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  SERMONS FOR THE PEOPLE
  by William Book
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A collection of sermons by William Book designed for popular edification,
presenting biblical truths in accessible language for ordinary congregants and
seekers.

  Chapters: 15

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. Book-00.3-Introduction
    2. Book-01-“In The Beginning God”—Gen_1:1
    3. Book-02-The Bible God’s Word
    4. Book-03-Jesus Christ The Son Of God
    5. Book-04-Spiritual Worship
    6. Book-05-Christ’s Prayers
    7. Book-06-Lord, Teach Us To Pray.
    8. Book-07-Prayer a Necessity
    9. Book-08-Prayers Answered
   10. Book-09-That Tongue of Mine
   11. Book-10-The Home
   12. Book-11-Now And Hereafter
   13. Book-12-What We Are—What We Shall Be
   14. Book-13-Where are Our Dead?
   15. Book-14-Heavenly Recognition

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  CHAPTER 1: BOOK-00.3-INTRODUCTION
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Introduction

THERE are books of sermons of diverse styles and characteristics. Some are
logical, cold, and purely didactic. Others are inspirational and filled with
warmth and color. Not a few are dry and tire­some. This book is of the
inspirational and more distinctly popular type. It sparkles with humor, and is
permeated through and through with the language of the Scriptures. It is a book
which will lighten the burdens of the reader and which will give him renewed
encouragement to pur­sue his daily tasks. The author needs no introduction at
our hands. As a gifted speaker, a min­ister of rare sympathy and power, and a
man who has climbed to the heights in his profession, he has won an enviable
reputation throughout the American con­tinent and beyond. His work speaks for
itself, and we are sure that it will prove appealing to a vast host of readers.
The sermons in this book are all upon great themes. They touch the founda­tion
principles and issues of life. No one is too learned to enjoy them or to profit
by them, and no one is so unlettered as to be unable to grasp their practical
import and meaning. The wealth of illustration by which the lessons contained in
the book are enforced, is in itself a rare ele­ment of charm. Best of all, these
ser­mons are thoroughly loyal to the great basic truths of our common faith.

It is a genuine pleasure to stand in the gateway and to commend such a vol­ume
to the thoughtful attention of its readers. Frederick D, Kershner,


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  CHAPTER 2: BOOK-01-“IN THE BEGINNING GOD”—GEN_1:1
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“In The Beginning God”—Gen 1:1

ΤΉΕRΕ is just one mystery, and that is God. Accept the statement of the text,
and all things can be explained; re­ject it, and nothing can be understood. The
agnostic comes to us with the cry: “I cannot understand, and therefore I do not
believe.” An agnostic is an igno­ramus, and when he tells me he is that, I take
him at his word. If we refuse to believe everything we cannot understand, then
there is nothing we believe, for there is nothing we can understand. The
atheistic astronomer says, “I do not believe in your God because I cannot
understand him,” and yet he will offer me his book of astronomy, which is being
taught in our colleges and universities, and he says everything contained in the
book is true. Let us see if he is honest in his objection and if he is
consistent in his criticism. We stand out beneath the out-stretched, boundless
blue sky and gaze up into the distance. Star after star beams upon us, some
glimmering but faintly, and with a far-away look, while others through infinite
realms of space shed forth their glorious streams of radiance. Planets, stars,
fixed stars, worlds upon top of worlds, how we wonder what you are! This
atheistic astronomer says: “I have measured the distance from the earth to the
moon and the sun; I can tell you their velocity; I know the material out of
which they are formed; I have measured the cir­cumference and the diameter of
each; I have weighed them in my balances and can tell you their weight; the moon
is a dead planet where no fire is; there is no water and no life there. I can,
through my telescope, see the burnt-out volcanoes that exist there.” He grows
eloquent when he talks to me about the rings and the satellites. He says, 4 4
The sun is the center of the solar system, and beyond this sun there are other
suns,” and thus, with his imagination, he mounts his cloud chariots drawn by
fiery steeds and leaps from star to star and from world to world, counting until
his imagination is worn out and falls back on itself, and he exclaims: “Height
without a top, depth without a bottom, length and breadth without a beginning or
an ending; great indeed is the immensity of space!” Let us ask this man of
wisdom a few ques­tions and find out if he understands. Where is the center of
the universe? How old are these stars? Tell me the cir­cumference and the
diameter of the uni­verse. Are these stars inhabited? On the right, on the left,
before and behind, he will find that things are broken off, and he cannot answer
because he does not understand. Then, Mr. Astronomer, why do you not burn up
your books of astron­omy and stop teaching the doctrine of the stars, since you
cannot understand, and therefore cannot believe in your own books of astronomy?
If you can believe in the doctrine of the stars when you do not understand, can
you not believe in the God who made the stars, even though you cannot comprehend
Him?

I hold in my hand a book. See it fall. What caused it to go down rather than up?
You say: "The law of gravity.’’ What is that? Have you ever seen grav­ity? Can
you explain it? You tell me that it is an incorporeal, intangible, invis­ible
something that causes the lesser body of matter to go toward the greater. Now,
if you can believe in gravity, why not be­lieve in the God who made gravity? You
refuse to believe in God because you cannot see him, and yet you believe in
gravity which you have never seen. The atheistic geologist comes to me with his
reasons for his atheism. He re­fuses to believe in God because he cannot
understand him, and yet he believes in his book of geology. He says that he can
go down and down until he comes to fire; but if there be no God, ask him to tell
you who put that fire there. He can go back and back, but he can never touch the
be­ginning. Ask him to tell you how it is that almighty God sent forth a ray of
heat from the sun millions of years ago with force enough to penetrate the earth
and there lie latent until the strong-armed miner dug it from its prison cell
and gave it to us in the form of oil to burn in our lamps or coal to burn in our
grates! What is fire? Do you know? Are you ready to say there is no such thing,
and refuse to be benefited by its comfort be­cause you cannot understand it?
What is light? I never heard of but one per­son who could tell, and he was a
lazy, sleepy, stupid boy in the school, and when the teacher asked, “What is
light?” he, when half awake and half asleep, replied: “I did know, Professor,
but I forgot.” The professor said: “Think how much this world has lost because
of the bad memory of this boy!” Do you know? Tell us if you can. Now, are you
ready to say there is no such thing as light be­cause you cannot understand it?
Are you willing to blow it out and live the rest of your days in the dark?

Electricity—what is it? I remember going to the city with my first son. I had
been to town before, but he was ac­quainted only with the mountain scenes. When
we pulled into the station he saw a car going by without any horses, and he
became greatly excited and cried out: “Father, what is that?” I told him it was
a trolley-car. Then he wanted to know what made it go, and I told him
electricity. Then he cried out: “What is electricity!” I did not tell him. He is
now a man with a family and I have not told him. If you think you can, you may.

I went into a railroad station one day to see a man who had moved to town. I had
heard that he was a member of the church, and I felt it would be a good thing to
hold a meeting in that town with a view of establishing a congregation. He was a
negative Christian. Do you know what kind that is? It is a dead one. I found him
at his office and engaged in sending a message. I leaned over on the window-
facing, thinking I’d wait for him to get through with his work. I felt something
like needles in my arm, and the sensation was going through me. I felt like you
do when you hit the crazy-bone in the arm. I became excited, and wondered if I
were paralyzed. When I got away from the window the feeling left me. I went back
and touched it again, and with the same results. I jumped away just as the
operator looked at me. He asked: “Did you touch this window?” I told him I did.
He then informed me that he had charged the window with electricity with the
view of catching a negro that loafed in the station, and he caught me. Now, I
did not argue with him and say, “There is no such thing as electricity,” and
that I would not believe in a thing I could not understand. What is electricity?
Can you tell? You refuse to believe in God because you cannot see him; have you
ever seen electricity? You have seen lightning, but you have not seen
elec­tricity. You have not the eyes with which to see electricity. A negro was
lecturing be­fore a large crowd of his race and he said: “Ladies and gentlemen,
I am here to-night to tell you what electricity is. Electricity is—electricity.
Electricity—electricity is, ladies and gentlemen, elec­tricity is electricity,
and it is none of your business what electricity is.” Edison cannot give a
better definition than did this negro. An evangelist had conducted a meeting in
a small town, and a number of the young men had become converted. A professional
infidel lived in the hotel, and he took delight in giving the young men that
gathered in the hotel at nights theo­logical nuts to crack. One night the old
parson had come to town and was in his room in that hotel. The infidel had a
group of men about him and he was knocking their props from beneath them, when
one of the boys went to the stairway and called for the parson. “Come down,
parson, and help us out. This man is doing us all up.” Just as the old parson
got to the head of the steps he heard the infidel say: “If you have a God, show
him to me; let me feel him; let me hear him; let me taste him; let me smell
him.” He was told they could not comply with his requests. “Then,” he said, “if
you cannot approach your God through any of the avenues of approach—the
senses—you have no God.” By this time the minister had gotten into the room, and
he put his hand on the shoulder of the infidel and said: “I perceive that you
are an idiot.” The man became angry and said: “I have never been accused of that
before.” “I will prove it,” said the minister. “What is an idiot?” He was told
that it is a man without a mind. He then said: “Let me see your mind; let me
taste it; let me feel it; let me smell it; let me hear it.” He was told that it
would be impossible to grant his requests. Then,” said the parson, “you only
have five avenues of approach, and if I cannot get hold of your mind through any
of these avenues, you have no mind, and if you have no mind, you are an idiot.”
The minister says: “I was walking the street one day and saw this man
approaching me» I wondered if he meant to thrash me. He came to me and took my
hand in his and said: ‘Parson, I want to thank you for what you said to me that
night in the hotel. I am now a believer. I never knew before what a fool I was.
I believe now in things I cannot understand.” A boy is flying a kite. It is out
of sight. A stranger sees the boy and asks:

"What are you doing, my lad?" “Flying a kite,” the boy replies. The man looks
into the heavens, but he cannot see the kite. He says: “I do not believe you are
flying a kite, my boy, I cannot see it.” The boy says: “Then take hold of this
string and you can feel it pull.” We may not see God, but we can feel him pull.

If you do not believe in anything you cannot understand, then you do not
be­lieve in your parents; you do not believe in your children; you do not
believe in yourself. Who can understand man? The ancients one time had a motto:
“Man, know thyself.’’ None of us have learned this art. Like Sir Isaac Newton,
we are children drifting on the surf-beaten shores, gathering here and there a
pebble, while all of the regions about us are depths of unexplored knowledge.

We are told that a man by the name of Harvey discovered the circulation of the
blood. If there be no God, can you tell us who started that blood through the
veins? Books have been written on the formation of the hand, but Bell and all
who have written on the subject cannot tell how I move my finger if there be no
God. Take the mechanism of the eye. Can you un­derstand this self-focusing
machine? See it as it makes many pictures in a second! Is beauty in the eye or
is it in the indi­vidual? A man said: “I am thankful that all men cannot see as
I do." When asked why, he said: “They would want my wife Nancy.” A man replied:
“If everyone saw as I do, there would not be a man in the world who would have
her.” Who understands the brain? We boast of liv­ing in the twentieth century,
and of our wonderful inventions, but I want to tell you that I agree with
Solomon in the statement that there is nothing new under the sun. Take
telegraphy. When God made Adam and placed him in the garden he established a
complete system of teleg­raphy, and every one born into the world since has been
a duplicate of the same. Let me illustrate. You are sitting in the church on
some hot August night and the minister is preaching a lengthy sermon, and you
find a mosquito sailing over the heads of the people looking for his cousin,
when all of a sudden he takes up his abode on your bald pate. A message is at
once sent to the central station—the brain, and a call is made for connection,
and then a dispatch is sent to your hand with the news, “A mosquito is on the
head,” and it is gone! This is telegraphy. Messages are coming and going all the
time, and they never get confused when the central office is all right. Do you
understand this? The backbone is an immense tele­graph pole with forty pairs of
nerves— wires—and with ten million branches run­ning in all directions.

Take the body, which is covered all over with pores. We are told that one grain
of sand will cover one hundred scales, and that each scale covers from three to
five hundred pores, and that each pore has in it an innumerable multitude -of
living things swimming around in it, and with as much freedom as a whale has in
the sea. Can you understand this? Do you believe it?

Some years ago I met a noted atheist who took great delight in giving young
preachers theological nuts to crack. She said: “If you have a God, then show him
to me and I will believe.” When asked how this world came into existence, she
said: “From chance or from evolution.” When I asked her who made her, she said:

“I came from a spore, an atom, a germ. I began with an atom and kept on
evolv­ing until I became a tadpole, and then a monkey, and then a creature of
intelli­gence.”

I had heard that there is a con­necting link somewhere, and I concluded that if
the theory of evolution be true I had found this link, for she was the ugli­est
woman I had ever seen. I further told her that she might be related to the
monkey, but I did not claim to be of any kin to the animal.

Let us notice her objections. Could not believe in God because she could not see
him. Ask her if she had ever seen an atom and she would say “No.” If she could
believe in the atom without seeing it, why not believe in God who made the atom?
If a man came from an atom, who put the life into the atom? When the germ of an
egg, the germ of a snake and the germ of a man are all placed under the
microscope, why do they all look alike, and what is it that keeps the germ of
the tree from evolving into a snake, and the germ of the snake from evolving
into the man, and the germ of the man from evolving into a tree? Why does not
man evolve into an archangel?

If the world came from chance, how do you account for the order and per­fection
and the wisdom revealed in the creation? Suppose I would quite a beau­tiful poem
and you would ask me who was the author, and I would say, “There is no author. I
just took a handful of type and threw them against the wall, and it happened!”
You can spell my name with four letters, but you could not do it by throwing
four letters against the wall, if you were to try for a century.

I met the husband of this woman. He was an intelligent man, but an atheist. When
I asked him why he did not believe, he said: “I cannot understand. I do not
believe in a thing I cannot see.” He said man came as a result of evolution.
There has never been an evolution where there has not been an involution. The
hardest thing I ever tried to do was to evolve out of my pocket a ten-dollar
bill to pay for a new hat for my wife, when it had not been involved into my
pocket. Did you ever try it? If the world is here as a result of evolution, who
involved the idea? In my early manhood I was a schoolteacher, and after getting
my license I purchased a Waterbury watch. It could out-tick any small piece of
machinery I had ever seen, but I had to keep winding it all the time to keep it
going. It was like some church-members. One day I decided to look into that
watch and see the jewels. I took out the three little screws, and there jumped
out in that schoolroom a spring nine feet long. I tried to place it inside of
the watch, but I could not find room enough to hold the spring. I took it to
town and sold it to a man who had watch sense. I could not fix it because God
had never involved into my head any watch sense. He had in­volved some into the
head of the other man and he could fix it. That watch could not repair itself;
when it stopped it could not start itself. It had no sense. It was unorganized
matter.

Let us look up into the blue sky and behold the greatest piece of clockwork man
has ever looked upon. It did not make itself. A creation implies a Crea­tor; a
design, a Designer. The spacious firmament on high, With all the blue ethereal
sky, And spangled heavens, a shining frame, Their great Original proclaim. The
unwearied sun, from day to day, Doth his Creator’s power display, And publishes
to every land The work of an almighty hand.

Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And
nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth;

Whilst all the stars that round her burn, And all the planets, in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll, And spread the truth from pole to pole.

What though in solemn silence all Move round this dark terrestrial ball;

What though no real voice nor sound Amid their radiant orbs be found; In
reason’s ear they all rejoice, And utter forth a glorious voice, Forever singing
as they shine, ’The hand that made us is divine.’

You may burn all the churches and kill all of the preachers, but so long as
there is a blazing star shining in the heavens, so long will there be a witness
to testify in burning eloquence, and with logic that can never be refuted, that
God is. This intelligent atheist said he did not believe in God because he could
not under­stand him. He believed in himself and in his fellow-man, and yet had
to confess that he did not understand either. Man eats, but he does not
understand diges­tion. He cannot tell how it is that the food produces hair,
bone, flesh, nerve, etc. What is it that takes the part out of the beefsteak
that makes hair and puts it on the head; that makes nail and puts it on the
finger and never on the nose? He tells us that where the artery ceases to be an
artery and the vein begins to be a vein (no one knows where this is) the
selection is made. Two men eat the same food for five years, and one has a
mus­tache and the other has not; why is it? When the man said he could not
believe in God because he could not see him, I asked: “If I can prove to you
that you have never seen your father, that you have never seen your mother, and
that you have never seen yourself, will you confess that you never had a father,
that you never had a mother, and that you do not exist?” He said he would. Then
I said: “I stab you with a knife, and your body falls upon the hard pavement and
it is soon cold and lifeless; is that you? Is that lump of cold clay lying there
the one that invented that machinery, that enjoys the sublime and the
ridiculous, that thinks and acts? If that be you, why not let us embalm you as
the Egyp­tians did, and keep you with us for­ever?” He confessed that the body
was not the man. Then I said: “You have never seen yourself; no man can see a
live man. It takes spiritual eyes to see God and to see man. You have only seen
the house in which man has lived. These eyes do not see; they are the windows,
and I am back inside looking out through the windows. That was not your baby
that you deposited in the grave; it was only the place in which the baby lived
for a short time.” He said: “I do see myself manifesting myself through
my­self.” “You see God manifesting him­self through himself, too, and if you can
believe in your own existence upon such evidence, why not believe in God upon
the same kind of testimony?” I asked.

What is life? What is death? With­out God all is mystery; with him all may
someday be understood. He has century plants, and they will unfold in their own
good time.

Death! A father puts his son into a plain building, and tells him he must live
there for a short time and then he may have a beautiful mansion. The house
becomes dilapidated and a leak is re­vealed. The carpenter is called and the
leak is repaired. Then another break is seen and he is called again. Soon the
building is almost ready to fall down, but in sight of this building is another
that is nearing completion, and the father, when it is finished, comes to the
son and says: “You have remained in this house without complaining, and now I
want you to come into this beautiful dwelling I have prepared for you.” Man is
put for a season into the body which is his house. Again and again the break is
dis­covered and the physician is called to repair and make it comfortable, but
after a time it is ready to fall to pieces because of disease, and the father
says to his son: “Come now and live in this house I have prepared for you. This
is to be your home.” And the soul comes out of this house of mortality and
enters into a house that is to be eternal. This is death.


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  CHAPTER 3: BOOK-02-THE BIBLE GOD’S WORD
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The Bible God’s Word Text.—“But men spake from God, being moved by the Holy
Spirit.”—2Pe 1:21.

“I AM, therefore God is, for no man ever made himself. I speak, there­fore God
spake, for no man has ever spoken who was not first spoken to.” God has given to
man two books— the book of nature and the book of reve­lation. The book of
nature reveals a God of wisdom and of power; the book of revelation reveals a
God of love, and this is the highest and best revelation. It reveals God as our
Father. The Book is here; if God did not write it, who did? Man could not have
done it, and he would not if he could. It is a book that reveals man’s defects
and pronounces condemnation upon his head. All of the combined wisdom of all the
combined ages could never have written this Book. We are certain that the devil
did not write it, for it is opposed to his kingdom, and to follow its teachings
will mean the destruction of the devil and his kingdom. It is antagonistic to
all that is devilish.

