Sovereign Grace Part 6

MORE TO FOLLOW.

I heard a story about two members of a Church: one was a wealthy man, and the other was one of those who cannot take care of their finances--he was always in debt. The rich brother had compa.s.sion on his poor brother. He wanted to give him some money; but he would not give it to the man all at once: he knew he would not use it properly. So he sent the amount to the minister, and asked him to supply the needs of this poor brother. The minister used to send him a five-dollar bill, and put on the envelope "More to follow." I can imagine how welcome the gift would be; but the best of all was the promise--"More to follow." So it is with G.o.d: there is always "more to follow." It is such a pity that we are not ready to be used by G.o.d when He wants to use us.

Dear friends, let me put this question to you: Are you full of grace? You shake your head. Well, it is our privilege to be _full_.

What is the best way to get full of grace? It is to be emptied of self. How can we be emptied? Suppose you wish to get the air out of this tumbler; how can you do it? I will tell you: by pouring water into the tumbler till it is full to overflowing. That is the way the Lord empties us of self. He fills us with His grace. "I will pour water on him that is thirsty." Are you hungering to get rid of your sinful selves? Then let the Spirit of G.o.d come in and fill you. G.o.d is able to do it.

See what He did for John Bunyan--how He made one of the mightiest instruments for good the world ever saw, out of that swearing Bedford tinker. If we had a telescope which would enable us to look into heaven as Stephen did, I can imagine we should see the thief, who believed in Jesus while on the cross, very near the throne. Ask him how he got there; and he would tell you it was through the grace of G.o.d. See how the grace of G.o.d could save a Mary Magdalene possessed of seven devils! Ask her what it was that melted her heart: and she would tell you that it was the grace of G.o.d. Look again at that woman whom Christ met at the well at Sychar. The Saviour offered her a cup of the living water: she drank, and now she walks the chrystal pavement of heaven. See how the grace of G.o.d could change Zaccheus, the hated publican of Jericho! Now he is in yonder world of light; he was brought there by the sovereign grace of G.o.d.

You will have noticed that many of those who were about the most unlikely, have, by the power of G.o.d's grace, become very eminent in His service. Look at the twelve apostles of Christ; they were all unlettered men. This ought to encourage all whose education is limited to give themselves to G.o.d's work. When our earthly work is ended, then, like our Master, we shall enter into glory. It has been well remarked: "Grace is glory militant; and glory is grace triumphant. Grace is glory begun; glory is grace made perfect. Grace is the first degree of glory: glory is the highest degree of grace."

"Oh, to grace how great a debtor Daily I'm constrained to be!

Let Thy grace, Lord, like a fetter, Bind my wandering heart to thee.

p.r.o.ne to wander, Lord, I feel it-- p.r.o.ne to leave the G.o.d I love-- Here's my heart, oh take and seal it, Seal it for Thy courts above."

CHAPTER VIII.

A CHIME OF GOSPEL BELLS.

IN Baltimore, a few years ago, we held a number of meetings for men.

I am very fond of this hymn; and we used to let the choir sing the chorus over and over again, till all could sing it.

"Oh, word of words the sweetest, Oh, word in which there lie All promise, all fulfillment, And end of mystery!

Lamenting or rejoicing, With doubt or terror nigh, I hear the 'Come!' of Jesus, And to His cross I fly.

Come! oh, come to me!

Come! oh, come to me!

Weary heavy-laden, Come! oh, come to Me!

O soul! why shouldst thou wander From such a loving Friend?

Cling closer, closer to Him, Stay with Him to the end Alas! I am so helpless, So very full of sin; For I am ever wandering, And coming back again.

Oh, each time draw me nearer, That soon the 'Come!' may be Nought but a gentle whisper To one close, close to Thee; Then, over sea and mountain, Far from, or near, my home, I'll take Thy hand and follow, At that sweet whisper, 'Come!'"

There was a man in one of the meetings who had been brought there against his will; he had come through some personal influence brought to bear upon him. When he got to the meeting, they were singing the chorus of this hymn--

"Come! come! come!"

He said afterwards he thought he never saw so many fools together in his life before. The idea of a number of men standing there singing, "Come! come! come!" When he started home he could not get this little word out of his head; it kept coming back all the time. He went into a saloon, and ordered some whiskey, thinking to drown it.

But he could not; it still kept coming back. He went into another saloon, and drank some more whiskey; but the words kept ringing in his ears: "Come! come! come!" He said to himself, "What a fool I am for allowing myself to be troubled in this way!" He went to a third saloon; had another gla.s.s, and finally got home.

