The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-04-24

Malachi, nor jeremiah, nor any of the
major or minor prophets will hinder us a
second. Suppose the bible had announced
the millennium to begin the year 1889,
that would be no hindrance. In one
sense God never changes His mind, being
the same yesterday, to-day and forever.
But in another sense he does change His
mind and times without number every
day, and that Is when his people pray.
Didn't he change his mind about Nineveh?
BY Gods command Jonah, at the top of
voice, while standing on the steps OF the
merchants exchange and the palatial res
licences of that city, cried out: "Yet forty
days and Nineveh shall be overthrownW
Was it overthrown in forty days?
No. The people gave up their sins
and cried for mercy, and though
Jonah got mad because his
whole course of sermons had been spoiled
and went into disgraceful poUting, we
have the record so sublime ] cannot read
it without feeling nervous chill running
through me. "GOd saw their works that
they turned from their evil way, and God
repented OF the evil that He had said He
would do unto them, and He did it not"
God is father, and some of US know what
that means, and some time when we have
promised chastisement and the child de-
served il, the little darling has put her
arms around our neck and expresses such
sorrow and such promises of doing better
that her tears landed on the lips of our
kiss, and we held her half-hour after on
our knee, and would as soon think of
slapping an angel in the face as of even
striking her with the weight OF our little
finger. God is a father, and. while He has
promised this world scourgings, though
they were TO be for a thousand
10
would, If the world repented, substitute
benediction and divine caress. God
changed His mind about Sodom six times.
He had determined on it's destruction.
Abraham asked Him if He would not
spare it if fifty righteous people were found
there; and. narrowing down the number,
il forty-five people were found there; if
forty people; il thirty people; if twenty
people; il ten people were found there.
And each OF the six times the Lord
answered yes. Oh why didn't Abraham
go on just two steps further and say if
five be found there and if one be found
there, for then Tor the sake of Lot, its one
good citizen, 1 think Sodom would have
been spared. Eight times does the bible
say that God repented when he had prom
ised punshments and withheld the stroke
Was it a slip of PauPs pen when he spoke
eousness? No, Paul's pen never slipped
There is nothing in the way OF prophecy
TO hinder the crusade / have proposed for
the last decade of the nineteenth century.
The whole trouble is that we put off the
completion of the worlds redemption to
such long and indefinite distances The
old proverb that "what is everybody's
business is nobodys business might be
changed little and made truthfully 10 say
what is the gospel business of all the ages
is the gospel business of no age. We are
so constituted we cannot get up much en-
thusiasm about something 500 years from
now or 1000 years from now. We are
fighting at too long a range. That gun
called the swamp angel" was nuisance.
1t shot six miles, but it hardly ever hit
anything. 1t did its chief destructive
work when it burst and killed those who
were setting it off. Short range is the eff
fective kind of work, whether it be for
worldly or religious purpose. Some man,
with his eyes half shut, drones out to me
the bible quotation, "a thousand years
are as one day." that is, ten centuries are
not long for the Lord. But why do you
not quote the previous sentence, which
says that one day is with the Lord as a
thousand years? That Is, he could do the
work often centuries in swenty-four hours.
The mightiest obstacle to Christian work
Is the impression that the worlds evan
geizatiOn is away of. And we take the
telescope and look on and on through
centuries until we see two objects near
each other, and we strain our vision and
guess what they are, and we call
great conventions 10 see what they
are, and we get down our heavi-
est theological works and balance
our telescope on the lid and look and
look, and finally conclude that they are
two beasts that we see, and the one has
hair and the other has wool, and we guess
it must be the lion and the lamb lying
down together. In that great cradle of
postponement and sOmnOlence we rock
the church as though it were an impatient
child, and say: "Hush, my dear; don't
be impatient! Don't get excited by re-
vivalsl Don't cry! Your fathers COM
ing! Don't get uneasy He will be here
IN two or three or ten Or twenty thousand
years" And we act as though we
thought when Macaulay's famous New
Zealander in the far distance is seated on
a broken arch of London bridge sketching
the ruins of st. PauTs, his grandchild
might break in and jolt his pencil by ask
ing him If he thought the millennium
ever would appear. Men and women of
the eternal God! Sons and daughters of
the Lord Almighty. We may have it start
in the decade that is soon to commence
and it will be done if we can persuade the
people between now and then to get ready
for the work.
What makes me think it can be done?
First, because God is ready. He needs
no long persuasion TO DO His work, for. if
He is not willing that any should perish,
He is not willing that any of the people of
the next decade shall persih; and the
whole bible is a chime of bells ringing out
Come, come, come" and you need not
go round the earth TO find out how much
He wants the world to come, but Just to
walk around one stripped and bare and
leahess tree with two branches, not
arched, but horizontal But He is wait
ing. as He said He would. for the CO.
operation OF the church. When we are
ready God is ready. And He certainly
has all the weaponry ready to capture this
world for the truth, all the weapons of
kindness or devastation. On the one
hand the gospel and sunshine and power
to Orchardize and gardenize the earth, and
| fountains swinging in rainbow and Chat
sworthian verdure and arenas poured
out of the walls OF heaven, while on the
other hand He has the weaponry OF de-
vastation, thunderbolt and conhagration,
and forces planetary, solar, lunar, stellar
or meteoric, that with loose rein thrown
on the neck Tor a second would leave con-
etc ]