Let me give you only a few reasons for believing it came from God and that it is
the product of inspiration. Men of God spake from God, being moved by the Holy
Spirit, says the apostle. It cannot be destroyed, and therefore we argue that
its indestructibility is a proof of its inspiration. When Moses saw the burn­ing
bush, the flames loomed and the fire burned, but the bush could not be
con­sumed. God was in it. God is in this old Book and it cannot be destroyed. It
has come to us through a river of blood. Every page is stained with the blood of
the martyrs. Someone says: “It has been upset more times than any other book,
and yet it is a solid cube right side up every time.” It is like the Irishman’s
fence which was five feet thick and three feet high, and someone said: “Pat, are
you not afraid to keep fooling with that fence—afraid you will upset it?” Pat
replied: “Faith, if I do, it will be two feet higher after I’ve completed the
job!” It is this way with the Bible. Every time a destructive critic or an
infidel makes an attack on it, it comes before the people with renewed power and
strength. Those who opposed it and tried to destroy it in the past ages have
been almost for­gotten, and were it not for the fact that they linked themselves
to its history, would not be thought of today. Voltaire predicted that within
one hundred years there would be no Bibles, but when the hundred years had
rolled around, the Christian people were printing Bibles on the very
printing-press which had been used by the French infidel. Thomas Paine did his
best to kill it in his day and gen­eration, but today there are millions of men
reading the Book, and never in the world’s history have we had so many copies of
the Bible, and in so many lan­guages, as we have today. No book at­tracts
attention as does this one. Can you picture the scene in New York when the new
version came from the press: ex- press-wagons loaded with Bibles and the Bible
houses unable to supply the de­mand! Think of it: 118,000 words sent by
telegraph to Chicago in order that the people in that locality might be able to
read the message at the same time they were reading it in New York! Its
Style.—The style of the Book is another reason for believing in its
inspira­tion. When you translate a piece of liter­ature into a foreign tongue it
loses its personality and its individuality.

Shakespeare’s magic could not copied be;

Within that circle none durst walk but he. The moment you translate his
writ­ings, and put them into another tongue, they lose their power. Not so with
the Bible; you can put it into every dialect, and you can create a language and
then put it into the one you have created, and it is still the powerful,
uplifting, soul-sav­ing message. It is a universal Father speaking to his
universal family. Its con­ciseness is characteristic. You write the history of
the Johnstown flood and you will have a book of hundreds of pages, but when God
wrote the history of the greatest flood the world had ever seen, he put it into
a few sentences, and you cannot add to it. It is a perfect descrip­tion. If you
write the history of a man, you will use pages, but God can write the history of
a nation and put it all into a few paragraphs, and you are impressed with it as
being finished. Its Uniqueness.—Suppose the Presi­dent should issue a
proclamation calling upon men from every country under the “Stars and Stripes”
to bring to the city of Washington, on a certain day, pieces of marble taken
from the quarries of their own land, and that these men, ignorant of each
other’s work, should come to the city on that day and place their pieces of
marble, and when it was all done, with­out the use of hammer or chisel, there
would go up a beautiful and magnificent temple, perfect in form and in design.
What would be your conclusion—that each man wrought under the direction of some
master mechanic or that it was mirac­ulous? Here we have sixty-six blocks of
spiritual marble, and they have been quarried by forty men and at different
times and in different places, and when they are put into proper form we have
the beautiful and magnificent spiritual temple of inspired wisdom and truth in
which God is pleased to dwell. How do you account for it upon any other basis
than that all of them wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit? Its
Influence.—Just as the desert is made to blossom because of the presence of the
spring of water, so society is bless­ed by the word of God. Wm. E. Glad­stone
said: “After fifty-eight years of public life—forty-seven in the English
Cabinet—having been associated with sixty master minds of the world, all but
five were Christians.” Who would live in a community of in­fidels? The Bible in
a community guaran­tees protection to property and to life. Two young men were
traveling in what was then termed the “wild West.” One night they stopped at a
cabin and asked to be taken in for the night. One of the young men was an
infidel and the other was a devout Christian. The infidel said to his companion:
“I am afraid to stay here all night. This old man would kill you for a quarter.
I have determined to take my revolver to bed with me, and to cut a hole in the
bed-quilt and peep out with my hand on my pistol and be ready to shoot.” When
the time came to retire, the old man got his big family Bible and said:

“Young men, it is our custom to read God’s word and pray before going to bed. I
hope you will join us.” He then read the chapter, and they got down on their
knees and he prayed: “Father, bless these young men who are so far away from
home. Keep them from dan­ger and from the power of the evil one. Bless their
parents who are so anxious about them to-night. Comfort them with the thought
that God will be unto them a Father and that he will care for and pro­tect them,
we beg in Jesus’ name.” The infidel was the first to get into his bed. The
Christian noticed that he did not have his revolver and that he had not cut the
hole in the bed-quilt, and he asked him why he had not made provision for his
safety. He replied: “That old man wouldn’t hurt you.” The presence of that Bible
and the fact that he was a man of prayer made the man feel he was safe. Suppose
he had placed on his table a deck of cards and a bottle of moonshine and said,
“Now, gentlemen, we want to have a good time before we retire,” what would have
been the effect on the man, do you think?

Internal Proofs.—One Sunday morn­ing I was in the hotel in my city talking with
a minister who was to preach near the city that day. He was one of the
high-brows and made light of miracles and certain books in the Bible. A Jew was
present and heard our discussion, and he said: “I am a Jew and I do not believe
in miracles. I do not believe in the Virgin birth. I am from Missouri and you
will have to show me.” I said to him: “Did I understand you to say that you are
a Jew and that you do not believe in miracles, and that you are from Mis­souri
and that I must show you?” He said, “Yes.” “Then I will proceed to show you.
Come and stand up in front of that looking-glass and take a good square look at
yourself. Now explain to 36 me how the prophet, hundreds of years before you
were born, knew that you would be a hissing and a byword and with­out a
dwelling-place? How came you here? Look at yourself. You are a mir­acle of the
twentieth century. ’ ’ He quick­ly replied: “There are more Jews today than when
Christ was crucified.” I said: “Why is it? How did the prophet know when he
said, hundreds of years before you were born, that you would be here as a
people, but not as a nation, when the Lord returns? You are here—you cannot be
destroyed. God has pronounced a curse upon the nation that persecutes you, and
the nations of the earth that have put their hands upon you have paid the
penalty, but you have no country and you are a hissing and a byword among the
nations of the earth. Men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit."

Fulfilled prophecy is the miracle of the age. Had we time, we could give a
ser­mon on fulfilled prophecy. Take the 333 prophecies that relate to Christ,
and all were fulfilled to the letter. This book is in the present tense. Like
its author, it is I am. One day a Mormon elder came into my home and said: “I am
an apostle of the Latter-day Saints. I can work miracles and speak in tongues,
and if I take deadly poison it will not hurt me.” I asked him if an apostle did
not mean a witness. He said it did. Then I wanted to know how a witness could
have a successor. He ad­mitted that there are twelve thrones and that the twelve
apostles are to sit upon the thrones, and then I told him that all of the seats
were occupied, and if he were an apostle he would have to stand, for there was
no vacant seat. I said: "I have been reading about you.” He was anxious to know
where. I told him in Paul’s let­ter to Timothy, where he said that in the last
days—and he professed to belong to the latter-day crowd — perilous times would
come, and that men would creep into houses and take captive silly women, and
that I noticed he had arrived on schedule time. He said he could perform
miracles, and then I told him I had read again in the Book that out of the mouth
of the beast came three frogs claiming to work miracles, which were of the
devil, and I felt sure he was one of the frogs. The Bible is loaded, and when
you want to kill false teaching all you need to do is to know your gun and how
to pull the trigger.

It Is Not a Scientific Book.—The Bible is not a book of science; it is a
revelation of God and the way to heaven. It does not contradict science,
however. One time I was engaged in a meeting in Hagers­town, and I was using a
query-box, giving the people a chance to ask questions on the Bible, and an
infidel would cram the box with hard questions, and then leave as soon as I had
answered the questions, refusing to hear me preach. One night he put this
question in the box: “If your God has all power and the devil is the cause of
sin, and sin is the cause of mis­ery, why does not your God kill the devil and
put a stop to this?” I told him God could not afford to do it; it would leave
too many orphans in Hagerstown. He became angry, and the next day called at the
parsonage and challenged me for a debate. I refused, and told him I could not
afford to give him any notoriety at my expense. He then said: “Your Bible
con­tradicts science and I would not accept a Bible that does this.” I insisted
that he show me one contradiction, and he said: “Your Bible says that God in six
days of twenty-four hours each made the heavens and the earth, and this would be
an im­possibility. It would have taken millions of years for the earth to have
cooled off.” I gave him the Bible and challenged him to show me the statement,
and he was a long time finding the first chapter of Genesis. When he read it I
did not see the statement. He read again: “In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth.” I stopped him and asked: “When was the beginning?” He
could not tell. Then I said: “God created all of this in the beginning, and we
do not know how long that was, but we know that the evening and the morning were
the first day. Now, there was no day until the earth revolved on its axis, and
it did not revolve until it had been created and cooled off, and the evening and
the morn­ing made the first day. No contradic­tion.” Then he said: “Your Bible
says that Abraham was a man after God’s heart; but Abraham was an old liar, and
I have no respect for a Bible that makes such a man a man after God’s own
heart.” I asked him if he had ever told a lie. He insisted that he was a
gentle­man. I told him I was glad to hear it, but I wanted to know if he had
ever told a lie. He admitted that when in a tight place he might have
prevaricated. I told him Abraham was in a tight place and prevaricated, and that
God told the truth on him. That, fortunately for him, God had not seen fit to
write his history, and when he did the world would learn a lot of which it was
then ignorant. The Bible tells both sides—the good and the bad.

It Is Its Own Interpreter.—A noted lawyer, who had been for many years an
infidel, was told by his physician that he had organic trouble and could live
only a short while. He went to his associate in law, a Presbyterian elder, and
asked: “Have you a book that will prove the Bible?” His partner handed him the
Bible and told him to read it. He said: “You do not understand. I want a book to
prove the Bible.” “Then,” said the lawyer, “go home and read your Bible.” He
noticed the emphasis on the command, and went home and began to read it. One
morning he came into the office, and his partner asked him how he was getting on
with his Bible. He said: “I want to know where that man Cain got his wife.” I
have been in but few places where some man did not want to know this. The Bible
was not written to "tell where every man got his wife. You do not know where I
got mine, and it is none of your busi­ness, and yet it is just as necessary to
know where I got a wife as to know where Cain got one. It is a bad business to
be looking after some other man’s wife. He was told to keep on reading his
Bible. He came in one day, and again was asked how he was getting on. He said:
“I am try­ing to find out if that flood was universal. ’ ’ He was told to just
keep on reading his Bible. One day he came and was greatly excited. He said: “I
am a lawyer and have been practicing law for many years, and I would like to
know where that man Moses got that law. It would have taken a God to have given
such a code. I am convinced and I am now a believer.” We read too much about the
Bible and not enough of it. Not a Book of Theology.—The Bible is not a book of
theology. God made some stars and hung them up in the heavens, and then man made
a telescope and began to study stars and then wrote out what he thought about
stars and called that astronomy. God made the stars and man-made the astronomy.
God made the rocks and man began to dig and blast and ana­lyze the rocks and
called that geology. God made the rocks and man-made the geology. God made the
daisy to laugh on the hill­side and man began to pick it to pieces, and then
wrote what he thought about it and called it botany. God made the flow­ers and
man-made the botany. God made a Bible and man began to study it, and then wrote
out his interpretations of it and called that theology. God made the Bible and
man-made the theology. The world will go to sleep on theology, but it will sit
up and listen when you give it the simple word of God. It is hungry for it.

One time a minister was visiting an­other minister, and he was taken into his
cellar where he had a lot of dried leaves, broken sticks and roots and a smoky
lamp. He said: “Here is where I study botany.” The visitor started to pick up
one of the dead sticks, and the man said: “Don’t touch it; it will break.” Then
the visitor said: “Let me out into the fresh air where I can smell the fragrance
of living flowers. I do not want to live among a lot of dead leaves and roots;
they are musty and you dare not touch them for fear they will break.” This is
the way it is with the sermons that are composed of men’s opinions, and the old,
musty, lifeless doctrines: the world will not stand for them. The Bible is God’s
universal library. Do you want to study astronomy? Then, behold the Bright and
the Morning Star. Do you want to study geology? Then, read about the Rock of
Ages. Do you want to study botany? Then, take some lessons in the Rose of Sharon
or the Lily of the Valley. Do you want to study biology? Then, become acquainted
with the one who is the Way and the Truth and the Life. The Bible will do to
live by and to die by. A noted infidel Wets called to the bedside of his
daughter who was dying. Her mother was an earnest Christian, and had taught her
to believe in the promises contained in the blessed old Book. The father had
told her it was all a myth. She took the hand of the father and said: “Father, I
am dying. Mother says the Bible is true, and that Jesus is my Savior, and that
he has gone to prepare a home for me, and that he will come and take me to be
with him. You say it is all a lie. I am dying, and I want to know —must I
believe you or must I believe mother?” The infidel, with the tears streaming
down his cheeks, said: “My child, you believe your mother.” I am a poor, blind,
helpless cripple, and the Bible is my only crutch. Will you be so cruel as to
try to knock it from beneath me?


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 4: BOOK-03-JESUS CHRIST THE SON OF GOD
========================================================================

Jesus Christ The Son Of God Text.—“What think ye of the Christ? whose Son is
he?”—Mat 22:42.

JOHN tells us that "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.” He further tells us that “the Word became flesh, and
dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the
Father), full of grace and truth.” The Old Testament Scriptures tell of the
coming of this “Just One,” and when he came he endorsed the Scriptures. When his
apostles preached, they had but one proposition to prove, and they proved it
from the Scriptures. This one proposi­tion was: “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
the living God.” When Jesus preach­ed and taught, his one theme was himself —the
fulfillment of prophecy, the end of the law and the fulfillment of type and
shadow. His sermons were filled with quotations from the old Book. Matthew
quotes from twenty-two of the thirty-nine books; Mark from thirteen with fifteen
passages; Luke, from thirteen with twenty-five quotations, and John, from six
with eleven. From 189 chapters we have 140 quotations. Evidently Jesus and his
apostles believed the Old Testament Scriptures to be the inspired word of God.

Christ was himself a prophet, and his prophecies were fulfilled to the letter.
He said: “Now I tell you before it come to pass, that ye may believe that I am
he.”

Witnesses.—Let us hear the evidence as it comes from the witnesses. John the
Baptist preached that one was to come after him and that the people were to
be­lieve on him. God had told him he might know Jesus. He sent him to baptize
with the promise that when the Holy Spirit came upon one of the number being
baptized he should know he was the Christ. John beheld the Spirit as he came
upon this one in the form of a dove, and he heard the Father confess him to be
his Son. After this he said to certain ones: “Behold, the Lamb of God, that
taketh away the sin of the world.” On certain occasions the Father testi­fied,
and we must listen to his testimony. When Jesus was being baptized, the Father
said: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” On the Mount of
Transfiguration he said: “This is my beloved Son; hear ye him.” On another
occasion, when Jesus re­quested that he glorify his name, there came a voice
from heaven saying: “I have, and will glorify it again.” Jesus said: “There is
another that beareth wit­ness of me, and I know that the witness which he
witnesseth of me is true. I and my Father are one. For as the Father raiseth up
the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.” The
works of Christ were stronger evidences of his divinity than the words of John
the Baptist. Jesus insisted that his works should be proof that the Father had
sent him into the world. In no age of the world’s history has God sent one to
represent him without giving to the one sent his credentials. The signs done by
Jesus were to make it possible for people to believe. He did among the Jews
works that no other man had ever done. He not only raised the dead, but declared
that he had the power to lay his own life down and to take it up again. He
demon­strated this in his resurrection from among the dead.

Seven hundred years before he came, the prophet had said: “For unto us a child
is born unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder:
and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting
Father, Prince of Peace.” When Matthew writes of the birth of this child, he
quotes from the old prophet and says: “Now all this is come to pass, that it
might be fulfilled which was spok­en by the Lord through the prophet, say­ing,
Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son. And they
shall call his name Immanuel; which is, being interpreted, God with us.”

Jesus said unto them: “If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I
proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.”
When he answered his critics he said: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.”

“Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he had not only brok­en
the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with
God.” When the angel told Mary about the ’birth of this child, he said: “The
Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the pow­er of the Most High shall
overshadow thee: wherefore also the holy thing which is begotten shall be called
the Son of God.” The Word was in the beginning with God. Jesus was born in
Bethlehem of Judea when the Word became flesh and dwelt among men. Jesus became
the Christ when he was anointed at his bap­tism.

Paul tells us that Jesus one time ex­isted in the form of God, and that he
emptied himself and took upon him the form of a servant, being made in the
like­ness of men, and was found in the fashion of man; he humbled himself and
became obedient unto the death of the cross (Php 2:6-8). He makes it clear in
his Epistle to the Colossians that Christ is the Son of God in a peculiar sense,
and that he was at one time with the Father (Col 1:12-20). A Unique Character. —
Man could never have created such a character. His greatness is conditioned upon
his extent of influence and the purity and the gen­uineness of his character. He
did more within three years to regenerate and lift the race than all of the
priests, philos­ophers and teachers of all the ages. He was born in poverty, and
was forced to confess that while the foxes had holes and the birds of the air
had nests, he did not have where to lay his head. When the disciples went to
their homes at the close of the day’s teaching, he went to the mountain. He came
at a time when the world needed light; came of a Jewish family and was taught by
the scribes that the Jews were the best and the only people God honored. He was
born and reared in a narrow sphere, lived a brief life, wrote his message in the
sand and not in a book, had no influence with the men of authority, was hated by
his own people, betrayed by his own disciple, was condemned and killed by a mob,
died the most ignominious death possible, and yet his life and power have
touched all parts of the globe and transformed the lives of millions. When He
came from among the dead the world began a new day. The darkness gave way to
light and governments began to be formed anew.

He Lives.—All philosophers, with their imperfect teachings, have faded away and
are almost forgotten; but his teachings command the attention of the learned and
the ignorant, the great and the small. He is great because he is alive. When
Peter preached the sermon of Pentecost, he preached a live Christ. The
preach­ing of all of the New Testament ministers breathes the doctrine of a
living Christ. When an army was discouraged and beginning to retreat, the men
heard the voice of the dying captain when he said, “I see you,” and they rallied
and went to vic­tory. The church of Christ succeeds to­day because its
membership looks at the Captain who is able to see them in their struggles
against evil. Their faith in this living Captain gives courage and guaran­tees
victory. The Jews had their Moses, Rome had her Caesar, France had her Napoleon,
En­gland her Gladstone, America her Wash­ington, and the church has her Jesus,
the Christ, the Son of man and the Son of God. He is not the son of a man, but
the son of man—the child of the race. Through his veins coursed the blood of all
races. He is the gift of the Father to the whole world. His Life Is
Unapproachable.—No man can improve on the life of Christ. If the infidel can
offer us something better, let him do it. He has had nearly twenty centuries to
do it and has never ap­proached unto it. A noted man said: “If Shakespeare were
to come into this room, we would rise to our feet; but if Christ were to come,
we would fall to our knees.” His Sinlessness.—Nearly two thousand years ago
Christ thrust a challenge into the face of blatant atheism and infidelity when
he said: ‘If any man can convince me that I have sinned, let him do it.” No man
from that day until now has ac­cepted his challenge. His Claims.—If Jesus is not
more than man, then he was the greatest impostor the world has ever seen. The
following is a beautiful quotation:

“If Jesus Christ is a man And only a man, I say That, of all mankind, I will
cleave to him, And to him I will cleave always.