He went off to bed, but could not sleep; it seemed as if the very pillow kept whispering the word, "Come! Come!" He began to be angry with himself: "What a fool I was for ever going to that meeting at all!" When he got up he took the little hymn book, found the hymn, and read it over. "What nonsense!" he said to himself; "the idea of a rational man being disturbed by that hymn." He set fire to the hymn book; but he could not burn up the little word "Come!" "Heaven and earth shall pa.s.s away: but My word shall not pa.s.s away."

He declared he would never go to another of the meetings; but the next night he came again. When he got there, strange to say, they were singing the same hymn. "There is that miserable old hymn again," he said; "what a fool I am for coming!" I tell you, when the Spirit of G.o.d lays hold of a man, he does a good many things he did not intend to do. To make a long story short, that man rose in a meeting of young converts, and told the story that I have now told you. Pulling out the little hymn book for he had bought another copy and opening it at this hymn, he said: "I think this hymn is the sweetest and the best in the English language. G.o.d blessed it to the saving of my soul." And yet this was the very hymn he had despised.

I want to take up this little word "Come!" Sometimes people forget the text of a sermon; but this text will be short enough for any one to remember. Let me ring out a chime of Gospel bells, every one of which says, "Come!" The first bell I will ring is,

COME AND HEAR!

"Incline your ear, and come unto me; hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David." "Incline your ear," G.o.d says. You have sometimes seen a man who is a little deaf, and cannot catch every word, put his hand up to his ear and lean forward. I have seen a man sometimes put up both hands to his ears, as if he were determined to catch every word. I like to see that. This is the figure that the prophet uses when he says on G.o.d's behalf, "Incline your ear."

Man lost spiritual life and communion with his Maker by listening to the voice of the tempter, instead of the voice of G.o.d. We get life again by listening to the voice of G.o.d. The Word of G.o.d gives life.

"The words that I speak unto you," says Christ, "they are spirit, and they are life." So, what people need is--to incline their ear, and hear. It is a great thing when the Gospel preacher gets the ear of a congregation--I mean the inner ear. For a man has not only two ears in his head; he has also what we may call the outer ear, and the inner ear--the ear of the soul. You may speak to the outward ear, and not reach the ear of the soul at all. Many in these days are like the "foolish people" to whom the prophet Jeremiah spoke: "Which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not." There are many in every congregation whose attention I am not able to secure for five minutes together. Almost any little thing will divert their minds. We need to give heed to the words of the Lord: "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."

You remember when Peter was sent to Cornelius, he was to speak to him words whereby he and his house were to be saved. If you are to be saved, it must be by listening to the Word of G.o.d. Here is the promise: "Hear; and your soul shall live."

There was an architect in Chicago who was converted. In giving his testimony, he said he had been in the habit of attending church for a great many years, but he could not say that he had really heard a sermon all the time. He said that when the minister gave out the text and began to preach, he used to settle himself in the corner of the pew and work out the plans of some building. He could not tell how many plans he had prepared while the minister was preaching. He was the architect for one or two companies; and he used to do all his planning in that way. You see, Satan came in between him and the preacher, and caught away the good seed of the Word. I have often preached to people, and have been perfectly amazed to find they could hardly tell one solitary word of the sermon; even the text had completely gone from them.

A colored man once said that a good many of his congregation would be lost because they were too generous. He saw that the people looked rather surprised; so he said, "Perhaps you think I have made a mistake; and that I ought to have said you will be lost because you are not generous enough. That is not so; I meant just what I said. You give away too many sermons. You hear them, as it were, for other people." So there are a good many now hearing me who are listening for those behind them: they say the message is a very good one for neighbor So-and-so; and they pa.s.s it over their shoulders, till it gets clear out at the door. You laugh; but you know it is so. Listen! "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is pa.s.sed from death unto life."

The next note in this peal of bells I wish to ring out is--

COME AND SEE!

Scripture not only uses the ear, but the eye, in ill.u.s.trating the way of salvation. When a man both hears and sees a thing, he remembers it twice as long as if he only heard it. You remember what Philip said to Nathanael: "Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, we have found Him of whom Moses in the Law, and the Prophets, did write--Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see." Philip was a wise winner of souls. He brought his friend to Christ. Nathanael had one interview with the son of G.o.d; he became His disciple and never left Him. If Philip had gone on discussing the matter with him, and had tried to prove that some good thing could come out of Nazareth, he might have never been a disciple at all.

After all, we do not gain much by discussion. Let objectors or inquirers only get one personal interview with the Son of G.o.d; that will scatter all their darkness, all their prejudice, and all their unbelief. The moment that Philip succeeded in getting Nathanael to Christ, the work was done.

