1 John 3

1 John 3:2

OUR FUTURE GLORY 1 John 3:2. IT is not always necessary that a certain amount of clearing be done in order to get at the truth or truths of a text. In our study of God’s Word we come at times upon those sentences which seem just waiting to deliver themselves of all that they contain. The especial circumstances under which such passages were uttered appear neither to lend to nor subtract from the weight of their words. The peculiar style of the inspired artist, so often discoverable in the very forms of speech employed, has not asserted itself in any particular coloring of the thoughts which they express. Even the context, accustomed as it is to set definite limits upon single passages, does not so affect them, simply because their round of ideas is sufficiently complete to make them independent of contiguous Scripture. I think that the text before us may very properly be reckoned as one such. The plain language in which its thought is expressed frees the meaning from anything like obscurity, while the splendid truths which the words clothe shine through the too thin garments, and flash upon you in all their fullness. When log huts were built in the midst of dense forests, it was not enough that at night a brilliantly-lighted candle should be placed in the window. Before the weary traveler could be cheered by its shining, or the lost be directed by its light, some cutting away of trees and clearing of underbrush must be done. Not so for the stately mansion, built upon the prairie and lifted greatly above all that surrounds it. In the darkest night the radiance from its many windows assists approach on any side.There is to be discovered here a certain analogy to the nature of different texts of Scripture. Some of them will not shine for us until circumstances, authorship, context, etc., have been cleared, whilst others are so luminous that they hastily discover to us all their truth, when we turn to their study.“Beloved, now are we the sons of God”, is a statement as clear as the light itself, and reveals in unmistakable speech the glad fact that believers are sons of God, and, if so, then of course it follows thatTHEY ARE HEIRS OF DIVINE GLORY What a splendid truth it is, that already, even now, at this very moment, those of us who have believed are heirs of Divine glory. If our hearts are not held by some chill of worldliness or diseased with indifference, they should leap into our very throats for joy at this announcement of the text, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God”.There are a great many people on this earth who are so proud of one inheritance or another that they carry a high head all their days, and are wont to look with a sort of contempt upon those whom they reckon as less favored in birth and breeding. Pass along the street to-day and you may meet the son of a rich father, whose very appearance bespeaks his joy in that fact. His conscious superiority is stamped into the patent leather of his shoes, cut into the imported cloth of his coat, tied into the satin bow at his neck, carved into the ivory head of his cane, written in the haughtiness of his look, and spelled out at least by the indolence of his gait. “My father is rich,” seems to furnish a supreme content to his life.On the next square you meet another who is an heir to an honored name. That is truly a superior possession, and most men are alive to its worth. If too worthless to have ever gained it for themselves, they will not allow the world to forget that it was bequeathed them.

The self-conscious air of the one whom you are now passing suavely suggests, “My grandfather was a German Baron, or an English Lord,” as the case may have been; or “Pray sir, do not forget that my father is a member of the U. S.

Senate!”The end is not yet. At a social tea next week you may meet a woman whose father was a man of some literary talent. His books did not run like wildfire through a dozen editions as “Ben Hur,” “Robert Elsmere” and “The Leopards Spots” did, but a few thousand copies were sold. She is apt to let you know whose child she is before the evening is over. Mrs. Ward’s poor Mrs. Darcy is not the only woman who ever quietly hinted that she herself was an authoress, and that some of her kin had written well. Even Madam Dewitt finds no apology necessary when in the “Private Life” of her father, the great Guizot, she fairly revels in the tale of his attainments.

Why should she be expected to apologize? I am sure that such heirs have occasion of joy, and ought to be allowed to give expression to their gladness in the way most agreeable to themselves. I don’t believe that God Himself would object, if only their delight was more often coupled with some degree of worthiness.But what is the occasion of their joy as compared with ours? No Christian need envy the favored son of earth, because providence has poured great riches into his lap, bestowed upon him the gift of a time-honored name, or placed upon his brow the wreath of intellectual wealth. Something is radically wrong with the fountains of our joy, if upon reading the first clause of this text, we do not hasten to say, “It is enough, O Lord! I had rather be an heir-apparent of Divine glory, than actual heir of all earth’s wisdom and riches and honor.”It is told of Henry the Fourth, King of France, that some one thought to excite his envy by enumerating the possessions of the king of Spain.

Henry listened until they had declared his rival ruler over Castile, Navarre, Naples, Nova Hispania, the Sicilies, and the West Indias, and then answered from a heart, still swollen with the pride of his own possession, “What of that, when I am king of France!” Ah, ye men of the world, whose credit column is a vast deal longer than your debit, rejoice in your possessions as you will, I will not envy you, for I am sure that I have a much richer inheritance. A friend of mine once said, “Since I became assured of my pardon, and of my adoption into the great family of God, my joy has been such at times that whilst walking the streets I am tempted to cry out for very gladness, ‘I am the child of the King!’” Where, then, is the place for religious gloom?

