The San Saba news. [volume] (San Saba, Tex.) 1873-1966, 1889-03-08
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIvINEs SUN
DAY SERMON.
Subject. "a Bad Boil Cured

1
on the boil and he recoursd. I'll Kings
xT.
Luxurious living IS not healthy. The sec
ond generation Of Kings, and Queens, anC
| Lords, and Princes is apt to be brainless ant
Invalid. The second crop Of grass is Amos
always short. Royal blood is generally
scrofulous. You will not be surprised, then
to hear that King Hezekiah had disorders
| which broke out in a carbuncle, virulent anC
beautiful. The Lord told him he must die
be did not want TO die He turned his fac
to the wall, so that his prayer would no
| be interrupted, and cried to God for his life
| God heard the prayer and answered it, say
ing: Behold, will heal thea But there
was human instrumentality to be EN-
| ployed This carbuncle needed "cata-
| plasm.n That is a tough word we use &c
show how much we know. II in the pull
| pit We always used words the people under
J stood, we never should have any reputation
| for learning. Well this carbuncle needed q
''cataplasm,n which is a poultice. Your old
mother, who doctored her own children in
the time when physicians were not so plenty
cs they are now, will tell you that the very
best poultice is a fig, and that was what she
used upon the carbuncle of King Hezekiah-
The power of God, accompanied by thi;
human instrumentality, cured the King.
II sickness comes to your household, it viii
| depend entirely upon ventilation, good diet,
and the skill Of the doctors as to whether
your child gets we'll The father might pray
all day, and the mother might pray all night
it would not have any effect p2on the case
II squills, belladonna, paregoric and Cruel do
the work, your child will get well; If not,
not There is a cast iron God seated at the
head of the universe, holding in the cold
grasp of his metal fingers band Of law from
which nothing can break away.
Men and women Of God, at this point the
great battle of Christianity is to be fought
The great foe of Christianity to-day is ration
alism. that comes out from our schools, and
universities, and magazines and newspapers,
to scott at Bible truth and caricature the old
religion OF Jesus 1t says Jesus is not God,
for it is impossible to explain how He can be
divine and human at the same time. The
Bible is not inspired, for there are things in
it that they don't like. Regeneration is a
farce; there is good enough in US, and the only
thing is to bring it out DEVELOPMENT is the
fairy story and no more TO be believed than
the Arabian Nights, or 'Gulliver's Trav-
els or "Robinson Crusoe.n We all started
as baboons, and are blood relations to that
monkey squirming about on the top Of that
hand organ. azarus was not dead when
Christ pretended to raise him; be was only
playing dead. The water vas not changed
into wine at the wedding, but Christ brought
in some wine that He had found elsewhere to
make up the deficiency. Christ did not walk
on the sea, but on the shore, so near that it
seemed as if He really were on the water.
What is still more alarming is, that Chris
tian men dare not meet this ridicule. There
is not one Christian man ia five that can, I'M
blanched, stand in the presence Of all this rail-
lery, saying: Il believe in the whole Bible,
and in every single statement that it makes. "
Christian men try to soften the Bible down
to suit the skepticS. The skeptics sheer at the
dividing OF the Red Sea; and the Christian
goes to explaining that the wind blew hur-
ricane from one direction a good while,
until all the water piled up; and besides, that
it was low water anyhow, and so the Israel
ties went through without any trouble.
