Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1893-08-25
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine'S Sun.
day Sermon.
Subject; "A Bold Challenge"

",SV 10 eOeH w Hte TtgHC mana or Goa, ION
also n.dketh antercesSion for us."--Roman
viii, "a.
"This is the last sermon 1 shall eve
preach, said Christmas Evans on the 13tl
OF June, 1888. Three days afterward he ex
pired. do not know what his text was
but know that no man could choose a bet
ter theme-though he knew it was the las
time he should ever preach-than the subiec
found in this text.
Paul flung this challenge of the text to the
feet of all ecclesiastical and civil authority
He feared neither swords or lions, earth no
he'll. Diocletian slew uncounted thousand.
under his administration, and the world has
| peen full OF persecution, but all the perse
cutors of the world could not alright Paul
was it because he was physically strongi
On, no. L suppose he was very much weak
ened by exposure and matreatment Was
1t because he was lacking in Bensitivenessi
| No. You find the most delicate shades oil
feeling playing in and out his letters and
sermons. Some of his communications
burst into tears What was it lifted Paul
into this triumphant mood? The thought of
o Saviour dead, Saviour risen, a Saviour
exalted, Saviour interceding.
All the world has sang the praise of Prin,
cess Alice One child having died of a CON.
tagious disease, she was in the room where
another was dying, and the court physician
said TO her, "You must not breathe the breath
OF this child, or you yourself will die" But
seeing the child mourning because Of the
death Of her brother, the mother stopped
down and In sympathy kissed the little one,
caught the disease and persisted. All the
! world sang the heroism and the self-sacrif1ce
OF Princess Alice, but l have TO tell you that
when our race was dying the Lord Jesus
stopped down and gave us the kiss of His
everlasting love and persisted that we might
live at is Christ that died.
Can you tell me how tender hearted Paul
could find anything to rejoice at in the hor-
rible death scene of Calvary We weep at
funerals; we are sympathetic when we see
stranger die; when q murderer steps Upon
the scaffold we pray for his departing spirit,
and how could Paul-the great hearted Paul
lind anything TO be pleased with at the
funeral Of q God? Besides that Christ had
only recently died, and the sorrow was fresh
IN the memory of the world, and how in the
1resh memory of Saviour death could Paul
be exultantS
1t was because Paul saw in that death his
own deliverance and the deliverance of q race
from still worse disaster. He saw the gar
into which the race must pluhg6, and he saw
the bleeding hands Of Christ close it. The
glittering steel on the top of the execution.
CA . oprdI IL Ills StRut hluutGu lQIO LOICQ 10
light men heavenward. The prosecutors saw
over the cross five words written in Hebrew,
Greek and Latin, but Paul saw over the cross
of Christ only one word-Hexpiation p He
heard in The dying groan Of Christ his own
gfoan of eternal torture taken by another.
Paul said to himself, HAD it not been that
Christ volunteered in my behalf, those would
have been my mauled hands and feet my
gashed side, my crimson temples"
Men of great physical endurance haze
sometimes carried very heavy bufdens-3O0
pounds, 400 poands-and they have still
saids "My strength is not yet tested. Put
on more Weight" But after awhile they
We're compelled to cry out; "Stop can
carry no more" But the burden of Christ
was illimitable First, there was His own
ment and thousand outra2es that have
been heaped upon Him, and on top of THAI
burden were the sorrows of His poor old
mother, and on the top of those burdens the
crimes of the rufflans who were executing
Him.
"Stop" you cry ''It is enough. Christ
can bear no more" And Christ SAWS; 'tRoll
on moro burdens roll Oh Me the sins Of this
entire nation, and after that roll on Me the
sins of the Inhabited earth, and then roll on
Me the sins of the 1000 years past so faf az
those sins have been forgiven" And the
angels of Cod seeing the awful pressure,
cry "Stop He can bear no more" And
tbs blood rushing to the nostril and lip seems
10 cry out Enough. He can endure nc
more" But Christ says, "Koll on a greater
burden, roll on the sins of the next 1900
years, roll ON Me the sins of the succeeding
ages, roll on Me the agonies of hell, ages on
ages, the furnaces and the prison houses and
the tortures." That is what tho Bible
means when it says, "He bore our sins and
carried our sorrows"
'Now, says Paul, III am free. That sufa
fering purchased my delyerance. God never
collects debt twice, I have d receipt in
full. If God is satisfied with me, then what
to- Bring on all your witnesses" says
Paul. "Show all your force. Do your worst
against my soul defy you. dare you.
challenge you. Who is he that condemn
eths 1t is Christ that died" Oh, what
strong argument that puts in the hand Of ev-
cry Christian man scrie day all the past
sins of his life come down on him in fiery
troop, and they pound away at the gate of
his soul, and they say "We have come for
your arrest. Any one of us could overcome
you. We are 10000 strong. Surrender"
And you open the door, and single handed
and alone you contend against that troop
"
You scatter those Sins rs quick DIS you can
think it.
It Is Christ that died." Why, then, bring
up to us the sins Of our past life3 What have
we to do with those obsolete things? You
know how hard it is for wrecker TO bring
up anything that is lost near the shore of the
sea- but suppose something be lost half way
between Liverpool and New York. 1t can
not be found; it cannot be fetched up
Now, says God, ''your sins have been cast
into the depths of the sea-" Mid-Atlantic |
All the machinery ever fashioned in foun-
dries OF darkness and launched from the
doors OF eternal death, working for 10, 900
years, cannot bring up one of our sins for
given and forgotten and sunken into tho
depths of the sea. When sin is pardoned,
{ IS gone. 1t is gone out Of the books, it is
gone out OF the memory, it is gone out of ex-
stence. "Their sins and their iniquities will
remember no more"
From other tragedies men have come away
Exhausted and nervous and sleepless, but |
bere is one tragedy that soothes and Gains |
md caves. Calvary was the stage on which |
was enacted, the curtain of the night fall |
ng at midnoon was the drop scene, the |
hunder OF falling rocks the orchestra, angels |
the galleries and devils in the pit the
pectators, the tragedy cruciixion. ut is |
;hrist that died." Oh, triumphant thought |
If you go through the picture gallery of
'ersailles, you will find q great change
here. 1 said to friend who had been
trough those galleries, "Are they as they
we're before the French warp and 1 was
old there was great change there that all
hat multitude of pictures which represented
'apoleonic triumphs had been taken away,
nd in the frames were other pictures rep
sentative of German success and victory.
N, that alIth scenes of satanic triumph in
ur world might be blotted out, and that
No tuho1a vo-Id ,,oiOhf bo N ,o;of,,ro <.o1Iox,,