Why have we so looked or acted as to put into the mouth of the world that contradiction of terms, “a service of sacrifice,” “a sordid Christianity?” He, who can read this sentence, wherein a single stroke of the pen of inspiration has given him a clear deed and title to all the riches of Divine glory, and yet be sad, is unworthy the name of “Child of God.” “Beloved”—Listen! what other announcement of Heaven ever meant so much?—“now are we the sons of God”.But here I have touched another significant truth of this text. There is only a comma, that smallest of punctuation marks to be overstepped, and lo, we are in the midst of its more widened circle! That truth is that “it doth not yet appear what we shall be”; or, in other words the fulness of OUR GLORY IS YET VEILED I suspect that our weakness renders this a necessity. There are those among earth’s heirs, into whose hands it would be at once foolish and dangerous to give the entire estate of which they are the rightful owners. Their youth renders it impossible that they should appreciate it; their mental imbecility indisposes them for its proper management, or else their prodigal habits argue that it would work their ruin. The same thing is true of God’s children and their splendid inheritance, as of the children of bondholders, bank stock owners, or landed proprietors. Who of us are sufficiently grown to understand those riches of God’s grace already revealed? Then why should God lend more, when it would only mean our greater confusion?

When we are such spiritual spendthrifts now, that we are wasting divinest substance with riotous living, why should our extravagance be fostered by strewing the path with richer pearls?Only when we have grown larger and wiser and better in Christ can Heaven’s door stand further ajar, and we know more of our estate and yet be uninjured by the sight.But that door can never open entirely so long as we are in this life. It must halt on its hinges and stand like Tennyson’s nature to “half reveal and half conceal” the joys within, until we are better prepared for a fuller revelation.

If it were possible for the sons of God to enjoy, but for a moment, the perfect vision of their future estate, they would be utterly unfitted for the duties of earth by the sight. The words of Dr. Pierce, the great shipman, ought to be introduced here, for the sake of their splendid illustration of my meaning. He says, “I remember on my return to France, after a long voyage to India, as soon as the sailors had discerned the shores of their native country, they became, in a great measure, incapable of attending to the duties of the ship. Some looked at it wistfully, others dressed themselves in their best clothes; some talked, others wept. As we approached, their joy became greater, and still more intense was it when we came into port, and saw on the quay their parents and children; so that we had to get another set of sailors to bring us into the harbor.”Thus would it be with God’s children if it were possible for us to see the full and unclouded glory which is to be ours.

I can say truly that I am in no hurry to go to Heaven, simply because I am in love with this life. I think that this feeling of mine is the common one among even the most faithful of Christ’s followers.

From one point of view such a sentiment may seem very unnatural, but from another it is to be explained on most natural grounds. The little fellow of three summers, in the miserable hovel in the back alley, is perfectly content with all of his surroundings because he neither knows nor cares about any better habitation or manner of life. It will not always be so! One of these days, when he has grown bigger, he will walk beside your stately mansion, and in passing the half-open door get a look into its elegant apartments, upon its beautiful furniture, and will awake to a certain sense of the higher and richer joys of your home. If so, from that moment his pleasure in his own pig-sty is gone. Some people say that it spoils the kitchen girl to let her get into the parlor often.

How natural that it should do so! The beauty and luxury and ease which that apartment presents and suggests, makes it hard indeed to turn from the sight to the homeliness and drudgery of the other.

Earth is only the kitchen of God’s universe, and the doors of Heaven’s parlors are never so widely open that we can see within, lest our peace should be marred by the sight. This satisfaction with earth accounts for the fact that although we may not fear death, we wish its call to be long delayed. Acknowledging its summons as the Christian’s passport to Heaven, we are pained to hear it, and are apt to answer, “Not just yet! Leave me here a little while more, that I may realize this earthly ambition; that I may finish this project of time. I have not stored up enough wealth as yet. I have not attained to the place in politics that I greatly desire.

I have not secured the literary honors which may be mine if I can only remain.”This plea is made more pathetic by others who say, “When I have lingered a little longer with the friends of my heart; when I have preached a greater number of, and better sermons; when I have written some works that will live after me, and bless my fellows, then I will be ready to come!” We would never so reason again if an angel going in from a visit to some of the celestial spheres, should fail to close Heaven’s door behind him, and we should enjoy an inward glance before Peter came around to lock up. A momentary glance would upset all the reasoning before employed.

