The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1889-08-29
A MIGHTY WEAPON.
There is None Like the Gospel
When Properly Welded.
Sermon by Rev. +. Dewitt Talmage-A
Demonstration of How All the
Powers Of Earth are Weap-
Ons of the Gospel

The following sermon was delivered by
by Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage in the Brook
lyn Tabernacle, the subject being: ''The
Mightiest Weapon Is the Gospel" The
text WASH
There is none like that; give it mel Samuel,
xxi. Q.
David fed from his pursuers. The world
runs very fast when it is chasing good
man. The country is trying to catch Da-
vid. and to slay him. David goes into the
house of a priest, and asks him for a
sword or spear with which to defend
himself. The priest, not being accus-
toned to use deadly weapons, tells David
that he can not supply him; but suddenly
the priest thinks of an old sword that had
been carefully wrapped up and laid away
the very sword that Goliath formerly
used-and he takes down that sword, and
while he is nnwrapping the sharp, gilt
tering, memorable blade, it flashes upon
David's mind that this was the very sword
that was used against himself when he
was in the fight with Goliath, and David
can hardly keep his hand off it until the
priest has unwound it. David stretched
out his hand toward that old sword, and
says:
There is none like that; give it me.
In other words: 81 want in my own
hand the sword that has been used
against me, and against the cause of
God" So it was given him. Well, my
friends, that is not the first or the last
sword once used by giant and Philistine
iniquity which is to come into the pos
session of Jesus Christ, and of His
glorious church I want, as well as God
may help me, TO show you that many a
weapon which has been used against the
armies of God is yet to be captured and
used on our side; and l only initiate
David when / stretch out my hand toward
the blade of the Philistine and cry:
There is none like that; give it mel
Iremark, FIRST that this is true in re-
gard to all scientific exploration. You
know that the first discoveries in astron-
omy and geology and chronology were
used to battle Christianity. Worldly
philosophy came out of its laboratory
and out of its observatory, and said:
snow, we will prove, by the very struct-
ure OF the earth, and by the movement
of the heavenly bodies, that the Bible is
a lie, and that Christianity, as we have it
among men, is positive imposition"
Good men trembled. The telescope,
Leyden jars, the electric batteries, all in
the hands of the Philistines. But one
day, Christianity, looking about for some
weapon with which to defend itself, hap
pened to see the very old sword that
these atheistic Philistines had been using
against the truth and cried out:
There is none like that; give it mel
And Copernicus, and Calico, and KEEP
Ter, and Isaac Newton came forth and
told the world that, in their ransacking of
the earth and heaven, they had found
overwhelming presence of the God whom
we worship; and this old Bible began to
shake itself from the Koran, and Shaster,
and zendavesta, with which it had been
covered up. snd lay on the desk of
the scholar, md in the laboratory of the
chemist and in the lap of the Christian,
unframed and unanswered, while the
towers of the midnight heavens struck
silvery chime in its praise.
Worldly philosophy said:
Matter is eternal. The world always
was. God did not make it."
Christian philosophy plunges its crow
bar into rocks and finds that the world
was gradually made, and If gradually
made, there must have been some point
at which the process started; then, who
started it? and so that objection was
overcome, and in the first three words of
the Bible we find that Moses stated
magnificent truth when he said:
In the beginning.
Worldly philosophy said:
Your Bible is most inaccurate book:
all that story in the Old Testament
again and again told, about the army of
the locusts-it is preposterous. There is
nothing in the coming of the locusts like
an army. An army walks, loeusts fy,
An army goes in order and procession,
locusts without order"
'sWaitw said Christian philosophy: and
In 1868, in the southwestern part of this
country, Christian men went out to ex-
anime the march of the locust. There
are men right before me who must have
noticed In that very part of the country
the coming up of the locust like an army:
and twas found that all the newspapers
unwittingly spoke of them as an army.
why! They seem to have a commander,
Ihey march like host. They halt like q
most. NO arrow ever went with straight
er Hight than the locust come-not even
turning aside for the wind. If the wind
rises, the loeusts drop and then rise again
AFTER 1t has gone down, taking the same
line Of march, not varying foot. The
old Bible right every time when it speaks
OF locusts coming like an army; worldly
philosophy wrong.
Worldly philosophy said:
"All that story about the light turned
as clay to the seap is simply an absurdi- !
ty." Old-time worldly philos ophy said: |
''The light comes straight"
Christian philosophy said: "Wait a |
little WHILE" and it goes on and makes
discoveries, and finds that the atmos-
phere curves and bends the rays of light
around the earth literally s'as the clay to |
The seal" The Bible right again; world
" philosophy wrong again.
"Ahp' says worldly philosophy, "all /
mat Illusion in Job about the foundations I
of the earth is simply an absurdity. t
w here vast thou, says God, when I set
The foundations of the earth?, The earth
has no foundations
Christian philosophy comes and finds
hat the word as translated ''foundationD
may be better translated sockets So
low see how it will read if it is translated
light: Where vast thou when I set fine
sockets Of the earth?" Where is the
Iocket? 1t is the hollow of Gods hand
socket large enough for any world to
urn in.
WorldIv ,ohifosa,,bv sa;a