The Penn's Grove record., 1892-04-01
REV>DRs TALMAGE.
THE RRooKbYN DfyINE'S SUN
DAY SERMON.
Subject,- 's'straining AZ Gnats ano
Swallowing Camels."

SWALLOWING thneis.
TEXT: aye blind guides, ICho strain at 4
Qnat, and sWaLioU a camel. "-Matthev
xiii, "a.
A proverb is compact wisdom, knowledge
in chunks, a library in a sentence, the cleo
tricity of many clouds discharged in one bolt
a river put through a millrace. When Christ
quotes the proverb of the ext He means tc
set forth the ludicrous behavior OF thos,
who make a great buster about small sin!
and have no appropriations OF great ones.
In my text a small insect and a large
quadruped are brought into comparison
gnat and a camel. You have in museum OF
on the desert seen the latter, a great awk'
ward, sprawling creature, with back two
stories high and stomach having a collection
of reservoirs for desert travel, an animaI
forbidden to the Jews as food, and in many
literatures entitled ''the ship of the desert"
The gnat spoken of in the text is in the
grub form. 1t is born in pool or pond, after
a few weeks becomes a chrysalis, and then
after a few days becomes the gnat as W
recognize it, But the insect spoken of in the
text is in its very smallest shape, and yet il
inhabits the water-for my text is a misprint
and ought to read strain out a gnat."
My text shows you the prince OF inconsis
tencies. A man after long observation has
formed the suspicion hat in a cup Of water
he is about to drink there is a grub or the
grandparent of a gnat. He goes and gets a
sieve or a strainer. He takes the water and
pours it through the sieve in the broad light.
He SAYS, 81 would rather do anything al.
most than drink this water until this larva
be extirpated." This water is brought I'M
der inquisition. TIL experiment is success
full. The water rushes through the sieve and
leave against the side of tho sieve the grub
or gnat.
Then the man carefully removes the insect
and drinks the water in placi9ity. But go
ing out one day and hungry, he devours q
ship Of the DESERT" the camel, which the
Jews were forbidden to eat. The gastrono-
mer has no computations of conscience. He
suffers from no indigestion. He puts the
lower jaw under the camers forefoot and his
upper jaw over the hump of the camers
back, and gives one swallow and the drome-
dairy disappears forever. He strained out q
gnat, he swallowed u camel.
While Christ's audience were yet smiling
at the oppositeness and wit of His illustration
for smile they did in Church, unless they
were too stupid to understand the hyperbole
Christ practically said to them. THAT is
you" Punctilious about mail things; reck-
less about affairs of great magnitude. No
subject over withered under a surgeons
knife more bitterly than did the Pharisees
under ChristS scalpel Of truth.
As an anatomist will take a human body
to pieces and put them under a microscope
for examination, so Christ finds His way to
the heart of the dead PharIsee and cuts it
out and puts it under the glass of inspec.
ton for all generations to examine. Those
Pharisees thought that Christ would fat
ter them and compliment them, and how
they must nave writhed under the red hot
words as He said, rye fools, We whited
sepulchers, We blind guides which strain
out a gnat n swallow a camel"
There are in our day a great many gnats
strained out and a great many camels
swallowed, and it is the object OF this SER
mon to sketch a few persons who are x
tensively engaged in that business.
First, | remark, that all those ministers
of the Gospel are photographed in the text
who are very s%crupulous about the conven-
tionalities of religion, but put no particular
stress upon matters of vast importance.
Church services ought to be grave and
solemn. There is no room for frivolity in
religious convocation. But there are illus
t~rations, and there are hyperboles like that
of Christ in the text hat will irradiate with
smiles any intelligent auditory. There are
men like those blind guides of the text who
advocate only those things in religious SER
vice which draw the corners of tine mouth
down, and denounce all those things which
have a tendency to draw the corners of the
mouth up, and these men will go TO installa'
tions n to p~resbyteries and to conferences
and to associations, their pockets full of fine
sleeves to strain out the gnats, while in their
own churches at home every Sunday there
are fifty people sound asleep. They make
their churches a great dormitory, and their
somniferous sermons are a cradle, and the
drawled out hymns a lullaby, while some
wakeful soul in a pew with her fam keeps the
flies off unconscious persons approximate.
Now, l say it is worse to sleep in church thar
to smile in church, for the latter implies at
least attention, while the former implies the
Indifference of the hearers and the stupidity
of the speaker.
In old age, or from physical infirmity, oil
from long watches with the sick, drowsiness
will sometimes overpower one, but when a
minister of the Gospel looks off upon an
audience n finds hellthy aud intelligent
people struggling with drowsiness it is time
for him TO give out the doxology or pro.
nourc the benediction. The great fault OF
church services to-day is not too much viva
city, but too much somnolence. The one is
an irritating gnat that may be easily
strained out; the ether is a great, sprawiing
n sleepy-eyed camel of the dry desert. In
all our Sabbath schools, in all our Bible
classes, in all our pulpits we need to brighten
up our religious messare with such Christ
ike vIvacity as we inu in the text.
l take down from my library the biog,
raphies of ministers and writers of the past
ages, inspired and uninspired, who have done
the most to bring souls to Jesus Christ, and
l find that without a single exception they
consecrated their wit n their humor to
Christ. Elijah used it when he advised the
Baalites, as they could not make their God
respond, telling them to call louder as their
god might be sound asleep or gone a.hunt-
ing. Job used it when he said to his self
conceited comsorters, "Nisdom will die
with you" Christ not only used it in the
text, but when He ironically co~mplimeuted
the putreied Pharisess, saying, ''Ths whole
need not a physician" and when by one
word He described tne cunning of Herod,
saying, go ye, and tell that fox"
Matthew Henry's Commentaries from the
first page to the last coruscated with humor
as unner clouds with heat lightning. John
Bunyan's writings are as full of humor as
they are of saving truth, and there is not an
aged man here VINO has ever read Pilgrims
Progress" who does not remember that while
reading it he smiled as often as he wept.
Chrysostom, George Herbert, Robert South,
John Wesley, George Whitefeld, Jeremy
Taylor, Rowland Hill, Nettleton, George e..
F1nney and all the men of the past who
greatly advanced tue kingdom Of Col con-
secrated their wit and their humor to the
cause OF ChrlSb.
So it has been in all the ages, and l say to
these young theological students, who cluS-
ter in these services Sabbath by Sabbath,
sharpen your wits as keen as scimiters AMI
and then take them into the holy war. 1t Is
a very short bridge between a smile and a
tear, a suspension bridge from eve to lip,
and 1t is soon crossed over, aud a smile is
sometimes Just as sacred as a tear. There is
as much religion, aud l think a little more,
In a spring morning than in a stariesS mid
uight.
Religious work without any hunor or wit
In it is a banquet with a side of beef, and
that raw, and no continents and no dessert
succeeding. People will not sit down at such
a banquet. By all means remove all frivo.ity
and ali pathos n all lightness and ali vul.
garity-straln them out through the sieve OF
holy discrimination: but on the other hand,
beware of that monster which overshadows
the Christian church to-day, conventionally,
coming up from the Great sahara Desert OF
Eccleslasticism, having on its back a hump
OF sanctimonious gloom-aud vehemently re.
fuse TO swallow that camel.
Oh. how particular a great many people
are about the infnitesimals while they are
quite reckless about the magnitudes. What
did Christ sayf Did He not excoriate the
people in His time who were so careful to
wash their hands before a meal, but did not
wash their hearts, 1t is a bad thing to ha We
unclean hands; it is a worse thing to have
an unclean heart, How many neonla fhara