The man who wanted more of earth’s wealth would say, “What need of these few pennies, when my real possessions are already in sight. If I can but pass through that open door, instantly my treasures will reckon up ten thousand times bigger than were those of Chroesus in his palmiest days.” The one who desired life for wisdom’s sake must say, “What a fool I have been to think that this was the sphere to learn things in. If I can but pass Heaven’s threshold, I shall, in a minute, be wiser than a hundred Solomons in a row!”Hear that other, who asked to remain until he had known better thought and given to it stronger expression as a preacher or author, as he exclaims, “Oh, what a blunderer I have been, not to have remembered that the redeemed are capable of the purest thought, and, are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister unto those who shall be the heirs of salvation?”But still another who has been wont to think it hard to give up earth’s many friends, is chiding his logic, as he peers through that open door, “What has been the matter with my memory, that I forgot how many friends and loved ones I had in Heaven. Though the door is but half open, I see a score of boys and girls with whom I went to school. How happy and radiant they are! How my soul yearns to join hands with them again, and walk through the golden streets, or climb the jeweled stairways, or sit down on the bank of that crystal river, beneath that tree of life, and talk of the times of childish joys, or sing together the song of Moses and the Lamb!And that group of my own blood relations!

Who would have thought it so large? If all the kin of earth were assembled, even to the cousins of the seventh remove, it would make no such a gathering as that.Again, now that I think of it, there are no strangers at all in that vast assembly.

If I pass in today Peter will be as glad to see me as my own dear father, and at sight John will take me into his loving arms, and a little later lead me into the presence of Jesus and say, “Master! when on earth I used to monopolize Your breast with my own head, but here is a younger brother who has just come up from the weary toils of the world, and I yield to him my old resting place in Your bosom there!”Yes, brethren, I suspect that we are satisfied for the most part with what we are, only because it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. “For 1 reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us”. “In Thy Presence”, says the Psalmist, “is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore”.But again, our text does more than hint of the greatness of the glory which is to be manifested. It plainly suggestsTHE NATURE OF THAT GLORY The true reading here is that found in the margin, “We know that when it shall be manifested” (that is, our real estate) “we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him even as He is”, (R. V).To my mind this passage militates against the popular theory of the soul’s eternal progression, in the enlargement of its affections, of its capacity for joy, and growth in wisdom.Many people talk of Heaven as a place in which an eternity will be given men in order that they may correct the deficiencies of time. We are wont to hear that our Heavenly existence will take its rise from the point which we attained to in our earthly career, and that we will grow in holiness and wisdom while eternity rolls on. My eldest sister, who has long been in Heaven, had an ambition for a more thorough education than her earthly circumstances permitted her to enjoy. I remember well the glad expression of her face, as she talked one day of this doctrine of growth in Heaven, saying, “I have been more content with my present state of ignorance, since I have come to believe that future existence will present educational opportunities as superior to those of our colleges, as Heaven itself is high above earth.”Many a righteous soul, greatly desiring a more perfect state of holiness, has looked wistfully toward Heaven as the sphere in which they would grow into their desire while eternity continues. As I have said, our text seems to oppose the idea, and I know of no single passage in all Scripture which in any measure favors it.

The teaching here is, that our future estate shall be like God’s estate, which is one of absolute perfection in all holiness and wisdom.It may be objected to this notion, that if adopted, it would convert all the redeemed into gods. I answer, not any more surely than the theory of progression would.

It is only a question of whether we are to attain to whatever of perfection is possible to the creature, instantly lifted there by God’s grace, or reach it by some long continued efforts of our own, some slow process of growth.Again, it has been urged that we must consider the laws of spiritual growth, and expect that those which are known to this life will appear, intact, in the life to come. But the reply is at hand. If life in Heaven means anything, it will set aside many natural laws, and employ in their stead celestial ones. We all expect to have perfect bodies in Heaven, or at least we should do so for the Scriptures plainly promise them. “For our conversation” (or commonwealth) “is in Heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body”.Will any of the physical laws with which we are acquainted be employed in making this change? Call your convention of physiologists, your council of physicians, and ask them if they understand the nature of Heaven’s air that makes it such an atmosphere of healing. I can understand how it is that hot springs may help nature rid herself of the rheumatism by natural law.

I can see that the atmosphere of some parts of Arizona will allow an easier respiration to weak lungs and hence assist nature in rebuilding. I can allow that certain mineral waters would aid the digestion and so assist the stomach in getting well of dyspepsia.

But here is what I want to know! When a man gets so old down here that he can’t walk a step without a cane, and all the laws of nature are tearing his system’ down, and there is no hope of building it up, what is to be done? The physician says nothing can be done! True, so far as earth’s tonics are concerned. He will never know any better health on earth, but Heaven will heal him perfectly. It will not be long ere the angels will call to Gabriel to open and let them bring the old man in.

As Heaven’s door stands ajar, allowing a breath of that ambrosial air to escape and touch his withered frame, his flesh will come again as Naaman’s did with the seventh dip, and his strength will return as that of a palsied one revived at the word of Jesus. I see him fling his cane back to earth and hear him say to the angels, “I am much obliged; but you needn’t carry me any further; I will just run over to where Jesus is alone.” Where is your natural law?This is what I can’t understand!

