Milford chronicle., 1903-01-23
TALMAGE
SERMON
By Rev.
FRANK DE WITT TALMAGE. DID.
Pastor Of Jefferson Park PreGby-
terian Church, Chicago

are passing through period of trouble
may obtain consolation and encourage
ment from the doctrine Rev. f. De
Witt Talmage teaches in the following
sermon on the text Matthew xiv, %,
"Jesus constrained his disciples to get
into a ship"
There it is! See! Yonder is the discl-
pies boat, tossed about on the waves
of Lake Galilee. Those men seem to
be in as critical a situation as was the
captain of an Atlantic coal barge some
time ago The barge had been caught
in a storm and was sinking under his
feet. The captain signaled to the tug.
Then, as it drew near, he picked up
first one and then another of his little
children. He raised them above his
head and hurled them through the air
into the arms Of the rescuers. Then he
turned and fastened a rope, thrown to
him from the tug. around the waist Of
his wife and another around his own
waist, and both leaped into the sea.
Two minutes after he and his wife had
been dragged into the rescuing boat
his own coal barge made plunge and
disappeared. Every moment the disci-
pies, like that captain, expected their
boat to founder. Some of them were
veteran fishermen, yet they had given
up all hope of ever reaching land again.
The danger of drowning in Lake Gal
alee was not the only danger, nor indeed
the greatest danger, which threatened
the disciples. They were in spiritual
danger. Having seen Jesus only few
hours before feed a multitude of 5000
persons with five lOayes and a few fish
es, they had lost sight of his spiritual
mission and were about to hail him as
a temporal leader. Like the multitudes
which had been fed, they began to
whisper among themselves: why not
make Christ our king? Such a miracle
working leader as this could not only
feed us and clOthe us without any work
upon our part, but he also could liber-
ate US from Roman tyranny and be to
us another Moses, another Joshua or
another David" In order to counter
act this design Of making him merely
q temporal king, which would have
brought him into collision with the
Roman power and have degraded his
mission into a mere insurrection, he
determined to teach the disciples their
weakness and helplessness. He COM
PEELED them to launch their boat and
enter into fearful combat of at least
ten long hours with the Galilean tenn
pest. So in order to compel you and
me to look away from our worldly in
terests, which are absorbing our
thoughts and desires, and lead us to
seek from him the higher spiritual
blessings he has to bestow God clouds
our skies and brings upon us a tidal
wave of crushing disaster, that we may
be driven to climb into his loving, pro
tecting arms.
The dark, tempestuOus nights of re-
Igious persecution have often been, in
Gods sight the brightest and the most
blessed Of sunshiny days for the
church. 1t was by having his eyes tenn
porarily blinded that Paul gained spir-
itual sight. It was by being lowered
in a basket by a few friends over the
Damascus wall in order to escape the
murdcrcr's dagger that Paul was set
Teer. 1t was by exile to lonely island
of the Mediterranean that John was
enabled to see his marvellous apOcalyp-
tic visions. It was not until Rome had
been burned by the bloody Nero who
laughed and fiddled while the confia-
grafton ragged; not until the Christians
had suffered under the false charge of
being the incendiaries, that. the church
was purified and fully launched on its
great evangelistic work. 1t was when
Martin Luther had to face the diet Of |
Worms and had been imprisoned for |
months in the Wartburg that the refor-
nation was started. When the pilgrim |
fathers on account Of religious perse- |
cution had to leave England. then the |
first foundation stone of Christian I
America was laid. And in no time Of |
church history can you find that a great |
religious awakening has occurred or a
great religious leader has come forth
without the previous roar Of the Cali
lean tempest, as it yawned to destroy
the church and engulf Christian faith.
Purity Through Persecution.
Some tine Gco heard a great minis
ter Of our country developing this
thought. In part, he said, "The reason
we do not have Savonarolas and John
Knoxes and John Husses in the present
day is because we do not have the an
cient prosecutions which purified and
ennobled the ancient church" Some
people are foolish enough to suppose
that the best and greatest day Of the
early Christian church was when the
Emperor Constantine Joined the church
with the state and had thousands upon
thousands Of his subjects baptized by
tie priests in the different rivers. But
I want to tell you that when Constan-
tine Joined the church with the state
Il was sad day for the history Of
lhe Christian church. With the regal
power Of the church it became a
corrupt church. With the regal power
Of the church there came the sins
Of a licentious and mercenaRy mind
ed church. Then came the sins Of