If he be only a man, then he has been a deceiver, and I do not care to cleave to
one who has proved himself to be the greatest deceiver of all ages." His Claims.
— “I am the bread of life.” “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” “I
am the door.” “I am the way, the truth and the life.” “I am the resurrection and
the life.” “I have the power to lay down my life, and I have the power to take
it up again.” “I am the good shepherd. ” ‘ ‘ Come unto me, all ye that labor and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

He Imparts Life.—Man is not saved by ethics. Mind culture is a good thing, but
it cannot wash away the guilt of sin committed. Man cannot lift himself. There
must be some divine power from above that takes hold of him and gets into his
being and lifts him. Evolution can never do it. Jesus can do this for man.
Christianity is God coming down to earth and lifting man up to heaven. Christ
must be formed in man the hope of glory. Man must be in Christ and Christ must
be in man in order that man may be saved. I know that Jesus saves because he
saved me. The sage said: “I need a God who can speak to me.” Our Christ is near
and we can have fellowship with him. He forgives sins, is my judge, has all
authority, is unchangeable and is an object of worship.

He is the one Savior of the world, for there is no other name under heaven
“wherein we must be saved.”

“In the still air the music lies unheard; In the rough marble beauty hides
unseen; To make the music and the beauty needs The master’s touch, the
sculptor’s chisel keen.

Great Master, touch us with thy skillful hand;

Let not the music that is in us die!

Great Sculptor, hew and polish us; nor let, Hidden and lost, thy form within us
lie!

Spare not the stroke! Do with us as thou wilt!

Let there be naught unfinished, broken, marred;

Complete thy purpose, that we may become Thy perfect image, thou our God and
Lord." The Church Rests upon Him.—Jesus said to Peter, when he confessed him,
that he would build his church upon the rock—the Christ confessed. Paul says:
“Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus.”

He Is the Creed of His Church.—I have trouble and am in court: I do not care to
read law books; I want a lawyer, a man who can represent me before the court. I
am in financial straits: I do not want to hear a lecture on political econo­my;
I want a man who can come to my help with funds. I am sick: I do not want
medicine books; I want a living physician who can feel my pulse, diagnose my
case and give the remedy. I am lost, and I feel the guilt of sin: I do not want
theol­ogy; I want the living, personal Christ, who has the power to comfort and
to for­give, to come to me and be my helper and my Savior. A religion without
this Christ is like a painted fire that gives out no heat, or a painted bouquet
that exhales no fra­grance. It is like a painted stream of water to the thirsty
man, which refuses to satisfy, but aggravates the suffering. The belief in this
divine Christ has held nations together. Greece had her culture and Rome had her
law, but they could not save them. Take Christ out of the Bible, and what would
follow? It would bleed to death. It would be like the shell without the kernel;
the wire without the electricity; the lamp without the oil; the body without the
spirit.

He Has Power to Draw.—He said: “And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto
me.” No other person can do this. He draws the man of wealth, Zaccheus, and the
poor blind beggar, Bartimeus; the cultured Nicodemus and the ignorant woman at
the well; the poor fisherman and the man of the Sanhedrin. Men of all nations,
all trades, all profes­sions and all tastes are drawn together by the Christ. He
satisfies the wants of mankind. He meets every desire of the soul. He gives
liberty and forms govern­ments, gives free speech, free schools, free hospitals,
free homes; brings peace, elevates woman, transforms society.

What is it that lifts and influences? Not a philosophy, but a religion; not an
intellectual theory, but an experience of the soul; not a product of
originality, but a revelation of our Father and our Broth­er; not a system of
theology, but a divine force and life reaching through all organ­ized life. We
see it in literature, art, climate, character. Take Him out of the world, and
what would follow? What would happen to literature, to art, to character? Prayer
would die on the lips of men; the Old Testament could not be understood; there
could be no relief in the hour of sorrow and death; there would be no hospitals,
no homes for the aged and the poor, no asylums, no free schools; no more
missionaries would be sent out, and all who are giving themselves in the foreign
fields would be recalled, and this world would become a world without light and
life. My Creed.—It is not, What do you think of a dogma? but, What do you think
of a person? It is not faith in a doctrine, but faith in a personality. I cannot
put my creed into writing. I might be able to put my intellectual conception,
but never my heart’s trust. I do not believe in commands, but in the Commander.
I repent, not because I believe in repent­ance, but because I believe in the One
who said: “Except ye repent, ye shall perish.” I do not believe in baptism; I
believe in the One who commanded me to be bap­tized, and therefore I am
baptized. I do not believe in prayer, but I believe in Christ, who has promised
to hear when I pray, and I pray.

Let us hear what the people say of Christ: John Baptist: “Behold, the Lamb of
God, which taketh away the sin of the world." The woman of Samaria: "Come, see a
man who told me all things that ever I did: can this be the Christ?” A devil:
“What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the Most High God?” Judas: “I
have betrayed innocent blood. ’ ’ Pilate: “I find no fault in him.” Pilate’s
wife: “Have nothing to do with this just one.” The centurion: “Truly this was
the Son of God.” The earthquake gave testimony in his favor, and on the day of
Pentecost the Holy Spirit testified through his apostles.

“All hail the power of Jesus’ name!

Let angels prostrate fall;

Bring forth the royal diadem, And crown him Lord of all."


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 5: BOOK-04-SPIRITUAL WORSHIP
========================================================================

Spiritual Worship

Text.—“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and
truth. ’ ’—John 4:24.

“And still the soul a far-off glory sees;

Strange music hears. A something, not of earth, still haunts the breeze, The sun
and spheres.

All things that be, all thought, all love, all joy, Spellbind the man, As once
the growing boy, And point afar—

Point to some land of endless, endless truth, Of light and life, Where souls,
renewed in an immortal youth, Shall know the infinite.”

Man is a religious being. He is the offspring of Jehovah and naturally is an
upward-looking animal. One thing that distinguishes him from all other ani­mals
is his religious instinct—his desire to worship. He must have a God. If
revelation does not reveal his God, then he will create a God. He knows that the
best within his heart has come from above, and he finds himself reaching out
after the source of all good. He feels within his soul a holy aspiration to be
holy. He must lean upon one greater than himself, he must commune with one who
possesses more wisdom and power than he possesses. He must have a God that can
sympathize with him and who will have compassion when he is weak and conscious
of his lost and helpless con­dition. In the language of one of old, he finds
himself exclaiming: “Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the
place where thine honor dwelleth. I will offer in thy dwelling an oblation with
great gladness. I will sing and speak praise unto the Lord. One thing have I
desired of the Lord which I will require, even that I may dwell in the house of
the Lord all the days of my life; to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to visit
his tem­ple.” “Oh! how amiable are thy dwell­ings, thou Lord of hosts! My soul
hath a desire and longing to enter into the courts of the Lord; my heart and my
flesh rejoice in the living God. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, they
will still be praising thee.” “One day in thy courts is better than a thousand.
I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents
of un­godliness.” “What reward shall I give unto the Lord for all the benefits
that he hath done unto me? I will receive the cup of salvation, and call upon
the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord in the sight of all his
people; in the courts of the Lord’s house, even in the midst of thee, O
Jerusalem.” Can you say in the language of the Psalmist: “I was glad when they
said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord"? When we study the history
of the hu­man family we find that the people of every age worshiped. As we begin
the study of this history we are told that Cain and Abel sacrificed unto
Jehovah. The altar was given its proper place in their lives. In this first age
we read of a man who walked with God, and one day he followed him too far to
come back; he went with him into his invisible kingdom and took up his abode
with him. When Noah had been redeemed through the water and had come into the
new world, he honored his God by building an altar and sacrificing unto him. It
was then that God smelled a sweet savor and said in his heart: “I will not again
curse the ground any more for man’s sake.”

Abraham heard the call and obeyed God. He was a man of faith and was constantly
in communion with Jehovah. He was strong in his faith because he did not get far
from his altar. In the beginning, when men called upon the name of Jehovah, they
did not have attractive1 and comfortable houses of worship; they met out in the
groves, un­der the tent of azure blue which had been stretched by the hand of a
personal and a living God, and there on his footstool, over which he had spread
the carpet of green and pinned it down with the lilies, he held sacred communion
with his God. After a while he erected a tabernacle ac­cording to the pattern
which God had given in the mount, and there God re­corded his name, and his
people came to worship. By and by the children of men were permitted to erect a
beautiful and a magnificent temple unto Jehovah, and then they met in this house
which had been dedicated unto Jehovah and here they called upon his name.

Miniature temples—the synagogues— were erected that the people might be
ac­commodated, and in these places God had recorded his name and the people met
to study his word, to pray unto him and to worship.

We are told of a noted man who made a long pilgrimage from his home to
Je­rusalem for the purpose of worship. This man, on his return, heard the gospel
from the lips of one of God’s evangelists and became a Christian.

Jesus’ life was one of worship. He spent the whole night in prayer. He with­drew
from the crowd that he might get close to his Father and have fellowship with
him. His soul was filled with indig­nation when he came into the temple and saw
it being desecrated by the thieves and the robbers. No man can willfully absent
himself from the place of worship and continue spiritual. Certain ones were
exhorted by the apostle not to forsake the assembling of themselves together. It
is in the house of the Lord we get instruction. “Thy way, 0 God, is in the
sanctuary. When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; until I went
into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end.” Here the people are
converted. Here we find the elements of spiritual life. Here we have the emblems
that represent the death and the resurrection of our Lord. Here we receive
strength and comfort. “But they that wait for Jehovah shall renew their
strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be
weary; they shall walk, and not faint” (Isa 40:31). Here the indi­vidual burden
is forgotten. We come into the place of worship thinking of our­selves and of
our burdens, and when the songs are being sung, the Word is heard read, the
prayers are being offered, we see Jesus; and then we lose sight of our­selves
and of our troubles, and soon we have found that our light afflictions have
wrought out for us an exceeding and an eternal weight of glory. Here we give an
outward expression of our inward life. Here we meet with Jesus. He has prom­ised
to be in the midst of the two or three that meet in his name. He never
disappoints. The disciple that stays away from the place of worship will miss
see­ing Jesus. The one that misses the pres­ence of the Christ will soon begin
to doubt. Thomas was a doubter because he was not present when Jesus came. The
normal Christian will worship. Not to worship means to become bestial. This germ
of reverence in the heart must be watered at least once a week. Suppose no one
came to the house of the Lord on the Lord’s Bay, what would follow! No worship
would soon mean no church of Christ, and no church and no opposition to evil
would soon result in barbarism and universal darkness. The one who remains away
from the house of worship is an enemy to good society and a promoter of all that
is devilish.

Manner of Worship. — “But let all things be done decently and in order” (1Co
14:40). Why did the apostle write these words? The members of the church at
Corinth had lost their reverence for the Lord’s table. Some of the members got
drunk on the wine and they made a feast out of this holy Supper. We teach our
children to be mannerly when in the homes of neighbors. It is more important to
teach them to be mannerly and rever­ent when in the house of the Lord. It is
here we come into the presence of God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the spirits
of just ones made perfect. Our worship consists of preaching, and no one should
sleep in the house of the Lord and in the presence of the King of kings. He
should give heed to the things read and the things spoken. No one should talk
and visit when in the act of worship. It consists of praying. All should kneel,
or stand or bow the head, when the minister says, “Let us pray.” We should all
do the same thing. The one who leads the prayer should not be expected to do all
the praying for all the congregation. He is only leading, and all should unite
in spirit in the prayer to our spiritual God.

Singing is a part of the worship. We should sing with the spirit and with the
understanding also. We have no more right to hire a quartet to do our singing
than we have to hire one to do our pray­ing. When the minister says, “Let all
the congregation sing,9 9 all should sing or make a joyful noise unto the Lord.
The one who leads the music or sings the spe­cial song should be a Christian.
Let us understand that God is a Spirit, and that he must be worshiped in spirit
and in truth, and that a singer should worship in his singing as much as the
minister worships in his preaching or you wor­ship in your praying. If he does
not worship in this act, then it is solemn mockery and an abomination in the
sight of God.

Fellowship is also a part of worship. It is just as essential to give as it is
to pray. We must understand that the act of giving is an act of worship, and we
must give in the spirit and with the un­derstanding also. It is important that
all shall worship. “Let every one of you lay by in store on the first day of the
week 69 as the Lord hath prospered him” (1Co 16:2). The sermon should be simple
and given in a way that all can understand it. Paul ’s ambition was to be
understood. He says: “I thank God, I speak with tongues more than all of you:
howbeit in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that
I might in­struct others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue.” The
preacher has no right to show himself off. Think of a minister spending an hour
before a mir­ror practicing on his gestures that he might appear unto men to
preach! The real minister will feel that he is worship­ing God in sermon. The
window-pane that is painted and gaudy is not good for letting in the light; the
minister that is drunk on egotism, and that tries to place himself on a
pedestal, is a stumbling-stone to every honest man or woman. He is missing the
mark, and sooner or later will be found out to be a miserable hypo­crite.

“Let us have grace whereby we may worship him acceptably with reverence and
godly fear.” Let us heed the words of the inspired writer: “Worship the Lord in
the beauty of holiness.” Rever­ence is the essence of true worship, and if there
be no reverence there is no wor­ship.

Here in Body, but Absent in Spirit.— We have those who occupy a pew at al­most
every service, but they are absent. They are here in body, but miles away in
spirit. A minister received the con­fession of a man who had been a frequent
visitor at his church. He was anxious to know which one of his sermons impressed
him, and dared to ask. The man said: “I have never heard you preach. It is true
I have filled a place in the pew many times while you were preaching, but I did
not hear you. I was calculating and counting prospective gains I hoped to make
that week. I was present, but never heard you. I was made to think by the simple
life of a Christian woman.”

Present in Spirit.—We have another class who stay away from the services, but
always tell the minister that they are with him in spirit. I had a man like this
in my congregation. He would visit on Sundays and let any little excuse keep him
from the house of worship, and when I would tell him I missed him, he would
immediately inform me that he was with me in spirit. I told him I was afraid of
ghosts. Think of a minister on a Sun­day morning preaching to a thousand ghosts!
I’d rather have five spirits in bodies present at a church service. Should
Prepare for It.—When a pa­tient is to undergo an operation he is pre­pared for
it. To get the best out of the Lord’s Day worship we should spend some time shut
in with God, with the world shut out, and get our hearts in tune for the day.
Let us give our spirit a chance to grow.

“What am I?

Naught! But the effluence of Thy light divine, Pervading worlds, hath reached my
bosom too.

Yes, in my spirit doth Thy spirit shine, As shines the sunbeam in a drop of dew.

Naught! But I live, and on Hope’s pinions fly Eager toward Thy presence; for in
Thee I live and breathe and dwell, aspiring high, Even to the throne of Thy
divinity.

I am, O God, and surely thou must be! ”


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 6: BOOK-05-CHRIST’S PRAYERS
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Christ’s Prayers

Text.—“And it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, that when he
ceased, one of his dis­ciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, even as
John also taught his disciples.—Luk 11:1.

PRAYER is the spirit of Christianity. There can be no spiritual life without it.
It is the Christian’s breath. Man can no more live a Christian life without
praying than he can live a physical life without breathing. To be physically
strong we must breathe deeply. There are many sickly church-members today
because they are too lazy to breathe into their souls the oxygen of heaven. It
is two spirits holding communion. Like the commerce carried on between the
oceans and the clouds, bringing down the moist­ure in the dew and rain to quench
the thirst of vegetation, and then ascending again in the mists back to the
clouds to return again to fill the babbling brooks, the rivulets and the rivers
which roll into the fountains of the great deep, our spir­its go out to God for
help and guidance, and the blessings come from his unwasting hand to satisfy our
wants.

Prayer belongs to all ages and to all peoples. In every Christian’s heart must
be his altar of incense. When the fires go out upon this altar, his spiritual
life becomes extinct. The Scientific View.—We are told by the scientist that God
does not answer our prayers; that God works according to a fixed law, and that
to answer the prayers of his children he would have to violate his laws. We are
told that we do not bring heaven down to earth when we pray, but that we lift
ourselves up to heaven. Imagine a man standing at a closed door, one he knew
would not open, and knocking, or a thirsty soul pumping at a dry well! We
believe that our Father hears and answers the prayers of the saints. He has
commanded us to knock, with the promise that it shall be opened unto us; to
seek, with the promise that we shall find.

We cannot explain how prayer influ­ences God; there are many things we cannot
explain, but we know from experience that it does. Every Christian has the
con­sciousness of a living and a prayer-an­swering God. He knows that with this
God he has had personal and vital relations, and that he has had with him the
closest affinity and fellowship. The con­sciousness of this fellowship is a
unique and distinct thing, found only in the re­ligion of Jesus Christ.

We must learn to pray. Man learns to articulate the language of heaven just as
the babe learns to speak its mother tongue. Every member of the family of our
Father in heaven is invited to take lessons under the divine Teacher. There is
no excuse, and we cannot plead ig­norance. When should we begin to pray? The
moment we are born into the divine family we will naturally begin to make an
effort to make known our desires unto our Father.

Jesus Was Given to Prayer. — He would spend the night in holy communion with his
Father. If this sinless, spotless, divine Son of God had to pray in order to do
the work of his God, do you think it possible for his disciples to live his life
and do his work without it? A man without sin, and filled with the Holy Spir­it,
recognized the importance of prayer. He practiced what he preached and preached
what he practiced. Have you ever studied the prayers of this master Teacher?
“And in the morn­ing, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and
departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.” “And when he had sent them
away, he departed into a mountain to pray.” When the work was pressing and he
needed strength, he went to his Father in prayer. “But so much the more went
there a fame abroad of him: and great multitudes came to­gether to hear him, and
to be healed by him of their infirmities. And he with­drew himself into the
wilderness, and prayed.” He would not select his apos­tles without first
engaging in prayer. “And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a
mountain to pray, and he continued all night in prayer to God.”

Unrecorded Prayers. — The Gospel writers tell us of the times when our Lord
prayed, but they do not always record the prayers. I have often wondered what he
said. We know they were prayers of earnestness and of faith. “Now when all the
people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus, also being baptized, and
praying, the heaven was opened." When Saul was told what to do to be saved, he
was commanded to continue to call on the name of the Lord. When Jesus had looked
into the heart of Simon Peter, he discovered that he was self-con­scious and
weak and that there was dan­ger of falling. He knew that he was a man of good
intentions, but that he was easily influenced. He was taking an in­ventory of
the spiritual strength and power of the apostleship, and he found that Judas was
lost to his cause, and that the devil meant to sift all of them. Judas had
already gone through the sieve, and there was danger of Peter, too, going
through. He says: “Simon, Satan hath desired to have you [all of the apostles],
to sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee [Peter] that your faith fail
you not.” It is glorious to know that our great High Priest is acquainted with
us, and that he takes us to his Father in prayer, and that his prayers are
always answered. When lie was on the Mount of Trans­figuration he prayed, and it
was at the moment of prayer that the fashion of his countenance was altered, and
his raiment was white and glistering, and the Father again confessed him.