Here is a man born blind, and for seventy-three years he had to cane his way about the earth; but one day, some kind angel takes him by the hand and leads him down through the grave and then straight up to Heaven. Suddenly the door opens and the light of the Sun of Righteousness falls on his face, and lo, his eyes are better than mine!Again, I meet a man on the streets here, who has only one limb. He lost the other at war. People say, “Poor fellow, that loss is irreparable.” No, it isn’t! If he is a Christian, he will skip the streets of the new Jerusalem on two good feet one of these days.Going to Heaven to get a perfect body? Yes, every one believes that canes and crutches and spectacles would be superfluities up there.

Well, this text seems to be corroborated by several others in teaching that our minds and souls will be just as perfect. “Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face”. ’Tis true that “now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known”, and that is perfectly. The Psalmist said, “As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness”, and I know of no right to interpret into that likeness, imperfection.If God’s Word is our guide, the theory of eternal progression must give place to the broader and richer truth of eternal perfection in Christ.

I don’t expect to see a single spiritual dwarf in Heaven, though the earth is full of them; not a mental imbecile there, although every State here must build an asylum for such. At Heaven’s door I expect to see my fellows fling back to earth their glasses and canes and crutches, and on the same spot I expect to see my own narrowness and ignorance and worldliness, and everything which is un-Christ-like, taken from my nature and tumbled into hell. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is”.

1 John 3:18

THE GOSPEL OF LOVE APPLIED 1 John 3:18. I TALKED to the people who gathered in this house on last Sabbath morning, about “The Length, Breadth and Depth of Divine Love,” and to the congregation of last Sabbath evening about “The Center and Circumference of Human Love,” (p. 131 ff.) and yet this theme is not exhausted. A young Irishman stood in Farwell Hall in Chicago, years since, and for six consecutive nights presented the same unchanged and inexhaustible theme, “The Love of God,” and so for the third time I bring this subject of Love.I consider I have preached on this subject hundreds of times already. Every sermon ought to present some phase of this inspiring theme and every Gospel sermon does. There is no warning given, but it is given in love; there is no exhortation made, but it has as its object some work of love; there is no duty urged, but some mission of love is the point of the preacher’s words.Some people are too obtuse to see that your Gospel is a Gospel of Love unless you select a text that has the Word in it, and employ phrases that introduce the term at regular intervals of speech.But the fact remains that every sermon that helps men to honor God is a presentation of some phase of love for “God is love?’, and His Book is Love’s Gospel.Tonight my theme isTHE GOSPEL OF LOVE APPLIEDWe wouldn’t give much for any Gospel that you can’t apply. Every man’s preaching may be judged in a great measure by the character of his converts. If they prove to be men of spiritual mind and power, it is probable that the preacher, under whom they were reached, converted and developed, preached a good Gospel.

So after we say, “God is love” and His Gospel is “The Gospel of Love,” one thing more should be added: It is a Gospel that men can employ in life and apply to character at every turn. That is the intention of our text, “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in Truth”.Let us define love!

There are some things that love is not. Love is not mere gush. There are a good many people in the world who don’t understand that fact. They count the most flimsy flatterer their friend and lover. The tenderest word, even though it is spoken so often that it ought to disgust, is ever gobbled as greedily as if it were as fresh as a boiled live-lobster. When will we learn that the language of genuine love doesn’t flow like a waterspout in a rain storm, but is more often timed, slow of utterance, and even stammers despite the desire to speak smoothly?“Every man to his taste”, we have been accustomed to say, and I suppose we ought to add, “Every woman to her taste” also.

But in our judgment that young girl is exercising poor taste who speedily bestows her affection upon the fellow who comes with unblushing face and rattles off the tale of his love as a sophomore delivers his oration at college.We wonder if girls ever stop to analyze this sensation of love? Why is it that you blush and stammer when you are addressed on that subject by one for whom you really care?

You have been accustomed to think that his coolness and your excitement, his readiness of speech and your stuttering reply, was to be explained on the ground of difference of sex. But often that is a mistake! The female flirt doesn’t blush and her wit never fails her in the hour of her need. The reason is, her words were born in her brain and without ever descending to her heart, slid off her tongue. That is the reason why young men are so often accomplished in courting. They know no such thing as love for the girl to whom they have raved, and when their feet touch the pavement in front of your door, they will laugh at the blushes and stuttering of your sincere response.

In a sermon which Tom Dixion preached in New York he referred to absence of love and the torrent of gush as illustrated in Lord Bulwer’s life. “In his love letters to Lady Bulwer, she was addressed as ‘his dearest and kindest and most beautiful poodle; his darling, his angel, his life.’ But in the home she found him rushing upon her with a carving knife and threatening to slice her into sandwiches, and when her screams brought him to his senses a little, he dropped the knife and satisfied his thirst for Wood by biting a piece out of her face,” and so illustrated the fitness of his epistolary “nom-de-plume,” for he was accustomed to sign himself, “‘Oo own puppy.” So love is not compassed by ready speech, “Let us not love in word”, the Apostle says. He means to add “but in deed and in Truth”, The man whose words are too smooth when discussing this most sacred subject, is to be suspected of hypocrisy and fraud.

