Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1886-05-12
First Sermon of Rev. Sam Jones in Balti-
more.


May 2nd. These services are attended b,
many thousands of persons. The followin,
is report of the first sermon delivered b,
Rev. Sam JONES'
Opening his Bible, which he held in hi
left hand, he read the first five verses of th'
first chapter Of Paul's Epistle to the Thes
salonians. Continuing, he said: 81 hav'
| studied these epistles of Paul, Peter anc
John to the churches with profit. What
ever may be said of the church in the frs
century. it must be admitted that the church
had influence with God and with men, ant
as look around see that just so far al
we have lost similarity to the ancient
church, we havelost influence with God and
man, but as far as we have retained this re
semblance we have retained our Influence
We must go back to the source of power
Now, mind, st. Paul locates the church Of
God. Every true church has its home in
the heart of God, and God has His home in
the church. The terms are Synonymous.
Being in Christ Jesus and Christ Jesus be-
ing in you are the same. Jusus said. BE-
hold, I stand at the door and knock Thank
God for such guest to knock at my door,
the power to lift the latch and let enter
such a heavenly guest. am ashamed to
have Him enter such place, but only::f
a moment He is my guest. Then He says:
Come sup with me- Christ is not only a
living principle, but man is profted by a
Lying Saviour. A historical Christ is moth
ing to me- Not Christ at Calvary, linger-
ing at the home of Mary and Martha.
Christ assembled is sufficient for me. But
the precious truth that redeemed me thir-
teen years ago is that Christ knocked at my
door, and has been a personal Saviour to
me for fourteen years. You may run Con-
fuciansm with dead Confucius; you may
run Mormonism with Joe Smith in his
grave, but you must not only have risen
and assembled Christ, but descended Christ.
"There is church which has four hun
dred enrolled members, fifty of these sincere
men, fifty others attend church regularly
and perform their duties, but there are two
hundred willful Christless members, and
the stream running through that church will
be affected by the smaller streams which
run into it. What sort of stream do you
fancy will inject into that stream?
THE CHURCH OF TODAY
"The great curse of the world to-day is
not out of the church, but in it. l know
touch upon ground that may bring out re-
sentiment, but, brethren, the harder and
louder say this the more resemble my
Divine Master. He gave the amen corn
ers' brindgers whenever he met them. Every
denunciatory sentence he ever uttered was
to the church, to the members of the church.
But to the sinner he says: You are like the
lost sheep which the shepherd sought and
bore home on his shoulder He didn't kick
Or beat the sheep, for it could not stand it.
But he thundered his reproofs to the Scribes,
Pharisees and Publicans. All we want is
church like Christ wants, to march fourth
and win the world to him. God grant us
power to go out in the spirit of grace and
bring back the lost sheep. 1t would be
healthy if every member Of the church
should ask himself these questions: Sup
pose every other member was like me, how
would the spirit of prayer succeed, how
would the expenses be paid, how much
sympathy would the pastor receive? 1t
conclusion, Here is the biggest humbug
that God Almighty allows to live in the
church. Laughter. I Can stand rail-
road humbug, business humbug, news
paper hombug, but God deliver me from a
religious humbug. l believe it was at
Princeton that some young fellows tried to
fool professor who was a bugologist and
knew bugs from creation down. They
made up bug from the head, wings, feet,
body and legs of different bugs, and taking
it to him said, what kind of a bug isthat?'
He replied, why that's humbug.'
Laughter. Now take the hands of a
swindIer, the feet of dancer, the head of
keen trickster and the mouth of saint,
put them all together and you have the big
gest kind of a humbug, and you would be
astonished to know how many humbugs like
that you have in Baltimore. Bishop Martin
said on his conversion: 4 am now mem ber
of the Chirch of Christ, and have it in my
power to bring reproach upon the name and
cause Of Christi This is the most fearful
power that God has given a man. You
may be Presbyterians, Episcopalians or
Baptists, but thank God that l have seen
good men in all.
81 could not have been here if had not
known that all the cross fences had been
removed so that the grass in that pasture is
eaten by all the sheep. The shepherd may
say, 'Pd rather my sheep would die than
eat in that mans PASTURE Well he's get
ting his rathers. Laughter The time has
come for us to look more to our enemies
than to our accoutrements. The Church of
God has been in camp for a long time, there
has been excellent drillings and the arms
are woll polished, but roll the drum and call
upon them and you can fill 1 1000 hospitals
with those suffering from rheumatism and
other ills, but you can't find corporal S
guard to fight the devil. Look at this city
on Sunday morning. The Church of God
on dress parade. But when the cannons
boom you hear the cry, Lie down, militia;
I'm going to bust cap. Laughter. Will
you go no farther than the church and family
altar in your religion? A friend said to me,
you say more than I would, and you will
bring the Gospel into disrepute.' Well, I
walked down the other day into round
house and d-saw standing there beautiful
engine, all polished and bright. The work
man told melt had not been out of the round
house for months. But here came a grand
mogul engine, greasy and dirty, and the
workman told me that it had just come from
Chattanooga, drawing forty loaded cars. If I
stayed in the round-house I could stay as
clean as you do. want to be good hus-
band, good Christian, but God save me
from becoming a good preacher in this sense
of the word. | went down into the dirt to
bring back wayward son to good woman
and she turned up her nose at me. God
help you to turn up your noses at your
drunken husbands and boys, and not at the
man who brings them back to God. If any
man takes offense at my words, will ask
him: Do you pay your just debts? Do you
live right before God? Are you clean and
chaste in your habits? Do you do your duty
to your family? If he replies yes, l will
get down on my knees and ask his pardon
before 10000 people. But if any of you
Pharisees think that you are going to gel
any pardons out Of me, you don't know
me. Laughter ] The world goes te
church with you, and you go with it to the
theatre and to progressive euchre parties.
1t goes with you to prayer-meetings, and
you both will 60 to hell together if you
don't take care. Everything was all right
before they drew the line at Mason an6
Dixon's line, and then there was big fight
God draws the line and says to the Chris
tian, you come on this side, and to others
You go on that side.' If can dIaw any
such line in Baltimore we will get up the
biggest fight that has ever been known
here, and every euchre-player has got t.
go in and fight on the DEVILS side. Wher
Peter ran after the devil who was carry
ing off young girl member of the church
who had died at dance, and said, Here
you are carrying off Christian. The devi
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