[b]The Christian's Perils - A Sermon by the famous Ulster Evangelist REV. W. P. NICHOLSON[/b]

When you got converted, received Jesus Christ, the devil did not die. Sin has not been put into hell, where it will be put one of these days. You are in an alien country here, with an alien nature and an alien body; and you have, as such inherited what will keep you busy for the rest of your days. Some people think they will never be tempted while they are Christians. You will not be long till you get an eye-opener. There are perils without and perils within, perils around, perils above and perils beneath. The reason why a good many people fail is their ignorance of these things; or, if not ignorant altogether, they fail because they understand their peril and under-rate the subtlety of the enemy.

If you are a nominal sort of Christian, a sham and a make-believe, whether a Methodist, Presbyterian or Church of Ireland Christian, you have a name to live while you are as dead as Henry VIII. The devil will not bother you if you are unconverted. In shooting ducks, it is the wounded ones you run after: the dead ones can be gathered all in good time. If you are dead in sin, there are no perils, except the peril you will meet at the end. But for genuinely born-again Christians there are real perils. Let us look at some of them.

THE PERIL OF UNHEEDED SELF DISCOVERY

1. There is first of all the peril of unheeded self-discovery, in which we fail to follow God's revelation about something in us.

Seven times the Lord tried to reveal to Judas what he was. You could not tell the difference between him and the rest of the disciples until it came to the end. Not one [6] of them knew the difference. When the Lord said "One of you shall betray Me," consternation filled each of them. "Lord, is it I?" they all said. Seven times you have the Lord distinctly seeking to reveal to Judas the awful possibility of peril in his life; yet he shut his eyes to it, and rushed on to his doom and damnation. If the Lord has given you a revelation of anything wrong in yourself - in your nature, in your temper, in your tendency, in any way or manner, shape or form - it is a terrible peril to shut your eyes to it. Whatever weakness He may have revealed to you, whatever tendency, it is because the Lord sees it that He seeks to reveal it to you. It is a tremendous peril to refuse to see it.

You remember how in the Old Testament, in II Chronicles, 26, a young fellow became king; and then, when he became lifted up, he sought to take the very position of the High Priest, although the Lord tried to show him the peril and to safeguard him against it. The danger lies with us today just as much as with those in olden time. The Lord sought to discover Peter to himself. "You are going to deny Me." "Deny You? I will die for You!" "Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you." But, in spite of it all, poor Peter rushed on to ruin and sorrow. If the Lord shows us ourselves, it is a terrible thing not to pay heed to it. When you are at a railway junction, and the lines separate one from another, you know that at the beginning of their separation it is as sharp as the blade of a knife, but what a difference at the end! Beginnings may be very little in the matter of sin, but look at what they are at the end. If you are getting away from the main lines of truth, if you are getting wrong on any moral question, as you value your own soul, I beseech you to heed the Word.

THE PERIL OF PRESUMPTUOUS SIN

2. The next peril is presumptuous sin.

There is more backsliding from this than from any other cause, especially amongst ministers and other workers. They argue, "The Lord used me in the past, and He is bound to use me again." "The Lord blessed me in my Sunday School class last Sunday and He is bound to bless me again." "I was all right with God yesterday and therefore I am all right with Him today." "Lord, save me from presumptions sins I " cries the Psalmist. A lot of the hymns back this idea up, such as the one saying "Each victory will help you some other to win."

That is a sentiment greatly open to abuse. I have only victory at this moment by this moment's faith in Christ. I have no victory today because I had victory yesterday. I have no triumph because I had triumph last week. There is nobody loves you like God, and He will keep you hanging in abject dependence on Him. "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." The weakest man or woman who has faith is as strong as all the forces of hell combined. It is not a question of your will or determination, or the strength of your jaw. It is not a question of the will to win - at least, not when it comes to salvation. When you and I get to the place where we rely on God completely, that is where our victory lies.

THE PERIL OF UNCOUNTED COST

3. The peril of uncounted cost. It is one thing to make a start. The first step is not the hardest, but the last. "Lord, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest," protested one candidate; and you know the reply: "The foxes have holes and the birds have nests, but the Son of Man has not where to lay His head;" and then it was "Good-bye, Jesus."

When the storm occurred on the lake there may have been an inclination to say, "Thank you, I am a fair weather Christian." But "Except a man forsake all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple; except a man deny himself, and take up the cross daily, he cannot be My disciple . . . Which of you, going to build, does not count the cost?" The Christian life is a life of battle and building and the Lord would have us to count the cost. Many a pilgrim has made a good start and a bad ending, because he did not count the cost of the persecution, - of being ostracised, maligned, misrepresented and hated of all men. It is better never to make the move than to make it and make a mess of it.