I remember a case in which a man came before the Church for the purpose of professing Christ and receiving baptism. When asked about his love for Christ, he was not content to answer simply, but taking up the theme, he rattled away for two minutes with the choicest words and most elegant utterance, and when he had finished the preacher questioned, “Is the love sincere?” That is always the question when men gush. I have listened to the stammering of children and the stuttering of full-grown men and women, who when they came to tell of their faith to God’s people, were so confused they scarce knew what escaped them; and yet, I had never a doubt of their affection for Christ, for their emotion told the sweet tale better than language could. Love is not gush!The tongue can never tell the whole story of love. Life alone can relate it, every book, chapter, verse and word.Even though men are not dealing in sickly sentiment, but in all soberness, it takes life to prove love. The tongue can only profess.

It cannot illustrate and prove.A woman seldom knows him whom she has married. Before the altar of’ wedding was approached, and months before her orange blossoms bloomed, he had told her of his love, but for all that, it takes a summer and winter of married life, yea, many summers and winters, to prove his protestations.So when a man confesses himself in love with Christ and His Church, I never bank heavily upon him until he does those things constantly that witness the sincerity of his claim.

If then we are asked what love is, we answer: It is not language, it is life. The purer, brighter and better the life, the more it is made up of the stuff men call love.Love has power to prove itself.“Let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in Truth”. Notice, “in” “deed” is not one word and so an emphatic particle. There are two words and they express exactly the Apostle’s idea of love. Not in “word”, mere profession, but in “deed” or act. Love is sure to prove itself in “deed”, yes, in deeds.Some writer says, “Paul gives love the pre-eminence among Christian graces and that rightly, too.”Knowledge of the needs of the unfortunate does not induce you to supply them, but love does.Knowledge of the Truth does not induce you to obey it, but love does; knowledge does not make you bear all things; hope all things; endure all things, but love does as every mother can testify.I talked to you last Sunday night about some characteristics of true love. But there are others that I wish to mention.Paul says, “Charity (love) hopeth all things”. I think that is the truth.

Genuine love is not easily discouraged. If it were, the most of us would either be single still, or else married to another than our present life partner.

For what person ever made love to another who was worth having, but they found a good many obstacles to overcome before love’s dream was consummated.You remember the story of Jacob and Rachel. Seven long years was the price to be paid for her hand, and yet Jacob staggered not. It is even said, “Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her”. When those seven years were out, Laban lied out of his bargain and added seven more to the service, and yet Jacob lived in hope and “served with him yet seven other years”. It is difficult to discourage the man or woman in whose heart love to God lives. Though, like Job of old, they lose wealth, family, health, everything, they despair not, but with serene confidence cry, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him”.That is love in truth.

Despite all discouragement love lives to hope. You have heard of that drunkard’s daughter, who though so shamefully treated, remained with the beastly parent in hope.

One day, upon waking out of a drunken slumber he found the child preparing his breakfast and singing half merrily as went about her work. In a tone more tender than she was accustomed to hear, the half-sobered father said, “Millie, what makes you stay with me?”She answered, “Because you are my father and I love you.”“You love me?” replied the wretched man, “You love me?”He looked at his bloated limbs, his soiled and ragged clothes.“Love me!” he murmured, “Millie, what makes you love me? I am a miserable drunkard. Everybody else despises me! Why don’t you?”“Father,” said the girl, her eyes fast filling, “my mother taught me to love you, and every night I seem to see her angel form at my bedside, and I hear her say, ‘Millie, don’t leave your father; he will get away from that rum fiend some of these days! And then how happy you will be!’ and I have stayed with you in hope.” Ah, truly love “hopeth all things”.But Paul also said, Love “beareth all things, * * endureth all things”.Find out what men will do, bear and endure for those whom they profess to love and you can just about take the exact measure of their affection.Young women often believe in the professed love of young men who won’t give up drink or gambling for the sake of their love.

They know the young men keep up these ruinous habits and others, and yet they are silly enough to believe in their love. But the after years of bitterness will teach them their irremediable blunder.What love can’t accomplish in the way of reforming men, you need not hope to effect by any sort, or combination, of domestic attractions.

One kiss from little Emma Moody reformed and saved a noted criminal, and if all the pure affection you have poured out toward a wayward man, does not evoke deeds of manliness in response, you are silly indeed to give him your hand in marriage. When people love you, they will not feed their own appetites at your bitter cost.Dr. P. S. Henson said he was never so hopeful that his son Paul would prove a man, as he was when, under the first inspiration of young love, Paul washed his face clean as a new penny, combed his own hair, brushed the dust out of his clothes, and brightened himself up generally.But love will do more than behave. Love will bear and endure.

