The Penn's Grove record., 1901-01-18
DIR. TALMAGES SERMON
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
DIVINE.
Subject: Entering the G~ate-Exultant Adj
mission Awaits Those who Have Lived
For Others. While the Bigot and Pen.
urious WIN Barely Squeeze Through.

mission Awaits Those Who Have Lived
For Others, While the Bigot and PEN
urious VIII Barely Squeeze Through.
copyright feoi.l
WASHINGTON, d. Gin a very novel
way DR.. Talmage in his discourse Describes
what may be expected in the next world
by those who here bend all their energies
in the right direction; text. II Peter i,
II, For 80 an entrance shall be minis
tered unto YOU abundantly."
Different styles of welcome at the gate
Of heaven are here suggested. We all
hope to enter that supernal capital through
the grace that is ready to save even the
chief of sinners, but not now. No man
healthy of body and mind wants to 90
now. The man who huris himself out Of
this life is either an ~agnostic or is de-
mented, or finds life insufferable, and
does not care where he lands. This is the
hest world we ever got into, and we want
to stay here as long as God will let us stay.
But when the last pace of the volume of
our earthly life is ended we want enroll
ment in heavenly citizenship. We want
to get in easily. We do not want to be
challenged at the gate and asked to show
our passports. We do not want the gate
keeper in doubt az to whether we ought
to go in at all. We do not want to be
kept in the portico Of the temple until
consultation is made as to where we came
from and who we are and whether it is
safe to admit us, lest we be a discord in
the eternal harmonies or lower the spirit
Of heavenly worship. When the Apostle
Peter in the text addresses the people.
"For so an entrance shall be administered
unto Won abundantly," he i.nplies that
some will find admission into heaven easy,
rapturous and acclamatory, while Others
will have to squeeze through the gate of
heaven, if they get in at all. They will
arrive anxious and excited and apprehen-
sive and wondering whether it will be
"Come!" or "Gol" The Bible speaks OF
such persons as scarcely saved" and in
another place as Saved as by fire." and in
another place as escaped 'by the skin of
the teeth.
Carrying out the suggestion Of my text,
| propose to show you what classes OF
Christians will get into heaven with a
hard push and those who will bound in
amid salutations infinite. In the first
class | put that man who gets into the
kingdom OF God at the close of a life all
given to worldliness and sin. Years ago
he made the resolution that he would
serve himself and serve the world until
body, mind and soul were exhausted, and
then. Just before going out of this life,
would seek God and prepare to enter
heaven. He carries out his resolution.
He genuinely repents the last day or the
last hour or the last minute of his life.
lie takes the last seat in the last car of
the last train bound heavenward. His re-
leased and immortal spirit ascends. Not
one wing bears down toward him with a
welcome. No sign of gladness at his ar
rival. None there OBLIGATED to him for
kindness done or aims distributed or spir-
itual help administered lie will find some
place to stay, but | do not envy that man
his heaven. He got in, but it was not an
abundant entrance.
Sometimes in our pulpits we give a
wrong turn to the story of the dying thief
to whom Christ said: This day shalt
thou be with Me in paradise" We ought
to admire the mercy of the Christ that
pardoned him in the last hour, but do not
let us admire the dying thief. When he
was arrested | think his pockets were full
OF stolen coin and the coat he had on his
back was not his own He stole right on
until he was arrested for his crimes. He
repented, and through great mercy arose
to paradise, but he was no example TO
follow, What a gigantic meanness to de-
vote the wondrous equipment of brain and
nerve and muscle and bone with which we
are endowned, these miracles of sight and
hearing and speech, to purposes unworthy
or profane and then, through hasty re-
pentance at the last enter heaven. Cheat
ing God all ones lifetime and then taking
advantage Of a bankrupt law and made
free Of all liabilities. / should think that
some men would be ashamed to enter
heaven.
Again, the bigot will not have what my
text calls an abundant entrance. He has
his bedwarfed opinion as to what all must
believe and do in order to gain celestial
residence. he has his creed in one pocket
and his catechism in another pocket, and
it may be a good creed and a good cate
ohTsn, l"t h. ,,na1 %La-. No aharv ar-Nrla |
against those who will not accept his the
cries. You must be baptized in his way
or come to him through apostolic success
sion or be foreordained OF eternity or you
are in an awful way. He shrivels up and
shrivels up and becomes more splenetic
until the time of his departure is at hand.
He has enough of the salt of grace to save
him, but his entrance into heaven will be
something worth watching. What do they
want with him in heaven, where they
have all gone into eternal catholicity, one
grand c~ommingling of Methodists and
Baptists and E~piscopalians and Lutherans
and Congregationalists and Presbyterians
and a score of other denominations just
as good as any | have mentioned! They
all join in the halleluiah chorus, accompan-
led by harpers on their harps and trump
eters on their trumpets, worthy is the
Lamb that was slain to receive blessing
and riches and honor and glory and pow
err"
Denominations of Christians on earth
were necessary in order to better work
and to suit preferences, as an army must
be divided into regiments, yet one. army;
as a neighborhood must be divided into
families, though one neighborhood. But
there is no need for such divisions in heav-
en-, and therefore all belong to one de-
nomination of sainthood. What will be
fhe kiUaffa afpaUaunapt rvhen he aQls |
seated side by side on the banks of the
river of life Calvin and Arminius, Arch
bishop Cranmer and some dissenting
preacher Of the gospel who never gradu-
ated, one who on earth was a robed and
supplied ecelesiastic, and a backwoods
minister who in the log cabin meeting
house preached in a linen duster? Among
will be the celestial friendliness OF those
who on earth opposed each other in wrath
lest polemics, He will get through the
gate, for he has a spark of divine grace in
his heart, but there will not be an inch
OF room to spare on either side of him.. 1t
will not take long for heaven to educate
him into a glorious big heartedness.
Again, the penurious Christian will not
have an abundant entrance. Perhaps he
was not converted until all his habits of
tight fstedness were fixed beyond recov-
cry. The people who are generous were
taught to be generous in childhood. You
can tell from the way that boy divides the
apple what his characteristics for gener-
oslty or meanness will be for the next
eighty years if he lives so long, If he eat
it all himself while others look wistfully
on, he Will be a Shylock. If he give half
OF 1t to some one who has no apple he
will be an ordinarily generous man. Ii
he give three-fourths of it to another, he
will be a Baron Hirsch or a George Pea
body.
For thirty years tnls man has been prac-
tleing an economy which prided itself on
never passing a pin without picking it up,
and if he responded at all in church
would put on the collection plate so insig-
nlheant a coin that he held his hand over
1t SO that no one could discover the small
ness OF the denomination Somewhere in
the hfties or sixties of his life, during a
revival Of religion, he became a Christian,
lie Is very much changed in most respects,
but his all absorbing acquisitiveness still
influences him. To extract from him a gift
Tor an orphanage or a church or a poor
woman who has just been burnt out is an
achievement