Why not be frank and say: 81 believe the
Lord God Almighty came to the brink of the
Red Sea, and with His right arm swung back
the pillows on the right side, and with His
left arm swung back the pillows on the
left side. and the abashed water stood
up hundreds of feet high, while
through their gassy wall the sea
monsters gazed with affrighted eyes on the
passing Israelites.n The nationalist comes
to you saying: "How about Jonah and the
whalei Do you really believe that fish
story!n There never were so many Nan
tucket fisherman after one whale as there
have been rationalists flinging harpoons at
the Mediterranean sea monster, and from
that one whale they have got oil enough to
light ten thousand souls to perdition. A
skeptic tells you that Jonah would have been
killed in the process of swallowing, and that
he could not, anyhow, have lived three days
in such close quarters, but would have been
snothered by the poor ventilation. How
the good Christians Immediately 20 TO work.
and try 70 explain the whole thing by natural
laws, so as to please the rationssiistz- c-.d
say that a whale is an air breath
comes to the surface, and that the whale
that swallowed Jonah did the same
thing, and thus got supply for itself and
for the prophet Why not rather say that
God can do anything; and He could take
Jonah through the whales throat, although
the throat would not have Teen half large
enough ordinarily TO let him pass, and could
have kept him alive in the whale five years
without any air, if He had chosen tor Who
made the whalei God Who made Jonahl
God. Then He could do anything He pleased
with either of them.
The moment you begin to explain away
the miraculous and supernatural you surren-
der the Bible. Take the supernatural out Of
the Bible, and you rake il a collection of
lies and humbugs, in preference to which
choose "1Esop's Fables" They are what they
pretend to ba-fables. But II, after all that
the Bible declares, Jesus is not God, and
Lazarus was not raised from the dead. and
the water was not turned into wine, and tho
Red Sea was not divided, and in answer 10
prayer Hezekiah's boil did not get well, then
the Bible is the worst fraud ever perpetrated
in Gods universe.
All my friends, have we been mistakeni
Does God hear and answer prayer or does
He notl Hezekiah was sick unto death; he
prayed for his life; God heard him, and
aided fifteen years to that lifetime. The
prayer saved him-the lump of figs applied
being merely the God-appointed human in
strumentality.
''But," says some one, az don't believe the
3ible.p All then we viii have 20 part COM
my for four or five minutes, for it is useless
o try 10 argue with any man with whom
TOu cannot stand upon common ground In
my argument, if you would be successful,
here must be some common data 10 start
rom. 1t is foolish to try to prove to a man
hat twice three are six, provided he does
lot admit the multiplication tables, or that
wo and two are four, if he does not admit
he addition table.
Ny first address, therefore, is to those who
10 believe in the Bible. l want to tell you
hat prayer is the mightiest OF all remedies,
nd that the allopathic and homeopathic
nd the electric schools will yet acknowledge
/ Here are two cases of sickness precisely
like; the same kind Of medicine is given to
9th of them. and in the same quantities.
he one patient RECEIVERS, and the other does
ct Whyl Sod blesses the one remedy,
nd does not bless the other. Prayer has
elped many laundering doctor through
nth n case that would have otherwise become
ompetely unmanageable. There is such a
hing as Gospel hygiene. as Christian phar-
lacy, as divine materia medica That
foolish man who, in case Of sick
ess, goes only to human resources, when
re have these Instances of the Lords |
eip IN the sick room. Before you call
lie doctor while he is there and after he
pes away look up TO Him who cured Heze-
Inh. Let the apothecary send the poultice,
ut God makes it draw OH am glad to
ave doctor who knows how TO pray. God
nd salvation to all the doctorsl Sickness
ould be oftener baked, death would be
tener hurled back from the door sill If med
al men came into the sick room like Isaiah
the text, with prescription in their hands
u the word Of the Lord in their mouths
John Abercrombie. the most celebrated
lysician OF Scotland. PRAYED when he went
to the sick room. and he wrote no more
,ly about diseases OF the BRAIN than about
the philosophy OF the moral feeIings.p I
ont know how much of the medical success
SYdenham and Cooper. and Harvey, and
.ush depended upon The fact that they knew
ow to pray aG well as 10 prescribe. 1 don't
ant physician who sees no God in human
natomy to doctor my broken bones. II God
ale us and l think He did, and IL tho
ibe is true and | am rather disposed to
rink it Isl. then it is not strange that PRAYER
oes traverse natural cause; az, that IL in
'oduces new cause. When God made the
w, He did not make il so strong He corId