The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1895-10-09
IS THY HEART RIGHT9
Rev. DR.. Talmage Asks That I'M
portant Question.
Though Surrounded by Every Earthly Lux
ury There May be One Thing Lack
ing That is Necessary to Com
plete Our Happiness.

plete Our happiness
In his sermon for Sunday last DIR.
Talmage addressed all who have not
acknowledged Christ and accepted His
offer of salvation. He urged them to
secure the lone thing necdful'' for
their eternal happiness. His text was
taken from II. Kings X, 5: rs thine
heart right?"
With mettled horses at full speed, for
he was celebrated for fast driving,
Jehu, the warrior and king, returns
from battle. But seeing Jehonadab, an
acquaintance, by the wayside, he
shouts: "Whoa! whoa!' to the lathered
span. Then leaning over to Jehona-
dab, Jehu salutes him in the words of
the teXt-words not more appropriate
for that hour and that place, than for
this hour and place: rs thine heart
right?'
l should like to hear of your physi-
cal health. Well myself, l like to have
everybody else well; and so might ask,
are your eyesight right, your hearing
right, your nerves right, your lungs
right, your entire body right? But l
am busy to-day taking diagnosis of
the more important spiritual condi-
tions. | should like to hear of your
financial welfare. l want everybody
to have plenty of money, ample ap-
parei, large storehouse and comfort
able residence; and l might ask, are
your business right, your income right,
your worldly surrounding right? But
what are these financial questions COM
pared with the inquiry as to whether
you have been able to pay your debts
to God; as to whether you are insured
for eternity; as to whether you are
running yourself by the long credit sys-
tenn of the soul? l have known men
to have no more than one loaf of bread
at 4 time, and yet to own govern
ment bond of Heaven worth more than
the whole material universe.
The question ask you to-day is not
in regard to your habits. make no
inquiry about your integrity, or your
chastity, or your sobriety. l do not
mean to stand on the outside of the
gate and ring the bell; but coming up
the steps, open the door and come to
the private apartment of the soul; and
with the earnestness of man that
must give an account for this days
work, cry out, o man, 0 woman i'm
mortal, is thine heart right?
will not insult you by an argument
to prove that we are by nature all
wrong. If there be factory explosion,
and the smokestaclS be upset, and the
wheels be broken in two, and the en-
| gine unjointed, and the ponderous bars
be twisted, and man should look in
and say that nothing was the matter,
| you would pronounce him fool. Well,
it needs no acumen to discover that our
nature is all atwist and asliew and un-
| jornted. The thing doesn't work right.
The biggest trouble we have in the
world is our outward life. / do not
stop to discuss whether we all fell in
Adam, for we have been our own
| Adam, and have all eaten of the for
bidden fruit, and have been turned out
| of the paradise of holiness and peace;
and though the flaming sword that
stood at the gate to keep US out has
changed position and comes behind to
drive us in, we will not go.
The Bible account of us is not eXag.
gerated when it says that we are poor
and wretched and miserable and blind
and naked. Poor: the wretch that
stands shivering on our doorstep on a
cold day is not SO much in need
of bread as we are of spiritual help.
Blind: why, the man whose eyes per-
ished in the powder blast, and who for
these ten years has gone feeling his
way from street to street, is not in
such utter darkness as we. Naked;
why, there is not one rag of holiness
left to hide, the shame of our sin. Sick:
why, the leprosy has eaten into the
head and the heart and the hands and
the feet, and the marasmus of an
everlasting wasting away has already
seized on some of us.
But the meanest thing for man tO
do is to discourse about an evil with
out pointing way to have it rene
died. | speak of the thirst of your
hot tongue, only that l may show you
the living stream that drops crystalline
and sparkling from the Rock of Ages
and pours river of gladness at your
feet. If show you the rents, in your
coat, it is only because the door OF
Gods wardrobe now swings open, and
here is robe, white with the fleece OF
the Lamb of God and of q cut and
make that an angel would not be
ashamed to wear. If l snatch from
you the black, mouldy bread that you
are munching, it is only to give YOU
the bread made out of the finest wheat
that grows on the celestial hills, and
baked in the fires Of the cross; and one
crumb of which would be enough to
make all Heaven banquet Hear it
one and all, and tell it to your friends
when you 60 home, that the Lord Jesus
Christ can make the heart right.
First we need repepting heart. Il
for the last ten, twenty or forty years
of life we have been going on in the
wrong way, it is time that we turned
around and started in the opposite di
rection. If we offend our friends we
are glad to apologize. God is our best
friend, and yet how many of us have
never apologized for the wrongs we
have done Him!
There is nothing that we so mucf
need to get rid of as sin. 1t is herri
BILE black monster. 1t polluted Eden
1t killed Christ. 1t has blasted The
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