Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 October 1892 — CHRISTIAN ACTIVITY. [ARTICLE]

CHRISTIAN ACTIVITY.

The Ministry Ne©4» Btawe, Earnest, Honest, Hardy Men. Do K»t Bag th» Shop*. but Soil Out Boldly Into tbo Bonndlow s«» of Ood'i Word. Dr. preached at Brooklyn Jast Sunday. Text, Luke v, 4. ‘‘Launch out into the deep.” He said: * Christ, starting on the campaign of the world’s conquest, was select* lag his staff officers. There were E* ‘7 of students with high forehand white hands, and intellectual faces, and 'refined tastes in Rome apd Jerusalem. Christ might have called into the apostleship twelve bookworms, or twelve rhetoricians, or twelve artists. Instead he takes a group of men who iiad never made a speech; never taken a lesson in belles-lettres; never been sick enough to make them look delicate their hands broad, clumsy and hard knuckled. He chose fishermen, among other reasons, I think, because they were physically hardy. Rowing makes strong arms and ?■tout chests. Much climbing of knotlines makes one’s head steady. A Galilee tempest wrestled meu into gymnasts. The opening work of the church was rough work. Christ did not want twelve invalids hanging about him, complaining aH the time how badly they felt. He leaves the delicate students at Jerusalem and Rome for their mothers and aunts to take care of, and goes down to the seashore and out of the toughest mateiv jal makes an apostleship. The ministry need more corporeal vigor than any other class. Fine minds and good intentions are important, but there must be physical force to back them. The intellectual mill wheel may be well built and the grist good, but there must be enough blood in the mill race to turn the one and to grind the other. My text finds Jesus on shipboard with one of these bronzed men — Simon by name. This fisherman had been sweeping his net in shoal water. “Push out,” says Christ. “What is the use of hugging the shore in this boat? Here is a lake twelve miles long and six wide, and it is all populated—just waiting for the sweep of your net. Launch out into the deep.” The advice that my Lord gave to Simon is as appropriate for us all in a spiritual sen Se. The fact is that most of us are just paddling along the shore/ We are afraid to venture out into the great deeps of God and Christian experience. ' This divine counsel comes first to all those who are paddling in the margin of Bible research. There is no book in the world that demands J> much of our attention as the iible. Yet nine-tenths of our Christian men get no more than ankle deep. The farther you go from shore the the better, if you have the right kind of ship. If you have mere worldly philosophy for the hulk and pride for a sail and self conceit for the helm, the first squall will destroy you. But if you take the Bible for vour craft the farther you go the Letter, aud after you ha'ye gone ten thousand furlongs Christ will still rommand. “Launch out into the fieep." Ask some such question as, l ‘Who is God?” and go on for ten years asking it. Ask it at the gate of every parable; amid the excitement of every miracle; bv the solitariness of every patriarchal thrashing floor; am id’'the white faces of Sennacherib's slain turned up into the moonlight; amid the flying chariots of the Golden City.

Walk up and down this Bible domain. Try every path. Plunge in at the prophecies and come out at the epistles. Go with the patriarchs until you meet with the evangelists. Rummage aud ransack, as children who are not satisfied when they come to a new house until they know what is in every room and into , what every door opens. Open every casket. Examine the skyights. Forever isk questions. The sea of God’s Word is not like Rennesaret, twelve miles by six, but boundless, and in one direction you can sail on forever. Why then confine yourself to a short psalm or a few verses of the epistles? The largest fish are not near the shore. Hoist all sail to the winds of heaven. Take hold of both oars and pull away. Be like some of the whalers that went out from New Bedford or Portsmouth to be gone for two or three years. Yea. calculate on a lifetime voyage. You do not want to land until you land' in heaven. Sail away, O ye mariners, for eternity! Launch out into the deep. The text is appropriate to all Christians of shallow experience. Doubts and fears have in our dav been almost elected to the parliament of Christian graces. Some consider it a bad sign not to have any doubts. Doubts and fears ,»ro not signs of health, but festers and carbuncles. You have a valuable house or farm. It is suggested that the title is not good. You employ counsel. You have the deeds examined. You search the records for mortgages, judgments and liens. You are uot satisfied until you have a certificate, signed by the great seal of state, assuring you that the title is good. Yet h.w many leave their title to heaven an undecided mutter! Why do you not go to the records and find out? Give yourself no rest, day or night, until you cau read your title clear 1 to mansions in the .ikies. I One half of you Christians are ■imply stuck in the mud. Why not , cut loose from everything but God ? ; Give not to him that formal petition . made up of *• O's ” —“ O Lord ” this I and “ O Lord that. When people are cold and have nothing to say to God they strew their prayers with .“O’s” and “Forever and ever, Amen, ” and things to fill up. Tell 1 God what you want with the feeling . that he is ready to give it, and believe that you rill receive, and you ' shall have it. Bbed that old prayer you have been making these ten years. It is high time that you out .."S? old ledgers, and youi old hats, and

