shackle him, and try to push him off the precipices into the ruin, andthen lift a guffaw of diabolical exultation. But there is a line of angels, bright and beautiful and loving angels, mighty angels, reaching all the way from earth to heaven,and when others gather like them I suppose the air is full of them. They hover. They flit about. They push down iniquity from your heart. They are ready to rejoice. Look! There is an angel from the throne of God. One moment ago it stood before Christ and heard the doxology of the redeemed. It is here now. Bright immortal, what news from thegolden city? Speak, spirit blest. The answer comes melting on the cur: • “Come, ooms, for all things are now

ready.” Angels ready to bear the tidings. Angels ready to drop the benediction. Angels ready to kindle the joy. All ready. Ready, chejrubim and seraphim. Ready, thrones and principalities and powers. Ready, Michael the archangel. Yes, I go further and say that your glorified kindred are ready. I have not any sympathy with modern Spiritualism. I believe it is born in perdition. When I see the ravages it makes with human intellects, when I see the homes it has devastated, when I see the bad morals that very often follow in its wake, I have no faith in modern Spiritualism, I think if John Milton and George Whitefield have not anything better to .do than to crawl under Rochester tables and rattle the leaves they had better stay at home in glory. But (he Bible distinctly teaches that the glorified in heaven are in sympathy with our redemption. . ’•‘‘There is joy in . heaven among the angels of God 'over one sinner that repenteth,” and if the angels hear it, do not our departed kindred hear it? There are those there whe toiled for our salvation, and when they bado you good-bye in the last hour, and they said, “Meet me in heaven ” there was hovering over thfl pillow the awful possibility that you might not meet. But, oh, the pathos when the hand was thrust out from the cover and they said good-bye. For how long good bye was it? Now, my friends, if Christ is ready, and the Holy Ghost is ready, and the church is ready, and the angels of God are ready, and your glorified kindred are ready, are you ready? I give with all the emphasis of my soul the question: “Are you ready? If you do not get into the King’s, feast it Will be because vou do not accept the earnest invitation. Arm stretched out, soaked with blood from elbow to finger-tip, lips quivering in mortal anguish, two eyes beaming everlasting love, while he says: “Come, come, come, for all things are now ready.” Old man, God has been waiting for thee long years. Would that some tear of repentance might trickle down thy wrinkled cheek. Has not Christ done enough in feeding thee, and clothing thee all these years to win from thee one word of gratitude? Come, all the young. Christ is the fairest of the fair. Wait not till thy heart gets hard. Come, the furthest away from Christ. Drunkard, Christ can put out the fire of that thirst. He can restore thy broken home. He can break that shackle. Come now, to-day, and get His pardon and its strength. Libertine, Christ knew where you were last night. He knows all the story of thy sin. Come to Him this day. He will wash away thy sin, and He will throw around thee the robe of His pardon. Harlot, thy feet foul with hell, thy laughter the horror of the street —O Mary Magdalen! Christ waits for thee. Ana the one further off, further than I have mentioned, a case not so hopeful as any I have mentioned, selfrighteous man, feeling thyself ail right, having no need of Christ, no need of pardon, ho need of help —O self-righteous man, dost thou think in those rags thou canst enter the feast? Thou canst not. God’s servant at the gate would tear off thy robe and leave thee naked at the gate. Oh, self-righteous man ! the last to come. Come to the feast. Come, repent of thy sin. Come, take Christ for thy portion. Day of grace going away. Shadows on the cliff reaching further and further over the plain. The banquet has already begun. Christ has entered into that banquet to which you are invited. The guests are taking their places. The servant of the King has his hand on the door of the banqueting room, and he begins to swing it shut. Now is your time to go in. You must go in: He is swinging the door shut. Now, it is half shut. Now, it is three-fourths shut. Now, it is just Mar. After awhile it will be forever shut I