Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1899-04-19

-As He Grasped His Weapon So Should
We Cleave to the Old Gospel.
TEXT: "And his hand clave unto the
sword."-II Samuel xiii, 10.
What glorious thing to preach the
Gospel! Some suppose that because 4
have resigned fixed pastorate l will
cease to preach. No, no. 1 expect to
preach more than 1 ever have. II the
Lord will, four times as much, though
in manifold places. I would not dare to
halt with such opportunity to declare the
truth through the ear to audiences and to
the eye through the printing press. And
here we have u stirring theme put before
us by the prophet.
A. great general OF King David was
Eleazar, the hero OF the text. The Philis-
tines opened battle against him. and his
troops retreated. The towards fed.
Eleazar and three of his comrades went
into the battle and swept the field, for
four men with God on their side are
stronger than q whcle regiment with God
against them. Fall back!' shouted the
commander of the Philistine army. The
cry ran along the host, Fall back!'
Eleazar, having swept the field, throws
himself on the ground to rest, but the mus
cles and sinews of his hand had been so
long bent around the hilt of his sword that
the hit was imbedded in the flesh, and the
gold wire of the hilt had broken through
the skin of the palm of the hand, and he
could not drop this sword which he had
so gallan.ly welded His hand cIave
unto the sword" That is what 1 call
magnificent fighting for the Lord God of
Israel. And we want more of it.
l propose to show you how Eleazar took
| hold of 'the sword and how the sword took
hold of Eleazar. I look at Eleazar's hand,
and come to the conclusion that he took
the sword with very tight grip. The
| towards who fed had no trouble In drop
ping their swords. As they, fy over the
/ I haa hai dc oil ynip
direction. L. is easy enough for them o
drop their swords. but Eleazar's hand ella We
unto the sword. In this Christian conflict
we want a tighter grip of the Gospel weap-
ons, a tighter grasp of the two edged sword
/ of the truth. 1t makes me sick to see these
| Christian people who hold only part Of
the truth and let the rest of the truth go,
| SO that the Philistines, seeing the loosened
grasp, wrench the whole sword away from
| them. The only safe thing for US to do is to
| put our thumb on the book of Genesis AID
| sweep our hand around the book until the
| New Testament comes into the palm and
| keep on sweeping our hand around the
book until the tips of the fingers clutch at
the words "In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth" like an inf
del a great deal better than 1 do one Of
these namby pamby Christians. who hold a
| part Of the truth and let the rest CO.. By
miracle God preserved this Bible just as it
| is, and 1t is Damascus blade. The sever
! est test to which a sword can be put In a
| sword factory is to wind the blade around
gun barrel like a ribbon, and then when
| the sword is let loose it fiies back to its own
shape. SO the sword of Gods truth has
| been fully tested, and it is bent this way
and that way and wound this way and that
way, but it always comes back to its own
| shape. Think of it! A book written nearly
nineteen centuries ago, and some Of it
thousands of years ago, and yet in
our time the average sale CT this book
\ is more than 20, 900 copies every week and
more than .0O0, 900 copies q yearl I say
and divinely kept and divinely scattered is
| a weapon worth holding a tight grip of.
Bishop Colenso will come along and try to
| wrench out of your hand the five books of
| Moses and Strauss will come along and try
| to wrench out Of your hand the miracles,
ami Renau will come along and try to
wrench out of your hand the entire life of
/ the Lord Jesus Christ, and your associates
In the office or the factory or the banking
house will try to wrench out of your hand
the entire Bible, but in the strength of the
Lord God of Israel and with Eleazars grip
hold on to it. You give up the Bible, you
give up any part of it, and you give up par
don and peace and life in heaven.
Do not be ashamed, young man, to have
the world know that you are a friend of the
Bible. This book Is the friend CT all that is
good, and it is the sworn enemy Of all that
is bad An eloquent writer recently gives
an incident of a very bad mar who stood
In a cell of a Western prison. This crimi
nal had gone through all styles of crime,
and he was there waiting for the gallows.
The convict standing there at the window
of the cell, this writer says, ''looked out
and declared, L am an iDfidel.' He said
that to all the men and women and chill
dren who happened to be gathered there,
4 am an infidel.'" And the eloquent writer
says, Every man ald woman there be-
lieved him. And the writer goes on to
say, ''If he had stood there saying. L am
u Christian every man AID woman would
have said He is a liar''
This Bible is the sworn enemy of all that
is wrong, and 1t is the friend of all that is
good. Oh, hold on it'll Do not take part
of 1t and throw the rest away. HOli on to
all of it. There are so many people now
who do not know. You ask them il the
soul is immortal, and they say: II guess it
is; don't know. Perhaps it is; perhaps
it isn't" Is the Bible true? well, perhaps
it is, and perhaps it isn't. Perhaps it may
be, figuratively, and perhaps it may be
partly, and perhaps 1t may not be at all.
They despise what they call the apostolic
creed, but if their own creed were written
out 1t would read like this: II believe in
nothing, the maker OF heaven and earth,
and in nothing which it hath sent, which
nothing was born of nothing and which
nothing was dead and buried and descend
ed into nothing and rose from nothing
and assembled to nothing and row stitch
at the right hand of nothing, from.
which it will 7come.tojudg dge nothing. 5s-
lieve in the holy agnostfc CHURCH and in
the communion OF nothingarlans and IN
the forgiveness of nothing and the resur-
rsction of nothing and in the'life that never
shall be. Amenr' That is the creed of
tens of thousands OF people IN this day. II
you have a mind to adopt such a theory, l
will not Il believe in God, the Father Al
mighty, Maker OF heaven and earth, and In
Jesus Christ and iT the holy catholic
church and in the communion OF saints
and in the life everlasting. Amenp' Oh,
when / see EleaZar taking such d stout
grip of the sword insthe battle against sin
and for righteousness, I come to the con-
clusion that we ought tc take stouter
grip of Gods eternal truth-the sword Of
righteousness.
As look at Eleazar's hand / also notice
his spirit of self forgetfuiness. He did not
notice that the hilt of the sword was eating
through the palm Of his hand. He Gid not
know it hurt MIN. As be went out into the
conflict he was so anxious fol the victory
he forgot himself, and that hit might go
never so deeply into the palm Of his hand,
it could not disturb him. "His hand clave
unto the sword" Oh, my brothers and
sisters, let US go into the Christian conflict
with the spirit of self abnegation. Who
cares whether the world praises us or de-
nounces us? What do we care for rnisrep-
conflict like this? Let us forget ourselves.
That man who is afraid of getting his hand
hurt will never kill n Phiiistine. Who
cares whether you get hurt or cot If you
get the victory? Oh, how many Christians
there are who are all the time worrying
about the way the world treats themI
They are so tired, and they are so abused,
and they are SO tempted, when Eleazar
did not think whether be had hand or an
arm or a foot. All he wanted was victory.
We see how men forget themselves in
worldly achievement. We have often seen
men who, in order to achieve worldly sue
cess, will forget all physical fatigue and
all annoyance and all obstacle. Just after
the battle OF Yorktown in the American
Revolution musician, wounded, Was .oid
he must have his limbs amputated, ara
they were about to fasten MIN 30
the surgeons table, for it was
long before the merciful discovery OF
an@sthetics. He said: mo; don't fasten
o. I,A A-h - I-lI-