The free press., 1895-09-26
REV. DIR. TALMAGE,
THIS EMINENT DIvINE's sUNDA.
SERMON.
Subject: "Five Pictures"

TEXT. "Behold, see the heavens opened. >
Acts vii, $500.
Stephen had been preaching rousing SER
mon, and the people could not stand it.
| They resolved to do as men sometimes would
like to do in this day, if they dared; with
| some plain preacher of tighteousness-kill
| him. The only way to silence this man was
to knock the breath out of him. SO they
rushed stephen out of the gates of the city,
and. with curses and whoop and below,
they brought him to the cliff. as was the Gus
tom when they wanted to take away life by
stoning. Having brought him to the edge
of the cliff, they pushed him off. After he
| had fallen they came and looked down. and
! seeing that he was not yet dead they began
| to drop stones upon him, stone after stone.
Amid this horrible rain of missiles stephen
| chambers upon his knees and folds his hands,
| while the blood drips from his temples, and
then, looking up, he makes two prayers
one for himself and one for his murderers.
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit" That was
for himself. Lord. lay not this sin to their
charge" That was for his murderers Then
from pain and loss of blood, he swooned
away and fell asleep,
L want to show YOU to-day five pictures
stephen gazing into heaven, Stephen look
ing at Christ, stephen stoned, Stephen
IN his dying prayer, Stephen asleep.
First look at Stephen gazing into heaven.
Before you take leap you want to know
where you are going to land. Before you
climb Il ladder you want to know to what
point the ladder reaches And it was right
tha. stephen, within Il few moments of
heaven, should be gazing into it, We would
all do well to be found in the same posture.
There is enough in heaven to keep us gaz-
ing. A man of large wealth may have statu-
airy in the hall, and paintings in the sitting
room, and works of art in all parts
of the house, but he has the chief pictures in
the art gallery. and there hour after hour
you walk with catalogue and glass and ever
increasing admiration. Well heaven is the
gallery where God has gathered the chief
treasures of His realm. The whole universe
is His palace. In this lower room where we
stop there are many adornments tessellated
floor of amethyst, and on the winding cloud
stairs are stretched out canvases on which
commingle azure and purple and saffron and
gold. But heaven is the gallery in which
the chief glories are gathered, There are
the brightest robes. There are the richest
crowns. There are the highest exhilarations
st. John says of it, 'The kings of the earth
shall bring their honor and glory into ii"
And l see the procession forming, and in the
line come all empires, and the stars spring
up into an arch for the hosts to march under.
They keep step to the sound of earthquake,
and the pitch of avalanche from the noun
tains, and the flag they bear is the flame of a
consuming world, and all heaven turns out
with harps and trumpets and myriad voiced
reclamation of angelic dominions to well
come them in, and so the kings of the earth
bring their honor and glory into it. Do you
wonder that good people often stand, like
Stephen, looking into heaven? We have
many friends there
There is not a man here 80 isolated in life
but there is some one in heaven with whom
he once shook hands. As a man gets older
the number of his celestial acquaintance
very rapidly multiplies. We have not had
one glimpse of them since the night we kissed
them goodby, and they went away. but still
we stand gazing at heaven. As when some
OF our friends so across the sea. we stand on
the dock, or on the steam tug. and watch
them, and after awhile the hulk of the YES
sci disappears, and then there is only u patch
of sail on the sky, and soon that is gone, and
they are all out of sight, and yet we stand
looking in the same direction. So when our
friends go away from us into the future
world we keep looking down through the
Narows and gazing and gazing as though
we expected that they would come out and
stand on some cloud and give us one glimpse
of their blissful and TRANSPORTED faces.
While you long to join their companion
ship, and the years and the days go with
such tedium that they break your heart, and
the vipers OF pain and sorrow and bereaye-
stand, like Stephen, gazing into heaven.
You wonder if they have changed since YOU
saw them last You wonder if they would
recognize your face now, so changed has it
been with trouble You wonder if. amid the
myriad delights they have, they care as
much for you us they used to when they
gave you helping hand and put their
shoulders under your burdens You Won
der If they look any older. and sometimes
i'll the evening tide, when the house is all
quiet, you wonder if you should call them
by their first name if they would not an
Swer, and perhaps sometimes you do make
the experiment, and when no one but God
and yourself are there you distinctly call
their names and listen and sit gazing into
heaven.
Pass on now and see Stephen looking
upon Christ. My text says he saw the Son
of Man at the right hand of God Just how
Christ looked in this world. just how He
looks in heaven. we cannot say. The paint
ers of the different ages have tried 60
imagine the features of Christ and put them
upon canvas, but we will have to wait until
with our own eyes west Him and with our
own ears we can hear Him. And yet there
Is way of seeing Him and hearing Him
now. l have to tell YOU that unless you see
and hear Christ on earth you will never see
and hear Him in heaven.
Look! There He is! Behold the Lamb of
pOu! Cuu you NOT Sce him! linen pray TO
God to take the scales off your eyes. Look
that way-try to look that way His voice
comes down to you this day-comes down to
the blindest, to the deafest soul-saying.
Look unto Me, all ye ends of the earth, and
be ye saved, for am God, ard there is none
else" Proclamation of universal emanci-
patton for all slaves. Tell me. We who know
most of the worlds history, what other king
ever asked the abandoned, and the forlorn'
and the wretched, and the outcast to come
and sit beside him? Oh, wonderful invita-
tion! You can take it to-day and stand at
the head of the darkest alley in all this city
and say, "Come! Clothes for your rags. salye
for your sores, throne for your eternal
reigning." Christ that talks like that and
acts like that and pardons like that-do YOU
wonder that stephen stood looking at Him?
| hope to spend eternity doing the same
thing l must see Him. l must look upon
that face once elouded with my sin but now
radiant with my pardon. L want to touch
that hand that knocked off my shackles. /
want to hear the voice that pronounced my
deliyerance. Behold Him, little children.
for If you live to threescore years aud ten
you will see none so fair. Behold Him, We
aged ones, for He only can shine through the
dimness Of your failing eyesght Behold
Him, earth Behold Him, heaven. What a
moment when all the Nations of the saved