So we say to you, "Come and see!" I thought, when I was converted, that my friends had been very unfaithful to me, because they had not told me about Christ. I thought I would have all my friends converted inside of twenty-four hours; and I was quite disappointed when they did not at once see Christ to be the Lily of the Valley, and the Rose of Sharon, and the Bright and Morning Star. I wondered why it was. No doubt many of those who hear me now have had that experience; you thought when you saw Christ in all His beauty that you could soon make your friends see Him in the same light.

But we need to learn that G.o.d alone can do it. If there is a skeptic now hearing me, I want to say that one personal interview with the Son of G.o.d will scatter all your infidelity and atheism. One night, in the inquiry-room, I met the wife of an atheist, who had been brought to G.o.d at one of our meetings. She was converted at the same time. She had brought two of her daughters to the meeting, desiring that they too should know Christ. I said to the mother: "How is it with your skepticism now?" "Oh," said she, "it is all gone." When Christ gets into the heart, atheism must go out; if a man will only come and take one trustful, loving look at the Saviour, there will be no desire to leave Him again.

A gentleman was walking down the street in Baltimore, a few years ago. It was near Christmas-time, and many of the shop-windows were filled with Christmas presents, toys, etc. As this gentleman pa.s.sed along, he saw three little girls standing before a shop window, and he heard two of them trying to describe to the third the things that were in the window. It aroused his attention, and he wondered what it could mean. He went back, and found that the middle one was blind--she had never been able to see--and her two sisters were endeavoring to tell her how the things looked. The gentleman stood beside them for some time, and listened; he said it was most interesting to hear them trying to describe the different articles to the blind child--they found it a difficult task. As he told me, I said to myself, "That is just my position in trying to tell other men about Christ: I may talk about Him; and yet they see no beauty in Him that they should desire Him. But if they will only come to Him, He will open their eyes and reveal Himself to them in all His loveliness and grace."

Looking at it from the outside, there was not much beauty in the Tabernacle that Moses erected in the desert. It was covered on the outside with badgers' skins--and there was not much beauty in them.

If you were to pa.s.s into the inside, then you would find out the beauty of the coverings. So the sinner sees no beauty in Christ till he comes to Him--then he can see it.

You have looked at the windows of a grand church erected at the cost of many thousands of dollars. From the outside they did not seem very beautiful; but get inside, when the rays of the sun are striking upon the stained gla.s.s, and you begin to understand what others have told you of their magnificence. So it is when you have come into personal contact with Christ; you find Him to be the very Friend you need. Therefore we extend to all the sweet Gospel invitation "Come and see!"

Let me now ring out the third bell--

COME AND DRINK!

"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters: and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat: yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." If you will come and drink at this fountain, Christ says you shall never thirst again. He has promised to quench your thirst. "If any man thirst," He says, "let him come unto Me and drink."

I thank G.o.d for those words: "_If any man_." That does not mean merely a select few respectable people; it takes in all--every drunkard, every harlot, every thief, every self-righteous Pharisee.

"If any man _thirst_." How this world is thirsting for something that will satisfy! What fills the places of amus.e.m.e.nt--the dance houses, the music halls, and the theaters, night after night? Men and women are thirsting for something they have not got. The moment a man turns his back upon G.o.d, he begins to thirst; and that thirst will never be quenched until he returns to "the fountain of living waters." As the prophet Jeremiah tells us, we have forsaken the fountain of living waters, and hewn out for ourselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. There is a thirst this world can never quench: the more we drink of its pleasures, the thirstier we become. We cry out for more and more; and we are all the while being dragged down lower and lower. But there is "a fountain opened to the House of David . . . for sin and for uncleanness." Let us press up to it, and drink and live.

I remember after one of the great battles in the War we were coming down the Tennessee River with a company of wounded men. It was in the spring of the year, and the water was not clear. You know that the cry of a wounded man is: "Water! water!" especially in a hot country. I remember taking a gla.s.s of the muddy water to one of these men. Although he was very thirsty, he only drank a little of it. He handed the gla.s.s back to me, and as he did so, he said, "Oh for a draught of water from my father's well!" Are there any thirsty ones here? Come and drink of the fountain opened in Christ; your longing will be satisfied, and you will never thirst again. It will be in you "a well of water springing up into everlasting life."

Water rises to its own level; and as this water has come down from the throne of G.o.d, it will carry us back to the presence of G.o.d.

Come, O ye thirsty ones, stoop down and drink, and live! You are all invited: come along! When Moses took his rod and struck the flinty rock in the wilderness, out of it there came a pure crystal stream of water, which flowed or through that dry and barren land. All that the poor thirsty Israelites had to do was to stoop and drink. It was free to all. So the grace of G.o.d is free to all. G.o.d invites you to come and take it: will you come?