The Heart-Cry of Jesus Part 4

QUEER COURAGE.

There are some who bolster their courage by saying ostentatiously, "I don't care what folks say," but their very vehemence shows that they DO care a very great deal. We boys all remember how we used to whistle when we pa.s.sed a graveyard after dark to show we "weren't afraid"; and how hard it was to keep our mouths puckered and how shaky our legs felt!

AFRAID TO BREAK STEP

The folks we are afraid of are afraid of us. What a situation! A great regiment of people marching straight down to h.e.l.l, everyone afraid to break step for fear the others will laugh! That is precisely the condition of nearly every sinner.

COURAGE OF THERMOPYLAE

Sanctification takes away the shrinking timidity and puts in a courage like that at Thermopylae. There was once a young man who, previous to his sanctification, was so timid that he frequently stayed away from church for no other reason than that he feared G.o.d might ask him to testify. He enjoyed meetings and loved to hear preaching, but the very idea of testimony would frighten him almost ill. Now he frequently addresses many hundreds and never feels the slightest embarra.s.sment.

UNMASK PRURIENCY.

The ministry is sadly in need of a blessing which will give it courage to attack sin of all kinds and degrees. We need men who will rip the mask off the putrid face of corruption and p.r.o.nounce G.o.d's sentence upon it; who will lift up the trap-door of the cess-pools of men's hearts and bid them look within at their own slime and filth; who will "cry aloud and spare not," though the infuriated cohorts of bat-winged demons snarl and shriek.

SPEAK PLAINLY.

There will be a day when men will curse us because we have not preached more plainly. You can call a spade "a spade" or you can designate it as "an iron utensil employed for excavating purposes," but if you want folks to understand what you are driving at use the shorter term.

SHOOTING OVER MEN'S HEADS.

There is too little plain Anglo-Saxon preaching. We shoot far over the heads of our congregations and do not even scar the varnish on the gallery banister. We dwell on the points of distinction between Calvinism and Arminianism when the greater part of our people do not know the difference between an Arminian and an Armenian, and some good old sister thinks we are preaching on the cruelty of the Turks. Here I am discussing "The Dangers of Imperialism" and "The Anglo-American Friends.h.i.+p," while men are starving for the Bread of Life! Brethren in the ministry, let us be less anxious about the syllogistic accuracy of our sermons and be more eager to help men live right and quit sin and go to heaven.

THE PULPIT CANNON.

There are many sins which few men have the courage to antagonize in public. Theoretically the pulpit is supposed to cannonade all sin of every variety and species, but, alas, it is usually too cowardly. The Spirit-filled man fears no one from Sandow down to Tom Thumb, from a plug-hat Bishop to a little pusilanimous dude preacher.

GHASTLY CRIMES.

It is not that ministers are unawares of the prevalence of black and ghastly crimes, but that they dare not speak openly against them. Too many are contaminated with evil and involved in guilt for the preacher to voice with impunity the truths which burn in his soul. He knows only too well that if he dares a.s.sert his manhood and exercises the prerogative of Christ's minister, the retribution will be swift and terrible, viz: ejectment from his pastorate!

MURDER

How ominous is the silence concerning murder. And yet the land is swarming with crimson-handed murderers and murderesses. Many of them are members of our "best churches" and move in the most select society.

Some of them read with animation the responses in church service and repeat the Lord's Prayer with the greatest gusto. A few--not many, we devoutly trust--talk about "sanctification." Poor, deluded, hoodwinked souls! they are blinded by Satan. Their hands are red with blood, and their hearts are black as h.e.l.l. Were they to ever approach the heaven of which they sanctimoniously prate, they would be met at the gate with the curse of murdered infants who never saw the light.

INFANTICIDE

If there is a pitiable sight in all G.o.d's great universe, if there is a scene over which angels shed tears and demons shriek laughter, it is an old cruel-eyed mother, who has seared her conscience and sinned away all n.o.ble womanliness and blasted her own soul, whispering into the unsoiled ears of her daughter the way in which to murder her own offspring; and if there is a hot h.e.l.l, such a mother will make her bed in it.

POODLE-DOGS.

The duties and cares of maternity are too irksome, and so the women who might be the mothers of John Wesleys and Fenelons and Metchers and Inskips and Cookmans are petting poodle-dogs and rat-terriers.

THE VITRIOL OF WRATH.

