The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1904-01-03

Wherefore come ye out from among
them, and be ye seperate, saith the Lord
and touch not the unclean things. and
Will receive you and will be father unto
YOU and ye shall be my sons and daugh-
ters, saith the Lord God Almighty.
Without repentance of sin there can be
no remission of sin. Now, my brother
my sister, come the practical and over
| powering questions: Are you and ], on
this last Sunday night of the year, ready
to turn our backs upon sin? Are we
ready to tear out this viper of evil habit
which we have been nursing in our
bosoms as a Nathans pet lamb? Re-
pentanee of sin means more than to be
merely sorry for sin. 1t means a COM
plete renunciation of, a turning from,
a reputation of sin. Are you and
ready now to promise God that with the
help of the Holy Spirit, we will throttle
our secret sins, even as the natives of
India in band go forth to destroy the man
eating prowler of the dark jungle?
The Curse of Sin.
And why should we not one and all be
ready to turn our back upon and re-
nounce sin? IN all the history of our
lives is there one instance of yielding to
sin in which sin has not proved itself our
enemy? As a loathsome cancer has 1t
not been eating at the vitals of our
hearts? It has steadily been devouring
our manhood and self respect Many
years ago as a Pittsburg pastor | was
calling upon an old woman who was in
the last stages of cancer. 1t was my
last visit. 1t was made the night she died
When about to enter the sick room l
had to pass through another room, where
lay sleeping a little blue eyed child only
few hours old In the one room was
newborn babe; In the other an old,
shriveled up. horribly disfgured woman
of threescore and ten. The birth angel
and the death angel that night seemed
to lock wings over the grandmothers and
the grandchilds home But, as | stood
under those locked wings, | seemed to
feel that the child and the old woman
We're one. / seemed to feel that the
physical change from the blood of health
to the decay Of death was symbolic of the
spiritual change which was wrought by
the cancer of sin. Why should we not
be ready to renounce our sins and turn
to Christ? Has not sin always been a
curse and an enemy? Has not sin de-
stroyed the best part of our lives?
Standing between the open grave of
the dying year and the cradle of the
year about to be born, my text is espe-
cially appropriate Why? Though God
offers pardon and peace for repentance
of all past sins, he does not offer par
don for one sin that we intend to COM
NIT in the future. One drop of Christs
blood is sufficient to undermine ana
sweep away the mountain ranges of past
evil. But the man who is cherishing his
sin, who will not break with it, who will
not give it up, there is no promise. Par
don for the past is of no avail to the
man who loves his sin and twill accumu-
late a new load next week, though that
sin be as small as a grain of sand by
the seashore, as small as a microbe
which can only be seen under the mag
nifying glass in the biologists labora-
tory.
No Man Can Serve Two Masters.
Many people mistakingly suppose that
Gods pardon applies to future as well
as to past sins. They think it applies
to those sins which we intend to COM
nit as well as to those sins of which
we are already guilty. In the far east
the Mohammedans suppose that earth
and heaven are separated by a great
chasm. Over this fathomless chasm are
stretched many bridges, each the
breadth of a hair in thickness. Over
these infinitesimal bridges the immortal
souls must pass from earth to heaven
while glowing, kissing, bursting flames
leaping up from the bottomless pit be-
meath scorch their feet and try to drag
them down. So some people of Christian
America foolishly think they can reach
heaven though they are deliberately and
Intentionally walking, as the Mohamme-
dams imagine themselves doing, over the
hot fires of evil. They believe God will
pardon those sins which we intend to
commit in the future as well as those
sins which are already recorded against
us upon the black pages of the past.
Abraham Lincoln's war cry against
SIT cry was this "A house divided
against itself cannot stand. This coun-
try must become all slave or all free"
In the same way man cannot have two
masters. EITHER he will hate the one
and love the other, or else he will hold
to the one and despise the other" Yet
there have been thousands upon thou
sands of immortals who have been eter-
nally destroyed because they thought
they could serve God and satan at the
same time. In my fathers congregation
at Syracuse was a magnificent man. He
was a regular attendant upon the divine
services. but he would not publicly con-
fess Christ and join the church. One
day my father was pleading with him to
become a Christian. The man turned
and said: DR. Talmage, 1 have long
studied over what you say. / know
ought to become a Christian l will do
so, but not now | have just been elect
ed to the legislature. l do not believe
a man can be a good politician and a
good Christian at the same time. l will
be good politician for two years, and
then / will become a good Christian"
From that moment the spirit of God
| ceased to plead with him. Pardon for
past SINS but not until we resolve
against future sins The man imme-
diately became a changed man. He
the old landmarks of the Bible. He
drifted first into Universalism, then into