1 John 2

1 John 2:14

A PLAIN TALK TO YOUNG MEN 1 John 2:14 An address delivered before the Y.M.C.A. of the University of Minnesota. DR. A. C. DIXON, once said, “I saw two portraits in the National Art Gallery in London. Under one of which was the title, “A Man.” Under the other “A Woman.” They were meant to express the artist’s ideal of manhood and womanhood, and, as I gazed upon them, I thought it is better to be a man than a king; a true woman, than a queen.It is quite impossible for any one to understand, or even imagine all the motives that move young people to quit their homes for college, to leave the employment that has characterized life for many summers and turn to the work of students.Some of them, doubtless, become students simply because their parents send them to college. In others the student spirit is born of ambition for place and power.

In still others, it is only an expression of the natural, perhaps inherited, trend of life, but let us hope that in the greater majority, education is sought, struggled for, gained at great sacrifice, that it might make of us men and women.I use the words with their weight in them. I come, therefore, this afternoon to speak to you, hoping to stimulate such an ambition in every breast, and I bring to you this particular passage of Scripture because it seemed to me to set forth some of the fundamentals essential to your future success, or, in other words, necessary to your moral greatness, your genuine manhood.It is an interesting circumstance that John, in this Epistle, addresses the little children first, speaks to the fathers next, and leaves the young men to the last, as if they were the ones in whom his chief thought centered, and from whom the noblest things might be expected; and, in what I shall say, I purpose to impress upon you the exceeding wisdom of the Apostle’s words, “I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the Word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one”.YOUR CHIEF IS YOUR It is not your youth! It is your strength! Youth has no particular virtue in itself, nor is it any proof of power; but the strength of youth, where it exists, is its chief excellence. It was that of which the Apostle thought, when he said, “because ye are strong”.It is the grace of youth. We sometimes wonder why youth is full-rounded, full-blooded and beautiful, when the greater maturity has its wrinkles and evident weakness.It is because youth is commonly the time of strength. The heart throbs in the young man as it does not in men full of years. Every vein and artery pulses with power that will not be indefinitely continued, and that very full-bloodedness makes up the grace of the earlier years. Take my advice, and get your photographs now.

I have in my home photographs of my oldest brother, and I delight to look upon them because every feature has its grace; but when I look on him, I see that the weight of years have already begun to tell, and much of the grace so evident, forty years ago, he does not possess now.The strength has abated; the grace of youth is going.That strength is also the glory of youth. Solomon, in his Proverbs 20:29, says, “The glory of young men is their strength.”All succeeding ages have accepted his proverb. That strength suggests such possibilities. It is a very potency itself, and it is in demand in the world. One of the characteristics of the times in which we live is the bid that business and professional life makes for young men. Perhaps never in the world’s history have the officers of weightiest moment, and of large money returns, been filled by men of such youthful years as now.Only this week, the Secretary of a Home Missionary Board, said to me, “I find, in my labors, that the churches everywhere are demanding young ministers for pastors.”I answered, “It is not only true of the churches, but of the other professions largely, and equally so of business life.”A friend of mine, living in a city of some 40,000, said a few years since, “We have seven bank presidents in our city, and but one of them is past thirty-five years of age.” It is not because those who count themselves young are so superior that these things exist, but because the world appreciates the possibilities in youth.Men deal in youth as the members of the Chicago Board of Trade do in futures, and in fact it is “a future.” They take us not so much for what we are, as for what we may become, and their hope is based solely in the fact that youth is the time of strength.It may not be high-bred.

It may not be composed of blue-blood. It may be almost ragged in its poverty, and yet its power is such that men dare to speculate in it and out of it many of them make colossal fortune.The fact is that in America, we care but little how a boy was born, in whose house he was bred, what blood he has to his credit.

It is his native strength in which we trust, and that confidence has brought to America far less of disappointment than the children of lords and dukes and nobles have given to the older world.Solomon wrote, under inspiration, and he did not say, “the glory of young men is good birth,” nor yet, “the glory of young men is breeding in the house of kings,” nor yet, “the glory of young men is to come into possession of father’s bonds,” but “the glory of young men is their strength”.I congratulate you, my young fellows, upon every full drop of blood in your body. It is an engine of power. Preserve it. Employ it, and I speak to “you, young men, because ye are strong”.Some of you must have come up to college, this year, fresh from the farm. Your advantages to this hour may have been meager. In the first year of your studies, your progress may be slow, and the way seem full of discouragements, but these things are no occasion of despair.

