Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1900-10-01

To be Preached on the Ten Conn
mandments at st. Luke's p. e.
Church-Harvest Home Rally Day
Observed at the First and Third
! Presbyterian Sunday Schools.
Yesterday morning at the st. Luke's
P. E. Church. ON the Island, the Rev.
Jacob Birmingham preached an inter-
esting sermon on saThe Unity of God. :
! His texts were taken from Exodus
/ 20:3, Thou shall have no other gods
but Me-" and from st. Matthew 6:24,
'Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.' =
| The sermon follows:
| ITO know and believe the articles OF
the Christian faith as contained IN the
Apostles Greed are certainly necessary
for the souls health, but not more so
than to know and keep the Ten Com
lmandments. for these were written not
alone for our learning, but also for our
obedience. They were written with the
finger of God, and are perpetual rec
ord against sin as well as for an incen-
tive to duty. In whatever light we
read the record it is no dead memorial
| of the past.
so important were they and are they
to this very day that God even spoke
them by His voice in the hearing OF the
people and the sound was distinctly
heard above the thunders Of Sinai.
SO awful and terrible was the sight that
Moses said I exceedingly feared and
quaked, and those who heard the Voice
! entreated that the word should not be
| spoken to them any more; for they
could not endure that which was COM
s I'D 1T Oh, "A cd
tore away the cloak of sin: showed
what sin was and the awful conse-
/ quences which are inevitable to those
who follow it rather than the law. or
| the first time not only the eye and ear,
! but the very heart of this people was
/ thoroughly opened to the meaning OF
! right and wrong. Conscience to a
| greater or less degree had been their
! monitor and conscience was still their
monitor, but with the law added. con-
science became more sensitive. Before
! the higher revelation of God was de-
| clared, conscience pointed to what was
written upon the fieshy tablets of the
| heart. Now 1t pointed to higher law,
which agreed with all that was written
upon the heart, and which brought out
| in living letters what is right and
wrong for all the ages to come. These
people now saw sin in all its htdeous
enormity, and how far removed the
| Holy and Just One was from 1t and
! how much nearer they were to sin than
Righteousness. Well might they fear
and quake and stand aghast at what was
spoken, but God did not stop giving His
law nor revoke it because they feared
and said they could not endure that
which was spoken. You would be a
very unworthy father and a most un-
natural mother were you to refuse to
warn your sons and daughters of the
| dangers ahead of them just because they
could not endure to hear what is good
for their souls as well bodies health.
Il would he utterly unfit and I'M
worthy of my office did | only declare
smooth things-those things that are
pleasant to hear. So God himself could
not be considered just if He had not
emphatically declared the moral law to
| the people. In justice to them there
| fore and to all succeeding generations
| it was necessary that the moral law as
| expressed in the ten commandments
should be distinctly announced to the
world for all ages. The law ON the
heart may be effaced, and even con-
science itself may be so distorted or so
| falsely educated as to become a poor If
not fatal guide. But not so with the
| ten commandments. They are like
| sign-boards along the way of life and
! are so plain that the wayfaring man,
though a fool, need not err from them
and he that runneth may read. They
were enacted for all times, and nations
and churches, Christian as we'll as Jew
| ish, now as well as then. They are our
| laws, Christian laws, and so our Divine
| Lord told His apostles in the sermon on
the mount: Think not that am come
| to destroy the law and the prophetic;
| am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
! He came to establish the law and make
it honorable, and show us that we must
go deeper than the letter if we would
understand its spiritual significance.
ITO learn these commandments, or
read them, or hear them read Sunday
after Sunday as we do In this very
church, and then say or feel that none
of them have been broken and all of
| them have been kept Is a piece of sad
| self-conceit. Such was the condition
OF the rich young ruler who when told
! to keep the commandments. said, All
| lnSSc have i hcRl IIOUu my yOuIu D..
| lie was utterly self-deceived and ignor-
ant of his real condition until he came
| in contact with Jesus Christ, who show
ed him the law as he mad never seen it
| before. In other words Christ proved
| beyond question that the young ruler
was living in violation of the very first
commandment Let no one therefore
| be so self-deceived as to think he is
keeping all the laws until he reads and
understands it under the light OF the
gospel or as Christ himself has inter-
preted it.
Here, then, my friends, we reach the
| point where we may present the prime
val law of Moses, as it speaks to us with
all its Christian power. We accept this
sublime truth Of the Unity OF God.
which this first commandment teaches,
as the cornerstone of our religious faith.
| But this belief is not for us more than
for those early believers an abstract
| doctrine. This it is the ancient revela-
ton teaches us that it must be a living
fact, written on the individual and So
cial conscience; the acknowledg cement
| of personal Lawgiver whose unseen
| spiritual laws rules our human life.
! But We have a truth deeper than the
Hebrew mind could grasp, in the gospel
Of Him who is the incarnate son OF
God, the fula revelation of holiness and
love and grace.