The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1902-11-21

to run to the nearest fire alarm box
and at once call the engines. And if
the smoke was rolling up in great
clouds and threatening to suffocate
the inmates of that home you would
with your cane smash the parlor win
dows and rush upstairs unannounced
and awaken the drowsy sleepers. If
necessary, you would help carry the
children down into the street in your
protecting arms. After you are ready
to do all that to warn a stranger of an
earthly danger, do you mean to tell me
that unless you have been introduced
you have no right to give to that same
stranger the gospel invitation? l de-
clare that your position is not tenable.
tell you that if you truly believe that
an unrepentant sinner must die, then
you should act toward the sinner who
is in imminent danger of destruction
in the same way in which you would
act toward that man who is sleeping
in bed when the fire demons are dane
ing along his Railways and playing
hide and seek among the tapestries of
his parlor.
Again. it is absolutely necessary in
order to carry out the command of my
text for the average church member
to give the gospel invitation to his
friends and to strangers when they are
gathered inside the church walls as
well as when they are scattered with
out, and it is also necessary for the
church members to extend this invita-
ton for specified time and place.
general invitation to come to supper is,
as a rule worse than no invitation at
all. When a person comes to me ana
gushingly says, ooh, Mr.. Talmage,
do wish you would come and visit us;
come any time you can and stay as
long as you please" | am sure of one
fact-that person wants to be polite,
but he does not want me to come He
did not set date. But when friend
comes to me and says, "Mr. Talmage,
will you and your wife take supper
with us next Thursday night; we are
poor folks, but we will give you the
best we haveY l generally accept.
Why? Because l think that man wants
me to come. He set a time and place
where he wished to entertain me- So,
when the minister Of the Lord Jesus
Christ breaches a sermon and gives
general invitation and says to the sin
ners. Come to Christ" and then dis
misses his audience with a benedic-
ton and goes home, as rule, that sur
mon has amounted to but very little in
it's evangelistic results But when the
minister of the Lord Jesus Christ can
go to his church members and say:
Brethren, we must gather in the sin
ners who are living around this church.
We must go out into the highways and
the hedges and compel them to come in,
We will tonight as soon as the bene-
diction has been pronounced have an
after meeting. AS members Of this
church we will distribute ourselves
through the aisles and buttonhole every
man, woman and child, so that no one
shall leave the building without having
a special invitation for this after meet
ing" there will be no disappointment
in the spiritual results. Why? Because
the church members themselves are
asking their friends and the strangers
to meet Jesus Christ in a specified
place at a specified time. General in
vitations in reference to the gospel
banquet as well as to an earthly home,
as q rule, are worse than no invitations
at all
The Fault of the Pews.
So. today. | lay the blame for the
lack of spiritual results in our
churches far more upon the pews than
I do upon the pulpits God knows, /
do not believe that our ministers are
perfect men, but most of them are
earnest men, intense men. They would
do anything in their power to bring
immortal souls to Christ. But the
trouble is when the average minister
Of the gospel announces an after meet
ing, where sinners can be brought face
to face with Christ, nine-tenths, aye,
ninety-nine -hundredths, of all the
church members will get up and put
ON their hats and go home. They will
not only by their actions refuse to
personally extend an invitation to the
men and women who are sitting by
their side, but they will absolutely re-
fuse to go into the after meetings and
talk with sinners who are trying to
find Christ. This charge which | make
against the church members l make
not only against the laymen, but also
against the church officers. | make 1t
against the elders and the deacons and
the trustees | make it in the strength
of the overwhelming fact that you
derelict church members cannot find a
great evangelistic preacher who is ac-
complishing any great good for Christ
who is not backed up by a praying,
consecrated band of earnest church
workers. Yet you can find today
church after church in our land that
is nothing more or less than slaugh-
ter house for ministerial usefulness.
Their pastors will win great spiritual
successes before they come to them,
and those pastors will win great spir-
itual successes after they leave them,
but while they are in those spiritually
dead churches the pastors will stumble
about blinded and helpless, as did the
mighty Samson, bound with letters of
brass, with his two eyes out, grinding
about in the prison house of GAIA.
Those evange1lstic ministers are spir-
itually helpless in such churches be-
cause the people, the common church
members, will not unite as a working
force and personally present the gospel
of Jesus Christ to the strangers who
come among them. Instead of derid-
ing and Understanding the power of
the minisslT, it is high time for some