How many preachers dare speak in clarion tones what religion and science concur in a.s.serting concerning vice? But know ye by these presents, all of Adam's race, that what depraved humanity p.r.o.nounces all right and harmless, the Almighty G.o.d who whirls the worlds will corrode and scald with the burning vitriol of His wrath, and woe! woe!

woe! to the man or woman with whom is found sin.

GILT-EDGED FRAUDS.

Any tyro knows who drowned Morgan, but the clergyman who "opens up" on Masonry is a curiosity. Why, how can the ministers say anything when they are the chaplains of these gilt-edged frauds called "lodges"? It does not take much calculation to show that an inst.i.tution which spends three dollars in giving away one has no right to exist. Some of the more weak-minded and puerile of the clergy are doubtless in fear lest their "tongues should be torn out by the roots and their hearts buried in the rough sands of the seash.o.r.e." Brave men are not so easily scared.

BOLOGNA SAUSAGE.

Secretism in itself is suspicious. Solon said that he wanted his house so constructed that the people could see him at all hours and thus know him to be a good man. A system which is so built that the public is kept in the dark is ent.i.tled to the attention of a Pinkerton. Bologna sausage made in a factory at the door of which is a huge sign, "No Admittance," may be all right, but you can not make people think so.

THE ENTERTAINMENT.

There are few preachers so foolish and illogical as to believe that the entertainment plan is the best way to raise money for church work, yet scarcely one of them declares his honest straight-forward conviction about it. Now and then a Hale, more daring than the rest, writes a remonstrative article for the Forum, but the great ma.s.s keep quiet. A Pentecostal ministry will wheel its guns into position and load and fire into the supper and festival crowd notwithstanding the voices of objectors.

HEROISM.

Whatever may be the matter under consideration the sanctified man dares anything right. G.o.d is with him, and he feels His presence. Right is right, and by the grace of G.o.d he will stand by it though all the world howl and roar.

CHAPTER VII.

RESPONSIVENESS TO CHRIST.

A COAL AND A FLAME.

Among the results of the coming of the Comforter is an increase in warm personal love for Jesus. Conversion plants divine love (agape) in the heart, but sanctification quickens and intensifies it. Conversion drops a coal into the breast; the fuller grace fans it into a flame.

SOUNDING STRINGS.

There is a place in experience where Christ's voice sets the whole being vibrating. The soul is so in tune with Him that the cadences of His tones fill the soul with a tremor of glee and gladness. If you sing the scale in a room where there is a piano the corresponding strings of the instrument will sound. Thus it is with Jesus and the sanctified soul. When Christ speaks the heart answers spontaneously.

REGENERATION

Regeneration does much for us. But there is that even in the heart of the regenerate which is antagonistic to Christ. The whole man does not say instinctively, "Thy will be done"; yet there is something within to which the Lord can appeal. Consult Peter. He tells us of "exceeding great and precious promises by which we become partakers of the Divine nature." We "take a part" (partakers) of the divine Shekinah into our hearts. We are not only "adopted" but born of G.o.d, and by a divine heredity we possess His character.

SAMUEL.

We see this beautifully ill.u.s.trated in the case of Samuel. Given in covenant to G.o.d from his birth, and early taught the word of the Lord, he possessed the changed heart and the attuned ear. When G.o.d's voice fell out of the skies that night something in Samuel heard what aged and mitred Eli could not hear. Eli had the theory and reasoned out who the speaker must be, but the heart of Samuel awoke intuitively at the sound of that voice.

THE VOICE FROM THE SKY.

As Jesus taught in the temple G.o.d spoke, and many whose ears were dull because their hearts were hard and unchanged said, "It thundered."

Others saw that something extraordinary had occurred and admitted that "an angel spoke to Him." But the disciples whose "names were written in heaven," and who had regenerated hearts, knew it was the voice of G.o.d.

THE FLINTY WORLD.

But while the child of G.o.d is in sympathy with G.o.d he must be sanctified wholly to be fully, constantly and completely responsive to Christ. Jesus wants a bride who will live His life with Him and enter into all His plans and sorrows, ambitions and trials, aims and purposes. There are many people who are glad Jesus died for them who know nothing about "suffering with Christ." Yet the Bible is filled with allusions to it. The Heavenly Bridegroom wants a companion who will understand Him. This cold, hard, flinty, wicked world does not.

"He came unto His own and His own received Him not." He knocked at the door of His own vineyard and the husband-men said, "Come, let us kill the Son." The divine Lord hungers for some one who will not misjudge His purposes nor impute to Him base motives.