The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1894-06-20

one man declines to come or treats your
invitation with Indifference. You in the
course Of twenty years give twenty ban
quets, and the same man is invited to
them all and treats them all in the same
obnoxious way. After awhile you re-
move to another house, larger and better
and you again invite your friends, but
send no invitation to the man who de-
clined or neglected the other invitations
Are you to blame? Has he a right to
expect to be invited after all the indig-
mites he has done you? God in this
world has invited us all to the banquet
of grace. He invited us by His provi-
dence and His spirit S65 days Of every
year since we knew our right hand from
our left. If we declined it every time
or treated the invitation with indiffer-
ence, and gave twenty or forty or fifty
years Of indignity on our part toward
the banqueter, and at last He spreads
the banquet in a more luxurious and
kingly place amid the heavenly gardens,
have we a right to expect Him to invite
US again, and have we a right to blame
Him if he does not invite US?
If twelve gates Of salvation stood open
twelve years or fifty for our admission,
and at the end of that time they are
closed can we complain of it and say:
These gates ought to be open again.
Give us another chance?" If the steamer
is to sail for Hamburg, and we want to
get to Germany by that line, and we
read in every evening and every morn
ing newspaper that it will sail on a GER
tain day, for two weeks we have that
advertisement before our eyes, and then
we go down to the docks fifteen minutes
after it has showed off into the stream
and say: Come back Give me another
chance. 1t is not fair to treat me in this
way. Swing up to the dock again, and
throw out planks, and let me come on
board" Such behavior would invite ar
rest as a mailman.
The Necessary Surrender.
And if after the gospel ship has lain
at anchor before our eyes for years and
years, and all the benign voices of earth
and heaven have urged US to get on board,
as she might sail away at any moment
and after awhile she sails without
us, is it common sense to expect her to
come back? You might as well go out
on the highlands at Navesink and call
to the Majestic after she has been three
days out and expect her to return as to
call back an opportunity for heaven
when it has sped away. All heaven Of
fered us as a gratuity, and for a lifetime
we refuse to take it, and then rush on the
bosses of JehOvah's buckler demanding an
other chance. There ought to be, there
can be, there will be no such thing as
posthumous opportunity. Thus our COM
mon sense agrees with my text, IF the
tree fall toward the south or toward the
north, in the place where the tree falleth
there ii shall be-"
You see that this idea lifts this world
up from an unimpOrtant way station to a
platform of stupendOus issues and makes
all eternity whirl around this hour. But
one trial for which all the preparation
must be made in this world or never made
at ALL That piles up all the emphasis and
all the climaxes and all the destinies into
life here. No other chance! Oh, how that
augments the value and the Importance of
this chancel
Alexander with his army. used to sur
round a city, and then would lift a great
light in token to the people that If they
surrendered before that light went out all