Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 August 1893 — THE GREAT APOSTLE. [ARTICLE]

THE GREAT APOSTLE.

The Sublime Sacrifice That Took Place on Calvary. Paul the Apoetle'i Challenge Forms the Subject of Dr. Talmage's Sermon, Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at Brooklyn last Sunday. Subject, “A Bold Challenge.” -Text; "Romans vii, 34: "Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. " “This is the last sermon I shall ever preach,” said Christmas Evans on the 13th of June, 1838. Three days afterward he expired. I do not know what his text was, but I know that no man could choose, a better theme —though he knew it was the last time he should ever preach—than the subject found in this text.

Paul flung this challenge of the text to the feet of all ecclesiastical and clvll authority llefeared neither swords nor" lions, earth or hell. Diocletian slew uncounted thousands under his administration, and the world has been full of persecution; but all the persecutors of the world could not affright Paul. Can you tell me how tenderhearted Paul could find anything to rejoice at in the horrible death scene of Calvary? It was because Paul saw in that death his ovtn ’ deliverance, and the deliverance of a race from still worse disaster. lie saw the gap into which the race must plunge, and he saw the bleeding hands of Christ close it. The glittering steel on the top of the executioners spear in his sight kindled into a torch to light men heavenward. The persecutors saw over the cross five words written in Hebrew, Greek and Latin; but Paul saw over the cross of Christ only one word —“expiation!" He heard in the dying groan of Christ his own groan of eternal torture taken by another. Paul said to himself, “Had it not been that Christ volunteered in my behalf, those would have been my mauled hands and feet, my gashed side, my crimson temples.” “It is Christ that died.” Whj’ then bring up to us the mns of our past life? What have we to do With those obsolete things? You know how hard it is for a wrecker to bring up anything that is lost near the shore of the sea, but suppose something be lost half way between Liverpool and New York. It cannot be found, it cannot be fetched up. “Now,” says God, “your sins I have cast into the depths of the sea.’’ Mid-Atlantic! All the machinery ever fashioned in foundries of darkness and launched from the doors of eternal death, working for 10,000 years, cannot bring up one of our sins forgiven and forgotten and sunken into the depths <-.! the sea. When sin is pardoned it is gone it is gone out of the books, it is gone out of the memory, it is gone out of existence. “Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.” From other tragedies men have come away exhausted and nervous and sleepless; but there is one tragedy that soothes and calms and saves. Calvary was the stage on which it was enacted, the curtain of night falling at midnoon was the drop scene, the thunder of falling rocks the orchestra, angels in the galleries and devils in the pit the spectators, the tragedy a crucifixion. “It is Christ that died.” Oh. triumphant thought! But I must give you the second cause of Paul’s exhilaration. If Christ had stayed in that grave we never would have gotten out of it. The grave would have been dark and dismal as the conciergerie during the reign of terror, where the’ carts came up only to take the victims out to the scaffold. I do not wonder that the ancients tried by the embalmment of the body to resist the dissolution of death. It is early Sunday morning and we start up to find the grave of Christ. We find the morning sun gilding the dew, and the shrubs are sweet as the foot crushes them. What a beautiful place to be ouried in! Wonder they did not treat Christ as well when he was alive as they do now that he is dead Give the military salute to the soldiers who stand' guarding the dead. But, hark to the crash! an earthquake! The soldiers fall back as though they -were dead, and the stone at the door of Christ’s tomb spins down 1 the hill, flung by the arm of an angel. Come forth, O, Jesus! from the darkness into the sunlight. Come forth and breathe the perfume o.f Joseph’s garden.

Oh, my friends, if Christ had not broken out of the'grave you and I would never come out of it! It would have been another case of Charlotte Corday attempting to'slay a tyrant, herself slain. It would have been another case of John Brown attempting to free the slaves, himself hung. It would have been death and Christ in a grapple and death the victor. The black flag would have floated on all the graves and mausoleums of the dead, and hell would have conquered the forces of heaven and captured the ramparts of God, and satan would have conje to coronation in the palaces of heaven, and it would have been devils on the throne and sons of God in' the dungeon. I give vou the third cause of PauFs exhilaration. We honor the right hand more than we do the left. If in accident or battle we must lose one hand, let it be the left. The left hand being nearer the heart, we may not do so much of the violent work of life with'that hand without physical danger, but he who has the

right arm in full piay has the mightiest of all earthly weapons. ,Jn all ages and in all languages the right hand is the symbol of strength and power and honor. Hiram sat at the right • hand of Solomon. Then we have the term. “He is a right-handed man." Lafayette was Washington s rigfit-hand man; Marshal Ney was Napoleon’s right-hand man. and now you have the meaning of Paul, when he speaks of Christ, who is at the right hand of God. The oldest inhabitant of heaven never saw a grander day than the one when Christ took His place on the right hand of God. Hosanna! With lips of clay I may not appropriately utter it, but let the martyrs under the altar throw the cry to the elders before the throne, and they can toss it to the choir on the sea of glass Until all heaven shall lift it—some on point of scepter, and some on string of harp, and some on the tip of green branches. Hosanna! Hosanna! A fourth cause of Paul’s exhilaration: After a clergyman had preached a sermon in regard to the glories of heaven and the splendors of the scene an aged woman said, ’“lf all that is to go on in heaven, I don’t know what will become of my poor head.” Oh, my friends, there will be so many things going on in heaven I have sometimes wondered if the I/ord would not forget you and me!

Perhaps Paul said sometimes: “I wonder God does not forget me down here in Antioch, and in the prison, and in tiro shipwreck. There are so many sailors, so many wayfarers, so many prisoners, so many heartbroken men,” says Paul, “perhaps God may forget me. And then lam so vile a sinner. Howl whipped those Christians! With what vengeance I mounted that cavalry horse arid dashed up to Damascus! Oh! it will take a mighty attorney to plead my cause and get me free.” But just at that moment there came in upon Paul’s soul something mightier than the surges that dashed his ship into Melita, swifter than the horse he rode to Damascus. It was the swift and overwhelming thought of Christ’s intercession.

Sometimes in earthly courts attorneys have speciaHies, and one man Succeeds better in patent cases, another in insurance cases, another in criminal cases, another in land cases, another in will cases, and his success generally depends upon his sticking to that specialty. I have to tell you that Christ can do many things but it seems to me that His specialty is to take the bad case of the sinner and plead it before God until He gets our eternal acquittal. Oh, we must have him for our advocate. But what plea can He make? Sometimes an attorney in court will plead the innocence of the prisoner. That would be inappropriate for us; we arc all guilty! guilty! Unclean, unclean! Christ, our advocate, will not plead our innocence. Sometimes the attorney in court tries to prove an alibi. He says: “This prisoner was not at the scene. He was in some other place at the time.” Such a plea will not do in our case. The Lord found us in all our sins and in the very place of our iniquity. It is impossibleto prove an alibi. Sometimes an attorney will plead the Insanity of the prisoner and say he is irresponsible on that account. That plea will never do in our case. We sinned against light, against knowledge, against thedictates of bur own consciences; we knew what we were doing. What then shall the plea be? The plea for our eternal deliverance will be Christ s own martyrdom. He will say: “Look at all these wounds. By all these sufferings I demand the rescue of this I man from sin and death and hell. Constable, knock off the shackles—let the prisoner go free. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, Father that is risen agqin, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” .... Deliverance lias come. Light breaks through all wards of the prison. Revolution! Revolution! “where sin abounded grace does much more abound, that whereas sin reigned unto death even so grace 'may reign unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Glorious truth! A Savior dead; a Savior risen; a Savior exalted; a Savior interceding. 1