Certain Things for Which He Prayed. —When standing under the shadow of the
cross, he thought of his church and king­dom, and he prayed that his disciples,
and those who might believe on him through their word, should be one. The world
was on his heart, and he knew that it could never be brought into the divine
fellowship so long as they were divided. He prayed that they might be one as he
and his Father were one, and that the world might believe that God had sent him
into the world to be its Savior. When he was on earth he was limited in his
power and in his authority. He was then a human as well as a divine Christ. He
looked forward to the time when he would be a spiritual Christ, and when all
power and all authority would be given unto him. To have this power he must go
away from them. He told them that after he went away he would pray the Father to
send to them another Comforter, another Advocate, the Holy Spirit, and that when
he came he would abide with them forever. The world could lay hold on him, the
Christ of flesh, and take him from them, but they would not be able to
receive—to take hold of—this spiritual Guest he was to send into their hearts
from his Father in answer to his prayer. The world might take them and lock them
up in the prison cell, and it might kill them, but it can never get hold of the
Holy Spirit that shall live in them. They would need equipment for the great
work of the kingdom, and the coming of the Spirit would qualify them for the
work. He would bring to their minds everything he wanted them to preach; he
would tell them in the hour of need the message to deliver. At the conclusion of
that last public discourse, when Christ placed emphasis on sacrifice and service
and uttered that won­derful statement, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a
grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if
it die, it beareth much fruit,” he prayed these words: “Father, save me from
this hour. But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name.”
This prayer was an­swered. There came a voice out of heaven, saying: “I have
both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” When in the dark garden of
Gethsemane, crushed under the sins of the whole world, he prayed that the cup
might be removed from him. He was about to die from physical exhaustion. He
wanted to finish the work he had come into the world to do. He needed strength
at this critical moment. Read Hebrews, chapter 5, and you can see what he meant
by “this cup.” He received an answer to this prayer. Did he pray to escape the
cross? If he did, he did not receive an answer. He came into the world for this
purpose.

He wanted to escape physical death, and he sweat drops of blood. An angel came
to him and strengthened him, and he went joyfully to the cross to become a
sacrifice for sins. When dying on the cross, he prayed for those who had caused
his death. As he looked on them, in the anguish of his soul he prayed: “Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He had taught his disciples to
pray for their enemies, and he is now practicing his teaching. Was this prayer
answered? Yes; on the day of Pentecost, when Peter preached the gospel, they
were present and heard the message. He told them of their awful deed. They asked
to know what to do, and were told to repent and be baptized, and these murderers
became the charter members of the church of Jesus Christ. A Capable Teacher.—All
will agree that Jesus is a capable teacher. If anyone ever knew the meaning and
the power of prayer, he did. As he started from the Jordan to do his Father’s
will, he started with a prayer on his lips, and when he finished his work on the
cross he closed it with a prayer. The church of Christ cannot carry out the
Christ program un­less it learns to pray. All great souls have been much in
prayer. All great spir­itual movements have had their birth in prayer. The
church that desires to send out ministers and missionaries must first send out
earnest, fervent prayers. If these are sent out, the others will follow. The
success of the church does not rest so much on the gifts of a wealthy mem­ber as
it does upon the prayers of a con­secrated and faithful member. Before Pentecost
and the great revival there was a prayer-meeting in the upper room. We care
nothing about theology—the world is tired of it, too—but we are interested in
knee-ology. If we want to drive out the demons, let us advance on our knees. An
Irishman was pounding the rocks on the street in a city. The Catholic priest was
looking on. He said: “Pat, I wish I could break the hearts of my people like you
break these stones.” “Faith, and you could,” said Pat, “if you would stay on
your knees like I do.” The church of Jesus Christ can never conquer this
sin-cursed world unless it learns to pray. On one occasion, an evangelist was
be­ing assisted by his young Timothy. He would send the young man to the next
field to begin the work, and he would fol­low later. The young man was sent into
a difficult field. It was a town that had not had a revival in a long time. The
people did not seem to be interested in such things. The young man began the
meeting and soon received a letter stating that the evangelist could not come
for some time, on account of an accident that had happened to one of his
children. He advised him to continue the meeting. Af­ter a number of days he
arrived at the town and found that the whole community was being stirred.
Sinners were being converted and the cold and indifferent members had begun to
come too. He in­quired of the young minister how it hap­pened, and this is what
he said: “It has been one of the hardest experiences of my life. You said to ‘go
on’ and the peo­ple said: "We did not ask you to hold the meeting, and we want
it stopped." The evangelist then asked how it happened he was having such a
wonderful meeting, and he said: “Come and go with me to the power-house." He
expected it was a place where he would see machinery, but it was a plain log
cabin and in it were two old women. He said: “Each evening I’d come to this
place and we three would get down on our knees and pray, and then I’d go to the
meeting­house and preach, and the interest grew.” Every church and every
minis­ter needs a power-house.

"Believe and trust; through stars and suns, Through life and death, through soul
and sense, His wise paternal purpose runs; The darkness of His providence Is
starlit with divine intents."


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 7: BOOK-06-LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY.
========================================================================

Lord, Teach Us To Pray.

Luk 11:1. THE children of our heavenly Father must learn to speak his language.
It will be our purpose in this discourse to study this important duty. To whom
should we pray? We have heard men pray to the Holy Spirit. Is this right? When
the disciples came to Jesus with the request that he teach them how to pray, he
said: “After this manner pray ye.” He then gave them the model prayer. This was
to be their pattern or copy, and they were to make their prayers to correspond
with the copy. The prayer is to be addressed to our Father—to God. We must
ap­proach the Father in the name of the Lord Jesus. Sometimes we are convinced
that people pray to the audience rather than to God. It can be detected in the
tone of their voices, and we are disgusted rather than edified.

One reason why some will not pray in public is because they are afraid those to
whom they pray will criticize. On one occasion a man who believed in “free
grace” had in his audience a man who was a strong believer in “Calvinism.” He
did not want to say anything that would offend him, and he tried to make a
prayer that was a cross between the two doctrines, and he stammered and
hesi­tated and then exclaimed: “What is the matter with me? I cannot pray.” The
man in the audience said, in reply:* < Stop praying to me and pray to God.” I
was one time conducting a meeting for a man who was eloquent in prayer, and he
im­pressed you with the thought that he knew it. He prayed three times in one of
the meetings. His language was per­fect, and he threw bouquets to God and then
seemed to wait for applause. You could feel that there was a lack of sin­cerity,
and that his prayers were directed at the audience, and I was reminded of the
reporter in Boston who said, in speak­ing of a man’s prayer: “He prayed the most
eloquent prayer that was ever pray­ed to a Boston audience.” I told him after
the services that I felt he was cer­tainly gifted in prayer, but suggested that
he tell God all of these things in private and not in public, for I thought God
would understand him better than we did.

How Should We Pray?—Paul says: “I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray
with the understanding also. ’ ’ What does he mean by praying with the
under­standing? We are told that “Elijah was a man of like passions with us, and
He prayed fervently that it might not rain; and it rained not on the earth for
three years and six months. And he prayed again; and the heaven gave rain, and
the earth brought forth her fruit.” Let us read Deu 28:15-24. Here we find that
God had promised that, if the children of Israel turned from him and went after
other gods and became disobedient, he would shut up the heavens and withhold the
rain. Israel had become guilty and deserved to be punished. Do you not think
that Elijah knew these promises and that he presented them to his God in his
prayers? This is praying according to the Word and according to the
under­standing also. Then, when the people turned and he prayed for the- rain,
we be­lieve that he remembered the promises contained in the Word as mentioned
in 1 Kings’ 8:35: “When the heaven is shut up, and there is no rain, because
they have sinned against thee; if they pray toward this place, and confess thy
name, and turn from their sin, when thou dost afflict them: then hear thou in
heaven, and forgive the sin of thy servants, and of thy people Israel, when thou
teachest them the good way wherein they should walk; and send rain upon thy
land, which thou hast given to thy people for an in­heritance.” We know that we
are asking according to his will when we ask ac­cording to his promises. The old
proph­et could tell God that the people had now complied with his word, and he
could ask that God send the rain, and he did it.

How Long Should Our Prayers Be?— This depends. If in private, you may pray all
night; but in public they should be short. We knew a man who made long prayers.
We wondered when we heard him if he did not try to make up for lost time. He
would begin in a certain way and go over Virginia, the United States, then over
the waters into the foreign lands and come back home by way of South America,
closing with these sig­nificant words: “Now, Lord, since we are not heard for
our much speaking, and since thou knowest what we have need of before we ask
thee, give unto us the things thou knowest we need. Amen.” He re­minded us of
the man who had one prayer, and it was a long one he prayed each night in his
home. The children knew it by heart, and could repeat every word of it. One
night a Jew peddler stopped for the night with him. When the time came for
worship he read the lesson and all got down on their knees. The peddler got
tired and changed from one knee to the other, hoping to rest them a little.
After he had grown weary he whispered to one of the boys near him and asked: “Is
he ’most done?” The boy asked: “Has he said ‘Jew’ yet? He is just half done when
he gets to the Jews.” This is not praying; it is simply saying over words in
God’s name. We should have a definite desire when we go to our Father in prayer.
We should go to him as a child goes to its earthly father. Do not change the
voice; do not make a speech; do not try to give God information; do not be like
the preacher who tried to rebuke the young man for misbehaving during the
services when he said: “Lord, there are a lot of things going on here to-night
that thou art not aware of.” Have you not heard men in prayer when you felt that
they were trying to give God in­formation? If Peter had prayed at great length
when he was sinking into the lake, it is morally certain that he would have been
under the water and dead before he could have finished the prayer. He wanted
help and he asked for it in a sensible manner. He went straight to the point:
“Lord, save me or I per­ish.”

Praying with Open Eyes.—Jesus told his disciples to “watch and pray, that ye
enter not into temptation.” Many times we pray with our eyes closed to the
pit-falls in life’s pathway, and we walk right into them. It is just as
necessary to watch as it is to pray. You have heard of the story of “Raccoon”
John Smith and the wine. In his day it was an act of hospitality to place the
wine on the table where all could get it—everybody (preach­ers included); and I
have always won­dered why the members of the church could do things the preacher
could not do. If it were ever right for the member to drink wine, it was alright
for the preacher too. When Smith and a minister of an­other church stopped at a
country tavern to spend the night, the tavern-keeper put the decanter on the
table and they filled their glasses full of wine. Smith turned up his glass and
swallowed the wine. The preacher rebuked him by saying: “Broth­er Smith, I am
surprised that you would drink your wine without first returning thanks. It is
from God we receive every good and perfect gift. I am going to thank God before
I drink.” He shut his eyes and began to thank God. Smith reached over and got
his glass and drank his wine. When the preacher opened his eyes lie saw that his
wine was gone and he said: “You got my wine." Smith re­plied: “Brother, you must
watch as well as pray, I thanked God, but did it with my eyes open; you did it
with your eyes closed and you lost your wine.,,

Putting Action into Our Prayers.— Man must answer his own prayers. He must do
his part and trust God to do the rest. “Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye
shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” When you pray for your
daily bread, do not expect God to rain down a mess of biscuits for break­fast,
but remember that he will give them to you when you have earned them in the
sweat of your face. If you want the earth to laugh biscuits, tickle it with the
plow. An evangelist was conducting a meet­ing in one of our cities. A woman came
to him and requested him to speak to her husband about becoming a Christian. He
asked: “Have you ever spoken to him on the subject’?” She said she had not. He
then told her he would not speak to him until after she had spoken. When she
came to church that night her husband was with her. She was happy and went to
the minister and said: “I went home and prayed that God would give me the
courage to speak to my husband. I watched for him, and when I saw him coming
through the gate I ran to him and threw my arms around his neck and be­gan to
cry. He asked me what was the matter, and I told him that he was lost and I
wanted him to promise me he would become a Christian, and he told me he had
often wondered why I had not spoken to him on the subject, and that he would be
glad to accept Christ.” This woman was learning how to answer her prayers.

Individual Prayer.—“But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thine inner
cham­ber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father who is in secret, and thy
Father who seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” Do you see that mother who
was left with a number of fatherless chil­dren? Many times she prayed to her God
in secret for wisdom and help in training her children. Her children are now
filling responsible positions, and she is enjoying openly the reward of
indi­vidual and private prayer. We bad, in a congregation where we labored, a
man who was a machinist and who refused to work on Sunday. He was discharged. He
began to sell groceries, and his busi­ness grew until he became one of the
lead­ing merchants of the city. Many times did he tell me that he was in
partnership with God, and that his success was a re­ward for earnest prayer.

United Prayer.—Here is the promise: “Again I say unto you, that if two of you
shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done
for them of my Father who is in heaven.” The church had its birth in a prayer-
meeting. “And when they were come in, they went up into the upper chamber, where
they were abiding; both Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas,
Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and
Judas the son of James. These all continued steadfastly in prayer, with the
women, and Mary the mother of Je­sus, and with the brethren.1’ Thomas be­came a
doubter because he was not with them when Jesus came. This was before Jesus went
back to the Father. It was during the postgraduate period when he was
instructing his disciples in the spir­itual things of the kingdom. Jesus has
promised to meet with us when we have gathered together in prayer. He never
disappoints. When you remain away from the prayer-meeting you have missed seeing
Jesus. Paul exhorted the saints to meet for prayer. “Now I beseech you,
brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the love of the Spirit, that ye
strive together with me in your prayers to God for me” (Rom 15:30).

Family Prayer.—The family altar has been taken away, and we have allowed the
things of the world to crowd God out of our thoughts and out of our homes.
Joshua said: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” The men of old
erected their altar and worshiped God in the home. Job practiced family
religion. Read Job 1:5. Cornelius prayed to God with his house or family. The
father that neglects this will lose in spirituality and miss getting the
bless­ing. When holding a meeting for one of the churches in the valley of
Virginia, I urged the importance of the family altar. I came back to the
community five miles from this church to conduct another meet­ing. A man who had
been an elder in the church for many years came to me and said: 6 ‘ I want you
to preach that ser­mon on family prayer. I have been an elder in the church for
years and never knew the importance of it. After hear­ing you, wife and I
erected the altar, and soon our daughter would take her turn and we have been
blessed, and I just want others to know that it brings joy and strength. I want
others to get the bless­ing.” When holding a meeting in Washing­ton City, a good
woman came to me after the sermon and said: “I want you to go home with us.” I
did, and she gave her experience. I shall relate it as she gave it. “When you
were at our home in Ten­nessee, you know old Scott [this was her husband] would
not even return thanks at the table. I told him some time ago that we were not
going to live this way. We must have an altar in our home. Scott said he just
couldn’t pray in public. Well, one night I got the Bible and asked him to read
and pray, and he refused, then I said, ‘I will,’ and I read a chapter; then I
told Scott to get down on his knees and I prayed. The next night when I took the
Bible he said, ‘Let me have it,’ and he read and prayed. We have our worship,
and I want you to come and be with us.” I could see that they had grown in the
grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. They had been feeding their souls on
the hidden manna.

There lived a family on the opposite side of the street from our home. They
trusted in God. The man lost his posi­tion and was almost in destitution. One
day I saw he was selling goods and that he had quite a stock. He told me this:
“Bro. Book, one night when it seemed so dark and I was discouraged, my little
daughter saw my grief and came to me and said, ‘Papa, let me ask God for help,
and she asked God to give her papa something to do, and this is in answer to
that prayer. Many years ago I assisted a young man who was in hard luck. I had
lost sight of him. After that prayer a letter came, and it was from this man,
and he told how he had wanted to show his appreciation for what I had done for
him, and he sent the check and asked me to take it and purchase goods and to go
into business. I am here in answer to the prayer of my child." This family had
honored God in the home and he was now rewarding them openly.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 8: BOOK-07-PRAYER A NECESSITY
========================================================================

Prayer a Necessity

Text.—"Continue steadfastly in prayer, watching therein with thanksgiving;
withal praying for us also, that God may open unto us a door for the word, to
speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds; that I may make it
manifest, as I ought to speak.”—Col 4:2-4.

THERE must be seven distinct elements in every prayer: adoration, thanksgiv­ing,
repentance, resolution, petition, inter­cession and submission. Paul was a man
of prayer. He has much to say on the subject, in his epistles to the churches.
He often requested that the brethren pray for him. He seemed to think that his
success in the ministry was conditioned upon the prayers of the saints. Feeling
his human weakness, and seeing the forces of evil arrayed against him, he wrote
to the brethren at Thessalonica: “Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word
of the Lord may run and be glorified.”

If a man like Paul, cultured, eloquent, logical, Spirit-filled, and in every way
capable, felt that he could not succeed without he had the prayers of the
church, can you expect your minister to be at his best when you never take his
name to God in prayer? On one occasion I went into the pulpit of a church that
had some of the symptoms of a would-be aristo­cratic, proud, polished and
critical con­gregation. I was there to hold a meeting, and for one time in my
life felt just a little anxious to say the right thing in the right way. I was
conscious of the opinion they had of themselves and tried to get their approval.
I was cramped, and stammered and blundered in my de­livery. One evening, as I
was going into the pulpit, a consecrated woman, a woman who believed in the
power of prayer, and who had evidently detected my embarrass­ment, met me at the
pulpit and, taking my hand in hers, said: “You preach, brother, and I will pray
for you.” Say, I preached that night! I cut loose all strings and it was easy. I
could feel the power. “You preach and I will pray.”

I had always felt it was, “You preach and I will criticize.” When I visited my
old home in Vir­ginia I would preach in the old church. The colored people would
come to hear me and they would sit in the gallery. Old Uncle Sam Carter, an
ex-slave, would break in now and then with a word of prayer and it could be
heard by all. He came to me one time after I had preached, and said: “I jis’
can’t see how you preach; none of de people scotch fer ye. I jis’ felt like I
had to scotch some while you was givin’ dem de Word.” I want to say that the
consciousness of this old, humble saint praying for me did help. If the people
would prepare themselves for the sermon before coming to the house of the Lord,
there would not be so much criticism. We all agree that the minister should be
much in prayer before he comes into the pulpit. He should get heart pow­er on
his knees. It is just as necessary that the people, also, be in the proper
con­dition to hear the message, and this prep­aration, too, must be made on the
knees. Have you prayed for your minister? If you have not, begin now. Make it
the rule of your life to pray for him daily.

