Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1891-10-16

Anon the vast audiences which crowd
the Brooklyn Tabernacle a6 every
service are large numbers of young
men, many OF whom are theological
students DIR. Talmages sermon this
morning had special interest for
them. At this time when SO many are
giving up the Bible, or holding tho
truth less firmly than before, the
eloquent preacher pa himself on
recood so clearly and forcibly that no
one who heard him could have any
doubt as to his attitude. His text
was: III. Samuel 30; 10, "And his
hand clave unto the sword"
A great general of King David was
Eleazar, the hero of the text The
Philistines opened battle against him,
and his troops retreated. The co wards
ted. Eleazar and three of his com
rades went into the ba tie and swept
the field, for four men with God on
their side are stronger than a whole
battalion with God against them.
"Fall back" shouted the commander
of the Philistine army. The cry ran
along the host: "Fall back. "
Eleazar having swept the field
throws himself on the ground to
rest, but the muscles and sinews of his
hand had been SO long lent around the
hilt of the sword that the hilt was inn
bedded in the flesh, and the gold wire
of the hilt had broken through the
skin of the palm of the hand, and he
could not drop this sword which he
had so gallantly welded. "His hand
clave unto the sword" That is what
l cal magnificent fighting for the
Lord God of Israel. And we want
Of - 10 Ghnxu
you this morning how Eleazar took
hold of the sword and how the sword
took hold of Eleazar. / look at Flea
Ear hand, and | come to the conclu-
sion that he took the sword with very
tight grip. The towards who ted had
no trouble in dropping the r swords
AS they fly over the rocks l hear their
swords changing in every dire ton. 1t
is easy enough for them to drop their
swords. But EleaZar hand clave unto
the sword
o my friends, in this Christian con-
flict we want tighter grip of the Cos
pei weapons, a tighter grasp of the
two-edged sword of truth. 1t makes
me sad to see these Christian people
who hold only part of the truth, and
let the rest of the truth go, SO that the
Philistines, seeing the loosened grasp,
wrench the whole sword away from
them. The only safe thing for us
to co Is to put our thumo on the book
of Genesis and sweep our hand
around the book until the new Tesla.
ment comes into the palm, and keep on
swee. ing our hand around the book
until the tips OF the fingers clutch at
the words: 'In the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth. &"
i like an infidel great deal bet
ter than do one of these Mandy pamby
christians who hold a part of the truth
and let the rest 60. by miracle God
preserved this Bible just as it is
and it is Damascus blade. The
severest test to which a sword can be
put in a sword factory is to wind the
blade around a gun barrel like RIB
bon, and then when the sword is let
loose it flies back 10 its own shape.
So the sword of God truth has been
fully tested, and it is bent this
way and that way, but it
always comes back TO its own
shape. Think of it! A book
written eighteen centuries ago, and
some of it thousands of years ago. and
yet in our time the average sale of this
Book is more than twenty thousand
copies every week, and more than a
million copies year Lsay now that n
book which is divinely inspired and di-
vinely kept and divinely scattered is a
weapon worth holding tight grip
of. Bishop Colenso will come
along and try to wrench out
of your hand the FIVE books of Moses,
and Strauss will come along
and try to wrench out of your hand
the miracles, and Renan will come
along and try to wrench out of your
hand the entire life of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and your associates in the store
or the shop, or the factory, or the
banking-h will try to wrench out
of your land the entire bible; but in
the strength of the Lord God of Israel,
and with Eleazar's grip, hold on it.
You give up the bible, you give up any
part of it, and you give up pardon, and
pace, and life and heaven.
l see hundreds, perhaps thousands,
of young men IN this audience. DO not
he ashamed, young man, to have The
world know that you are friend of
the bible. This book Is the friend of
all that is good, and it is the sworn
enemy of all that is bad. An eloquent
writer recently gives an incident of
very bad man who stood in the cell of
a Western prison. This criminal had
gone through all styles of crime. and he
was there waiting for the galiows
The convict standing there at
the window Of the cell, this writer
says, "looked out and declared, Il am
an infidel' He said that to all the men
and women and children who hap
pened to be gathered there, 4 am an
intidel," and the eloquent writer says,
"every man and woman there believed
him" And the writer goes on to say,
"If he had stood there saying, Il am a
Christian every man and woman
would have said: He is liarp" TIL g
bible Is the sworn enemy of all this
wrong, and it Is the friend of all that
Is good. Oh, hold on it. Do not take
part of 1t and throw the rest away.
Hold on TO all of it. There are so many
people now who do not know. You ask
them II the soul Is immortal, and they
say, al guess IL Is, 1 don't know; per-
haps it Is, perhaps it isn't" Is the
Bible true? swell, perhaps IL is, aud
perhaps it isn't; perhaps it may be
fguratively, and perhaps it may be
partly, and perhaps 1t may not be at
all" They despise what they
call the Apostolic creed but Il
their own creed were written