The Bossier banner., 1893-12-21

safe" and you would not cross it. Let
some one say: 81 have reasons to ask
if that steamer is trustworthy, and
you would not take passage on it. Let
someone suggest in regard to a prop
erty that you are about to purchase:
Il have reason to ask if they can
give a good title" and you would
not pay a dollar down until you had
| some skillfnl real-estate lawyer ex-
anime the title. But I allow for years
OF my lifetime and some of you have
allowed for years of your lifetime an
''f' to stand tossing up and down
questions of eternal destiny. Oh. de-
eide. Perhaps your arrival here to-
day may decide, Stranger things than
that have put to fight forever the ''if''
of uncertainty.
A few Sabbath nights ago in this
church, man, passing at the foot of
the pulpit, said to me: 81 am miner
from England" and then he pushed
back his coat sleeve and said: "Do
you see that scar on my arm?" 1 said:
"Yes; you must have had an awful
wound there some time" He said:
l.
was in mine in England six
hundred feet under ground and
three miles from the shaft of the
mine, and a rock fell on me,
and my fellow-laborer pried off the
rock and l was bleeding to death, and
he took newspaper from around his
luncheon and bound it around my
wound, and then helped me over the
three miles under ground to the shaft,
where I was lifted to the top, and when
that newspaper was taken off my
wound l read on it something that
saved my soul, and it was one of your
sermons. Goodnight" he said, as he
passed on, leaving me transfxed with
grateful emotion.
Between the first and last sentences
Of my text there was a paroxysm of
earnestness too mighty for words. It
will take half of an eternity to tell of
all the answers of earnest and faithful
prayer. In his last journal. David
Livingstone, in Africa, records the
prayer so soon to be answered.:
'19 March-Birthday. My Jesus,
my God, my life. my ALL I
again dedicate my whole self to Thee.
Accept me, and grant o gracious
Father that ere this year is gone, may
finish my task. In Jesus name I ask
it. Amen" When the dusky servant
looked into Livingstone's tent and
found him dead on his knees, he saw
that the prayer had been answered,
But Notwithstanding the earnestness
of the prayer of Moses in the text
it was a defeated prayer, and
was not answered. 1 think the
two ''ifs" in the prayer defeated it, and
one eff is enough to defeat any
prayer, whatever good characteristics
it may have. "If thou wilt forgive
their sins; and if not, blot me, 1
pray thee, out of Thy book" God did
neither. AS the following verses show,
He punished their sins, but I am sure
did not blot out one letter of the name
OF Moses from the Book of Life.
There is only one kind of prayer in
which you need to put the ''if," and
that is the prayer for temporal bless
ings. Pray for riches and they may en-
gulf us, or for fame, and it may be-
witch us, or for worldly success of any
sort and it may destroy US. Better
say: ''If it be best, "If 1 can make
proper use of it," 'If Thou seest
[ need it." A wife, praying
for the recovery of her hus-
band from illness, stamped her foot
and said with frightful emphasis: ST
will not have him die; God shall not
take him." Her prayer was answered,
but few years after, the community
was shocked by the fact that he in a
moment of anger had slain her.
A mother, praying for a sons
recovery from illness, told the
Lord He had no right to take
him, and the boy recovered, but
plunged into all denominations and died
a renegade. Better in all such prayers
pertaining to our temporal welfare,
put an it," saying: eff it be Thy willp'
But praying for spiritual good and the
salvation of our soul we need neveriin-
sert an 'if." Our spiritual welfare is
sure to be for the best, and away with
the ''ifs."
Abraham's prayer for the rescue of
Sodom was grand prayer in some re-
spects, but there were six ''ifs' in it;
or peradventures," which mean the
same thing. "Peradventure there may
be fifty righteous in the city, peradven-
ture forty-fve, peradventure forty, per-
adventure thirty, peradventure twen-
ty, peradventure ten" Those six per-
adventures, those six ''ifs'' killed the
prayer and Sodom went down and went
under. Nearly all the prayers that
were answered had no ''ifs" in them.
The prayer of Elijah that changed
dry weather to wet weather The
prayer that changed Hezekiah
from sick man to well
man. The prayer that halted
sun and moon without shaking
the universe to pieces. Oh, rally your
soul for prayer with no ''ifs" in it.
Say in substance: Lord, thou hast
promised pardon and I take it. Here
are my wounds, heal them. Here is
my blindness, irradiate it. Here are
my chains of bondage, by the Gospel
hammer strike them off, am fleeing
to the City of Refuge, and I am sure
10 4ha -,re1, y