The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1891-10-22
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Refinement Supplanting Conflict In
the Church of God.
The Tendency Of the Age to Let Go OF the
EibIe aud fake Up with Isms More
Conducive to Personal
Ease and Comfort.


following sermon in the Brooklyn Tab
ernacle, taking for his text:
And his hand clave unto the sword-II.
Samuel. xiii.
A great general of King David was
Eleazar, the hero of the text. The
Philistincs opened battle against him
ard his troops retreated. The towards
fled. Eleazar and three of his COM
rades went into the battle and swept
the field. for four men with God on
their side are stronger than whole
battalion with God against them. Fall
back" shouted the commander of the
Philistinc army. The cry ran along
the host: Fall bacltr' Eleazar, having
swept the field, throws himself on the
ground to rest, but the muscles and
sinews of his hand had been so long
bent around the hilt of the sword
that the hilt was imbedded
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 the sword
which he had SO gallantly welded.
Ills hand clave unto the sword" That
is what l call magnificent fighting for
the Lord God of Israel. And we want
more of it. propose to show you this
morning how Eleazar took hold of the
sword, and how the sword took hold of
Eleazar look at Eleazar and come
to the conclusion that he took the
sword with a very tight grip. The
towards who fed had no trouble in
dropping their swords AS they fly
over the rocks l hear their swords
changing in every direction. 1t is easy
enough for them to drop their swords.
But Eleazer's hand clave unto the
sword.
Oh, my friends, in this Christian con-
flict we want a tighter grip OF the Cos
pei weapons a tighter grasp of the
two-edged sword of the truth. 1t
makes me sad to see these Christian
people who hold only a 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 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
on sweeping our hand around the book
F.. until the tips of our fingers clutch at
the words: I'm the beginning God
created the heavens and the eartn."
like an infidcl great deal better than
] do one of these namby-pamby
Christians who hold part OF
the truth, and let the rest go. BY
miracle God preserved this Bible just
10 MI &c To hloIo
The severest test to which a sword can
be put in the sword factory is to wind
the blade around a gun barrel like a
ribbon, and when the sword is let loose
it flies back to it's own shape. So the
sword of Gods truth has been fully
tested, and it is bent this way and that
way, but it always comes back to it's
own shape. Think of it, A book writ
ten 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 thousands copies
every week, and more than a million
copies a year. l say now that
book which is evidently in
spired and divinely kept and
divinely scattered is a weapon worth
holding a tight grip of. Bishop Colen-
so will come along and try 20 wrench
out of your hand the five books Of
Moses, and Strauss will come along anG
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, anC
your associates in the store, or the
shop, or the factory, or the banking
house will try to wrench out of you
hand the entire Bible; but in tn,
strength of the Lord God of Israel, an,
with Eleazar's grip, hold on it. Yol
give up the Bible, you give up any par
of it, and you give up pardon ant
peace, and life and Heaven.
see hundreds perhaps thousands
of young men in this audience. Do no
be ashamed, young man, to have tn,
world know that you are a friend o
the Bible. This book is the friend o
all that is good. and it is the sworr
enemy of all that is bad. An eloquent
writer recently gives an incident of
very bad man who stood in the cell of {
western prison. This criminal hat
gone through all styles of crime, ant
he was there waiting for the gallows
The convict standing there at the wind
ow, the writer says, 'looked ont ant
declared: Il am an infidel' He sale
that to all the men and women ant
children who happened to be gathered
there: 4 am an infidel,'" and the elo
quent writer says: Every man ant
woman there believed him." And the
writer goes on to say: 'If he haC
stood there saying, 4 am Christian,
every man and woman would have
said: He's a liar!" This Bibl,
is the sworn enemy of all this wrong
and it is the friend of all that is good
Oh, hold on to it. Do not take part O.
it. There are so many people now VIII,
do not know. You ask them if tn,
soul is immortal, and they say: ..
guess it is; don't know; perhaps it is
perhaps it isn't" Is the Bible true
well, perhaps it is, and perhaps i
isn't; perhaps it may be iguratively
and perhaps it may be partly, and per
haps it may not be at ALL" They de
spise what they call the Apostolic,
creed; but if their own creed were writ
ten out it would read like this: II be
lieve in nothing, the Maker of HEAVIER
and earth, and in nothing which il
hath sent, which nothing was born Of
nothing. and which nothing was dea6
and buried and descended into nothing
and arose from nothing, and ascended
n nothing and noun Sitfath Al