The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1889-02-14
TALMAGE's SERMON.
Prayer as an Effcacious Remedy
for Human Ills.
God VIII Hear and Answer Prayer When
the Supplicant is Backed Up by
Unlilnching Belief and
Faith in Him.

Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage delivered the
following sermon recently in the Brooklyn
Tabernacle. His subject was the Efficacy
of Prayer; or, A Bad Boil Cured" His
text was:
I have heard thy prayer; behold, will heal
thee. And Isaiah said: Take lump Of figs.
And they took and laid it on the boil, and he
recovered,-u Kings, Xxx, 5, z.
Luxurious living is not healthy. The
second generation Of kings and queens
and lords and princes is apt to be brain
less and invalid. The second crop of
grass is almost 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 and beautiful.
The Lord told him he must die; he did not
want to die. He turned his face to the
wall, so that his prayer would not be in
terrupted, and cried to God for his life.
God heard the prayer and answered it,
saying: "Behold, / will heal thee" But
there was human instrumentality to be
employed. The carbuncle needed s'cat-
aplasm." That is tough word we use to
show how much we know. If in the pull
pit we always used words the people
understood, we never should have
any reputation for learning. Well,
this carbuncle needed a cataplasm,
which is poultice. Your old
mother who doctored her own children in
the time when physicians were not as
plenty as they are now, will tell you that
the very best poultice is fig, and that
was what was used upon the carbuncle Of
King Hezekiah. The power of God ac-
companied by this human instrumental
ity, cured the King.
If sickness comes to your household, it
will depend entirely upon ventilation,
good diet and the skill of the doctors as to
whether your child gets well. The father
might pray all day, and the mother might
pray all night-it would not have any ef-
feet upon the case. If 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 rationalism, that comes out from
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 impossi-
bic 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 farce;
there is good enough in us, and the only
thing is to bring it out. Development is
the neutrality-suspicious.. The Garden of
Eden is fairy story, and no more to be
ho1Souod thar, fbe 10 lliar1 NfrhfS nv CN11I
Ever's Travels, or Robinson Crusoe. We
all started as balloons, and are blood re-
lations to that monkey squirming about
on the top of that hand-organ. Lazarus
was not dead when Christ pretended to
raise him; he was onlying playing dead.
The water was not changed into wine at
the wedding, but Christ brought in some
wine that He had found elsewhere to make
the deficiency. Christ did not walk on the
sea, but on the shore, so near that il
seemed as if He really were on the water.
What is still more alarming is that
Christian men dare not meet this ridicule
There is not one Christian man in FIVE thai
can, unblanched, stand in the presence OF
oil this raillery, saying: 81 believe in the
whole Bible, and in every single state
m ent that it makes" Christian men trJ
to soften the Bible down to suit the
skeptics. The skeptics sneer at the diYid
ing of the Red Sea, and the Christian goes
to explaining that the wind blew hur.
ricane from one direction good while
until all the water piled up, and besides
that it was low water, anyhow, and so the
Israeiites went through without any
trouble. Why not be frank and say: 81
believe the Lord God Almighty came tC
the brink of the Red Sea, and with Hi.
right arm swung back the pillows on the
right side, and with His left arm swuns
back the pillows on the left side, and tn.
abashed water stood up hundreds of fee
high, while through their CLASSY wall ths
sea monsters gazed with affrighted ewes
on the passing Israelites?" The rational
list comes to you, saying: Chow abou
Jonah and the whale? Do YOU really
believe that fish story?' There were
never so many Nantucket fishermen
after one whale as there hav,
been rationalists finging harpoons a
the Mediterranean sea monster and from
that one whale they have got enough OF
to light ten thousand souls to perdition
A skeptic tells you that Jonah would
have been killed in the process of swaI
lowing, and that he could not, anyhow
have lived three days in such close quar-
ters, Dut Woult have been smothered by
the poor ventilation. How the goo,
Christians Immediately go to work an,
try to explain the whole thing by natura
laws, so as to please the rationalists, an,
say that whale is an air breathing fish
that every little while it comes to the sur
face, and that the whale that swal
lowed Jonah did the same thing. am
thus got supply for itself and for tn
prophet. Why not rather say that Go
can dc any thing, and He could take iona
through the whales throat, although tn
throat would not have been half larg
enough ordinarily to let him pass, an
could have kept him alive in the whal
i've years without any air, if He ha
chosen tog Who made the whale? Goo
Whomade JONAH God. Then He coul
do any thing He pleased with either G
them.
The moment you begin to explain ava
the miraculous and supernatural, you sur
render the Bible. Take the supernaturs
out Of the Bible, and you make it a collec
ton of lies and humbugs, in preference t
which / choose Esop's Fables. They an
what they pretended to be-fables. BIT
If, after all that, the Bible declares Jesu
is not God, and Lazarus was not raise
from the dead, and the water was nc