The Penn's Grove record., 1891-10-23
REV. DR.. TALMAGk
The Brooklyn Divine's Sunday
Sermon.
Subject: "7he Sroord of Eeasar.'

TEXT: "And His hand cldre unto tho
strord.n-U Samuel xiii, 10.
A great general of King David was
Eieazar, the hero of the text. The Philisi
tines opened battle against him, and his
troops retreated. The towards fled. Eleazar
and three of his comrades went into the
battle and swept the field, for four mem
with Sod on their side are stronger than al
whole battalion with Got against them.I
"Fall back r. shouted the commander of
the Philistine army. The cry ran along tha
host. sFall backr' Eleazsr having swept
the field throws himself on the ground TOD
rest, but the muscles and sinews of his
hand had been so long bent around the hilt
of the sword that the hilt was embedded ini
the flesh, and the gold wire OF the hilt had
broken through the skin Of the palm Of thel
hand, and he could not drop his sword
which he had so gallantly welded. "Hisl
band clave unto the sword" That is what
! call magnificent fighting for the Lord God
Of Israel. And we want more of 1t. u
propose to show you this morning how
Eleazar took hold of the sword and how
the sword took hold of Eleazar. l look at
Eieazar's hand, and l come to the conclu-
sion that be took the sword with a very
tight grip. The towards who fed had mo-
trouble in dropping their swords. As they
fy over the rocks 1 hear their swords clang-I
I'LL LII tN6I1 ~ - CooJ thotb 81 "
them to drop their swords. But Eleazar's
hand clave unto the sword.
oh. my friends, in this Christian conflict
we want q tighter grip of the Gospel weapj
ons, a tighter grasp Of the two edged sword
Of the truth. 1t makes me sad to see these,
Christian people who hold only O part of the,
truth and let the rest Of the truth 20, so that
the Philistines, seeing the loosened grasp,
wrench the whole sword away from them.
The only safe thing for us to do Is to put our
thumb on the book of Genesis and sweep
our hand around the book until the
New Testament comes into the PALM
and keep on sweeping u hand
around the book until the tips OF the fingers
clutch at the words, 'In the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth.n like
an infidel a great deal better than l do one
of these n~amby-pamby Christians who hold
a part of the truth and let the rest go. By,
miracle GOD preserved this Bible just as IL
is, and it ia a Damascus blade. The severest
test to which a sword can be put in a sword
factory is to wind the blade around a gum
barrel like a ribbon, n then when thel
sword is let loose it flies back to its own
shape. So the sword of Gods truth has beenl
fully tested, and it is bent this way and that
way, and wound this way and that way, butt
it always comes back to its own shape.
Think OF It'll A book written eighteen cen1
turtles ago, and some of it thousands of years
ago. and vet In our time the average sale of
this book is more than twenty thousand cop1
les every week, n more than a million
copies a year. ! say now that q book
which is divinsly inspired and divine
" ke3t and divinely scattered Isl
a weapon worth holding a tight grip Of
Bishop Colenso will come along n try toI
wrench out of your hand the five books of
Moses, and Strauss will com along and try
to wrench out Of your hand the miracles,
and Renan will come along and try toi
- --k ~ -. ho~I fha aaftrn 1tfa Aft
the Lord Jesus Christ, and your associates
in the store, or the shop, or the factory, orl
the banking house will try to wrench out Of
your hand the entire Bible; but in tibet
strength of the Lord God of Israel, and with
Eleazar's grip, hold on to IL. You give upl
the Bible, you give up any parto of I, Land YOU
give up pardon and peace n life and
heaven.
l see hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
young men in this audience. Do not bel
ashamed, young man, to have the world
know that you are a 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 Incl
dent of u very bad man who stood in a cell
of a western prison. This criminal had gone
through all styles of crime, and he was there
waiting for the gallows. The convict stand
ing there at the window of the cell, this
writer says, .slooked out and declared, 4 am,
An lnndel.' ne saiu tnat 70 all tue Wen anu
women and children who happened to be-
There, 4 am an infidsl,'" and the eloquent
writer says, ''Every man and woman there
believed him." And the writer goes on to say,
''Ifhe had stood there saying, I am a Chris
tian,' every men and woman would have
said, He is q liarP" This Bible is the
sworn enemy Of all this wrong, and i is the,
it. Donot take part Of it and throw the
rest away. Hold on to all of it. There are
80 many people now who do not know. You
ask them If the soul is immortal, and they
ray, II guess it Is, Idon't know; perhaps III
is, perhaps it isn't" Is the Bible trueY
"Wel, perhaps it is, and perhaps it isn't;I
perhaps it may be figuratiyely, and perhaps
It may be partly, and perhaps it may not be-
at alp They despise what they call the
Apostolic creed; but il their own creed were
written out it would read like this: Il be-
heve In nothing, the Maker OF heaven and
earth, and in nothing which it hath sent,
which nothing was born OF nothing, and
which nothing was dead and buried and
descended into nothing, and arose from
nothing, and assembled to nothing, and now
sitteth at the right a Of nothing, from
which it will come to judge noth1
ing. / believe in the holy agnostic
church and in the communion Of nothing
and the resurrection Of nothing, and in the
li6s that never shall be. Amen That Is
the creed Of tens of thousands of people in
this day. II you have a mind to adopt such
q theory l will not. 81 believe in God tho
Father Almighty, maker of heaven and
earth, and in Jesus Christ, and in the holy
catholic church, and in the communion Of
saints, and in the life everlasting. Amen
Oh, when / see Eleazar taking such a stout
grin of the sword in the battle against sin
and for Righteousness, I come to the conclu1
sion that we ought to take a stouter grip of
Gods eternal truth, the sword Of righteous
ness. :.
AS l look at Eleazer's hand I also notics
his spirit Of self forgetfulpess. He did not
notice that the hilt OF the sword was eating
through the palm Of his hand. He did not
know 1t hurt him. As he went out into the
conflict he was SO anxious for the victory he
forgot himself, and that hilt might go ever
so deeply into the palm of his hand it could
not disturb him. "His hand clave unto tho
sword" Oh, my brothers and sisters, let us
go into Christian conflict with the s.jit of
self abneRation. Who cares whether the
world praises us or denounces usf What do
we care for misrepresentation, or abuse or
persecution in q conflict like thisS Let us
forget ourselves. That man who is afr aid of
getting his hand hurt will never kill a Philis-
tine. Who cares whether you get hurt or
not If you get the victory Oh. how many
Christians there are who are all the time
worrying about the way the world treats
them. they are 50 tired, and they are SO
abused, and they are SO tempted, when
Eleazer did not think whether he hada hand,
or an arm or a loot. All he wanted was vic
tory.
We see how men forget themselves in
worldly achievement. We nave often seen
man vino in order to achieve worldly sue
cess will forget all physical fatigue and all
annoyance and all obstacles. Just after
the battle of Yorktown, in the American
Revolution, a musician, wounded, was told
he must have his limbs amputatsd, and
they wers about to fasten him to the sur
geon's table-for it was long before the
merciful discovery Of anesthetics. He
said, sNe, don't fasten me to that table;
get me . violin" A violin was brought TO
him and he said, Nov go to work as 1 be-
gin to play and for forty minutes, during
the awful pangs of amputation he moved
not a muscle nor dropped a LJte while he
played some sweet tune. Oh, is IL not
strange that while the music OF the Gospel
Of Jesus Christ and with this grand march
OF the church militant on the way to be-
co ne the church triumphant. we cannot
forget ourselves and forget all pang and
all sorrow and all persecution and all per-
turbationy
W. kn1-v -.h.A - .u.--lz.L -