What is prayer? One time a father took his boy from the country home to the
city. They visited the telegraph sta­tion. The little fellow heard something
going "Click, click, click; click, click, click." He asked his father to tell
him what it was. The father tried to explain, and then said: “Do you want to
speak to uncle who lives in California?” The boy wondered how he could be heard
so far away. The father had to tell him what he wanted to say, and he wrote it
down and handed it to the operator. The operator placed his fingers on the
instrument, and it began to say, “Click, click, click; click, click, click.”
After a short time it began again, and the operator wrote down some words and
handed them to the man. He read them to the son. The uncle had received the
message, and this was his reply. The boy could not quite understand how he could
speak to one so far away. He was told how the sounds were carried by
elec­tricity and how they could be read by the operator at the other end of the
line. This is like prayer. There is a connec­tion between the heart of the child
of God and his Father. The man had to come to the city, where there was a
telegraph sta­tion and one who could send the message for him; he had to pay to
send it; it had to be received by the operator and then given to him. Every
Christian has con­nection with heaven and is his own opera­tor, and he can send
the message without money and receive the answer in his own heart. Listen: “And
it shall come to pass that, before they call, I will answer; and while they are
yet speaking, I will hear” (Isa 65:24).

Stated Times to Pray.—I need to wonder how that man Daniel could be so
courageous. He was not afraid of the wicked rulers. He could defy decrees, and,
with his windows open towards Je­rusalem, pray to his God. A little child was
reading about this man and she got a little mixed in her pronunciation. Where it
says he had a spirit in him she read: “He had a spine in him.” She did not miss
it far. He had a backbone. This is what many do not have. It would not be
possible for some people to have spinal meningitis; they haven’t the thing with
which to have it. The chiropractor could not do business with them.

One day I read Dan 6:10 and I un­derstood. He gave his soul three square meals
each day. “And he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and’
gave thanks before his God. ’ ’ I have wondered why David was a man of such
strong faith and could say: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” One day
I read the secret; it is recorded in Psa 55:17 : “Evening, and morning, and at
noonday, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.” He fed his
soul at stated times. He was regular in his spiritual diet. We learn from the
third chapter of the Acts of the Holy Spirit of certain disciples going up to
the temple at the hour of prayer. The man who is not regular in his habits will
have indigestion. The church is full of spir­itual dyspeptics. Their trouble is
due to the fact that they do not feed their spirits at regular times. They
become grumblers and chronic kickers, and stumbling-stones in the way of
sinners. Let ns learn to give the spirit at least three meals a day.

Here We Renew Our Strength.—“But they that wait for Jehovah shall renew their
strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not he
weary; they shall walk, and not faint” (Isa 40:31).

I was on a train one time when it stalled. We became impatient, and some of ns
got out and walked up the track to the engine. I asked the engineer why we were
waiting, and he said: “To get up steam.” By and by the engine began to move and
the wheels began to turn, and we were soon going at a good speed. There come
times when the Christian finds a high grade to pull, and for a time it looks to
be impossible. Let him wait for Jehovah in prayer, and He will renew his
strength, and then he can climb the grade with ease. A minister of wide
reputation was an­nounced to preach at a certain church one day. The people came
and, waited un­til long past the hour, but the minister did not come. A
committee was appointed to go to his room to find out the cause of his delay.
They went to the door and knocked, but received no response. They opened the
door and heard someone praying, and this is what he was saying: “Lord, I cannot
go unless you go with me.” He was talking to God as a child talks to its parent.
“God, please go with me; I must have your presence and your help.” They waited.
All at once he jumped up from his knees and said, “I go now, Lord,’ ’ and he ran
into the pulpit and began to preach. Those who saw and heard him, say: “His face
was radi­ant, and never before have we heard a man preach as did he.”

Take Little Things to Him in Prayer. —Make out your program and then take it to
God for his endorsement. Do not sign your name first and then demand that God
shall approve of it. Ask him to di­rect, and be willing to accept his changes.
Let this be your prayer: “Cause me to hear thy loving-kindness in the morning;
for in thee do I put my trust; cause me to know the way wherein I should walk;
for I lift up my soul unto thee” (Psa 143:8).

“Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to es­cape
all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man”
(Mat 26:41).

“In everything by prayer and suppli­cation with thanksgiving let your requests
be made known unto God” (Php 4:6).

We cannot go to our friends with our troubles; they will soon become tired of us
and will avoid us. When I was in deep trouble, a minister said to me: “Do not go
to your friends with your trouble; they do not care to be bothered with the
troubles of others.” This cut to the quick, and I wondered if it could be true
that humanity is so selfish. I could go to Jesus and to my Father and feel that
they never tired of my coming, and that they were willing to listen to all of my
complaints. Let us learn to take all things—the little as well as the big things
of life—to them. When Job was afflicted he could say: “Make me to know my
transgression and my sin.” Do you want to be cleansed from your sin? Then
breathe this prayer: “Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquities, and cleanse me
from my sin. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be
whiter than snow. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit
within me.” Should we go to God with our busi­ness? We are told that Jabez
called on the God of Israel, saying: “Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and
enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest
keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me.” God granted him that which he
requested.

Pray without Ceasing.—How can we do it? Breathe without ceasing; how can we do
it? On one occasion at a great religious gathering someone placed this question
on the table: “What does it mean in the seventeenth verse of First Thessalonians
when it says: ‘Pray without ceasing’?” The moderator said: “This is a hard verse
to explain. I will appoint Drs. A, B and C to write papers for our next
con­ference, explaining it.” Just then a woman stood up and said: “I am a poor
servant-girl, but I can explain it now.” From all parts of the room voices were
heard: “Explain it, then.” She said: “When I open my eyes to the light of day, I
say, ‘Lord, I am blind; let the light of thy countenance come into this dark
heart of mine and make me to behold thy beauty.’ When I begin to dress myself, I
say, ‘Lord, I am spiritually naked; clothe me with the robe made white in the
blood of the Lamb.’ When I make the fire in the stove, I say, ‘Lord, enkindle in
this cold heart of mine the fire of thy love and burn out all of the dross.’
When I go to the spring to get the water, I say, ‘Lord, give me from the water
of life that flows out from the throne of God and the Lamb, that my thirst may
be satisfied.’ When I prepare the bread for breakfast, I say, ‘Lord, give me
that hidden manna, the bread that comes down from heaven, that I may be strong
and able to do thy will.’ When I sweep the floors and dust the furniture, I say,
‘Lord, sweep out this heart of mine and remove all the sin and iniquity and make
it a fit place for thy Holy Spirit, and may he dwell in this heart as my abiding
Guest and Com­forter. 9 This is what this verse means to me. Everything I see
has a spiritual sig­nificance, and it suggests a prayer which I breathe to my
heavenly Father.” Then someone said: “God has kept these things from the wise
and given them unto the humble and faithful.” ’


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 9: BOOK-08-PRAYERS ANSWERED
========================================================================

Prayers Answered

Text.—“Continue steadfastly in prayer, watching therein with thanksgiving;
withal praying for us also, that God may open unto us a door for the word, to
speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds; that I may make it
manifest, as I ought to speaks”—Col 4:2-4. FOR Whom Should We Pray?—Our
minister, our brethren, our enemies (Mat 5:44), those who persecute us. This is
hard to do. I find, in order to do this, I must pray first for W. H. Book. No
man can long count one an enemy after he has earnestly and sincerely prayed for
him. We are. exhorted to pray for all men. Hear Paul’s instructions to the young
evangelist: “I exhort, therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers,
intercessions, thanksgivings, be made for all men; for kings and all that are in
high place; that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and
gravity” (1Ti 2:1-2). Have you ever prayed for our President? Of course you have
if he happened to be the one that repre­sents your party. If we would pray as
much as we criticize, we would have a better Government. Have you ever prayed
for the Congress of the United States? The Lord knows they need to be prayed
for! Have you ever prayed for your mayor? We are commanded to pray for all of
our rulers. Our Prayers Must Be in Faith.— “And all things, whatsoever ye shall
ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive” (Mat 21:22). “All things whatsoever
ye pray and ask for, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark
11:24). One morning a father was starting to his office, when his little girl
said: “Father, bring me some paints when you come home to dinner.” When he came,
the little child went to meet him, and threw her arms around his neck and kissed
him, and said: “I thank you for the paints.” She had faith enough to thank him
before seeing the paints. This is what is meant in this Scripture. When we ask,
believe we have the thing de­sired. When at my home in Virginia, I saw an old
friend of mine—a colored minister. I told him when I went home I’d send him my
preacher’s suit, and he said: “Thanks! I’se got it now.”

James tells us to ask in faith, and he declares that the one who doubts has no
promise. An evangelist accompanied the pastor to a home in which was a sick
child. The pastor prayed for the recov­ery of the child, and when they started
home he said to the evangelist: “That child will be dead before night.” “Then,”
asked the evangelist, “why did you ask God to spare its life? That which is
with­out faith is sin.” “And without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing
unto him; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a
rewarder of them that seek after him.” Many believe the first proposition, that
God is, but they do not believe the other proposition, that he is a rewarder of
them who diligently seek after him. We sing the song, “Standing on the
Promises,” and we make loud professions of our faith in God, and then are afraid
to get out on these promises. We are like the man who was crossing the
Mississippi River on the ice. He got out a few yards and he heard a crash; he
fell to his knees and drew a deep breath with the thought: “I’m gone now.” He
soon discovered that the ice had not broken. He crawled along on the ice with
great caution, and, when near the shore, he heard a tremendous crash, and he
lifted his arms and sighed, and said, “Surely I’m gone this time;” but he was
not. He looked behind him, and to his chagrin he saw a four-horse wagon loaded
with pig-iron coming after him, and he had thought that he, a poor little,
insig­nificant man, would break through. This is the way we get out on God’s
promises: we are afraid to take God at his word— to put him to the test.

We Must Confess Our Sins.—“And David said unto God, I have sinned greatly,
because I have done this thing; but now I beseech thee, do away with the
iniquity of thy servant; for I have done very foolishly.” Job said: “Behold, I
am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.” Isaiah
said: “Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone; because I am a man of un­clean
lips; and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have
seen the King of hosts.’’

We Must Be Sincere.—“But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou
shalt find him, if thou seek him with thy heart and with all thy soul.” “The
Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in
truth” (Psa 145:18). “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search
for me with all your heart” (Jer 29:13). “If my people, which are called by my
name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their
wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and forgive their sins, and will heal
their land” (2Ch 7:14). The confession carries with it the forsaking of our
sins. It is the fervent prayer of the right­eous man that has power with God.
Such a prayer avails much. (See Jas 5:16­18.)

Loud sounds—physical demonstrations —are not always evidences of praying. Hosea
says: “They have not cried unto me with their heart, but they howl upon their
beds.”

We Must Have Vital Connection.— Many times we fail to get an answer and wonder
why it is. We try to pray, and the words go up to the ceiling and fall back on
us bruised and lifeless. Why is this? We are not connected with the central
station. I went into a store one day and saw a telephone box on the wall. I took
down the receiver and called the name, but no response. I continued to ring and
yell. After I had done this several times, the merchant asked: “Did you ring
that telephone?” I told him I had. He said: “That is only a sample, and it is
not connected!” How many times have we prayed when we were only using a sample,
and without any connec­tion with a live wire? “But your iniqui­ties have
separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, so
that he will not hear” (Isa 59:2). The Psalmist says: “If I regard iniquity in
my heart, the Lord will not hear.”

What are some of the sins? “Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he
also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.” “And when ye stand praying,
forgive, if ye have aught against any; that your Father also which is in heaven
may forgive your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father
which is in heaven forgive your tres­passes.” Matthew makes it still stronger.
He says: “If therefore thou art offering thy gift at the altar, and there
rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift
before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then
come and offer thy gift.” No man can get right with God who will not do all he
can to make him­self right with his fellow-man.

We must ask with the thought of obe­dience. John tells us that “whatsoever we
ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things
which are pleasing in his sight” (1Jn 3:22). Disobedience breaks the connection
and puts the local station out of commission.

Selfishness will put the line in trouble. James tells us that we ask and receive
not, because we ask amiss that we may consume it upon our lusts.

We Must Have the Combination.—I was one time the minister of a church when it
was perfectly natural to get be­hind with the pastor’s salary. It was necessary
to have a running account at the store, and it often ran with great speed and
for a long time. One day I went to the proprietor and asked for my statement. He
went to his big iron safe and tried to open it. After much exertion on his part
he said: “I have lost the com­bination and cannot get this door open, and your
statement is locked up in this safe.” It looked to me that it would be easy to
open the door, and I asked him to let me try. He did and I went at it. I soon
had more perspiration than I had inspiration. I gave it up in disgust. As I came
back that afternoon, he came to the door and smiled, and said: “I’ve got the
combination now, and you can have your statement.” He went to the safe and
turned the big wheel to a certain figure, and then turned the little wheel to
another point. I heard something click, and he pulled the door open and reached
in and brought out the statement. I de­clare unto you that I would not be afraid
to be turned loose on the Pacific coast without a penny in my pocket if I had in
my possession my check-book on the bank of heaven—my New Testament. The checks
are already signed, and the space is there for me to make known my needs.
Listen: “No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” Mark
you, the emphasis is on “good.” He does withhold from me the things that are
bad, and for this I am thankful. Many times we ask for the things that would do
us harm if God were to give them. My little son comes to me and begs me to give
him a Texas pony and a cart. I give him a billy goat and a wagon. This is just
what he wanted. It satisfies, and he is happy. Had I given him the pony, it
might have been his death. We go to our heavenly Father and ask for things, and
he knows just what we need and he gives it. Many times I have asked for things
and have not received them, because I had lost the combination. They are locked
up in the Father’s safe, and to have them I must be able to open the safe. What
is this combination? John 15:7-8 : “If ye abide in me—[big wheel—turn it], and
my words abide in you—[little wheel—turn it] ’ ’—click, reach in and help
yourself. The strongest evidence of a living Christianity is the experience in
your own heart of answered prayers. I am just as certain that my Father hears
and answers the prayers of his children as I am that I live. I could give a
number of examples out of my own personal experiences.

Dr. A. J. Gordon tells of two experi­ences that I shall relate: “Opening my mail
one morning, I found a most earnest appeal from a poor student in whom I had for
some time taken much interest. He detailed the circumstances by which, in spite
of his utmost endeavors, he had been brought into rare straits, debts for board
and books severely pressing him until he was utterly discouraged. He was
extremely reluctant to ask aid, and only wrote now, he said, to tell me how
earnest­ly he had besought the Lord for deliver­ance and to request my prayers
in his behalf. It was only a little sum that he needed to help him out of his
dilemma— fifty dollars—but it was a great sum for a poor student, and he was now
asking the Lord to send it. Having read his letter with real sympathy, I
continued opening my mail, when, to my surprise, the next letter whose seal I
broke was from a wealthy gentleman, expressing great thankfulness for a service
I had rendered him a few days before, and in­closing a check of fifty dollars,
which he begged me to accept as a token of his gratitude. Instantly I perceived
that the poor student’s prayers were heard—that the second letter contained the
answer to the first; and, endorsing the check, I sent it by return mail to the
young man, with my congratulations for his speedy de­liverance."

He tells another experience of a young student that wrote to him for help. This
student told how he had asked God for help and how discouraged he was. Dr.
Gordon determined to telegraph this poor student that he would be responsible
for one-half of the amount needed, provided he could get the other half. He was
at the office writing the dispatch, but had forgotten the street number. He had
also forgotten the amount the young man wanted. He started to his house to get
the letter, and stopped in at a store to pay a bill. When he asked for the
amount, he found that some friend had already paid the bill. It was thirty-seven
dollars and fifty cents. He says: “When I read the letter, I found the amount
wanted was just exactly the amount of that debt. It was not my prayers that were
answered, for I had not been moved especially for these young men. It was not my
money; the Lord provided the exact funds in each instance; but I have told you
literally what happened.”

Let me tell you of a wonderful insur­ance policy. A man in England was en­gaged
in Christian work, and early in life was stricken with a fatal disease. When the
physician told him he must soon die, 322 lie became frantic, and, tossing
himself from one side to the other of his bed, he cried: “Lord, I cannot die. I
have made no provision for my family. I cannot die until you give me a promise
that you will take care of my wife and my children."He had given his time and
his money to the Cause and he was dying in poverty—as the world would count
poverty. His eyes soon fell upon this insurance policy—have you seen it? Let me
read it to you: “Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and
let thy widows trust in me” (Jer 49:11). This beats bank stocks and all earthly
wealth. It cannot fail, and God will honor his promise to the letter. The man
became calm, and, with a smile, said: “I die happy.” He then called his family
and revealed to them the policy. Within a few days after he went home the people
gave of their wealth and this family was provided for.

I shall close with this story. I heard Moody tell it. He said: “In the days of
the Civil War I was a clerk in a store in Chicago. I was also the superintendent
of a Bible school, and one day I was out visiting my scholars. I went into a
small cottage and found a woman weeping. She said: ‘Mr. Moody, I am so glad you
have come. We have lived in this little cottage for months. I have worked hard
to make a living. We had hoped that husband would soon come back from the war,
but we have just received word that he was killed on the battlefield. What are
we to do? I am back in my rent, and the land­lord has told me that unless my
rent is paid I must get out, and we have nowhere to go. Let me tell you about my
little girl; she goes to your school. She came to me when I was crying, and put
her arms about me and said: ‘Mamma, let us ask God to give us a home., She got
down on her little knees, and this was her prayer: ‘Dear Father, my papa is
dead, my mother is sad, and we have no home; won’t you give us a home for Jesus’
sake?’ Then she kissed me and said: ‘Don’t cry, mother; he will do it, because
he said he would.’” Mr. Moody said: “God sent me to that cottage in answer to
the prayer of that child. I told the story, and the people gave the money, and
we built a home for the widow, and when the fire came it was destroyed, but the
first house to go up after the great fire was the widow’s cottage.” God help us
to accept his promises and to put them to the test.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 10: BOOK-09-THAT TONGUE OF MINE
========================================================================

That Tongue of Mine

Text.—“If any man thinketh himself to be relig­ious, while he bridleth not his
tongue, but deceiveth his heart, this man’s religion is vain.”—Jas 1:26.

’T’HIS sermon is a personal one, and is designed to hit close home to all of us.
It is for you, and not your neighbor. A man sent his slave to the meat-market
and instructed him to bring back with him a piece of the best meat in the
market. The man brought a piece of tongue. He told him to go again and bring a
piece of the worst meat in the market. He came this time with another piece of
tongue. The master said: “How can it be the best, and at the same time the
worst?” The slave replied: “If it is good, it is the best, but if it is bad, it
is the worst.” That which gives more trouble in the home, in society and in the
church than anything else, is the tongue. Some wo­men can sit in their homes and
stab their neighbors hundreds of miles away. We have been amazed at the power of
a gun to carry a ball eighty miles—the tongue can carry a deadly discharge
across the continent.

It is hard to tame. It is a fire, and can start a conflagration that will
consume all of the good will in the community. It is a world of iniquity, and
defiles the whole church. It is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. It
gets its supplies from hell. The members of this hell-bent organization are
known as the “They Say Company.” They are an irresponsible set and are
accountable to no one. They are social hyenas, and are not satisfied with
feeding on the living, but will rob the graves and feed on the things that have
long ago begun to decompose.

