The Penn's Grove record., 1899-04-14

sons Drawn From the Sword of E1eazar
As He Grasped Bis Weapon So Should
We Ciease to the Old Gospel.
TEXT: "And his hand clave unto the
t~word."-II Samuel xiii, 10.
What n glorious thing to preach the
Gospel Some suppose that because |
rave resigned . n5ed passionate l will
,ease to preach. No, nc. l expect to
preach more thar / ever have. Ii the
Lord will, four times as much, though
n manifold places. I would not dare to
lalt with such opportunity to declare the
truth through the ear to audiences and to
the eye through the printing press. And
here we have a stirring theme put before
as by the prophet.
1leazar, the hero OF the text. The Philis-
lines opened battle against him, and his
troops reiterated, The towards fed.
Eleasar and three of his comrades went
into the battle and swept the field, for
touf men with God on their side are
against them. "Fall backl' shouted the
commander of the Philistine army. The
cry ran along the host, Fall baekl'
Eleazar, having swept the field, throws
himself oh the ground to rest, but the mus
sles and sinews of his hand had been 50
long bent around the hilt of his sword that
the hilt was %imbeddsd in the flesh, and the
gold wire OF the hilt had broken through
tho skin of the palm of the hand, and he
3oald not drop this sword which he had
80 gallan.ly welded. II hand clave
unto the sword" That is what l call
magnificent fighting for the Lord God of
Israel. And we want more of it.
/ propose to show you how Eleazar took
sold Of gthe sword and how the sword took
hold of Eleazar. I look at Eleazar's hand,
and 1 come to the conclusion that he took
the sword with a very tight grip. The
towards who fed had no trouble in drop
ping their swords. As they, fly over the
rocks l hear their swords changing in every
direction. 1. is easy enough for them TO
drop their swords. but Eleazar's hand clave
nnto 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 a part of
the truth and let the rest Of the truth go,
so tina the Phllistines, 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 and
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" l like an inf
del a great deal better than l do one OF
these Mandy pamby Christians who hold a
part OF t0B truth unu lot tue rest pOs by
miracle God preserved this Bible just as 1t
ls, and it is a Damascus blade. TIL sever
est test to which a sword can be put In a
sword factory Is to wind the blade around
a gun barrel like q ribbon, and then when
the sword is let loose it flies 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 1t always comes back to its own
shape, Think ofitl A book written nearly
nineteen centuries ago, and some of it
thousands of years ago, and yet in
our time the average sale of this book
Is more than 90, 900 copies every week and
more than 1,000, 600 copies a year! l say
now that a book which is divinely inspired
and diyinely 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, int Strauss will come along and try
10 wrench out of your hand the miracles,
and Renan 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 Eleazar's grip
hold on to it. You give up the Bible, you
give up any part of it, and you give up par
3on and peace and life in heaven.
Dc not be ashamed, young man, to have
The world know that you are a friend Of the
Bible. This book Is the friend of all that Is
good, and 1t is the sworn enemy of all that
Is bad. An eloquent writer recently gives
an incident OF a very bad man 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, Il an an inadel.' He said
khat - all tha ma, orI an,a AID ahtl
iren who happened to be gathered there,
Il AN an infdel.'" And the eloquent writer
says, every man and woman there be-
lieved him." And the writer goes on to
say, "If he had stood there saying. I an
A Christian every man and uni would
have said, He is IA liarl'"
This Bible is the sworn enemy of all that
Is wrong, and it is the friend Of all that is
good. Oh, hold on It'll Do not take part
Of 1t and throw the rest away. Hold on to
all Of 1t. There are so many people now
who do not know. You ask them II the
soul is immortal, and they say; 81 guess it
Is; 1 don't know. Perhaps 1t Is; perhaps
it isn't" Is the Bible true2 ''well, perhaps
1t is, and perhaps it isn't. Perhaps it may
be, fguratively, and perhaps it may be
partly, and perhaps it 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: ''Ibelieve 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
cd into nothing and rose from nothing
and assembled to nothing and now stitch
at the right hand OF nothing, from
which 1t will come tojudge nothing. 1 be-
lieve in the holy agnostic church and in
the communion OF nothingarians and in
the forgiveness Of nothing and the resur-
rsction Of nothing and in the life that never
shaft be. Amenl" 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. II believe In God, the Father Al
mighty, Maker OF heaven and earth, and ill
Jesus Christ and in the holy catholic
church and in the communion of saint
and in the life everlasting. Amen!' Oh,
when / see Eleazar taking such a stout
grip of the sword in the battle against sin
and for righteousness, l come to the con-
cluslon that we ought to take a stouter
grip of Gods eternal truth-the sword OF
Righteousness.
As | look at Eleazar's hand I also notice
his spirit of self fo~rgetfulness. He did not
notice that the hilt OF the sword was eating
through the palm of his hand. He did not
know 1t hurt him.. As he went out into the
conflict he was so anxious for the victory
he forgot himself, and that hiit might go
never so deeply into the palm Of his hand,
1t could not disturb him. "His land clave