Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-03-03
y A BRAND NEW CREED
Rev. DR.. Talmage Says is One of the
Needs of the Modern Church.
FREEDOM, NOT BONDAGE, WANTED
Some of the Perils That Surround Us in
This Life Pointed Out.
A LESSON FROM LAZARUS LIBERATION
ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE DIspArcH.l


Tabernacle would be dedicated in Septem.
of building the church by subscription tc
The Christian Herald, of which he has be.
come editor, all the subscriptions up tc
$780, 900 to be paid to Mr.. John Wood
Treasurer of the Tabernacle, Fulton street,
near Concord, Brooklyn, n. Y. The sub.
ject of his discourse was Revision oi
Creeds," and he took for his text John xi,
A: Loose him, and let him CO." DR..
Talmage said:
Ny Bible is, at the place of this text,
written all over with lead pencil marks
made last December at Bethany on the ruins
of the house OF Mary and Martha and Laz-
arus. We dismounted from our horses on
the way up from Jordan to the Dead Sea-
Bethany was the summer evening retreat of
Jesus. After spending the day in the hot
city of Jerusalem he would come out there
almost every evening to the house of his
three friends. think the occupants of that
house were orphans for the father and
mother are not mentioned. But the son and
two daughters must have inherited prop
ertv, for it must have been, judging from
what / saw OF the foundations and the size
of the rooms, an opulent home.
Lazarus, the brother, was now the head of
the household, and his sisters depended on
him and were proud OF him, for he was very
popular and everybody liked him, and these
girls were splendid girls. Martha a first
rate housekeeper, and Mary a spirituelle,
somewhat dreamy, but affectionate, and as
good girl as could be found in all Pales-
tine. But one dav Lazarus got sick. The
sisters were in CONSERVATION, Father gone
and mother gone, they feel very nervous lest
trey lose their brother also. Disease did its
quick work. How the girls hung over his
pillow! Not much sleep about that house,
no sleep at all.
THE SORROWS OF THE MASTER.
From the characteristics otherwhere de-
veioped, Judge that Martha prepared the
medicines and made tempting dishes of food
for the poor appetite of the sufferer, but
Mary prayed and sobbed. Worse and worse
gets Lazarus, until the doctor announces
that he can do no more. The shrek that
went mp from that household when the last
breath had been drawn and the two sisters
were being led by sympaJhiZers into the ad-
Joining room, all those of us can imagine
who have had our own hearts broken. But
why was not Jesus there, as He so often had
been? Far away in the country districts
preaching, healing other sick. how unfortu-
nate that this omnipotent Doctor had not
been at that domestic crisis in Bethany.
When at last Jesus arrived in Bethany
Lazarus had been buried four days and dis
solution had taken place. In that climate
the breathless body disintegrates more
rapidly than in ours. If Immediately after
decease that body had been awakened into
life, unbellevers might have said that he
was only in a comatose state, or in a sort of
trance, and by some vigorous manipulation
or powerful stImulant vitality had been re-
newed. No! Four days dead. At the door
of the sepulchre is a crowd of people, but
the three most memorable are Jesus, who
was the family friend, and the two bereft
sisters. We went into the traditional tomb
in December, and it is deep down and dark,
and with torches we explored il. We ound
it all quiet that afternoon of our visit, but
the day spoken of in the Bible there was
present an excited multitude. 1 wonder
what Jesds will do. He orders the door of
the grave removed, and then he begins to
descend the steps, Mary and Martha close
after him, and the crowd alter them. Deeper
down into the shadows and deeperI The hot
tears of Jesus roll over His cheeks and
plasn upon the back of his hands Were
ever so many sorrows compressed into SO
small space as in that group pressing on
down after Christ, all the time bemoaniug
that He had not come before? Now all the
whispering and all the crying and all the
sounds of shuffling feet are stopped. 1t is
the silence Of expectancy. Death had con-
quered, but now the vanquisher OF death
confronted the scene.
LIBERATION OF LAZARUS.
Amid the awful hush of the tomb the
familiar name which Christ had often had
upon His lips in the hospitalities of the viii
lage home came back to His tongue, and
with pathos and an almightiness of which
the resurrection of the last day shall be only
an echo, he cries: Lazarus! come forthl"
The eyes of the slumberer open and he rises
and comes to the loot of the steps and with
great difficulty begins to ascend, for the
cerements of the tomb are yet on him and
his feet are fast and his hands are fast and
the impediments to all his movements are so
great that Jesus commands: Take off these
cerements; remove these hindrances; un-
fasten these grave clothes; loose him and let
him go!" Oh, am so glad that after the
Lord raised Lazarus He went on and COM
manded the loosening of the cords that
bound his ieet so that he could walk, and
tine breaking off of the cerement that bound
his hands so that he could stretch out his
arms in salutation, and the tearing off of
he could speak. What would resurrected
life have been to Lazarus if he had not been
freed from all those cripplemeuts of his
body? l am glad that Christ commanded
his complete emancipation, saying: Loose
him, and let him 60"
The unfortunate thing now is that so
many Christians are only half liberated.
They have been raised from the death and
burial of sin into spiritual life, but they yet
have the grave clothes on them. They are
like Lazarus, hobbling up the stairs of the
tomb, bound hand and foot, and the object
of this sermon is to hel p free their body and
free their SOUL and shall try to obey the
Masters command that comes to me and
comes to every minister of religion, Loose
him, and let CO." First, many are bound
hand and foot by religious creeds. Let no
man misinterpret me as antagonizing creeds
/ have eight or ten of them; a creed about
religion, a creed about art, a creed about So
cial life, creed about government, and so
on. A creed is something that a man be-
lieves, whether it be written or unwritten.
The Presbyterian Church is now agitated
about its creed. Some good men in it are
for keeping 1t because it was framed from
the belief of John Calvin. Other good men
in it want revision. 1 am with neither
partv. Instead of revision / want substitu-
tion. was sorry to have the question dis
turbed at all.
TIME FOR A NEW CREED.
The creed did not hinder us from Offering
the pardon and the comfort OF tine Gospel to
all men, and the Westminster Confession
has not lnteriered with me one minute. But
now that the electric lights have been turned
on the imperfections of that creed-and
everything that man fashions is imperfect
let us put the old creed respectfully aside
and get brand new one. 1t is impossible
that people who lived hundreds of years ago
should fashion an appropriate creed for our
times. .Inhn Calvin WAS q great and rnnd |