Love delights to sacrifice on the altar of its object. A man may think he loves his wife, when he gets her food and drink enough to save her from hunger.

But the wife and the world will not believe in that love until they see him sacrifice for her comfort, and forget self and ease, in the effort to increase her happiness and joy. A man may think he loves his country in days of peace, but he who stands in the forefront of battle and gives his life-blood to save the flag, has made the best possible profession of patriotism.It is recorded in Roman history to eternal credit of Marcus Curtius’ patriotism, that when the oracles declared that the gaping earthquake would not close its destroying mouth until it had swallowed a life, Marcus, from love of his people and land, cast himself in and so stopped the devastating gap.A man may think that he loves Christ, but if every call to Christian service chills his ardor, and every appeal for money to charitable ends makes him uncomfortable and half-mad, God and the angels will scarce believe his profession.One July at Round Lake a contribution was asked for the cause of missions in the Name of Christ, and Miss Shepherd of New York, a girl of twenty-two summers, then came forward and took every shining ring from her fingers and laid them down as her gift. To that offering she added $250 in money, and then without ostentation walked away and waited to see others follow her noble example, until $5,000 was lying on that table in one heap. That was the beginning of big gifts in the Christian and Missionary Alliance.“Love delights to make sacrifice for its beloved”. How people can think they love Christ when their seats at the theater cost them ten times what they contribute to their own church and their pin money is many a multiple of their gifts to missions, we can’t understand.“My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in Truth”. We often meet people who tell of their love for Christ, but who excuse themselves from profession, service and sacrifice, because they say they are so constituted or situated that they can’t openly honor Him as they would. But “charity (love) never faileth”.Beecher says, “Looking over the dead on a battlefield, it was easy to see why that young man, and he a recruit, fought so valiantly. Hidden under his vest was a sweet face done up in gold; and so through love’s heroism, he fought with double strokes and danger, mounting higher, till he found honor in death.”“So if you carry the talisman of Christ in your heart, it will give you strength and courage in every conflict, and at death open to you the gates of Glory.”Do we love? Oh, “let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in Truth. And hereby we know that we are of the Truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him”.

1 John 3:20-22

VERSUS 1 John 3:20-22. IT seems practically certain upon reading this First Epistle of John that the apostolic Church was disturbed by a doctrinal schism which threatened the very foundations of the faith. The schism of that hour was almost identical with the Christian Science of this day. The disturbing element opposed the idea of sin, denied the necessity of an atonement, lived wantonly but arrogated to themselves the name of “Christian” as if they were especially the elect of the Lord.Throughout this Epistle John is exposing their doctrinal views as to sin. He says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the Truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Touching the atonement he declares that Jesus Christ “is the Propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). As to the claim of Christianity he affirms that it is a question of evidence and not of profession, saying, “Whoso keepeth His Word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in Him” (1 John 2:5).It is in this discussion of the Christian evidences that he makes use of our text.

He calls attention to the fact that all professors of Christ are constantly before a tribunal of justice, and, by a trial, are proven true or false. This court into which Christian professors must come is a court of an enlightened conscience, and he argues that commendation there presupposes the same in the high court of God, while condemnation there is the promise of condemnation before the eternal throne.“If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. “Beloved, if our heart condemn us Hot, then have we confidence toward God” (1 John 3:20-21). HEART HERE MEANS It is not the judgment of the head before which we stand or fall. The man who subjects his soul to the judgment of his mind will stand condemned in every instance, except he be big-headed and thinks of himself more highly than he ought to think.If I must sit down at the close of the day and reckon up in one column my evil motives, thoughts and deeds, and over against them, in another, my good purposes, projects and works, it will not take long to learn my shortage and land in despair.The Christian is not to be so judged. Our text does not say, “If our heads condemn us.” The head and the heart are not always in agreement. The heart when used in sacred speech to represent that higher conscience of one’s inner life is the just judge of character. The true Christian can employ the famous saying of Sir Walter Raleigh and make it his character motto. When Walter Raleigh, by the command of James the 1st, was at the executioner’s block, he was asked to adjust his own head to the block ere the king’s vassal did his bloody work.

When the executioner asked Raleigh to change his head a bit, that gracious man answered, “So the heart be right, it matters little where the head lieth.”Again, it is this Christian conscience, not mere circumstances, that determines character. We are not to conclude that the accumulation of trouble, the amassing of misfortunes, is evidence that a man is under Divine condemnation.

That is the mistake into which Job’s comforters rushed. They argued that the sufferings of that Godly man indicated some fearful sins on his part. They disregarded the fact of history, namely, that Satan’s usual habit is to make the sincerest his prey. He did not even let God’s Son escape his malignant hand. Dr. Talmage says, “It is foolish to think that Satan wastes his time on the poorest spirits.

