Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1891-01-16
10 YOU ATTEND CHURCH ?
If NOT, DIR. TALMAGE breaches
THIS SERMON FOR YOU.

Why Some People Reject Christian
ity.-GospeI-Hardened Sinners the
Most Difficult to Convert.-The
Heavenly Shepherd and His Sheep
BROOKLYN, N. ", Jan. 1.-The follow
ing powerful sermon TO non-church goers
was delivered by DIR. Talmage this morning
in the Academy of Music in this city, and
again in the evening in tho New York
Academy of Music. At tho latter service
the new choir OF two hundred voices most
effectively led tho musical exercises DIR.
Talmage's text was John 10. l6: "Other
sheep have which are not of this fold"
There is no monopoly in religion. Tho
grace OF God is not nice little property
fenced off all for ourselves 1t is not
kings park, at which we look through a
barred gateway, wishing we might go in
and pluck the flowers and look at the deer
and the statury. 1t is fathers orchard,
and there are bars to let down, and gates
to swing open.
In my boyhood days, next to the country
school-house where l went, there was an
apple orchard of great luxuriance. owned
| by very lame man who did not gather the
apples, and they went to waste by scores
of bushels. Sometimes the lads of the
school, in the sinfulness of natu inher-
| tied from our first parents who fell through
! the same temptation, would climb over the
| fence and take some of these apples, and
Notwithstanding the fact that there was a
surplus, and all going TO waste, the owner
OF that orchard, reckless of making his
lameness worse, would take after these
lads and shout, boys, drop those apples
or I'll set the dog on your Now there
are Christians who keep severe guard over
| the Church of God. They have a rough
and unsympathetic way of treating outsid-
ers. 1t is great orchard into which God
would like to have all the people come and
take the richest and the ripest fruit, and
the more they take the better he likes it.
| But there are those who stand with hard
and severe nature guarding the Church of
God, and all the time afraid that some will
get these apples when they really ought not
| to have them.
Have you any idea that, because you
were baptized at eight months Of age, and
because you have all your life been sur
rounded by hallowed influences, you have a
right 10 one wi ole side OF the Lords table.
spreading yourself out so nobody else can
| SaJ NutISE Il Ou Will udNC W maui III OOuL
elbows, for there will come a great multi
tude 10 sit at the table, and on both sides
of you. You are not going TO have this
monopoly of religion. ''Other sheep have
/ which are not Of this fold"
Christ, in my text, talks of the CONVEX
sion Of the Gentiles as confidently as
though they had already been converted.
He sets forth the idea that his people W i'll
! from oil NJ Of thu anrth from oil
ages, from all circumstances, from all con-
ditions. 'Other sheep have which are
not of this fold"
In the first place, remark, the
Heavenly Shepherd will find many of his
| sheep among those who are at present
non-church- goers. There are different
! kinds of churches. Sometimes you will
find church made up only Of Christians.
Everything seems finished. The church
reminds you of those skeleton plants from
which, by chemical preparation, all the
| greennoss and the verdure have been
taken, and they are cold, and white, and
delicate, and beautiful. and finished. All
that is wanted is a glass case put over
them. The minister on the Sabbath has
| only to take an ostrich feather and brush
| off the dust that has accumulated in the
| last six days OF business, and then they
are as cold and beautiful and delicate as
before. Everything is finished; finished
sermons, finish I'd music, finished archi-
lecture finished everything.
| There are those here, perhaps, who say,
at is now ten, fifteen years since / was in
| the habit, the regular habit, of church
| going" / know all about your case. am
| going 10 tell you something that will BIO
startling at the first, and that is, that you
arc going TO become the Lords sheep.
"Oh," you say, THAT is impossible; you
don't know my case; you don't know how
far am from anything of that kind"
know all about your case. i have been up
and down the world. i know why some
Of you do not attend upon Christian SER
vices.
60 further, and mako another
announcement in regard TO you, and that
| is, you are not only TO become the Lords
sheep, but you are going to become the
| Lord sheep this hour. God is going 70
call you graciously by his Spirit; you are
! going to come into the fold of Christ. This
sermon shall not be so much for those who
are Christians. have preached to them
| hundreds and thousands of times. The
sermon that preach now Is going to be
| chiefly for those who consider themselves
outsiders, but who may happen to be in the
house, and the chief employment Of the
Christian people here today will be to pray
| for those who are not accustomed to attend
upon Christian sanctuaries.
You are now this hour in the tide OF
| Christian influences. You are going to be
swept in your voice is going TO be heard
in prayer; you are going to be consecrated
to God; you are going to live life Of use
fulness, and your death-bed is going to be
surrounded by Christian sympathizers; and
devout men will carry you 10 your burial
when your work Is done, and these words
will be chiselled for your epitaph: "Pre-
cious in the sight of the Lord Is the death
of his saintG." And all that history is going
TO begin today. "Other sheep have which
arc not of this fold.7
Again remark, the Heavenly Shepherd
is going to find many Of his sheep among
those who are now rejecters Of Christianity.
do not know how you came to reject
Christianity. do not know whether II
was through hearing Theodore Parker
preach, or whether ii was reading Remains
Life Of Jesus, or whether 1t was through
some sceptic in the store or factory. Or
it may be-probably is the case-that you
were disguised with religion and Disguised