If it were a law to place in quarantine all who have this mouth disease, there
would be but few now at large. They carry with them a bundle of personalities
and persuade you to let them unload. Be­ware of the one who comes to you with a
secret—one who tells you that he is going to tell you something, and that you
must promise never to tell it to any one. You will be a thousand times better
off if you do not hear it. I am ready to confess that I do not believe there is
a woman on the earth that can keep a secret. Do not get excited—I shall go
further, and state that I do not believe there is a man on the earth who can
keep a secret. We must tell it to someone. I give you a bit of experience. I
had, in a congregation where I was pastor, an old woman—a good old soul, but she
would talk. She would make it a business to hear all of the mean things some of
my enemies had said about me, and she would come to my wife and tell her and
then tell her not to tell anyone but me. She kept me in a peck of trouble all
the time. At last I announced from my pulpit that I wanted the women who heard
mean things about me to keep it from us, and that I did not appreciate their
kindness (?). A physician came to me one day and told me a secret, and made me
promise I’d never tell it to any one. My! This burden was more than I could
carry! I’d find myself dreaming about it. I was trying to keep a secret! Then
I’d talk to my wife and say: “I heard something the other day that is simply
awful.” She would get excited and ask: “What is it?” Then I’d say: “I cannot
tell it.” At last I said a word here and another there and left her to guess,
and she did, and said: “I know it now.” Then I said: “I did not say so.” I got
relief, however. I made myself the promise then and there never to let any one
burden me with a secret again. I mean’, a lot of slander and gos­sip.

We learn to tattle in childhood. We get it often from the parents too. When
parents gossip in the presence of their children they are giving them lessons in
this devilish art. Children are frank and honest and will speak what they hear.
One day a man came to my home in my absence and asked to see me. When I came
home my wife told me he had been there. I knew the man to be a bad man, and
said: “I do not want to see him.” He came again, and my little child met him at
the door and blurted out as soon as lie saw him: “My father says he does not
want to see you.” He was learning the business. Often church-members turn their
children away from the church by their criticisms of the minister and the
church. The family is disrupted by the tongue. Take the example of Miriam, Aaron
and Moses. The brother and sister had be­come offended at Moses because he had
married an Ethiopian woman. When be­hind his back, they said some mean things
about him. Let every woman and every man here who has never said anything mean
about a brother or a sister stand up: God heard what they said. Miriam
con­tracted the leprosy for this act. It is not so fatal to talk today; if it
were, there would not be enough outside the camp to look after those inside.

“Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles” (Pro
21:23). While holding a meeting in one of our cities, the minister pointed to a
woman who was passing, and said: “There goes the woman that whipped her
husband.” We were invited out to supper. When at the table the name of this
woman was mentioned, and, without think­ing, I asked: "Is she the one who
whipped her husband?" Mark you, I did not say she did—I only asked a question.
The woman who was entertaining us slipped out at the back door and told the
woman that the evangelist said she whipped her husband. When I got to my home in
Virginia I received a letter from this place, and, being anxious to see what
good thing someone had written me, I opened the letter and began to read: “I
understand that you said I whipped my husband. You may have to prove this.” I
could see myself going back to that city under the direction of an officer, and
I fancied I could see great crowds at the station ready to see me get off of the
train. I tried to explain, and I apolo­gized, but I could never fix it. I had
not said she whipped her husband, but I had let my mouth go off half-cocked, and
it got me into a lot of trouble. One ounce of keep your mouth shut is worth a
whole bushel of apology after you have made the mistake.

We are exhorted not to go up and down the earth as a talebearer. A talebearer
will get you into trouble. How would you like to have your degree from the
school of tattlers, M.T.? If all who have merited this degree should be made to
publish it, the world would be better off. A talebearer is like the man who
curses the deaf or puts a stumbling-block in the way of the helpless blind. He
in­jures those who are not present to take their part. He is a coward. He is a
traitor. He is a son of his father, the devil.

“He that goeth about as a talebearer revealeth secrets; but he that is of a
faith­ful spirit concealeth the matter.” Never repeat what you have heard until
you have asked three questions: Is it true? Can it do me any good to tell it?
Can it do the party any good for me to repeat it?

“A whisperer separates chief friends” (Pro 16:28). When Paul wrote to the
Corinthians he said: “I fear lest by any means, when I come, I should find you
not such as I would, and should myself be found of you as you would not; lest by
any means there should be strife, jealousy, wraths, factions, backbitings,
whisperings, swellings, tumults’’ (2Co 12:20). The whisperer is a dangerous
character. Did you ever attend a gathering when the members began to discuss
those who had not yet arrived, and witnessed them pick them to pieces, each new
arrival joining the group and helping to pick the one who was yet to come? Have
you seen them begin again on the one who left first, and so on until all were
gone? I have been places where I was afraid to leave, and remained for my own
protection.

“He that goeth about as a talebearer revealeth secrets; therefore company not
with him that flattereth with his lips” (Pro 20:19). On one occasion a good
woman of my congregation came to me with a profound secret and wanted my advice.
She said: “You are the only one that knows this, with the exception of my
brother.” I felt highly honored. She had flattered me. In a little while another
woman came to me and told me the story. I never let on. She said: “You know it,
for you and I are the only ones who know it.” Do not get puffed up with the idea
that you are the only one who knows the secret. There are others. If there is
slander in the congregation or in the com­munity, remember that “for lack of
wood the fire goeth out; and where there is no whisperer, contention ceaseth”
(Pro 26:20).

“Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and railing, be put away
from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, even as God also in Christ forgave you” (Eph 4:31-32).
“Putting away therefore all wickedness, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and
envies, and all evil speakings” (1Pe 2:1).

“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable,
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are
lovely, whatsoever things are of good re­port: if there be any virtue, and if
there be any praise, think on these things” (Php 4:8). Have you ever heard of
Gossip Town, On the shores of Falsehood Bay, Where old Dame Rumor, with rustling
gown, Is going the livelong day?

It isn’t far to Gossip Town For people who want to go; The Idleness train will
take you down In just an hour or so. The Thoughtless road is the popular route,
And most people go that way; But it’s steep downgrade; if you don’t look out,
You will land in Falsehood Bay.

You glide through the valley of Vicious Talk, And into the tunnel of Hate;

Then, crossing the Add-to Bridge, you walk Right into the city gate. The
principal street is called “They Say,” And “I’ve Heard” is the public well, And
the breezes that blow from Falsehood Bay Are laden with Don’t You Tell. In the
midst of the town is Tell-Tale Park;

You are never quite safe while there, For its owner is Madam Suspicious Remark,
Who lives on the street Don’t Care.

Just back of the park is Slanderers’ Row;

’Twas there that Good Name died, Pierced by a shaft from Jealousy’s bow, In the
hands of envious Pride. From Gossip Town, Peace long since fled; But Trouble and
Grief and Woe And Sorrow and Care you’ll meet instead, If ever you chance to go.
.

—Earvey M. Barr. When you are discussing a neighbor, Or a friend who is far
away, Or an absent one of the family, With the caller of today, Just speak of
their wisdom or kindness, ’Tis all you Should care to recall;

Pray do not allude to their failings—

Don’t speak of their faults at all. When you go to church on Sunday, It is not
the place to display The knowledge you have of another’s sin—

’Tis the holy Lord’s Day.

You should go there only to worship The God who created all, And not to pick
flaws in the sermon—

Don’t speak of the failures at all. When a fellow-creature has fallen, And
society stares with a frown, Just stretch out your hand in assistance;

Don’t strike a man when he’s down.

Condemn not; in like provocation Perhaps you also might fall, And then it would
be quite different—

Don’t speak of his faults at all. ’

—Baltimore Sun.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 11: BOOK-10-THE HOME
========================================================================

The Home Text.—“And they went unto their own home.”—

1Sa 2:20.

ONE of the best evidences of civiliza­tion is the dwelling. Every man should
strive to own his own home. He then becomes interested in the country in which
he lives, and feels himself a part of it. To be able to pay taxes to the
Government on real estate is an honor. It gives to the man a feeling of
indepen­dence, and he feels that his home is his castle and that under its roof
he has security.

What It Should Be.—The home should be more than a place in which to eat and
sleep and grunt. It should be a place of fellowship. Fountains of love should be
seen springing up in every direction. Words of kindness should be heard on every
hand. A home must be more than four brick walls with elegant rooms filled with
fine and costly furniture. It should be a place where personalities blend and
where affection, fidelity and loyal service are rendered. No man can be a good
citizen who is not devoted to his home. He should prize it as the most holy and
most sacred spot on earth. When a na­tion loses its love for the home it begins
to decay.

There are homes in this country only in name. The fathers are strangers to their
children. They spend their spare time at the lodge-rooms, on the streets and in
the places of amusement. The mothers spend their time at the clubs, at the card
parties, at the social gatherings and on the streets. The children are left to
run at large and are being trained for the criminal courts and the prisons. The
woman is at her best when she is a keeper at home. The ambition of some women is
to enter politics and hold office. Wo­man clamors for her rights. She should
know that in the home she is queen and that her home is her kingdom. It is here
that she has the opportunity to influence the national life. The mother of James

A. Garfield made it possible for her son to become the President of the United
States. Were you to study the lives of the men who have become prominent in the
world’s history, you would discover that their success was made possible by
consecrated motherhood. The Home Should Be Dedicated to God.—It should be just
as sacred as the house of worship. It should be a place of worship. The altar
should be erected, and we should be on intimate terms with Jehovah. Like the old
patriarch, we should exclaim: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”
(Jos 24:15). The apostle exhorts that men pray everywhere (1Ti 5:17-18). We are
to pray without ceasing (1Th 5:17). The curse of God rests upon the home that
has refused to acknowledge him. “Pour out thy fury upon the hea­then and upon
the families that call not upon thy name” (Jer 10:25). The fam­ily is older than
the church. The first re­ligion was a family religion. The father was the priest
or minister. Noah builded an altar when he came out of the ark, and he worshiped
God. Cornelius, the Gen­tile centurion, prayed to God with his house. When a man
and woman unite their hearts and start in life together, they should take Christ
as their silent partner. They should have him always as the honored guest in the
home. A home with Jesus in it is a wealthy home; a home with no Jesus is a home
of poverty, even though it be made out of the finest material and furnished with
the most beautiful and most costly furniture. A little child was in the habit of
visit­ing the child in the home of a rich man. It looked at the magnificent
paintings and the many beautiful toys, and said to its little playmate: i ‘ Me
do not have any nice paintings and nice toys in my home, but me has Jesus in my
home. Does you have Jesus in your home?” When the child went home the little one
in this home said to the parents: “Does we have Jesus in our home?” I’d rather
live in a cabin by the side of the road, with bare floors and bare walls, and
have to sleep in a bed of straw, with the consciousness of Jesus in my home,
than to live in a mansion with all of the modem comforts and no Jesus. The Bible
Should Have a Prominent Place in the Home.—It should not be one of these fancy,
great big books to be placed on the center-table as an ornament, and a thing in
which to record births and divorces—I beg your pardon, we do not record them,
but it should be placed where it can be used by all the members of the home. At
least once a day one of the parents should take it down and open its pages and
read its great truths to the children. A Bible school should be or­ganized in
the home. Israel was com­manded to make the Commandments known unto their
children. “Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul dili­gently, lest thou
forget the things which thine eyes saw, and lest they depart from thy heart all
the days of thy life; but make them known unto thy children and thy children’s
children; the day that thou stoodest before Jehovah thy God in Horeb, when
Jehovah said unto me, As­semble me the people, and I will make them hear my
words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live upon the
earth, and that they may teach their children” (Dent. 4:9, 10). “And that thon
mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son’s son, what things I have
wrought upon Egypt, and my signs which I have done among them; that ye may know
that I am Jehovah” (Exo 10:2). “Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your
heart and in your soul; and ye shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and
they shall be for frontlets between your eyes. And ye shall teach them your
children, talking of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest
by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt
write them upon the door-posts of thy house, and upon thy gates; that your days
may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which Jehovah
sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of the heavens above the
earth” (Deu 11:18-21). The Psalmist tells us that it was ob­ligatory upon Israel
to instruct the chil­dren in the words of Jehovah. (See seven­ty-eighth Psalm.)
They were to make the words known, that the generations to come might know them,
even the children that should be born. Timothy had known the Scriptures from his
childhood. He had a mother and a grandmother who taught them to him.

There Must Be Law in the Home.— We are living in an age when discipline is
discouraged. If a child is not taught to respect law and to render obedience in
the home, when it becomes grown it will, in all probability, become an
anarchist. The old patriarch said: “For I know him, that he will command his
children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord,
to do justice and judgment” (Gen 18:19).

“He that spareth his rod hateth his son; but he that loveth him chasteneth him
betimes” (Pro 13:24). This doc­trine would be considered out of date by some of
the modern psychologists. “Chast­en thy son while there is hope, and let not thy
soul spare for his crying” (Pro 19:18). “The rod and reproof give wis­dom; but a
child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. Correct thy son, and he
shall give delight unto thy soul” (Pro 29:15-17). The wise man exhorts ns to
bring up the child in the way he should go. Today we are bringing them up in the
way they would go. Often the czar in the home is the little chap that occupies
the high chair, and the rattle is his scepter and he permits the family to
compose his parliament. There is but little chance for a child under such
influ­ences. He is never taught to mind, and when he gets older he will speak of
the father as the “old man,” and the mother as the “old woman.” He will never
re­spect law. He is destined to be a lawless creature. The True Home Should Have
One Law.—The parents should be of one mind. When one disagrees and the child
finds it out, the blunder has been made. There will come a time when the final
test must be made. Often the fatal mistake is made at this time. The parents let
go the reins and the child is permitted to have its way, and soon it has gone
wild, and ruin and disgrace follow. When we see a child en route to the
reformatory we pity the child and wonder if the fault was not with the parents.
Take the case of David and Absalom. Children should be taught to honor the
parents as the Lord God hath commanded them; that their days may be long, and
that it may go well with them in the land which the Lord God giveth unto them.
Let us take the advice of one who could speak with authority: “My son, keep thy
father’s commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother; bind them
continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck. When thou goest, it
shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou wakest,
it shall talk with thee” (Pro 6:20-22).

Some day we shall appreciate our homes, and we shall remember the words that
fell from our lips which were spoken in anger and which wounded to the red. It
is sad to think of the day when the family is scattered and the voice of
chil­dren is no more heard, and the old peo­ple sit by the open grate through
the long winter nights and live again the past. The home on earth must be
forsaken; but we rejoice in the promise of our Lord, who is preparing a home for
us in which there are many mansions, and which shall be our eternal home, in
which the Master shall dwell with us.

One of the saddest things I ever wit­nessed was in Pennsylvania. It was an old
woman who had followed her son from a strange land to America, and with the
promise that she should live with him. He married, and the wife drove the wo­man
from the home. She could not speak the language of her new country and was taken
to the poorhouse to spend her days. She would walk up and down the corri­dors of
the building, wringing her hands and crying. I asked the keeper to tell me what
was her trouble. He told me that she was heartbroken and now crazy, and that she
was crying because she was a homeless one and in a strange land. I have often
wondered what it will mean to be a homeless one in eternity! To go into that
land unacquainted with the lan­guage, and no inheritance! It must be so to all
who die out of Christ.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 12: BOOK-11-NOW AND HEREAFTER
========================================================================

Now And Hereafter

Text.—“Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but
thou shalt know here­after.... Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not
follow me now; but Thou shalt follow me afterwards.”—John 13:7; John 13:36. THE
apostles did not understand the teachings of the Master. Their thoughts took the
coloring of things material. They were not able to grasp the spiritual
significance of his words. They were blinded by gross materialism. Jesus had to
use the simplest illustrations to make known his mind to them. He used the most
lucid arguments and held before them object-lessons.

Here and hereafter; Now and Then. They are like two great mountain peaks, and
they may be named Yesterday and To-morrow. The valley of Now lies between them,
and we are in this valley. Yesterday is the background, and we can never
traverse its roads again. We see the mountain-top of To­morrow before us, and we
move our feet in the direction of it. This valley of Now separates us from the
seen and the un­seen, the knowable and the unknowable, the temporal and the
spiritual.

We know but little. The valley that separates the seen and the unseen, the known
and the unknown, is only a step. Our dealings must have to do with the Now. We
eat, but do not understand the laws of digestion and assimilation. We use the
compass, but we cannot tell why the needle points toward the North Pole. We ride
upon the waves of the sea, but we cannot explore all that is beneath. We cannot
tell what fire is and why it burns. We know that water will quench thirst, but
we cannot tell why it is and what it is. There are but few things we know. The
religious field is full of mysteries. We like to speculate —man is an
interrogation point—he wants to delve into the deep things of God. This is all
right; he was made to think, and to acquire knowledge—he has an ambition to find
out things. The great apostle says: “While we look not at the things which are
seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not
seen are eternal.” We see the apple fall, but we cannot seen gravitation. We see
the car move, but we cannot see the electric current that makes it move. We see
the engine and watch the ponderous wheels of machinery turn, but we cannot see
the steam that causes them to turn. No one has ever seen steam; we have seen the
vapor. We see the pieces of matter, but we cannot see cohesion which holds them
together. We find the coal, the iron, the gold and the silver, but we cannot get
hold of and analyze chemical affinity. We can handle the grain of wheat, but we
can see the life within the grain only as it is manifested through the material.
Who can see faith, hope, love and pa­tience?

Man tries to fathom all of these great questions. He tries to find out the
origin of God, but who, by searching, can find him out? Many volumes have been
writ­ten on the origin of sin, and we are just as much in the dark on this
question as we were the day Adam fell. How many sermons do you think have been
written on the origin of the devil? Ministers and theologians have preached and
written on the philosophy of the atonement. Angels desired to look into these
questions. What is man? How can he live forever? What is life? What is death?
Where is heav­en? What is heaven?

Revealed things belong to man, and the things not yet revealed belong to God.
God will reveal them unto us just as fast as it is possible for us to comprehend
them. He has century plants, and again he has plants that will not unfold until
he comes again, when we shall have the new heaven and the new earth and when we
shall get back in the second Adam what we lost in the first.

Today we cannot understand why the good woman must suffer while the bad woman is
blessed. We cannot un­derstand why the good man must meet with misfortune while
the bad man abounds in wealth. Why is death per­mitted to come into the home and
fasten its grip upon the form of my child? When I look into its face and see it
in the throes of death and undergoing ter­rible suffering, I find myself asking,
“Why does God permit it?” I cannot answer now. It is not given to me to know
now, but I shall know hereafter. Someday I shall understand that all of these
light afflictions have wrought out for me an eternal weight of glory. On one
occasion a mighty flood was witnessed in a certain community, and a man awoke to
find that his farm had been destroyed. He saw the dark side and complained. He
felt that he was ruined financially. Soon after this flood he dis­covered a vein
of gold which had been exposed by the madly rushing waters, and it proved to be
a fortune. This mis­fortune was a blessing in disguise. plant the seed without
knowing just what it is, but after the flower blooms I can know. We are living
in the Now and must have to do only with the present. The old man looks back to
the mountain peak of Yesterday, and he lives in the past; the young man stands
in the valley and anticipates the blessings to be en­joyed in the To-morrow. The
mother and the father stand by the casket that holds the ashes of their little
child, and sob with broken hearts, but with the vi­sion of faith they behold it
in the arms of Jesus, as it sings a song no man can sing, and they live in the
hope that someday, when Jesus comes back to earth, they will see the child and
be glorified together with it.