He seeks the richest prizes instead.”A pirate goes out on the sea one bright morning, puts a glass to his eye and looks off and sees an empty vessel floating from port to port. He says to his criminal associates, “Never mind that; it is no prize for us.” But he turns his glasses in another direction, and lo, he sees a vessel coming into sight fresh from Australia, laden with gold, or from the Indies, laden with sweet spices.

He cries, “That is our prize; bear down upon it!”We have all been impressed with the fact that some of God’s best and precious men have had the hardest time to keep head above the surging sea of business trouble. Some such have gone down before our very eyes, overwhelmed with misfortune, sickness or bereavement, but that does not prove them false. Satan prefers to plague a Job. Satan delights to sell a Joseph to strangers and finds devilish pleasure in lying him into prison. Satan smiles when he can smite a Lazarus and let him lie unattended against a garbage box.And then there is another reason why good men sometimes come into trouble. God sees that the fires refine, and “whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth” (Hebrews 12:6).Feelings have no right to prefer charges against Christian character.

There are many forms of sorrow and suffering that Satan turns to his account, and with which he seeks to make out a case against us. The man who sees his business breaking up, who finds at every annual inventory of stock that he is going down, is tempted to despair.

Satan stands ready to take advantage of the gloomy hours of such and will surely suggest, as did Job’s wife, “God has condemned you. God has cast you off. Curse God and die!” It takes a believing man to rise against such suggestions and call them silly. It requires conscious integrity to answer that charge of evil as Job answered his accusing friends, “My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death; not for any injustice in mine hands: also my prayer is pure” (Job 16:16-17).There are some forms of disease that produce the deepest despondency. If we consent that our feelings must find a verdict against us, then Satan has condemned every soul whose body he smites with nervous derangement, or clogs its blood strainers with impurities. Such a suggestion is its own absurdity when viewed with a clear mind.

Surely it has no countenance in this text. The whole Word of God is exceptionally free from any emphasis upon feelings.

God understood that sinners often rejoice while saints often mourn, but that does not acquit the first or condemn the last.GOD AN HIS JUDGE Mark you, I say, “An enlightened conscience!” The natural heart of man would seldom agree with God, and the natural conscience is not and never will be a correct moral guide, nor yet a competent judge of Christian character. But the regenerate heart is God’s speaking tube and the conscience, Christianized, is God’s associate on the seat of judgment. That is the meaning of our text. The man who is condemned by his own conscience has no confidence in God. He knows that God, the Supreme Judge, is greater than conscience, the associate judge; and he reasons that if the associate judge finds him evil and condemns him, the Supreme Judge who knows his character better will not acquit him. The professed Christian who is guilty of secret or open sins that his best conscience condemns, is almost certain to cease from the sin, or to quit the Lord.To continue in such sin is to cease from praying, from Scripture reading, from church attendance, from Biblical faith.Nine times out of ten the man who was once a professed follower of Christ and afterwards became an infidel has reached his unbelief by bad behavior.

Some sin, small or great, has eaten its way into his life and has done for him what the white ants do for the growing trees of South America—they cut out the heart and bring down the whole body.Sometimes a small sin, like a small thief, crawling through an open pane, unbolts the door to let his larger comrades in. It is as the camel’s nose asking to warm itself within, purposing to draw the whole body after it.I had a friend who, in his early life, was given to drinking and smoking, but in a meeting held for men only, he seemed convicted and after many conversations with him, he finally confessed Christ and came into the church.

For about two years he led a clean life. Then Satan tempted him by the smallest sin, a cigar. He contended that it was better to smoke than to drink, and that if one had to choose between two evils he should take the lesser, as if the Lord ever intended His people to choose between evils. He said in answer to my arguments against it, “Well, preachers smoke.” I could not deny it, though I was sorry and ashamed. I would that ministers of the Gospel, at least, gave God’s Spirit a clean temple in their mortal bodies. But so my friend reasoned. The small stimulant came in. That soon excited a desire for the larger one, and little by little the wine cup has crept back.

The hidden flask has found its way to his office. Conscience has condemned him and his confidence in God has waned. Beloved, “if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things” (1 John 3:20).Years ago, I was speaking in the Y. M. C. A. of Chicago on Ingersollism. A newspaper reporter present was much excited over what I said, and after the meeting sought to argue. As I stood close to him in conversation, he spake with hot breath, and I looked into a bloated face, and as he boasted that he was proud to be a follower of Mr.

Ingersoll, I remembered with a pang in my heart that he was at one time an honored pastor of a prominent Chicago church, but sin had found a little way into his life. He had yielded, supposing that he could stop at a certain point, but Satan knows how to ice for his toboggan slide when he gets men going down, and ere long he was at the bottom of morals, and faith in God gave way, and infidelity came instead.There is more infidelity today in consequence of running counter to conscience than intellectual acumen could originate in ten millenniums. The moment a man ceases to live honestly, the moment a man ceases to live soberly, the moment a man ceases to live sincerely, that moment he commences to fall into unbelief, to tend to infidelity, because infidelity and immorality are compatible. People talk of “conscientious infidels,” There are none such! Infidelity is the illegitimate child of a betrayed conscience.This same law obtains in the business world. The man who, in trading with his fellows, takes no counsel with his conscience, but considers only the first chance, thereby destroys his own confidence; and his faith in God is altogether sold out, and he sets sail on the sea of infidelity in search of silver and gold.

