The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1889-01-04
EFFICACY OF PRAYER.
Dr.. Talmage Talks for the Benefit
OF the Sick.
skepticism Roundly Rebuked-The Ration
alism OF To-Day-The Value of Prayer
in the Sick Room-The Lord
Ready to Help.

Talmage took as the SUBJECT OF MS sermon.
"A Bad Boil Cured" The text was: II
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."-2 Kings Xxx.
81. He said: Luxurious living is not
healthy. The second generation of kings
and queens and lords and princes is apt
to be brainless and invalid. The second crop
of grass is almost always short. Royal
blood is generally scrofulous. You will
not be surprised, then, that King Hezekiah
had disorders which broke out in car
buncle, 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 interrupted,
and cried to God for his life. God heard
the prayer and answered it, saying: "Be-
hold, l will heal thee" Bat there was hu-
man instrumentality to be employed.
This carbunc!e needed a "cataplaSm."
That is tough word we use to show how
much we know. If in the pulpit we al
ways used words the people understood
we never should have any reputation for
learning.
Well, this carbuncle needed a cataplasm,
which is a poultice. Your old mother,
who doctored her own children in the time
when physicians were not as plenty a
they are now, will tell you that the very
best poultce is a fig, aud that was what
was used upon the carbuncle of King
Hezekiah. The power of God, accompanied
by this human instrumentality, cured the
King.
In this age of discovery, when men
know so much it almost kills them, and
al nj
been found out that prayer to God is u
dead failure. All things are arranged ac-
cording to memorable Jaw. There Is no use
in praying to God for rain in time of
drought. The weather probabilities in the
morning papers will decide the question.
rain or no rain, and the whole nation in
| PRAYER before God would not bring down
a single drop. l am not now speaking of
an imaginary theory, but of that whic h is
believed by 10000 times 10000 men.
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 moi her mig hit
pray all night-t would not have any eff
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 ut the head of the
universe, holding in the cold grasp of His
metal fingers a 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 our
| schools, and universities, and magazines
and newspapers to scott at Bible truth and
caricature the old religion of Jesus. 1t
saws 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 farce; there is good
enough in us, and the only thing is to bring
it out. Development is the word-de-
| velorment. The Garden of Eden is fairy
| story, and no more 10 be believed than The
| "Arabian Nights, "or "Gulliver's Travels, !"
| or Robinson Crusoe." We all started as
balloons, and are blood relations to that
monkey squirming about on the top of
| that hand-organ. Lazarus was not dead
| when Christ pretended to raise him: he
| was only 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 up the def
| cheney. 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
Christian men dare not meet this ridicule.
There is not one Christian man in five that
| can, unblanched, stand in the presence of
all this raillery, saying: 81 believe in the
whole Bible, and in every single statement
that it makes" Christian men try to
soften the b bic down to suit the skeptics.
The skeptics sheer at the dividing of the
Red sea. and the Christian goes to ex-
planning that the wind blew a hurricane
from one direction a good while. until all
:he water piled up, and besides that it
was low water anyhow, and so the Israel
ties wen. through without any trouble.
Why not be frank and say: II 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 bill
lows on the left side and the abashed
water stood up hundreds of feet high,
while through their CLASSY wall the sea
monsters gazed with affrighted eyes on
the passing lsraelites." The nationalist
comes to ycu saying: How about Jonah
and the whale? Do you really believe that
fish story" There We're never so many
Nantucket fishermen after one whale as
there have been rationalists finging har-
poems at the Mediterranean sea monster.
and from that one whale they have got
enough oil to light 10000 souls to perdi-
ton. A skep,ic tells you that Jonah would
have been killed in the process Of swallow
ing and that he could not anyhow, have
lived three days IN such close quarters,
hut would have been smothered by the
poor ventilation. How the good Chris
tians Immediately go to work and try to
explain the whole thing by natural laws.
so as 10 please the rationalists, and say
that a whale is an air breathing fish; that
every little while it comes to the surface
and that the whale that swallowed Jonah
did the same thing and thus got supply
for itself and the prophet. Why not rather
say that God could do any thing, and He
could take Jonah through the whales
throat, although the throat would not
have been half large enough ordinarily to
let him pass and could have kept him alive
in the whale five years without any air il
He had chosen to: Who made the whale:
God. Who made Jonah: God. Then He
could do any thing He pleased with either
of them.
Inc HoineHJ you DeSln 10 eSplaln away
the miraculous and supernatural, you sur
render the Bible. Take the supernatural
out of the Bible and you make it a collect
ion of lies and humbugs, in preference to
which / choose "lEsop's Fables" They
are what they pretend to be-fables. But
if, after all, that the Bible declares, Jesus
is not God, and Lazarus was not raised
from the dead, and the water was not
changed into wine. and the Red Sea was
not divided, and in answer to prayer
Hezekiah's boil did not get well, then the
Bible is the worst fraud ever perpetrated
in Gods universe.
All my friends hava ,x-a bean mi ia an