Fortune has favored you still, because “ye are strong”.Ernest Gordon, speaking of his father’s education says, of his beginnings in the school at New London, “Up to this time, there had been little preliminary instruction. The classes, therefore, were much in advance of the newcomer, but though the cabbage outstrips the oak in the first months of spring, final results are never uncertain.”Now, I would not like to have the high-school, city-bred boys suppose that I mean to call them “cabbage-heads;” but I say to you now that if you would escape that denomination eventually, you must look well to your laurels, because these sons of toil are strong, and the “glory of young men is their strength”.This strength is the measure of one’s responsibility.

We sometimes suppose that a man’s birth is that measure. Not so!We sometimes say that a man’s circumstances are that measure. Not so!Man’s strength is that measure! If I were on a farm again, I would not hold the philosophy of farming that obtained when I was a boy, namely, that every man must hoe out his own row.He might be a little man. No matter. He might be a weak man. No matter. He must hoe his row, keeping pace with the profession.

That is not right!That is not after God’s ordination! Man’s strength is the measure of his responsibility. The larger man ought to bear the heavier loads; the man of larger intellect, the heavier loads; the man of larger body, the heavier loads; the man of larger heart, the heavier loads.Gladstone said to some young men, “Be strong, and exercise your strength. Work onwards, work upwards, and may the blessing of the Most High sooth your cries, clear your vision, and crown your labors.”Gladstone was right, in his advice, as well as gracious in his benediction.There is nothing to be more coveted than strength, and we know that it grows with exercise, but in its possession and in its increase, we add to our responsibilities.Some of you perhaps have already, and I trust the time will come when the others will have, read Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.You remember the incident of the farmer’s wagon sinking in the mud, and of the men about it who were helpless to hinder it from mireing deeper still, with the single exception of Jean Val Jean. For him to lend the lift possible to his mighty powers, was for him to make known to his enemy who he was to expose himself to a fresh arrest and imprisonment. He hesitated a while, but seeing the danger in which the man was placed, could not restrain himself from assistance, and crawling under the wagon, he strained his mighty muscles and lifted the load, only to be detected and thrown in prison in consequence.

What obligation was there upon Jean Val Jean to render such assistance, when he was sure it would cost him so much? Only this, he “was strong;” and we ought to understand that our powers are not given to us to be employed as we please, and only when we will; but wherever there is occasion, and God calls for it, or the interests of our fellow-men demand it.

Our strength must be put to service, and its extent is the measure of our responsibility.If you can carry four to seven studies, without injury to your health, you are culpable if you propose to take only two or three. If you can recite a perfect lesson, you have no moral right to come short of it. If you can render assistance to your fellow-students, giving to them greater bodily comfort, aiding them in mental equipment, or helping them into a higher, diviner life, God will not hold you guiltless except you accomplish it, “because ye are strong”. In other words, the power of youth is also its responsibility.YOUR BEST IS FROM THE “The Word of God abideth in you”. John said to the young men to whom he wrote, as if he counted their strength in part a result of that circumstance.“The Word of God abideth in you”. Indeed I know of nothing that can impart such power to the whole man, body, mind and spirit, as God’s Book, the Bible, when we have received it; when it abides in us. There may be some of you, I know not, who think slightingly of the sacred Scriptures, who imagine that in the battle of the present, the Bible will go down before critical teachers and students. Vain thought; if any entertain such. Semler, Ernesti and Griesbach thought so, when in Germany a 100 years since, they were saying as much, but they are dead and the Bible lives. Tyndal, Hobbs and Bollingbroke, the English anakim of the same period, supposed that they would bury the Book, but they are dead and it lives. The critics of this age, friendly or infidel, will come to a kindred end, and not one jot or tittle of the Word will fall. The poet has written truth and beauty in these lines.“I paused one day beside the blacksmith’s door, And listened to the anvil ring the evening chime, And, looking in, I saw upon the floor Old hammers worn with beating years of time. “‘How many anvils have you had I’ said! ‘To wear and batter these hammers so! ‘Just one,’ he answered, with a twinkling eye, ‘The anvil wears the hammers out, you know.’ “And so, I thought, the anvil of God’s Word For ages sceptic blows have beat upon Yet though the noise of infidel was heard The anvil is unworn, the hammers gone.” Hide the Word in your hearts, young men; it will sustain your bodies. The man who receives it eschews the things that tend to tear down his physique. To feed on the Word is to find the greatest physical strength in consequence.Christ forgot His dinner, and said He had no need of it, when He saw an opportunity to speak the Word to the woman at the well, declaring, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of”, and that the same amount of bread, seasoned with the sacred Word of God, adds such strength to the man as sinful, scriptureless men cannot secure from a godless meal. David talks as if he literally ate the Word of God, saying that it was “sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb”, and the colored boy in the South, after having accepted Christ, and learned to read the Bible said, “It is bettah ’an ’lasses.”A blind girl found her fingers calloused by repeated handling of the words of the Bible, and had them pared, but the sense of touch was gone, and her sorrow was unspeakable. She lifted the Bible to her lips, and opened the pages, and thought to kiss it a farewell, when the sensitive lips communicated to her mind, better than her fingers had ever done, and then she cried, “Oh, how sweet of taste is the Word of God!”Feed upon it. It will help you physically.Feed on it for the mind’s sake.