That is the most dangerous voyage an immortal engages in, and that is the most serious sale a soul can ever make, for it is a sale of self.Mr. Beecher was right when he set the moral sense above all other treasures of life.

He said, “I hear men congratulating their fellows that God gave them genius. They are poets! They are orators! They are artists! But no genius is comparable to the sense of that which is right and wrong. Genius of conscience is the best genius a man can have. It is the root of true manhood. It is the mariner’s compass on the high sea of life.

When the root is removed, all the manhood perishes. When the compass is thrown away, the hungry rocks are sure of their prey. Ah, it does not need to be cast away. If it is only tampered with, or put out of order, the breakers are sure of success.” A gentleman was abroad in the English channel when a sudden flapping of the sails excited the officer on watch. He sprang at once to the pilot’s side and said sharply, “You are a half point off the course.” The deviation was corrected and all went well. The passenger was interested and remarked to the officer, “You must steer very accurately here if a half point is thought so much of.” “Ah,” said the officer, “we have need.

Half a point off here would run us on the rocks.”Half a point from perfect honesty and we are steering for the rocks of crime. Half a point from Christian morality and you will land on the rocks of infidelity, “for if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things”, and He will condemn us.

But “if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight” (1 John 3:20-22).WHEN THE , IN GOD FOLLOWS The man who is not self-condemned, finds easy access to the Father’s presence. No wonder Payson prayed his auditory into the very face of Heaven. He lived so Godly a life in Christ Jesus that Heaven’s door was constantly open to him.We wonder why we don’t prevail in prayer. Is not the answer this, that our hearts condemn us? Is it not true that we often pray when some dreadful hour is on? Can we pray then? One’s conscience condemns him for having neglected his God, for having lived as if he had no need. We all understand that law of spiritual life; so when we are sick or in trouble or seek to lead souls to Christ we call for devout men and women—people who are used to praying; and if death robs our house of any of its treasures, such Christians only are ever called.

We want men and women whose hearts condemn them not, for the promises are unto them, and they find easy access to the Fountain of Grace.This commendation of one’s own conscience encourages him in boldness before the throne. The man who is doing exactly what he believes to be right, or who is trying hard to do that, is not afraid of God. Like Job, he would come even unto His seat and order his cause before Him. He is not afraid to ask great things of God and has confidence that He will grant them. We talk about power in prayer, but let us not forget that it goes along with purity in life. The only reason that we limit God’s willingness to give us the greater things, and the only ground for supposing that miracles are not to be expected now, exists in us.

We find no limitation in the eternal promises. They are clear and unlimited. “Whatsoever ye shall ask in My Name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

If ye shall ask any thing in My Name, I will do it” (John 14:13-14). That is explicit enough! That is boundless enough!You say, “Why then don’t you get what you ask?” and I answer, “I am straightened in myself.” I read in the very next chapter of John, “If ye abide in Me, and My Words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you”, and then my conscience speaks and I am condemned for not having “abided” in Christ, and for not having kept my heart fit for His daily habitation, and my confidence is paralyzed in consequence. “If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God” and “whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight” (1 John 3:21-22). The only explanation of Payson’s power in prayer, of Whitefield’s power in prayer, of Edward’s power in prayer, of Moody’s power in prayer, of Spurgeon’s power in prayer, of Mueller’s power in prayer, is this: they were consecrated men. They lived unto the Lord, and He lived in them. Their consciences condemned them not, and their confidence was such that it brought to them whatsoever they asked—money for orphanages, outfits for schools, health for the sick, and salvation for the sinful.The man whose conscience commend is him is also one whose confidence in God fills him with courage.

The three Hebrew children had no fear of threatening king, or fiery furnace, while they kept covenant with the right and God. Daniel was nothing daunted by the sight of lions when he saw his own feet in the way of holiness.

Ignatius, summoned to dreadful doom of death by wild beasts in the amphitheater of Rome, said, “Now indeed I begin to be a disciple. I weigh neither visible nor invisible things in comparison with an interest in Christ.”It is related that in the late Peninsular war a brave young ensign was always seen in the thickest of the fight, cheering on his men with his own courage. At the end of the dreadful battle, a superior officer said to him, “How did you manage to stand fire as you did? You should let some of us into the secret.”“It is the king’s secret,” the ensign answered. “I remembered that I was fighting for my king and that gave me courage and I forgot myself.”The Christian who is not self-condemned, but who confides in God, is the Christian who gets answers to his petitions, because he keeps Christ’s commandment and understands the King’s secret, and that, and that alone explains his success.