"I know in grief like yours how more than vain All comfort to the stricken heart
appears; And as the bursting cloud must spend its rain, So grief its tears.

I knew that when your little darling’s form Had freed the angel spirit fettered
there, You could not pierce beyond the breaking storm, In your despair.

You could not see the tender hand that caught Your little lamb, to shield him
from all harm;

You missed him from your own; but never thought Of Jesus’ arm.

You only knew those precious eyes were dim;

You only felt those tiny lips were cold;

You only clung to what remained of him Beneath the mold.

But, oh, young mother, look! the gate unbars! And through the darkness, smiling
from the skies, Are beaming on you, brighter than those stars, Your darling’s
eyes.

’Tis said that, when the pastures down among The Alpine hills have ceased to
feed the flocks, And they must mount to where the grass is young—

Far up the rocks— The shepherd takes a little lamb at play, And -lifts him
gently to his careful breast, And, with its tender bleating, leads the way For
all the rest; That quick the mother follows in the path, Then others go, like
men whose faith gives hopes, And soon the shepherd gathers all he hath—

Far up the slopes. And on those everlasting hills he feeds The trusting fold in
green that never palls.

Look up! Oh, see! Your little darling leads— The Shepherd calls.”

Paul is now persecuted, but after­wards be shall be glorified. Someday the light
shall break, and we shall know as we are known. Now we must look through the
mirror darkly, but then we shall see face to face. Now we must know in part, but
then we shall know even as we are known. On one occasion a man stood in the
presence of a great crowd and gave an exhibition of his skill as an artist. He
painted before them a picture. The wheat fields and meadows appeared, and then
the cattle and the sheep: another stroke of the brush, and the old home­stead,
then the old well and the bucket, and then the father, the mother and the
children appeared, and when the picture was completed he folded his arms and
waited for applause. They looked upon this picture and gave evidence of their
appreciation by their cheers. Then he took the brush and dipped it into a pot of
paint, and with one stroke he blotted out the wheat fields and the meadows; with
another he blotted out the cattle and the sheep, and with another the faces of
father, mother and children, with the old homestead, were gone. He then folded
his hands and waited for ap­plause, but no one gave it. The picture was
destroyed! He changed the canvas, and the people began to applaud, for their
eyes were feasting upon one of the most magnificent paintings eyes had ever
seen. What they had believed to be de­structive strokes were constructive when
viewed from the right angle.

God is painting a picture for us, and sometimes when trouble, misfortune,
sor­row and death come to us, we feel that our picture is ruined, but let us
wait to see it from his angle when he unfurls it in the eternities, and we shall
then know that all things have worked together for our good and that what we one
time thought to have been destructive was constructive, and then we shall
under­stand and rejoice. Jesus had to go away from his disciples—he had to leave
this world of material things—in order to make it possible for his disciples to
have the Holy Spirit and be fitted to enjoy the things to be known and enjoyed
in the hereafter. A child was dying. Its mother stood near it. The little thing
reached out its hand to its mother and said: “Mother, please go with me.” The
mother said: “My child, I shall follow, but each of us must make the journey
alone. I cannot go with you, but I know One who will go with you—it is Jesus.”
Each of us must go alone, and our loved ones must follow after. Jesus will go
with us all the way.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 13: BOOK-12-WHAT WE ARE—WHAT WE SHALL BE
========================================================================

What We Are—What We Shall Be

Text,—“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we
should be called the sons of God; therefore the world knoweth us not, be­cause
it knew him not. 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.”—1Jn 3:1-2.

SONS of God.—How did we become sons of God? By regeneration and by adoption. By
his own will God begat us through the word of truth (Jas 1:18). We are the
children of the Holy Spirit. We are the sons of God, not because we have evolved
into spiritual beings, but because we have received the engrafted Word of truth
into our hearts. This Word has the germ of divine life. We have been born from
above, and are there­fore miniature Christs, human saviors.

Having received this Word of life into our hearts, we have been made par­takers
of the divine nature. Peter throws light on the subject when he says: “Simon
Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have ob­tained
like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior
Jesus Christ: grace and peace be multi­plied unto you through the knowledge of
God, and of Jesus our Lord, accord­ing as his divine power hath given unto us
all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him
that hath called us to glory and virtue; whereby are given unto us exceeding
great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine
nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (2Pe
1:1-4).

We cannot circumscribe or make bounds for the kingdom of heaven. It is not
something that was established in Jerusalem and for a select few. It is
something established within the heart of the individual. Jesus startled his
dis­ciples by telling them that the kingdom of heaven was within them. Paul
tells 157 us that “the kingdom of God is not eat­ing and drinking, but
righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” And again he says: “Whereof
I was made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which was given me
to you-ward, to fulfill the word of God, even the mys­tery which hath been hid
for ages and generations: but now hath it been mani­fested to his saints, to
whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this
mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: whom we
proclaim, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we
may present every man perfect in Christ” (Col 1:25-28).

We reflect outwardly what we are in­wardly. Three men were standing on Pike’s
Peak. One said: “If we had the implements of war, we could make a great fort
here and it would be impossi­ble for the enemy to take it.” One said: “If I had
a pick and shovel and some dynamite, I could go into the earth and find gold and
silver.” The other said: “If I had some paint and a canvas and a brush, I could
paint a beautiful pic­ture.” One man was thinking of war and blood, and he had
to express it in his words. One was thinking of money —gold and silver and
profit and loss— and this is all he could see. The other was an artist, and he
could see nothing in the surroundings but beauty and grandeur. The man who
worships his farm will talk corn, wheat, hogs and cattle; the one who lives for
pleasure will talk the dialect of the pleasure-seek­ing world.

Man will put into words the thoughts that are in his heart. Show me a man that
never talks about his wife and his children, and I will show you a man that does
not love his family. The man or woman that never talks about the kingdom of
heaven is not interested in spiritual things. You can discover a man’s god by
hearing him talk. Do not tell me your life—let me hear your conversation and I
can tell it. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth will speak. Children
will speak the language of the parent. The sons of God will speak the language
of heaven. God is our Father. The Holy Spirit is our abiding Guest and
Comforter, and Jesus Christ is our Elder Brother. If we are the sons of God, we
will speak of the things that have to do with the divine relationships.

Sons of God now, but then! We cannot comprehend it; we cannot express it. We
cannot comprehend man as he is. The ancients had a motto: “Man, know thyself.”
The Psalmist was made to exclaim: “What is man that thou art mindful of him?” He
was made but little lower than God. What does the child know of its own origin?
What are its thoughts of what it shall be when it becomes a man? How its
imagination plays! We are now the children of God —we are undeveloped and
incapable of comprehending all we are capable of be­coming someday. Take the
painter of poor attainments and let him stand be­fore some of the great
paintings, and he will be unable to comprehend all that has been put on canvas.
Let a mechanic who is learning his trade walk through the Congressional Library
building, and he will be impressed with the fact that he can give a lifetime to
the study of this wonderful building, and then there will be much he has never
grasped. Our capacity to know and to love must be given a chance to expand. My
dog knows me, but it does not know me as my child knows me. It knows me as the
one that feeds it and pets it, but if I were to die it would not grieve. My
child knows me in a higher sense than does my dog, and if I were to die it would
weep and for a time grieve; but it would soon forget me. It could not fully
understand what it had lost. I have stood beside the casket that held all that
was mortal of a loving, sym­pathetic mother, and the little child would play and
laugh while I tried to speak words of comfort to those who sorrowed. It did not
comprehend all— it could not know and love like the chil­dren of mature age.
There are degrees of love. My child, when he becomes a man, will love me with a
deeper and a more comprehensive love then it is pos­sible for him to have now.
Our conception of God must change and grow as we better understand him. When I
was a child I thought of God as being far away, a great man sitting upon a
throne and looking down upon the world. I do not have this concep­tion of him
now. I think of him as be­ing a living Personality that fills the whole
universe, and that he is a loving Father who is near me and within me, providing
for and helping me to live the life modeled after the life of his Son.

“O wonderful story of deathless love!

Each child is dear to that heart above.

He fights for me when I cannot fight;

He comforts me in the gloom of night;

He lifts the burden, for He is strong;

He stills the sigh and awakes the song; The sorrow that bows me down He bears,
And loves and pardons because He cares."

"Then, speak to Him, thou, for He hears, And spirit with spirit can meet;

Closer is He than breathing, And nearer than hands and feet.” The soul must be
trained to appre­ciate heaven. Heaven is being prepared for the children of God.
If unconverted, unregenerated, undeveloped spirits should be permitted to enter,
they could no more appreciate and enjoy it than could an infant appreciate and
enjoy the paint­ings in an art gallery. The kingdom is like unto a mustard
seed—it has in it the power of expan­sion and development. Knowledge is
ex­perience, and no soul can be wise in spir­itual things that has not had an
experi­mental religion. One man stands and views the Acropolis, and he sees only
ruins; another stands and views it, and he sees rising in the moonlight the
Parthenon. I like to think of heaven, and I find myself speculating as to just
what it shall be. Southey said: “It is fellowship with Shakespeare, Dante,
Chaucer and other great souls.” John Foster said: ‘It will be the place where
all mysteries will be explained.” Lightfoot said: “It will be a place where all
evil will have been banished and only love and purity will exist.” My
concep­tion is that it will embrace all of these definitions and more. Yes, we
shall come into the presence of the just spirits made perfect—the old
patriarchs, the apos­tles, the martyrs—all of the redeemed of every age and of
every clime; and we shall sit in the presence of the great spirits of that new
world, and listen to them as they tell of the wonderful things which are now
incomprehensible, and we shall be clothed in the righteousness of the saints,
with all sin destroyed, and we shall be like unto the Son of God him­self. It
will be a place where the spirit shall expand and grow in knowledge, and a place
of activity.

“When earth’s last picture painted, And the tubes are twisted and dried; When
the oldest colors have faded, And the youngest critic has died—

We shall rest—and, faith, we shall need it—

Lie down for an aeon or two, Till the Master of all good workmen Shall set us to
work anew.

“And those that are good shall be happy;

They shall sit in a golden chair;

They shall splash at a ten-league canvas With brushes of comet’s hair;

They shall find real saints to draw from—

Magdalene, Peter and Paul;

They shall work for an age at a sitting, And never get tired at all.

“And only the Master Shall praise us, And only the Master shall blame; And no
one shall work for money, And no one shall work for fame; But each for the joy
of the working, And each in his separate star, Shall draw the thing as he sees
it For the God of things as they are.” This is Paul’s picture: “For ye have
received not the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the
Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself beareth
witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God; and if children, then
heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with
him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of
this present time are not worthy to be com­pared with the glory which shall be
re­vealed in us. Wherefore we faint not; but though our outward man is decaying,
yet our inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is for
the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory;
while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not
seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not
seen are eternal.”

Let us look upon John’s picture: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and
he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God him­self shall be
with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes;
and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor pain: for the former
things are passed away.” The Psalmist reaches the climax when he says: “As for
me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied when I awake
with thy likeness.” Sin­ner, we beg you accept sonship in this royal family.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 14: BOOK-13-WHERE ARE OUR DEAD?
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Where are Our Dead?

Text.—“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the
judgment.”—Heb 9:27. WHEN just a young man the writer "stood in the presence of
deep sor­row. A young father had heard the call. His body lay in the casket in
the cold embrace of death. The little daughter, clinging to the skirts of a
broken-hearted mother, cried: “Let me kiss him too.” I found myself asking: “Why
all of this sorrow? What is the cause of death?” The answer came: “By the
transgres­sion of the law sin entered the world, and death is the result of
sin.” When the minister of a church in Virginia, one of the elders invited me to
go with him to the cemetery—the city of the dead. Without thinking, I told him I
had no interest in that place, and did not care to go. I noticed tears welling
up in his eyes and running down his cheeks, when he replied that he did have an
interest there. I saw my mistake. Poor fellow! It had been but a short time
since he had taken all that remained visible of his child and his devoted
com­panion, and in that sacred enclosure he had placed it beneath the sod!

Sooner or later all of us will have an interest in this city. At this very
moment many of us have a desire to steal away from the busy scenes of life and
spend hours among the marble slabs. And yet, our loved ones are not there. The
grave holds only that which is mortal.

There is a stream whose narrow tide The known and unknown worlds divide, Where
all must go; Its waveless waters, dark and deep, ’Mid sullen silence, downward
sweep With moanless flow.

I saw where, at that dreary flood, A smiling infant prattling stood, Whose hour
was come.

Untaught of ill, it neared the tide, Sank as to cradled rest, and died, Like
going home.

Followed with languid eye anon, A youth diseased and pale and wan; And there
alone He gazed upon the leaden stream, And feared to plunge—I heard a scream,
And lie was gone. And then a form in manhood’s strength Came bustling on, till
there at length He saw life’s bound.

He shrank, and raised the bitter prayer Too late—his shriek of wild despair The
waters drowned.

Next stood, upon that surgeless shore, A being bowed with many a score Of
toilsome years.

Earth-bound and sad, he left the bank, Back turned his dimming eye, and sank,
Ah! full of fears.

How bitter must thy waters be, Death! How hard a thing, ah, me!

It is to die! mused—when to that stream again Another child of mortal man With
smiles drew nigh.

’Tis the last pang,’ he calmly said;

‘To me, O Death! thou hast no dread;

Savior, I come!

Spread but thine arms on yonder shore— I see!

Ye waters, bear me o’er;

There is my home.’

Man is a triune being. He is com­posed of body, soul and spirit. “And the very
God of peace sanctify you whol­ly; and I pray God your spirit and soul and body
be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1Th 5:23).

God breathed into man the breath of lives and he became a living soul. He
pos­sesses chemical life, vegetable life, animal life and spiritual life. Like
the temple, he has the outer court—his body—which was made first, and of the
earth, and is therefore earthy; the holy place—the soul —which is the life, the
connecting link between the body and the spirit; and the most holy place—the
spirit—which is the part that thinks, loves, chooses and lives on forever. The
body which is made out of the earth is the house in which the spirit lives. The
spirit came from God (for we are also his offspring); the soul which is physical
life binds body and spirit to­gether.

Death is separation. Physical death is the separation of the spirit from the
body—the opening of the door and the going out of the occupant. “For it is soon
cut off, and we fly away” (Psa 90:10). Notice that it is we that fly away.

“Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast
that goeth downward to the earth?... Then shall the dust return to the earth as
it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it” (Ecc 3:21; Ecc 12:7).
The spiritual death was the separation of man from God when he transgressed the
law in the Garden of Eden; and the second death spoken of in the Word will be
man’s final separation from God. Life is union or fellowship with God. Adam
brought death, and Christ, the second Adam, the Lord of glory, brought life (1
John 1; John 14:6). Disobedi­ence separates me from God; obedience unites me
with God.

Man does not possess a spirit; he is a spirit, and possesses a body. You do not
read anything in the Bible about an immortal soul; neither do you read of a
mortal soul. Mortality and immortality have to do with the body and not with the
spirit. The body is mortal because of Adam’s sin; and it will get its
immortality in the resurrection through Christ. Christ is the only one who has
immor­tality.

Read 1Ti 6:15-16; Rom 8:23; 1Co 15:21; 1Co 15:25; 1Co 15:42; 1Co 15:58.

“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body” (Rom 6:12). “But if the Spirit
of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ
from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth
in you” (Rom 8:11).

“For this corruptible must put on in­corruption, and this mortal must put on
immortality” (1Co 15:53). The body, which is mortal, sleeps in the dust of the
earth; but the spirit, which emanated from God, must live on in a conscious
state somewhere. It must either exist in God’s presence or in the presence of
the devil. But someone is ready to ask: “Can the spirit exist apart from the
body?” Evi­dently Paul thought so when he said: “I knew a man in Christ above
fourteen years ago, (whether in the body I cannot tell: or whether out of the
body I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven. And
I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell; God
knoweth;) how that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words,
which it is not lawful for any man to utter” (2Co 12:2-4). The writer believes
that this man was Paul and that he had reference to the time when he was stoned
and left for dead at Lystra. He speaks of the dual man in 2Co 4:16. "For which
cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is
renewed day by day.” Let us not forget that the real man is the spirit, and that
the body is the house in which the man lives, while sojourning in this world. If
the man so desires, he can give his house to destruc­tion. (See 1Co 13:3.) Can
the man live in a conscious state when out of this house? Moses and Elijah were
evidently conscious when on the Mount of Transfiguration, and surely they were
not in those mortal bodies they possessed when on earth. (See Matthew 17.) When
Christ spake of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who had long ago departed this life,
he spake of them as being alive and conscious. (See Mat 22:23-33.)

Paul evidently believed this doctrine when he said: “For we know that if our
earthly house of this tabernacle were dis­solved, we have a building of God, an
house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan,
earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven; if so
that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this
tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but
clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now he that hath
wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the
earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst
we are at home in the body, we are ab­sent from the Lord: (for we walk by faith,
not by sight:) we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the
body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labor, that, whether
pres­ent or absent, we may be accepted of him. For we must all appear before the
judg­ment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his
body, ac­cording to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2Co 5:1-11).

Peter tells us that Christ preached to the spirits in prison—those who were
dead—during the three days he was in the unseen world (1Pe 3:17-21; 1Pe 4:6).

Now, if Christ preached, he must have been conscious, and those to whom he
preached must have been conscious also, or the preaching could not have done
them much good. Let us take the Word just as it reads and not try to explain it
away. When the spirit leaves the body it does not cease to live. It is even more
alive. Let me illustrate it in this way: In my native county in old Virginia a
beautiful spring bursts out from the mountain-side; its clear, sparkling, limpid
waters mean­der down the valley, percolating through the rocks, laughing and
singing as it widens and deepens in its course to the great ocean. Abruptly this
beautiful stream sinks into the earth; it disappears from our vision; but it is
not lost. It is moving on underground; and, after awhile, we see it as it bursts
out into New River, where it unites its music with the millions of little
streams with which it is now having fellowship. This represents the life of the
Chris­tian. At first it makes its appearance in the form of the little child; it
grows and deepens in experience maybe for three­score years and ten, when it
abruptly dis­appears from our vision, and there in the unseen world it moves on
and on; until the judgment, when we shall see what we thought had been lost is
now visible in the great ocean of eternity, having fellowship with that
innumerable company, the blood-washed throng who have made their robes white in
the blood of the Lamb.

“Think of—

Stepping on shore, and finding it paradise! Of taking hold of a hand, and
finding it Christ’s hand; Of breathing a new air, and finding it celestial air;
Of feeling invigorated, and finding it spiritual strength; Of passing from storm
and tempest to an unbroken calm; Of waking up, and finding it in the presence of
Jesus.”