THE PERIL OF UNJUDGED SIN

4. Unjudged sin. Some of us preachers are awfully sore on other people's sins; but what about our own? Do you judge your sin? or do you treat it like a gouty toe? King Saul was delicate in handling the finest of the sheep, and spared them and Agag; but Samuel said - "In the name of God I will hew down Agag." Whatever sin God puts His hand on, are you as cruel as hell with it? or are you kind and do you pander to it?

The curse amongst us is a superficial sense of sin. We are playing with it, we have entered into a great sympathy with it, and we have all kinds of excuses and apologies to make for the accursed thing. God never condones sin; He forgives sinners, but He condemns and destroys sin. He hates sin with a burning white-heat hatred, and when you and I are as near God as we can get, we shall be inflamed not only with love but with a hatred to sin. Do you make any allowance for it? How do you judge of it? Condemn it, in the name of God, and be done with it! It is a terrible peril, whether it comes in the shape of whisky, women, tobacco, worldliness, or anything else. If there is any sin in your life unjudged, drag it out and destroy it in the name of God. You may get a wound like a pinprick, and before you know where you are you have got lockjaw. President Coolidge's son had a blister on his heel, and in a fortnight he was a corpse. Sin is like that in its deadliness; it is a hellish thing: it will blight and curse but never bless you. [12]

People say - "Oh yes, I lost my temper, but I could not very well help it. Shake hands with me in my weakness."

Brother, judge the thing, unveil it in God's presence.

There is a story told of an old Eastern monarch who was supposed to be beautiful - so much so that he kept a veil over his face lest beholders should be dazzled. But one day the veil was blown aside, and he was seen to be in reality what he was, an ugly rascal. Sin is like that.

THE PERIL OF A COMPROMISING POLICY

5. A compromising policy. Ask yourself - Where will it end? Said a minister one day to me, "I want you to do this and that;" and I said, "Well, sir, will you tell me where it will end? " I was not to preach so much about hell and damnation. I said, "You cannot deny that I preach the Gospel," and that was admitted. I said, "If I make this promise to you, where am I to stop?" That is the question everyone has to face.

You get an invitation to a card party, and of course you do not feel as if you were more holy than they. You have no love for the thing, but it is a delicate situation, and you say, "Well, I will go. I will not dance, I will just sit and look on; I will not play cards, but I will sit there. I want to show friendliness and I will go. I would like to help these friends of mine to Christ."

But you can never get a man out of a bog-hole by going in beside him. A lot of the so-called social work in churches is carried on with the motive, "We have got to keep the young people," and so we have all sorts of questionable things going on.

One minister put it, "After all, it is the same Gospel but it is a re-adaptation."

I asked, "How many are you getting with it?"

"Oh, well, not many yet."

"How many do you get out of that gang for the Prayer Meeting?"

"We have not got a Prayer Meeting."

The story of Abraham and Lot is not out of date. Lot said to Abraham:

"You will never do any good up here; the commonsense thing is to go down and make yourself one of them."

"No," said Abraham, "I will stay by my sheep."

Lot goes down, becomes a fine man in the cities of the plain; but when the day of catastrophe draws near, Abraham has to pray for Lot: "Lord, be easy on them! Lot went down to do some social service work. If there are forty righteous people there will you burn them up?"

You know the whole story, and of how the children of Lot's daughters became the Moabites and Ammonites and were thorns in the sides of Israel ever afterwards.

People say to me, "Now, Mr. Nicholson would not you appeal to the better-class people if you were a little more considerate, if you would say 'condemned' instead of 'damned'?" A lady heard a canon preaching after she heard me, and she declared, "I would rather have the canon's hell than yours."

Oh, let there be a complete and constant abandonment to the Lord. It is not merely [13] an act, but an attitude; not only a crisis, but a process; we should not only be filled with the Holy Ghost, but be in process of being filled. The crisis is when you make the surrender, and by faith receive; and the process is walking in the light as He is in the light and being filled with all the fullness of God day in and day out.

Take advantage of all the means of grace. If you begin to neglect private devotion, these perils will manifest themselves. Read your Bible. If you get into the habit of neglecting the means of grace and the Church, then look out! When a "twicer" at church becomes a "oncer," it is like Lot pitching his tent towards Sodom. People compromise by their Sunday reading, and by the use of tobacco for their infirmities. Get busy winning men and women to Christ, and try to get believers filled with the Holy Spirit. Remember, God has only one business, and that is saving men. For that one thing He gave all He had, and is doing all He can. God's work is a saving work. If you are not engaged in saving work, then do not say you are doing God's work. The only way you can keep a bicycle standing is by keeping it going; and we human beings are like that.

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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon