Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-10-03
FISH In DEEP WATER.
Do Not Paddle Along the Shore of the
Sea of the Lords Mercy Is
THE ADVICE OF REV. DIR. TALMAGE,
Good Counsel for the Lost, the Timid and
the Christian Worker.
KEEP CLEAR OF ALL SINFUL COASTS
ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE prsrArcH.

ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE DrsrArcH.I
BROOKLYN, Get 2-DE Talmage's text
this morning was taken from Luke VA,
Launch out into the deep"
Christ starting on the campaign of the
worlds conquest, was selecting His staff
officers. There were plenty OF students
with high foreheads, and white hands, and
intellectual faces, and refined tastes in
Rome and in Jerusalem. Christ might have
called into the apostleship IL book-worms,
or IL rhetoricians or II artists. Instead, He
takes group of men who had never made
speech, never taken a lesson in bellies
lettres, never been sick enough to make
them look delicate-their hands broad.
clumsy and hard-knuckled. He chose fisher
men, among other reasons, 1 think, because
they were physically hardy.
He chose fishermen, also, because they
were used to hard knocks. The man who
cannot stand assault is not fI for the min
istry. 1t always has been and always will
be rough work: and the man who, at every
censuye or caricature sits down to cry h ad
better be at some other work. 1t is no place
for ecclesiastical doll babies. A man VIII o
cannot preach because he has forgotten his
manuscript or lost his spectacles ought not
to preach at all Heaven deliver the Church
from ministry that preach in kid gloves.
and from sermons in black morocco covers!
Do Not Paddle Along the Shore.
The advice that my LORD gave to Simon is
as appropriate for us all in q spiritual sense
The TACT is that most of us are just padding
along the shore. We are afraid to venture
out into the great deeps of God and Christian
experience. There is no book in the world
that demands so much of our attention as
the RlDe YET a Christian
get no more than ankle-deep. They think it
Is good sign not to venture too far. They
never ask how or why; and II they see some
Christian becoming inQuisitive about the
deep things of Goo they say: "Be careful;
you had better not go out so iar from shore"
shore tne better if Nou have the rgSe Rfnd
of ship II you have mere worldly philos-
ophy for the hulk and pride for a sail, and
selt-conceit Tor the helm, the first squall will
destroy You. But ii you take the Bible for
your craft, the further you go the better.
Walk all up and down this Bible domaini
Try every path. Plunge in at the prophe-
cies and come out at the epistles. Go with
the patriarchs, until you meet the evange-
lists. Rummage and ranSack, as children
who are not satisfied when they come to a
new house. until they know what is in every
room, and into what every door opens.
This river of Gods word is not straight
stream, but winding splendor-at every
turn new wonders to attract still ripper vint-
age pressing to the brink. The sea OF Gods
word is not like Genesaret, II miles by 6,
but boundless; and in any one direction you
can sail on forever Why, then, confine
yourself to a short psalm. or to a few verses
of an epistle? The largest fish are not near
the shore.
Glasses to Whom the Text Applies.
The text is appropriate to all Christians of
shallow experience. Doubts and fears have
in our day been almost elected to the parlia
ment of Christian graces. Some consider it
bad sign not to have any doubts. Doubts
and fea are NOT siunS of health but fes,
and carbunces.
The text is appropriate to all who are en-.
gagged in Christian work. The Church OF |
God has been fishing along the shore. We
set our net in a good, calm place, and in
sight of a fine chapel and we go down every |
Sunday to see If the fish have been wise |
enough to come into our net. We might |
learn something from that boy with the |
hook and line. He throws his line from the |
bridge; no fish. He sits down on q log: no |
fish. He stands in the sunlight and casts |
the line, but NJ fish. lie goes up to the mill |
dam, and stands behind the bank, where the |
fish cannot ssgNhnN and he has hardly |
O. - the hook befoNe the cork goes un- |
Y do we not go &here the fish are? |
Jt SO easy to catch souls in church, for |
they Know that we are trying to take them. |
The text is appropriate to all the untSr. |
given. Every sinner would come to God If |
lie thought that he might come just as he isl |
People talk as though the pardon of GodJ
were a narrow river like the Kennebec or I
the Thames, and that their sin draws too I
much water to enter it, No; it is not river,
nor q Day, DOt a sea- L SDOulC ike TO per-
suade you to launch out into the great deep
OF Gods mercy.
No Obstacles to the Lords Mercy.
Do not sail coastwise along your old |
habits ana old sins. Keep clear of the shore.
Go out where the water is deepest. Oh, for
the miJ-sea Of Gods mercy! The more
ragged the prodigal, the more compassionate |
the father.
Do you say that you are too bad7 The |
high.water mark OF Gods pardon Is higher 1
than all your transgressions. Do you say 1
that your heart is hard? Suppose it were
ten times harder. Do you say that your
iniQuity is long-continued? Suppose it were |
ten times longer. Do you say that your
crimes are black? Suppose that they were
ten times blacker. Is there any lion that
this Samson cannot slay? Is there any |
fortress that this Conqueror cannot take?
Is there any sin this Redeemer cannot par
don:
AS salvation was handed down to us from
the lips of our fathers, we hand it down to
the lips of our children, and tell them to
sound it when we are dead, that all the gen.
erations OF men may know that our Goo is q |
pardoning Coda sympathetic Coda low
ing God; and that more to Him than the
anthems OF heaven, more to Him than the
throne on which He sits, more to Him than
are the temples of celestial worship is the
Joy of seeing the wanderer putting his hand
on the doorlatch of his Fathers house. Hear
hunger. Medicine for the worst sickness.
Light for the thickest darkness. Harbor for
the worst storm.