The young man who hides God’s Word in his heart has shown wisdom in his studies. It is the Book of books. Only the small men sneer at it; great men never! They know its inspiration and how many of them have given it first place in education.It was in the Bible that Bacon found a philosophy that revolutionized all methods of thought.There Raphael caught the vision of real life that made his paintings like breathing souls.There Milton found the keynote of his matchless song.There Thorwaldson learned what he chiseled into the noblest sculpture.There Mozart caught the harmonies that enriched the earth and reached up to Heaven.There Burke drank from the highest and purest fountains of law and with the draft took in his charming eloquence.There Harvey learned from the great physician, and turned the practice of medicine from quackery to science.There Gladstone discovered the eternal principles of civil justice, the precepts by which to govern nations; and there Charles Spurgeon found the inexhaustible spring of spiritual truth.Young men, you cannot afford to dispense with what has been the meat and drink of the greatest souls that have enjoyed life beneath God’s stars. See to it that the Word of God has chief place in your education. For your mind’s sake, make a study of it.And for the sake of your souls know its content!Henry Ward Beecher says, “The drift of the Book from Genesis to Revelation is the building up of men in Christ Jesus; a manhood which is central, royal, Divine, is the thing which that Book aims at.” This object is a man’s spiritual development and attraction, and I dare to say that whether you are ever wise in the wisdom of this world, or no; whether you are ever great, as men count greatness, or not; you can be wise in things Heavenly and great in the sight of God and angels, possessed indeed of the only greatness that is genuine and endless, if, with whole heart, you give yourself to the study of the Word of God.You have not forgotten that Hawthorne, in “The Great Stone Face,” sets forth the fact that the man to come, the man of highest civilization, of highest culture, the crowned man, the man ideal, is not a man of wealth, not a man of war, not a man of political fame, not a man of poetical genius, not a man of scientific learning, but a man of soul.It must be so, for after all the body is not the man, the mind is not the man, the spirit is the man, and for its development, the Scriptures are the essentials.Ernest Gordon, in the life of his father, speaks of the piety of the Puritan family into which that great man was born, and illustrates that piety by saying, “We recall especially one old grandmother, hid away upon a back farm with but two books, the Bible and John Bunyan’s works, who tended and nurtured a spiritual life fairly efflorescent in its devotion, its sweetness, its humility—a devotion which, in the extremest age, was never doomed.”And so if you care for your souls, see to it that the words of John are applicable in your case, “And the Word of God abideth in you”.YOUR IS TO THE EVIL ONE You understand that you have an arch-enemy! John speaks of it. “Because ye * * have overcome the wicked one”.There are those, in these days, who belittle the devil, who deny his existence, who explain him into thin air.I beg of you, as you live, let your souls understand that Satan is, and that he is a deceiver of all men, and destroys whom he can.You may have enemies in your way and walk of life. You will! If you do wrong, you will have enemies. If you do right, the number will be larger still, and more intense; but the arch-enemy is Satan, the evil one. His defeat is most difficult. Others you can outwit. Not him!

Others you can shame from their opposition, not him! Others you might, kill by sword, not him! Crafty beyond human thought; cruel beyond human imagination; eternal is his vigilance. His defeat is the problem of every man’s life.In this city, some of you may be tempted by drink. That is Satan.In this city, some of you may be tempted by the gambling house. That is Satan.In this city, some of you may be enticed by the scarlet woman. That is Satan.Wherever you are, whoever you may be, whatever you may do, he’ll be there. His traps will be set.

His best efforts for your destruction will be made, and your position is that of a duelist. You must overcome him, or be overcome. To lose this battle is to lose life. To gain it, is to gain life; it is to get the victory of victories, the crown of crowns.The richest man on earth is the man who has overcome the evil one. The most honorable man is the man who has overcome the evil one. The happiest man this side of Heaven is the man who has overcome the evil one.Whatever else you do, in whatever else you fail, do this, “overcome the wicked one”. For your life, fail not in the effort. You want to be men!

You want to be noble men. There is no such thing unless you overcome the evil one. To yield to him is defeat of manhood; the overthrow of nobility; the loss of God Himself.To overthrow him you are not able of yourself. Learn the lesson from the little fellow who, having heard of this mighty monster, came to his father and said, “Papa, is the devil bigger than I am?” “Yes, my boy,” answered the father. “And is he bigger than you?” “Yes, my boy, he is bigger than I.” “And is he bigger than Jesus Christ?” “No, my son, Christ is greater than Satan.” “Then I’ll get Him to help me and we’ll overcome.”I tell you now, you’ll fight a losing battle against indolence, except you receive the Lord. You’ll fight a losing battle against temper, unless you receive the Lord. You’ll fight a losing battle against pride, except you receive the Lord, and you’ll fight a losing battle against passion, unless Christ Himself come in to put it down.For you there is nothing than temporary, and in the end, eternal defeat, unless Jesus Christ becomes Saviour and God to your souls; and when once that is accomplished the crown of manhood is yours, the crown of honor is yours, the crown of immortality is yours, the crown of eternal happiness is yours.It is reported that the body of Edward I. was brought up from the grave 800 years after his burial, and they found that the king’s crown was still on his head. But my dear young men, if Christ be in you the hope of glory, and by His power ye overcome the evil one, in 800 years, in 1800 years, in 18 millenniums of years, in 18 millions of years, in 18 eternities, if such a conception were possible, your immortal youth will still be wearing the crown which God gave you, when, by a sweet submission of your will, you accepted that Christ who, in you, overcame the evil one.

1 John 2:15-17

CHURCH A OF TERMS 1 John 2:15-17. Sermon by Dr. W. B. Riley, First Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Jan. 3, 1909. THIS is one of the plain texts of that easily understood Book—the Bible. Among other proofs of the inspiration of this volume, this must ever be regarded as important, namely, that its thought is simple and its ideas clearly expressed. I propose to apply this text to the subject of church theatricals in order to correct if possible that evil compromise which some churches are making with the world in this matter. In the years of my residence in this city I have never, in so short a time, seen so much in the newspapers involving this travesty of terms as recently.To pass over the question of ethics where a church photographs girls engaged in scant clothing as an appeal for public patronage, there still remains occasion to compare some evident ideas involving the name of the Church of Christ with the clear teaching of this Scripture.Think of the promise of “thirty living pictures” and “ten fancy dances” and a “German drama in three acts” and a “pickaninny chorus” to close the bill, and so on, put forth by a professed Church of Christ, and all in the name of sweet “charity.”When respectable Christian people go thus far in the name of the Church, is it any wonder that the world takes an additional step and opens a hall to a Sunday night revelry of drink and dance and adulterous suggestion; and then defend it, and even secure the judgment of a judge, in the name of “charity”?Long enough has the Church of God been hoodwinked by that false philosophy that we may “do evil that good may come.” It is time we turned again to the rules and regulations laid down by our Lord or voiced by men inspired by the Spirit, and this test is among them.There are three suggestions in this Scripture worthy of development:—The World is Opposed, The World is Portrayed, and The World is Passing.THE WORLD IS OPPOSED “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him”. That is not fanaticism! that is sanity instead. There are positive reasons why the Church must take this very attitude in order to maintain its existence and accomplish its mission. We are not asked to oppose the world just to be odd, but rather because the True Church and the real world can no more escape mutual opposition than can light and darkness, love and hatred, life and death. These two are constitutionally opposed; they are opposed in life, in customs and in influence.In saying these things let it be understood that we do not hold to the idea that matter is inherently evil. “The world” as used in the Bible, does not refer to the globe we inhabit, but rather to the fallen state of man, to his universal unregeneracy. We have no sympathy with that race of hermits of whom Tennyson speaks, who “Live on pillars to avoid contamination by touching the surface of the earth.”Christ’s disciples are to be in the world; but, as Paul says to the Romans, “not conformed” to it.In life, the world is from below and the Church from above. When at night Nicodemus came to Jesus inquiring the way, Jesus said unto him,“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man he born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God”. And to explain His meaning, Paul writes:—“That which is horn of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit”. “The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second Man is the Lord from Heaven. “As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the Heavenly, such are they also that are Heavenly. “And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the Heavenly”. This new birth not only changes one’s character, but it actually introduces another life and an opposing spirit. “He that hath the Son hath life”. The life in Christ is absolutely another thing from the life of the world.“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). In customs the life of the Christian and the life of the world are necessarily opposed. It would be impossible to bring this out more fully than Paul expresses it in his Epistle to the Romans when he tells of a disposition to do the will of God opposed to certain customs which cling to him from the former life, and in reference to it he says,“The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. “Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me, “I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me, “For I delight in the Law of God after the inward man: “But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members”. (Romans 7:19-23). That may account for the compromise of many a churchman with the world, but it in no wise condones the offense, nor suggests the necessity of its continuance. Paul bemoaned his estate, “Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death”?And Paul appropriated proffered help and was able to cry, “I thank God through Jesus Christ”.If there is one point at which the world reveals its spirit more than another it is in the so-called dramatic art, or the modern theater. It is doubtful if there is a more worldly institution in existence, and the Word of the Lord is that ye “be * * not unequally yoked together with unbelievers”; and the injunction following, “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing: and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters”, has never found better occasion than when the Church is compromised with the world at this point. Her very life depends upon her obedience to the Divine injunction. Worldly customs, worldly society, the things that are in the world, are to the new life a depressing atmosphere, and if they do not destroy its existence they will certainly destroy its brilliancy, extinguish its light, and “if * * the light which is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness”.In influence the world must be opposed by the Church. The world’s attitude is one of opposition to Christian people.

Jesus Himself said of His disciples, “I have given them Thy Word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world”.The world opposes the Church of Jesus Christ without cause. The Church of Jesus Christ can hate the world with good occasion, for the world crucified its Lord.

I heard J. Wilbur Chapman say that his uncle was stabbed to death by a man who used a dirk knife in the awful deed. His father went to the scene of the tragedy in answer to a telegram, and found the knife lying near to his brother’s side. He wrapped it in paper and carried it home that it might be introduced as evidence in the murder trial. When he came to the house with it, he unwrapped the paper and “mother and us children had one glance; mother screamed and said, ‘Take it away, I don’t want to ever see it again!’ and father wrapped it up and carefully concealed it. The sight of that knife made my mother sick at heart, and sent a chill over every child.

Why? Solely because it was the instrument of my loved uncle’s death.”How can the brethren of our Lord fondle with affection that instrument which Satan used to slay our loved Saviour?

On it He was crucified by the world. Do not tell me then that those people who “love not the world”, are mere cranks, for I declare to you that in that circumstance they reveal one of the surest signs of discipleship to Jesus Christ.Again, the man who wears His Name, or the name of His Church, and yet gives himself to worldliness will soon discover a depression, if not a destruction, of all spiritual life and power. When did you ever see a professed Christian constantly consorting with the world, or a church in daily alliance with it, retain spiritual gifts or evidence spiritual ability? Goethe was right, “Tell me with whom thou dost company and I will tell thee who thou art.”THE WORLD The ground of opposition to the world is defended in the definition of “the world”. Three phrases cover that definition and nothing more is needed— “the lust of the flesh”, “the lust of the eyes”, and “the pride of life”.Did it ever occur to you that when Satan attacked the Son of God these were the three points of approach—“the lust of the flesh”,—“the lust of the eye”, and “the pride of life”?“Command that these stones be made bread” and feed Thyself—an appeal to the “lust of the flesh”.“Cast Thyself down” from the pinnacle of the Temple, and let the angels of God descend to catch Thee in their arms, and the whole world look on— the “lust of the eyes”!Bow down before me and all the kingdoms of the world will be given thee—“the pride of life”!The devil knew the most powerful appeals, and he also understood the weakest points of the human nature. Those appeals constitute the world— the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life.“The lust of the flesh”. What a multitude are going down, that way, tonight! It is nothing less than the world that is taking those young men into yonder blind pig. It is “the lust of the flesh” that leads them there, and into yonder pool rooms where smoking and drinking and filthy conversation and filthier conduct are cursing the lads of the land.

It is “the lust of the flesh”.R. J.

Campbell, successor to Joseph Parker, in London, England, a few years since, made himself famous by his erratic theology and infamous by his false teaching. Seldom has he spoken more falsely than when he said,“What I mean to point out is, that there is not, and never has been, an act of the will in which a man without bias in either direction, has deliberately chosen evil in the presence of good. Under such circumstances no being in his sober senses would ever choose evil. Enlightened self-interest alone would forbid the probability of such a choice. Freedom of the will, in this sense, has never existed.”Is God responsible then for the evil conduct of man? I prefer the Apostle James to Reginald Campbell. James says,“God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man: “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. “Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, (or full-grown) bringeth forth death”. The newspapers reported within one week, three men have appeared at the State University offering to sell their bodies for $25.00 and commit suicide on New Year’s Day.Has the meaning of that proposition appeared to you? $25.00 to be spent in two or three days! Life for the poor has no such necessities! If it was life they loved, they would continue it thirty days, for that amount of money would have sustained it in fair comfort for so long. But in the interest of lust—drunkenness, adultery, and such like, these men were willing to sell their bodies and souls for a three-day debauch.Would God the world could entice only such debased and degraded ones; but she has her attractions for the refined, the comfortably situated; yea, even for those whose morals have been fair and whose mental culture has been fine.Hawthorne, in his story of Prudence Ingelfield, gives us a pitiful illustration. It was Thanksgiving Eve when the prodigal daughter returned to fill the empty chair at the family table. Her father received her with thanksgiving and her brother thanked God that she had come before he set off to a far field as a foreign missionary.But when the dinner was over, Satan came and called to this beautiful child again, and even while the family were making preparations for the evening prayer, Prudence slipped on her cloak and hood and lifted the latch of the door and was gone.

Her father called after her, but Hawthorne says,“The fiend prevailed and Prudence vanished into outer darkness. When the family reached the door they could see nothing but heard the sound of wheels rolling over the frozen ground.

That same night among the painted beauties at the theater of a neighboring city, there was one whose dissolute mirth seemed inconsistent with any sympathy for pure affections, and for the joys and griefs which are hallowed by them. This was Prudence Ingelfield.”No wonder Hawthorne concludes, “The same dark power that drew Prudence Ingelfield from her father’s hearth, the same in its nature, though heightened then to a dread necessity, would snatch a guilty soul from the gate of Heaven and make its sin and its punishment alike eternal.”What was that power? “The lust of the flesh”. To what place did she return for its satiety?To the place of the painted beauties at the theater.Shame on the Church of God that compromises with an institution that for more than two thousand years has done little else than excite the lust of the flesh and destroy the souls of men and women, and lads and lassies.“The lust of the eyes”. Ever since the fall of man “the eye gate” has been one of the favorite ways of Satan to the town of “Man’s-soul.”It would almost seem that with the race of the centuries, he is choosing more and more to enter by that way. What is the meaning when, in one of our theaters recently, upon which people who profess themselves to be decent, attend, young girls appeared without so much as a. ribbon at the waist; exposing femininity for price and patronage, selling their own souls, damning the souls of others, sacrilegiously attempting to besmirch religion in the endeavor?Because the “lust of the eyes” is such that many a modern theater lives by the same! Yonder Madam, in the red-light district, who hires her sleuth hounds to hunt the innocent and convert them into victims of fleshly lusts, is no more Satan’s agent than that theater which makes its money by damning alike the souls of its performers and patrons.Truly, as the Epistle to the Romans says, such as engage here in the flesh the sinful passions “work in [their] members to bring forth fruit unto death”.What should be the attitude of the Church toward this whole institution, (for while some of them are worse than others, none of them are good,) except for Christians to “come out from among them * * and touch not the unclean thing”?But this is not the sole offender through “the lust of the eyes”.Tolstoi was not only the noblest Russian, but was one of the most remarkable men of modern times.