"Though I stoop into a dark, tremendous sea of cloud, It is but for a time. I
press God’s lamp Close to my heart; its splendor, soon or late, Will pierce the
gloom; I shall emerge somewhere.’’ Does the spirit go to its final place of
reward at death? We think not. All go to the same place, but are in different
states. All are conscious of their doom —and happy or miserable, as the case may
be—and are awaiting their final reward. Let us illustrate: A and B are in
prison, charged with murder. A is innocent and knows he can establish his
innocence. He longs for the court to convene, when he shall get his liberty. He
is guilty and knows his guilt will be proved. He is miserable and dreads for the
court to con­vene. It means his condemnation. Both are in the same place, but
are separated by a hall-way; they can see, and talk to each other; and, while
they are under the same roof and within the same walls, they are separated. This
is illustrated in the sixteenth chapter of Luke. The rich man and Lazarus are in
the unseen world— Hades; but they are in different states; a great gulf
separates them. They can talk to each other and see each other; but the gulf is
fixed and they cannot cross it. One is happy and the other is in tor­ment. Each
knows what the verdict is to be. In the twenty-eighth chapter of First Samuel we
have an account of the witch, and Samuel being brought up. Samuel said: “Why
hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up?... And to-morrow shalt thou and thy
sons be with me.”

Now, we do not believe that Samuel, the prophet, the man after God’s own heart,
went to hell—the place of the wicked. Neither do we believe that Saul, the
wicked king, the man who was so vile that God would have nothing to do with him,
and his wicked sons, who were in league with the devil, went to heaven. But we
learn from Scripture that they are to be together. Where? In Hades— the unseen
world, there to remain till the day of judgment. Jesus says: “Marvel not at
this: for the hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves shall hear his
voice and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of
life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of condemnation ’’
(John 5:28-29).

Daniel says: “And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which
standeth for the children of thy people; and there shall be a time of trouble,
such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time; and at that
time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the
book:. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to
ever­lasting life, and some to shame and ever­lasting contempt. And they that be
wise shall shine as the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as
the stars for ever and ever” (Dan 12:1-3). Where are our children—infants’?

Let us read Revelation, chapter 14: “And I heard a voice from heaven, as the
voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice
of harpers harping with their harps: and they sung as it were a new song before
the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn
that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from
the earth. These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are
virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were
re­deemed from among men, being the first- fruits unto God and to the Lamb. And
in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne
of God” (14:2-5). Who are these who have the Father’s name written upon their
foreheads; who are without fault, without guile; and who are the first fruits of
redemption; and who sing a song that no man can sing; and who follow the Lamb
whithersoever lie goeth? They cannot be men and women, for they are with fault,
and guile is in, or has been in, their mouths. They sing a song that no man can
sing. Who are they? We believe that they are those who die in infancy—before
they have committed sin. They are redeemed without any volition of their own and
are the first fruits of redemption: man is redeemed by his own volition when he
ac­cepts the gospel plan of salvation. These, of the one hundred and forty and
four thousand—a definite number for an in­definite number—follow the Lamb
whith­ersoever he goeth. When shall we go to our final place of reward? When
Christ gets the place ready for us. When he gets this place ready he will come
for us. Hear his sweet promise: “Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in
God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not
so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and
prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that
where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:1-3). He is now preparing this place
for his own. He will build the mansion, but we must furnish the material. It is
said that a wealthy society woman dreamed that she had died and had gone to
heaven. She saw one of the most magnificent man­sions her eyes had ever gazed
upon. She asked the apostle Peter to tell her who occupied that house. Peter
told her that Sister A would live in it. She exclaimed: “This is the name of my
servant-girl."Peter said: “She sent up the material which represented her daily
life, and the Master constructed the building out of this material.” “Where
shall I live!” she asked. Peter pointed to a cabin. The woman said: “No; I shall
not live in such a place. I lived in a beautiful mansion down in yonder world. I
shall not live in a place of this sort.” Peter replied: “We did the best we
could for you with the material you furnished.” She awoke with the prayer:
“Lord, send me back and give me another chance to furnish better material for my
home.”

Paul tells us in 1Co 15:20-21 : “Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become
the first fruits of them that slept.” Now, if Christ is the first fruits, no one
ever came from the dead to die no more before his resurrection. We learn that
some were raised by miracu­lous power, but they died again. But we are told that
when Christ came from among the dead he abolished the intermediate state and
took all of the redeemed to heaven with him. If that be true, it seems that
David would have been among that number; but we hear Peter say, after the
resurrection and the ascension: “Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you
of the patri­arch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is
with us unto this day... For David is not ascended into heaven” (Acts 2:29; Acts
2:34). The New Testament speaks of a cer­tain day when we shall be judged and
come into the possession of our reward. “And this is the will of him that sent
me, that everyone which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have
ever­lasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40). See the
logical statement made by Paul: “But every man in his own order: Christ the
first fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming. Then cometh the
end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when
he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign
till lie hath put all enemies under his feet” (1Co 15:22-28).

“For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I
have fought a good fight. I have fin­ished my course. I have kept the faith
[past]: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness [present],
which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day [future]; and not
to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing” (2Ti 4:6-8).

“Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed,
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet: for the trumpet
shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be
changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put
on immortality” (1Co 15:51-54).

Those who are dead shall be raised, and those who are here at Christ’s
com­ing-shall not die, but be changed. Jesus said at the grave of Lazarus: “I am
the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead,
yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die”
(John 11:25-26). Those who remain at his coming must be changed, and in the
change become immortal. “But I would not have you ignorant, brethren,
con­cerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have
no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also
which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the
word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord
shall not prevent [go before] them which are asleep.* For the Lord him­self
shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and
with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first [that is, before
the living shall be caught up]. Then we which are alive and remain shall be
caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so
shall we ever be with the Lord” (1Th 4:13-17). [*Remember that sleep refers to
the body.] At this time we shall get our reward. “For we must all appear before
the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his
body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2Co 5:10).
“And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were
opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead
were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to
their works” (Rev 20:12-15). (See Matthew 25 and Rev 22:10-12.)

“And I saw a new heaven* and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first
earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city,
new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned
for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the
tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be
his people, and God himself shall be with them, and shall be their God. And God
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death,
neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former
things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all
things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful”
(Rev 21:1-5). [*Heaven here is the paradise or the state of the saved in the
unseen world. The new Jerusalem is the church of Christ—the redeemed.] In this
world of sorrow we shall shed tears of grief. Do you not remember when you were
a little tot, how you would go to your mother with your troubles, with tears
streaming down your cheeks, and she would tenderly put her arms around you, take
you upon her lap and kiss away the tears? Soon you would forget all about your
troubles and your heart would be full of joy. Some day, blessed be his name, our
Lord will kiss away the tears, and we will forget all of our trials and cares
and shall rejoice in his presence.

Death Becomes a Blessing. — This world is not our home. Man will become weary
and tired of this earthly home. He has in him something that will after awhile
long for eternity. I remember meeting an aged woman who sat and patiently waited
to be removed. She complained of being lonesome. Her friends and associates had
all gone, things had changed and she had out­grown her environments. The twelfth
chapter of Ecclesiastes gives a graphic description of old age. Read it.

THERE ISN’T ANY ONE FOR ME TO PLAY WITH ANY MORE. The glow is fading from the
western sky, And, one by one, my comrades, as of yore, Have given up their play
and said good-by;

There isn’t any one for me to play with any more.

Don’t cry, dear heart! for I am worn and old; No longer have I largeness in my
store;

E’en love’s best gifts to me I could not hold;

There isn’t any one for me to play with any more.

I miss the tender handclasp of old friends, The kisses of loved ones gone
before;

’Tis lonely, when the heart first comprehends There isn’t any one for me to play
with any more.

I need these loving hearts, so fond and real;

I want them in my arms, as heretofore; When they are reached, I shall no longer
feel There isn’t any one for me to play with any more.

—James Terry White.

Someone may desire to know what we mean by the “unseen world.” It is all about
us. If we could only pull aside the thin veil, we should be able to see the
unnumbered host. We believe that they are with us, and near us, and are looking
down upon us in our walks of life. Read Hebrews, eleventh chapter, and you will
have mentioned some of the number that compose the “great cloud of witnesses” as
mentioned in the twelfth chapter. The Lord help us to be true and faith­ful, as
we think of the beautiful land of the dead. By the hut of the peasant, where
poverty weeps, And nigh to the towers of the king, Close, close by the cradle
where infancy sleeps And joy loves to linger and sing;

Lies a garden of light filled with +heaven’s perfume, Where never a teardrop is
Shed, And the rose and the lily are ever in bloom— This the beautiful land of
the dead.

Each moment of life a messenger comes And beckons man over the way;

Through the heart-sobs of women and the rattle of drums The army of mortals
obey.

Few lips that have kissed not a motionless brow; A face from each fireside has
fled, And we know that our loved ones are watching us new In the beautiful land
of the dead. Not a charm that we knew ere the boundary was crossed, As we stood
in the valley alone; Not a trait that we prize in our darlings is lost—

They are fairer and lovelier grown. As the lily bursts forth, when the shadows
of night Into bondage of daybreak are led, So they bask in the glow by the
pillar of light. In the beautiful land of the dead.

Oh! the dead, our dead! Our beautiful dead!

They are close to the heart of eternity wed. When the last deed is done and the
last word is said, We shall meet in the beautiful land of the dead.

—Unknown. May God comfort you in this dark hour; at a time when the heartstrings
are breaking; when the clouds are dark and heavy, and he is anxious to help you
to see the light, which after awhile shall come through the rift in the clouds:
therefore he sends this token of love: “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he
shall sustain thee” (Psa 55:22). Hear him say to you:

"Child of my love, lean hard, And let me feel the pressure of thy care.

I know thy burden, child, I shaped it;

Poised it in mine own hand; made no proportion In its weight to thine unaided
strength: For even as I laid it on, I said, I shall be near, and while he leans
on me This burden shall be mine, not his; So shall I keep my child within the
circling arms Of my own love. Here lay it down, nor fear To impose it on a
shoulder which upholds The government of worlds. Yet closer come;

Thou art not near enough; I would embrace thy care So I might feel my Child
reposing on my breast.

Thou lovest me? I knew it. Doubt not, then:

But, loving me, lean hard.”


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  CHAPTER 15: BOOK-14-HEAVENLY RECOGNITION
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Heavenly Recognition

Text.—"For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye,
before our Lord Jesus at his coming? For ye are our glory and our joy.”—1Th
2:19-20.

THERE are times when all of us are interested in this question. Many times the
minister goes into the homes of the members of his charge, and they do not care
to talk about things that are spiritual and things that are eternal. The death
angel has visited your home and taken one of your loved ones. When the minister
comes again you will get the family album and turn to a picture that is more
precious now than gold, and you will take it into your hand and press it to your
lips, and then talk tenderly of the absent one, and you will be interested in
all of the Scripture that speaks of the state of the dead. Then you will ask a
question—one that is constantly coming up for settlement: “Does the Bible tell
us that we shall know our loved ones in heaven?” A gentleman lived in a
beautiful man­sion on the banks of a great river, and there was on the other
side another beautiful mansion in which lived one who was to him a stranger. He
says: “I often looked over the river and admired the mansion, but I was little
interested in the people who lived there. One day a man came from that home to
my home. He came many times, and one day when he went back he took with him my
only daughter. Now I love to think of that home, and I am deeply interested,
be­cause my home is divided and a part of the family lives on that side of the
river, and I want to go over and visit.” This is like death. Some of our loved
ones have moved into another world, and un­til they went we thought but little
of that country. The home is now divided, and we feel that it will not be long
until all of us shall have moved out and across the river, where we shall
inhabit a new home and where we shall be reunited with those who are dear to us.
But someone is ready to ask: “If we are to know our loved ones, how can we be
happy if all of them are not with us in heaven?” God is our Father, and he loves
us far more than it is possible for us to love our children. Jesus is our Elder
Brother, and he loves us, too, more than it is possible for us to love our
children. Then I ask, If God and Christ shall be happy when all of the children
and brothers are not present, shall we, too, not be happy? We cannot understand
and we cannot explain it, but we must believe that God and Christ shall know all
who have been cre­ated in the image of the Father; and more, all who have been
created in the image of God shall know God and Christ Jesus, God’s Son. Now,
does it not logically follow that if we shall recog­nize our Father and our
Elder Brother, we shall also recognize other members of the family?

Man possesses reason. He is com­posed of mind, and mind is composed of
intellect, sensibility and will. Intellect is composed of being, space, time,
person­ality, number and resemblance. Man can never forget; be may not be able
to recol­lect. When the impression has been stamped upon the soul, it is there
for all time. When Abraham spake to the man in the unseen world who was being
tormented, he said: “Son, remember.” Every act of man’s life touches a chord
that will vibrate in eternity. Man is hanging up pictures around the cham­ber of
his heart at which he shall be forced to gaze in eternity. This man in Hades
knew Abraham, and he recognized Lazarus as being the man who stopped at his home
in this world and begged for the crumbs that fell from his table. He remembered
that he received good things in the world from whence he had come and that
Lazarus received evil things, and that now things had changed and that he was
getting the evil things while Lazarus was getting the good things. I care not to
speculate about hell, but I want to say that there is one thing of which I am
certain, and that is that memory is a worm that shall never die. The fact that
man must live over his life again shall make him miserable, if it has not been a
life lived in Jesus Christ.

Paul before the throne is the same Paul who preached before Felix. He is Paul
minus his imperfections. The twelve apostles were promised the honor of sitting
upon the twelve thrones and with the privilege of judging the twelve tribes of
Israel. When Peter, James, John and Christ were on the mount, some strange
things happened. Jesus was transfigured and glorified, but he was yet known by
these apostles. Moses stepped out from the unseen world, having been dead
fifteen hundred years, and Elijah also appeared upon the stage of action. Can
you tell me how Peter came to know these two distinguished spirits? Who gave him
an introduction? He knew Moses as being different from Elijah, and Elijah and
Moses as being different from Jesus. He knew Moses as Moses and Elijah as
Eli­jah. Now, if Peter, here on earth and in his flesh, could recognize these
souls of the unseen world, do you think he will be unable to recognize them when
he is clothed upon with immortality and when he stands in their presence in the
great eternity I

Let us look at the statement found in the Revelation (6:9-11): “I saw
under­neath the altar the souls of them that had been slain for the word of God,
and for the testimony which they held: and they cried with a great voice,
saying, How long, O Master, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge
our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And there was given to each one of
them a white robe; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a
little time, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, who should be
killed even as they were, should have fulfilled their course.’9 John saw the
beings under­neath the altar. They remembered their persecution and how they had
suffered for the gospel. They remembered that it occurred on this earth, and
they re­membered that those who were respon­sible for their suffering were yet
living on the earth. They were to expect the same kind of persecution to come to
their brethren who were then living on the earth, and that they, too, were to
come to be with them. When we come into the other world we shall Joe with Christ
and we shall wor­ship him. “The four and twenty elders shall fall down before
him that sitteth on the throne, and shall worship him that liveth for ever and
ever, and shall cast their crowns before the throne, say­ing, Worthy art thou,
our Lord and our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power: for thou
didst create all things, and because of thy will they were and are created” (Rev
4:10-11). To worship Christ we must know him. We must know him as different from
all others. If we shall know him, is there any sufficient reason why we shall
not know the four and twenty elders and all of the host of the redeemed? Our
text tells us that these converts in this church at Thessalonica are Paul’s joy
and crown. How could they be his if he is not to know them as his converts?

How can he present them unto the Father as his hope if he is not to claim them?

Man shall know himself in that world. He shall know himself as different from
others. In the final judgment he will tell the Lord about the work accomplished
in the name of Jesus Christ (Mat 7:21-24). Study the twenty-fifth chapter of
Matthew and you will find that the final test will be: “I was hungry, and ye fed
me; naked, and ye clothed me. ’ ’ When we ask when this was done, we are to be
told that it was when we did it unto his disciples.

“And I John am he that heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw, I
fell down to worship before the feet of the angel that showed me these things.’’
He knew the angel as not being the Lord of glory. “And he saith unto me, See
thou do it not: I am a fellow- servant with thee and with thy brethren the
prophets, and with them that keep the words of this book. Worship God.” The
prophets in the unseen world were the prophets on earth. Man lives out of the
body. When death comes, the door is opened and the man flies away. All
intelligence continues to live. The separation from the body does not in any way
prevent the man from thinking and remembering.

“A solemn murmur in the soul Tells of a world to be, As travelers hear the
billows roll Before they reach the sea.” The old patriarchs, we are told, died,
and were buried and were gathered unto their people. Some buried in a strange
land were themselves gathered unto their own people in the unseen world.

God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. He is the God of Abra­ham and
of Isaac and of Jacob. Abra­ham, Isaac and Jacob are themselves in the unseen
world. They will be them­selves in heaven. Will it not be glorious to sit down
with these great souls and converse with them on questions which have not yet
been made plain? When we sit in the presence of Paul we may be able to hear him
explain the things he heard when he was left for dead at Lystra—the day he
climbed his mount of transfiguration. Then we may learn what he meant by the
thorn in the flesh. Who knows but that we shall have won­derful
experience-meetings over there? If we sit down in the presence of Abra­ham and
of Isaac and of Jacob, do you not think we shall know them?

"They are perfectly blessed—the redeemed and the free— Who are resting in joy by
the smooth, glassy sea;

They breathed here on earth all their sorrowful sighs, And Jesus has kissed all
the tears from their eyes.

They are happy at home! They have learnt the new song, And warble it sweetly
amid the glad throng; No faltering voices, no discords, are there; The melodious
praises swell high through the air.

There falls not on them the deep silence of night;

They never grow weary—ne’er fadeth the light;

Throughout the long day new hosannas they raise, And express their glad thoughts
in exuberant praise.

E’en thus would we praise thee, dear Savior divine;

We, too, would be with thee—loved children of thine;

Oh, teach us, that we may sing perfectly there When we, too, are called to that
city so fair.”

We sorrow not as others which have no hope, for we believe that Jesus died and
rose again, and that he will bring with him all who sleep in him, and that
together we shall be caught up in the air to ever be with the Lord.

"Look above thee! Never eye Saw such, pleasures as await thee;

Thought ne’er reached such scenes of joy As are there prepared to meet thee;

Light undying, seraphs’ lyres, Angel welcomes, cherub choirs, Smiling through
heaven’s doors to greet thee; Can it be possible no words shall welcome Our
coming feet?

How will it look, that face we have cherished, When next we meet? Will it be
changed, so glorified and saintly, That we shall know it not? Will there be
nothing that will say, I love thee, And I have not forgot?

O faithless heart, the same loved face transfigured Shall meet thee there, Less
sad, leas wistful in immortal beauty,

Divinely fair. The mortal veil, washed pure with many weepings, Is rent away,
And the great soul that sat within its prison Hath found the day. In the clear
morning of that other country, In Paradise, With the same sweet face that we
have loved and cher­ished,

It shall arise;

Let us be patient, we who mourn with weeping;

Some vanished face The Lord has taken but to add a richer And a diviner grace.
And we shall find once more, Beyond earth’s skies, In the fair city of the “sure
foundations,’’

Those heavenly eyes, With the same welcome shining through their sweetness, That
met us here;

Eyes, from whose beauty God has banished weeping And wiped away the tear.

—Unknown.

Many suggestions contained in this book were prompted by general reading.


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Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/book-william-sermons-for-the-people/
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