The Penn's Grove record., 1901-04-26
DR.. TALMAGE'S SERMON
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
DIVINE.
subject: In Praise of the Worlds Re-
aeemer-Portraits of Some of His Great
Disciples and Ex~ponents-The Love of
Christ Set Forth.

aeemer-Portraits of Some of His Greai
disciples and E~xponents-The Love ot
Christ Set Forth.
tCoyprivht 1901
i" AMsHINGTo ID; Gin this discourse
1t. ainase sounds the praises Of the
worlds R%edeemer, and puts before MS the
portraits OF some of His great disciples
ana opponents; text, John iii. 81. dfHe
that eometh from above is above all"
Inc most conspicuous character of his.
tory steps out upon the platform. The
niger which, diamOnded with light, point.
ed down to Him from the Bethlehem Sky
was only a ratification of the finger OF
oPn the finger of genealogy, the
nnger OF chronology; the finger OF events
all five fingers pointing in one direction
Ihrlst IS the overlapping figure OF all time.
lie Is the vox humane in all music. the
gracefullest line in all sculpture, the most
exquisite mingling of lights and shades in
az painting, the acme of all climaxes, the
dome OF all cathedraled grandeur and the
peroratlon OF all splendid language.
Inc Greek alphabet is made up of TWEEN
ty-four letters, and when Christ com.
pared Himself to the first letter and The
last letter, the alpha and omega, He ap-
piropriated to Himself all the splendors
that you can spell out with those two LET
tiers and all the letters between them. a
am the alpha and omega, the beginning
and the end, the first and the last" Or,
Il you prefer the words of the text,
"Above ALL"
It means, after you have piled up all
Alpine and Himalayan attitudes, the glory
of Christ would have to spread its wings
and descend a thousand leagues to touch
those submits. Pelion. a high mountain
of Thessaly; Ossa, a high mountain, and
olympus, a high mountain. but mythology
tells us when the giants varied against the
gods they piled up these three mountains
and from the top of them proposed to
scale the heavens, but the height was not
great enough, and there was a complete
failure. And after all the giants-Isaiah
and Paul, prophetic and apostolic giants;
Raphael and Michael Angelo, artistic
giants; cherubim and seraphim and arch
angel, celestial giants-have failed to climb
to the top OF Christ's glory they might all
well unite in the words of the text and
say. He that comcth from above is above
all"
First, Christ must be above all else in
our preaching. There are so many books
on homiletics scattered through the world
that all laymen, as well as all ~clergymen,
have made up their minds what sermons
ought to be. That sermon is most efec-
tual which most pointedly puts forth
Christ as the pardon of all sin and the
correction of all evil, individual, social, po-
~ltical, national. There is no reason why
we should ring the endless changes on a
few phrases. There are those who think
that if an exhortation or a discourse have
frequent mention of justification, %sanctiti-
cation, covenant OF works and covenant of
grace, therefore it must be profoundly
evangelical, while they are suspicious of a
discourse which presents the same truth,
but under different phraseology. Now, l
say there is nothing in all the opulent
realm of Anglo-Saxonism or all the word
treasures that we inherited from the Latin
and the Greek and the European,
but we have a right to marshal it in reli-
gious discussion. Christ sets the example.
His illustrations were from the grass, the
flowers, the spittle, the salve, the barnyard
fowl, the crystals of salt, as well as from
the seas and the stars, and We do not pro-
pose in our Sunday-school teaching and in
our pulpit address to be put on the limits.
L know that there is a great deal said
in our day against words, as though they
were nothing, They may be misused, but
they have an imperial power. They are
the bridge between soul and soul, between
Almighty God and the human race. What
did God write upon the tables OF stone?
Words. What did Christ utter on Mount
0livet? Words. Out of what did Christ
strike the spark for the illumination of the
universe? Out of words. let there be
light" and light was. OF course thought
is the cargo and words are only the ship,
but how fast would your cargo get on with
out the ship? What you need, my friends,
in all your work, in your S~unday-school
class, in your reformatory institutions,
and what we all need is to enlarge our vo-
cabulary when we come to speak about
God and Christ in heaven. We rid a
few old words to death when there is such
IAN Uimitable resource. Shakespeare EN-.
ployed $4,000 different words for dramatic
purposes. Milton employed 5000 different
words for poetic purposes; Rufus Choate
employed over II 900 different words for
legal purposes, but the most of us have
less than a thousand words that we can
manage, less than 500, and that makes us
so stupid.
When we come to set forth the love of
Christ, we are going to take the tenderest
phraseology wherever we find it, and if it
has never been used in that direction be-
fore all the more shall we use it. When
we come to speak OF the glory of Christ
the conqueror, we are going to draw our
SMILES from triumphal arch and oratorio
and everything grand and stupendous. The
French navy has eighteen flags by which
they give signal, but those. eighteen flags
they can put into 66 1000 different combina-
tions, combinations infinite and varieties
everlasting. And let me say to young men
who are after a while going to preach
Jesus Christ, you will have the largest lib
erty and unlimited resource. You only
have to present Christ in your own way,
Jonathan Edwards preached Christ in
the s%eyerest argument eyer penned, and
John Bunyan preached Christ in the sub
FINEST allegory ever composed. Edward
Payson, sick and exhausted, leaned up
against the side of his pulpit and wept out
his discourse, while George Whiteield,
with the manner and the voice and the
art of an actor, overwhelmed his auditory.
1t would have been a different thing If
Jonathan Edwards had tried to write and
dream about the pilgrims progress to the
celestial city or John Bunyan had at
tempted an essay on the human will,
Brighter than the light, fresher than the
fountains, deeper than the seas, are these
gospel themes. Song has not melody,
flowers have no sweetness, sunset sky has
no color, compared with these glorious
themes. These harvests of grace spring
up quicker than we can sickle them
kindling pulpits with their hire and pro-
ducing revolutions with their power, light
ing up diving beds with their glory, they
are the sweetest thought for the poet, and
they are the most thrilling illustration Tor
the orator, and they offer the most in
tense scene for the artist, and they are to
the ambassador of the sky all enthusiasm.
Complete pardon for direst guilt. Sweet
est comfort for ghastliest agony. Bright
est hope for grimmest death; and
resurrection for darkest sepuleher.
"Oh, what a gospel to preach! CHRIST
over all in it. His birth, His suffering,
miracles, His parallels, His sweat, His
fears, His blood, His atonement, HIS IN
tercession-what glorious themes! Do we
exercise faith? Christ is its object. DO
we have love? 1t fastens on Jesus. Have
we a fondness for the church? 1t is be-
cause Christ died for it. Have we a hope
OF heaven? 1t is because Jesus went ahead,
the herald and the forerunner.
The royal robe of Demetrius was SO
costly, so beautiful, that after he had put
it off no one ever dared put it on. But
this robe of Christ, richer than that, the
poorest and wannest and the worst may.
wear. Where sin abounded grace may
much more abound" :,
"Oh, my sins, my sins" said Martin
Luther to Staupitz; my sins, my SINS!
The fact is that the brawny German stu,
dent had found a Latin Bible that mad
made him quake, and nothing else ever did
make him quake, and when he found how,
through Christ, he was pardoned n
saved he wrote to a friend, saying; Come
over and Join us, great and SWlui SINNERS