The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1899-11-24
'-aa ~ So -''-'--'e- SIS 80
THE COMING SERMON.
DR.. Talmage on Future Modes of
Preaching the Gospel
How lie Thinks Religious Truths
should lie Prcsentcd-snys Min
listers should Preach the
Living Christ.
Copyright, 1899, by Louis Klopsch)

In this discourse Ut. lalHdBe du-
dresses all Christian workers and de-
scribes what he thinks will be the modes
of preaching the Gospel in the future;
text, Romans 1917: "Or ministry, let
us wait on our ministering."
While was seated on the piazza of
hotel at Lexington, KY, one summer
evening, gentleman asked me: What
do you think of the coming Sermon
supposed he was asking me in regard to
some new discourse of DR.. Cumming, of
London, who sometimes preached star
Ting sermons, and l replied: 81 have
not seen it," But found out afterward
that he meant TO ask what | thought
would be the characteristics of the COM
ing sermon of the world, the sermons of
the future, the word Cumming as
noun pronounced the same as the word
Coming as an adjective. But my mis-
take suggested to me a very important
and practical theme, "The Coming Ser
mon."
Before the world is converted the
style of religious discourse will have
to be converted. You might as well go
into the modern Sedan or Gettysburg
with bows and arrows, instead of rifles
and bombshells and parks of artillery,
as TO expect TO conquer this world for
God by the old style of eXhortion and
sermonology. Jonathan Edwards
preached the sermons most adapted to
the age in which he lived, but if those
sermons were preached now they would
divide an audience into two classes
those sound asleep and those wanting
to go home.
But there is a discourse of the future.
Who will preach it | have no idea. In
what part of the earth it will be born
have no idea. In which denomination of
Christians it will be delivered | cannot
/ guess. That discourse of eXhortation
may be born in the country meeting
house on the banks of the ST. Lawrence
or the Oregon or the Ohio or the Tom
bigbee or the Alabama. The person
who shall deliver it may this moment
| he in a cradle under the shadow of the
Sierra Nevadas or in a New England
farmhouse or amid the ricefelds of
southern savaunas, or this moment
there may be some young man in one of
our theological seminaries, in the
| junior or middle or senior class, shaping
that weapon of power, or there may be
coming some new baptism Of the Holy
Ghost on the churches. so that some of
us who now stand in the watchtowers
of Zion, waking to a realization of our
present inefliciency, may preach it our
selves. That coming discourse may not
be 80 years of. And let us pray God
that its arrival may be has tened while
| announce 20 you what think will be
the chief characteristics of that dis
course or eXhortation when il does ar
rive, and | want to make my remarks
appropriate and suggestive to all classes
of Christian workers.
First of all, l remark that that fu-
turc religious discourse will be full Of
a living Christ in coutradstinction To
didactic technicalties. \ discourse
may be full of Christ though hardly
mentioning His name, and sermon
may be empty of Christ while every
sentence is repetition of His titles. The
world wants a living Christ, uota Christ
standing at the head Of a formal sys-
TEN of theology, but a Christ who
means pardon and sympathy and con
dolence and brotherhood and life and
Heaven, poor mans Christ, an over
worked Christ, an inyalid's Christ, a
farmers Christ, merchants Christ, an
artisans Christ, an every mans Christ
symmetrical and fine worded sys-
tenn of theology is well enough for theo-
logical classes, but il has no more bust
ness in pulpit than have the technical
phrases of an anatomist or a psycholo'
gist or physician in the sickroom of q
patient. The world wants help, imme'
date and world uplifting, and it viii
come through discourse in which
Christ shall walk right down into the
immortal soul and take everlasting pos
session of it, filling it as full of light al
is this MONDAY armament.
That sermon or eXhortation of the flu
ture will not deal with men in the
threadbare illustrations of Jesus
Christ. In that coming address there
will be instances of vicarious suffering
taken right out of everyday life, fol
there is not day when somebody il
| uuL uN ing lul bAllNA 10 VIZ pay ''N''AA
saving his diphtheritc patient by sacri
fcing his own life; as the ship captain
going down with his vessel while he il
getting his passengers into the life
boat; as the fireman consuming in the
burning building while he is taking
child out of a fourth-story windows a!
in summer the strong swimmer at Eas
Hampton or Long Branch or Cape May
or Lake George himself persisted try
ing to rescue the drowning; as thu
newspaper boy one summer, supporting
his mother for some years, his invalid
mother, when offered by a gentleman
80 cents to get some special paper, anC
he got it, and rushed up in his anxiety
to deliver il and was crushed under thu
wheels of the train and lay on the gras!
with only strength enough to say; "Oh
what will become of my poor, sicl
mother now?" Vicarous suffering
| . Z