The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1891-05-27
MENDING CHRISTIAN NETS.
a 1ALMAeE TABERNACLE SERMON.
Threads OF Patience and Christian Sympa-
tby-The Evils Of Theological Disputes-
You Cannot Fight and Fish at
the Same Time.

popularity had been needed, 1t would be
amply furnished by the promptitude with
which the people have availed themselves
of the increased accommodation afforded
by the new tabernacle. The vast edifce
is as densely crowded at every service as
the older and smaller tabernacle was.
DR.. Talmage Sunday morning paid his
attention to the theological disputes
which are agitating the churches, and as
usual gave sound practical advice to both
parties. His next text was Matthew iv,
81: james, the son of Zebedee. and
John, his brother, in ship with Zebedee,
their father, mending their nets"
az go a-fishing," cried Simon Peter 10
his comrades, and the most OF the apostles
had hands hard from fishing tackle The
fisheries of the world have always at
tracted attention. In the third century
the Queen of Egypt had for pin
money $4,000 received from the fisher
les of Lake Moeris. and if the time should
ever come when the immensely of the
worlds population could not be fed by
the vegetables and meats of the land, the
sea has an amount of animal life that
would feed all the population Of the earth
and fatten them with food that by its
phosphorus would make a generation
brainy and intellectual beyond anything
that the world has ever imagined. Ny
text takes us among the Gaiilean fisher
men. One day Walter Scott, while hunt
ing in an old drawer, found among some
old fishing tackle the manuscript of his
immortal book "Waverly," which ne had
put away there as no worth, and who
knows but that today we NAV find some
unknown wealth of thought while looking
at the fishing tackle in the text.
1t is not good day for fishing, and
three men are in the boat repairing the
broken fishing nets. II you are fishing
with q hook and line and the fish will not
bite, 1t IS a good time to put the anglers
apparatus into better condition. Perhaps
the last fish you hauled in was so large
that something snapped. Or il you were
fishing with a net, there was a mighty
flOundering OF the scales or an exposed
nail on the side of the boat which broke
some of the threads and let part or all of
the captives of the deep escape into their
natural element And hardly anything
Is more provoking than TO nearly land a
score or hundred trophies from the deep,
and when you are in the full glee OF haul
ing in the spotted treasures, through some
imperfection of the net they splash back
into the wave That is too much of a
trial of patience for fishermen TO endure
and many man ordinarily correct Of
speech in such circumstances comes
20 an intensity OF utterance
unjustifable. Therefore no good fisher
man considers the time wasted that is
spent in mending his net Now the bible
again and again represents Christian
workers as fishers Of men, and we are all
sweeping through the sea of humanity
some kind OF net. Indeed, there have
been enough nets out and enough fisher
men busy TO have landed the whole
human race in the kingdom of God long
before this. What is the matter? The
gospel is all right, and it has been good
time for catching souls for thousands Of
years. Why, then, the failures2 The
trouble is with the nets, and most of them
need to be mended. | propose TO show
you what Is the matter with most of the
nets, and how to mend them. In the text
old Zebedee and his two boys, James and
John, were doing a good thing when they
sat in the boat mending their nets.
The trouble with many Of our nets is
that the meshes are too large. II a fish
can get his gills and half his body through
works his way out and leaves the place
through which he squirmed a tangle Of
broken threads. The bible weaves faith
and works tight together the law and the
gospel, righteousness and forgiveness.
Some of our nets have meshes so wide
that the sinner floats in and out and is not
at any moment caught for the heavenly
landing. In our desire to make Every
thing so easy we relax, we widen. We let
men after they are once in the gospel net
escape into the world and 90 into indul-
gences and swim all around Galiee from
north side 10 south side and from east
side to west side, expecting that they will
come back again. We ought 10 make
il easy for them to get into the kingdom
of God and, as far as we can, make it
impossible for them to get out
The poor advice nowadays to many
is: go and do just as you did before
you were captured for God and heaven.
The net was not intended to be- any re-
straint or any hinderance. What you did
before you were a Christian, do now. Go
TO all styles of amusement, read all the
styles of books, engage in all the styles of
behavior as you did before you We're con-
veTted." And so through these meshes of
permission and luxury they wriggle out,
through this opening and that opening,
tearing the net as they go and soon all the
souls that we expected to land in heaven,
before we know it are back in the deep
sea of the world. Oh, when we 90 a gospel
fishing let US make it as easy as possible
for souls to get in and as hard as possible
to get out.
Is the bible language an unmeaningver-
biage when IL talks about self-denial and
keeping the body under and about walk
ing the narrow way and entering the
straight gate and about carrying the cross?
Is there to be no way of telling whether a
man is a Christian except by taking the
communion chalice on sacramental day?
May a man be as reckless about his
thoughts, about his words, about his
amusements, about his dealings after
conversion as before his conversion2 One
half the gospel nets with which we have
been scooping the sea have such wide
meshes that they have been torn to pieces
BY the rushing out into the world of those
whom q tighter net would have kept in.
The only use of nets is to keep the fish
from going back to where they were be-
fore, and taking them to where they could
not have been taken by any other means
Alas, that the words of Christ are so little
needed when he said: "WhOsoeYer doth
not bear bis cross and come after me can
not be my disciple" The church is fast
becoming as bad as the world, and when
IL gets az bad as the world IL will be worse