The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1888-07-19
TALMAGES SERMON.
rbe Weekly Discoursss of the Great
Brooklyn Preacher.
Subject: "None Like Jesus"

|
We had for many years In this country
commercial depression. What was the mat
ter with the storesi With the harvestai
With the peoplel Lack Of faith. Money
enough, goods enotgh, skillful brains
enough, Industrious hands enough, but
no faith Now, what damages the COM
mercial world damages the spiritual. Our
which eternity turns. 10" says some one in
the audience, II have faith believe Christ
came down to save the world" reply that
IN worldly matters when you have faith you
Always act upon it For Instance, il could
show you business operation by which you
go into it; You would prove your faith id
what tell you BY your prompt and imme.
diate action. Now. if what you call faith in
Christ has led you to surrender your entire
nature TO Jesus, and to corresponding action
in your life, it is genuine faith, and il it has
not, it Is not faith at all.
There are some things which believe
with the head. Then there are other things
| which believe with the heart. And then
there are other things which believe both
with the head and heart. / believe, for in
stance, that Cromwell lived. That Is mat
ter of the head. Then there are other
things which believe with the heart and
not with the head That is l have no es-
| pecial reason for believing them, and yet
want to believe them, and the wish is the
father to the expectation. But there Is a
| very great difference between that which we
bel leve about ourselves and that which we be-
iieve about others. For instance you remem-
ber not great while ago there was a disaster
IN pennsylvania, amid the mines; there was
an explosion amid the damps, and many lives
were lost. In the morning you picked up
your newspaper and saw that there had been
great disaster in Pennsylvania. YOU said:
'"'Ah, what sad thing is this; how many
lives lostl 0, what sorrowm Then you read
little further on. There had been an almost
miraculous effort to get these men out, and
few been saved oh" you said. what
brave thing what grand thing that wasl
How well it was doner' Then you folded the
paper up and sat down to your morning re-
past. Your appetite had not been interfered
with, and during that day, perhaps, you
thought only two or three times OF the dis
| aster. But suppose you and had been in the
| mine, and the dying had been all around us,
| and we had heard the pickaxes just above us
as they were trying to work their way down,
| and after while we saw the light and then
| the life bucket let down through the shaft,
| and, sulfocated and half dead, we had Just
strengt enough to throw ourselves over into
1t. and had been hauled ont into the light
Then what an appreciation we would have
had of the agony and the darkness beneath,
aud the joy of deliverance That is the diff
ference between believing a thing about
others and believing it about ourselves.
We take up the Bible aud read that Christ
came to save the world "That was beauti-
ful," you say, "a fine specimen of self-denial.
That was very grand, indeed" But suppose
it is found that we ourselves were down in
the mine of sin and in the darkness and
Christ stretched down his arm of mercy
through the gloom and lifted us out of the
pit, and set our feet on the Rock of Ages
and put a new song into our mouth. %
then IL ia a matter Of ha :
matter of deep emotions. Which kind Of
faith have you, my brother!
1t is faith that makes a Christian, and it Is
the proportion of faith that makes the differ
ence between Christians What was it that
lifted Paul and Luther and Payson and
Doddridge above the ordinary level of Chris
tian character. 1t was the simplicity, the
brilliancy, the power and the splendor of
their faith. Oh, that we had more of it'll
God give us more faith to preach and more
faith to hear. Lord! we believe, help Thou
our unbelef"' "To you which believe He is
precious"
First remark Christ is precious to the
believer, as Saviour from sin. A man says:
ITO whom are you talking! am one of the
most respectable men in this neighborhood;
do you call me sinner" Yes! 1.-THE heart
is deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked" You say "How do you know any
thing about my heart" know that about
what God says is always right When a
man becomes Christian people say: "That
man sets himself above u.s." Oh, no! Instead
OF setting himself up he throws himself
down. He cries out: II was lost once, but
now am found. l was blind once but now
see. prostrate myself at the foot of the
cross OF the Saviour's mercy.n
What grand thing it is to feel that all
the bad words have ever uttered, and all
the bad deeds have ever DONE and all the
bad thoughts that have gone through my
mind, are as though they never had been, for
the sake of what Christ has done. You
know there is a difference IN stains. Some
can be washed out by water, but others re-
guire chemical preparation. The sin of the
heart is SO black and indelible a mark that
no human application can cleanse it, while
the blood of Jesus Christ can wash it out for
ever. 0, the infinite, the omnipotent chem.
istry Of the Gospel! Some man says: 81 be-
leve all that, telieve God has forgiven the
most of my sins, but there is one sin cannot
forget What isit! do not want to know
what it is, but l take the responsibility Of
saying that God will forgive it as willingly
as any other sin.
Der Sins like mountains for their size,
The seas of sovereign grace expand,
The seas OF sovereign grace arise.
There was very good man about seventy
1ve years of age, that once said: II believe
God mas forgiven me, but there was one sin
which l committed when ! was about twenty
years OF age that never forgave myself for,
and can't feel happy when think of it. u
he said that one sin sometimes come over his
heart, and blotted out all his hope of heaven.
Why, he lacked in faith. The grace that can
forgive small sin can forgive large sin.
Mighty to save. Mighty to save. Who is
the God like unto our God, that pardoneth
iniquityl o, what Jesus is to the soul that
believes in himl The soul looks up into
Christ's face and says: ITO what extent
wilt thou forgive mes" And Jesus looks back
into his face and says: ITO the uttermost." !"
The soul says: will it never be brought up
again| Newer" says Christ. won't it
De brought up again in the Judgment Dayp'
mo-" says Christ, never in the Judgment
Day." What bread is to the hungry, what
harbor is to be bestormed, what light is to
the blind, what liberty is to the captive,
that, and more than that, is Christ to the
man who trusts him.
Just try to get Christ away from that
Christian. Put OH that man the thumb
screw. Twist it until the bones rack. Put
that foot into the iron boot of persecution until
it is mashed to pulp. Stretch that man on
the rack of the Inquistion, and louder than
all the uproar of the prosecutors, you will
hear his voice like the voice of Alexander LIE
| Croix, above the cracking fagots as he cried
out: 20 Jesus! o, my blessed Jesus! O.,
divine Jesus! who would not die for thee?n
/ ABdlu. l TeIlttTk btlstb SIElSb IS precious 10
the believer, as friend. You have CONNER
cial friends and you have family friends. To
the commercial friend you go when you have
business troubles. You can look back to
some day-it may have been ten or twenty
years ago-when, if you had not had that
friend, you would have been entirely over
thrown in business. But want to tell you
this morning of Jesus, the best business
friend man ever had. He can pull you
out Of the worst perplexities. There are
people in this audience who have got in
the habit of putting down all their
worldly troubles at the feet of Jesus Why,
Christ meets the business man on the street
and says: 20, business man, l know all thy
troubles. Twill be with thee will see thee
through" Look out how you try to corner
or trample on man who is backed up by the
Lord God Almighty. Look out how you
trample on him. o, there is financier that
many Of our business men have not found
out. Christ owns all the boards of trade, all
the insurance companies and all the banking
houses. They say that the Vanderbilts own
the railroads. but Christ owns the Wander
bilts and the railroads, and all the plottings
of stock gamblers shall be put to confusion,
and God with His little finger shall wipe out
their infamous projects How oft n it has
been that we have seen men gather up riches
by fraud, in q pyramid Of strength and