Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1888-04-30
8eligioms department.
Obedience Gives a Foretaste
of Heaven.

Love to God, then, is necessary to
the highest enjoyment both here and
hereafter. 1t gives a fortaste of
heaven here and now; you have
heaven in your souls as you sit in
these pews just in proportion as Won
have the love of God in your souls.
That love makes heaven hereafter
is absolutely certain. There can be
no heaven anywhere to the man who
does not love God. There can be
no hell anywhere to the man who
| does love God. That man has heav-
en- in his soul wherever he goes,
| siblr for Christian man to be in
perdition, 1t would cease to be the
atelv become for him a place of I'M
speakable bliss and glory. There
was time in my life when l some
times thought God was arbitrary !;
possibly / thought Him harsh in his
dealings with men. A better under
standing Of those dealings convinced
me, and must convince you, that
God never condemned any man to
everlasting punishment. Nowhere
in the Book of God, nowhere in the
providence of God, has he ever con-
demned a man to hell. Men go them
selves; they go downward rather
than upward. They stumble over
Gods word they despise Gods in
vitations they stumble over Christ's
cross they turn deaf ear to Christ's
prayer. | say it reverently, God
cannot stop them except He destroy
the laws of freedom with which he
has endowed them. If you charge
God with your fate, you show that
you deserve your fate a thousand
times over you show that you are
false to your conscience and to Gods
revelation. Since your infancy God
has been wooing you to His arms
and heart. You have turned deaf
ear; you have despised the pleadings
of His love.
If all the wretched inha bitants of
he'll were to be admitted to heaven,
it would be no heaven to them while
they continue to hate God. That
hatred makes hell. There can be no
heaven anywhere to man who hates
God. To shut up in the regions of
despair men who hate God is a
greater kindness to them than to
admit them into His immediate pres
ence. Were you to go to these
wretched saloons, and to take all the
people you can find there and bring
them into the house of God, they
would be perfectly wretched. They
would say, "Let us out. We want
the ribald song, the blasphemous
oath, the Intoxicating cup" Some
of you have foretaste of heaven in
the place of prayer, but to these it
would be a foretaste of hell. Put
them into heaven and they would be
unspeakably miserable. What they
need is not change in external
condition, but in heart, in life, in
purpose, in all their relations to God.
SO / say, without fear of contradic-
ton, that if man loves God he has
heaven everywhere. If man hates
Him he can have heaven nowhere.
But, man asks, can | know
whether or not / love God? Most
assuredly you can know. We have
the practical test, which is the topic
of my remarks this morning. 1t is
the test of obedience. Do you obey
God? If you obey God, no matter
how YOU feel for the moment, you
love Him. Right feeling will come
with obedience. Men act quite too
much by impulse. l wish sometimes
that the word ''feeling" were blotted
out of our religious vocabulary. A
man says he doesn't go to prayer meet
ing "because he doesn't feel like it. y
What has feeling to do with duty !
We are saved by faith, not by feel
ing. Many a time he goes into his
| office when he doesn't feel like doing
his work. You can work yourself
into right feeling. Often the literary
man sits down when he has none of
that ecstasy and bliss which come
when mind and soul are filled with
lofty thought. How often did Dick
ems sit down, seize his pen simply
from a sense of duty and drive it in
| cold blood for time But soon the
right feeling came, and soon joy
Gus emotions would throb for utter
ance. Soon the words would run
from his pen-point, until page after
page would testify to the work of
the morning. These principles APP
ply with literal truth in the Chris
tian life. Do your duty. Why should
man not bow to Jesus Christ
Why should you not say while | am
speaking, 81 know | am a sinner,
but | will trust Jesus Christ here and
now?' Couldn't you say that, man
VIII you thus determine, woman in
the pew at this moment: E'Here,
o Christ, just as | am, l give my
self to Thee p Then say, 81 have
done it; | will never take it back
l will go out into yonder street
Christ's man, Christ's woman | will
do my duty, and confess Him before
the whole world" So obeying Christ,
| be assured that peace and right feel