with pew detemriaatfbn and new plana, and new expectations launch out into the deep. The text is appropriate to all who are engaged ia Christian work. The ebureb of God has been fishing along the shore. We set our set in a good, calm place, and fft sight of a fine chapel, and we go down every Sunday to sqe if the fish havo been wise enough to come into our net. We might learn something from that boy with his hook and line. He throws bis line from the bridge—no fish. He sits down on a log—no fish. He stands in the sunlight and casts the line, but no fish* He goes up by the mill dam and stands behind the bank, where the fish cannot see him. and he has hardly dropped the hook before the cork goes under. The fish come to him as fast as he can throw them ashore. In other words, in our Christian work, why do wc not go where the fish are? It is not so easy to catch souls in church, for they know that we arc trying to take them. If you can throw your lines out into the world where they are not expecting you; they will be captured. Is it fair to take men by such stratagem? Yes. 1 would like to cheat five thousand souls into the kingdom. The whole policy of the church o! God is to be changed. Instead of chiefly looking after the few who havo become Christians our c.iiei ciiuri.s will bo for those outside. If after a man is converted be cannot take care of himself I am not going to take care of him. If he thinks that I am going to stand and pat him on tiic back, and feed him out of an elegant spoon, and watch him so that he docs not get into a draft of worldliness, he is much mistaken! We have in our churches a great mass of helpless, inane who are doing nothing for themselves or for others,'who want us to stop and nurse them. They are so troubled with doubt as to whether they are Christians or not. The doubt is settled. They aye not Christians. The best we can do with these fish is to throw them back into the stream and go after them again with the Gospel net. “Go into the world and preach the Gospel,” says Christ —into the factory, the engine house,the clubroom; into the houses of the sick; iuto the dark lane; into the damp cellar; l fio the cold garret; into the dismal prison. Let every man, woman and child know that Jesus died, aud that the gate of heaven is wide open. With the Bible in one pocket, and a loaf of bread under your arm launch out into the great deep of this world's wretchedness.

The Bible promises join hands, and the circle they make will compass all your sins, aud all your temtations, and all your sorrows. The i-ound table of King of Arthur and his knights had only room for thirteen banqueters, but the round table of God's supply is large enough for all the present inhabitants of earth and heaven to sit at, and for the still mightier populations that aro yet to bo. Do not sail coastwise along your old habits and old sins. Keep clear of the shore. Go out where the water is deepest. Ob, forf the mid sea of God’s mercy! “Be it known unto you, men and brethren, that though this man is preached unto you forgivnessofsins.” I preach it with as much confidence to the eighty-year-old transgressor as to the maiden. Though your sins were b’-eod red they shall be snow white. The more ragged the prodigal, tho more compassionate the father. Do you say that your heart is hard? Suppose it were ten times harder. Do you say that your iniquity is long continued? Suppose it were ten times longer r Do you that your crimes are black? Suppose they were-ten times blacker. Is there any lion that this Samson cannot slay? Is there any fortress that this Conqueror cannot take. Is there any sin this Redeemer cannot pardon? ft is said that when Charlemagne's host was overpowered by the three armies of the Saracens in the pass of Roneessvallcs, his warrior, Roland, in terrible earnestness, seized a trumpet and blew it with such terrific strength that the opposing army yelled back with terror, but at the third blast of the trumpet it broke in two. I see your soul fiercely assailed by all the powers of earth and heli. I put the mightier trumpet of the Gospel to my lips and blow it three times. Blast the first—“ Whosoever will, let him come.” Blast the secood—“Seek ye the Lord while he may be found." “Blast the third—- “ Now is the accepted time: now is the day of salvation." Does not the host of your sins fall back? But the trumpet does not, like that of Roiand, break in two. As it was banded down to us from the lips of our fathers, we hand it down to the lips of our children and tell them to sound it when wc are dead, that all the generations of men may know that our God is a pardoaing God—a sympathetic God-a loving God—and thut more to him than the throne on which he sits; more to him than the anthems of heaven; more to him thnu ure the temples of celestial worship is tho {oy of seeing the wanderer putting lis hand on the door latch of his father's house. Hear it, all ye na* tions! Bread for the worst hunger. Medicine for the worst sickness. Light for the thickest darkness. Harbor for tbe worst storm. Dr. Prime, in his book of wonderful interest eutitled “ Around the World, ” describes a tomb in India of marvelous architecture. Twenty thousand men wpre twen tv-two years in erecting that and the buildings around it. Standing in that tomb, if you speak or sing, after you have ceased, you hear the echo comiug from a height of ono hundred uud titty feet. It is not like other echoes.' The sound is drawn out in sweet prolongation, as though the uugels of God were chanting on the wing. How many sduls in the tomb of sin will lift up the voice of penitence and prayer? If now they would cry unto God tbe echo would _ lumli nfn ■■ n nt ]■ fttmt* ft, *, iirop iron* ttiui '•iiov iu u if trorn in® l» I I . I | * V » ” I' W fw |,,w