The thing that distinguished him was that he saw clearly and spake fearlessly.He has a volume on “What is Art?” that every man and woman should read. In it he says, “Since the world began, since the Trojan war, which sprang from that same sexual dissoluteness, down to and including the suicides and murders of lovers described in almost every newspaper, a great proportion of the sufferings of the human race have come from this source.”Then he raises the question, “What is art doing with it?” And answers, “All art, real and counterfeit, with very few exceptions, is devoted to describing, depicting, and inflaming sexual love in every shape and form.

When one remembers all those novels and their lust-kindling descriptions of love with which the literature of our society overflows; if one only remembers all those pictures and statues representing women’s naked bodies, and all sorts of abominations which are reproduced in illustrations and advertisements; if one only remembers all the filthy operas and operettas, with which the world teems, involuntarily it seems as if existing art had but one definite aim—to disseminate vice as widely as possible.”And after a further description, Tolstoi says, “I think that every reasonable man will again decide the question as, Plato decided it, ‘Rather let there be no art at all than continue the depraving art, or simulation of art, which now exists.’”And yet when it is all said, what is the meaning of it? The Bible, with its accustomed ability, puts it in one phrase—“the lust of the eyes”—that is another feature of the world. How then can the Church of God compromise with it and its institutions?“The pride of life”. If one would like a fuller description of this subject then go back to the Book of Ecclesiastes and hear Solomon as he sums it up. James also has spoken a brief word,“What is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away”. That is true if one is to live only the life that now is.“All is vanity and vexation of spirit”! How many people there are who think if they can only build a mansion, blessedness will begin! Let one man instruct us from experience, for that alone reveals the vain glory of the world. Writing in the Chicago Evening Post he said, “When we were poor we looked toward the time when we could have a summer home.” “Yes,” said his friend. “When we got rich enough to have one we did not like going to the same place every summer.” “Yes.” “Then we built another. After a bit we got to going to a different place in the winter so that we would not have to put some time in the city and so we built there.” “I suppose you are satisfied now.”“I suppose so; at least I suppose my wife is. She spends most of her time in Europe now, but she knows she has them.”Of this vain glory even the secular papers could see the moral, and headed this article “The way of the world.”But if the world only disappointed men it would not be so bad.

The truth is it destroys them.Do you remember that the author of “Quo Vadis” speaks of the time when Lygia went with Acte to the palace and looked upon what was to her a strange world whose beauty intoxicated her eyes, but whose contrasts her girlish understanding could not grasp. “In those twilights of the sky, in those rows of motionless columns vanishing in the distance, and in those statuesque people, there was a certain lofty repose. It seemed that in the midst of those marbles of simple lines demigods might live free of care, at peace and in happiness.

Meanwhile, the low voice of Acte disclosed, time after time, a new and dreadful secret of that palace and those people. See, there at a distance is the covered portico on whose columns and floor are still visible red stains from the blood with which Caligula sprinkled the white marble when he fell beneath the knife of Cassitrus Chaerea; there his wife was slain; there his child was dashed against a stone; tinder that wing is the dungeon in which the younger Drusus gnawed his hands from hunger; there the elder Drusus was poisoned; there Gemelius quivered in terror, and Claudius in convulsions; there Germanicus suffered,—everywhere those walls had heard the groans and death-rattle of the dying; and those people hurrying now to the feast in togas, in colored tunics, in flowers, and in jewels, may be the condemned of tomorrow. On more than one face, perhaps, a smile conceals terror, alarm, the uncertainty of the next day; perhaps feverishness, greed, envy are gnawing at this moment into the hearts of those crowned demigods, who in appearance are free from care.Lygia’s frightened thoughts could not keep pace with Acte’s words; and when that wonderful world attracted her eyes with increasing force, her heart contracted within her from fear.”Some might think this the fear of inexperience, or even the timidity of the ignorant, but the better instructed know full well that it was well founded. The very scene upon which she had looked there had been the delight of the multitude when first they touched it; it proved itself later to be their death, destroying body and soul in hell. Vain glory indeed, and from it the Apostle, by inspiration tries, Love not”.But the Bible is again remarkable in that it always assigns its reasons.THE WORLD IS PASSING “The world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever”. Here the end of the world is predicted. If there is anything that has been made certain by the voice and pen of inspiration it is the temporary character of the world. “The end of the world” is not a philosophical phrase; it is a Biblical sentence.Every prophet saw it; every inspired sage spake of it. Without attempting to quote the multitude of passages relating to this subject let me remind you of a few. The Evangel of the Old Testament —Isaiah—speaking of it after this manner:“Behold, the Lord will dome with fire, and with His chariots like a whirlwind, to render His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire. “For by fire and by His sword will the Lord plead with all flesh: and the slain of the Lord shall be many”. The Apostle Peter says,“The heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same Word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men”. John in the Revelation saw “a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away”. It is folly for the Christian man—immortalized by his conversion—to fix his affections upon that which passeth away.This end involves a sentence of judgment also.“And the lust thereof”. “When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death”. The first warning against sin that ever was uttered was attended by the statement, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”. It is no more true that “the gift of God is eternal life” than it is that “the wages of sin is death”.And when one remembers that the world is to be brought into judgment, and that part of it which lieth in the wicked one is to be turned into hell, it is an occasion for the Church of God to keep itself separate.People read these sacred sentences without stopping to reflect upon them. The fear of judgment is strong enough in the human heart if only men believed it were about to fall. Convince Minneapolis today that it will stand before God before tomorrow dawns, and every sanctuary of it will be filled with penitents, and scarce an unregenerate man but will be confessing his sins and begging for pardon; and scarce a churchman but will be contrite in spirit, and grieving his alliance with the world.What better illustration of this fact could one find than is already written into history. In 1721 Mr. Whitson, having calculated the return of a comet for the 24th of October, at five minutes past five in the morning, gave notice to the public accordingly and declared that as a result of the comet’s coming the world would be dissolved by fire on the following Sunday.Mr.

Whitson’s reputation as a divine and as a philosopher carried conviction to the populace that his prediction would come to pass. The gentleman who had neglected to have family prayers for five years resumed them that night.

His wife, having an engagement to attend a ball, tried to persuade him to put it off until they saw whether the comet was coming into sight. The South Sea stock immediately fell to 5% and the East India stock to 1%. But when the next morning the comet appeared according to prediction, the people believed the judgment was at hand. One hundred and twenty-five clergymen were ferried to Lambeth to pray for the people. Many burned their novels and rushed to the bookshops to get a copy of the Bible or of Taylor’s “Holy Living and Dying.” More than seven thousand men who kept mistresses were promptly married, and so on.We smile at these suggestions and yet one day, in a moment, the end will be on, the judgment will have come. If the Revelation be dependable, men who have forgotten to be honest—men and women who have made traffic of virtue; multitudes who have mocked God—the mighty of all the earth— including its kings, and princes, and chief captains, and its rich men, and! strong men and bond men and! free men, will seek a hiding place, and with their voices will cry to the dust and to the rocks to “fall on us, and hide us ** from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand”?Then both the passing of the world and the prominence of the Christian will be alike revealed. “See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh.

For if they escaped not who refused Him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from Him that speaketh from Heaven; whose voice then shook the earth: but now He hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain”, namely, the Kingdom of God and the places of His grace.

For “the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever”.Dwight Hillis, in his little volume “Immortality,” says, “It was faith in the immortality that gave the heroes their conquering courage and the reformers their immortal renown.” The light falling from the Heavenly shore hath lent a soft radiance to man’s earthly life and thought. Handel tells us that when he wrote the “Hallelujah Chorus” he saw Heaven opened and all the angels and the great God Himself. When death robbed Tennyson of Hallam, his friend, the poet took up the harp of life, and looking toward the immortal realm, the music of unwonted sweetness stole over the world. Dying at last he passed away to the music of his own requiem. When the little child, the sweet mother, the poet or statesman falls asleep, should we look up with Dante we would see:“A Divine chariot sweeping through the Heavenly confines, Its pathway well-nigh choked with flowers.” This is the prospect and the promise that puts the crown upon the Christian’s brow. And whether it is the little one or the parent, the man in the palace or the peasant in the hut, who is passing, if his faith is in Christ, he goes knowing that “to die is to live again.”