The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1891-10-16
THE LORDS WAR.
DR.. TaInaage Discourses on the
Christian Conflict
FirIzlness and Esarnestneas IsaeesstiaI-Ths
Bible the ATIEhtiest Weapon OF Christ
ians- Hard Blows Necessary In the
Battle with Sin.


Christian warfare Rev. I. Dewitt Tai
mage took his text from II Samuel.
xiii 10: sAnd his hand claSe unto
the sword The preacher said:
A great general OF King David was
Fleazar, the hero of the text The
Phiiistiues opened a battle against him,
and his troops retreated- The towards
fed. EIeazar 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 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, hay-
ing swept the field, throws himself on
the ground to rest. bat the muscles and
siuews OF. his hand had been so long
bent around the hiit of the sword that
the .hilt was EN- bedded in the flesh, and
the gold wire OF the hilt had broken
through the skin of the palm of the
hand, and ne could not drop this sword
which he had so gallantly welded
Ellis hand claye unto the sword " That
Is what 1 call magnificent fighting for
the Lord God Of Israel And we want
more of it. look at Eleazar's hand,
and / come to the conclusion that he
took tine sword with a very tight grip.
The towards who fed had no trouble
in dropping their swords But Flea
zar's hand clave to the sword
o, my friends, in this Christian con-
fiict we want a tighter grip Of the gos-
pei weapons, "a tighter grasp of the
two-edged sword of the truth It
makes me sad to see these Christian
people who hold only part OF the truth,
and let the rest of the truth 60, 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 Tesla
meu+ comes into the palm, and keep on
until the tips of the fingers clutch at
the words; I'm the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth" /
like an infdel great deal better than
! do one of these namby-pamby Chris
tians who hold part of the truth and
let the rest go. BY miracle God pre-
served this Bible Just as It is, and it is
"A Damascus blade. The severest test
towhich n sword can be put in a sword
factory IS TO wind the blade around a gun
barrel like Il ribbon, and then when the
sword is let loose it flies back to its own
shape So the sword of Gods truth has
been fully tested, and st IS bent this
way and that way, ana wound this
way and that way, but It always comes
! a
book written eighteen centuries ago,
and some OF it thousands of years ago,
and yet in our time the sale of this
BOOK is more than 70 900 copies every
week and more than million copies a
year. ! say now that book which is
dtvinely inspired and divinely kept and
divinely scattered is weapon worth
holding tight grip Of You give up
the Bible, you give up any part of it,
rrsv~ Il
life and Heaven. Do not be 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 is the sworn enemy of all that is
bad. o, hold on to it Do not take
part of it ana throw the rest away.
Hold on to all of it.
There are so many people now who
do not know. You ask them if the soul
is immortal, and they say: 81 guess it
Is, don't know; perhaps it is, perhaps
IL isn't" Is the Bible true2 "Well
perhaps it is, and perhaps it isn't; per
haps it may be figuratively, aud per-
haps it may be partly. and perhaps it
may not be al all" They despiss what
they call the apostolic eeeed; but if
their own oreeI were written out it
would read like this: II believe 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 stitch at the right
hand of nothing. 1 believe in the holy
-agnostic church andi in the communion
of neutrality-suspicious., and in the forgiveness
of nothing, and the resurrection of
nothing, and in the life that never shall
be. Amenr'
That Is the creed OF tens of thousands
of people in this day. If you have a
mind to adopt such a theory 1 will not.
II believe in God the 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" O,
when 1 see Eleazar taking such stout
grip of the sword in the battle against
sin and for righteousness, come to the
conclusion that we ought to take a
stouter grip of Gods eternal truth, the
sword of righteousness.
As I look at Eleazar's hand 1 also
notice his spirit of sad forgetfulness
He did not notice that the hilt Of the
sword was eating through the palm of
his hand. He did not know it hurt
him. As he went out into the conflict
he was so anxious for the victory that
he forgot himself and that hilt might
go never so deeply into the palm of his
hand it could not disturb him. Ills
hand clave unto the sword. i" O. my
brothers and sisters, let US 60 into the
Christian con tiiet with the spirit of alb
negation. Who cares whether the
world praises us or denounces us2 What
do we care for Misrepresentation or
abuse or persecution in q conflict
like this? Let us forget ourselves
That man who is afraid of getting his
hand hurt will never kill a Philistine.
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 chem. They are so tired and
they are SO abused and they are SO
tempted, when Eleazar did not think
whether he hal hand or an arm or q
foot All he wanted was victory
We see how men forget themselves in
worldly achievement We have often
seen men who in order 70 achieve
worldly success will forget all physical
fatigue and all annoyance aud all OBJ
stacle. just after the battle of York
town, in the American revolution, a
a.-ssa